Coffee Break with C.S. Lewis

A quiet, cool day
has drawn me away
from worries of the world
thrown at me.

I settle at a table
and suddenly am able
to think clearly and write while
sipping on coffee.

It's a coffee break now
I take a step back somehow
with background chatter of the shop
reading C.S. Lewis.

Coldplay is playing from a radio behind the counter as I step into Mitchell's for coffee. It's quiet, because I came after the lunch rush. I buy coffee and some coffee beans to brew at home and sit near the back to read.

While sitting here at the table, I finished reading C.S. Lewis' An Experiment in Criticism, and it provided some interesting literary thoughts to expand my mind. As a true lover of reading, I nodded along with Lewis at many things. One thing he helped me realize was how the non-readers out there do not think like me. I get my daily adventures and stories from books, because I cannot travel all the time and to all these places. Non-readers have to get their adventure from somewhere else, and they don't want it to come from books. In addition, they might think me a little crazy that I love to read so much. We are all different and our differences help bring out interesting life discussions with one another.

These couple quotes were from the end of the book. Perhaps you will agree with Lewis' take on the matter, perhaps not. Either way, we learn something here about why readers love to read so much.

My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others (page 140)

But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. (page 141)