Seth Lewis

The Indispensable Inefficiency of Prayer

The to-do list is long—it’s always long—and the day only has so many hours. If we want to maximise our time on this planet, we have to prioritise. We can’t do everything, and it’s important to “make the most of every opportunity”, as the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:16. But what does this mean? How does it look?

For a Christian, one of the most effective uses of our time is an activity that looks to most people—and maybe quite often to ourselves—like one of the most inefficient. And yet, if we really believe what we say we believe, and if we really trust our Saviour to guide us, then it is indispensable:

Prayer.

Perspicuity (a poem)

They tell me
Perspicuity
Means “clarity”
But if that’s so
What’s the
Proposed utility
Of saying it this way?

Perhaps the pride of
Sounding smart
By using Latin
Works of art
To prove to
Educated classes
You’re above the
Unwashed masses
Who insist on using
Simple language
(Such as “clear”)
Where gilded words
Perspicuous
Could raise themselves
Conspicuous
Above the tired landscape
Of all clear
Communication

C.S. Lewis On The Danger Of Getting Too Much News

I recently came across this excerpt from a letter C.S. Lewis wrote to a friend. He wrote it in 1946, before the internet was invented, before the dawn of push notifications and instant news updates without pause every moment of every day, and yet the wisdom in these few sentences only grows more important the more our technologies and access to information increases. We’ve reached the stage now where we can hear of every new battle, every devastating famine, every natural disaster and celebrity scandal on the other side of the globe more quickly and easily than we can hear what is happening with our own neighbours in our own community. Here’s what C.S. Lewis said about it:

A City Whose Builder And Architect Is God

Have you ever noticed that illustrations of heaven tend to lean heavily on Greek architecture? The pillars and spires might be brighter, and the streets paved with gold, but the forms and styles still look familiar. It makes sense—the ancient Greek temples and forums were gorgeous, a true high point of human ingenuity and creativity. But these styles are human conceptions, whereas Hebrews 11:10 tells us that heaven is a city “whose architect and builder is God.”

Have you ever stopped to consider what it looks like when God himself designs and builds a city?

Winter Walk (a poem)

I put my hands inside my sleeves
And stuff them in my pockets
My collar up against the wind
Is not enough to block it
But as my nose and ears complain
Of slowly freezing
In my brain
My thoughts are getting warmer
And more active with each step
This wind has fanned the flame—
Yes even frozen wind—and swept
My thoughts into a blaze
And I’m aware that if I kept
My body locked
Behind the glaze
In perfect comfort
All my days
That there my mind
Would rest in ease—
And in that warmth
Would slowly
Freeze

God Doesn’t Work For Me

“I’m glad you found something that works for you.”

He said it kindly, genuinely happy for me to have found meaning and purpose in my beliefs about God. I said, “Whether or not my beliefs work for me is not the point. I just want to believe what’s true, and live accordingly. I want to know what God is really like—not what I want him to be. My opinion about you doesn’t determine who you really are, and my opinion about God certainly doesn’t change who he is.” God is himself. He is not obligated to work for me—as if my own little self were the centre of all things—he is the centre, and the reason I work at all is because of him. So I’d much rather live in the light of reality, even if it makes me squint, than live in the shadows of my own comfortable delusions.

Doodles On A Masterpiece

As I pulled the car into a spot at the edge of the parking garage I saw the sky shine bright blue between the rough block wall and the concrete deck above me. Further down the wall on the right I noticed a tree branch leaning in—green leaves detailed against the grey expanse. Moments before I had been driving under the open sky with living things growing all around, the hills in front and the sea behind me. Now, I was enclosed in a concrete case of re-formed rock, where every earthly material was repurposed beyond recognition. Those materials must have come from nature originally—they had to—but the ways we work with nature are often a stark contrast to the ways nature itself works.

An Elegy For Our Fireplace

When my father built a home for our family in the hills of Alabama he put a large wood stove in the very centre. A good fire in that stove could heat the entire house, upstairs and down, for most of the night. I grew up splitting logs and carrying them in, building fires and learning to finesse small sparks into roaring warmth. They say firewood warms you twice, and it’s true—first when you cut it, and again when you burn it. The sound of our fire sucking air through the stove vents like breath, the crackling wood, the reassuring smoke from the chimney as I headed in from the winter cold—all are essential pieces of my childhood, baked into my soul by the power of the flames.

I’m Dated (and you are, too)

New Year’s Day, 2025. The day we all start having to pause to remember what year to write on forms and checks and such, or when we start writing it wrong and having to scribble it out and start again. What will this New Year bring? No one really knows. Looking back is easier—we know what the past is. For good or bad, it’s done. Before long, this past year that was so current, so vital and cutting-edge yesterday will start to feel stale and dated. Old. Has been. Whether we look back on it as the good old days or some kind of personal dark age doesn’t change the fact that we will look back on it. There was a New Year’s Day last year, too. Do you remember it? Or ten years ago, or twenty? Last Halloween I saw that they were selling ’90’s costumes, as if the ’90’s weren’t just last week. But they did look a bit funny.

The First Noel (a poem)

There was fear in the fields
When the angels came
When the heavenly beings
Appeared to men—
But then
Who wouldn’t be
Terrified
When the sky rips through
And the unseen realm
Is on top of you?
What had been one more
Silent night
Was suddenly
Ablaze with light
With gloria in excelsis Deo
The armies of heaven
Invading earth to
Tell some lonely
Shepherds few
“The King of kings has come for you!
He’s lying in a feeding trough”
And if, my friends,
That’s not enough
To make your eyes go wide
With wonder
You can look away and cling to
Cozy festive cheer to jingle
All the way—but wait! The day
A child came
To conquer death
And vanquish hell
Is glorious—
The first noel
This babe is Lord
Above all things
And heaven and nature sings
And heaven and nature sings