Lewis and MacDonald overhear the conversation between a Ghost whose husband is in Heaven. She initially says she wants nothing to do with him, but ends up demanding that he beg given to her. In between, we get a vivid picture of their marital life together…
S2E15: “The Controlling Ghost” (Download)
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Time Stamps
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09:00 – Chapter 150-word Summary
09:58 – Chapter Discussion
43:18 – Haikus
Show Notes
• Matt was back in San Diego for Easter, so we got to record an episode in the same room!
• Drink-of-the-week came from our friends Chris and Theresa, who recently became engaged. Chris sent us some of his home-brew, “Anytime Amber Ale”, together with this description:
“Anytime” Amber Ale, because it’s a beer that’s good to drink anytime! Brewed on Chris Brymer’s back porch in Carlsbad, California, its rich malt profile is complimented by a mellow and earthy hop character. 6% ABV
“Anytime” Amber Ale tasting notes
We toasted Christ and Theresa, as well as Kaci and Matt who will be having their child in the few days!
• The quote-of-the-week comes from The Controlling Ghost:
“I did my duty to the very end… How could I help it if he did have a nervous breakdown in the end? My conscience is clear. I’ve done my duty by him, if ever a woman has…
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
Matt then referred to “duty”… which, to my English ears sounds like “doody” and is therefore hilarious.
• Matt didn’t watch the latest video I sent him from The Great Divorce Project. My search for a new co-host continues… 😉
• I announced that all 13 videos have been uploaded to Instagram (IGTV)!
• Matt and I have both purchased the book C.S. Lewis goes to Heaven by David Clark. I’m going to try and get an interview with the author before the end of this Season.
• We read probably our favourite iTunes review to date:
C.S. undeniably transformed faith, literature and the lives of those blessed enough to know him. It has been fifty-six years since he embarked on the final journey into Eternal Life and he is still changing lives, my own included. The pervading and persistent appreciation in the Christian community for Jack’s writings is evidence that his timeless words strike a chord of truth in the hearts of Protestants and Catholics alike.
“Philologist In Training” iTunes review of our podcast
While reading and ruminating on “The Great Divorce” or “Mere Christianity” by oneself can certainly be beautiful and fulfilling, why should you go it alone? Matt and David will walk you through Jack’s words, help to unravel the sticker and more difficult concepts and encourage you to savour them in a way which will continue to lead you further up and further in! Happy listening!
• We had a shout-out on Twitter from Joy Clarkson from Listening with Joy.
• Matt gave us a recap on last week’s chapter with a few choice quotations:
“There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery”
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”
Important quotations from Chapter 9 of The Great Divorce
• I offered a 150-word summary for this week’s chapter:
Lewis overhears a “conversation” between a Ghost and a female Spirit named Hilda. The ghost begins by saying that she would not dream of staying in Heaven if she were expected to meet Robert, her husband and Hilda’s brother.
She then begins to retell the story of her life with Robert and her attempts to control him. In the end, Robert had a nervous breakdown.
The ghost reconsiders and says she’ll meet Robert if she can “take charge of him again”. When Hilda tells her this isn’t possible, she becomes desperate: “I must have someone to – to do things to… I hate you. How can I pay him out if you won’t let me have him?”.
Lewis then says that “The Ghost which had towered up like a dying candle flame snapped suddenly… and then there was no Ghost to be seen”.
Summary of Chapter 10 of The Great Divorce
• Matt asked me if I saw myself in the Controlling Ghost. I admitted I did… Matt brought this up because he said it’s important not to write-off the issue presented simply because these Ghosts are the most developed versions of these sins.
