The Great & Terrible Afterlife: A Conversation w/Karen Scheffler on Lewis's The Great Divorce

Welcome to Episode 5 in our 9-part series on C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce. Thank you for joining us as we explore the ideas presented by Lewis in this fantastic tale, a dream vision, written in response to William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

 

Today's conversation features Karen Scheffler, who is originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Half a lifetime ago, she moved to Vermont where she and her husband raised two boys. Karen has been a teacher, an artist, a wildflower, and a business owner. She's the person who stands in the back of the room, taking it all in. 

 

In her words, Karen is "an insignificant human intensely interested in becoming that shining light about which she's heard rumors - less and less terrified about what it means, mainly because of all the stars she's been meeting along the way.

 

Karen and I discuss the Secret Garden and the Sacred Heart, the horrors of Lewis's portrayal of the great and terrible afterlife, and the power of un-masking ourselves and becoming who God made us to be.