Monday August 23, 2004

The Power of Nothing

When I go on vacation, I find it takes me a few days to wind down. (Since weekends are a small, two day vacation, this can be a real problem!) There's always the temptation to pop into the home office, fire up the workstation, and see what came in the mail. Even when I don't really want to, I find I'm drawn to check in, even to catch up on mailing lists ('aliases', in Sun-speak) I don't need to read, and didn't -- until just suddenly -- feel the urge to catch up on.

I guess C. S. Lewis observed the same thing in himself or in others around him, observed how powerful this attraction to 'Nothing' can be.

Screwtape writes:

The Christians describe the Enemy [God, from Screwtape's perspective] as one 'without whom Nothing is strong.' And Nothing is very strong; strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance asociation has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.

How bad can this be? Focusing on 'Nothing', instead of on something -- anything! -- that's real, that matters, that pertains to the present moment or to eternity? Anything, even, that brings real joy? Screwtape writes to his nephew:

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Letter 12

Something to think about, next time I get the unexplained urge just to "check messages"...

(2004-08-23 09:39:43.0) Permalink Comments [1]