C. S. Lewis, in the prelude to his book The Great Divorce, speaks of how we want Heaven, but wish, in our ignorance, to keep parts of Hell:
"If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven; if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) was precisely nothing; that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in "the High Countries." In that sense it will be true for those who have completed the journey (and for no others) to say that good is everything and Heaven everywhere. But we, at this end of the road, must not try to anticipate that retrospective vision. If we do, we are likely to embrace the false and disastrous converse and fancy that everything is good and everywhere is Heaven.
But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell; and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself."
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2 comments:
It was just a dream! That I can handle, sorry little worm that I am. This is called Critical Lawnmower, after all, not Fertilization Station or Encouragement Alley. I love C.S. Lewis and the way he thinks; the way he is able to communicate deep things to even folks like me who have active dislike for philosophical discussion. It was a frightening read, though. Very frightening. I saw myself all over it and it wasn't pretty. Hopeful, yes. Pretty, no. Other than Narnia, I love the way Lewis writes.
I was disappointed maybe because I read the series as an adult instead of as a child as I think Lewis intended. If you haven't read them, you certainly should and then you can decide for yourself. My series itself says that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first book, but there may be something like the Star Wars movies going on here, numbered 1 to 7, but not necessarily in order that way in time.
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