Recently, I finished reading another of C.S. Lewis’ works—The Great Divorce. I had avoided this book for years as, like others perhaps, I had assumed the content was something other than what it is. The divide to which Lewis is referring in the title is actually that of Good versus evil, Heaven versus hell. What Lewis seems to conclude, and illustrates through the story of a bus ride, is that hell is locked from the inside and thus anyone can choose to leave it. When a busload of people does choose to leave hell in order to visit Heaven—a place where, according to their own free will, any and every one of them is more than welcome to stay—it seems only one of the passengers (a version of Lewis himself) chooses to remain.
What has struck me most about this book has to do with the interactions between the “Ghosts” from hell and the “Spirits” in Heaven. The Ghosts appear unwilling to let go of any, much less all, of their earthly injuries and seem unable to accept the fact that those who injured them were Heaven-bound and now citizens there. Such a world order simply isn’t “right” to them. In other words, the Ghosts can find no way to get over themselves, to forget self, for even one long minute. Though encouraged over and over again to let go of all the past darkness and embrace the present Light, they will not allow themselves to do so; and this means Heaven is actually painful for them—like prisoners who step out of a dark room they have resided in for years and feel as if the light they see is actually going to kill them.
Following Lewis’ logic, that hell is locked from the inside, the inverse truth would be that Heaven is only “locked” from the outside and thus anyone can choose to step into it. But, no one of us can step in on behalf of another, though I believe a lot of us would very much like to be able to do so, especially when it comes to those whom we so dearly love. But, as Lewis says time and time again, God created us to be free creatures, free to love and free to hate, free to embrace our Creator and each other and free to reject both, free to live forever in a world with the Source of all light and free to live in darkness apart from the Light. Love, by its very nature, does involve choice—and God has given us all a light, weighty one.
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