Is it about how you die, so much as how well you live before you die?

In the Jossverse I'd say it's also about what happens after you die, which is the crux of my argument. We know there is an afterlife, but Fred—perhaps uniquely among human beings—doesn't get one. Or if the best authority on the process is wrong, then what Fred gets is for little rotted shards of her self-awareness to exist forever mired in the midst of Illyria's far vaster self.

Susan, is that from "A Grief Observed"? I wonder where the hell my copy went.

Yeah, I just want to have a cup of tea with him. You know that book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, I've never read it, or even the comments on the covers. The title sends my imagination soaring, more than it grabs me to read the book.

I know! When I first heard about it I hoped it was a sort of game-within-a-book or a book of interviews w/ well-known people asking them that question. I was disappointed when I found out it was just a novel.

I think Lewis might make my list; my agnosticism makes me kinda not sure about some of his Christian-theme works (love LWW though, studied it in Children's Lit. this term), but since we'd be in heaven I'd probably be rethinking things.

Shakespeare for sure although he'd probably be worn out; "I have to meet people all day! I just wrote some plays, why are you all so curious about me?"

What ep is "it's a sickness, Buffy" from?

Connie, it's from The Four Loves.

The Four Loves

Ah. I read that at some point. I think I even have a copy. It made me cry. I need to find it and read it again.

Back to the library!

Susan, I posted that in my LJ so I will see it and think about it often. Thank you.

As did I.

You're welcome. It's always been one of my favorite quotes.

Wild, "It's a sickness, Buffy" might be "It's like a sickness, Buffy," I'm never sure, and is from the beginning of one of the two hours of Graduation Day. Willow has just exchanged many phony, yet oddly heartfelt pleasantries with Harmony, and is saying she is going to miss Harmony.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no-one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safely in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy is damnation. The only place outside heaven you can be safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.

I often wonder if Lewis would approve of a person like me using that quote for a raw, sexy feminist romance novel. But I figure if he has a problem with it, he can take it up with me once I'm dead too.

Gah, love him. Lewis in his time? Well, I don't know. Lewis perfected and invulnerable? He'd get over it. He is, after all, the one who wrote The Screwtape Letters, in which he (correctly, imo) pointed out (via Screwtape) that in say, adultery, it is not the pleasure that's the sin. The sin's already occured, but the pleasure is there by design. The sin's in the betrayal, and the awful feelings.

Of course, it's way better than that, because it's Lewis. If I can hunt it down (Oh, how I long to use Control+F on my books), I'll post it tomorrow.