Shadowlands

“Pain and suffering is God’s megaphone to us, letting us know that all is not well.”

That was one of the opening lines of Shadowlands, a play about the life of C.S. Lewis, arguably the greatest mind of the 20th century.

The dialog continues (paraphrased): ‘We like to live life as though we are self-sufficient and independent; as though we don’t need God. To live life like that is to live in a world of shadows: a non-existent, unreal world, a world of dreams and illusions. Pain and suffering serve to remind us that we are absolutely dependent on God for our very breath, our very being. It reminds us that there is something, no, someone bigger than us, from whom all good things flow. It reminds us that we are helpless in this world, and we are in need of God’s salvation’.

I saw the movie Shadowlands a few years ago, and now having seen the play, it struck me how intense and passionate Lewis was as an intellectual. It also struck me how he struggled with intimacy.

He was so involved in the intellectual world as a professor, lecturer, writer, and speaker, that he had no opportunity to meet women (in the 1950's there were few women in the world of intellectualism for him to interact and get to know). In fact, according to the play, he didn’t really know how to interact with women at all. He was a klotz (block).

AEK mentioned that the religious imagery he draws of us living in the shadowlands, was certainly applicable to him in terms of his interaction with women. He lived in an unreal world of academics, where intimate friendship and intimacy with women was difficult, almost impossible.

He desired intimacy. He wanted to love and be loved. Yet, he didn't think he needed help.

It took a very special woman, under amazing circumstances, to draw him out of the shadows and into reality. After developing a friendship for over a year, she became extremely sick. In fact, doctors only gave her a few weeks to live. It was under these extremely difficult circumstances that she drew Lewis out of the shadows of academics, and into the real world of love, pain, and suffering.

He married her on her deathbed. Shortly thereafter she passed on.

A Grief Observed is perhaps his shortest book, but it’s the most passionate, the most gut-wrenching, and the most gripping. In it, he deals with the hurt and grief he is drawn into, when he loses the person dearest to him, the person he loves.

Indeed, we are helpless without the love of God. Only if we acknowledge and embrace God’s love for us, can we acknowledge and embrace one another. Only then can we step out of the shadows and into the real world.