Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
THE CHRONICLE
The Seventh Sunday of Easter
June 4, 2000
Volume 45, No.23

Enjoying the Gift of Creation
Screwtape to Wormwood:
I would make it a rule to eradicate from my patient any strong personal taste which is not actually a sin, even if it is something quite trivial such as a fondness for county cricket or collecting stamps or drinking cocoa. Such things, I grant you, have nothing of virtue in them; but there is a sort of innocence and humility and self-forgetfulness about them which I distrust. The man (or woman) who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopense what other people say about it, is by the very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack.

In C.S. Lewis' book The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape (a devil) attempts to educate his young and naive nephew Wormwood (a junior devil or devil-in-training) on the finer points of luring gullible Christians from their allegiance to the Faith. In this letter to Wormwood, Screwtape cautions his nephew to not overlook the presence of God in the simplest areas of life. To enjoy the gifts of God's creation is to mirror God's divine purpose for humanity. It is God's will that we should seek God's face in and through every facet of life. To seek the presence of God is to take delight in God's handiwork. And so, Screwtape's teaching centers on distracting the Christian whose relationship with God is made manifest through an appreciation of creation itself.

For example, in our consumer-generated culture, consider the art of stamp collecting. Who has time to start and maintain a stamp collection? Is it not deemed frivolous and a great waste of time by many? Yet, stamp collecting is seen in the life of the collector as being "over and above culture." Through the innocence of stamp collecting, one receives a glimpse of living into the freedom of God's creation. Screwtape cautions Wormwood not to overlook the simple glories and gifts of life, for they carry perhaps the greatest amount of personal and spiritual freedom. These "little" gifts from God open the portal for a Divine encounter with the One who gave himself as "an offering and sacrifice to God."
Peace!
~Allen F. Robinson+