“…Do you know, only a few weeks ago I realised suddenly that I at last had forgiven the cruel schoolmaster who so darkened my childhood.
I’d been trying to do it for years: and like you, each time I thought I’d done it, I found, after a week or so it all had to be attempted over again.
But this time I feel sure it is the real thing. And (like learning to swim or to ride a bicycle) the moment it does happen it seems so easy and you wonder why on earth you didn’t do it years ago.
So the parable of the unjust judge comes true, and what has been vainly asked for years can suddenly be granted. I also get a quite new feeling about ‘If you forgive you will be forgiven.’ I don’t believe it is, as it sounds, a bargain. The forgiving and the being forgiven are really the very same thing. But one is safe as long as one keeps on trying”
We now begin the main body of The Great Divorce. In each subsequent chapter, Lewis will witness an encounter between a Ghost and a Bright Spirit where we will see what they are willing to choose in place of Heaven. In today’s episode we spend time with the Bright Spirit, Len, and his former boss, The Big Ghost, who is very insistent that he gets “his rights”…
Wow, “O God forgive us”, what a great song! This seems like a good way to begin my birthday…
We’ve prayed the prayer with no reply
Words float off into the night
Couldn’t cut our doubt with the sharpest knife
Oh, oh God forgive us
Silence isn’t comfortable
We want drive through peace and instant hope
Our shallow faith it has left us broke
Oh, oh God forgive us
Oh, oh God forgive us
A slave to our uncertainty
Help us with our unbelief
Oh, oh God forgive us
Young and old, black and white
Rich and poor, there’s no divide
Hear the mighty, hear the powerless, singing
Oh God forgive us
Oh God forgive us
A slave to our uncertainty
Help us with our unbelief
Oh, oh God forgive us
With our white flag sailing in the night
Eyes pointed to the sky
Hands up and open wide, open wide
With our white flag sailing in the night
Eyes pointed to the sky
Hands up and open wide, open wide
With our white flag sailing in the night
Eyes pointed to the sky
Hands up and open wide, open wide
With our white flag sailing in the night
Eyes pointed to the sky
Hands up and open wide, open wide
Oh, oh God forgive us
A slave to our uncertainty
Help us with our unbelief
Oh, oh God forgive us
Run wild. To risk everything. To hold nothing back.
To lay it all on the line: your reputation, your success, your comfort.
It’s that moment when fear is overcome by faith. Live free.
It’s not the liberty to do whatever you want whenever and wherever you want,
But rather it’s living in accordance with the author of humanity
And finding freedom by connecting with the creator who conceived you.
Let the light flood into your eyes for the first time.
Feeling the blood course through your veins, finding the truest version of yourself
By knowing the one who knows you even better than you know yourself.
Love strong. Because you were first loved. Because without love we all perish.
Because the earth and the stars can and will pass away, but love, love will always remain
Lewis had previously said that he thought chastity was the most unpopular thing in Christianity. In today’s episode, he changes his mind, suggesting that it is, in fact, forgiveness.
Following on from last week’s episode on the virtue of chastity, today we look at the Christian teaching on marriage with C.S. Lewis. Matt and I got rather carried away on this chapter, recording far more material than normal, so this chapter will be divided into two parts.