• The Ghost begins by refusing to meet Robert. She says that forgives him… sort of:
“I forgive him as a Christian…but there are some things one can never forget.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
From what she says later, it appears that she thinks the chief sins which needed forgiving were selfishness and ingratitude:
“The ingratitude! It was I who made a man of him! Sacrificed my whole life to him! And what was my reward? Absolute, utter selfishness”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
We both point out that this Ghost’s “forgiveness” doesn’t sound much like forgiveness at all! We discussed forgiveness back in Season 1 Episode 20, we also have a YouTube video on the subject. I also recently posted the following Lewis quotation on Instagram:
“Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the [person] who has done it”
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
• The Controlling Ghost then goes through a litany of all the things she did “for” Robert. She began by making up for his lack of ambition and pushing him at his work, nagging him take on more assignments, even to where he was working for over thirteen hours of the day. She didn’t just push him at work though:
“I had to keep him going all evening… If he’d had his way he’d have just sat in an armchair and sulked when dinner was over. It was I who had to draw him out of himself and brighten him up and make conversation”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
I suggested that her husband might have simply been an introvert and needed a bit of time to recharge after work!
• The Controlling Ghost complains about Robert’s ingratitude and says that she sacrificed her whole life:
The ingratitude! It was I who made a man of him! Sacrificed my whole life to him! And what was my reward? Absolute, utter selfishness…”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
In the ensuing discussion, I made the distinction between sacrificing “to” someone and sacrificing “for” someone.
Additionally, I referenced The Screwtape Letters, which distinguishes between “unselfishness” and “charity”. From his demonic point-of-view, Screwtape says that, given a choice between the two, demons should always encourage “unselfishness” over “charity”. Matt and I said that this is because charity goes far beyond mere unselfishness since it actively tries to seek the good of the other. Not only that, unselfishness can become competitive in its unselfishness…and thus become selfish!
• I asked Matt whether he thought things were different between this couple before they got married. Did things change when they got married? Matt referred to a comment she made which implied that she was conscious she was lowering herself to marry him:
“…he seemed to have forgotten that I was a lady even if I had married him”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
…and he also referred to her need for him which she expresses right at the end:
“I must have someone to-to do things to”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
• In addition to pushing him at work and “keeping him going” at home, she also regards the expunging of his friends as a real achievement:
“…he’d just slink off by himself every now and then to see what he called his old friends… and leave me to amuse myself!… A woman who has her wits about her can always drop in a word here and there… None of that set were friends of his any longer by the end of the first year”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
• Matt took some time out to affirm that the behaviour of this Controlling Ghost is not exclusive to females.
• I asked Matt what he thought the love languages were of Controlling Ghost and her husband. We went back and forth, but Matt thought that the Ghost’s were Acts of Service and Quality Time. Although it was hard to say given the biased source material, we suggested that Robert’s could also be Acts of Service and Quality Time.
• One of her comments indicates that his spirit was really crushed over the course of their marriage and destroyed his joie de vivre:
“…just set himself to get old and silent and grumpy…[but he] hadn’t always been like that…There had been a time when he took an interest in all sorts of things and had been quite ready to make friends.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
• We both said that the sign that their relationship was in a real trouble is when she mentions the teasing of her husband by some of the young men whom she invited over to the house:
“The younger men who came to the house – it wasn’t my fault if they liked me better than my old bear of a husband – used to laugh at him.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
There is also a hint here that she’s engaged in flirtation with these younger men.
I shared the memory of a small group I was part of in England where I first heard a group of guys talking about the admiration they had for their wives and how blown away I was by it. Matt spoke about his time at a non-denominational church and how the pastor regularly encouraged the congregation to “sow words of life into each other”:
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Philippians 4:8
Matt also referenced Jesus’ words about what defiles a man:
[Jesus said] “Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and so passes on? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man”
Matthew 15:17-19
We also said that a team with with infighting is bound to fail:
[Jesus said] “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand”
Mark 3:25
• I asked Matt what he thought the Ghost meant when she said:
“For by this time your wonderful Robert was turning into the sort of man who cares about nothing but food”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
I suggested that this might mean Robert is a comfort eater (I’m one myself) or because he keeps being denied food because of his wife’s projects. Matt connected it to The Six Human Needs, popularized by Tony Robbins: Certainty, Variety, Significance, Love & Connection, Growth and Contribution:
Matt went on to say that if you can’t get comfort and certainty in your marriage, you look for it in another arena, such as food or TV.
“take charge of him again…make something of him…. There’s lots, lots, lots of things I still want to do with him”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
• I noted that the house they bought was a bit more expensive than they could really afford:
Well, I got him into the new house at last. Yes, I know. It was a little more than we could really afford at the moment, but all sorts of things were opening out before him. And, of course, I began to entertain properly.
