The Great Divorce
April 8, 2010by C.S. Lewis describes the “Afterworld” through the eyes of the narrator who boards a bus on a drizzly English afternoon and begins a journey through Heaven and Hell. On this journey, he meets supernatural beings and is challenged to re-evaluate his understanding of good and evil, of heaven and hell.
The book is overtly an allegory, but makes some really good points applicable to each of us, but especially poignant for those who are experiencing pain. One such point, borrowed by Lewis from his literary mentor, George MacDonald, the old Scottish preacher and writer, is the description of the difference between the “passion of pity” and the “action of pity.”
The passion of pity is a feeling that can be used as a weapon by bad people against good people. The action of pity, on the other hand, will live forever. It is an action that stoops to bring healing and joy, no matter the cost to itself, “but it will not, at the cunning tears of Hell, impose on good the tyranny of evil.”
What can you do today to bring healing and joy to those around you?
Abigail
