Lenten Reflection: A Crack in the Dirt

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

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

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A Crack in the Dirt

A reflection on chapters 12 and 13 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.

Luke 16:26 (NRSV)

She said, "If we're gonna make this work

You gotta let me inside even though it hurts

Don't hide the broken parts that I need to see"

She said, "Like it or not it's the way it's gotta be

You gotta love yourself if you can ever love me"

From "Whatever It Takes" by Lifehouse

Things like dating and romantic relationships simply don't come naturally to me, and this reality has caused me a great deal of frustration and anguish over the years.  In college, having already suffered a lot of rejection and heartache, I became rather desperate and tried to glean some help from pickup artists and dating gurus.  I only took advantage of the free email newsletters and podcasts that were offered - I'm way too cheap to shell out the money for paid subscriptions.  Though this stuff might have motivated me enough to score some lunch or coffee dates with a few girls at my college, I think it ultimately did more to hurt me than it did to help me.

YouTuber Dean Leysen, who has spent a lot of time spoofing pickup artists, says,
Plain and simple, most guys get into pickup because they're insecure.  What technique-driven pickup [gives you is] an act - a persona that sort of works in social settings.  If you're getting into this because you're insecure or don't like the way you are or come across, technique-driven pickup is not going to help you: it's going to hide you.  Instead of learning how to be confident, you're going to learn to be someone else...  So you didn't fix your self-esteem, you basically destroyed it completely by accepting the idea that the only way to be socially popular is to not be you.¹

In my opinion, Leysen hit the nail on the head.  Ultimately what I learned from pickup artists and dating gurus is that, if I wanted to go out on dates and have romantic relationships with women, then I had to pretend to be somebody that I wasn't.  Unfortunately, I'm a crappy actor.  The idea that I couldn't be lovable or desirable as I was only made me all the more jaded and resentful.  If I couldn't be loved for who I was, then why even bother?²

---

The saintly spirit Sarah has come to the forest to meet her husband who has just made the trip from Hell, but she is met in the forest not by one ghost, but by two.  One is a hideous, shrunken, deformed ghost that is "no bigger than an organ-grinder's monkey."  The other is a tall, skinny, shaky ghost that speaks dramatically and makes exaggerated gestures as if trying to be impressive, like a bad actor.  The dwarfish ghost is Sarah's husband Frank, and the actor ghost is a puppet he controls with a leash.  Sarah only addresses Frank, but Frank responds to her, using the actor as a mouthpiece.  The dwarf jerks the leash, and the actor speaks on his behalf.

Frank has expected to find Sarah miserable in Heaven without him: he expects that she will depend on him the same way she did in their earthly lives together.  Sarah reveals that she now has all she needs in God's love.  To Sarah, this means that they can now love each other purely and not selfishly, but Frank is dismayed.

Throughout the conversation, Frank uses his puppet to lay on the melodrama.  Sarah begs him to let go of the leash and get rid of his mouthpiece.  She says,
Frank!  Frank!  Look at me.  Look at me.  What are you doing with that great, ugly doll?  Let go of the chain.  Send it away.  It is you I want.  Don't you see what nonsense it's talking?"
Sarah tells Frank that there is no need for him to try to be impressive any longer.

Frank nearly lets go of the leash, but, in the end he grabs hold of it as if his life depends on it.  Realizing that she no longer needs him as she needed him before, he begins to wallow in self-pity, trying to make Sarah feel sorry for him.  He grows smaller and smaller until he is completely absorbed by the actor ghost.  With the true Frank gone, Sarah says, "Where is Frank?  And who are you, sir?  I never knew you.  Perhaps you had better leave me..."  The actor ghost accuses her of not loving him, and Sarah responds, "I cannot love a lie.  I cannot love the thing which is not.  I am in Love, and out of it I will not go."  The actor fades into nothingness.

---

Jesus once told a story about a rich man who lived a life of luxury and a poor beggar named Lazarus who lived on the street near the rich man's house.  Though the rich man had more than he needed and probably passed by Lazarus every day, he never did anything to help him.  Eventually they both died.  Lazarus ascended to Heaven to stand at the side of Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, and the rich man descended into Hell, presumably because of his indifference.  The formerly rich man called out to Abraham, saying, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames."

