A Little Tome on a Big Thing
A Grief Observed: A Review
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001.
As a journal turned into a publication, nailing down a line of thought is sometimes difficult to do in A Grief Observed. Unlike his other works, which typically have a straightforward argument and conclusion, Lewis’s little work of 73 pages defies such categorization. While this is not the same as saying, “there is not a point,” it is to acknowledge that the point is much more stream of consciousness than apologetic in nature.
Coming twenty-one years after his foray into the problem of evil, A Grief Observed is a sequel of sorts. While once Lewis declared that he was no expert in dealing with pain, he is declaring something quite different in this intimate account of dealing with the loss of his wife. Pain is not an abstract thing for him anymore: “I almost prefer the moments of agony. These are at least clean and honest. But the bath of self-pity, the wallow, the loathsome sticky-sweet pleasure of indulging it – that disgusts me” (4). Lewis’s exploration of the doubts and fears that accompany grief serves as the practical implementation of his previously proposed solution to the intellectual problem of evil. If Christianity is true, this is the testing ground.
Throughout the book, Lewis wrestles with believing “dreadful” or untrue things about God (6). Lewis has no shortage of intellectual assent to the truths of Christianity, but the emotional trampling that grief brings causes him to question his faith in some ways. What is so thoroughly amazing however is how in this doubt Lewis finds bright spots of immense truth. In particular, Lewis uses this as an opportunity to think through marriage and love and how it relates to God:
One thing, however, marriage has done for me. I can never again believe that religion is manufactured out of our unconscious, starved desires and is a substitute for sex . . . If God were a substitute for love we ought to have lost all interest in Him. Who’d bother about substitutes when he has the thing himself? But that isn’t what happens. We both knew we wanted something besides one another – quite a different kind of something, a quite different kind of want. You might as well say that when lovers have one another they will never want to read, or eat – or breathe. (7-8)
It is in the megaphone of pain that Lewis sees God all the clearer. This journey reveals to Lewis his own shortcomings in light of his wife’s death, but that is not enough. As he rereads his notes, he discovers something: “I must think more about H. and less about myself” (18). This is not just a Christian act of selflessness, but a way of keeping in touch with reality. Lewis makes it clear that he does not want to imagine a version of Joy that does injustice to her memory. In fact, he wants memories (20).
Lewis’s musings never deviate too far from the problem at hand, even though he has moments of such brilliant elucidation that one wishes he could linger a while in such a train of thought. In particular, Lewis frequently comes back to doubting Christianity. “Sooner or later I must face the question in plain language. What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, ‘good’” (29)? These moments of doubt are an expression of the question, why can’t it hurt less or not at all? These thoughts Lewis calls “filth,” but they are the essence of the problem of evil (33). When nothing makes sense, how can an individual rely on the Christian God? Lewis’s journey chronicles a man lost in a sea of emotion, a man who had relied on a cord that could not sustain the weight of his suffering (36-37).
As Lewis moves through his doubt, time proves to be a benefactor and salve for the pain: “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape . . . Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago . . . There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat” (60). In this light, Lewis recognizes how his longing for Joy is a mirror of how we need Jesus; a hollow substitute will simply not do (65). It is in these final musings on the afterlife, and his questions before God, that Lewis comes full circle back to 1940 and the problem of evil: “Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that never was any problem” (71). Unlike Lewis’s other works with nice tidy endings, A Grief Observed ends as it began; it ends in the middle of a thought that has not been resolved. But the progression towards peace with God is unmistakable.
The goal of A Grief Observed is complex. Lewis is clear that he had a goal, primarily to keep himself from falling into total despair and despondency. According to his writings, he was successful (59). There was, however, a secondary purpose. Lewis thought he could map out sorrow, as if sorrow were an easily numerable series of steps that start at one end of things and quickly take a traveler elsewhere. What he discovers is something quite different: “[Sorrow] needs not a map but a history.” The process of grieving has taught Lewis in ways that he could not have anticipated. Whereas at one point in time, his grief seemed to have locked the door that was once open between he and the Lord, Lewis no longer finds “that locked door” when turning to God (61).
In the end, Lewis turns to the thing he realizes he should have been doing all along: praise (62-63). Life does not stop because tragedy strikes, and God does not cease to be good because we do not understand the pains of our lives. Lewis moved from the realm of theory to the mean streets of reality, and he found that his faith was more durable than anticipated. Christianity is still that which makes the most sense, and God is still the glorious Gardener of His beautiful creation. Beauty has not ceased, and the colors are slowly coming back into Lewis’s vision. Lewis’s aim was selfish, and at the same time for anyone experiencing the same feelings. To call it anything less than a successful exploration of doubt and grief is to miss the point entirely.
The very things that make A Grief Observed a tragically beautiful work of non-fiction are the things which open it up to criticism. Lewis’s honesty is often unbalanced, with the ugly side of doubt and bitterness taking over. It is not an issue of whether something in this book is true; Lewis knows that some of the thoughts are incorrect. But that is the point, is it not? Intellectual assent in the face of real tragedy seems an insufficient means of being sustained. It is like trying to subsist on bread and water in the middle of the desert. There is no amount of effort which will keep the water from running out and the bread from hardening. The solution is to find another source of sustenance, and Lewis finds that in his reliance upon God. But where are his Scriptural proofs? Where is the systematic breakdown of the problem before him, like one finds in The Problem of Pain or Miracles? It is not to be found in this personal, intimate journal.
While Lewis’s denominational neutrality served him well in Mere Christianity, it is unfortunately problematic in his shorter works. His brief outburst against Calvinism is a bit shortsighted. But this is to be expected, in my mind, from such a work. It is only an apologetic work in the sense that Lewis rediscovers his hope while working through the process of grief. Of course, it would be preferable if he would go back, edit, revise, insert here and there, creating a work that would be fit for a scholar’s library shelf. But that would be to miss the point, yet again. A Grief Observed is an ugly portrayal of how even the staunchest Christian can have doubts in the midst of great pain. But with Lewis, and the great saints of history, we must cry out, “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24)!