In the preface to his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes our human existence on this earth to be in some ways whatever we make of it. He proposes that those who in the end are lost will, in retrospect, view their time on earth as hellish. Mr. Lewis offers conversely that to the redeemed, a life lived with an eye toward heaven will, in eternity, be recognized as truly having heavenly characteristics.

Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region of Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, will turn out too have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.