The secret signature of each soul.

“Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possesed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimspes, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the things we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.” -Clive Staples Lewis

I think Lewis will always be my favorite author. There's something grandfatherly and soothing about the way he grabs on to a bundle of his inspiriting thoughts and gently arranges them into paragraph after paragraph of marked passion and lucidity. He is honest, provoking, and genius.

I appreciate rainy days, because unlike rays of sunlight that draw me out and away from my innermost rumination, rain drops push me further inward to reflect a little more deeply. And sometimes I need little rain drop reminders to help me remember what my day-to-day priorities are doing to help me reach my bigger-picture priorities.

This quote from Lewis is one of my favorites, and I was reminded of it today when skimming through an old book. I think it was ideal timing. I was sitting there thinking about how I'm two days away from celebrating my one month anniversary at my new job, and then something dawned on me--This is it, this is all I can see right now. I am in awe of the blessing of this new job, and I don't know how many months will turn into how many years before my next "this is it" moment happens to me; when I can no longer see past that thing; when I feel blessed by something else. I was wondering what my next one month anniversary of something will be. I can't see into my future, I can't know what is about to happen in the next chapters of my life.

One cool think that happens to me when I read Lewis' thoughts above, is that when he says, "...While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all", I don't think about my job, or my friendships, or my education, or even my relationships with my family; the most treasured things in my life all fade. The thing that I can no longer see past, the thing that is what everything else hinges on; my "While I am, this is. If I lose this, I lose all", is my relationship with God.

And I know that I will never lose it; I am comforted by the fact that I will always be with Him, in this lifetime, and the next; I will never have to doubt what my "Here at last is the thing I was made for" actually is; I know the secret signature of my soul.

God has reached my soul, and I refuse to evade that "...incommunicable and unappeasable want".