The Screwtape Letters

I recently discovered these amazing, artistic renderings of sundry Lewis writings (please check them out, O Reader, they are worth your time) and it put me in a mood to re-read Screwtape Letters in particular. It had been quite a while.

For those unacquainted, the book is written as letters from a senior devil to a junior, all of which regard the best ways to tempt a given “patient” (a human) and lead him away from what the devils refer to as “the Enemy,” meaning God.

I forgot how excellent this book is!

I had actually hesitated slightly before re-reading, because I wanted to read it out loud to my husband, and reading in the voice of a devil seemed a little uncomfortable. Of course, Lewis had to write in that voice, mind you. He said it was the easiest book he ever wrote and the least enjoyable, all “dust, grit, thirst, and itch.”

Since my review of Pilgrim’s Regress has turned out to be a helpful post, I decided I could add to the Lewis reviews. If nothing else, this is an exposé on my character, because what I will list here are all the most convicting elements of the Screwtape Letters…all the ways in which I have allowed myself to be fooled, lied to, tricked, and clouded.

1.      Argument style:

This one is best relayed in quotes, as follows. Screwtape is telling Wormwood (the junior devil) to encourage his patient to focus on those little habits or mannerisms of his mother’s which most annoy him so as to damage their relationship by inches and pinpricks.

“Let [the patient] assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy…And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones an looks which similarly annoy her.”

Screwtape then advises that the patient be made to speak normal words in a particularly nettling manner, thence to be “surprised” that the nettle finds its mark.

“Once this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offense is taken.”

*Ahem* Reading this passage was like having cold water dumped on my head. Deservedly. I have done this. I have said things in sharp and exasperated tones, then been irritated that anyone should take offense but me. “All I said was such-and-such. How could that possibly hurt your feelings? It certainly wouldn’t hurt mine.”

2.     Approved but inactive virtues:

Along the lines of believing in God—as even the demons do while shuddering—faith without deeds is useless.

“All sorts of virtues painted in the fantasy or approved by the intellect or even, in some measure, loved and admired, will not keep a man from Our Father’s house: indeed they may make him more amusing when he gets here.”

“Here” being hell, remember.

There are so many times where I see a truth but struggle to adhere to it in the clutch. I approve a truth, but do not internalize it. I agree with a truth, but do not apply the discipline necessary to live it. And this is deadly in the most honest sense.

3.     Political Christianity (it doesn’t even matter which side):

When the war (WWII) breaks out Screwtape tells Wormwood that he would do well to try and figure out whether Patriotism or Pacifism would be a better inducement to folly. It’s not to do with which is worse or better, but rather which is better suited to his personality and, therefore, more easily twisted to his endangerment: “All extremes, except extreme devotion to the enemy, are to be encouraged.”

“Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as part of his religion….Then…come to regard it as the most important part.”

This is something of which we should always be leery: cramming God into a political agenda, even a good one. Now, I have very strong political ideals and leanings. But they must all be measured by a rubric outside of themselves: whatever is not of God must fall off. There is much that is not of God in absolutely every corner of the political field. We must never forget that. We must never fall prey to the belief that ANY earthly faction perfectly represents God’s “interests” or character, for in that moment with have replaced Him with something that is NOT GOD, and it does not matter how good it seems or is. In this case especially, the perceived good is the enemy of the actual great.

AND YET

We must always be “alive to the social implications of [our] religion” even though the intersection of theology and politics is regarded to be an excellent point of spiritual attack.

A tricky situation indeed….a dangerous road that we must nevertheless walk.

4.     Law of Undulation

Simply put, we are rhythmical, amphibian creatures—“half spirit half animal”—and thus we go through peaks and troughs.

Screwtape tells his nephew Wormwood that God appears to use the troughs of spiritual life even more than the peaks…indeed “some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.”

A period of spiritual dryness or dullness is neither the loss or end of faith, but the refining of it to great purpose. Remember this. I am telling myself, and anyone else who will listen.

