At long last, we arrive at chapter 3!
In this chapter, we are made aware of the patient's home life to a certain extent. We know that the patient lives with his mother or his mother lives with him (hard to tell at times), and that their interactions are less than harmonious. To sabotage the patient's new spiritual life, Screwtape suggests several methods to Wormwood to increase the discord between the two. I will look at them each individually and in order, starting with:
"1. Keep his mind on the inner life." Doubt me not, this may seem like a decent thing to do...until we read on and discover that Screwtape means for the patient's focus to be entirely on himself at the expense of the world and people around him. There is mention of the "most elementary duties" being neglected in favor of "the most advanced and spiritual ones", and this may cause some confusion to us as well. So let's break down these duties in terms of what they might look like. An elementary duty for any Christian is the very simple act of helping someone in need without thought for self-gain. For instance, helping someone pick up the papers which they have dropped on the floor, or covering the coffee bill for a person who has left all their money at home are good examples of helping someone without thought for self-gain. Now, an example of a most advanced and spiritual duty might be the very careful planning and scheduling of intentional fasting during Lent. There is nothing wrong with either one, but Screwtape is hinting at having the patient's spiritual life becoming unbalanced, particularly so that the patient's relationship with his mother becomes severely fractured.
"2. It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous." Screwtape's suggestion here follows in the same vein as the previous bit of advice; namely, that the patient focus on the spiritual rather than the basic needs of the person which might be more urgent. To put the matter another way, praying for the salvation of a starving man's soul without giving the starving man the nourishing soup and water which he desperately needs immediately may result in a corpse, and so does the starving man little good for the present. Now the counter-argument may be that prayer is necessary. Yes. This is most true. Yet after having read through the Gospels, not once did Jesus attend to just the physical or the spiritual needs of the people he met and taught; he attended to both, often in the same sitting. As regards the patient and his mother, the challenge to the reader is to start with the very basic needs of the person they are praying for before moving on to that person's future and eternal life (or eternal death). The particularly chilling thought about the seriousness of Screwtape's point comes in the last sentence; many cases of domestic violence in the United States and around the world have occurred in the most spiritually-minded homes.
"3. When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that..." How many of us have had a classmate or co-worker or housemate who drove us nuts with certain habits, certain ways of phrasing their sentences, or a certain expression or body posture? Screwtape presses on this particular issue by encouraging Wormwood to use those expressions and tones to set both of the residents against one another. This process is further enhanced in...
"4. In civilised life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face." Screwtape is pushing for such domestic tension here that the questions about mundane home routines become blown all out of proportion in a full-fledged verbal assault by each person involved. If Wormwood does things right and utilizes the third method to the fullest in this scenario, the patient and his mother will soon not be able to be in the house and share each other's company for even five minutes. I think I might leave examples to your imagination, as many of us have come from homes where this situation occurred at least once.
Notice that the assault is comprehensive in its approach, and that Wormwood is not being asked to pick out any one method of temptation, but rather that all four approaches seem to work very nicely with each other if done right.
Rather terrifying, isn't it? But my encouragement to anyone who is reading this post and seeing their own home life reflected in horrific accuracy is this: ask for the Lord to intervene and He will. After all, if we are told anything by Jesus about prayer, it is that we pray in full faith that when we "ask, and it shall be given", peace between ourselves and another person really will be given!
Chapter 4 comes with the next post!
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