up to reality; and how much does not. Probably for most people this moment comes at about the same time as their own death becomes real to them. Naturally, when we are young, most of us have narrow escapes: climbing accidents, motor accidents, and the like. But though these bring home to us the possibility of our dying, they do not seem to bring home to the average man the apparent inevitability of death. This happens later; and when it happens, it is as sensible a time as any other to reassess one's aims and ambitions so as to decide which are sensible and, with a bit of luck, practicable, and which are absurd.
It does not help to dodge the issue. If one doesn't reassess one's fantasies, if one doesn't try to decide how much of one's inner life and one's beliefs are consistent with experience, then one is liable to drift into a fantasy world in the old sense; I mean a world of dreams unconnected with reality, a kind of opium world in which the drug is merely day-dreaming. I suppose the danger of facing a reassessment is that one becomes depressed; the danger of not facing a reassessment is that one develops a split mind, or schizophrenia. Most people I think do face it. If one uses one's eyes in the street, one can see the eager vivacious faces of youth, and contrast them with the sagging faces and disillusioned eyes of middle age. There is nothing one can do about this. It is no good telling them to brighten themselves up, because life isn't so bad after all. Their fantasy worlds proved insubstantial, and their sadness is as indispensable to them now as their dreams were before. Christians are not exempt. Faith in God, even if well-founded, is likely to contain a thousand errors; and putting it into practice is likely to lead to a fuller heart-break than the empty heart-break of lack of faith. But it is still heart-break.
What did Christ himself have to say about this situation? He had this to say, not so much by his words as by his deeds and his life; that to make God…