Abraham answered him, saying, "Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.  Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us."³

In Love Wins, Rob Bell suggests that the "great chasm" that separated Lazarus from the rich man was within the rich man's own heart.  Even in the fires of Hell, the rich man never changed.  Notice that the rich man did not ask to get water for himself; instead, he wanted Lazarus to drip water into his mouth, proving that he still believed that he was superior to Lazarus.⁴  He was too good to even ask Lazarus directly, so he asked Abraham to send Lazarus out to run errands for him.  C.S. Lewis, in another of his books, writes, "I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of Hell are locked on the inside."⁵

Having just witnessed the encounter between Sarah and Frank, the protagonist asks his teacher why the residents of Heaven do not do more to help the ghosts of Hell than to just meet them when they get off the bus.  He wonders why they cannot go into that "great chasm" from which they emerged in the bus.  The teacher stoops down, plucks a blade of grass, points to a crack in the dirt and says, "I cannot be certain that this is the crack ye came up through.  But through a crack no bigger than that ye certainly came."  The teacher goes on to say that Hell is so small that the entirety of it could pass through the digestive tract of a butterfly completely unnoticed.

The residents of Heaven cannot go into Hell because they cannot fit into Hell.

Hell, the great town that went on as far as the eye could see, the town that seemingly kept expanding with each miserable soul who moved to the boundary, was located in a crack in the dirt.  The cliff they rounded when they arrived in Heaven was just one side of that tiny crack.  Not only were they flying as they rode the bus, they were growing.  That said, perhaps Hell is not actually expanding but rather shrinking to make space for all the new delusions.

Sarah and Frank, in their earthly life together, did not have a particularly healthy marriage.  Frank was a very insecure man (hence the dwarfish ghost) who hid behind machismo and manipulated Sarah with pity (hence the ghost with bad acting skills).  Sarah had a need to feel loved and desired, and Frank had a need to feel needed.  At some point Sarah learned to find her self-worth in the fact that she is a dearly loved child of God.  Frank drew his self-worth from being Sarah's proverbial "knight in shining armor."  Ultimately he would not let go of his facade, and he basically let the knowledge that she no longer needed him to save her from her loneliness destroy him.

Donald Miller, in his book Scary Close, writes that, after breaking off his engagement with his fiancee, he went through a week of group therapy.  During that week, he learned that, at some point early in life one begins to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with oneself.  In other words, early in life, a person learns shame.  Don learned that, to cover up the shame, a person will construct a persona or "false self" that will hopefully make him or her lovable to others.  The persona might be made up of good things like humor, intelligence, or talent, but it prevents a person from truly being known and loved.⁶

Every ghost who wishes to stay in Heaven must give up the thing that would keep him in his own personal Hell.  For example, the ghost who had a lizard riding on his shoulder needed to give up the vice that had taken over his life, if he wanted to continue his journey in heaven.  Similarly, Frank needed to give up the persona he had been using to hide his insecurity and to make him feel that he was in control of things.  In the end, he wouldn't drop the act, allow his true self to be seen, and accept that he could be loved and desired simply for who he was.

A great divide separates Hell, the land of delusion, from Heaven, the realm of all Truth.  Perhaps, by building walls to protect us, we are actually building the very walls of Hell around ourselves, walls that love cannot breach.  The walls that protect us inevitably become our prisons.  Love forces itself on nobody.  Perhaps the only way to truly experience love of any kind - friendship, companionship, or even God's love - is to embrace vulnerability and allow ourselves - our true selves - to be seen and known.


Notes:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW5ftkoWIgQ
2. This may or may not be at least part of the reason I've become such a wet blanket in regards to all things romantic.
3. Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV)
4. Rob Bell.  Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.  2011, HarperOne.  pp. 74-76
5. C.S. Lewis.  The Problem of Pain.  ch. 8
6. Donald Miller.  Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy.  2014, Thomas Nelson.  pp. 19-20

The photograph of the cracked dirt was taken by Pixabay user zulubo, and is public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Lenten Reflection: St. Sarah of Golders Green

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

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

St. Sarah of Golders Green

A reflection on chapter 12 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,

but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,

and let her works praise her in the city gates.

Proverbs 31:30-31 (NRSV)

They say in Heaven love comes first

We'll make Heaven a place on Earth

From "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle

The thirty-first chapter of the Book of Proverbs describes a "virtuous woman" or "capable wife," depending on the Bible translation one is reading.¹  In some Christian circles, this passage of Scripture is used as a checklist of things a woman should do in order to become an ideal Christian housewife.  Many Christian women are aware of the Proverbs 31 woman.  Many look to her as a role model, but many others consider her to be an unreasonable standard and the bane of their existence.

A few years ago, writer Rachel Held Evans spent a year exploring different dimensions of "biblical womanhood."  One month, she attempted to do all the things detailed in Proverbs 31 as if it actually was a checklist, and, over the course of that month, she learned that there is much more to that passage than meets the eye.²

---

The protagonist gets the opportunity to watch a parade in Heaven.  First, numerous angels dance and throw flower petals through a path in the forest.  Next, two rows of singers line up on both sides of the path - one row of young men and one row of young women.  Next, accompanying musicians march through the path.  There are also many animals present: cats, dogs, birds, and horses.  The protagonist then sees the spirit for whom the procession is being held, whom he describes as a woman of "unbearable beauty."  The protagonist's teacher says that this woman is "one of the great ones," a saint who has achieved fame in Heaven.

This spirit has come to the forest to meet her husband who has just made the trip from Hell to Heaven.

---

The person for whom the procession was held was not canonized as a saint by an institutional church, nor was her ministry well-known like Mother Teresa's work in Calcutta.  Her name was Sarah Smith, and, in her Earthly life, she lived in a suburb of London with her husband.  The people who took part in the procession for her were all those whose lives she touched.  Her care was not limited to other humans but was extended to all living creatures, hence the many animals present.  "In her, they became themselves."

The protagonist's teacher describes her thusly:
Every young man or boy that met her became her son...  Every girl that met her was her daughter...  Everyone on whom her [motherhood] fell went back to their natural parents loving them more.  Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers.  But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives...  Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love...
In other words, Sarah oozed love, and she brought out the best in everyone who met her.

According to the teacher, "fame in [Heaven] and fame on Earth are two quite different things."  On Earth, a person might be famous for any number of reasons: money, social status, physical appearance, power, influence, talent, or number of Instagram followers.  In Heaven, a person might achieve fame for one reason and one reason alone - love.  In Heaven, beauty is a physical manifestation of the love inside a person's heart.  The spirits of Heaven all appear bright, youthful, and healthy, and the protagonist describes Sarah's beauty as "unbearable."  By contrast, the ghosts from Hell all appear ghastly, and those ghosts who try to appear outwardly impressive end up appearing silly, contorted, or grotesque.

According to Rachel Held Evans, the Hebrew phrase that is translated "virtuous woman" or "capable wife" in Proverbs 31 is eshet chayil, which is better translated "woman of valor."  As she attempted to follow Proverbs 31 to the letter, she learned from a Jewish friend that the passage is actually not a checklist but a song Jewish men sing or recite to honor their wives on the Sabbath.³  This song is not unlike those sung by troubadours to celebrate the accomplishments of great warriors, as it is filled with militant language that is typically lost in English translations.⁴

I would argue that Sarah Smith was a true Proverbs 31 woman, for she was not merely a "capable wife" but a woman of valor and a soldier of God.  It is people like her and other saints who show us how to combat darkness and conquer the world - not with military might or with political pressure, but with self-giving love - one act of kindness, one encouraging word, one work of justice at a time.  Sarah was a light to all with whom she crossed paths, and the people who experienced her love took that light with them and shared it with others.

Rachel came to the conclusion that "the Proverbs 31 woman is a star not because of what she does but how she does it - with valor."⁵  This is a lesson that all of us - both women and men - need to take to heart.  We are all called to be valorous soldiers of light and goodness in a world plagued by darkness.  We conquer not with violence or force, but with love.


Notes:

1. See Proverbs 31:10.  The KJV and NRSV are referenced above.
2. Rachel Held Evans.  A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master".  2012, Thomas Nelson.
3. Evans, pp. 87-88
4. Evans, pp. 75-76
5. Evans, p. 95

The photograph of the forest path was taken by Wikimedia Commons user Tognopop, and is public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

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.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

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:

1. Wikipedia: Libido
2. 1 Timothy 6:10 (NRSV)
3. Christian Piatt.  "Love: The Root of All Evil."  Father, Son, and Holy Heretic, 03/11/15.
4. C.S. Lewis.  The Screwtape Letters.  ch. 14
5. I explore this idea in greater depth in my recent sermon "Dying to Live."

The photograph of the agama lizard was taken by D. Gordon E. Robertson and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.