Bridget Hudson

Mrs. Finney

Honors Religion III

23 September 2016

The Country of the Blind

How is God present in your life? Do you find Him in the things you do every day? The

Country of the Blind written by C.S. Lewis is a poem noting the presence of God in our world

around us. I chose this poem because our generation can strongly relate to what Lewis was

writing about. It was easy to connect to and understand. It also challenges our faith as Christians.

It is an eye opener to those who are drifting off the path to redemption. This poem has the ability

to help Christians evaluate how they live out their faith.

The Country of the Blind is focused on God transcending creation. More importantly,

how He is present in our everyday lives. C.S. Lewis demonstrates this in different scenarios

throughout the poem. Reading on freepoemanalysis.com I discovered Lewis wrote this poem

through his point of view on the world he was living in (Paul). Lewis himself was born a

Christian, but he later hit a really rough patch in his life, and transformed into an atheist. He went

on for a few years, then once he got to college he found God again. Once he found God and

realized he was meant to be a Christian, he wrote this poem about the country of the blind.

Many people, even Christians have a hard time finding God in their lives at all times. C.S. Lewis

struggled with this himself. In the poem he talks about all of the people who are blind to God

presence in the world by saying, Hard light bathed them-a whole nation of eyeless men, / Dark

bipeds not aware how they were maimed. A long/ Process, clearly, a slow curse, / Drained

through centuries, left them thus. (Lewis 1-4). Lewis uses this to explain how creation slowly
became blind to God. There was a hard light beaming down on them at all times, but because of

their blindness, they did not know what they were missing. He said it was a long process, even a

slow curse to mankind, as they slowly fell away from God. Some of the people were not blind

though, and he refers to them as the luckless few. In the poem he writes, then, a luckless

few, / No doubt, must have had eyes after the up-to-date, / Normal type had achieved snug /

Darkness, safe from the guns of heaven, (Lewis 5-10). In this quote he is explaining how the

normal men, the eyeless, were lucky because they were saved from heaven. Meaning, the few

who saw the light of God followed and believed in him were destined for heaven. The eyeless, he

explains how they only go through the motions, not knowing what they actually believe in by

saying None questiond. It was worse. All would agree Of Course, / Came their answer.

Weve all felt / Just like that. They were wrong, (Lewis 18-20). The eyeless who could not see

the light of God just went through the motions, and never actually experience his love and

beauty. The eyeless were not destined for heaven, but in a different direction.

C.S. Lewis is challenging to really engage into our faith. Dive in head first. People may

look at us differently for being so outspoken about our faith, but we are the ones who will have

eternal life. We should not just agree, and pretend to know about the beauty of Christ. We should

be engaged in the church, practicing our faith. We should strive to find the beauty of God for

ourselves. We need to stop just running through the motions, and really find God in our lives

every day.

Do you see God in your day to day life? Todays generation is drifting farther and farther

from the path of redemption. People are being born into Christianity, they grow up being taught

you do this because it is what we do but not actually learning about why we do the things we
do as Christians. It is time that humanity dives into our faith, and find the beauty of Christ in our

everyday.
 Works Cited

Jensen, Paul. "Analysis of The Country of the Blind by C.S. Lewis." Free Poem Analysis. 16
Sept. 2016. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Lewis, C.S. "The Country of the Blind - Poem by C. S. Lewis." The Country of the Blind - Poem
by C. S. Lewis. 2010. Web. 22 Sept. 2016