The Screwtape Letters

Eighteen eye-opening letters that reveal the adversary's tactics we are often blind to--The Screwtape Letters. It's been a while since I've read this book and I'm so excited to revisit it again!! 

 

I found the audio book on Youtube and made a playlist of it.  The audio is great because I can listen to it as I tackle chores and jobs around the house.  

Here's the link to the entire book.  Enjoy! 

The Screwtape Letters

by, C.S. Lewis

Building a Palace

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Love Isn't Blind

It seems to me that the trends of the world often follow the pattern of what I call "shallow love."  So many relationships leave no room for imperfection in one another and therefore leave no room for growth.  When the going gets tough or if anything dissatisfies... they abandon everything.

C.S. Lewis observed this about Gods love and maybe we can apply something of this pattern in our own lives with everyone we come in contact with:

"To see in some measure, like God.  His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another, nor from Him.  We could almost say He sees because He loves, and therefore loves although He sees." 

 "He loves although He sees."  Think about it for a moment! "He loves although He sees."  I believe that is what endears us to the Savior's heart.  That is the quality that makes us comfortable to fall before Him as our imperfect selves.  There is no piece of us that is hidden, He sees the good, the bad, and the ugly in our souls... and yet He loves us still.  

In this Shakespeare Sonnet, observe how he describes love.  It is unchanging even when it finds reason to change and sees the infinite worth even when the person may not "measure up" to it. 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

 If this be error and upon me proved,

 I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

I really like where Shakespeare describes that true love "bears it out even to the edge of doom."  It reminds me of the verse I'm pondering this week on charity.  

After the Apostle Paul describes this wonderful virtue he warns us that we don't see the full picture and even don't understand our own hearts but the Lord does and eventually we will see clearly through Him.

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

Pure and Christlike love always evokes and promotes feelings of unity, appreciation, and gentleness...  never discord, dissension, or hostility.  We are covenant people who have taken upon us the name of Christ and our behavior should reflect that same kind of perfect charity... to "love although [we] see."

Finally, I'll close this post with some thoughts from President Eyring in 1998

The sacramental prayer can remind us every week of how the gift of unity will come through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we keep our covenants to take His name upon us, to remember Him always, and to keep all His commandments, we will receive the companionship of His Spirit. That will soften our hearts and unite us. But there are two warnings which must come with that promise.

First, the Holy Ghost remains with us only if we stay clean and free from the love of the things of the world. A choice to be unclean will repel the Holy Ghost. The Spirit only dwells with those who choose the Lord over the world. “Be ye clean” (3 Ne. 20:41; D&C 38:42) and love God with all your “heart, … might, mind, and strength” (D&C 59:5) are not suggestions but commandments. And they are necessary to the companionship of the Spirit, without which we cannot be one.

The other warning is to beware of pride. A unity which comes to a family or to a people softened by the Spirit will bring great power. With that power will come recognition from the world. Whether that recognition brings praise or envy, it could lead us to pride. That would offend the Spirit. There is a protection against pride, that sure source of disunity. It is to see the bounties which God pours upon us not only as a mark of His favor but an opportunity to join with those around us in greater service. A man and his wife learn to be one by using their similarities to understand each other and their differences to complement each other in serving one another and those around them. In the same way, we can unite with those who do not accept our doctrine but share our desire to bless the children of our Heavenly Father.


We can become peacemakers, worthy to be called blessed and the children of God (see Matt. 5:9).

...........
- It's a new day. Let's seek for and choose opportunities to "see through the glass" with clarity, with the Spirit, with the eyes of Christ.

-Alicia

Understanding the Pain of Separation

I've made a goal to buckle down and work on my Young Women's Personal Progress.  I've chosen every Tuesday morning to be my day for this.  It's pretty easy to record online and I can enter my journal notes right there on the website.  As young women leaders, we're all going to take turns letting the girls know how our own progress is going and we hope it will inspire them to keep moving on theirs.

This morning, I spent some time studying about the Atonement and the Plan of Salvation.  In the church, these are fundamental doctrines we have learned over and over our entire lives.  With the frequency of these topics, it might be easy to lose interest but I was really grateful to take a moment, read the scriptures related, and reflect on a couple of questions.  "How does the knowledge of these teachings affect my actions, help me understand my identity, and strengthen my faith?"

Understanding that we are literal spirit children of God, that we lived with Him before we came to earth, that we knew each other, is an incredibly amazing teaching.  It's unique to the Restored Gospel but I believe that there are many outside the church who have been given a sense of this great truth:

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Our spirits are eternal in nature.  This tangible light has a life-span we cannot comprehend. Joseph Smith expounded in his King Follett Sermon;

"I want to reason more on the spirit of man; for I am dwelling on the body and spirit of man—on the subject of the dead. I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal part, because it had no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the housetops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.

Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it. All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement."

God is an eternal being, we are all eternal beings.  God is all about gathering, about "oneness", about togetherness.  Even when we speak of being separated from God, it is not His undoing but our own.  He is not the one who severs ties, who divides relationships, or breaks apart - these are things that exist in the physical and temporal realm.  And those who never learn to live by and receive Christ's spirit will be bound to this physical and temporal plane of existence.

This must be why there is pain in separation, because such an experience flows completely contrary to our Divine nature.  Nevertheless, it is a necessary part of our growth and learning.  Everything that hurts us, that is painful, ministers to our mortal education here on earth. But with the Gospel lens of truth, we have a glimpse of Heaven and we are given strength to endure.

"Though otherwise 'lively,' hope stands quietly with us at funerals. Our tears are just as wet, but not because of despair. Rather, they are tears of appreciation evoked by poignant separation. They will change, erelong, to tears of glorious anticipation. Yet the emptiness is so real and so restless it initiates a retroactive inventory of what is now so painfully missing, doing so, however, while forecasting fulness and resplendent reunion!" - Neal A. Maxwell

"When such a friend from us departs,
We hold forever in our hearts
A sweet and hallowed memory,
Bringing us nearer, Lord, to thee." - Hymn #293

We could try to numb ourselves and pretend there is no ache, no pain when we are separated from those we love but such an attempt would only prove to dull the Divine attributes inherent within us and thwart our progress.

"Moreover, we can’t fully appreciate joyful reunions later without tearful separations now. The only way to take sorrow out of death (or separation) is to take love out of life." - Elder Russell M. Nelson

We find hope in Christ, knowing that He has bridged the gulf of the great divide and through His great atoning sacrifice, there is no such thing as the end, there is no such thing as separation, no more farewells and no more goodbyes.  We find our our way "home" in eternal principles.

"There is no end to matter; There is no end to space; There is no end to spirit; There is no end to race. There is no end to virtue; There is no end to might; There is no end to wisdom; There is no end to light. There is no end to union; There is no end to youth; There is no end to priesthood; There is no end to truth. There is no end to glory; There is no end to love; There is no end to being; There is no death above. There is no end to glory; There is no end to love; There is no end to being; There is no death above."

-Alicia

Just Another Way to Die

This is a quote my husband and I heard at Education Week a few days ago.  I think it goes just perfect with my little axiom, "There are a million ways to die but there's only one true way to live."

C.S. Lewis basically says the same thing but with even more clarity.  Things are unraveling at rapid speeds and it is essential that we get our houses, our lives, our relationships, and our faith in order. The important thing in this day of tribulation and trouble is not how we die but how we are found living our lives.  I love this!

"In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. 'How are we to live in an atomic age?' I am tempted to reply: 'Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents."

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors - anaesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things - praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts - not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds." - C.S. Lewis