Family Book Club

Anne and David launched our family book club this month. David chose the C. S. Lewis classic, The Screwtape Letters. 

Discussion and lunch were at Wild Zucchini. We agreed it is a fast, fun and thought-provoking read. Camille shared her thoughts from Chapter VIII. We seem to especially relate to troughs at the moment and especially liked this quote:

"Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else....

Merely to override a human will would be for him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. The  creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over  temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own two legs--to carry out from will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during those trough periods that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in a state of dryness are those which please Him best. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

Next up is the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner, All the Light We Cannot See. Happy reading and then my favorite - discussing!