Love and C.S. Lewis

My friend Michelle posted this quote on her wall in honor of St. Valentine and I thought I would pass it along.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung, and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one and nothing, not even an animal. You must carefully wrap it round with hobbies and little luxuries and routine and avoidances of entanglement, and then lock it up in the casket or coffin of your own selfishness. And this means, in the long run, the alternative to tragedy, or at least to the threat of tragedy, is damnation. For in that casket, safe, still and unventilated in the darkness, it will go bad. Not broken, but finally unbreakable, impenetrable, resistant to all good and joy. It's like hiding the talent in the napkin, and for much the same reason. "I knew thee that thou art a hard man." Christ did not teach and suffer in order that we should become more cautious of our own happiness, even in our natural loves. If a man is not uncalculating, and in that way reckless in loving his earthly beloveds whom he has seen, how will he be in his love for God, whom he has not seen? We should draw nearer to the love of God, not by attempting to avoid the sufferings inherent in any love, but by accepting them and offering them to him, by throwing away all defensive armor, taking all risks, descending when he so wills, into all tribulations."
--CS Lewis, The Four Loves