Letter 30

This week I chose to write about letter 30. I thought that this letter was very interesting and discussed some very interesting topics. Although I still find the chapters to be a little hard to follow, there were some viable points that Lewis made. One quote that especially caught my eye was on page 169. The quote states the following, "Thus in birth the blood and pain are real, the rejoicing a mere subjective point of view: in death, the terror and ugliness reveal what death really means. The hatefulness of a hated person is real- in hatred you see mean as they are, you are disillusioned..." The quote goes on to talk about love, war, poverty and other very important issues. I really liked this quote because it discusses how being 'real' can have many different interpretations. Overall I really liked this chapter out of the assigned reading.

Letter 22

This week I choose to write about letter 22. I liked this letter mostly because I found it to be very humorous. When he discusses everything about the women that the patient has fallen in love with, he picks out every last bad thing about her. Although he makes it seem as though these are all terrible attributes to have, they really aren't. I almost laughed when reading through it because he puts so much emotion in bringing her down. He gets very aggitated by this women and her family, which is a side of him we haven't seen before. A quote that I really liked was when he said, "Transformation proceeds form within and is a glorious manifestation of that Life Force which Our Father would worship if he worshipped anything but himself." This quote stuck out to me because I found it questionable. Does He really only worship himself? I honestly don't think so. I think that by reading through Luke, I am learning to understand the different aspects of what He really wanted out of us. It's very interesting how my perceptions have changed, because I never thought that it would happen. Happy Reading!

Letter 20

This week, I chose to write about letter 20. This letter concentrated on finding the patient a women in which to unchaste him. The letter talked about the ideal characteristics that men look for in a women. He described them in two different ways. The first of these ways being "statuesque and aristocratic" or "faint and languishing." I think that the two generalizations could almost apply to most women out there, but I also feel as though there is much more to a women than these simple explanations.

One quote that caught my eye was this, "You will find, if you look carefully into any human's heart, that he is haunted by atleast two imaginary women- a terrestrial and a infernal Venus, and that his desire differs qualitatively according to its object." This made me think about how men really think, which obviously isn't the easiest question to analyze. Hah. Do men really see two different women? I interpretted this quote to mean that they want two things, a low key women and then maybe someone a little more risque? Who knows.

Another quote that caught my eye was at the end of letter 20 (page 108) when he says, "...it is that 'tang' in the flavour which he is after." I liked this quote because I think it can hold true for both men and women. We think we always know we want, but it's only a certain part of that person, the part that makes them forbidden, that we're driven to. Do you think that the forbidden parts of people are more attractive? Or even that we're driven to them more?!
Hmm...

Letter 17

When reading this weeks letters, there's one that sticks out the most to me. This letter happens to be letter 17. This letter stuck out to me because of the topic that it concentrated on, Gluttony. When I first starting reading this section, I honestly had to look up the true definition of gluttony, because I couldn't truely understand what they were talking about. As I continued reading, I kind of found the letter to be humorous. The definition that I found for gluttony is eating to excess (personified as one of the deadly sins). I pondered on this for a moment and then honestly chuckled. Is gluttony really considered one of the seven deadly sins? The other sins include these six things: pride, covetousness (greed), lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. I thought that it was very interesting that it was put into this category. The way that C.S. Lewis captures this sin is by saying that, as people, we revolve around 'I want" statements. He's discussing the nature of the patients mother throughout this whole letter. When it comes to food, we use this statement to help get what we want. Because of this, I'm guessing that's why its a deadly sin? Any feedback on that? I also found this quote to be very interesting, "What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit. But, however you approach it, the great thing is to being him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence..." I like this quote because it better explains how gluttony turns into indulgence, which in my mind can turn into the other seven deadly sins...

Letter 15

This week, I chose to write about letter 15. This letter just stuck out to me when reading because of the topics it discussed. The main part of this letter was discussing the past, present, and future and also about eternity. Screwtape talks about what living in each will bring the patient and decides that living in the future is the best way to persuade the patient. A caption that stood out to me was, "It is far better to make live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already so that the thought about the Future inflames hope and fear." I liked this passage because it made perfect sense. Out of all the of the letters, they have all seemed to hold a fiction sort of message, but I feel as though we do live a mojority of our lives concentrated on the Future. We are constantly questioning ourselves about next week, next year and so forth. He continues talking about how the Future is least like eternity and how the present and past are not as important. Another caption that stood out to me was, "Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, and ambition look ahead. Do you agree with this statement? Do we really think this way? This was the biggest question I had of myself.

This was definetely my favorite letter that we read thus far!! :) (and i was able to understand it!!)

Letter 8

This book never ceases to amaze me. It discusses so many different topics on levels I have never even come close to thinking about. I still have some difficulty reading the letters because of the format in which they're written, but I'm starting to understand the concepts better.

This week, I chose to concentrate on Letter 8. I found this to stick out the most out of the three letters assigned. One of the ideas that I would like to expand on is on page 38, when he states, "He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself..." I found this quote to be very powerful. It describes how Wormwood feels about God giving us these troughs and peaks to overcome. The paragraph before that quote also states that "One much face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not mere propaganda, but appaling truth." This quote ties into the other one because it talks about the expectations that God sets for us. The way I interpretted the quote was that God doesn't have to sell anything to us, we'll believe anything that we see as being acceptable. It seems that in the perspective of C.S. Lewis, God isn't making humans unique and giving them their own personalities and opinions, but He's doing what he can to make humans most like him. Is this the thruth?

I personally don't see this quote as being entirely truthful because look at the amount of crime and sin we have in this world. However, I do believe that Lewis has a very little amount of truth in the quote. The Ten Commandments give us basic guidelines in which to live our lives. Would He have made these if sin wasn't something he expected? I just believe that He forgives us of our sins, knowing ahead of time that we will make mistakes along the way and by Him forgiving us, does he hope that we will learn to forgive and love others?

I'm sure that I've rambled on about nonsense, but just thinking into it a little deeper!!
Any insight?....

Letter 5

When I began to read this section of the letters, they seemed to be a little more clear than the first three. I think I had an easier time understanding what was going on and the actual purpose of the patient, screwtape, and Wormwood. I'm actually starting to grow fond of the writing, although the writing format is still not completely easy to read. I think that the idea to write from Satan's point of view is quite intriguing, and brave of C.S. Lewis. I can see many people being upset with the writing, because of the context.

I chose to write about letter #5 this week because I thought that it was extremely interesting how Screwtape compares war to other things. He talks about how war for him isn't necessarily a bad thing, but good. He goes on to say how it's useful "for bringing souls to our Father Below." I thought this was a very interesting way to look at it.

The next part that I found interesting in the text was when he was talking about people who are dying (page 24). He directly says in the book, "encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence, and even , if our workers know their job, withholding all suggestion of a priest lest it should betray to the sick man his true condition!" I read this quote a couple of times and found it to be up for judgement. I'm not sure exactly what he means by this, but thought that they way it was worded was ironic.

The last part of the text that I liked was at the end of the letter, (page 24) when he says, "The enemy's human partisans have all been plainly told by Him that suffering is an essential part of what He calls redemption. This was my favorite part of the book and when I read it, I kind of just stopped and thought. Do you really believe that we must suffer solely in order to be saved?

hmm... Enjoy!!