A Grief Observed Paperback – February 6, 2001

Lewis' own experience of losing Joy Davidman Gresham to cancer strikes a deep chord with those who have the misfortune of losing someone so close and dear. His raw reflection on his loss brings to the reader a rare and beautiful glimpse of honest pain and questions that death and suffering raise. His willingness to explore his own heart and mind, combined with his learned eloquence and clarity of thought creates a powerful expression of the pain and confusion that death brings into this world.Lewis is quite aware of the norms that theology teaches; yet he wrestles to reconcile these norms with his experience. He doesn't jettison theological truths, yet these doctrines cannot be adequately understood apart from real life experience that brings a depth and breadth to cold orthodoxy. Through the agony of loss, Lewis is not afraid to ask hard questions and in fact, these difficult life experiences reveal a more honest assessment of how deeply one truly believes these doctrines:"And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high; until you find that you are playing not for counters of for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man--or at any rate a man lie me--out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs.... Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself."I believe ministry is in many respects both an art and a science. It is a science in that we have Scriptures that reveal to us truths and norms which are not simply matters of opinion but are universally true whether believed or not. On the other hand, the ability for these truths to point to life and light is shaped by how we embody these truths existentially. Our experience of these truths enable us to artfully present doctrine in a way that people can digest so that it can strength them and not cause them to convulse.Lewis models the importance of wrestling with life and asking difficult questions. He takes the time to ask difficult existential questions, instead of simply turning to the easier "right answers". Yet, when it comes to death and suffering, the "right answers" can lead those who suffer in such ways away from the One who is able to provide unique and penetrating comfort.

Originally published under a pseudonym, this short book is a thoroughly reasoned but heart-felt analyzation of grief from the private writing journal of intellectual author and academia giant, C.S. Lewis. The object of his grief is the love of his life, his rare intellectual equal and friend whom he met later in life and fell deeply in love with, making her his wife.Born Atheist, C.S. Lewis became a committed Christian, but spent part of his journalized pages in honest reflection of his anger at God and acknowledgement of fragile faith while in the throes of traumatic, life-altering grief. He boldly wonders and writes the thoughts and words most familiarly held at some point in the minds of others bereaved over their most beloved and cherished.From page 23: "Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief. Apparently the faith - I thought it faith - which enables me to pray for the other dead has seemed strong only because I have never really cared, not desperately, whether they existed or not. Yet I thought I did."After other thoughts about risks and beliefs, this is said, "And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing will shake a man - or at any rate a man like me - out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover himself."On page 25, C.S. sees the human side of grieving when others try to console him with spiritual avenues of comfort: "Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand."The social leprosy of bereavement is also mentioned on a couple of pages, including this: "Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers."At the end, C.S. Lewis seems to reconcile himself to a conclusion about grieving: "For, as I have discovered, passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them," as he tries to go about cherishing his beloved's every memory with gladness, a smile and a laugh. Not for long, however, is this a workable plan as he writes the next day's journal entry more in line with the natural phases of grief: "An admirable programme. Unfortunately it can't be carried out. tonight al the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. For in grief nothing `stays put.' One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?"As do we all of bereavement ask ourselves when finding that as much as we try clawing our way up the spiral, we suddenly lose our grasp, totally at the mercy of our humanness and that quality that never dies - love.