Resisting the Prowling Lion – 40 Days with Screwtape

Day 18 – Tuesday after 3rd Sunday of Lent

To Read:

From The Screwtape Letters:

Screwtape, a senior demon, is offering advice to Wormwood his nephew, an apprentice demon.  The language he uses is ‘upside down’ referring to God as ‘the Enemy’ and the devil as ‘Our Father Below’.

MY DEAR WORMWOOD

The Christians describe the Enemy as one ‘without whom Nothing is strong’.   And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young 
tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness.   But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy.   It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing.   Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.   Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Your affectionate uncle


SCREWTAPE

To Reflect:

In the film Neverending Story the unlikely hero, Bastian, ‘travels’ to Fantasia to rescue the Childlike Empress from ‘The Nothing’ that threatens to consume all the fantastic creatures and people of that land because of an absence of belief.  A story well worth watching in full, everyone lives ‘happily ever after’ when Bastian proves his belief by giving the Empress a new name and, at story’s end conquers the bullies in his own school by chasing them whilst riding Falkor the flying Luckdragon. ‘Nothing’ when not faced down with belief gobbles up everything!

Lewis makes a play on words with the intention of the Collect from the Book of Prayer which reads:

‘Nothing’ when allowed to grow unchecked is indeed strong.  How many of us have found ourselves at the end of a day only to realise that that it has been full of ‘nothing’?  Not that activity for its own sake is righteous – busyness (especially busybodyness) can be just as sinful as idleness – but the gnawing away of life that happens when we give ourselves over to nothing will, as it almost did for Bastian and Fantasia, destroy our whole world.

On occasion find myself sucked into the other little sins of the tempters armoury.  The drumming of fingers, the whiling away of time (Oh Facebook and Twitter you twin cyberspace Siren Sisters!), the using up of the moments of life until we find that not just a few moments, or hours, or days even have been wasted.  In the end we take the gift of time and fritter it away.  Giving strength to nothingness instead of meaning to life and find ourselves to be full of the emptiness of ‘Nothing’.  

Michel Quoist says it perfectly, and better than I ever could in one of his prayer poems.  And so I will let his words complete this reflection:

And so all people run after time, Lord. They pass through life running– Hurried, jostled, overburdened, frantic, And they never get there. They haven’t time. In spite of all their efforts They’re still short of time, Of a great deal of time. Lord, you must have made a mistake in your calculations, There is a big mistake somewhere. The hours are too short. Our lives are too short.

You who are beyond time, Lord, You smile to see us fighting it. And you know what you are doing. You make no mistakes in your distribution of time to men. You give each one time to do what you want him to do. But we must not lose time, waste time, kill time, For it is a gift that you give us, But a perishable gift, A gift that does not keep.

Lord, I have time, I have plenty of time, All the time that you give me, The years of my life, The days of my life, The days of my years, The hours of my days, They are all mine. Mine to fill, quietly, calmly, But to fill completely, up to the brim, To offer them to you, that of their insipid water You may make a rich wine Such as you made once in Cana of Galilee. I am not asking you tonight, Lord, For time to do this and then that, But for your grace to do conscientiously, In the time that you give me, What you want me to do.

(Prayers of Life – Michel Quoist)

A Psalm To Ponder:

Psalm 101 – THE SINGLE EYE

Refrain:        Pierce our hearts with the light of your love,  our minds with the sword of your truth.

God of truth, hold before our eyes a vision of your commonwealth, your reign of integrity and wisdom, justice and mercy.  Give to those in public life minds that are true and hearts that are compassionate.  May they be humbled by those who pass by.  AMEN. (Jim Cotter)