I watched the movie "Shadowlands" again last night. (Yes, Jessica... it's the one you brought over to go in the garage sale. It will be returned to the garage sale pile directly!) If you haven't seen it, it's about the life and love of author C.S. Lewis. It has so many interesting and thought-provoking points... some of which were taken directly from his writings.
1) Perfect love is only perfect when it is unattainable. Desire comes from the wanting, not from the having. (This was a point he made early on in the movie. His conclusions at the end of the movie would seem to replace this thought.)
2) We often learn more through pain and suffering than we do in the happiness of life.
3) "We read to know we're not alone." He seems to hit upon the question here of whether life imitates art or vice versa.
4) Lewis (played by Anthony Hopkins) ends the movie with this conclusion: "Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more, only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice - as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."
Some of these ideas are more fully developed in Lewis' works "The Problem of Pain" and "A Grief Observed"... both very good books.
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