Lessons in Lewis

I have a new challenge this new year - to teach my first Sunday School class. I am a bit scared and excited at the same time. I am really excited that I got to select the book for the study and the way I teach it. Since the end of December I have been prepping by re-reading the book I selected, The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis and making copious notes on the discussions I want to drive the classes.

This is a favourite book of mine. It has been for so many years. I find that there is a great confusion about this book, though. I don't know many who have read it, and most people ask what it is about, wondering if it has to do with marriage and divorce (it does, but not in the way you think). So, let me help clear that up, and maybe it will prompt you to want to read this short book!

C.S. Lewis wrote this book as a response to William Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, published in 1790. Blake wrote that book in reply to the reductionist, rationalist way of thought that had exploded in that time (ie. that we are all meaningless and just made up of dust and particles with no purpose). Blake thought that we all do have meaning and that we had desires that should be pursued. We shouldn't hinder those desires, but continue to pursue them. Lewis agrees that we have meaning and desires, but he sets out to correct Blake's thought that a passionate pursuit of desires eventually leads to wisdom.

So, the book is a story (a supposal, as Lewis does best) of the narrator (Lewis), who finds himself in a queue at a bus stop in a dreary grey town (hell), he gets on the bus, and the bus zooms up into the air filled with passengers who are on their way to the edges of heaven. they all grumble, argue, and talk about how dreadful they have been treated in the past. When they land, we get to view all the encounters each passenger has with their counterpart spirit of heaven (someone from their past usually) who comes down to greet and help each one of them stay in heaven to go further up and further in (to borrow a phrase from Narnia). 

As the passengers step out onto the lovely looking grassy space, they realize something is wrong. They are all transparent ghosts who are not solid enough to even bend the grass. To walk a few steps is painful and the land suddenly seems dangerous. Yet, if they are willing to open up, let go of some past pains they are holding onto, they become more solid and can walk on the grass more easily. But that is not an easy task. They have to lean on their guide. We learn that underneath all the struggles of being human, desire and choice are at the core. This book explores how we all have two choices - choosing joy and God love, or choosing selfishness and self love. And there are consequences to both.