Kudos to the narrator on letting the recording roll despite minor slip ups and stumbles or corrections. It's so refreshing, it preserves the man's humanity and maybe even serves as a significant factor in why I'm a fully immersed in the story and hanging on every word! God bless you, sir
Hi Rylee, I don't know but only can imagine how hard it must be! Blessings be with you and your family. Know that another heart aches for you from afar and hope that God heals your heart. Love, Jasmine
Dear Rylee, I lost my mother three months back and I know exactly how you feel kiddo. Sending you lots of love and postive vibes. Please remember you are not alone.
Last week we lost our first baby from a miscarriage, and so the grief has been very overwhelming and confusing. This book, while the grief CS Lewis faced is different in a lot of ways to the grief me and my husband face, has been very comforting and relatable. Thank you so much for this audiobook! It’s been my companion as I go through my chores for the day, and what not. So many things he said, have brought about healing for me. God bless you!
I can so relate to your pain. I read the book in 2013 many years after my mother's death. She left me when I was just 26, shattered me. This( Lewis') chronicling of pain is so raw and beautiful and gut wrenching. It truly is a remarkable work.
My mother passed away October 31, 2019. This book gives me comfort. I hope to convince my sister in law to listen, we lost my brother 5 years ago and she is still deep in grief.
Thankyou for reading it out loud Tim. If it weren’t read out loud for me I wouldn’t have access to such treasure. I can not read and comprehend at the same time. I just listened to The Problem Of Pain yesterday and I’m so excited I have access to hear books out loud. When I was little I would cry that I couldn’t read but I would have never dreamt such technology would come to exist to help me learn more about God and make some sense all the pain and confusion. God bless your reading and work as it is truely God’s work you do. Such beautiful fruit. What a wonderful gift.
I read this at 18. 25 years ago. My Mom passed 9 days ago. Thanks for posting as I no longer have the book. Grief is the strangest feeling. He captures it although parental loss is different then a spouse.
This is why I strive so greatly to make Him my all-in-all. I fear my life will suffer such a blow it won't ever recover! God alone will walk me, gently, lovingly through each memory and save my soul time upon time. He will have taken my greatest friend and spiritual ally, and I ask Him to give me a double portion of himself.
Great job brother !!! 🙏🏾😅 Absolutely loved it! I had a 4 hour drive today from Orlando FL down to Naples FL - this is my wife’s bed time read and now we can have conversation about it when she’s done 🙏🏾 I’m grateful for you
I read A Grief Observed years ago and I didn’t quite understand how grieve could feel like fear. In my mind, they were two different emotions resulted by different experiences. But recently, when my mother died, I was going through terrible feelings that I couldn’t quite describe. Feelings of anxiety and physical illness. I decided to read the book again, and the first few lines hit me immediately. Grief does feel like fear. It does make you feel drunk or concussed. It is a whole slew of emotionally painful feelings striking all at once. Grief is so difficult to describe, but Lewis comes so close.
Ovid, Hermann Broch, Schubert, Shakespeare: the always recurring theme of the impotence of memory and that of the shapes to hold the real presence. But the voice, the voice and the silence of a namless grief remains. He is there, our tears are his, and he suffer all our grief in a way none of us could endure, for our own sake, even those griefs we don´t aknowledge by our empty eyes and meaningless frown. Silence: it bothers me no more as long as I can be in silence with him. My dear granny used to tell me in her last times on earth that when she finally became silent, then she started to listen voice of God. To love is to surrender, wether by embracing or letting it go.
I’m shocked that forward from Mrs L'Engle was included in this reading, given that so many of her ideas are opposed to those of Lewis. That intro itself spat in the face of so much he stood for. “ The church is still pre-Copernican in its attitude toward death. The medieval picture of heaven and hell hasn’t been replaced with anything more realistic, or more loving. Perhaps for those who are convinced that only Christians of their own way of thinking are saved and will go to heaven, the old ideas are still ade- quate. But for most of us, who see a God of a much wider and greater love than that of the tribal God who only cares for his own little group, more is needed.“ this wildly insulting and condescending. It was extremely inappropriate and disrespectful for her to be pushing her ideas in this context. That’s genuinely sad
I might actually argue that Lewis has always seemed fairly progressive/ free-thinking in his depiction of final judgement and the afterlife. This may be a misinterpretation on mine or L'Engle's part, but L'Engle might have felt she found a fellow sympathizer in Lewis in several of his literary moments. I am thinking, in particular of his depiction of the ability to move between heaven and hell in the Great Divorce, or Aslan's pardoning (welcoming?) of the Calormen prince who had been devoted to Tash his whole life. In particular, it seems, he was most comfortable saying that it was entirely in God's power and knowledge which eternal destination a person might end up in. Though L'Engle might have taken this to the next level by asserting she has discovered God's mind in this matter, I can understand why she may have felt appropriate in her foreword.
I have always felt that Madeline would have made a good 'inkling'. The inklings, to me, embody the journey and process of faith. While each having their own 'pack' of beliefs which informed and shaped their personal path...they invited the challenge and discipline of engaging with others who had different contents in their 'pack'. It wasn't a threat but a welcomed exercise in growth, passion and expression.
