This is a very interesting comment by one who saw, was involved, and was terrified by one of the most terrible wars in all of known history, WWI; but lived to see the superlative and subsequent destruction, death, and despond of WWII. Who is this person? His name is C.S. Lewis, and he wasn’t always an Oxford Don, contemplating mere Christianity, writing allegorical children’s novels, or hanging out in the pub with a cold beer and dialoguing with Dorothy Sayers, J.R.R. Tolkien, and G.K. Chesterton. In fact, there was a time that he was crawling on his hands and knees through muddy and death infested trenches with a gun in his hands, possibly waiting for the immanency of death. Eventually, he was wounded, but did not suffer the fate of countless millions of young men (and women and children). On the cusp of WWII, however, he was much older and seasoned. At this time in his life, he was uncertain of his own being, the lives of his fellow citizens, his country’s existence—even the world’s, and also his own faith in the goodness of God.

In our American situation we need to remember, that war—in whatever context, i.e., military, political, familial, etc.—is a real and sometimes paradoxical reality that we cannot ignore. In light of a man who fought in, and amazingly lived through, the “war to end all wars,” WWI, Lewis’ comments on war deserve special consideration. Here’s a blurb of his renowned sapiential perspective on the eve of WWII:

War creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with “normal life.” Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. Periclean Athens leaves us not only the Parthenon but, significantly, the Funeral Oration. The insects have chosen a different line: they have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature.

-from “Learning in War-Time” (The Weight of Glory)