5.      I’ll just leave this quote right here: “An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it’s better style. To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return…”

6.     In one letter, Screwtape berates Wormwood for having let ‘the patient’ slip back towards the Enemy…and how did this happen? The patient read a book he really liked and took a peaceful walk. Joy, nature, and clear thought become an act of routing the devils’ intentions, or at least taking cover from direct fire. Another thing we would do well to remember.

7.      The combat of daily prayers:

Even Screwtape assumed daily prayers as a given, though of course he regards them as a troublesome barrier to tempting. I forget about this sometimes. Daily prayer. Such a simple, seemingly little thing. But it’s humility, it’s warfare…and it’s necessary.

8.     A Taster of Churches:

Screwtape advises Wormwood “Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that ‘suits’ him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.”

This is especially convicting of our broader culture. It often does lead to giving up on church altogether, for all churches have flaws, even drastic ones. She is, after all, made up of humans.

9.     “…zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own.’ Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours…the assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defense.”

Our time is not our own.

10.   “How valuable time is to us [tempters] may be gauged by the fact that the Enemy [God] allows us so little of it. The majority of the human race dies in infancy; of the survivors, a good many die in youth. It is obvious that to Him human birth is important chiefly as the qualification for human death, and death solely as the gate to that other kind of life. We are allowed to work only on a selected minority of the race, for what humans call a ‘normal life’ is the exception. Apparently he wants some—but only a very few—of the human animals with which He is peopling Heaven to have had the experience of resisting us through an earthly life of sixty or seventy years.”

That’s kind of a thrilling notion, isn’t it? What we experience isn’t just the norm. It’s intense training and preparation.

So I actually had TWENTY-EIGHT bullet points when I started this, but it was getting so long, I decided I’ll save the others for another time. Or perhaps I should just say: read the book, and see what you find.

Red Days

So I haven’t blogged in quite a while; I finished my degree in December, and moved across a few states in May, did a few freelance jobs, and have been trying to put as much elbow grease into my writing project as humanly possible.

I think I may not be as disciplined as I once was when it comes to writing—or perhaps I never was. The mental disciplines are sometimes so much harder than the physical disciplines, for all that that seems illogical on the surface. It is very difficult to drag myself out of the door on a cold day and make myself go on a run, or to make myself run faster than feels comfortable.

But it can be just as (weirdly) daunting to drag myself by the scruff of my neck and do the little things: call the dentist (my husband all but had to force me to do this at gunpoint), organize household things, and—per my current work—sit down at the computer and try to cause good, quality words to appear on the screen. Then make them better. Then find out the whole thing needs to be scrapped, and try again.

On a broader scale, I have been struggling, trying to navigate what I should be doing job-wise. Every time I even think about going forward with something, conflict and confusion arises.

So I think I may be having a rather long red day(s).

Have you ever seen a red day? Red days are intriguing to behold and deeply unpleasant to actually be in. Here is a picture of a red day in Iraq:

 

 

There is no fiddling with the color there---I have approximately zero skill with a camera—if anything, this does not do the redness justice. Truthfully, I always found red days fascinating despite everything.

The ground is dry. Everything is dry. The wind stirs up the dust until it fills the air. At first the air is just thick and dusty and unpleasant. But the dust gets stirred higher and it has a pinkish hue to it so the sky looks very red. The further the sun sinks throughout the day, the redder the sky becomes. Not great for long-range visibility, or for activity; you get the dust in your nose, mouth, eyes, pockets, blankets, food...everything.

Getting anything done (outside) on a red day is obviously not pleasant. I think it would be very easy to get lost if you were on unknown ground, and you get buckets of dust in your lungs just trying to go anywhere.

But red days don’t last forever. When they end, it’s amazing how suddenly clear and calm everything is. You find that the dust has found its way everywhere, even indoors. You shake the dust off of your sleeping bag, your pillow, and your clothes and you go do what you need to do.

So maybe the thing here is to be patient. I have to keep working on the red days, but it’s not easy, and I won’t always be able to see very far ahead. So be it. I do hope the dust settles soon, but I don't want to lose hope just because the air is thick and red just now. If I can be intrigued by the real live red days, maybe I can learn to be intrigued by this. There's mystery in it, and perseverance, and even great anticipation, if I can figure that part out.

