Lewis had a mother who taught him, as a child, to sleep on the hard floor (rather than his bed) as proper penance to God. She also taught her child “self-denial, sobriety and mortification, from his tender years,” as Butler relates. This, we are assured, laid the groundwork for Lewis’s subsequent holy, sanctified life.
I’ve often pointed out the ways in which saints, as children, were forced into lives of indentured servitude to God (in the name of Christian piety), but Butler here gives us insight into the logic that controlled such ideas of parenting, and this logic is well worth reproducing here. It has provided me with a far better understanding of the thought process behind making children believe from a young age that they are lucky God doesn’t damn them, and that they should suppress any desire to laugh or run around, let alone be hellions or hoydens. As Butler explains:
The government and restraint of the senses, and of all the affections of the soul, especially against gluttony, lust, and other importunate passions, is called the virtue of Temperance: and is that cardinal virtue which chiefly enables us and prepares us for all moral good: it is the sure basis upon which the whole building of a good life is erected, and was called by the ancient Greek philosophers, the storehouse of all virtues. Under this are comprised chastity, sobriety, meekness, poverty of spirit, contempt of the world, humility, modesty, or the government of a man’s exterior, especially of the tongue; compunction, cleanness of heart, peace of mind, the mastery of the senses and passions, and the triumph over our own most dangerous and domestic enemies: all which make up the noble train of her [Temperance’s] attendants.
NO WONDER parents were willing to subject their children, from the point that they could comprehend basic ideas, to such actions of debasement and self-negation! This was thought to be THE pathway to a good life…and of course every parent should want a “good life” for her or his children, right?!
But note that this good life is astoundingly joy- and freedom-free. Indeed, there is ever so much self-control to be gained, along with quite a lot of seriousness for someone whose life begins by lying on the floor instead of the bed and who follows this pathway of Temperance. There is also a lot of being put upon, sticking to the straight (in all senses) and narrow (equally so). For sure, this would appear to lead to a safe life. But why? What is the virtue of a safe, joyless life? How is this godly? It certainly isn’t Jesus-like and, frankly, I believe from experience and observation that this brand of safety is anything but safe. Whenever children move into adulthood having been so hobbled when it comes to making up their own minds about life’s choices, they are ill-equipped to discern goodness from evil, will believe that someone who tells them to sacrifice should be the leader (not asking what they are sacrificing for, or why), and will become lost the moment that their hormones kick in, they taste alcohol for the first time, or simply have a nervous breakdown because of suppressing all their feelings for so many, many years.
Yet, in fairness, if what Butler presents was the equivalent of an ancient The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (the famous best-seller by Dr. Benjamin Spock published first in 1946 and now in its 10th edition), then who are we to blame the parents of that day from doing all they could to ensure the physical, moral, and–importantly to them–eternal health of their offspring, as they understood it at the time?
Lewis apparently lived the life that he was trained for, embracing austerities far beyond what seemingly mere mortals endure outside of concentration camps. He received great honor for his holiness, which, as matter of course, he consistently sought to deflect. And, in the end, Lewis died a venerated man–later to be canonized.
Thoughts, anyone?!