Facing Yourself.

from The Great Divorce

The promise--or the threat--of sunrise rested immovably up there. (Lewis 23)

'Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.' (Lewis 39)

'...I will bring you to Eternal Fact, the Father of all other fact-hood.' (Lewis 42)

I choose these three quotations for different reasons, but each struck me in its own way. In this chapter, the Phantom-Observer (as I call him) is witnessing a conversation between one who has become whole and solid (an angel-like or spiritual being) and a man who just got off the bus from Hell. This man is someone who spent his lifetime asking and thinking about and arguing for or against God and His existence for the very sake of argument--speculating, not because of Faith or Love but because it began a wonderful career. It tackles those Christians who go through the motions but do not really believe or know what it means to believe, those who are too logical to believe and thus cannot believe even when standing in Heaven, and those who believe that death awards an automatic audience with God, Himself, so as to answer all of their unanswered questions; that is, they believe death, alone, entitles them to answers with submitting to God or belief.

The first quotation represents all that I love about Lewis. It is a simple sentence, but it represents a complicated, weighted idea. It's difficult to explain the concept out of context, but it works a bit like this in my mind: Even though the sinners are so close to Heaven--so close to Joy and God--the thought of Joy or God or eternity and fulfillment is still too overwhelming and terrifying for the sinner to comprehend. Sometimes the things that have the potential to make us happiest are the things we are most frightened of. It feels real to me--very real to me--that this habit in our finite lives would carry over into the infinite, stamped on our souls so to speak. Perhaps Purgatory is slowly recognizing your faults and mistakes and not only accepting them but finally facing them honestly, openly--so that you can finally move on.

This, I feel, is very relevant to my life right now. I have no problem accepting my faults. I have a real problem facing them--living up to them, living up to their consequences. I think, in a lot of ways, that is one reason I am in the situation I am in.

This relates a bit to the second quotation, as I think it's important to recognize that the path to forgiveness and God and Joy and acceptance and Love and the rest is not an easy one--and it shouldn't be. It is a path we are all entitled to, but letting go of the parts of ourselves we are most attached to for the off-chance of finding new parts of ourselves to love, well--that is also rather frightening and difficult to do. More than that, I like the idea that "reality is harsh to the feet of shadows"--that we are mere shadows and that this life, while very real to us, does not touch reality. It seems almost Platonic, that--this idea that there are perfect forms of all we see--that there is a reality beyond this one that is somehow more solid, more real.

The third quotation, well--I have never heard of God being called the Father of all fact-hood, nor have I seen him referred to as the Eternal Fact. I find it intriguing, and it is something I want to reflect on a bit more when I am feeling less sentimental.