 

 

The Sirens Come

I often have the experience of finding that the world is, in fact, flooded with things of which I only recently became aware. Of course they were there all along, but I simply didn’t notice them until some incident or another brought them to my attention. I think this is a fairly common experience; you don’t notice a certain make of car until you’ve been researching it, then suddenly you see it everywhere. You become apprised of a TV show or band, and suddenly avid fans and frequent references appear, as if by summons, to greet you. Or, as in the case that follows, you don’t know how pervasive a certain theme is in art and literature until you really truly begin to get it.

I have known of the siren story long before I became aware of it. Like many, I was made to read "The Odyssey" in high school. I did not particularly like it. I don’t think it was a very good translation. But that is beside the point. It is the best known origin of the siren story. Herein we have this idea that a beautiful enchanting song will lure passing sailors to their death, and the only means to avoid it is to either stop up your ears (as Odysseus’ sailors were instructed to do) or physically tie oneself up so that you could hear the enchanting song, but not be doomed by it (as Odysseus did himself). It is of interesting note that, in many languages, the word for mermaid is some variation on the word siren; they are dangerous, beautiful things that live in the abyss and mean to bring you into it.

But as I said, Homer and Odysseus did not enlighten me much on this score. It was only recently that I suddenly began to be lambasted by this siren metaphor from myriad angles and the strength of the thing hit me between the eyes. The use of the metaphor tends towards the following instruction:

“Do what you can to fix yourself to the right course now, so that when trials and deceits come, and you no longer want to stay the course, you still will”

Singer Laura Marling pitched the metaphor in terms of love and commitment:

“The sirens come…they always will.

But the dart between my heart and his

Is as good as a diamond chain”

People love to portray a version of the “stay-the-course” attitude in films; how many romantic comedies have a running-through-the-airport-to-try-and-stop-the-beloved-before-the-plane-takes-off scene? Many, many. The idea of overcoming a lot of obstacles on behalf of love is, of course, appealing. And right. But the romantic films often fall short of the real meat of the siren metaphor. The sirens are not challenges so much as they are distractions. Lures. They cannot be barreled through, or leapt over. They have to be denied. Ignored. And, according to legend, this is impossible to do if you allow yourself to hear them without something more than your own will to restrain you because:

“The devil has a pretty voice

If you listen, you’re the fool that I became”

-ZachWinters

Another use of the metaphor—more closely tied to the original—is that of returning to where you ought to be. You’re going home, in every possible good sense of the word. Like Odysseus, back to his wife and son after years of hardship:

“I’m sailing home to you

I won’t be long

By the light of the moon

I will press on

Until I find my love

…Sirens call my name, they say they’ll ease my pain

And break me on the stones

But true love is the burden

That will carry me back home

Carry me with the memories of a

Beauty I have known

…So tie me to the mast of this old ship

And point me home”

-Josh Garrels

That song is, in fact, called Ulysses (another name of Odysseus) and the album from which it is drawn is very aptly named “Love & War & the Sea In Between.” The thing I love about this usage is the emphasis on what drives him home: true love and “memories of a beauty I have known.” That line implies that he is being driven, not by how he feels now, but by what he knew for sure then. There is a beauty he had known, and no mimicry or shadow along the way should supplant it, even though the mimcries can perhaps be seen or felt…whereas the beauty he knew is still a long way off and vaguely remembered.

Our culture constantly tells us to ‘live in the moment’ and insofar as that connotes the ability to be content wherever you are and appreciate the present, I applaud the notion, as it is not an easy thing to do. But what it should not mean, and very often does, is ‘do what you feel when you feel it’; it implies a readiness to give up a belief or a love the moment it seems to be out of reach, out of vogue, or in some way difficult to reconcile. Love is a commitment. Faith is a commitment. Sometimes feelings precede, sometimes they recede, and sometimes they follow a long way in the wake of decision. As the band Mumford & Sons put it in another song, you must:

“…Hold on to what you believed, in the light

When the darkness has robbed you of all your sight”

These lyrics are sung in the context of someone who is terrified to make that initial commitment:

“I ran away, I could not take the burden of both me and you…

It was too fast, casting love on me as if it was a spell I could not break

When it was a promise I could not make.

