“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare.
All day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."
I was watching a talk last night, and (like all good speakers) the speaker quoted CS Lewis. It was the quote above, which I've heard before, but once again the truth of it struck me.
That idea, that the people with whom we interact with each day are human beings and so have inherent worth, who will not die and cease to be but will live forever in either hell or heaven, gives new meaning and significance to our most mundane tasks.
Today I was especially thinking of the responsibility and significance of my interactions with my children. It's so easy to go about the activities of the day - the dressing, feeding, talking, hugging, nappy-changing, singing, disciplining, reading, playing, bathing - as a list of things to get done, until you put them to bed, hear their rhythmic breathing as they sleep and congratulate yourself on making it through another day, hopefully without too many tears shed from either them or you.
But these children that have been entrusted to me are no mere mortals. Each day, every day, I am in some way helping my children to their eternal destination. My children are immortal.
I thought about this idea this morning when my cup of tea got cold as I built J a fairly intricate train track, carefully positioned around the edge of our dining table so J can reach it but S isn't able to destroy it. I reminded myself of it when we went out to run some errands and I tried (not always successfully) to be patient with J as he stopped and bent to look down in every single puddle we passed (which was quite a few). I didn't think about it at the time, but I did later, when I was focusing on helping Joel to help me to mop the boys' bedroom floor and I suddenly realised S was sticking his hands in the mop bucket water. I definitely thought about it when S had such a nappy explosion that it resulted in a mid-afternoon bath.
We all know in theory that everything we do has significance, it all matters because people matter and have such worth and value. It's just easy to forget that in amongst the laundry and wondering what you are going to make for tea tonight because you have literally no ideas left and no inclination to wrangle children out of the door to go to the supermarket.
But our children do have eternal worth and significance. They will live forever. So will our spouses. So will that really annoying colleague and that friend who sometimes drives you up the wall. And that check out operator who you know is the slowest and inwardly sigh when you find yourself in their queue. And that person who walks down the street right in the middle of the pavement, oblivious to the fact that you are running late and that if they just walked on one side there would be plenty of space for you to get past with the pushchair but no they are going to walk down the centre as if following an invisible line.
No ordinary people, no mere mortals, but immortals who we interact with all day long. What a challenging thought.
