This is a fantasy. If you don’t know me, you might wonder why I would write about what my next job will be. I have retired several times already and my final retirement was five years ago. If you do know me, you know very well that I am not going to take on a new job and would certainly not be writing about it.
And it gets worse.
My “next job” is doing whatever I would be doing in C. S. Lewis’s notion of what Heaven 
is like. [1] In The Great Divorce, Lewis gives a very interesting account of the Spirits who are in Heaven and who belong there. In Lewis’s version, the Ghosts come up from Hell as visitors—there is a bus every day for that purpose— and are met at the bus stop by the Spirits who are there to help them.
I have spent a lot of time on the Ghosts in The Great Divorce. In 2011 and again in 2014 I taught an Adult Ed class based on it at our church, here in Portland. To give you a little of the flavor, the course was called Seven Characters in Search of Damnation. [2] The Ghosts are quite different from each other superficially. One is an artist, one an Episcopal priest, one a mother (ONLY a mother), one a tough guy employer, one a world-weary cynic, and so on But radically—at their very root [3]—they are the same. They have come to Heaven to try to use God for some purpose of their own.
But I have begun to think recently about the Spirits who meet the several Ghosts at the bus stop. The work each does is different because each Ghost has a different reason for preferring Hell to Heaven, but deep down—“radically”—they are broadly similar. They offer the same kinds of service.
- They offer a personal apology, if that is one of the reasons they were chosen. That is true in the case of the Spirit who was sent to meet the Rights-monger, as we will see below.
- They clarify any misunderstandings about what is real and what is not.
- And they offer their services if the Ghost decides to stay in heaven (only one does).
So if I wound up in C. S. Lewis’s Heaven, those three things would be my job. I would be traveling up into the mountains, because that is that is the hope and desire of every Spirit. I would interrupt my trip—all those miles would have to be traveled again when I returned—and come back to the bus stop to meet someone to whom I had to make personal amends or whom I was particularly well equipped to help. And I would offer my services to that Ghost for as long as he needed me or, as in the case of the Spirit who was sent to meet the Rights-monger, longer. [5]
Those three things. They would be my “next job” in the world Lewis has built. And if I started in Hell, my first job would be to get on the bus and get off in Heaven and to choose to stay. I guess that’s really three jobs. So it is easier to start in Heaven.
The Rights-monger
The clearest example of this relationship is the interaction between a Spirit who, on earth, was called Len, and a Ghost who is not given name, but whom I call “the Rights-monger.”[6] He knows his rights, or thinks he does, and demands that they be honored. [7] In Heaven, where only the grace that God offers matters at all, this is a very costly demand.
It is also true, in this fantasy, that the Ghosts are completely insubstantial. Picture a column of smoke in the shape of a person. The Spirits are substantial—“real” Lewis says—because Heaven is “real” (substantial) and that difference in the two places mimics the spiritual condition of the two kinds of beings.
One of the characters, whom I have called “the Cynic,” describes the difficulties of Heaven this way.
“That’s all propaganda [that you can stay if you want to]. Of course, there was never any question of our staying. You can’t eat the fruit and you can’t drink the water and it takes all your time to walk on the grass. A human being couldn’t live here.” [8]
In fact, Heaven is the kind of place that you can adapt to if you stay long enough. You solidify as you stay and the result is that you actually can eat the fruit and you can drink the water and the blades of grass no longer pierce your feet—as they did when you arrived because those blades of grass are real (substantial) and you are not. Every Spirit tells every Ghost how that works. It doesn’t work for the Cynic, of course, because he doesn’t stay. “It’s all an advertising stunt,” he says in dismissing the possibility.
Len, the Spirit who was sent to the Rights-monger, has some explaining to do. Once, back on earth, he had killed a man named Jack and Len’s crime looms very large in the Rights-monger’s mind. Here is Len’s account of why he was chosen to come to the bus to meet his former employer.
That’s why I have been sent to you now: to ask your forgiveness and to be your servant as long as you need one and longer if it pleases you.
That is the “job” of this particular Spirit. “Servant” in this context means a lot of very 
physical tasks. The Rights-monger cannot simply wander around Heaven on his insubstantial feet, much less begin a journey to the mountains. He will need quite a bit of help and Len is offering it to him. It means spiritual tasks as well, as in asking for forgiveness for the evils Len had done on earth.
On the other hand, one of the conditions in Heaven is that you know a very great deal that the Ghosts do not know and about the previous life on earth, they seem to know everything. Here are some examples.
Rights-monger: What about poor Jack?
Spirit: Here is here. You will meet him soon if you stay.
And there is sure knowledge about Heaven.
