David Godwin - C.S. Lewis Poem - Outside Reading #2)

In the beginning of the semester, we spent some time making a distinction between kairos (sacred time) and chronos (practical time). I found the discussion of time furthered in one of C.S. Lewis’ books, The Great Divorce. This book takes a mythical approach at viewing heaven. The story feels much like a dream that the narrator is experiencing. Heaven is nothing like what we tend to imagine it. We typically associate heaven with images of golden streets, huge mansions, and God himself on the throne. Lewis’ version, however, has the narrator’s ethereal spirit wandering through fields and forests. Because the narrator has not gained enough “substance,” every solid thing in heave feels hard and sharp. Even the grass below his feet is hurting him, and at one point he is afraid to cross the river for fear of being ripped to shreds by its movement. One of the more solid figures in heaven tells the narrator that if he stays in heaven for a while, the environment will stop hurting, and he will be solid enough to travel freely through it.
As the main character wanders through heaven, he watches spirits run into old acquaintances. Most of these acquaintances have matters of offense between them that have yet to be settled. The solid spirits who have been in heaven encourage the others to forgive them and forget the incident. It is a small matter that means nothing in the full scope of things. But many of the visiting spirits cannot bear to forget about these offenses. Instead, many of the people visiting heaven leave its sharp edges for the shadowy land below it.
At the end of the novel, we see that “heaven” exists somewhere above time. The interactions that took place happened outside of time but really reflected interactions within our inferior concept of chronos. The narrator parallels this practical sense of human time to a chessboard. “And I knew that each chessman was the idolum or puppet representative of some of the great presences that stood by. And the acts and motions of each chessman were a moving portrait, a mimicry or pantomime, which delineated the inmost nature of his giant master. And these chessmen are men and women as they appear in this world. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and watch are the immortal souls of those same men and women.” Our souls then, according to Lewis’ interpretation, exist outside of chronos and in kairos. These souls in kairos are what determine our actions on earth, but we are often so involved in the mundane things of chronos that they do not heed their soul’s advice.
I think this story is a great picture of chronos and kairos. Lewis develops an incredibly interesting idea that we as humans get to experience heaven before ever really entering into it. On earth, the things that may seem hard and uncomfortable (forgiveness, righteousness, love) are really the things of heaven. Life in chronos then prepares us for heaven by filling us with substance, allowing us to exist within the solidness of God’s real presence. According to Lewis, many turn down heaven because of their discomfort. But how long does the discomfort last? How real is chronos anyway? It is just a chess board in all actuality, and our actions on earth are nothing but movements of pawns.