Screwtape to Wormwood on Disappointment~

I'm an avid listener of books recorded on tape! Ever so often I decide what I'll listen to before going to sleep, and right now it's Mere Christianity. But during the day--when it isn't so scary--I have been listening to The Screwtape Letters. Both of these C. S. Lewis books are reminders of what seems to have been lost in today's fast-paced world--the fact that our spiritual lives are serious and should be tended to seriously. Our repeated protestations of "I'm a Christian" may not cut it in the end. The latest version of The Screwtape Letters is a dramatization of the book by Focus on the Family. It's done by a wonderful cast of characters and the man who plays Screwtape is inspired! Jon and Phillip both have iPods and I know they'd both enjoy hearing these valuable insights about living the Christian life. I just have to figure out how I can get an iPod!

Now I don't deny that you have to be thinking while listening, if you want to catch the point of these conversations. But I'm going to give you a little taste of the flavor, so you can decide if you'd like the whole meal. Millions of people love this book. Lewis was a little disconcerted that it was so popular when his many other books were so much more profound in his view. But being more human than we'd like, we really enjoy the idea and the drama of The Screwtape Letters. See what you think of this excerpt.

This is senior devil Screwtape talking to junior devil Wormwood:

"Whatever men expect, they soon come to think they have a right to; the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill on our part, be turned into a sense of injury."

AND:

"Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anti-climax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His "free" lovers and servants--"sons" is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to "do it on their own." And there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt."

Something to chew on for a Tuesday! Today I'm going to get started on all the things I want to get done before my company arrives.

Blessings...Mimi