What is grief compared to physical pain? 40

It took me awhile to figure out exactly how I wanted to fulfill this somewhat ambiguous book analysis assignment. Why not sit at my computer and write a slightly edited stream of conscious? Sure. That’s authentic. It could be described as writing to myself I suppose. It could be horrendously boring and painful to read. But who am I to worry? I didn’t make an assignment where anything goes.

This book is about a man emotionally naked in his own Gethsemane. XXVI

So I read the book, “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis. When I first sit to convey some ideas I had about the book, I find myself wanting to type it out word for word. Anything less would be a disservice. So here is my disservice to “A Grief Observed”. I’ll throw some quotes in between my own writing to make me feel better.

Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. 60

Aren’t all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? 33

Grief. As far as I can tell, there is no way around it. After all, pain, suffering, and evil coexist within this world in which we live. I shouldn’t forget death. The book is C.S. Lewis journaling, in a sense, his experience of grief resulting from the death of his wife, Helen Joy Gresham, as means of making the process of mourning a little less difficult. I’ve always admired C.S. Lewis and his writings. What first drew me to this particular book was an interest in what “this strong and determined Christian” (XXX) had to say in response to grief, having first-hand experience myself.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. 3

When I first started thinking about this assignment, I imagined that I would spend much of the space writing about the death of my close friend and the affect it had on my life. Calling him my brother would be a far more accurate description of our relationship. That whole idea seems a bit self-centered now. I began thinking back to how I felt when I returned to Wake from his funeral. Lewis married his wife knowing that she had cancer, knowing that she would experience death early in their relationship. So my circumstance doesn’t quite match his. I believe, however, that is a moot point (unlike the author of the forward). I felt many of the same emotions Lewis described. Not fear itself, but the sensation of being afraid; the feeling that “There is some sort of invisible blanket between the world and me.” (3) There’s one lesson topic I didn’t see on the COM113 syllabus: How to appropriately respond to the instantaneous termination of a close interpersonal relationship and learning the affects it will have on your interpersonal communication with others.

Time and space and body were the very things that brought us together; the telephone wires by which we communicated. Cut one off, or cut both simultaneously. Either way, mustn’t the conversation stop? 14

I had forgotten how Nate’s death had affected my actions and way of thinking…until this morning. My brother gave me a phone call while I was sitting in Greene Hall. Another friend. Another car accident. John is in critical condition, but my brother said that he is not going to make it. I have to admit that I wasn’t as close to John as I was to Nate. Nevertheless.

It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. 15

Meanwhile, where is God? 5

The Greek word for death is thanatos (I just looked this up), meaning separation; not the idea of nonexistence or extermination. It makes sense though; what is death except for separation? Physical death being a separation of the soul and spirit from the body, spiritual death being a separation of the soul and spirit from God. Lewis, having proven Christianity with his past apologetic works, assumes the reader understands the truth of Christianity. In spite of this, he still has the courage to question not only God’s existence but His goodness as well. Hmmm…the idea of a bad God…

I think it is, if nothing else, too anthropomorphic. 30

It’s a theme that is taken into great depths in the book. Another lesson I don’t find on the syllabus: Interpersonal communication with God…that is to imply an interpersonal relationship.

Your bid—for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity—will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. 37-38

Interesting quote. Does grief provide us with something to stake? Not even close. Should we have the ability to take someone else’s place, to bear their burden of pain, suffering, and death; then we would have something. Lewis discusses those who claim that they would willingly take this burden from others. And here we have found the ultimate claim with no stakes involved at all; a claim for anyone to make. Of course there is One who was able to make that claim and fulfill it for all of humanity; ultimately removing the spiritual death for any who would follow. I suppose that is doesn’t really matter what each of us believes in, but rather what is true. So why do I experience grief when I know that both Nate and John (who were both Christ followers) are in the presence of the Lord?

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. 25

God has an interesting way of allowing mourning to heal grief. I feel like I’m getting to the point where nothing I say will make sense to anyone not carrying the same worldview. I wonder how others interpret death. I really do; which is why I love asking people what happens after death. I find that such a question will break any type of schema people tend to follow. Everything intensifies. Oh how I love to listen and respond to their answers.

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. 22

So my friend sent me an instant message just now (9:43 PM):
BRobersonO: Hello, hello.
misterjinngles: hello
BRobersonO: How goes life?
misterjinngles: kinda sucks right now
BRobersonO: Yeah.
BRobersonO: Bryan called me this morning, but I've haven't been updated since.
misterjinngles: well, i mean basically he passed away, and thats all
BRobersonO: yeah.
misterjinngles: but i mena it will be ok
BRobersonO: I believe that you are right.
misterjinngles: for God is good all the time
misterjinngles: so i know somthing good will happen out of this
BRobersonO: John's being in the presence of the Lord alone as a good thing is sufficient; but I agree that there is good still to come.
misterjinngles: i agree

Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief. 23

This is turning out to be an interesting assignment. I wonder how it shall be received. Worse yet, how it shall be graded. I suppose it could be called a risk. I never imagined it would grow this authentic though. John is now dead. At seventeen years old…I think. Maybe I’ll include a picture when I turn this in. Not to be morbid, but to make it a little more interpersonal, of course. Back to the book, though.

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him…Images of the Holy easily become holy images—sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not…All reality is iconoclastic. 65-66

Remember when I said that I felt like typing the book word for word? Is there not great truth in this? It’s annoying to think that I make assumptions about other people without seeking out who they truly are. It’s frightening as Hell to think that I do the same with God. At a young age, circumstance taught me not to make assumptions about anything. Perhaps I should assume that I do make assumptions about people and God, regardless of my own effort not to. Maybe this should have been obvious since I find everybody doing it to me all the time. This is the path that Lewis takes. What is the solution then? It seems obvious, but maybe I won’t type it just yet. Relative to my close friends, I didn’t spend as much time with John…circumstance prevented it. We led a worship service through drama one time at my church. We hung out at the lake last summer. He played electric guitar. I went to some of his band’s concerts. To me he seemed shy, timid, and quiet. But those are lies…merely my own ideas about him. I know because I witnessed how he acted with others with whom he had closer relationships. Is this the reason I mourn? Maybe in part.

The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed—might grow tired of his vile sport—might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t.

Either way, we’re for it.

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? 42-43

I believe I’ll type it now: Truth. Could an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, Being that is unconditional Love deliver anything less? That is what brings the destruction of my silly little paper foundations that I’ve built up in my mind about the others around me; and about God Almighty inside of me. Maybe it’s not my job to build, but to dig. The true foundations already seem to be there, if I could just find them.

Jesus answered, “You are right in saying that I am a king. In fact, this is the reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. John 18:37b-38a.