The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
(New York: Harper, 1946), 146
Previously read: 2014-04-05-The Great Divorce
What a prophetic description of the selfish, imposing thinking of our time:
'The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.'
'...Every disease that submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not call blue yellow to please those who insist on still having jaundice, nor make a midden of the world's garden for the sake of some who cannot abide the smell of roses.'
(135-137)
Time, freedom, and eternity:
Time is the very lens through which ye see—small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope—something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. But ye can see it only through the lens of Time...For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom.
(140-141)