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To: Judith Anne
"Have you read "The Great Divorce?"

No I haven't, or even heard of it. Is it by Lewis?

78 posted on 10/16/2005 10:20:21 AM PDT by Sam Cree (absolute reality)
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To: Sam Cree
"The Great Divorce" is by Lewis.

Take a look at his other works here.

80 posted on 10/16/2005 10:34:11 AM PDT by Bosco (Remember how you felt on September 11?)
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To: Sam Cree; SuziQ; All
Hello old FRiends!

Fancy meeting you here.... I am a huge fan of C.S. Lewis and have read many of his works, but not all. I can highly recommend The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce to new readers of Lewis. Once you have read those you can move on to some of his more serious works, Mere Christianity, A Grief Observed, Till We Have Faces, and many, many others.

Also, for anyone who is interested, there is an interesting group sponsoring a national "tour" to stimulate interest in C.S. Lewis and Narnia as a buildup to the movie. I attended the Minneapolis event last Friday and found it very interesting. I learned a lot about Lewis that I didn't know before. Check the Narnia on Tour website below for more info about upcoming events in your area:

www.narniaontour.com

99 posted on 10/16/2005 4:14:46 PM PDT by rightwingreligiousfanatic (But I still listen to his program...)
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To: Sam Cree; judithann
The Great Divorce is my favorite Lewis book, I think (although the frontrunner changes around from time to time.) My daughter definitely puts it first.

Basically, it's a bus trip from Hell to Heaven, where the "ghosts" - the souls in Hell/Purgatory - are met by heavenly friends who try to convince them to give up the sins that are keeping them in Hell. It's beautifully written, keenly observed, and very timely. There's even an Apostate Bishop who could be an American Episcopal bishop today.

But here is one of the great scenes - showing that we can never be sure who is a saint on earth . . .

All down one long aisle of the forest the undersides of the leafy branches had begun to tremble with dancing light. Some kind of procession was approaching us, and the light came from the persons who composed it.

First came bright spirits, not the spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers soundlessly falling, lightly drifting flowers. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one side and girls upon the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who read that score would ever grow sick or old. Between them went musicians; and after that a lady in whose honor all this was being done.

I cannot now remember whether she was naked or clothed. If she was naked, then it must have been the almost invisible penumbra of her courtesy and joy that produced in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. If she was clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her inmost spirit shone through the clothes. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: the spiritual body lives along each thread and turns them into living organs. A robe or crown is, there, as much one of the wearer’s features as a lip or an eye.

But I have forgotten. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face.

“Is it … is it?” I whispered to my guide.

“Not at all,” said he, “It’s someone you’ll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith, and she lived in Golders Green.”

“She seems to be… well, a person of particular importance.”

“Aye, she is one of the great ones. You have heard that fame in this country and fame on earth are two quite different things.”

“Who are all these young men and women on each side?”

“They are her sons and daughters.”

“She must have had a very large family.”

“Every young man or boy that met her became her son — even if it was only the boy who brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.”

“Isn’t that a bit hard on their own parents?”

“No. There are those who steal other people’s children, but her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their parents loving them more…. Everything that came near her had a place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life that she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them. It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Redeemed humanity is still young; it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.”


145 posted on 10/17/2005 7:11:22 AM PDT by AnAmericanMother (. . . Ministrix of ye Chace (recess appointment), TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary . . .)
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