Meditation in a Toolshed

          Meditation in a Toolshed is a writing written by C.S Lewis. In this writing, Lewis was standing in a toolshed, and he discover that looking at a beam and looking along a beam is different. You get different experiences for looking at and looking along something. Although the experience brought by looking along seems not quite correct, Lewis insist that it still have a value. Both accounts can be right, or can be wrong. We have to find it out instead of just "brow-beating".

          This is the first time I have read C.S Lewis's writings. As a foreign student, I found this writing kind of difficult. However, Lewis uses very good and clear examples to explain his views. Before I don't know what is mean by "looking at" and "looking along", but after I read his example about a young man meets a girl, I understand what he wants to tell. When I was reading this, I suddenly remember a Chinese story. Two men are watching a fish in a pond. A says, " The fish is happy." And then B says, " You are not the fish, how do you know if it is happy or not?" And then A answers, "You are not me, how do you know I don't know the fish is happy?" B says," I am not you, so I don't know; so as you are not the fish, you don't know either." I think the thinking behind this story is similar to Lewis's ideas.

          In my opinion, I think Lewis does give a good point that atheists should not criticize us if they have never be Christians. However, in Hong Kong (where I came from), I have always heard the opposite: Christians always criticize atheists in a bad way. It just simply make people become more resistance to Christ. I think Lewis's idea should also apply to those people.