Can God be found in Grief?
Or is God Lost?
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To begin with, Lewis himself stated in his book The Four Loves: "We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him, throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it." This book by Lewis is an academic study of the four different loves.
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Miller states: "When we lose the thing that gives us so clear, so perfect an intimation of something infinitely precious, loss seems the most deadly of wounds, dashing everything we have longed for. But what we never suspect, what we never in a million years would have thought to anticipate, is the simple truth that the only way we can ever find that infinitely loveable reality we have always looked for is by losing that very thing that has given us the most perfect intimation of it" Lewis comes to the same conclusion in a very different way. He declares: "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't." Lewis has come to the conclusion that through the process and pain of his grief he has come back to God in a deeper, truer and more full way. He has learned how to love and love fully through this process. This is contrasted with what Lewis stated earlier in the book: "Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him." Lewis feared that he would come out of the process of grief with a distorted, evil view of God. Instead, he goes through this process with a belief in God.
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Lewis describes Grief as a journey. "Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I've already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left miles ago. … There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn't repeat." Lewis went down that long journey and as Miller says, he comes out with a new insight, impression and experience of the divine. Miller states: "Those who have suffered a mortal loss, those who have allowed it to shatter them, know that God does not prevent it from happening."
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Endnotes:
Lewis, C.S., The Four Loves, Harper Collins, London, 1960 p.148
Lewis, C.S., A Grief Observed, Harper Collins, London, 1961 p.1
Miller, Jerome A., The Way of Suffering, Second Opinions, No. April, pp.21-23
Miller, Jerome A., The Way of Suffering, Second Opinions, No. April, pp.21-23
Lewis, C.S., A Grief Observed, Harper Collins, London, 1961 p.61
Lewis, C.S., A Grief Observed, Harper Collins, London, 1961 p.5
Lewis, C.S., A Grief Observed, Harper Collins, London, 1961 p.69
Miller, Jerome A., The Way of Suffering, Second Opinions, No. April, pp.21-23
Lewis, C.S., A Grief Observed, Harper Collins, London, 1961 p.72
Miller, Jerome A., The Way of Suffering, Second Opinions, No. April, pp.21-23
(Written for RS 100M Love & Friendship Fall 2006.)
(Click here for my review of A Grief Observed.)
Other Reviews of Lewis's Books.
A Grief Observed
The Four Loves
A Grief Observed
The Four Loves
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Original Space Trilogy:
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
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The Dark Tower and Other Stories
The Dark Tower and Other Stories
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Narnia Publication Order:
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Last Battle
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Narnia Chronological Order:
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle
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Books about C.S. Lewis:
Planet's In Peril: A critical Study of C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy - David C. Downing
The Man Who Created Narnia - Michael Coren
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