Rights-monger: That may be very well for you, I daresay. If they choose to let in a bloody murderer all because he makes a poor mouth at the last moment, that’s their lookout. But I don’t see myself going in the same boat with you, see? Why should I? I don’t want charity. I’m a decent man and if I had my rights, I’d have been here a long time ago and you can tell them I said so.
Spirit: You can never do it like that. Your feet will never grow hard enough to walk on our grass that way. You’d be tired out before we got to the mountains.
And it isn’t exactly true, you know.
Ghost: What isn’t true (sulkily, Lewis adds).
Spirit: You weren’t a decent man and you didn’t do your best. None of us were and none of us did. Lord bless you, it doesn’t matter. There is no need to go into it all now.
The Spirit who used to be Len the Murderer knows quite a bit. He knows about Heaven—your feet will get accustomed to our grass if you stay—and he knows about life on earth. He knows the Rights-monger was not decent (even in the way the Rights-monger himself defines it) and he did not do his best. And he knows that in Heaven, it doesn’t matter at all. And finally:
Spirit: You made it hard for us [employees] you know and you made it hard for your wife and for your children.
Ghost: You mind your own business, young man….I’m not taking any impudence from you about my private affairs.
Spirit: There are no private affairs.
This is another aspect of what the Spirit knows. Heaven is a huge and joyous commons, but nothing is private. In Heaven, there is no walling off of the “business decisions” and the “political decisions” and the “family affairs.” Everything is known and grace is available for the acceptance of every act the Ghost is willing to own. When the Spirit says that none of them had done their best, he is referring to a state of knowledge he now has. He is not repeating some especially dour philosophy he held on earth.
The Rights-monger isn’t having any of it. He knows his rights, he says, and he demands what he deserves. Unfortunately, he deserves damnation, which is why he gets back on the bus and goes “home” to Hell.
Lewis has a “guide” in Heaven for the purpose of explaining things he cannot show us by the actions of the characters. In fact, Lewis himself is one of the characters. He is the one to whom the spiritual infrastructure of Heaven and Hell is explained and George MacDonald is the guide. [9] MacDonald puts it this way.
[1] You might be wondering whether I have not skipped a step or two in assigning myself to Heaven, even C. S. Lewis’s heaven, but in fact there are no jobs to do in C. S. Lewis’s Hell, so I had no choice.
[2] Apologies to Luigi Pirandello, author of Six Characters in Search of an Author.
[3] “Radical” comes into English from the Latin radix = root. I often think of “radical” and “superficial” as the alternatives if you have only two alternatives. For reasons that are easier to understand, our word “radish” also comes from radix.
[4] I have half a suspicion that this extra service, service that depends only on the whim of the Ghost, has something of restitution in it. Lewis never says that, but I have my suspicions.
[5] “Monger” is not a combining form used much in American English, although we still say “rumormonger.” A monger is a trader in something. In England, we would know what a fishmonger does. But you can’t trade in “rights” in exactly the same way you trade in fish.
[6] He is, in that respect, very much like the “prisoner of war” in The Mouse That Roared who demands that his food be brought to him on a tin plate at least 10 inches in diameter. He does not know that they have prepared a banquet in his honor and his tin plate functions as a refusal to go to the banquet at all.
[7] Notice the function of “you” in this complaint. It means “one” as the Cynic uses it. “No one,” in other words, can eat anything or drink anything. But obviously, it is the Ghosts who can’t and the Spirits who can. So the use of “you” as the Cynic deploys it is entirely rhetorical.
[8] C. S. Lewis, the author, not the character, credits the writings of George MacDonald as being an important part of his own conversion to Christianity, especially Phantastes, and Lilith.
There are people here, for instance, who manage to stay in touch with their biological family—that ordinarily means siblings and children and grandchildren—and also to build stable friendships with the other residents. I wasn’t all that impressed at the beginning of my time here, but now that I have given it a try, I know how hard it is and I want to learn how they do that. I don’t want to copy them—the differences also need to be taken into account—but I want to learn how they see the field of play and how the decide what to do.
chipper; the husband was quiet, but he could say things that made sense on their own and that contributed to the conversation. Sometimes. And sometimes not. When “sometimes not” happens, the wife has a decision to make.
incontestable outline of things. And after that, and without losing any awareness of it, you can attend to a good deal of complexity without losing your sense of the vision as a whole.
And it isn’t just history. In preparing for a Bible study course that begins in September, I have been studying the Old Testament prophets. And all of a sudden, it occurred to me that there were three major categories of those prophets. Only three. There were the pre-Exilic, whose message was that God is going to punish (“discipline” in some of the prophets) you for your godless ways. And then there were the Exilic prophets, who said to Israel, “Your sentence is almost up. God is going to restore you to your homeland.” And there were the post-Exilic prophets who, with the exception of Jonah, said, “The holiness of the temple and the city and the worship of Yahweh have all been compromised while you were gone. Put things back to the way they should be.” [3] This is someone’s notion of what the prophet Amos looked like. He was one of the pre-Exilic prophets.
