We’re sticking with the local boy for the next Dock Book Group…

Among Belfast’s many unsung, under-appreciated claims to fame (alongside the fact that we invented air-conditioning and that we built this boat that seems to have become quite famous), is our connection to Narnia-creator, pipe-smoker, reluctant Christian and masterful theologian C.S.Lewis.  (Dock fact: Susan sourced the pictures for the guys who painted the C.S.Lewis mural.  Claim to fame or what!)

We’ve been rediscovering the joys of Lewis over the last few Dock Book Groups – starting with his theology (Mere Christianity), working back to the story of his early life and conversion (Surprised By Joy) and now jumping forward to his later life, where his immense intellect and brilliantly incisive defence of faith were sorely tried when he lost his wife to cancer.

Confession time: I had presumed from the title of Surprised By Joy that the story of his marriage and bereavement were in that book.  (His wife was called Joy y’see… yes I did feel stupid.)  As it turns out ‘joy’ was an intellectual and spiritual concept which Lewis used to describe the experience of his growing awakening in faith.  (Dock Book Group loved the fact that despite all this talk of joy, he clearly remained a grumpy, miserable swine throughout his spiritual rebirth…)  So it was rather neat that later in life he did fall in love with someone called Joy (who no doubt surprised him, as often as possible, just to compound the irony).  And how much more bitter that this late-blossoming love affair, which turned his stuffy academic existence upside down, should be snatched away from him.

So, we’re going to plunge in and read the book which definitely is the story of his struggle with doubt, anger and grief – it’s called A Grief Observed.  By all accounts, it’s short (100 or so pages) but it’s brutal – no stone unturned in the honest account of an anguished soul.  But as the story of an incredible man (yep, he’s become a bit of a Dock hero) facing life’s biggest question (Why, God?), we thought we had to read it.

We’ll be gathering to chat about the book, Lewis and life in general at the Premier Inn, 9:30am on Saturday 22nd October.  Anyone who has an opinion on any of those topics is more than welcome!