Ben and I recently watched the film Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. It’s based on the true story of the writer C. S. Lewis and how he came to meet his wife and about their relationship. You know you’re always in for something remarkable with Anthony Hopkins but oh my, this was utterly mesmerising. I was so captivated, in fact, that I watched it twice and feel I could watch it a thousand times more.
There is a scene in the film between C. S. Lewis and one of his students at Oxford in which the student says to Lewis, “My father used to say we read to know we’re not alone”.
A strange feeling of blissful warmth tinged with such sadness washed over me when I heard that line. We read to know we’re not alone. Surely there could be no better way of saying it. Doesn’t it bring tears to your eyes?
I thought back to an email of thanks I received just recently from a reader I have never heard from before. She gave a brief description of herself, her family, the place she lives with her husband and their longing for a simple, slow life doing meaningful work. She ended her note, ‘From a kindred, sensitive soul.’
Though her email was not long, her words and descriptions painted a beautiful vision in my mind of the place she lives and her simple openness made me feel as though I knew the essence of her heart. Through her words of gratitude I knew that my work had helped her know she is not alone. Her note in return did the same for me.
Towards the very end of the film, C. S. Lewis repeats the same line to one of his new students and afterwards adds a question:
“We read to know we’re not alone. Do you think that is so?”
Well, yes, I do think it is so, although I’m not sure I could have articulated it before seeing this film. That one short line has helped me appreciate with much greater clarity the writers whose words fill my own bookshelves. Writers who speak what is in my own heart. Friends I will never meet who offer me the lifelong gift through their pages of written words of knowing I am not alone.