When I hit my first communitarian sociologist, Frank Hearn, I was fascinated by his allocation of all kinds of “social problems” to one of three places. His own preference as a sociologist is that most problems be considered as “social problems,” by which he means problems rightly referred to communities using their own local institutions. But that means that he has to have a nasty name for the practice of referring those social problems to other places, where they really shouldn’t be. [4] Problems that are rightfully social, but that are referred to the polity instead, have been “politicized.” Problems that are rightfully social, but have been referred to the economy instead, have been “commodified.” Three places to put problems: no more. Horizon.
complexities of today’s policy proposals. DACA or not? Amnesty or not? Enhanced legal immigration or not? But all of these questions take the present political system—the old classic post-medieval Liberal system—for granted. And Deneen says that system is running out of fuel and can’t be saved. I’m sure this picture is an ad for a business of some kind, but note the similarity to Deneen’s communalist picture of liberty.
movies. [1] The picture I am relying on here is the patient lying on the couch free-associating in the presence of a fully present therapist. The “free” of free associating means, in part, that the little boxes in which we keep the thoughts and feelings that contradict each other are all opened at the same time in free association. And they associate with each other, not in the dark safety of the mind but in the public space between the therapist and the patient. Both hear the patient say things neither has ever heard before. [2]
year, red states want to do red state things and blue states want to do blue state things. And every year, each color has to put up with federal regulations that requires them to be much more similar than they would really like to be. This tension between the national administration of national systems and the state preferences which express the political culture of their own states, is the heart of the federal bargain.
know that because they aren’t working. Further, they are not working because they choose not to work and in that choice, they forfeit their claim to society’s help.
states are finally being allowed to do what they have wanted to do for so long. It is this “permission,” that called to mind the image of Dr. Trump as the therapist and “the red states” as the patient. Dr. Obama kept telling them how they should feel—compassion, for instance, toward those not able to find work—and made them feel ashamed of how they did, in fact, feel. Dr. Trump is allowing those states to say out loud what they have felt for so long and is giving them permission to build systems tying work to medical service.
has not yet abated. Some of that animosity appears to be no more than personal grudges projected onto public issues. What could have been a perfectly normal division within the Democratic party between the ideological left and the pragmatic center, got blown out of proportion by the personal attachments of the campaign supporters. Hillary’s people need to get over blaming Bernie’s people for “denying her the election.” Bernie’s people need to get over their resentment of Hillary’s persistent tacking to take advantage of the winds of the campaign season
This argument agrees that the Republicans may be very weak in 2020 as a result of the expected Trump implosion but they make the case that winning seats is more important than the success of the programs so dear to the left wing of the party. And you don’t have to say out loud that you don’t share those goals if you can just make the case that it would be risky to pursue them.
are not the same kind of thing at all. The dominant voice of the Republican party is now a movement-oriented voice, something like jihad. The Democratic style is collecting groups of voters who are willing to sign on for the campaign, like a state militia. The Democratic party works like the United Nations, not like Al Qaeda. [4]
Of course, the fact that I am not “working” anymore doesn’t mean that there aren’t things I want to do. In fact, there are things I commit myself to accomplish and they highlight that task-focused center and they push my focus on myself to the blurry periphery. It’s a very familiar feeling and most of the time, I like it.
to be done—sometimes there is a deadline—and you need to do to yourself whatever you need to do to get it done. Solitude, alcohol, stimulants, brainstorming…whatever. So starting from the other end, “What job best fits what I have to give right now?” is a whole new thing. Sometimes I am frazzled and can’t focus on anything. That is the basic fact. But there is a collection of errands or chores to do that require virtually no focused thought. I can do them just as well when I am scattered as I can when I am cogent. So I choose those.
tranquility by showing you this picture. The case for: wouldn’t it be great to be able to be like this some part of every day? The case against: wouldn’t it be awful to be like this all day every day?
For reasons I can no longer recall, a big distinction was made, where I grew up, between “a reason for something” and an “excuse.” By usage, I learned that a reason you gave for something was one or the other. I never heard anyone say that a reason was so inadequate that it could not serve as an excuse or that a reason was so compelling that it did serve as an excuse. The old usage is still in place, I notice.
