I’m continuing my way through the CS Lewis box set (Christian writings) that I got for Christmas. So far I have enjoyed The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters. I’d say Screwtape is the best of them all, but all of these books exhibit the geniues of CS Lewis.

In this book, originally published under a different name, Lewis gives us insight, over the some period of time.into his thoughts and feelings after his wife died from cancer. He goes from abondoning God, to returning to his faith, and it is a pretty remarkable journey. He always has so many insights that I would not otherwise think of if I did not read his books.

I have a ton of dog ears through this book, and will include some of the more interesting ones here:

• From the Forward, written by Madeleine L’Engle:
  

  It is helpful indeed that Lewis, who has been such a such a successful apologist for Christianity, should have the courage to admit doubt about what he has so superbly proclaime. It gives us permission to admit our own doubts, or own angers and anguishes, and to know that they are a part of the soul’s growth.

• I had yet to learn that all human relationships end in pain. It is the price that our imperfection has allowed Satan to extract from us for the privilege of love.

• Only a real risk tests the reaility of faith. Apparently, the faith — I thought it faith — which enables me to pray for the other dead has seemed strong only because I have never really cared, not desparately, whether they exist or not. Yet I thought I did.

• Unless…you can believe all that stuff about family reunions ‘on the further shore,’ … But that is all unscriptural… There’s not a word of it in the Bible. And it rings false. We know it couldn’t be like that. Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back. How well the spirtualists bait their hooks!

• And just something I saw with word selection… He wrote how something would “blossom or (fester).” It’s just one little example of how I think he has always had a way with words that I haven’t. Granted, 99% of my writing is technical, so such word choice is often not an option.

• For a good wife contains so many persons in herself. What was H. not to me? She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always holding these in solution, my trusty comrage, my friend, my shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress; but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have had good ones) has ever been to me. Perhaps more.

• I have discovered passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them.

• And then on questioning God… I really liked this.
  

  When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘no answer’. It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate gaze. As though He shook his head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child, you don’t understand.”
  …
  Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All non-sense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile. Is a yellow square round? Probably half the questions we ask — half our great theological and metaphysical problems, are like that [to God].

• Somewhat lacking context, but should not be that hard to figure out…
  

  His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another, nor from Him. We could almsot say He sees because he loves, and therefore loves although He sees.

• The book ends with “Poi si torno all’ eterna fontana.” After searching around a bit, I found this is from Dante, and means “then she turned back to the Eternal Fountain. And I found this explaination, at this link.
  

  They are spoken of Beatrice, when, in one of the final cantos of the Paradiso, she finally and forever turns away from the poet, whom she has guided to heaven, toward the glory of God. It is Lewis’ literary way of confessing his faith in the fact that there, in the presence of God, his wife, whose departure in death has been such a desolation to him, is now lost in the rapture of God.

• And finally:
  

  “The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed – might grow tired of his vile sport – might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t. Either way, we’re for it.”

To conclude, another highly recommended CS Lewis book!

I feel a little silly after reading almost 100 pages of this book before realizing my mistake. Much of that time, the text felt familiar. I finally got up to check the 1st book in this series, or I guess I should call it the 1st volume, and sure enough, Odalisque is the 3rd book in the 1st volume. The cover of Odalisque that I got says “The Baroque Cycle #3,” and I assumed the 3rd volume.

Granted, I read Quicksilver, the 1st volume, 18 months ago. But still! I guess it was a good review, but now I’ve ordered the 3rd volume, the system of the world, so I can continue in this saga.