Saturday August 21, 2004

Thy Will Be Done

I teach the adult education class at St. George Orthodox Cathedral, and classes start up again on September 12. For most of the last two years, we worked -- and I mean worked -- our way through Fr. Alexander Schmemann's The Eucharist. It was a brilliant book; as Father's life's work, it could be no less. But as it was unfinished, and therefore, unedited, at the time of his death in 1983 (half-way through my three years at Seminary, so I did study with him in the classroom and in the chapel), it made for some rough going, even for very dedicated and theologically curious parishioners.

So this year, we decided to tackle something a little lighter, a little more fun -- and chose C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. I'm re-reading the book in preparation for the class (my secret of teaching is to stay one chapter ahead of the rest of the class at all times -- don't tell!!), having read it for the first time probably 30 years ago. And as I'm reading it, I'm realizing how much it has colored and affected my own sensibilities, and how bits and pieces of it have, unconsciously, worked their ways into my sermons over the past 20 years.

I'm only part-way through, but a passage struck me yesterday, and I wanted to share it with you. It has to do with facing fears and bearing crosses, with which things anyone living in this day and age and "the present anxiety and suspense" are certainly familiar, even if they use different words to describe them. Screwtape, an old and experienced devil, and under-secretary of a nameless department in the service of "Our Father Below", is writing to his nephew Wormwood, a junior tempter in the same service, giving him advice on the temptation of Wormwood's "patient". So when he says "The Enemy", he is in fact referring to God.

Screwtape writes:

Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy's will. What the Enemy means by this is primarily that he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him -- the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is to say "Thy will be done", and for the daily task of bearing this that the daily bread will be provided. It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practise fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that suffering consists of fear, is easier and is usually helped by this direct action.

Letter 6

How less anxious would I be if I resigned myself to the featherweight cross I actually bear, rather than the dozen redwood-sized "different and hypothetical fates" I find myself losing sleep over? And how much more "direct action" could I avail myself of if I asked for help with the things I really need to deal with, versus (to borrow an image from Harry Potter) the boggart in the closet?

This is why so many Orthodox refer to the Anglican Lewis as "our father among the saints."

(2004-08-21 08:25:19.0) Permalink Comments [2]