The Four Loves: Affection

Some of us are read­ing through C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves this sum­mer for the Chi Alpha Sum­mer Read­ing Project. Every oth­er week I’ll post some reflec­tions on the read­ings.

I have writ­ten about this chap­ter once before, back in 2018. My remarks here are fresh (although the open­ing sec­tion is very sim­i­lar).

YouTube has some­thing amaz­ing in rela­tion to this week’s read­ing: a 1957 record­ing of C. S. Lewis him­self giv­ing the lec­ture upon which this chap­ter is based. I’ve embed­ded the video, and you can read the tran­script as well. You should at least lis­ten to a few min­utes if you’ve nev­er heard the voice of Lewis before.

The chan­nel host­ing this video is worth check­ing out. It’s called CSLewis­Doo­dle and it “doo­dles select­ed essays by C.S. Lewis in order to make them eas­i­er to under­stand.” It’s got doo­dled treat­ments of Mere Chris­tian­i­ty, The Screw­tape Let­ters, and more. Con­sid­er sub­scrib­ing to it.

On to affec­tion. Lewis is dis­cussing the type of love described by the Greek word storge (στοργή), a love which we describe using the words affec­tion or fond­ness.

The word storge does not appear direct­ly in the New Tes­ta­ment, although it does appear as a root of oth­er words. In both Romans 1:31 and 2^nd Tim­o­thy 3:3 the word astor­gos (ἄστοργος) is ren­dered by var­i­ous trans­la­tions as “heart­less” or “unlov­ing” or “with­out nat­ur­al affec­tion.” And in Romans 12:10 we find the word philostor­gos (φιλόστοργος) which means “devot­ed”.

I pro­vide this lin­guis­tic data mere­ly by way of back­ground. It does­n’t affect Lewis’ dis­cus­sion of affec­tion except to explain why he’s not quot­ing a bunch of Bible vers­es.

There is one sec­tion in this chap­ter that always strikes me:

If peo­ple are already unlov­able a con­tin­u­al demand on their part (as of right) to be loved—their man­i­fest sense of injury, their reproach­es, whether loud and clam­orous or mere­ly implic­it in every look and ges­ture of resent­ful self-pity—produce in us a sense of guilt (they are intend­ed to do so) for a fault we could not have avoid­ed and can­not cease to com­mit. They seal up the very foun­tain for which they are thirsty. If ever, at some favoured moment, any germ of Affec­tion for them stirs in us, their demand for more and still more pet­ri­fies us again.

What an arrest­ing phrase: “they seal up the very foun­tain for which they are thirsty.”

I once had a cat who became so obese that he could no longer lick him­self clean. And so for a sea­son he stank. Wher­ev­er he went, the smell of an out­house fol­lowed him. And yet he was des­per­ate for affec­tion. He would approach peo­ple to receive pats and his stench would dri­ve them away.

And here is where the sto­ry becomes fas­ci­nat­ing: in his sad­ness he devel­oped the habit of sleep­ing in his lit­ter box. I was amazed: the poor crea­ture had found a way to make his stench even worse. His habits made his desires unat­tain­able.

I am pleased to report that even­tu­al­ly his behav­ior changed, he lost weight, his stench decreased, and he received affec­tion. He became much hap­pi­er.

I have met peo­ple who do the equiv­a­lent of sleep­ing in their lit­ter box. They live odi­ous lives. In the most extreme cas­es they under­mine their friend­ships and are baf­fled that they find them­selves alone. In the pas­sage excerpt­ed above Lewis talks about peo­ple who are so needy it is repel­lent, and that is one way we can car­ry a stench around with us but it is hard­ly the only one. There are many milder cas­es. Con­sid­er a young woman who is unwill­ing to be vul­ner­a­ble beyond a cer­tain point and is sur­prised that her friend­ships lack depth. Or con­sid­er a young man unwill­ing to risk rejec­tion who is then dis­ap­point­ed that his friend­ships nev­er blos­som into romance. Or pic­ture some­one who comes late to church and leaves ear­ly and is frus­trat­ed that they lack com­mu­ni­ty. In each case, they “seal up the very foun­tain for which they are thirsty.”

Take a moment to eval­u­ate your rela­tion­ships. Is there an absence of affec­tion or cama­raderie which frus­trates you? It may sim­ply be that you haven’t found your peo­ple yet (and Lewis will talk more about friend­ship in the next chap­ter). But it is also pos­si­ble that you are doing the equiv­a­lent of sleep­ing in your lit­ter box.

If you are frus­trat­ed that you are not expe­ri­enc­ing the affec­tion you desire, spend some time in prayer­ful con­tem­pla­tion and ask God to reveal any self-lim­it­ing habits you have devel­oped and to guide you into bet­ter habits. Your now is not your for­ev­er — my cat changed and so can we.

And if you haven’t already, read the “affec­tion” chap­ter in The Four Loves and watch the Lewis doo­dle video above — they may pro­vide you with some insight.