But what if I was wrong?

Oh, hold on to what you believed, in the light

When the darkness has robbed you of all your sight”

                                                                                                         

The singer realizes that it was fear that kept him from making the promise. He admonishes the hearer not to give up what they knew when their eyes were clear...when they chose to make the promise. The point of a promise is that you’re not to escape from it. It is like ropes, lashing you to your word even when you no longer want anything to do with it. It is swearing to your own hurt now, for the joy of truth and purpose in the long run:

“So tie me to a post and block my ears

I can see widows and orphans through my tears

I know my call despite my faults and despite my growing fears

…So make your siren’s call

And sing all you want

I will not hear what you have to say

‘Cause I need freedom now

And I need to know how

To live my life as it’s meant to be”

This example is much more about purpose and duty, whereas the others were about love and return. I cannot say for certain what the lyricists intended, but I get the sense that the sirens in this song are not what you might think. Is the singer saying that sometimes the distractions from purpose might even be causes that are socially and morally laudable (speaking of the widows and orphans)? Or is he saying that the ‘widows and orphans’ are his call? I suppose it could be either.

There are many just causes in this world, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t often take them up for very wrong reasons. Sometimes the sirens are our desire to appear right, rather than to be right—to be viewed as just rather than to be just—to be commended rather than to be commendable "before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:13) The point is that the singer “knows his call” and he will not be distracted from it by any manner of siren. And notice how he sings “'Cause I need freedom now”...and the way in which he manages to gain that freedom is to give it up, by being tied to the post. Very counter to the logic of the age, I’d say.

So, the sirens come. In all forms, both as obvious and less obvious temptations to destruction, and seemingly benign distractions from a once-known purpose. If God is the ship, and faith is the mast, best batten down, because the seas are rough.

Lastly (and this one not from a song):

“God’s relationship to Israel is most commonly described as a covenant. The word “covenant” conveys permanence, steadfastness, and mutuality rather than the personal depth of that relationship. Is the covenant a tether, a chain, or is it a living intercourse?

In the domain of imagination the most powerful reality is love between man and woman. Man is even in love with an image of that love, but it is the image of a love spiced with temptation rather than a love phrased in service and depth-understanding; a love that happens rather than a love that continues; the image of tension rather than of peace; the image of a moment rather than of permanence; the image of fire rather than of light. But God said “Let there be light.””

-Abraham Joshua Heschel

I would add but one thing to Heschel’s unintended summary of the difference between a siren and the Truth (obviously he said nothing of sirens): God is also described as a consuming fire. Fire and light. Passion and permanence. The point is that the covenant comes first and sets the course.

Not on One's Own Strength

A short word about an uncomfortable fact, introduced by Langston Hughes:

Gather up

In the arms of your pity

The sick, the depraved,

The desperate, the tired,

All the scum

Of our weary city

Gather up

In the arms of your love—

Those who expect

No love from above

How often does God speak to us through each other when our ears are dulled to Him? And how often are we effective vessels? If I am lost and alone, vacillating between fury at God and denial of his existence, do you realize that you are his representative…his translator…the carrier of his words and love to those who don’t even believe in it?

From a Jon Foreman song based off of verses in Isaiah and Amos:

“Give love to the ones to the ones who can’t love at all

Give hope to the ones who have no hope at all

Stand up for the ones who can’t stand at all”

At first blush it’s a deeply intimidating, if thrilling, commission. I am not up to that task in and of myself. I get irritated nigh to the point of violence with the people who stand on the walking side of the escalator and with anyone who uses valley-girl speak…and I’m supposed be a representative of God’s love?

Thank goodness it isn’t my capacity to love and serve I'm dealing with here. I'd be done for. It’s God’s capacity we’re talking about. That changes it from an “assignment” or an impossible command into something different…not an outflow of some frantic humanistic flailing to ‘do the right thing’ (whatever that is on the given day or decade), but an outflow of God’s nature.

