History remembers their works as classics and their relationship as The Inklings, a group of novelists and authors associated with The University of Oxford. CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams were not only renowned authors, but friends, who often shared a table together at The Eagle and The Child or The Lamb and the Flag as meeting places for great conversations. Charles William preceded both CS Lewis and Tolkien in his untimely death. After Williams’ death, Lewis remarked that his relationship with Tolkien would not be the same simply because neither could both men know one another in an active friendship with Williams. Lewis knew Tolkien, not merely through Tolkien, but through William’s friendship with Tolkien. Likewise. Tolkien knew Lewis, not simply through Lewis, but in the friendship Charles shared with Lewis. And perhaps that experience laid beneath Lewis’ reflection on the value of friendship in the following quote:
Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed, which no man can number, increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another. The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have. – CS Lewis, Four Loves
I think The Apostle Paul understood this in his words through the widely circulated letter to the Ephesus church:
…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5.19–21
Perhaps my connectedness to the local body of Christ adds that same value to my worship. I learn of Christ as I learn of Him in others. The “Heavenly Bread” we share nourishes my soul with a renewed wonder of His attributes and His activity. And in my willing connection to others, I ask a personal question of myself, “What shall they learn of Christ through me?”