I started trying to read C.S. Lewis' 'Screwtape Letters' again. It's about my fifth shot at it. I don't know why, but it's always been hard for me to get into. I gave up starting over from the beginning each time. Based on my bookmark from the MU student health center, the last time I picked it up was around Friday March 11 2005. I think the reason it's tough for me to get through is that I've always had a hard time believing in spiritual warfare. It's one of the areas of my faith that has yet to be explored.
I used to get stressed out about those areas - especially at L'Abri, where I felt like I should have some sort of opinion on most spiritual matters. I'm kind of in between on that. It's kind of the same thing with politics. Some issues - like health care or social security - honestly don't affect my life in a real manner and it does not seem energy-effective to put in time finding my point of view on the matters. Is this laziness? Is it patience with myself and where I am in life - to wait until I know more about the matter to make up my mind? This, like most things, might be a balance. I don't know.
Back to 'Screwtape Letters.' One thing that bugs me is when professors at college or high school and middleschoolers' parents freak out about current culture and how everything is worse now. I think that is historically and biblically impossible. Sin has been around forever. God didn't suddenly lose the battle in the 90's. Also - anyone who has ever studied ancient history knows that we have nothing on the Romans. Good grief. So anyways, here's something that Lewis says on the matter (he's talking about nouveau-gluttony):
"The woman is in what may be called the "All-I-want" state of mind. All she wants is a cup of tea properly made, or an egg properly boiled, or a slice of bread properly toasted. But she never finds any servant or any friend who can do these things "properly" - because her "properly" conceals a insatiable demand for the exact, and almost impossible palatal (i love that word) pleasures which she imagines she remembers from the past; a past described by her as "the days when you could get good servants" but known to us as the days when her senses were more easily pleased and when she had pleasures of other kinds which made her less dependent on those of the table."
This totally makes sense. Parents - because of their intense love and preoccupation with thier children - especially have reason to focus more on the trials and travails of their kids and lose sight of the absolute normalcy of their experiences. Professors, I don't know, maybe now that they are past the ages of being constantly freaked about and not knowing what to do with their lives, have more time to complain about the state of the world. I like C.S. Lewis, he's a smart guy.
Have you read Mark Twain's "Letters From The Earth"? It's like the non-Christian version of Screwtape Letters and written about 50 years or so before.
ReplyDeleteI love it.
oooo. i'll check it out. have you read 'innocents abroad'?
ReplyDeleteI've tried to read Screwtape Letters about 4 different times. Still haven't gotten past a few chapters. Maybe it's because it's not a straight narrative really? I don't know :|
ReplyDeleteWhile the book is uses spiritual warfare as the setting you do not have to read it in that frame of mind. When I first read it I kept going back to the copyright page because the issues it deals with are as relevant for today as they were in 1940's when it was written. Actually, I had trouble believing that people in the 40's had the same challenges that we face today since we often have that rosy nostalgic picture of the good old days. Read it to help you deal with life's issues. While there is a whole realm of spiritual warfare, we do enough without the help of demons to screw up our lives. There's a Lord Peter Whimsey story set in the 1920's that features cocaine fueled orgies and drug smuggling. I read it in the 90's and thought I was reading the daily news. I seem to recall something from the Beatles or maybe it was Ecclesiastes about nothing new under the sun.
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