The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Discussion leader: Mrs. Yvonne Moulton

The introduction to Isaiah by Eugene Peterson says, “Words are watercolors and melodies and chisels to make truth. They help create ‘red hot.’ [This study is for people who are on the lookout for the holy.] The Holy. If ‘holy’ was ever a pious, pastel-tinted word in your vocabulary, Isaiah [Lewis] will turn it into something blazing. Holiness is the most attractive quality, the most intense experience we ever get of sheer life – authentic, first-hand living, not life looked at and enjoyed from a distance. We will find ourselves in on the operations of God Himself, not talking about them, or merely reading about them. Holiness is a furnace that transforms the men and women who enter it. ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ is not needlepoint. It is the banner of a revolution, the revolution. “He takes stuff of ordinary and often disappointing human experience and shows us how it is the very stuff that God uses to create and save and give hope” (The Message)

We all know these lines from poetry, “Lives of great men all remind us, we should make our lives sublime.” Scripture is characterized by lives of people—both tragic and impelling lives. So, too, Lewis used the idea that God works through people—that their examples are one of His major ways of letting the world know His love and mission. The Great Divorce will help us insight some eternal truths about life and its everylastingness. I can’t wait to dialogue with you about what we discover.

We will begin by all reading the book through, a quick reading to get the specifics of the book clear—its preface, setting, characters, plot, themes, symbols. May I encourage you to mark as you read so that you can come back quickly to things that impress you in this first structural reading of the book.

Blessings as we begin an exciting adventure.