On Charity...

In the last chapter of The Four Loves Lewis begins to discuss the love of God/our love of God. He sites many of his own reasons for leaving this as the last point of his book one of which being, “it is dangerous to press upon a man the duty of getting beyond earthly love when his real difficulty lies in getting so far”. I really enjoyed this point although I believe there is a tension between this and Lewis’ idea that all loves that are not from God or take the place from God are unworthy and unfulfilled. It would seem, under this light, that the difficulty in earthly love comes from not knowing divine love. I do agree with Lewis’ first point I just think there is a tension point there.
Moving on, the thing that really interested me in this chapter was Lewis’ description of heartbreak and hell. For a little while Lewis describes all the ways a person can become heart broken; broken marriage, lost friendship, even hobbies and nature. It seems that an attachment to anything in this world has the possibility of leaving one with a broken heart. The natural progression then, as Lewis points out, is to lot let your happiness depend on anything you may lose - I.e. let it depend on God, the thing that will not pass away.
None of this is really new thought or anything but I found it interesting and a great backdrop for his next point. Lewis says the only way to protect ones heart then is to wrap it up carefully in selfishness and keep it there. Here is says it will not become broken but it will change. Lewis points out that when not allowed to love the heart will become dull, dead, motionless. Eventually, he describes this as hell by saying, “the only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell”. If we describe hell as an absence of God and his presence I do think it is correct in assuming that it also entails the absence of love and a person living without love may be living in hell already.