Andrew and Matt discuss Screwtape’s plan to sow future disharmony in the patient’s romantic relationship.
S4E52: “What have you done for me lately?” (Download)
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Timestamps
00:00 – Entering “The Eagle & Child”…
00:13 – Welcome
00:48 – Chit-Chat: Forever Young
02:29 – Chit-Chat: The Kilns Tour
05:09 – Chit-Chat: Most Reluctant Sequel
08:49 – Chit-Chat: Inklings Variety Hour
09:04 – Chit-Chat: Once Upon A Wardrobe
11:12 – Song-of-the-week
12:18 – Quote-of-the-week
13:22 – Drink-of-the-week
15:48 – Patreon Toast
17:18 – Chapter Summary
18:24 – Discussion
52:52 – Unscrewing Screwtape
55:55 – “Last Call” Bell and Closing Thoughts
YouTube Version
After Show Skype Session
David recorded a quick Easter message:
The ancient greyness shifted
Suddenly and thinned L
ike mist upon the moors Before a wind.
An old, old prophet lifted A shining face and said : “
He will be coming soon. The Son of God is dead;
He died this afternoon.”
A murmurous excitement stirred
All souls.
They wondered if they dreamed —
Save one old man who seemed
Not even to have heard.
And Moses standing,
Hushed them all to ask
If any had a welcome song prepared.
If not, would David take the task?
And if they cared
Could not the three young children sing
The Benedicite, the canticle of praise
They made when God kept them from perishing
In the fiery blaze?
A breath of spring surprised them,
Stilling Moses’ words.
No one could speak, remembering
The first fresh flowers,
The little singing birds. Still others thought of fields new ploughed
Or apple trees All blossom-boughed.
Or some, the way a dried bed fills With water
Laughing down green hills.
The fisherfolk dreamed of the foam
On bright blue seas.
The one old man who had not stirred
Remembered home.And there He was
Splendid as the morning sun and fair
As only God is fair.
And they, confused with joy,
Knelt to adore Seeing that he wore
Five crimson stars
He never had before.No canticle at all was sung.
Sister Mary Ada, Limbo
None toned a psalm, or raised a greeting song.
A silent man alone
Of all that throng Found tongue —-
Not any other.
Close to His heart
When the embrace was done,
Old Joseph said, “How is Your Mother,
How is Your Mother, Son?”
Show Notes
Chit-Chat
- Today is Matt’s Birthday!
- Matt and Andrew chatted about recent virtual tour of C.S. Lewis’ Oxford home, The Kilns, which we recently offered to all Patreon supporters.
- Andrew recently got to listen to some sections of the sequel to Most Reluctant Convert from The Fellowship of Performing Arts, performed by Max MacLean.
- Andrew was recently a guest on the Inklings Variety Hour podcast.
- Patty Callahan, author of Becoming Mrs Lewis, is releasing a new book on 19th October 2021, Once upon a Wardrobe:
Song-of-the-week
- As usual, Listener John Marr came up with a bunch of suggestions:
- “What’d I Say” by Ray Charles
- “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys
- “Innuendo” by Queen
- “You Can’t Get What You Want by Joe Jackson
- “Sowing the Seeds of Love” by Tears for Fears
- In the end we went with What have you done for me lately? by Janet Jackson because the lyrics are just fantastic!
Used to be a time when you would pamper me
“What have you done for me lately?” by Janet Jackson
Used to brag about it all the time
Your friends seem to think that you’re so peachy-keen
But my friends say neglect is on your mind
Who’s right?
What have you done for me lately?
Used to go to dinner almost every night
Danced until I thought I’d lose my breath
Now it seems your dancin’ feet are always on my couch
Good thing I cook or else we’d starve to death
I never ask for more than I deserve You know it’s the truth
You seem to think you’re God’s gift to this Earth
I’m tellin’ you, no way
You ought to be thankful for the little things
But little things are all you seem to give
Quote-of-the-week
“…courtship is the time for sowing those seeds which will grow up ten years later into domestic hatred. The enchantment of unsatisfied desire produces results which the humans can be made to mistake for the results of charity. Avail yourself of the ambiguity in the word “Love”: let them think they have solved by Love problems they have in fact only waived or postponed under the influence of the enchantment. While it lasts you have your chance to foment the problems in secret and render them chronic.”
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #26)
Drink-of-the-week
- Andrew was drinking Lagavulin 16.
- Matt was drinking Glengoyne 12.
Patreon Toast
- Today they toasted listener Paul Porter.
Chapter Summary
- Letter #26 was first published in The Guardian on October 24th, 1941. Here’s David’s one-hundred word summary:
Wormwood wants to use this time of courtship to sow seeds of domestic hatred which will flourish later in their relationship. Screwtape enthusiastically agrees! He says Wormwood should encourage the patient to mistake romantic enchantment for Christian charity.
