The Great Divorce.

“Friend, I am not suggesting at all. You see, I know now. Let us be frank. Our opinions were not honestly come by. We simply found ourselves in contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemed modern and successful. At College, you know, we just started automatically writing the kind of essays that got good marks and saying the kind of things that won applause. 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 in fact occur? When did we put up one moment’s real resistance to the loss of our faith?”

-C.S. Lewis

I am currently working my way through this book for the first time. As always, Mr. Lewis’ ability to express, through allegory, the principles of truth is nothing short of amazing.

I read this quote yesterday, and it struck me. Particularly in the sense that myself and so many I know take comfort in our asking questions, yet we ask questions solely for the purpose of avoiding the answers we know in our hearts to be true. There are so many I know that speak of their loss of faith as if it were something that happened to them rather than the fruit of their own volition. Further, so many times I, myself, treat my failures as if they are just to be the expected result of my fallen nature all the while proclaiming the supreme worthiness of the antidote to it. So, to these I have described and to myself, I ask along with Lewis:

“When did we put up one moment’s real resistance to the loss of our faith?”

“When have we honestly met everyday facing the challenge to ‘Choose this day whom you will serve’?”

“When will we stop asking our questions and be willing to hear and accept their answers?”


cheers
zeius