Kill by comparing

I walked into the wrong assembly hall at a retreat center where I was supposed to speak, and worshipped for half an hour with the wrong group of women before I detected the error.

They were Hispanic New Yorkers and we sang with salsa! I realized my mistake in time to catch the last hymn of the group I belonged to, and the contrast was striking: subdued and solemnly reverent. I caught myself just as I was tempted to compare and contrast one church favorably with the other. I remembered C.S.Lewis' words about our proclivity to "kill by comparing":

"Meanwhile, on afternoons and on Sundays, Surrey lay open to me. County Down in the holidays and Surrey in the term --- it was an excellent contrast. Perhaps, since their beauties were such that even a fool could not force them into competition, this cured me once and for all of the pernicious tendency to compare and to prefer --- an operation that does little good even when we are dealing with works of art and endless harm when we are dealing with nature….(Surprised by Joy).

"The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can ever point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize…." (The Four Loves)

No need to play that game. Just enjoy.