From C. S. Lewis’s Letters to an American Lady:
You have no idea how many instances of domestic nastiness come before me in my mail: how deceptive the smooth surface of life is! The only ‘ordinary’ homes seem to be the ones we don’t know much about, just as the only blue mountains are those 10 miles away.
(p. 44 [Eerdmans, 1967])
Lewis is right here. The more you get to know a family, a church, or even an individual, you realize that these is more sin and dysfunctionality than you initially realize. I’m not saying that everyone is evil. But in our corrupt and broken world, everyone bears the marks of that corruption and that brokenness.
This should come as no surprise to Christians. We are taught that in the Scriptures. All are battling the flesh, whether they are Christians or non-Christians. All are tormented by a body of death, whether Christians or non-Christians. All our surfaces, as Lewis says, are smooth, but under that surface a tempest rages.
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