Notes from the Wayside: Lenten Reflection: The Only Good Lizard

The following is the twelfth in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

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The Only Good Lizard

(Is a Dead and Resurrected Lizard)

A reflection on chapter 11 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12:24-25 (NRSV)

You tear me down

And then you pick me up

You take it all

And still it's not enough

You try to tell me

You can heal me

But I'm still bleeding

And you'll be the death of me

From "Death of Me" by RED

In a previous blog post, I noted that a couple of years ago I made a list of my priorities and came to the realization that my number-one priority in life was what people thought of me. I realized that something in my life seriously needed to change. The exact sentence I wrote beside my list was, "This priority needs to die." The very next day, I offered my preoccupation to God, asking God to take it from me and kill it, so that I might truly be the person God created me to be.

The protagonist sees one ghost walking around with a small, red lizard perched on his shoulder. This lizard flicks it's tail against the ghost's back like a whip and whispers incessantly into the ghost's ear, refusing to settle down until the ghost agrees to do what it wants him to do. When the ghost finally gives in and does what it says, it shuts up and goes to sleep. The ghost is not particularly proud of the lizard: in fact, the ghost's exact words to describe the lizard are, "It's so damned embarrassing."

At the lizard's insistence, the ghost agrees to go back to the bus to return to Hell. On the way, he is met by an angel who offers to silence the lizard for him. At first the ghost is quite grateful that the angel would do such a thing for him, but then he learns that the angel is not offering to merely quiet the lizard but is instead offering to kill the lizard. At first the ghost refuses the angel's help. Though the lizard is a source of constant misery for the ghost, he fears that the angel's killing the lizard will somehow destroy him as well.

The lizard, realizing that it's life is in jeopardy, wakes up and begins to plead for it's life and even tries to bargain with the ghost. Having finally taken enough grief from the lizard, the ghost relents and accepts the angel's help. With flaming hands, the angel grabs the lizard, wrenches it until its back breaks, and throws it to the ground. The ghost passes out from pain.

Then something amazing happens. The ghost begins to transform, becoming bright, solid, and healthy like the residents of Heaven. At the same time, the dead lizard begins to move again. It grows and morphs into a magnificent stallion. The reborn spirit mounts the stallion and rides it into the mountains to continue his journey in Heaven. This is the first success story the protagonist witnesses since arriving in Heaven.

Jesus, realizing that his own death was near, once said, "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." So often, when Christians speak of death, they are not always referring to literal, physical death: sometimes, death is a metaphor for surrender. One might speak of "dying" to something to refer to the act of surrendering it to God. One might speak of "dying to self" to refer to putting aside one's own plans and desires for the sake of a greater good.

By now, I hope you've realized that many things in The Great Divorce are not what they initially appear to be. The lizard sitting on the ghost's shoulder is not merely a pet but rather a physical manifestation of something in the ghost's life. The lizard represents something that nags the Ghost constantly and seems to have a measure of control over what he does. Ultimately it is something that needs to die and be resurrected.

Though seemingly malevolent, perhaps the lizard could be compared to the "grain of wheat" of which Jesus speaks, while the horse could be compared to the thing that "bears much fruit." Notice that, at first, the lizard uses the ghost as a vehicle, but, after it is put to death and resurrected, it serves as a vehicle for the newly reborn spirit. The protagonist's teacher reveals that the lizard was the embodiment of lust, while the stallion the lizard became was the embodiment of a holy, God-given desire. The corrupted thing the man once served was redeemed and transformed into something that would serve him greatly on his journey forward.

Every human being is created with a libido, a creative impulse that includes but is not limited to sexual desire.¹ All things, even those things that are completely natural and God-given, have the potential to become corrupted, and, as we all know, the libido is no exception. When the libido becomes something that a person serves, it will get him or her into all kinds of trouble, but, when the libido has it's proper place in a person's life, it can serve a person greatly, driving him or her to be creative, to seek relationships with other people, and to even start a family. In it's proper place, it can bring out the best in a person, but, if it is corrupted, it can bring out the worst in a person.

St. Paul, in a letter to his protege Timothy, writes that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."² Writer Christian Piatt suggests that Paul's statement would be no less true if money was replaced with something else in one's life. Love, he proposes, "when misdirected or misapplied" could very well be "the root of all evil." Piatt goes on to say,
If we invest our love in anything other than God first, it mutates into idolatry, making room for no other. It is a selfish, consuming, jealous kind of love, and yet one that never satisfies.³

Before the protagonist witnesses the episode with the man and the lizard, he watches another ghost from Hell demand to see her son. This mother lost her son when he was still young, and she spent the next ten years of her life grieving his death - to the detriment of her husband and daughter. Her brother, who was a resident of Heaven, tells her that she will not become solid enough for her son to be able to see her until her instinctual motherly love for her son becomes something greater. "You cannot love a fellow-creature," he says, "till you love God." Lewis suggests that even something as pure and holy as motherly or fatherly love has the potential to become corrupted and turn into idolatry.

The Christian faith teaches us that death is not the end of the story. Typically, people take this truth to mean that there is life after death, but I believe this principle also applies to the metaphorical "death" of surrendering something to God. In another book, The Screwtape Letters, Lewis suggests that what God takes away with the left hand God gives back with the right and that what God gives us is greater than what we surrender.⁴ When we surrender something to God, God gives it back to us resurrected, redeemed, purified, and magnified.

Jesus says, "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." We will not experience the eternal, abundant life God desires for us if we are holding on to the things in our lives with a white-knuckle grip. Some things we must learn to hold loosely, while other things might need to die and be resurrected within us. We need not fear surrendering such things to God, for what we stand to gain is so much greater that what we might lose.⁵

Notes:

Wikipedia: Libido
1 Timothy 6:10 (NRSV)
Christian Piatt. "Love: The Root of All Evil." Father, Son, and Holy Heretic, 03/11/15.
C.S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters. ch. 14
I explore this idea in greater depth in my recent sermon "Dying to Live."