For one thing, the IOYK excuse functions as a kind of euphemism. It is a socially acceptable reason where “the real reason” might not be so acceptable. If there are parties you don’t want to go to or projects that aren’t really worth doing or jobs you would rather leave for someone else, saying those things in those ways will get you into trouble. Or reasons for not texting an “old person.” Using IOYK will not. People accept it more or less at face value and don’t take it personally.
And not only that, but the people to whom this reason is presented and who accept it as legitimate—they accept it, that is, as an excuse—will also learn the broader premise we are using. “He thinks of himself as old” our friends will learn to say, “…and so he would probably not like to be invited to the party or told about the project.” And, of course, our friends talk to each other too, so this assessment of what we might respond to spreads across our friendship network, with the result that many invitations may simply be not offered. “He always says No,” our friends will say as they consult each other, “and he will say he is too old.”
the basis of the show—Dr. Shaun Murphy is better than everyone else at the hospital in diagnosis and treatment and worse than everyone else in interpersonal relations—is hard for me to manage. I also thought that they would settle on a format and just crank each week’s episode through that format and be done with it.
This one is called “Point Three Percent,” [2] and in it we meet an amazing boy. Evan Gallico (Dylan Kingwell, who also plays Steve Murphy, Shaun’s brother, when they both are young). [3] Evan is committed to protecting his parents. That is the common element of the several strategies he adopts. He is bright and caring and perceptive. He is not the kind of kid you want to see die of cancer.
things God can no longer do once He has committed Himself to free choice in his creatures. That is what intervenes between “if I believe in Heaven, I’ll have to believe in God” on the one hand, and “then I’ve got to believe that God made me sick,” on the other. Evan believes that whatever happens must be the will of God because God can do anything. But it seems to me that God limited the playing field a great deal by creating people capable of saying Yes or No to Him.
been lost on scholars, for instance, that in Matthew, Jesus’s first sustained teaching was on a mountain. Moses went up the the mountain (Sinai) the get “the Law” from God. Jesus went up a mountain to give a series of contrasts to that Law, each of which began, “You have heard how it was said to our ancestors…” and then continues, “But I say this to you…” [1]
This device of Matthew’s is, as I say, widely recognized in his gospel, but it is not widely recognized in his narrative about the birth of Jesus and it is noticeable there as well. You would think that a writer who thinks of himself as a teacher has a point to make, he would work it into every part of his writing, even the birth stories. And he does. Here are some examples.
fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: I called my son out of Egypt.” (Matt 2:13) So…what prophet is Matthew talking about? It is Hosea (11:1) where Hosea, in using the expression, “my son,” means Israel. And Matthew knows that Hosea meant Israel. So how does he manage to appropriate it so that it refers to Jesus? I can argue all I want that in Matthew, Jesus would have been a little boy, but I can’t find any pictures in which he is not an infant.
about Jesus sounded familiar.” Placing Joseph’s family in Egypt allows Matthew to re-appropriate the scripture, “From Egypt, I have called my son.” For Matthew and/or for his readers, this is a sign of the providential working of God to bring us the Messiah just as he had promised.
This is the first line on the paper. Remember the “slaughter of the innocents by the Pharoah in Egypt?” And then the parallel line. Well, there was a slaughter of Israelites at the time of Jesus as well, this one engineered by Herod the Great. [5] And we say, “Oh, right. I knew that sounded familiar. This story of Jesus is so very much like the story of Moses.”[6]
“some evil things” along with all the good things; all the things they do are evil because they, themselves, are evil. And their evil character is obvious. It doesn’t require group decision making or the preponderance of the evidence or anything like that. It is obvious to everyone.
And there are more people, it turns out, who were true blue revolutionaries but who really hate to see this good-hearted friend of the revolution killed for “crimes of good judgment” and they object. At which point they follow him to the guillotine (or wherever) because the logic of infallibility still prevails. And that is how the revolutions eat their children.
convicted moves from hardened sexual predators to occasional predators to men who suffered instances of bad judgment to people who were insensitive to the response a woman might have had to what had appeared to be a consensual act at the time. So when I say that accusation feels so good—it is “empowering”—that it drives downward the standard for crimes committed, it is movement along this scale that I have in mind. [1] I found this a fascinating collection of familiar faces and Cosby was well into his practice of predation by this time.
It is the job of the women who care about where the relations between the sexes are going who have the responsibility to speak up. Why not the men? Because they have a prominent interest in not being accused of things and therefore their testimony can be readily set aside. Why not the hard left edge of the feminist movement? Because they are concerned narrowly with “punishing all the bad guys.” They are the revolution in its accelerated form. It is not their job to stop pursuing evildoers. It is their job to care about the unity of the movement and that is why they should listen to their more moderate sisters about how much is too much.
The Dilettante's Dilemma 