Crashbox

I recently finished Lewis' stark and incredibly powerful Great Divorce, and am currently in the middle of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, a very very different sort of story, though also powerful in it's own right. The striking thing that ties these two books together is the uneasy sense that everything we do here on earth is ultimately utterly pointless and insignificant. Well, not quite; C.S. Lewis' words flow with hope and joy, promising salvation based on the choices we make throughout our lives; so by his account our actions do have some value. Yet the fact that all our great achievements and endeavors really mean nothing apart from the love and charity that accompany them remains. Vonnegut of course is much more bleak. It makes a person think though, and reminds one that all the struggle for money and possessions and security is pretty empty, despite the fact that it is nearly impossible to live or have any influence, good or bad, without these things. This is another example of where hope and faith become essential, the only means of survival. Without the belief that God wishes us to work and live among his other creatures, to be 'in the world but not of it', we wallow in directionless distraction. Another good comes from these rather dismal thoughts though, and that is the reminder that the only things that are ultimately worthwhile is loving God and others. We can have and enjoy many many different things, we can be entertained, but when life doesn't go our way, leaving ourselves out of love for Christ and for the sake of another is the only true peace we will find. The reward for the gift of self is greater than any prize we may demand or think is owed. But I am just lonely today, and it is still cloudy.

So it goes.