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
We pondered whether the purchase of a house they couldn’t really afford was driven by a need for status, or for the kind of entertaining she had in mind, or some interplay between the two. I pointed out that she didn’t have any difficulty spending money:
“Naturally, I had to dress well”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
• Towards the end of the chapter, the Ghost changes her mind as to whether she’s willing to meet Robert:
“I believe I have changed my mind. I’ll make them a fair offer, Hilda. I will not meet him, if it means just meeting him and no more. But if I’m given a free hand I’ll take charge of him again… Don’t consult him: just give him to me”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
This quickly degrades into pleading:
“Please, please! I’m so miserable. I must have someone to – to do things to…. No one minds about me at all [in Hell]. I can’t alter them”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
I explained that nobody minds about her in Hell because they are all souls turned in on themselves (Latin: “Incurvatus in se“).
Matt and I then connected this to The Four Loves. Matt explains that Lewis divides loves into “Need Loves” and “Gift Loves”. Neither of these are bad, but both can be distorted. He went on to explain that, since didn’t recognize her need for God, the Controlling Ghost put it all on her husband. Matt connected this to the work of John Eldridge.
I suggested that one of the major themes of this chapter is “rightly ordered loves”. When these loves are not rightly ordered, they will become corrupted.
[A garden] teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties which man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined. If you want to see the difference between its contribution and the gardener’s, put the commonest weed it grows side by side with his hoes, rakes, shears, and packet of weed killer; you have put beauty, energy and fecundity beside dead, sterile things.
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 6)
• Matt then brought up the theme of vulnerability. Throughout the entire chapter the Ghost was explaining how much her husband needed her, but it’s only at the end that she admits her need of him.
• All this culminates in the Ghost disappearing:
“The Ghost which had towered up like a dying candle flame snapped suddenly. A sour, dry smell lingered in the air for a moment and then there was no Ghost to be seen”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
I compared it to last week’s episode where MacDonald talks about it resurrecting even a small spark of person. It appears that there’s now nothing left of this woman to rescue. She’s not even a grumbler anymore…
• I then mentioned something that I’ve been wanting to mention for a while. When we compare Dante’s Inferno and The Great Divorce, we see that the sins of The Inferno are far grander. I suggested that what Lewis is trying to tell us here is that even small sins, over time, can turn us into creatures fit for Hell. Matt built on this, talking about the necessity to regularly confess our sins to God (particularly the spiritual sins) and ask for grace.
• Matt tries to end the episode with a quotation from The Four Loves:
St. John’s saying that God is love has long been balanced in my mind against the remark of a modern author (M. Denis de Rougemont) that “love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god”; which of course can be re-stated in the form “begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god”.
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 1)
However, I have my own quotation with which to end, also from The Four Loves, where Lewis describes a character which is very similar to our Controlling Ghost:
I am thinking of Mrs. Fidget, who died a few months ago. It is really astonishing how her family have brightened up. The drawn look has gone from her husband’s face; he begins to be able to laugh. The younger boy, whom I had always thought an embittered, peevish little creature, turns out to be quite human….The girl, who was always supposed to be “delicate”…now has the riding lessons … Mrs. Fidget very often said that she lived for her family. And it was not untrue. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew it. “She lives for her family,” they said; “what a wife and mother!” She did all the washing; true, she did it badly, and they could have afforded to send it out to a laundry, and they frequently begged her not to do it. But she did. There was always a hot lunch for anyone who was at home… They implored her not to provide this. They protested almost with tears in their eyes… It made no difference. She was living for her family. She always sat up to “welcome” you home if you were out late at night; two or three in the morning, it made no odds; you would always find the frail, pale, weary face awaiting you, like a silent accusation. Which meant of course that you couldn’t with any decency go out very often…. The Vicar says Mrs. Fidget is now at rest. Let us hope she is. What’s quite certain is that her family are.
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Chapter 3)
• As usual I ended with some haikus:
The Controlling Ghost
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 10)
Manipulation,
Tyranny dressed up as love,
Frustration as care…
The hen-pecked husband
Controlled, manipulated,
Puppet on a string…
