I was reading pepperband's thought provoking thread entitled "Willard Harley is a Smart Man" (or thereabouts) Friday, and it really set the gears and cogs to whirring in my brain. Then I checked out (and read in two sittings) C.S. Lewis' last novel, Till We Have Faces.

A big topic of discussion on pepperband's thread, which was actually about Harley's latest book Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders, was the idea of willingness to sacrifice being bad for a relationship. Regardless of who is making the sacrifice or why, sacrifice causes unhappiness. That's why POJA is so important, because it creates a way around sacrifice.

Anyway, all this is bubbling in my head, and then I read TWHF. First off, I adore Lewis' writing. But this book is very different from his other works. Instead of a reliable third-person narrative, the book is written as an autobiography whose writer is making a complaint against the gods. I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but a major element of the story is the pagan goddess Ungit (a barbarian country's equivalent of Aphrodite). Ungit is a jealous goddess who demands sacrifices of her worshippers. The main character despises Ungit, but realizes later that she has "become" Ungit over the course of her life.

In writing her autobiography, she is forced to see the sacrifices she has demanded of all the people she supposedly "loves" and how much it has cost them to love her. She realizes how in her own way, she was as ruthless and greedy as Ungit.

It forced me to look at the word "sacrifice" in a whole new light. Am I demanding a certain level of "idol worship" from those I love? What sacrifices and offerings have I demanded or expected over the years? What was the cost of loving me to those I love?

Deep stuff, indeed.

What a coincidence! I am reading an autobiography by Sheldon Vanauken who was very much influenced by C.S. Lewis! He prints several letters written to him by the poet and tells of their encounters.

I haven't finished it yet.


But C.S.Lewis thoughts on praying reminded me of Bob Pure...

Harley says there is a place for sacrifice in romantic relationships when a long-term objective may require one or both partners to sacrifice short-term.

The difference is subtle.

The sacrifice is POJA'd and is mutually agreed upon and provides a clear benifit for both spouses.

He emphasises SHORT TERM and MUTUAL AGREEMENT via POJA

JP, how would you differentiate "sacrifice" and a posture of "servanthood" in a marriage?

I suspect that you are using the term "sacrifice" precisely in the meaning of Idol Worship, but I'll not put words into your mouth.

God demanded a "sacrifice" for our sins, and then, because of his love for us, provided that "sacrifice" himself, once for all time for us and on our behalf. That makes none of us "god" and none us "worthy" of the sort of sacrifices that you seem to be inferring. We are "fellow servants" who need to adopt a posture of servanthood toward one another. That's a lot different, I think, than your use of the term "Sacrifice."

There IS a time and place for sacrifice in a loving relationship, but the relationship itself is NOT founded upon one being the "sacrificer" all the time and one being the "god-like" recipient of such sacrifices.

Occasionally you will see such sacrifices, such as when one spouse decides to donate a kidney to their spouse, but that is NOT done to "gain approval" from the recipient spouse, it is offered out of love.

God bless.

I've been going through Chesterson...
...a comtemporary of C.S.
...slow prodding.

asking for people to sacrifice for you doesn't seem to be a proper approach...
...informing them (a mate) 'how to love you' is...
...I think there is a difference.

When I first saw the topic line...
...I was thinking self-sacrifice...
...and that something that needs to be done short-term and long-term.

NSR/Jim

Sacrifice is win-lose. One person wins at the expense of the other. Service is win for both. For example, if one has a greater need for sex, then sex is done with the focus on enjoyment of the person whose need is less so that it is win for the one whose enjoyment is less but also win for the one who gets sex as much as desired.

Disregarded

Java,

A novel is not an essay, and the issues in "Till We Have Faces" aren't quite as black-and-white as you make them seem. Remember the last line in the book -- she has died a great queen, the greatest her people has ever known. And the gods finally reveal to her that her sister Psyche could not have achieved her goals so effortlessly except that she had been paired with a sister whose life would be nothing but efforts, and who would never have a chance to feel good about her efforts. Psyche's victory is a joint achievement -- shared with a sister who was never allowed to feel victorious.

So it's a bit more complicated than sacrifice=bad.

Also, as I recall the book, the protagonist has contempt for Ungit, the Aphrodite-type, and contempt for those who are sacrificed for love, and those who demand sacrifices. Then she sees that she has not been an exception to this rule -- that she has demanded even more from others. This is her path to self-knowledge and self-acceptance. It's unlikely that, to be a great queen, she could have been "low-maintenance."

And I, for one, am not sure that we shouldn't demand the very highest from each other (what Mimi calls "bold love") -- though we often have to settle for much, much less.

I apologize for the lack of clarity and specificity in my thread title. It was the best I could do considering the brevity required. I know it's oversimplification, but I was trying to get the main concepts in: C.S. Lewis, Harley's new book, and the negative aspect of sacrifice in love relationships. But that wouldn't fit. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

pepperband
I agree with that. There is a place for mutually-agreed-upon sacrifice. But in that sense, it's less a "sacrifice" as it is an "effort."

FH
Yup. You get the stuffed prize off the top shelf. What I'm referring to here is sacrifice in the sense of "an offering made for appeasal," if that makes any sense. A non-optional "gift" (with strings of expectation attached.) Not healthy for either party.

NSR
Oh, agreed, but I think the delivery and the subtext is REALLY important. As is their ability to "hear" it as information and not a demand. Which depends largely on their emotional health. Requests and information become demands and decrees in the ears of someone who has an unhealthy amount of their self-concept invested in you (aka "worships" you).

