Commentary on The Great Divorce

If The Great Divorce is not Lewis' best book it is his second best. This short but sweet book puts sinners and the righteous in perspective better than I had ever seen before. Lewis treats sin appropriately not just as immoral or bad, but straight up selfish and stupid.

The first bit that caught my attention was when he exits the bus and wrote, "It gave me a feeling of freedom, but also of exposure, possibly of danger, which accompanied me through all that followed." At first it is like being a person living in sin and walking into a group of friends who all know of your sin. Though, it is different for his character when he mentions the danger. The danger is simply the judgment. This is prominent in many lives; minus the feeling of judgment. The exposure is embarrassing at first but we get use to it and begin to joke about it as if the sin is no big deal. This is just one of the many ways we hold on to our "precious sins".

Why are we so reluctant to give up our sins? It is either insanity or very near it since we pepeat the same actions expecting a different result. Simply, it is that we are unaware of the poor results we get. We are thinking only for ourselves and our ideas of what is good; ignoring the destruction it brings to others and our own hearts. It creates a terrible chain reaction where we voluntary and involuntary at the same time dig ourselves deeper into our holes.

Consequently, a remedy lies in realizing that we did not create ourselves and so therefore have no right to anything.