"The Hidden Work: Poems" by Rob Jones

C.S. Lewis was many things – writer, speaker, broadcaster, popular theologian, prolific letter writer, and Oxford (and Cambridge) professor. He wrote some of the most influential Christian writings of the 20^th century, including such works as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. He was also a poet; in fact, poetry was his first love and his original ambition. And he would likely be pleased to know that his writings and books have not only inspired millions of Christians, but they’ve also inspired a collection of poetry.

 

The Hidden Work: Poems Inspired by the Writings of C.S. Lewis is the new poetry collection by writer and poet Rob Jones. The poems stand on their own, but they’re also paired with a quotation from Lewis’s writings. And they serve as a window into Lewis’s works.

 

The specific quotations are drawn from the books of The Chronicles of Narnia; Lewis’s science fiction trilogy; The Pilgrim’s Regress; The Screwtape Letters; The Great Divorce; Til We Have Faces; Allegory of Love; The Problem of Pain; The Weight of Glory; The Abolition of Man; Miracles; Mere Christianity; Surprised by Joy; Reflections on the Psalms; The Four Loves; A Grief Observed; An Experiment in Criticism; and Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. A second (and shorter) section is a collection of prayers and creeds. 

 

Lewis published The Screwtape Letters in 1942. It’s not hyperbole to call it a work of genius; its insight into the human condition (and human frailty) has few peers. Jones cites this line from The Screwtape Letters: “The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” And then he follows with this poem:

 

Unnoticeable Degrees

 

Comfortably numb is the state I’m in,

Idle hands, busy, toying with sin –

A benumbing habit it has become.

A simple pleasure, but not harm is done.

 

I survived this moment, time and time again.

This only confirms that I can always refrain,

For I have recourse to change my course,

So my heart won’t bleed with remorse.

 

But lately, I am aware, that I am unaware

That I’m spiraling down the road of despair.

Imperceptibly, I was nudged into the sea of sorrow.

Hubris convinced me I’d do better tomorrow.

 

Moment by moment, day after day,

Softly my decisions have led me astray.

If only I’d seen my journey’s destination,

I would’ve tailored my course to a stricter location.

 

Just this one time, was one time too many.

What I thought I controlled, now enslaved me.

The siren’s subtle song has me under a spell—

Motionless, is my descent into hell.

 

Rob Jones

In this poem, Jones precisely catches the point Lewis is making. It’s not the big issues or events in life that lead us on the downslope; it is the small, gradual things, the idle justification here, the thoughtless action there. Tiny things. The slope is so gradual that we don’t even realize what’s happening until it’s too late. We find ourselves in the quagmire, and we don’t know how we got there.

 

Jones is also the author of Re-Enchanted: Poems (2022), the novel Bad Boys f the Kingdom (2020), and the children’s story Here Comes the Night (2020). He holds a Masters of Divinity in Pastoral Leadership degree, and he sings and writes music. He lives with his family in Tennessee.

 

The Hidden Work is a pure delight. Jones takes the sense of each quotation, the essential truth lying within it, and fashions it into a poetic expression. In doing so, he provides an illustration of what Lewis meant and an amplification of it. Yes, I think Lewis would be pleased.

Some Monday Readings

 

Educating for Wisdom – Gary Houchens at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Les Miserables, the American Civil War, and Reading in Camp or Home – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

 

Step Inside Van Gogh’s London Bedroom – Martin Bailey at The Art Newspaper.

 

The Longest Strike in U.S. History – Olivia Waxman at Time Magazine.