Mindless meanderings, or everything is still normal

Dear Wormwood,

Yesterday my two sons loaded me into the car as an early Father's Day present and the three of us drove in to Atlanta and saw an 80-minute play based on C.S. Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters. It was called, appropriately, The Screwtape Letters.

(Note to Self: In the first sentence above, the phrase "as a Father's Day present" probably would have been better if placed elsewhere. --RWP)

A group called the Fellowship for the Performing Arts (FPA) out of New York put on the play, which had only two characters, Screwtape and his charming (I'm being sarcastic) little demonic assistant, Toadpipe. The play was very good. FPA have been to Atlanta before, having produced Lewis's The Great Divorce here as well as Martin Luther On Trial. I saw and enjoyed them all.

The play was performed at the Ferst Center for the Arts on the campus of Georgia Tech. It's too bad the place isn't called the Ferst Center for the Performing Arts because then I could have written (FPA) a second time if I ignored the word "Center".

I notice little things like that.

Anyway, a good time was had by all and we stopped for lunch at Jason's Deli in Kennesaw on the way down. I had an enormous Reuben sandwich that was called "Lighter Portion" on the menu, and a fresh fruit cup to boot. I didn't actually boot it. I ate it.

The fruit. Not the cup. Strawberries, pineapple, apples, and grapes are much tastier and more satisfying than the cup in which they are delivered.

I'm guessing. I don't know that for a fact.

It's another happy day in the Rhymeswithplague household. We may have to go out and buy a new refrigerator this afternoon.

Wish us luck.

Affectionaely,
Your uncle (Bob or Screwtape, take your pick)

Screwtape writes to Wormwood regarding Thanksgiving

In addition to being the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, November 22, 1963 was also the day British writer C. S. Lewis died. Lewis wrote many excellent works, among them The Screwtape Letters. Here is an excerpt that is appropriate for today:

Screwtape Gives Thanks

My Dear Wormwood,

It is that time once again when your patient, along with all those living in his country, set aside a day to give thanks. It is a deplorable idea, this “giving thanks,” and one that a team assembled by Our Father Below has been working diligently for some years to neutralize. Great strides are being made, and we have hope that one day soon we will turn this “day of thanksgiving” into just another excuse for fulfilling of selfish pleasures and of coveting what one does not already possess or need. Until that day, it is your responsibility, as it is for all junior tempters, to keep your patient from truly having a thankful heart. Fortunately, recent research has turned up methods which appear promising on this front.

The very act of being thankful is reprehensible to those who followed Our Father Below from the depths of the Enemy’s territory into the glorious realm where we now abide. By giving thanks, one is admitting a need for someone or something. And that admission of need leads to no longer being self-sufficient. It was on this point that the Enemy pressed Our Father, leading to the glorious march into Hell where we none of us needs be thankful to anyone. If I am thankful, it is not because I have been given anything. It is because I have found the power to take what I want when and where I desire.

How do you keep your patient from being disgustingly thankful? Here are some procedures laid out in the latest Tempters Training Manual, written by yours truly.

1. Keep your patient from ever seeing he is dependent on anyone else. Self-reliance, Wormwood, is the key to self-destruction. Be sure to point out those around him who are self-made men, those who never need receive anything from another. Professional athletes are good examples, as are movie and television stars. Never mind that these people are some of the neediest humans alive. Your patient need only see their public persona and be made to believe they have achieved success by their own efforts, not with the help of others. Awake in your patient the desire to never be in debt to anyone. Your colleague Gluberfest has made great strides with what is now referred to as “humanism,” encouraging the notion that, if they try hard enough, each human can achieve their own level of greatness. Keep your patient thinking that he needs no one to help him achieve his own greatness, and you will keep gratitude at bay.

2. Greed is an excellent defense against being thankful. Coveting what one does not have keeps one from being appreciative of what he does have. If your patient begins to say, “I’m thankful for the food I have,” let him see an advertisement for something even better. The reason we encourage those in advertising (some of our greatest recruits to Our Father have been placed in the field of advertising, as you know, or as you would know if you paid attention to what you have been taught) to show very large portions of food is to make any other portion look miserable and, as an effect, make the one seated before the smaller portion feel miserable. How can one give thanks for a single serving when a double serving would, obviously, be so much better?

