more from The Four Loves. How does Clive be so awesome?

"In words which can still bring tears to my eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation in which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confession IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one's heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away.

Or course, this is excellent sense. Don't put your goods in a leaky vessel. Don't spend too much on a house you may be turned out of. And there is no man alive who responds more naturally than I do to such canny maxims. I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "Careful! This might lead you to suffering."

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases Him less. And who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground -- because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving? Would you choose a wife or a Friend -- if it comes to that, would you choose a dog -- in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates."