Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Reality

I am reading The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis and while it is one of my favorite books, this read through is throwing me for a loop. Maybe it's only that I am a little bit older and see the world a little differently.

If you haven't the read the book before you should, and if you have read the book before you should read it again. It is about Heaven and Hell or really, reality. I've been stuck re-reading the same chapter for a couple of days now. It is a part where a ghost has come through purgatory to a place where he meets a Spirit and the Spirit is trying to convince the ghost that he should continue on to Heaven with him and that his old way of thinking was wrong but now he has a chance to put his past thoughts behind him. The Spirit points out to the man that even though in his later years he became a bishop that he never knew truth. That's such a scary thought. The Spirit tells the man that when they were younger they got caught up in modern day thought and said the things that they knew people would give applause for. He says, "When, in our whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on which all turned: whether after all the Supernatural might not occur? When did we put up one moment's real resistance to the loss of our faith?" He then tells the ghost that they were, "afraid (above all) of real spiritual fears and hopes."

The perception Lewis gives on reality is amazing and makes you wonder if you are only a mere shadow. The character in the book gets to this brilliant place with the ghost and the spirit and realizes that he too is a ghost. He says, "I also was a phantom. Who will give me the words to express the terror of that discovery?" That is such a terrifying thought. Maybe we're all a lot more fake and transparent than we think, at least we know we are transparent to God but how much do we really believe that?

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