A Grief Observed

A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis

"Tis better to have loved lost, than never to have loved at all."

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I believe that the first time that I came across this quote was in connection to a movie about C.S. Lewis and the loss of his wife to cancer. I remember being moved by the depth of grief that Lewis experienced in the wake of her death and really wondering that in light of the inevitable pain that loss brings, if it was is worth exposing oneself to that potential for pain that death and loss brings by engaging in close relationships. I have since married and have had several children - exposing myself to the fragility of life and the potential for grief and pain.

This book, was written by C.S. Lewis after the death of his wife. Upon her death, Lewis, the great 20th century theologian, philosopher and writer, found himself struggling with unimaginable grief and the theological questions that follow. This book is filled with the raw emotion of a bereaved widower. He is agonizing over the void that her loss created. He is wrestling between his intellectual knowledge of God (His purpose and goodness) and the raw feeling that God seems so silent in our times of suffering and even seems somewhat cruel to take away from us that which we love. And he is tortured by the desire to resurrect the past.

The first several chapters of this book are very dark. Lewis does not withhold any thoughts or emotions. But as the book progresses, he comes to the same realization that is found in the book of Job, that God's ways are not our ways. And often part of our problem here on earth is that the priorities of our thinking are centered around self, others then God, rather than God, others then self. Additionally, he realizes that, to honor his wife's memory is to acknowledge the role that she played in his life and to continue to move forward.

There were several passages in this book that I found to be particularly striking. He writes that grieving is a process that more often resembles a hike through a landscape full of valleys and hills rather than a liner excursion from point A to point B.

"Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I've already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you though you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn't a circular trench. But it isn't. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn't repeat."

The other passage that I found interesting is Lewis' discussion about the questions that we often ask of God,

"Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that."

In a state of suffering, we often ask questions of God, in part to make sense of our present circumstances and in part to challenge God's goodness. Yet, like Lewis here and Job in the Old Testament, these questions are often asked from the perspective of the finite cross-examining the infinite. How different would our questions be if we ponder them in the context of, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" (Job 38:4)

Thankfully, this book is not immediately applicable to my life right now. But there will come a day when I am faced with the grief that is caused by loss. This is definitely a book that I will pull off the shelf again when I find myself walking through valley of the shadow of death.

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