Can’t this:

“Gather up

In the arms of your love—

Those who expect

No love from above”

Somehow lead us to understand this: that it is God “who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4)

It is precisely because of my (extremely) limited capacity to serve and love that know I must learn to lean on God’s. I know now more than ever that the only other option is eventual, complete hypocrisy…slowly wasting away and running dry, like a rank body of water without inlet or outflow.

Don’t want that to happen. So, as God offers in the book of Amos, let’s argue this out, so that we don't mistake the world's ideas of justice (or our own) for God's:

Discipline is Not a Dirty Word

In light of the fact that language is taking certain shifts these days and words that used to have a positive connotation now have a negative or impotent one and vice versa (i.e. on So You Think You Can Dance, calling a dance “nasty” is generally offered as a high compliment. Or the word “awesome” which is supposed to mean “inspires awe” but instead, apparently, means “that's nice”—and if you’re feeling additionally expressive, it connotes an exclamation point as well) I feel the need to put in a good word for the very good word “discipline.” I don’t want it to get a bad reputation.

The word disciplined still has a fairly decent rap, but disciplinarian is not always well-treated and either word sometimes conjures in the young, modern mind an image of something rigid, binding, unrelenting and, perhaps, uncreative.

I beg to differ. It seems to me that even the most creative of people, if they truly wish to develop that creativity, will be driven to the intense discipline of honing their natural skills. I say this as someone who is not a naturally disciplined person and whatever else I am, I’m not organized. I have spurts of organization (where I will schedule whole months of meals to cook and miles to run) but generally I find discipline difficult. Which is what makes me respect its acquisition so highly.

The Disciplines:

Discipline is a tricky beast and it has a variety of meanings:

1. A parent disciplines a child: Had my parents not done this, I would likely be one of the following: a vagrant, a mercenary, a criminal mastermind, or at least in jail for something or other. I have violent and heartless tendencies, and no amount of sweet-smiled “oh she’ll grow out of it” would have tempered that. I’m STILL working on it.

2. You can study in an academic discipline: I am not so academically keen, but they call them “disciplines” for  a reason. Reading, study, research, verification, comparison, hours and hours and hours.

3. Discipline of habit/persistence: You do something enough times, the discipline becomes habit—an instinctive part of daily life.

4. Disciplined: To be regimented, organized…regularized.

For a Girl Who Doesn’t Like Grammar:

In his essay “The Weight of Glory” C.S. Lewis talks about the transformation of external discipline to intrinsic meaning saying that“…poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship.”

It should go noted that the things “replaced” do not actually disappear. Grammar, law and obedience are still present, but their meaning has gone bone-deep.

Furthermore, Lewis talks about the person who aims to acquire a certain knowledge through discipline:

“His position, therefore, bears a certain resemblance to that of the mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural and proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it.”

The student, the soldier, the runner—they are working towards a reward that is not instantaneous and which they do not fully understand until its culmination. Discipline and passing pleasures are not much connected. Discipline and lasting ones are.

“…enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery,” he goes on to say. And“…the proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given but are the activity itself in consummation.”

He give the example of a school child learning Greek grammar (something I suppose few school children do these days. I certainly never did) and the enjoyment of its poetry being the proper reward for the tedious study that preceded it. Yet, he notes, the school-child could not have known how he might enjoy the poetry while he was yet immersed in the tedium. Had this theoretical school child demanded to know what value he would receive at the end of his endeavors, he would have received an explanation he either did not understand, or was disinclined to believe—because the daily study did not, to him, bear the marks of a pleasant, rewarding thing. It was a struggle, and its end was hazy.

In Language:

As I said, I have not studied Greek, but I have studied other languages and the reward of fluency is beyond concise explanation. Suffice it to say it opens up whole new worlds of political media, poetry, literature, culture, music, idiom, perspective and conversation. And it starts with the discipline of use, immersion and persistence.

I couldn't have fully known what it would mean when I was starting fresh with alphabets and vocabulary.

