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Cover of A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

A Grief Observed

  • 64 pages · about 1 hour
  • First published 1961
  • 44 editions

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1 About this book

Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man -- or at any rate a man like me -- out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs.

He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself." This is a beautiful and unflinchingly homest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings.

Good for readers who want: meditation and a short read.

  • Meditation
  • Bereavement
  • Grief
  • Addresses, essays
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Death
  • Religion
  • Consolation

2 About C. S. Lewis

1898–1963

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British author, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalene College, Cambridge (1954–1963).

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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