C.S. Lewis died on 11/22/63, a week before his 65th birthday. Over the years, I have taken up the habit of spending “a week with Jack” — reading something of his in that space, to spend time with an author whose letters and essays delight me like no other’s. While looking for a quote of Lewis’ to share on Christmas (specifically, his harrumping at the vulgar commercialization of it), I stumbled upon “Shadowlands: A Play” and was immediately intrigued. A few years ago I watched a movie about the relationship of Lewis and his American friend, and later wife, Joy Gresham — and it shared the same name. While “Shadowlands” is largely about the growth of Jack and Joy’s relationship, the scenes are more confined. Much of the play happens at the Kilns, where Jack and some male friends debate and argue and joke — and where Jack and Joy have more serious conversations. “Shadowlands” is not entirely about their relationship, though. It also draws heavily on The Problem of Pain, in that Lewis and his interlocuators frequently discuss suffering and theodicy. This is not abstract filler, either, as during the course of the play Joy learns that she’s been divorced and must now face the world alone. She doesn’t, of course, as anyone familiar with Jack and Joy’s story knows, but their union will bring its suffering as well as its bliss — as we see later in A Grief Observed. I loved this: the writer had a fairly good handle on Lewis’ voice, I think, even when Lewis isn’t being quoted, and the dialogue is often funny and insightful. As the play develops, it becomes quite serious — with Lewis arguing with himself, finding words written about suffering sound rather different when one is deep in the valley of the shadow of death. Definitely recommended to Lewis fans.

Here I’m going to say something which may come as a bit of a shock. I think that God doesn’t necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to be lovable. Worthy of love. Able to be loved by Him. We don’t start off being all that lovable, if we’re honest. What makes people hard to love? Isn’t it what is commonly called selfishness? Selfish people are hard to love because so little love comes out of them.

God creates us free, free to be selfish, but He adds a mechanism that will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in the world, and that mechanism is called suffering. To put it in another way, pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Why must it be pain? Why can’t He wake us more gently, with violins or laughter? Because the dream from which we must be awakened is the dream that all is well.

“We’re like blocks of stone, out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of His chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect. The suffering in the world is not the failure of God’s love for us; it is that love in action. “

I could argue that art has quite the opposite effect. Great art breaks through that separateness, and lets us touch the very heart of reality.

Riley: What I resent about Christmas is the general presumption of good will. I feel no good will towards my fellow men. I feel ill will.
Lewis: It’s got nothing to do with how you feel, Christopher. Feelings are far too unreliable.

Lewis: You sound like me, Joy. You’re supposed to be dragging me kicking into the twentieth century.

Joy: Professor Riley, as you know, I’m an American, and different cultures have different modes of discourse. I need a little guidance here. Are you being offensive, or merely stupid?

Joy: Don’t you sometimes burst to share the joke?
Lewis: What joke?
Joy: Well. Here’s the neighbors thinking we’re unmarried and up to all sorts of wickedness, while all along we’re married and up to nothing at all.