In Running:

Another discipline with which I have become familiar is that of running, and it being a raw physical example doesn’t exclude it from being just as relevant.

When I first-very-first started running I was resistant to the discipline of it. I balked at the mere idea of doing an exercise just for the sake of exercise, which is how I saw it. (I still have a slight aversion to treadmills for their going-nowhere-ness, even though I have used them when they were what was available.)

I remember the first time I ran a mile and a half. I remember how excited I was. I remember two miles. I also remember how long those two miles took me and it was laughable. There was a lot of on-off start-stop running over the years, but eventually a habit formed out of sheer mercenary necessity: I was joining the Marine Corps and I had to be able to run 3 miles in a certain time. And I didn’t want to just pass the test. I wanted to ACE it.

Only now do I know that the rewards of that discipline far outweighed my perception of them. I thought “I’ll have an impressive run time, and be fit.” That happened. But more than that. I found the joy in running. The thrill of a good clip, or a wild trail, or of jumping over things (like snakes). The joy of sunsets and sunrises seen from a dozen different angles. The adventure of happening upon new roads, paths, nooks and crannies. The confidence of increased endurance and knowing how this could be used not only on my behalf, but on behalf of others.

This is one example of a discipline that did far more than present me with its known end of ‘fitness’ and a high-scoring run-time.

In Work:

I suppose it goes without saying that military-types are forced to make an intimate acquaintance with discipline of all kinds. Drilling is a quintessential example of this. In physical training. Martial Arts. Or in rifle drill and marching.

One movement. Conducted over and over. And over. ‘Till you bleed. ‘Till your bruised. ‘Till you want to fall over.

The end result? An instinct of the muscles so inherent that your mind need not translate for your body in order for it to know what to do. This is an example of an utterly pragmatic discipline that can also be used in mercenary fashion. You may not realize its worth until the day that your body reacts precisely as it must to the right prompt without it having ever occurred to your mind. Obviously this can be misused as well. Pavlovian responses can easily be good or bad, but in military environments they are about creating survival/offensive/defensive instincts that the average individual may not inherently possess.

This is where the word “discipline” acquires some of its negative connotations. People see uniforms; uniforms connote uniformity; uniformity makes people think of automatons. I—having been in the military—understand but disagree. We forget that we are GLAD when we have created instinctive physical reactions for ourselves when—say—we’re in the car. We turn on the blinker without thinking, check the mirrors, and our foot switches between brake, gas (and/or clutch) without our mind having to get involved. If we had to think too hard about it, this would be a problem. Like I said: this visceral sort of discipline can be well or badly used.

In Everything, Really

So there are disciplines that produce joy in their own right—true, deep joy—and there are other disciplines that have less monumental, less bone-deep rewards but which are satisfying nonetheless: I have been working on simple disciplines which make life smoother…like putting things away in a drawer and a closet when I am done with them. It’s so basic, but I have a tendency not to do it. I’m practicing. The thing is, I find it unlikely that the heights of my joy in life will come from putting a shirt away in the closet. But you know what? There is a tiny sigh of contentment when I think of the tedious work I’m saving myself from so that I have time to do other things…like run, or write this blog post.

So no, you may not necessarily have giddy highs when you scrub down the bathroom on that day that you have disciplined yourself to always scrub it down. But nor will you feel overwhelmed. And besides, a job well and consistently done does make me smile. Sometimes it actually does make me feel a little giddy. Without the discipline it might just make me feel exhausted instead of satisfied.

Take it from someone who had to be disciplined at a higher rate that most of her siblings because she was such a hellion—from someone who dreaded growing up because she thought it would not consist of sufficient tree-climbing and irresponsible running-about—from someone who prefers oblique paths to properly angled ones—from someone who is a fence-hopper and a roof-climber—from someone who finds grammar a scary and unknowable monster of a thing…I like real, true discipline. And boy do I ever need it. Disciple comes from that word. And discipleship.

For some people who have better natural inclinations than I, the verse “He will die for lack of discipline…” in Proverbs may seem extreme. But maybe not. Even the highest quality material still needs to be tempered, honed. It still needs the dross burned off.