Rosie I am so sorry for your loss. I lost my 33 year old son in July and I am still trying to deal with it. So hard to lose anyone but for me I keep reeling from having to sign a birth certificate and a death certificate. It's not the natural order of things. I don't know what to do.
@@jschuler53 Oh I am so so sorry. I think losing your child is the worst pain imaginable. I started long distance running because no pill or therapy could help me deal with the pain but the physical outlet for it helped me get out of bed everyday. It took me probably 2&1/2 years before I stopped crying every day and wishing I could follow him. I found some mother grief support groups on Facebook that helped me know I wasn't alone. Slowly, very slowly, I promise the stabbing agony will subside. I got involved with some groups that promote veteran suicide awareness and now I carry my son and others when I'm out running races. Having a purpose helped me find some happiness again. I don't think we ever get over the pain but through God's grace we can learn to carry the cross, with hope that we will be together one day. God bless you, angel mom.
I haven't listened to all of this yet, but so far it very much reminds me of Alain de Botton's book Essays In Love. The honesty and transparency with which they analyse their innermost thoughts is remarkable.
As the preface said this was written by Jack CS Lewis as a story of what he was wrestling with following the death of Joy H n was originally not going to be published. But he did originally wrote the book under a pseudonym!
1:33:00 The quote is from Lady Julian of Norwich´s Revelations of Divine Love. C.S. Lewis was also well read in St. Therese of Avila and in St. Paul of the Cross: the use he makes elsewhere (as for instance, The Screwtape leters) of terms like "dryness" and "night of the soul" point that out.
I think the forward misunderstood what exactly a grief observed was actually about and it just wasn't about his wife. Every woman, starting with his mother, when he was just a young boy, died that he ever had any sort of emotion for.
Cslewis really missed his wife. Joy davidman lewis! I miss Louise n gma keirn, n Anne Porter n Sarah B. They were very nice friends that I feel their own lives were cut short!!!
Isaiah 53 1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
I think the Greatest message that Jesus left with all of his beloved was to connect onto Spiritually blessed no matter setbacks reality troubles us?! Maybe that's good then He is away Lights travelling aheads having a helper here no lesser than God's Holy Spirit comfort so we too embark on journey...
Forward: Beloved is so part of ourselves- How to be pray for what is a part of ourselves. Keeping a journal- part of our process. Consolation of religion- strength comfort- the loved one is being taken care of. Not in the realm of proof, but realm of love. Anguish doubt part of soul’s growth Bereavement- part of love too. All of the person - beyond idea and memory. What shines - affirmation of love. Love is in the context of God’s love Ultimate purpose of God- love Share in understanding of grief and understanding of love
One only meets each hour that comes All matters- ups and downs Not the very thing itself. Thing itself/ ups and downs Rest is - a name: idea How much happiness- even when all Hope was gone. How noirishingly we talked last night But limit to the one flesh
Mt favorite part of the book occurs very near the beginning, in Chapter 1; "I cannot talk to the children about her. The moment I try, there appears on their faces neither grief, nor love, nor fear, nor pity, but the most fatal of all non-conductors, embarrassment. They look as if I were committing an indecency. They are longing for me to stop. I felt just the same after my own mother’s death when my father mentioned her. I can’t blame them. It’s the way boys are." That's the one place in this book where C.S. Lewis MIGHT have shown a goddamned fucking SHRED of INTELLECTUAL HONESTY and admitted that he was full of shit. The boys, being brutally honest, are flat-out EMBARRASSED. Deep down, we all know the same horrific truth. The everlasting cessation of existence. The frailty of our corpulent human flesh, the finitude of human endeavor, the transient, fleeting and evanescent nature of human life, and the howling, dark abyss that awaits all of us on the other side. All C.S. Lewis can do is offer condescending, didactic, patronizing, sanctimonious platitudes and offer to break down crying with us together. As if that solves one fucking thing. Words cannot convey how sick with rage C.S. Lewis's books make me.
Check out II Maccabees 12:39-45. Also II Timothy 1:18. CS Lewis believed in Purgatory even though he was Church of England. Your statement is completely unbiblical.
@@jamesmcgrath3841 II Timothy 1:18 has absolutely nothing to do with purgatory. It is totally unbiblical. The early church never subscribed to this belief. Even Jesus said to one of His followers "leave the dead to the dead" Once you are dead you cannot repent and nobody on earth can repent for you.
@@soniajones1519 To the contrary. 2 Timothy 1:18 refers to Onesiphorus who has died. "May the Lord have mercy on his soul." Is not just a Catholic sentiment for the dead, but is used throughout Christendom. "May he rest in peace" is hardly worth saying if it means... nothing. I note you dodge the Maccabees reference. You should be seeking truth. Not argument. Something may not be fully explicit Biblically but that does not make it "un"Biblical. "Let the dead bury the dead" is the phrase I think you mean? That says nothing one way or the other on this issue. Catholics are not "sola Scripture." This in fact is totally unbiblical. Nowhere, anywhere, does it say in the Bible "sola Scripture." Nowhere, anywhere is it implied. In fact, the end of John's Gospel explicitly states that everything Jesus said and did the world itself could not contain all of it. In other words, scripture itself tells us. That scripture is. Incomplete. Unless John is a liar? Good luck with that heretical view.
