Monday 4 February 2013

Candlemas 2013: The Screwtape Emails Part 2


My dear Wormwood,

You have to hand it to the Enemy. It's a cunning move. He turns up in a building dedicated solely to worship of him. But he turns up in the guise of a whining child too tiny even to climb its steps (so much for the pomp of the temple). He allows people to witness the child's vulnerability, helpless in its mother's arms.  But what he actually allows them to witness is the vulnerability of the whole ghastly project of their so-called redemption (love is always vulnerable).  And he doesn't stop those old fools Simeon and Anna blabbing the whole thing: 'This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel'. Nor does he stop the passers-by ignoring them (vulnerability again). It's pure genius.

The Enemy must have known that Simeon's prophecy about the child was a prophecy about children. That's omniscience for you. But Simeon can't have known that. Children are responsible for the falling and the rising of many. That's why they are so dear to our Father. They are among his most unwitting and most lethal agents.

Children are responsible for the rising of many. They can inspire remarkable acts of generous self-giving and wonderful acts of profound love. They bring out the sickening best of which the human race is capable. But they can also inspire quite the reverse - and that is of much greater interest to our cause. Children are responsible for the falling of many.

Consider our dear friends at St Peter's Eaton Square. They are a curious menagerie, but on the whole not lacking in intelligence. The Enemy ought to have high hopes of them. They turn out to worship him in substantial  numbers. They do their best to care for one another. They even manage to be concerned for their wider community. But just try putting children on the agenda at one of their get-togethers - the behaviour of children in church, the noise children make in the churchyard, the biscuits children eat on the church portico. They change.

It's delightful. Worship, care, concern...all these are forgotten. For some, children are immediately clothed in the gleaming white of Gabriel and his grinning band of nincompoops. For others, children are immediately the red-eyed and cloven-hoofed denizens of our own happy tribe. For some, children can do no wrong. For others, children can do nothing but wrong.

Why this sudden rush to irrational prejudice the moment children are mentioned? Fear, my dear Wormwood, fear. They are afraid. Some of them use children as a shield. Caring for a child's needs diverts attention from their own needs.  Everything is for the child. All very laudable, no doubt, until they convince themselves that worship is for the child, prayer is for the child, the Enemy himself is for the child. Others of them use children as a target. The child represents everything that is strange, everything that is uncontrollable, everything that is other and everything that is threatening; the child draws the fire of a host of secret frustrations and pent-up anxieties.

Every community, my dear Wormwood, has its weakness. At St Peter's, it's children. That's why they are so vital to our Father's strategy. They make some forget about their own needs. They make some forget about the needs of others.

And what is so terribly amusing is that it could be very different.  You'd have thought that Simeon had made that crystal clear. The Enemy is interested in everyone. The child is a light for all the nations. All of them. The Enemy has no taste. Never has. The Enemy isn't bothered about elites. He's never wanted cadres of the holy or vanguards of the righteous. He wants them all: clever, stupid, beautiful, ugly, rich, poor, diseased, healthy, fascinating, tedious, fanatical, disenfranchised. They all have a place. What is so utterly hilarious is that none of them seem to get it.

If they'd only look around them they might. The presence of children might stop worship being a self-indulgent faith fest conducted for the sole benefit of  the initiated. Equally, the presence of children might stop worship being a nice outing for the nuclear family from SW1. Try sinking to your knees and having a virtuous and private one-to-one with the Enemy when there are bored toddlers in the pew in front of you. It can't be done: one-to-ones need to happen at a different hour. You get cross and angry and resolve never to come again. Try enjoying quality time with only your own children when there are a hundred others around, clamouring for their attention, borrowing their toys and showing them up. Again, it can't be done: quality time needs to happen at a different hour. You get distracted and frustrated and forget about everything else. In the presence of children in worship we see the audacious ambition of the Enemy. Or, rather, we see it. Most of the time they, thankfully, don't.

'Here I am Lord, is it I Lord?' they sing. 'No it isn't', the Enemy must long to shout. 'It's never been about you. It's never been about you and your children. It's always been about all of you'.  They sing to a God who became a child in order that they might become his children. But their own make them forget that. It's almost tragic.

I remain, Wormwood, your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape.

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