CS Lewis on the Virus

Dear Daughters,

One of my favorite writers, C.S. Lewis (author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), wrote an interesting few paragraphs 72 years ago. Even though his essay was written in light of the recently-dropped atomic bomb back in 1945, it is still relevant today. All we need to do is replace the words “atomic bomb” with “Coronavirus.”

I do believe all necessary precautions should be set in place and taken seriously, yet, we are still able to live in peace and not fear.

Fear and anxiety are more contagious than any virus.

John Eldredge

Below are Lewis’ wonderfully wise three paragraphs:

On Living in an Atomic Age (1948) by C.S. Lewis

In one way we think a great deal too much about the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors – anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things – praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts – not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

God is still the same today as He has been throughout eternity. The Coronavirus did not take Him by surprise, and it is only through Him that we are able to have peace in the midst of chaos and panic. God is still good, and Jesus comforts us with His own words:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. John 14:27

I pray for you as you stand strong in hope and peace.

Love, Mom