Some thoughts on C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed.

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

        How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul,

        and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

…Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!

        Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death…
But I trusted in your steadfast love;

        my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,

        because he has dealt bountifully with me.

(Ps 13, A Psalm of David for the music leader)

The Bible is full of such laments (Pss 44,60,74,79.80.95,90). It’s the way God’s people worship, sing and, in the last verse, praise. We can’t just jump to praise. We have to owe up to our losses, sorrows and griefs; then we can make our way to praise. Like Holy Week, we are not allowed to skip from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday without entering into Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Otherwise, Easter doesn’t work.

These lament thoughts came to me this morning while reading an email from Brian followed by a text note from Miah: “Just finished A Grief Observed. Unreal. How does he do it?” It caused me to think of my own Lewis journey. In college, some folks insisted I read Mere Christianity. They thought it would cure my fascination with Kierkegaard. I tried, but it failed to cure me of S.K. In seminary, Richard Cunningham, my theology professor, had just published a book on Lewis. I told him I thought Lewis too much a rationalist. He said, “You don’t know Lewis. Go to the library and read A Grief Observed by N.W. Clerk. It’s a pseudonym, but it’s actually Lewis.”  So I did. He was right, I didn’t know Lewis. Ever since, I continue to read Lewis backwards from A Grief Observed written at the end of his life to Dymer written at the beginning: “With all my road before me.”

Back to that lament: “How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” Psalm 13 provides an outline for A Grief Observed. It’s Lewis’ experience of grief at the loss of his wife: “Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My mother, my father, my wife. I wonder who is next in the queue” (p. 12). Let me try some one, two, threes on laments…

1.   Individual and Community: The Lament comes out of the suffering of David—an individual. But, it’s sung as a form of praise by the Believing Community. It’s assumed the whole community relates to David’s grief. We all know something of what Lewis laments.

2.  Believer vs Unbeliever:  Only believers lament “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” An unbeliever doesn’t lament the silence of God. He just figures there’s silence because there is no god. Because we believe, we lament.

3.  Good Friday and Easter Morning: Lewis eventually finds himself free to praise—to praise the God of the Cross: “Praise is the mode of love which always has some element of joy in it.” Eventually, as the Psalm goes, “we will sing to the Lord!”

It doesn’t mean Lewis is ever, this side of Glory, free from the tragic loss of his wife. Just when he seems free of it, the grief comes crashing in: “In grief nothing ‘stays put.’ …Bereavement is an integral part of our experience of love.”

Lewis moves on in faith and hope and love, but the tragic loss of his wife marks him like an amputee. Like Jacob who limped along as he went after that all night wrestling match at the ford of the Jabbok (Gn 32:22-32). Or, like our Lord whose sacred wounds accompany him into Glory (Jn 20:24-29).