The great divorce

I'm not finished reading it, but it's the most intense short read I've ever read.

The Great Divorce is a book written by C. S. Lewis (think Chronicals of Narnia, you masses of illiterate monsters). It's a story of a trip from hell to heaven, I think.

Hell is a grey city where you live forever, and can have anything and everything that you imagine, materially. People imagine massive, beautiful mansions. They start philosophy clubs and art groups.

And they argue. They always argue. They don't seem interested in peace. Or in heaven. They aren't happy, but it seems like they don't want to be. They just want to complain about their unhappiness or contemplate the existence of joy without actually having any joy of their own. They don't think they need God.

I know that I am probably ruining this as I describe it. Please, please read it. It's a really short book. And the imagery is lovely. You can really see the city. The people in it are easy to see.

In this book hell is a state of mind whilst heaven is the realest of places. Heaven is based on fact and reality, a beautiful reality, while hell is just whatever people can imagine it to be. People there are limited by their own minds.

Here is the paragraph that has made me reflect upon my own life the most:

"Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there, but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn't stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower-- become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations."

Scary. Am I there yet? Am I only interested in paint? Or have I sunk to the pride in my own reputation already?

No longer. I will take up showing what I love again. Telling stories for the truths behind them. Painting pictures for the feelings that they shadow. Learning about my God for the need to know him, rather than the image of one who knows Him.