AMM
Granted and quite true. I only had a short time to write the post and was trying to condense some big ideas into a short space and time before the idea escaped me. I'm a bit ADD. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


True. I was trying to not ruin the book for those who haven't read it. But part of the subtlety of the book is that Orual's life was the one she chose. Many people loved her a great deal, but she chose to refuse to believe it. She chose to see only the things that "proved" she was not loved or lovable, when clearly there was evidence all along that many people loved her a great deal. Enough to sacrifice their own hopes and dreams for her. Her trap, that she was never able to feel good about her efforts, was a trap of her own making. She focused on one thing: her lack of beauty, and therefore "lovability" and love, and didn't allow herself to see her own victories.


LOL. My daughter's name is based on the Hebrew and Latin for "Exalted Queen." We didn't know that when we chose it--I'm not a masochist. But she IS very "queenly" and she is most definitely NOT "low-maintenance." And I don't think being "low-maintenance" is a good thing, either, but that's a whole other thread.

I agree completely about it being her path to self-knowledge and self-acceptance. Which takes me to a whole 'nother book, "Care of the Soul" by Thomas Moore. If you looked at this story through the lens of archetypal psychology, Psyche and Orual are the same person. Psyche is the Soul, or authentic inner self, and Orual is the Ego, the adapted public face and personality. You are 100% right: both have had great value.

Orual was a great and wise queen who made life better for her people acting out in the real world. Psyche was the rich inner life of virtue, caring and relationship with the divine in the spiritual world. Orual consciously valued and loved only what Psyche represented: beauty, faith, and kindness, and only attributed them to Psyche, not recognizing they existed in herself as well. She rejected and resented all that she represented to herself: power, control, jealousy (projected onto Ungit) and a victim mentality (projected onto others as well).

Her path to self-knowledge and self-acceptance was recognizing the rejected or denied parts of herself (seeing herself as Psyche in the water) and realizing that the parts that she "owned" were valuable in their own right.


Two words in that quote make me wince. "Demand" and "settle." If you swapped them out for "expect" and "accept," and maybe change the "have to" to "choose to," I would be much more inclined to agree.

Disregarded, thank you for this post. I was having trouble wrapping my head around the difference. You made it very clear.

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarity. This is very insightful. Hmm..thanks for this post.

A very interesting, and timely in my case, posting. I will go out and read both books post haste. I am dealing with my own newly-discovered martyrdom...I sacrificed all for my WW, and ended up resenting her for never repaying...or even acknowledging my sacrifices.

I created a monster, and never even knew it.

This is not to say it was all my fault (yes, we martyrs tend to take all the blame quite easily), but if I would have seen this earlier, I could have stood up and POJA'd things in our life together. Who knows, such a move may have saved our marriage...


TM

Don't worry. You can't. The book can't be ruined. Even when you know the ending, you can read it over and over again.

I feel so much like Orual! I guess we all do.

Funny, my WH?/XH? said that he wanted to be more like Psyche, living among the gods. Now that I look back on it, that was a very revealing comment, because we live in the world of efforts, not in the ether. And that's precisely why he left -- it was clear that recovery would take efforts. In the end, he was a very bifurcated person -- one of his clearest attributes, which is interesting in light of the fact that, as you say, Orual and Psyche are the same person. He was very unaware of the effect he had on others, very self-blinded.

Agree with your amendments to my comment -- though I'm not so allergic to unpopular words. Yes, Orual CHOOSES what she becomes, in a sense -- but don't we all? And doesn't that choosing interact with our fate? (That is, she doesn't "choose" to become queen.) Interesting, Orual is a very demanding person, she HAS to be, to accomplish what she sets out to accomplish. And because of that, the people around her become heroes.

Good. It's a dense book, isn't it? But also a fast read. I would imagine each time you read it, you get something else out of it.

For me, I'm dealing with some FOO issues and the part where Orual discovers how much she hurt her sister Redival by basically abandoning her for the Fox and Psyche because she wasn't as smart and interesting as they were. All through the first part of the book, she makes Redival sound dumb, jealous and gossipy. Which was probably true--but Redival's unintelligence was no more her own fault than Orual's ugliness. She denied Redival her love the same way others denied her love because of her face. Redival's chasing men and closeness with the gossipy Batta were because she was lonely and left out. That is painfully relevant to me in my current situation with my sisters and Dad, who I have a lot of resentment and hurt feelings about. I can see how I rejected and hurt them over the years as much as they rejected and hurt me. A hard pill to swallow.

A friend of mine is frustrated because she has asked God for answers over and over, and is really struggling with His silence. She's reading it now, and I imagine she will get an entirely difference perspective from it.

Your comments about your WH/XH are sad but perceptive. You can't make someone see the castle that is right in front of them if they are determined to be blind to it, no? So much of what we call reality is perception. He probably thinks he is choosing the easier path, but the truth is, no one gets a free ride. You either choose do the work of growth towards self-knowledge and wisdom, or you deal with the consequences of self-deception and folly. An easy life is not to be obtained by humans in a fallen world. The biggest part of why I don't hold any more anger and resentment towards the OW is because I pity her choosing the path of continued self-deception. As hard as the road Clark and I has been, I would sooner walk hot coals than go back to that.


Yes. Life presents us with a menu of choices, dangers and opportunities; we can't control what's on the menu--we can only control our choices, decisions and actions. I'm going to completely out myself as a geek and admit I've been playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II this week. The mentor character says that our strengths are only developed in conflict. I found that intriguing. If we have no problems, no obstacles, we have no reason to develop and grow. Nature/God/Fate presents us with challenges (which we don't control). Our response to them (which we do control) is what defines us. We are a product both of divine design and free will, which seems like an impossibility, but put in that light, it makes sense.

Okay, I think it's time to go ice down my forehead. But thank you, everyone, for a thoughtful discussion.