Screwtape Letters 11 - 14

 

1. Letter 11: Funny may not be not Funny
   1. What is the power of joy, music, fun? What in these things is inherently different than jokes, sarcasm, flippancy?
   2. S/T is enticed by jokes. What can they afford (do for) us? 
   3. S/T's highest value is in Flippancy, the best of all forms of humor, whereby a contented superiority in perception disconnects us from the rest of creation. This is the specialty of the:
      1. Hyper-educated,
      2. Cynic
      3. AM radio crowd
      4. Victim-minded
      5. namely, everyone but me;)
   4. Sarcasm is the extended arm of hell.
2. Letter 12: Trajectory
   1. S/T would rather us slip than fall. Why?
   2. The Enemy desires our sin to be a call to repentance and reigniting of relationship. S/T would prefer it hang around for a while, fester, sticky, to apprehend our lives. "He will want his prayers to be unreal, for he will dread nothing so much as effective contact with the Enemy"
   3. We hover in our rut, preferring the dark corner to the heat of the light, exchanging something for nothing: our time, opportunity to life, serve, laugh, give... for reluctance, half-conscious guilt, disengagement.
   4. "The safest road to hell is the gradual one"
3. Letter 13: Real Danger
   1. To S/T, grace is a defeat of the first order. What happens when we come to grips, come to peace, with grace?
   2. His advice: keep us away from positive pleasures. Why? What about positive pleasure connects us with the Enemy and distances us from Screwtape? What scares S/T about a wholehearted enjoyment of something, anything, regardless of its seeming eternal value?
   3. The Enemy seeks for the vermin to give up self will with the full intention of releasing a self that is more fully theirs in return.
   4. Misperception (which S/T capitalizes upon): we are not to change who we are in the pursuit of God. He is not asking us to do so. He seeks to complete us, not redefine us. 
   5. Our feelings and our actions are connected.
4. Letter 14: I have lots of Humility
   1. We cycle from virtue to pride at our virtue
   2. S/T: help them develop a self-contempt (a flesh-based humility that denies the intrinsic value of the Enemy's creation), and extend that self-contempt to others, developing a contempt for others (as dastardly as ourselves), society, the world, creation. I'm crap, and so are you.
   3. The Enemy desires you to love your neighbor as you love yourself, as well as loving yourself as you love your neighbor.
   4. Self-focus is Vanity, regardless of you self-opinion. Is it best to fix your mind or to lose it?