Summer Sweeping By

Four grandchildren are heading off to school for the first time this September.  

Apparently, my angst over this fact shows up all over my face.  Now, when this delightful passel of pure innocence barges through the door ~ all tripping over each other in the mad crush to be the first to update me with the latest school supplies, they check themselves.  They even assume an apologetic tone and quickly assure me that they can still visit when they have holidays.
Pfft!!

      I am trying to put on a braver face and act more mature.

The grandkids are wearing their crochet hat creations by Tricia.
As soon as I can recover the name of her business, I shall set up a link here.

L'il Ones Custom Crochet Creations

Thanks Amy!  :)

One thing I AM celebrating with great pleasure

is the completion of my first ever blog book!

 A Once-in-a-lifetime trip to England in 2008 with my baby girl was encapsulated in my first ever blog which in turn has finally become my first ever blog book.
I had set aside July to get that job done and missed that deadline by a mere three days.  

160 high quality gloss pages showcasing more than 600 photos and accompanied with copious amounts of  journalling and memories.

 I am extremely pleased with the results.  And trust me, 

ANYONE can do this if I can.  

Look up Blurb Booksmart  and let your imagination go!

A fitting tribute to summers end may be a picture of my first ever sighting of the Cicada.

Who can even imagine the haze of those hot summer days without the piercing buzz of the Cicada? 

One of these locust-looking insects woke me up at 4am from its perch on the foyer wall a few weeks ago and I simply had to take a picture.  

Then I had to find some courage to 'dispose' of it somehow so I could get back to sleep.

This particular specimen was about two inches in length, VERY leggy and three dimensional.

 I could not stomach the idea of splatting it against the wall so I swatted it with a wad of wet paper towel and scurried it out the front door.

*ish*

It was minus two legs ~ carnage I found in the morning.  Ugh.

The Cost of Discipleship

Good morning dear reader.  I trust you slept well last night and are enjoying your morning coffee - black.
:)  ??
C.S. Lewis when tired and cranky?  Not so much.
I should know.  I've been ferreting my way through a whack of his stuff lately, celebrating the near conclusion of my first ever blog book:  Off to England!  Oxbridge 2008 -- an account of a two week adventure at the CS Lewis conference in Oxford and Cambridge, England with my daughter Catherine. It has been a marvellous summer so far recollecting that experience, through picture and journal and coming to the end of a project started so long ago.
All things in its appointed time.

Here's a bite size section of his classic Mere Christianity.
....You got that coffee going right?

                                                   *****************

The ordinary idea which we all have before we become Christians is this.

We take as a starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests.  

We then admit that something else -- call it "morality" or "decent behaviour" or "the good of society" -- has claims on this self;  claims which interfere with its own desires.  

What we mean by "being good" is giving in to those claims. 

Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call "wrong":  

well, we must give them up!  

Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call "right": 

well, we shall have to do them! 

But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes.  

In fact, we are very like an honest man paying his taxes.  

He pays them all right, 

but he does hope that there will be enough left over 

for him to live on.  

Because we are still taking our natural self as the starting point.

As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of two results is likely to follow.
Either we give up trying to be good, or else we become very unhappy indeed.  For make no mistake:  if you are really going to try to meet all the demands made on the natural self....it will not have enough left over to live on.    
The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you.
And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier.  In the end, you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, "live for others" but always in a discontented, grumbling way -- always wondering why the others do not notice it more, and always making a martyr of yourself.  And once you have become that, you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish.
The Christian way is different: harder, and easier.
Christ says, "Give me All.  I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work:  I want You.

I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it!
No half-measures are any good.  I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there.
I want to have the whole tree down.  I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out.  Hand over the whole natural self,
all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked -- the whole outfit.
I will give you a new self instead.
In fact, I will give you Myself:  my own will shall become yours."

C.S. Lewis Readings for Meditation and Reflection edited by Walter Hooper

Right now, I'm fussing over the chapter in the blog book about Ely Cathedral  

(pictured on the horizon above). 

Ely is a positively gargantuan Gothic Cathedral 

built 1083-1375 A.D. 

Our visit there was a worship experience like none other for both my little girl and myself.  

Captured in no less than 134 digital photos during a one hour walkabout in spine-tingling wordless wonder that left us with an impression SO indelible - it makes me almost too fearful to even try (make record of it). 

But I am pushing myself to get it down on paper and I've given myself the month of July to be done with this once and for all!

  

A far more ancient and demanding vow needs to be fulfilled this summer...  

Organizing all the music in the music room.  

Ugh.

I'm going for a Venti Bold Pike Place from Starbucks.

The Weight of Glory

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, 

nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness.  

But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, 

Love.

You see what has happened?

A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance.  

The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily 

of securing good things for others, 

but of going without them ourselves, 

as if our abstinence and not their happiness 

was the important point.  

I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love.  

The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.  

We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; 

and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find 

if we do so 

contains an appeal to desire.

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that 

to desire our own good 

and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, 

I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.  

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward 

and the staggering nature 

of the rewards promised in the Gospels, 

it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires 

not too strong, but too weak.  

We are half-hearted creatures, 

fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, 

like an ignorant child 

who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum 

because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer 

of a holiday at the sea.  

We are far too easily pleased.

That is an excerpt of The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis.

It shows up in the opening pages of Desiring God by John Piper as he expounds his description of that strange phrase "Christian Hedonism".  

Desiring God is the upcoming bible study for small groups in my church family.  

I sense something in the air.  

There's a wind around us setting things astir.

With my beloved I will commit the remainder of my summer to:

pray specifically

for it to pick up speed, 

point out truth

pin us down with conviction

prevail mightily over us and 

push us forward.

Undragon Your Life

We were sitting on the couch together this morning - him and I.
We watched this video together - him and I.
We felt inspired and encouraged at the same time, for precisely the same reasons - both him and I.
So we're sharing it cuz ... y'know?... that's just what you do with those you love -  you share it.
                                         **********

Only Jesus can free us from ourselves.
Pastor Jim Burgen tells the story of hearing about a character in the Chronicles of Narnia.

His name was Eustace Clarence Scrubb; his name tells it all.
He was a bratty, jealous kid. In "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," Eustace belittles and complains about Lucy and Edmund again and again until his monstrous evil character inside starts to show on the outside; he becomes a dragon.
Only Aslan can save.
We are all like Eustace until Christ comes to our rescue.



C.S. Lewis strikes again.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is...  "awesome, completely life-altering storytelling at its finest".
                                           **********

So we finished watching it, him and I.
And he pulls an old smooth (almost forgotten) 1978 move -
he asks me out to a movie!
I am grinning.   Widely.
Two cozy seats at some Silver City and a jumbo popcorn to share, coming right up!   Happy Eeek.

Screwtape Spin-off coming at you!

I miss writing and I miss you too.  I've been utterly swamped lately with some things grand and others not so.  You know how it is -- life at breakneck speed.  Not that I want to stand still or stagnate, but surely there is a happier balance?  A mysterious, elusive balancing formula?  Somewhere out there??
Here's a paltry effort on my part to post something worth reading... from the pen of RCA pastor.
Allow me to clarify:  The effort of mine is paltry (i.e. cut and paste from e-mail:) but this fella's writing is not.
Refresh your memory regarding The Screwtape Letters here and you'll know where this post is headed...
Helpful Tip:  Pour yourself a coffee or glass of wine first and commit to a thorough leisurely read, I do think you'll find it worth your while... Luv y'all!
Below you will find a fictional letter, written by Kevin DeYoung (an RCA pastor in Michigan), in the spirit of “The Screwtape Letters”  by C. S. Lewis.  Please read it;   I think it is outstanding.  In fact, please consider it “assigned reading” for all parents with college/university age children.  Share it with those children who will soon be leaving home to attend school out of town. These are wise words written at a time when the church is viewed by many Christians with increasing ambivalence.
Rev DeYoung's Introduction 
It is the season for the great migration of students to our institutions of higher learning. This week, next week, and into September, thousands of young adults will leave home and head off to college and university.  Many of these students are Christians. Some will look for Christian fellowship in their new home. Fewer will commit themselves to a church. This “fewer” is just as the devil likes it.  At one time or another every Christian writer tries his hand at a Screwtape Letter, the C.S. Lewis inspired form of address where you write like you’re one of the bad guys.  I don’t claim to be very good at it, but here’s my humble attempt. 
Pass it on to your friends and children. Churchless Christians are on their way to being no Christian at all.

A LOST LETTER TO WORMWOOD
Fall 2010, A.H. (Anno Hostis, “the year of our Enemy”)
My Dear Wormwood,

I t’s been too long time since last I wrote. In my defence, however, it was dreadfully cold up above. 
How do humans endure such miserable conditions?  But poor weather aside, please accept my insincerest apologies for the delay in finally putting pen to paper. I trust all is devious and devilish between you and your subject. I am not an easy uncle to please, but your efforts over the past several years with your subject have been, I must admit, rather impressive. True, high school is a particularly grand time for opportunistic spirits like ourselves.  
But these advantages do not detract from your work, which has been to date, exemplary.
Your teenage subject has all the usual paradoxes of American youth we like to see down here: rebellious, yet disinterested; slothful, yet impetuous; disrespectful to parents, yet an irresponsible drain on their resources; tolerant of religions he knows nothing about, 

yet fiercely intolerant of the one he knows best. 

All in all, a splendid few years my injurious Wormwood.  Bravo!
It is because your work has proven so trustworthy over the last few years, that I now feel obliged to speak with you quite candidly about a matter of grave importance. Your subject is now enrolled in what the earth world calls “college.” I do not need to remind you what splendid opportunities these places afford us. But there is one particular danger, and you must see to it that it is avoided at all costs. 

And that danger is church attendance.

Though your subject seems safe from the clutches of our Enemy Above, you will recall that he has spent the majority of his Sundays, thus far, in church. The habit may not be easy to break. If he tries church for a few weeks, make sure it is a pointless endeavor. 
Do not forget our little rhyme:

“If to church one must go, lead him to an empty show. And when all we can do is meddle, makes sure on one church he does not settle.”
Church attendance is bad enough, nephew, but consistent attendance at the same church spells almost certain doom for our cause. If your human persists in his church interest, you simply must devise some way to shuffle him around from congregation to congregation. See to it he never knows the people he is worshiping with. Keep reminding him of how rotten the music is over here, and how long the sermon is over there, and how bland the coffee is at that other church.  Trust me, it won’t take much to get him floundering on church. 

Almost any excuse will do.

College students are nothing if not critical. They are trained in it daily.

Use this to your advantage, my dear boy. If your subject is determined to go to church, make sure he searches for the perfect church. Within a few weeks he will be fast asleep on Sunday morning, much to our Father’s delight. Speaking of sleep, do whatever you can do keep your subject out late on Saturday evenings? Drink, girls, football, video games, paper—it doesn’t matter. Just keep him up. You know perfectly well how our Father Below insists on busyness at all costs and how terribly he depends on sleep deprivation for his work. It’s a well known fact among the higher ranks of devildom, that silly humans suspect our interference in the big things–death, accidents, spinning heads, and the like. 
They never expect that our work consists mainly in distraction. 
So do not neglect our demonic bread and butter. Make Friday a fun day and Saturday a waste. 

He will have no choice then but to sleep on Sunday and use the rest of the day to get

ready for Monday.  Keep up your discipline my dear Wormwood or he will keepup his!

You will excuse me for my stern tone, but I cannot overstate the importance of this matter of church. Perhaps your youth prevents you from fully grasping the eternal significance of this issue. Heaven is at stake, my infernal child. Spirituality is one thing. God talk is generally harmless.  Student “fellowships” as they call them are tolerable for a season. 
But for hell’s sake, Wormwood, church is absolutely out of the question.
Of course, it goes without saying some churches serve our cause nicely. 

Dead tradition churches.  Silly entertainment churches. Social get-together churches. Political party churches. Loveless, divisive churches.  Doctrineless churches.

These are all wonderful. 

Our concern, and I must reiterate it is a deep concern, is with churches that act like churches, the ones that preach Christ and live out their blasphemous faith. Such churches

introduce many bad habits in our subjects. They become more thoughtful. They become more aware of our Enemy’s character and schemes. They learn to love each other, even people unlike them in situation and temperament.  This can only bode ill for our work in the long run.  At the risk of insulting your diabolical intelligence, allow me to remind me of your course in Youth Misery. 

Recall the Three S’s of Satan, our Sinister Snake (I know, he sometimes gets carried away with alliteration, but it does help jog the old memory). The Three S’s of youth misery: 

Keep them separate. Keep them selfish. Keep them searching.   
Allow me to expound.

The First S: Keep them separate. Our Bureau of Statistics (remember there are lies, damned lies, and statistics) has documented evidence proving that the best way to keep young people from growing into devoted followers of the  Enemy is to keep them far away from any of his grown-up, devoted followers.  Church attendance allows for too much interaction between old and young.   

With this interaction come manifold dangers: modeling, mentoring, service, and hospitality.

Listen closely. Groups of students meeting together for prayer and study is,  it’s true, a pernicious influence, but gladly, the influence is often short-lived. Soon, your subject will graduate and he will find that the rest of the planet is not like his university. He will not be surrounded by peers all his age with his same interests. It is to our advantage that he be unable to relate to anyone above the age of 25. 
This not only makes for misery, but it makes church involvement, 
and therefore the Christian life, much less likely.

This, of course, goes hand in hand with the Second S: Keep them selfish.
It’s really quite simple.  All of our human subjects are selfish, but the young especially. 
It’s hardly their fault. They have no spouse or children to think of, only themselves. 
They have food handed to them on plastic platters. And they live in a country that believes for some strange reason, pleasant enough to us, that history doesn’t matter, that the old are useless, and that youth culture should be prized above all else. And yet, I must hasten to add, don’t underestimate your subject. Human youths are capable of extraordinary acts of courage and bravery and accomplishment, as the Annals of the Enemy record.  Keep your youth far away from such examples.  
See to it that no visions of nobility or self-sacrifice or inspiration enter his head.

Which again, if I may repeat myself, is why church must be foresworn at all costs. It is at church that he will see examples of lived-out bravery and sacrifice. And, more importantly, it is at church that he will have to face his own selfishness. He will encounter music he doesn’t like and old people who do strange things and babies who smell and cry. (Incidentally, I only mention babies because your subject is male, as is mine. The female youth I am told must not, under any circumstances, be surrounded by small children, those children enticing the females to re-visit church rather than repulsing them away as with most male subjects). My point is that so long as the spiritual experiences of our youthful subjects can be catered to the whims and fancies of 18-22 year olds, the students will not likely stick with a church when they discover that churches must also deal with the whims and fancies of 8 year olds and grandmothers.

One more thing, students today love the idea of community. 
Do everything in your power to keep them loving the idea of community rather than loving their community.  As long as they love their vision of community instead of loving the actual fleshly people around them, they will never have real community and they will stay far away from church.

The Third S, and here I draw to a close, is to keep them searching. 

Use the native restlessness of this time to your advantage. 

Students think it is their inalienable right to be irresponsible and uncommitted. 

Feed this conviction. 

Do not, in any way, allow for your subject to consider commitment or service or what they call “accountability.” 
If he must be interested in God, keep it peripheral. Let him come and go and flit in and out of whatever spiritual venue suits him for the day. But see to it that he makes no promises, no commitments, no investment. And in the unlikely event that you cannot prevent such blunders, make sure there is no one in his life to hold him to his promises and commitments, especially those who are older and wiser. This goal is best served by keeping our patients away from church. 
Remember the cross-stitch (pardon my use of the foul word “cross”) above auntie’s fridge: 

“Keep them searching for the soul; never finding and never whole.”

All that’s left is for me to thank you for your patience in reading what has turned out to be a rather lengthy correspondence. Please do not hear my harsh words as anything but familial concern for your welfare and the good of our Infernal Kingdom. Would you be so kind as to write me back as soon as possible? These are weighty matters and we truly live in troubled times.

Might I suggest you use the post instead of email–what with your past internet struggles and dalliance with sermonography?

Say hello to your father for me. Best wishes in your malfeasance,

malevolence, and malediction.

Unscrupulously yours,  

Uncle Screwtape

Hi from 3Y at Mac!

3Y Room 5 is isolation.  Reserved for patients who are at risk of infection - in this case, due to very low white blood cell counts.   We were forced to wear this Darth Vader gear and I obliged for the first ten minutes.  Then I had to make a choice.  Throw caution to the wind or suffocate during the line of duty.  

I had Susie capture my ten minute submission to the rules for the sake of posterity - 

besides, we were laughing so hard and gasping for air - McMaster would have had to supply us two more beds if we kept it up!

You've waited inordinately long to hear about Mom's progress.  So here at last is the visual to demonstrate her improved state of mind and spirit... 

She's some kind of cool great grandma - watching movies and playing solitaire on an ipad.  Today I found her wearing headphones under a baseball cap and fixated on the screen with Sense & Sensibility.  

Suddenly, she looked more 17 than 71.  LOL.    

But should you doubt me at all, here's the visual that should clinch it for everyone:

She's hounding us for six dice again - 

AND she's womping us everytime!

Dear friends and family:

Whew!  The past ten days have been 'challenging' to say the least and I am quite sure that I  speak for all my siblings (and mom!) when I say we are VERY thankful to be on the other side of it.  As you know, Mom had cycle two of chemo at the Juravinski Centre on Monday, July 19.

Dr. Ellis (Mom's Canadian oncologist) was very accommodating to our requests for more steroids and lining up home care for intravenous hydration based on our experience in Germany.  A different steroid was used and a slower schedule of being weaned off them - she also had a different anti-nausea drug to take home (Granesitron for those who just have to know) but after about four or five days - very little by way of food or drink was staying down and we had to face that same demon of pending dehydration.  The home-care nurse ordered her into hospital so that she could also get her heart meds thru intravenous.  *sigh*  

Mom spent about two and a half days in emerg and was eventually placed in isolation at 3Y room 5 at McMaster because of her low white blood cell count.  Chemo recipients always face a short lived 'danger' zone when the white blood cell count dips but it generally corrects itself IF you are eating and drinking reasonable amounts.  Hospitals are not generally where you want to be in that particular moment in time - however, by God's provision, Mom plowed thru cycle two and is once again smiling despite her circumstances.  

She is also now sporting some funky new hat-wear and bandanna's, one of them gives her the appearance of the flying nun :) ....but seriously?  I am so humbled watching Mom calmly shoulder some of these chemotherapy indignities!   I think if someone shaved MY hair off, I'd burst into some blubbering bawl-baby fit  and put everyone for miles around on edge.  

There was however, that same gut-wrenching moment of time where Mom wanted to give up and....well, just die.  This is where rubber hits the road and now that Mom is feeling decent again, we have some serious issues to consider and decisions to make - particularly since a CT scan is scheduled for next Tuesday.  Future course of action depends so much on what those test results show.  

So, dear friends and family and all who pray regularly for Mom, we have three very specific requests to make:

1.  Pray for her courage to see those results.

2.  Pray for peace of mind and the mind of Christ to make good decisions based on those results.

3.  Pray that in all respects, Mom (and everyone who surrounds her) will acknowledge and submit to the plan of our loving, gracious, Sovereign God and that we will live out our days in JOY.

He isn't 'safe' but He sure is Good.  (Hit the link and find out what this really means).

With Love,

Joanne

Thoughts on Life from trustworthy sources

I lift up my eyes to the hills-

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD,

the Maker of heaven and earth.  

Psalm 121:1,2

“You will never know how much you believe something until it is a matter of life and death.” “If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.” 

– God in the Dock, page 52  

--C.S.Lewis

In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, 

for I have overcome the world. 

--Jesus Christ

The world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it. 

--Helen Keller

Late night (early morning?) Ramblings

I love these people. I call them my choir peeps. They are 25 strong and are working very hard with me preparing for a CD recording in two weeks time. We are singing an album entitled

Great Hymns of Faith and Other Favourites along with the CCS kid's choir (which is 37 peeps strong) plus a full scale orchestra. I am up at this ridiculous hour filled with the typical terrified euphoria that always grips me as we approach deadline..... it's a strange type of 'happy' terror that propels me to reach for the best we can be but remembers

to enjoy it at the same time.

Does that make any sense to you?

.... Ah well, do late night ramblings ever make sense?

Don't bother answering that.

Just know, I am happy - even at this hour.

When words leave off, music begins. ~Heinrich Heine

Truly to sing, that is a different breath. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Music is the shorthand of emotion. ~Leo Tolstoy

C.S. Lewis Song lyrics

If I find in myself, desires nothing in this world can satisfy,
I can only conclude that I was not made for here
If the flesh that I fight is at best only light and momentary,
then of course I'll feel nude when to where I'm destined - I'm compared

[CHORUS]
Speak to me in the light of the dawn
Mercy comes with the morning
I will sigh and with all creation groan as I wait for hope to come for me

Am I lost or just less found?

On the straight or on the roundabout of the wrong way?
Is this a soul that stirs in me, is it breaking free, wanting to come alive?
'Cause my comfort would prefer for me to be numb
And avoid the impending birth of who I was born to become [CHORUS]

[BRIDGE]
For we, we are not long here
Our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it
And I, I was made to live, I was made to love, I was made to know you
Hope is coming for me
Hope, He's coming

First and Finally The Raison d'etre of Washington, DC

Whew! At long last - the final post on Washington, D.C.

This whole thing started when I stumbled across an online advertisement for C.S. Lewis'

The Screwtape Letters put on by FPA

aka Fellowship of the Performing Arts starring Max McLean.

The closest live theatre show was in Washington DC and its year long run happened to be finishing right around my birthday. Too easy. Barry and I were going to hop in a car and drive into the sunset for this date night (or two or three).

Well.

The kids got wind of it and faster than you can say, "you like Lewis too?" we were scheming ways to get down there all together. Hence, my grandiose birthday celebration.

Low-key intention and budget blown to smithereens in one fell swoop.

I LOVED it.

I am eternally grateful for this 'forger of family ties' type of experience.

... and Barry?

You're the best.

Focus on the Family Radio Theatre, which received a Peabody Award and multiple Audie awards for excellence in broadcasting and production, was granted the rights to dramatize "The Screwtape Letters" as a feature length audio drama. Production began in 2008 and a fall 2009 release was announced. Andy Serkis, known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, provided the voice for Screwtape.

The Plot Overview (as found on Wikipedia)

The Screwtape Letters comprises thirty-one letters written by a senior demon named Screwtape to his nephew, a young demon named Wormwood. Screwtape's letters contain advice for how to turn Wormwood's "Patient", an ordinary man living in war-time England, toward "Our Father Below" (Devil / Satan) and away from "the Enemy" (God).

After the first letter, the Patient converts to Christianity, and Wormwood is given a severe rebuking and threatened with the "usual penalties" at the House of Correction for Incompetent Tempters. A striking contrast is formed between Wormwood and Screwtape during the rest of the book. Wormwood is depicted through Screwtape's letters as much closer to what conventional wisdom has said about demons, i.e., wanting to tempt his patient into extravagantly wicked and deplorable sins and constantly writing about the war that is going on for the latter half of the book. Screwtape, on the other hand, is not interested in getting the patient to commit anything spectacularly evil, saying that "the safest path to hell is the gradual one." He sees a demon's primary goal to befuddle and confuse, rather than tempt.

Lewis's use of this "correspondence" is both varied and hard-hitting. With his own views on theology, Lewis covers areas as diverse as sex, love, pride, gluttony, and war. Lewis, an Oxford scholar himself, suggests in his work that even intellectuals are not impervious to the influence of such demons, especially in regards to being led towards placated acceptance of the "Historical Point of View."

In the last letter, it emerges that the Patient has been killed during an air raid (World War II having broken out between the fourth and fifth letters), and has gone to Heaven. Wormwood is punished for letting a soul 'slip through his fingers' by being handed over to the fate that would have awaited his patient had he been successful: the consumption of his spiritual essence by the other demons. Screwtape responds to his nephew's desperate final letter by assuring him that he may expect just as much assistance from his "increasingly and ravenously affectionate" uncle as Screwtape would expect from Wormwood were their situations reversed, paralleling a situation where Wormwood himself turned his uncle over to Satan for making a religiously positive remark that would offend him.

The Screwtape Letters

With the blessing and indulgence of my beloved once again, and to celebrate a significant milestone at the close of this year, I am in the process of planning a 5 day trip to Washington D.C. combining three things I am passionate about:
Family * Faith * Fellowship

The impetus for this particular destination?

A production of The Screwtape Letters based on one of C. S. Lewis' brilliant novels - exploring the theme of spiritual warfare from a demons' point of view.

Beloved by both audiences and critics alike, The Screwtape Letters, adapted for the stage by Max McLean and Jeff Fiske, offers a witty and thought-provoking theatrical experience that will change the way you think about angels and demons.

Readers will know by now that I am hopelessly besotted with all things CS Lewis.

This will be a MUCH anticipated treat and I am thrilled to be able to enjoy it with our children.

eeEEkkkk!

How does one blog the shriek of delicious excitement?