“But that means —-“ she began, and stopped.
“I know,” Stanhope said. “It means listening sympathetically, and thinking unselfishly, and being anxious about, and so on. Well, I don’t say a word against all that; no doubt it helps. But I think when Christ or St. Paul, or whoever said bear, or whatever he Aramaically said instead of bear, he meant something more like carrying a parcel instead of someone else. To bear a burden is precisely to carry it instead of. If you’re still carrying yours, I’m not carrying it for you – however sympathetic I may be. And anyhow there’s no need to introduce Christ, unless you wish. It’s a fact of experience. If you give a weight to me, you can’t be carrying it yourself; all I’m asking you to do is to notice that blazing truth. It doesn’t sound very difficult.”
“And if I could,” she said. “If I could do –whatever it is you mean, would I? Would I push my burden on to anybody else?”
“Not if you insist on making a universe for yourself,” he answered. “If you want to disobey and refuse the laws that are common to us all, if you want to live in pride and division and anger, you can. But if you will be part of the best of us, and live and laugh and be ashamed with us, then you must be content to be helped. You must give your burden up to someone else, and you must carry someone else’s burden. I haven’t made the universe and it isn’t my fault. But I’m sure that this is a law of the universe, and not to give up your parcel is as much to rebel as not to carry another’s. You’ll find it quite easy if you let yourself do it.”
“And what about my self-respect,” she said.
He laughed at her with a tender mockery. “O, if we are of that kind!” he exclaimed. “If you want to respect yourself, if to respect yourself you must go clean against the nature of things, if you must refuse the Omnipotence in order to respect yourself, though why you should want so extremely to respect yourself is more than I can guess, go on and respect. Must I apologize for suggesting anything else?”
Charles Williams, Descent Into Hell (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co, 1990), 98-9.
As a side note, this book goes well with Lewis’ Great Divorce and Balthasar’s Dare We Hope All Will Be Saved (or his more sophisticated theological reflections on hell).
Henry:
Thanks for posting this. I’m not familiar with Charles Williams, an unfamiliarity which need not continue.
This quote has a lot to say about paradoxes and mystery: Giving up and taking up a burden; the nature of interpersonal relationships and intimacy; the paradox of closeness and its need for otherness; freedom through binding to another,…
muennemann
You are welcome. Charles Williams is an interesting person — his novels are really good “spiritual thrillers,” though his style was one which got better as he aged (his best is his last, All Hallow’s Eve.). My favorite novels of his are Place of the Lion (an influence on Lewis and what made him want to meet Williams) and All Hallow’s Eve. I would see his second tier are Descent into Hell which is about two kinds of love with two kinds of end (self love and sacrificial love), and War in Heaven (his grail story). His other novels are also interesting, to be sure.
And I really did think this quote shows exactly as you said, and why it is so powerful.