The Inner Ring

(In response to The Inner Ring except by C.S. Lewis)

The quest for the inner ring appears to be a meaningless runaround that is descriptive of all our lives. We are constantly caught up with proving ourselves, or having some sort of approval. We all seek glory, or a place to fit in, a place that makes us feel superior to others, a sense of accomplishment.

I believe that every person who lives has at one point questioned the meaning of their existence. They seek to find some meaning in life. Regardless of their religious beliefs we are all on a journey to find meaning. I believe that God has placed this void among us. We as humans find ourselves searching for something on this world to fill that void. However, there cannot be anything that fills the void, there cannot be anything to make us feel completely accepted, nothing to give us perfect joy, and nothing to completely suffice our hunger for happiness. We search the ins and the outs of the world, looking in every dark dank corner, and every lighted room. Still we find nothing. This is what allows us to know that we are not made for this world. If we were made for this world, for this finite existence, then we would be able to find something that satisfies these appetites. We search among our things and friends to find meaning, to find a sense of worth that can never be found. C. S. Lewis talks of this endless pursuit to an inner ring. Once a ring has been entered it loses its appeal, we seek yet another ring, an endless pursuit for emptiness.

"In the whole of your life as you now remember it, has the desire to be on the right side of that invisible line ever prompted you to any act or word on which, in the cold small hours of a wakeful night, you can look back with satisfaction?" C. S. Lewis poses this question rhetorically because he knows that non of us can answer in the affirmative.

"Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain." It is this that drives our search for fulfillment. We desperately want to be included; however, our desperate desire will lead us nowhere, and it is not until we give up this desire that we can in fact be included in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is not until we give up the notion of ourselves that we enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

C.S. Lewis goes on to speak of the difference between "the search for the inner ring" and friendship. "But the difference is that the secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship."