'Screwtape Letters' and fond memories of the past

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.

Oh right! D.A. Carson review.

Well, D.A. Carson is a very very smart man. He gave a very very good talk on suffering and backed it up with Biblical everything. Very impressive. But more valuable was that he said things that I needed to hear this week. I like going to events where the townies come out. It's good seeing non-good looking people over the age of 24.

Here's what I got from it:

• "War makes death real to us" - C.S. Lewis. I like this quote because there are a lot of hippie-type people in Columbia (God love them), and the rebel in me wants to bring up points about how war is sometimes a good idea. I don't want to expound on this. My brother has a funny bumper sticker that says something like "War never solved anything except slavery, genocide, nazism, and fascism"

• sometimes we just don't know why we're suffering (take a look at Job - he never really knew)

• the poem 'Jesus of the Scars' by Edward Shillito

• sometimes you can actually see the gravity of your sin in relation to other people's. Even to the point that there exists innocent suffering. This blows my mind, I sway towards the end of the spectrum of assuming that everyone deserves suffering all the time.

Harry Potter and MTW

So a couple weeks ago I was at the Mission to the World (missions organization for the Presbyterian Church in America) Asia-Pacific conference in Malaysia. I had never been around that many missionaries before in my life. It didn't really hit me until later on in the week to actually look at these people. I started thinking about their lives and the places they live and the things they go through every day. I'm not into glorifying missionaries, shoot - I think every Christian is technically a missionary wherever they live.

But anyways, I started thinking about these people and the spiritual battles they've been through and the things they've seen God do in their own and others' lives and the spiritual gifts they have.

Awhile ago, when I was reading the last Harry Potter, I was thinking about how cool it would be if everyone had some kind of power, like something that could define them. Each of the characters has something that establishes their character. They are who they are.

And then I started thinking about the famous line in C.S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory about other Christians: "If we were to see them in their glorified forms we would be tempted to bow down and worship them."

It seems as if, underneath all the superficial dorkiness of the missionaries, they are warriors. They have scars from past battles, and terrifying spiritual gifts.

I love that glimpse of people in this form that you get after hearing their life story. Suddenly they're not someone you say hi to at college group, they're someone to stare at in wonder.