[I originally penned this post in 2020, but delayed its publication due to failing in my attempt to secure permission to receive this perfect illustration. Five years later, AI allowed me to create the image shown above. Since the message remains pertinent, I’m offering my thoughts on this subject today.]
Medicines are precious. Right now we are seeing the release of the first antiviral drugs devised to protect us from the covid plague. The trials have been positive, and now the caregivers on the frontlines are receiving these protective injections.
Unfortunately, some so-called medicines are not effective. They can even be harmful. That’s the case with “patent medicines” hawked by shysters lying about their results. Originally the term was positive. According to one museum, “patent medicines originally referred to medications whose ingredients had been granted government protection for exclusivity.”
Sadly, though, “the recipes of most 19th century patent medicines were not officially patented. Most producers (often small family operations) used ingredients quite similar to their competitors—vegetable extracts laced with ample doses of alcohol.
In a previous post, I shared Lewis’ view of God’s role in healing.
In his essay entitled “Miracles,” C.S. Lewis described during World War II the Christian viewpoint that God is the author of healing. After discussing the natural order of creation, he argues that God is at work in restoring the health of the those who are ailing.
In 1962, Lewis commiserated with a correspondent complaining about the number of pills she needed to take. He acknowledges the problem, and then points to a very positive corollary.
Yes, and one gets bored with the medicines too–besides always wondering ‘Did I remember to take them after breakfast?’ and then wondering whether the risk of missing a dose or the risk of an over dose is the worst!
Yes, one gets sick of pills. But thank God we don’t live in the age of horrible medicines such as our grandparents had to swallow.
In A Grief Observed, Lewis used an illustration of physical pain to explore the emotional pain caused by his sorrow at his wife’s passing.
I once read the sentence “I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache and about lying awake.” That’s true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
In some ways, psychological suffering is particularly painful. The mentally ill have historically been ostracized. For all of the neurological discoveries that have been made in recent years, the human brain remains a mystery.
Fortunately, medical science has experienced some success formulating medicines that are helpful in treating mental disorders. One problem, however, is that (like nearly all meds) psychological formulas occasionally produce extreme side effects.
C.S. Lewis’ primary experience of psychological suffering came through grief. Tweaking Optimism, a great blog, has gathered a number of Lewis’ thoughts on mental anguish. One passage he cites from The Problem of Pain aptly contrasts physical and mental suffering.
Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and frequently more difficult to bear. The common attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”
In the same book, Lewis lifts up the truth about suffering. In cases where no cure can bring relief, he beautifully describes various ways to survive journeying through the valley.
When pain is to be born, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.
C.S. Lewis’ Prescription for Christians Today
We live in an uncertain and turbulent time. Only God knows how long this world will last, but he has promised to deliver from death and hell those who call on his name. Thus, Jesus’ followers need not live in dread or despair.
We live with hope, and look forward with enthusiasm to our Lord’s return. It is to that glorious day, the Parousia, that Lewis refers in his essay “The World’s Last Night.”
The doctrine of the Second Coming, then, is not to be rejected because it conflicts with our favorite modern mythology. It is, for that very reason, to be the more valued and made more frequently the subject of meditation. It is the medicine our condition especially needs.
An Entertaining Tolkien “Game”
The inspiration for this revisitation of Lewis’ thoughts about medicine came from a fun website I recently encountered. Some creative soul noticed the similarity between two dissimilar matters—antidepressant medications and residents of Middle Earth.
The game offers 24 words, and you are challenged to identify the group into which it falls. Is it the name of a pharmaceutical, or is it one of the characters created by J.R.R. Tolkien? One name is a giveaway, but you may find many of the others rather difficult to discern.
Kudos to anyone who gets over twenty correct. (I almost did . . . well, if sixteen is close.) Have fun, and learn something, at the very same time!
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