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shadowlands

The man. The myth.

Re: The Healing of Joy and Peter Bide

Postby Guest » July 25th, 2007, 3:05 pm

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Re: The Healing of Joy and Peter Bide

Postby moordarjeeling » July 26th, 2007, 12:05 am

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Re: The Healing of Joy and Peter Bide

Postby Guest » July 26th, 2007, 2:44 pm

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The Miracle of the Healing of Joy

Postby Reep » August 3rd, 2007, 1:31 am

Further up and further in! -- The Last Battle
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Postby Catherina » March 11th, 2008, 1:59 pm

I have tried to understand more deeply what really happened to Jack when he lost Joy. I've gone through "Shadowlands" slowly, translating the subtitels into my language. I've read "A Grief Observed". Tried to meditate on what he has said.
Some have said that the film gives an impression as if Jack was loosing his Faith. It is one aspect yes. But not the only one. I think that what he really went through is fully understood only by those who are deeply religious themselves and who have experienced such a pain or loss. He did not loose his Faith in his intellect. He only describes what he felt at the time and tries to face those feelings. It is so beautiful in the film when Jack says to Douglas that it's OK to feel that he doesn't believe in Heaven. Would it have been better to be angry at this? It is only natural to feel that way when we have done our best and God seems to not answer.
In his book Jack says that until the moment he lost Joy, his Faith and also his love towards Joy had been more superficial than real. Rather selfish. And that his Faith and love collapsed. They had to become more real through this trial.
Even if he loved Joy too much as he says, I think it was not deliberately. Seeing the loved one suffering his love became compassionate and unselfish. In a way it is really funny why does it take so much for men to come to this - if we think of Alfredo in Traviata or even of J.S.Bach. Love becomes true love at the deathbed of one's beloved...
I think the most difficult thing for Jack to understand was, that why does God give us such a love, such happiness, such beauty - even a miracle of life itself - and then takes it away in the same unexpected way - and it seems in a most cruel way. I think that the film is showing very well this state of his loss, of his deserted soul and desperate want to understand why.
So why? I think that the key is what Joy said - the future pain is part of the happiness now. As in Jack's pain in loosing her is also present the happiness he felt before. May-be it is because we must pay for everything beautiful we receive. And if it is so very beautiful as it was for them, they had to pay so much...
It is absolutely true that he does say in his book that we are like rats in the cosmic laboratory. He really felt that way, even if for a short period of time. But he explains it with the Passion of Christ. On the Cross Christ felt also as if abandoned by his Father. And I think He as a human person suffered very much from being abandoned by his friends too. But still He loved His Father as He loved His friends giving His life in a most cruel way as a proof of this love both towards His Father and His friends.
This is the true love. If we love truely we do not stop loving if the person loved by us is no longer loving us or is betraying us or is very cruel to us. We do not stop loving even if the person is dead. Because true love lives always in our heart and that person also lives always in our heart. It is also the way He said that His Kingdom is. It is not in this world, but in our hearts. And that is the most difficult thing we have to learn.
And I am sure that if Heaven exists we will be rewarded there to see those we have mostly loved down here. And that there our love will be perfect and never betrayed or deserted again.
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