C.S. Lewis’ book titled The Great Divorce is a parable about the cavernous gap between heaven and hell. Lewis presents hell as a place filled with people who can’t let go. They carry the things they disliked about other people while they were alive, or they find new ways to be righteously indignant with those around them. As they hold on to these resentments and express their annoyances, they move further and further apart.
The story focuses on a small group of people on a bus that takes them to the very edge of heaven. Before they can go on, each of them meets a person from their past that they wish they could avoid. An artist meets a competitor and doesn’t want to give up his insistence that his school of training was the best. A woman has manipulated those closest to her and doesn’t want to give that power up in the afterlife.
For each person on Lewis’ mythical bus, someone comes along to confront the aspects of their inner lives that divided them from others on earth. They beg the passengers to repent, or do restorative work, or put judgement aside so they can unburden themselves and enter eternity joyfully, connected to others and to God. But in almost every case, these pleas are rejected. Most people don’t want to risk losing their sense of superiority—or any part of their ego. They would rather spend eternity in hell than reconcile with someone they love to hate.
Most of us can admit to the spiky joys of this same dynamic. And, as in Lewis’ somewhat-dated-but still-very-relevant story, the freedom of choosing a different approach in our lives is right before us. When we drop the commitments that keep us stuck and separate, the glimpses of God’s Commonwealth are available for us to enjoy. Or, in Biblical language: Repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Lenten blessings,
