C.S. Lewis Reading Day 2024

A Look at Friendship

Greetings to those celebrating C.S. Lewis Reading Day 2024, a remembrance for Lewis started by the gentlemen over at the Pints with Jack podcast. This year, many of the participants have agreed to look at the theme of friendship, a topic very dear to Lewis. It is fitting to reflect on friendship (several dear friends come to mind) and the man that many considered a friend through his life and works, Lewis.

“To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue.” In The Four Loves, Lewis devotes an entire chapter to the Greek word, philia, friendship love. What makes friendship so unique?

Lewis remarks that our species does not require it for survival, through eros we are begotten and through affection we are reared. Individuals can survive without it; society can survive without it. But what kind of existence would that be? It is to a much greater extent of dread that feeling of being alone in a crowded room. Friendship is a love to be seen and wanted. A person desired for what they bring to the table, all their strengths and all their flaws.

Lewis in The Four Loves captures the humble beginnings of friendship, ‘The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”’ Now this love of friendship is not built off of an exclusion, it is built through an expansion and inclusion of another. In his brilliant essay, “The Inner Ring,” Lewis takes on that falsehood masquerading as friendship.

But if all you want is to be in the know, your pleasure will be short-lived. The circle cannot have from within the charm it had from outside. By the very act of admitting you it has lost its magic. Once the first novelty is worn off, the members of this circle will be no more interesting than your old friends. Why should they be? You were not looking for virtue or kindness or loyalty or humour or learning or wit or any of the things that can be really enjoyed. You merely wanted to be “in.” — The Inner Ring

A friendship is born out of accidental exclusions. Currently, I have been enjoying T.S. Eliot. I long for a friend to read his works and to discuss. I’d rejoice if this Substack led to a coffeeshop hangout over Lewis, Eliot, Chesterton, etc. That friendship would not purposefully exclude anyway. That love and enjoyment will naturally pull some in while others will pursue other friendships because they care not for those things. That Inner Ring mentioned by Lewis though is built not on friendship. It is built on exclusion. The Ring’s mystic is built on leaving others out (Mark Studdock finds this out the hard way in That Hideous Strength).

But why friends? Lewis indeed had many friends (think of the number of books written about that famous group of friends called the Inklings). He states, “I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadows of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” Philia may not help us survive, but it helps us to live and to live well.

Lewis died on this date in 1963. Yet, his work and influence lives on as an encouragement to the church. But may I add, his works also keeps bringing friends together throughout the years. You like C.S. Lewis? Me too!