My dear Wumpick,
So! You have had some
limited success with the patient, in troubling her conscience (unreasonable
scruples should always bear the tag “conscience” in her mind) about her (be
sure she uses the lofty word) “vocation”.
In fact, you have got her into such a state of confusion about her
current activities, that she is not only unsure as to whether she wants to
continue them, but she is actually unsure as to whether she even enjoys
them. You do a great deal of crowing
about this confusion you’ve encouraged, popping off little quotations from that
old master of the arts, my esteemed predecessor, and repeating his
jargon-filled nonsense about keeping the human beings from “joy”. If he had been a devil at heart he would have
known there is no such thing. And yet he
talks about the Enemy’s manufacture of it! as if it could be produced! as if it
were not a myth altogether! You know
very well this is a heresy that the Supreme Chancellors quashed as long ago as
1962.
As for the old devil himself—not to speak ill of the
returned, but, if he had been a little less the artistic perfectionist in his
own work, or a little less heterodox in his theory, he might still be acting
with us today. (Though to be sure,
assimilation into the bowels of Our Father Below is hardly the worst fate that
could befall a Master Tempter.) At any
rate, you seem unduly excited over the fact that you’ve succeeded in making the
patient confused and “unhappy”. A lot of
good that does us! Has she had any more
outbursts of temper? Any special
broodings against injustice and the deceitfulness of her fellow men? Well, then don’t talk to me about what a
grand thing you’ve done. I can
understand why it gives you pleasure, but it hasn’t really helped us
at all.
It is necessary, if the work you have done so far is to be
of any use (you see, my dear Wumpick, I shall try to save you—in spite of
everything!), that you get her to take steps down the wrong track. Of course, it is usually necessary to muddle
a human before he or she will do that, especially a human like yours, who’s not
inclined to open rebellion against the Enemy (yet!). The work you’ve accomplished so far may be of
some use there—but you can stop letting your ethereal chest puff out! What you have shown me is only a means to an
end, a preliminary sortie, notes for a novel, a first kneading of the
dough. You’ve done good work getting her
muddled. I’ll admit that. Now we’ve got to get her to take a fall.
In my last letter I talked about pinning down her state in
life. I hope you have done that
research—the course we take next will depend very strongly upon what you have
(or haven’t) found. In any case, you
must by this time know what it is, more or less, that the Enemy wants her to do
, and whether she is doing it or not. I
trust, based on the patient’s Long Form Dossier, that it is nothing highly
heroic, is it? No emergency response
work? No inner city schools? No Missionaries of Charity? No contemplative nunnery? You’re probably a bit hang-dog about it;
after all, if your patient is not going to try for greatness, what chance have
you of thwarting it?
Luckily for us, your patient should (for our purposes) be feeling the exact thing herself. Oh, I don’t mean that you can just sit back and wait for her to feel existential angst because she isn’t saving the world and suffering mightily herself in the process. That level of guilt is something we work to produce. But produced it can be, and a mightily pleasant thing it is to watch it burgeon and swell. Try this phrase, Wumpick: “a Wimpy Apostolate.” They are all taught to think in terms of “vocation” and “apostolate” now. The patient thinks she knows what her “apostolate” is—you’d better know whether or not she’s right—why don’t I have your report, anyway? there must be some excuse—well then: she thinks she knows what her apostolate is; make sure (if she’s right about it) that she thinks it is a poor one. There is no better way of ensuring that she does her job badly, than if she thinks it is beneath other Christians' jobs. From there it is only a step to her thinking it is beneath her. (The word for this state of mind, Wumpick, the technical term you are searching for, is pride.) At the same time, the notion of “the Wimpy Apostolate” inclines the patient to see herself as having been lazy or undergenerous in her choice of life; and so in creeps with the pride at being better than her job a guilt at not having picked a harder one. (This is not the time to remind her that, strictly speaking, it is not she but the Enemy who picked her work. It is an excellent time, however, to use his little story about the talents to damning effect.)
You’ll be helped in all of this by the fact that she is American. Every human being, but Americans especially,
tends to be a little Pelagius or a little Kant.
They think that because a thing is hard, it is a good thing to do; they
forget that virtue is like any other habit: difficult at first and easier as
the training continues. It is not that
they will ever be able stop trying to be good (we see to that, with a little
help from the World and the Flesh); but at some point their trials at being
good will become less obnoxious to them.
This is especially true if the trials arise in or from the particular
work that the Enemy intends them to do.
It is not unknown for him to take someone unsuited for a job and plunk
them into it—sometimes He likes to use weak tools for great deeds. But these are the rarae aves, the
human miracles, the poor souls pulled out of their natural habitat in
suspension of his usual course of action on purpose to astonish the world. (He is an everlasting showman, Wumpick. Screwtape called him a bourgeois at heart. He
is not, of course; but He knows very well how to play to the bourgeoisie.) But more commonly He puts the human being
somewhere where he or she belongs. That
is what He likes to call “giving them a little taste of heaven on earth”—as if
they belonged in heaven! Yes, He
actually talks that way! Faugh!
But at any rate, at any rate: bear this in mind. If the patient is inclined to her work, as
she most likely should be, then convince her that that is not because
the Enemy intends her to be doing it, not because He in His mercy (that
is how she will learn to call it if you are not careful) doesn’t bruise broken
reeds, but because she has “flaked out” as the young Americans say, and
chosen a Wimpy Apostolate. At least,
you’ll put her out of sorts with her job.
At best you may get her to haul up her roots and head of for Mali or
somewhere equally unsuited to her talents and calling; and that will be
a show well worth watching.
Your ever affectionate uncle,
Slangrine.
No comments:
Post a Comment