In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes:
There is a poem by C.S. Lewis that is more or less a confession. The first time I read it I felt as though somebody were calling my name. I always come back to this poem when I think soberly about my faith, about the general precepts of Christian spirituality, the beautiful precepts that indicate we are flawed, all of us are flawed. In the poem, C.S. Lewis faces himself. He addresses his own depravity with a soulful sort of bravery:
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love–a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek-
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
I [wondered] if I was like the parrot in Lewis’s poem, swinging in my cage, reciting Homer, all the while having no idea what I was saying. I talk about love, forgiveness, social justice; I rage against American materialism in the name of altruism, but have I even controlled my own heart? The over-whelming majority of time I spend thinking about myself, pleasing myself, reassuring myself, and when I am done there is nothing to spare for the needy. Six billion people live in this world and I can only muster thoughts for one. Me.