To alleviate my guilty conscience until I can get back to blogging!
“Now, theology is like a map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting… Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God — experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened [to a friend he describes] may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion — all about feeling God in nature, and so on — is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music…”
–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity