My wonderful mother teaches an Intro to Literature class at a co-op I go to. Last year, we read through The Screwtape Letters, and she assigned us to write a Screwtape letter of our own, about ourselves, and then to respond to it by writing one rebuking Screwtape and Wormword.
Well, here they are.
My dear Wormwood,
Your last letter only reveals your inexperience. Exploiting the patient’s vanity is indeed what you want to do, but it is less advantageous when used as you propose. Your goal is to both attack his personal soul or psyche and to sever (or, perhaps, corrupt) his relationships and communications with others. We want to make him both condescending and arrogant—and the two are not as alike as you suppose.
Condescending implies an observer. This observer sees the condescending person as proud and arrogant, even if he is actually not so. Thus condescension is an error of communication, and not of mind.
Arrogance, however, you understand to a degree. An arrogant man is one who is so self-deceived as to think himself “better” than the other meatbags. He may not even put a clear thought to it—all the better for us.
The truly broken humans never have a thought of humility or of pride. They act only from hunger—a hunger deliciously close to our own. The bent ones, though, do have thoughts of these things, and may even see with (relatively) unshaded eyes their own possession of arrogance. The great thing is to always keep them overcorrecting one way or another, and never really addressing the harsh tone with which they (unintentionally—if anything the slugs do can be called “intentional”) spoke to their coworker or kin. If they are reproached for their condescending manner, have them cry that they possess little arrogance (or much) and vice versa. Start them on the wrong foot, and they’ll never get off it.
With everlasting hunger born out of true consciousness,
Your affectionate uncle Screwtape
My dear temper’s tutor Screwtape,
I am exceedingly glad I have intercepted your letter. Might want to check the postage next time. How have you guys not switched to email yet?
Anyway, I’m just thinking out loud here. Hezekiah was thankful to the point of tears, but his emotion didn’t spur thankful action, so it was of little consequence (2nd Chronicles 32). If I’m always thinking or saying “oh I’m soooo thankful for you grace, divine Lord, etc, etc” but don’t put in the effort to myself treat others with grace, what am I? A bunch of pathetic noise. Like you guys mourning the loss of Oma’s soul.
With an awareness of his lack of awareness of his lack of awareness,
Dutch
So, yeah, I like writing salty letters to demons.