I recently read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. Most people have encountered C.S. Lewis at one point or another. Although he is probably most well known for his fiction series The Chronicles of Narnia, he was also well accomplished in other areas. He was first published as a poet when he was an atheist, he is best known for his writings that he completed after a dramatic conversion to Christianity. His newspaper series we now know as the Screwtape letters and his BBC radio addresses we now know as Mere Christianity propelled him to a level of national fame. His primary work was teaching English at Oxford (he was also well accomplished in this field, for example his scholarly work on Milton is still considered one of the best).
In this work he found a great amount of comfort in the conversations between keen minds (he was very close friends with J.R.R. Tolkien, as many of you are probably familiar). Not only did he gravitate toward keen minds in face to face conversation, but also in correspondence. This is how he met his wife Joy.
Joy was a convert from Judaism and began corresponding with Lewis by letters. These letters turned into face to face conversations after Joy was divorced and moved to England. Eventually the two married. C.S. Lewis had never thought he would get married in this late addition to his life helped him understand love and commitment in new and profound ways. She died three years later. The book A Grief Observed is a collection of his journal entries that were compiled as he struggled through the mourning process. It is a unique approach to writing about grief, and its raw honesty and depth of reflection make it arguably one of the best books by C.S. Lewis.
A Grief Observed was originally conceived as project to “map” greif. Although Lewis abandoned the project early on, realizing that you can’t map greif. It’s not static. It’s a moving target that doesn’t ever fully end.
Almost every line A Grief Observed struck me in some way. There was a great deal of struggle that is common to all who mourn, and it was so well articulated that I found myself drawn into the process of grief as much as I would be drawn into a narrative. At times he hates God, at times he loves God, and in both cases he makes compelling arguments to explain why. I thought I would post a few lines that I thought were particularly good and invite conversation around them. This is a book that discusses the unresolvable so it leaves a great deal of these questions unresolved. I would like to not resolve them some more with all of you, if time allows.
“It doesn’t matter that all the photographs of [Joy (his wife)] are bad. It doesn’t matter–not much–if my memory of her is imperfect. Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage–is it not in some ways an advantage–that it can’t pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me? I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want[Joy]., not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle.”
If the wafer looked like Christ the reality of the “substance” would be obscured by the vision of the “accidents” to use Thomistic categories. I mentioned this quote to my friend Iain and he, an atheist, argued that our own doctrines can function this was. What do you think? Do all images of God limit him?
“Knock and it shall be opened.’ But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?”
What do we do with a God who promises to answer and then seems to bolt the door and lock it? What do we do in the face of evil that seems to prove that God is not good but evil?
Another line states:
“Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”
How are these thoughts and the thought before related?
Lewis writes,
“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”
He believes his faith is being tested at one point.
At another point, however, he has another realization:
“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.”
What do you think he means by this?
“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.”
How might this statement relate to work in ministry?
“What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?”
I have often been compelled to look at the violence of a surgeon as I reflect on my own theory of “Just War” and the like. What is more terrifying a God who acts or a God who doesn’t? What is more loving? What is more just?
“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself.”
I believe in God, but I must also be an Atheist to my own version of God. If I don’t allow God to change my perspective about God I become an idolater.
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