It is like the famous Irishman who found that a certain kind of stove reduced his fuel bill by half and thence concluded that two stoves of the same kind would enable him to warm his house with no fuel at all. It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, our selves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. – C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Essence. This word connotes the wellspring of being – our nature. Often in an attempt to describe such a concept we turn to words like…
Father. The essence of a father is that he has children that he loves, provides for, protects, guides. If we see someone who claims to be a father violating that essence through abuse or abandonment, we feel natural tension. That tension is the distance between what we believe to be the essence of fatherhood and the broken example now before us.
Husband, mother, policeman, priest – all of these possess an inherent essence that, when lost, fill us with disappointment. But when fulfilled, as in an example where a father gives his life to save one of his children, we feel an overwhelming sense of awe.
The alignment between essence and reality matters.
Whether we realize it or not, our essence is divine. Our wellspring is the heart. The soul. And when we choose to live in alignment with our essence, awe permeates our reality. But when we pollute or dilute our essence to pursue the non-essential, we break faith with the divine and life loses its meaning – for us and for those who know us.
So what word best describes our divine nature? Salt.
We are the salt of the earth…