As I have said many
times in my blog posts so far, I am currently taking PH 261: CS Lewis. Right
now, we are looking at various responses to the Problem of Evil and suffering.
In addition to Lewis’s The Problem of
Pain and A Greif Observed, we
also read Whitworth’s own Jerry Sittser’s A
Grace Disguised. Jerry delivered a lecture on his book last night in class,
and sure enough, John Donne came into the conversation.
After going through a severe loss, Jerry was engulfed in
severe darkness. He had a dream one night that he was frantically chasing after
the setting sun, terrified of being consumed by the darkness that was
approaching him. In the dream, he couldn’t catch up, and the darkness
completely engulfed him. He shared this dream with his brother, who shared with
him a metaphor from “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward.” The metaphor he is
referring to is from lines 9-11:
Hence is ‘t, that I am carried
towards the West
This day, when my soul’s form bends
toward the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising,
set…
Although the Sun sets, following it in the same direction
only prolongs the period of darkness. Instead, if you face the darkness, you
get to the sunset faster. This idea brought Jerry a lot of hope and he talks
about it in his book. It’s been pretty cool to see things we’ve learned in this
class pop up in my other studies!
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