29 February 2024
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue
consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but
only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that
point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot “develop”
into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, “with
backward mutters of disserving power”—or else not. It is still “either or.” If
we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept
Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate
souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will
find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been
lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved
wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in “the High
Countries.” In that sense it will be true for those who have completed the
journey (and for no others) to anticipate that retrospective vision. If we do,
we are likely to embrace the false and disastrous converse and fancy that
everything is good and everywhere is Heaven.
C.S. Lewis
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