Chapter Summary of Letter #26
He also wants him to replace charity with “unselfishness”. In particular, he wants Wormwood to lean on the differing understandings between the different sexes concerning the meaning of this word. Eventually the enchantment will lessen, and the paucity of the couple’s spiritual resources will be revealed. Coupled with poor communication, resentment will build and their relationship will sour.
Discussion
Sowing Seeds
- This letter begins with a bold statement:
Yes; courtship is the time for sowing those seeds which will grow up ten years later into domestic hatred.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #26)
Andrew pointed out that “domestic hatred” is also mentioned in Letter #3, and also cross-referenced Mere Christianity.
Enchantment
- Screwtape explains how “enchantment” can be used as cover over problems:
The enchantment of unsatisfied desire produces results which the humans can be made to mistake for the results of charity. Avail yourself of the ambiguity in the word “Love”: let them think they have solved by Love problems they have in fact only waived or postponed under the influence of the enchantment. While it lasts you have your chance to foment the problems in secret and render them chronic
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #26)
- Matt referenced Tori and Chad Masters YouTube channel.
The difference between unselfishness and love
- Screwtape wants to replace “charity” with “unselfishness”
The grand problem is that of “unselfishness”. Note, once again, the admirable work of our Philological Arm in substituting the negative unselfishness for the Enemy’s positive Charity. Thanks to this you can, from the very outset, teach a man to surrender benefits not that others may be happy in having them but that he may be unselfish in forgoing them. That is a great point gained.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #26)
Differences between the sexes
- Screwtape sees there a difference between the sexes when it comes to “Unselfishness”:
…divergence of view about Unselfishness which we have built up between the sexes. A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others. As a result, a woman who is quite far gone in the Enemy’s service will make a nuisance of herself on a larger scale than any man except those whom Our Father has dominated completely; and, conversely, a man will live long in the Enemy’s camp before he undertakes as much spontaneous work to please others as a quite ordinary woman may do every day. Thus while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people’s rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #26)
- Screwtape talks about “Unselfishness” in his sermon The Weight of Glory:
If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point…
The Weight of Glory
Delightful Results
- Screwtape unpacks the “delightful” results if Wormwood does his job well:
When once a sort of official, legal, or nominal Unselfishness has been established as a rule — a rule for the keeping of which their emotional resources have died away and their spiritual resources have not yet grown — the most delightful results follow. In discussing any joint action, it becomes obligatory that A should argue in favour of B’s supposed wishes and against his own, while B does the opposite. It is often impossible to find out either party’s real wishes; with luck, they end by doing something that neither wants, while each feels a glow of self-righteousness and harbours a secret claim to preferential treatment for the unselfishness shown and a secret grudge against the other for the ease with which the sacrifice has been accepted.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #26)
- Matt connected this to our relationship with God, as well as with romantic partners – what will you do when the enthusiasm fades?
- Andrew mentioned Larry Crab.
Conclusion
- Screwtape begins to wrap up the letter:
A sensible human once said, “If people knew how much ill-feeling Unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit”; and again, “She’s the sort of woman who lives for others — you can always tell the others by their hunted expression”.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #26)
- Matt connected this to The Great Divorce and Andrew connected it to Mrs. Moore.
All this can be begun even in the period of courtship. A little real selfishness on your patient’s part is often of less value in the long run, for securing his soul, than the first beginnings of that elaborate and self-consciousness unselfishness which may one day blossom into the sort of thing I have described. Some degree of mutual falseness, some surprise that the girl does not always notice just how Unselfish he is being, can be smuggled in already.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #26)
“While one is yet only in love, the real person lies covered with the rose leaves of a thousand sleepy-eyed dreams, and through them come to the dreamer but the barest hints of the real person. A thousand fancies fly out, approach and cross, but never meet. The man and the woman are pleased, not with each other, but each with the fancied other. The merest common likings are taken for signs of a wonderful sympathy, of a radical unity. But though at a hundred points their souls seem to touch, their contact points are the merest brushings, as of insect antennae. The real man, the real woman, is all the time asleep under the rose leaves. Happy is the rare fate of the true . . . to wake and come forth and meet in the majesty of the truth, in the image of God, in their very being, in the power of that love which alone is being! They love, not this and that about each other, but each the very other. Where such love is, let the differences of taste, the unfitness of temperament, be what they may, the two must by and by be thoroughly one.”
George MacDonald
“The negative and positive relation we live daily causes us to emerge from beneath the rose leaves and penetrate each other so as to have really seen and be seen. It takes the negative to arouse each of us from our sleep . . . But the miracle of love that comes to birth each time forgiveness appears is truly the kiss of the spirit.”
Unscrewing Screwtape
- Do… foster spiritual growth to assist in charity
- Do not… focus on self-conscious unselfishness
- Do not… play games – speak the truth in love, honestly
- Do… love, real love, costly and clean.
- Do nothing… from selfish ambition or conceit, but [do] in humility count others more significant than yourselves. – Philippians 2:3
Next Season’s Book
We’re open to hearing from the listeners which book that they think we should read next season. If you have a strongly-held opinion on that subject, please message us!
