Sometimes I'd rather have a bottle of Port

"I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity." - C.S. Lewis.

I need to first start off by saying this: whatever your goals, tasks, desires, or anything else that you would like to accomplish over the summer...please put 'read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis' somewhere near the top.

And again, just for emphasis: read The Great Divorce. (It's an afternoon read, 2-3 hours max)

This is a book that definitely made me uncomfortable. My good friend Alex asked after I had finished it, "Did it blow your mind?" The answer is absolutely and unequivocally, yes.

So now that I've picked myself up off the floor I need to write. It's been a while since I've been able to get some thoughts out. With finals and the end of semester and moving and this-that-and-the-other all happening at once, time to blog just didn't make it to the list. Which I'm ok with, only because I feel like I needed the down time to be able to write about this book.

The Great Divorce (something everybody should read) is about the divorce of Heaven and Hell. Lewis writes:

"If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell."

And again, I'm on the floor. The only response to this is to put my face to the floor, arms outstretched, crying, "Abba, Father." At the moment I want to say that I'm left with only questions, but I know that this would be a lie unto myself. I ask, "to what do I cling?" and, uncomfortably, I'm graced with an answer. I ask, "what are my souvenirs?" and I'm able to look around me and point them out.

For those that have not yet read this book may be confused, but the characters are terribly dumb. I say to myself, and my wife can attest to this, that I don't like stupid people. That's sounds terrible at face value, but what I mean by that is: I don't like people that know truth and refuse to accept it (or) people that are too lazy or shy to seek truth. The characters make excuses for why they can't go to the mountains (where the gates of Heaven lay), why they wish to return to Hell, why they insist that what they are seeing isn't there, why this truth is only relative, why they feel they need the illusion of comforts from Hell and not the true comforts of Heaven.

So my own dislike of ignorance has been so polished and refined that it's become the perfect mirror that I see the whites of my own eyes and the hypocrisy of my own heart. I know the truth. I know the sacrifice. I've grown up in the church, I've had many heart-to-heart experiences with God, I've had conversations, read books, taught lessons...and the truth stares me in the face. Yet here I am clinging to illusions, pities, fears, dreams, and decisions that reek with the fragrance of falsity and death.

I'm uncomfortable with this staring me in the face.

What then? What am I to do with this? I know I cling. Sometimes I cling to heavy, thick peices of Hell, and other times I cling to just the smalled shred, soley out of fear. And I hate it because I know I shouldn't; I hate it because I recognize it doesn't have a purpose; I hate it because I'm sitting here categorizing myself with the same people I have such a sadness for. What now?

The answer comes not from how I am able to rid myself of the souvenirs of Hell. Rather, the answer comes from the recognition of my SWAG. I have no more power to let go of Hell than I do to change the weather. I choose not to rid myself of this Hell, but cling with such steadfastness to the joy that is Heaven; there's no way the two can compete or coexhists.

"And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that [Hell] contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good."

The greatest power and truth is Heave: the eternal redemption of my life to Christ. Nothing could even come close to the joy that I experience now. For on this earth amidst the 'loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings' that surround my life everyday, the light that peirces all this is Jesus. He has rescued me from this SWAG that sometimes I love to carry around. It's worthless yet I hold some strange affinity to it. I return to this worthless bag and take it with me where ever I go. My prayer is not that I empty the bag. I am not strong enough. My prayer is that I give this Hell in my pocket to the One that can handle it, the One that is stronger.

So while I am terribly uncomfortable, with this Hell whispering in my ear, I still say that this was definitely a book worth reading. It's worth the uncomfort. It's worth the truth. It's worth it because in the end, I find myself in utter depravity, and in that Christ has it all. And knowing that Christ has it all, is where I find joy.

Win, win, win.