3. To go along with greed, we have painstakingly made the day after their giving of thanks the number one shopping day for humans in your patient’s country. Advertisements will clutter the newspaper and TV all day on Thursday, promising great enjoyment if one will only venture forth in the early hours of Friday. Of course, there is nothing available on Friday your patient could not buy the next Wednesday, if he really needs to buy it, but it is the thrill of the hunt, Wormwood, that we are going for. Make your patient see that he must have something right away, and he will not bother being thankful for what he has. If you play this right, he will even despise what he has today in the hopes of obtaining something greater tomorrow. This is an endless cycle that will continue when we possess that one in Hell.

4. Distraction cannot be discounted as a weapon against thanksgiving. The busy-ness of cooking, eating and cleaning can, with skill, be used to keep humans from stopping, even for a moment, to say thank you for what they are cooking, eating, and cleaning up after. Crying children, argumentative relatives and nagging spouses can all supply much delight to you if you apply them correctly to distract your patient from being thankful.

5. Finally, there is the discontent with those things your patient is supposed to be thankful for. All food, for instance, is not universally enjoyed. If your patient does not care for carrots, be sure that there are plenty of carrots on the table. And then have the person who brought the carrots speak up loudly to say how she worked hours peeling and slicing and cooking the carrots, and how offended she will be if your patient does not eat at least two helpings of carrots. Take this home, Wormwood, and not only will your patient expel any notion of thanksgiving, but he will embrace hatred of the carrot-bringer with great vigor. If you can do this, your fun will have just begun.

I do want to say that I am thankful in my own way. I am thankful that I am not like you, a junior tempter with little hope of climbing to my level. I am thankful that Our Father seems to have better things to do these days than to inflict torment on me. And I am thankful for the warmth of my office, fueled with the souls whom I led into Our Father Below’s kingdom by keeping them from being givers of thanks.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape

Excuse me. Do you have the time?

[Warning! Warning! Semi-religious, non-denominational post ahead... --RWP]

Clocks are everywhere. The ten-dollar word is ubiquitous. Clocks are in coffee makers, microwave ovens, bedside radios, kitchen stoves, telephones, computers. Clocks are on top of buildings. You name it, it probably has a clock. I wear a small one on my wrist. A much larger one that chimes every fifteen minutes and also shows me the phases of the moon stands in my living room.

Humans have a deep-seated need, evidently, to keep track of time. But we can’t, really, because we are inside it. We can only measure the part of time we personally experience. Human beings measure time in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, seasons, years, decades, centuries, millenia, and eons. A very long time we call “ages and ages.” Computers go in the other direction: milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, picoseconds, femtoseconds (a femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second), dividing time into ever smaller and smaller pieces.

Time has been passing for a very long while. It was passing before we got here and it will probably continue to pass long after we are gone. No one knows for sure. But individually you and I are a small part of something much bigger than ourselves.

God knows how to keep track of time. He invented it and He is outside it. Before time began, there was a timeless eternity, and long after time ends there will be a timeless eternity. There is a timeless eternity going on right now.

It’s always now with God. He does not experience a past or a future. We -- His creatures -- are the only ones who do that. God experiences time in the same way He experiences place, all at once, simultaneously. There is no here or there with God. There is only everywhere. There is no yesterday or tomorrow with God. There is only everynow, everywhen. Theologians (and fools like me) use words like foreknowledge and predestined to try to describe what they (I) mean but those words are simply inadequate. God knows what will happen in the future (whether He causes it or allows it or merely witnesses it is subject to debate) because He has been there already.

Human beings are finite. We have a beginning and we seem to have an end. God, on the other hand, is infinite, without beginning or end. He always has been. He always will be. He doesn’t move at the speed of light. It’s too slow. He moves at the speed of thought. That’s even faster than a femtosecond.

I can fathom a Being without end. It is more difficult to try to fathom a Being without beginning.

Three years ago I wrote a post about C.S. Lewis’s famous mystical limpet. You ought to read it sometime.

But only if you have the time.