Book Review: "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis

Here's the last of our Holy Week posts! Hope everyone has a wonderful Good Friday and Easter. Remember when picking out your Easter Sunday outfit pick something with elastic so you can eat as much as possible at brunch! (Wait, is that just me?) Our next theme week will be all about space, the final frontier!


I've talked about how much I like CS Lewis on the blog before, here and here. Of course it was my first two posts so probably only 2 of you saw it, haha. At any rate, Mr Lewis is one of my favorites and Screwtape Letters is his first book that I remember reading, that was for adults (aka not  The Chronicles of Narnia).

Screwtape Letters is made up of letters between a demon named Wormwood and his nephew Screwtape. Screwtape is a new tempter, and Wormwood is a high ranking veteran. They write letters back and forth but the only letters we see are Wormwood's letters in response.It's obvious that Screwtape is testing his patience, at one point he gets so upset while writing a response that he turns into a centipede. (Because it's hell, so giant centipede, of course).

So Screwtape is on his first assignment and has been assigned to a man we only know as "the patient". The patient has just became a new Christian. Even an inexperienced tempter like Screwtape should be able to tempt the patient into his old habits, eventually chalking his dalliance into Christianity as an "adolescent phase". But the man's new faith runs deeper than either demon expected and Screwtape is not doing a good job.

At one point the patient falls in love, and at first Screwtape is excited by this process. But then Wormwood points out that the woman is a devout Christian from a devout family and that these people will be a strong Christian influence on him. Wormwood HATES this girl. This is what he says about her:
"Not only a Christian, but such a Christian - a vile sneaking, simpering, demure, monosyllabic, mouse-like, watery, insignificant, virginal, bread-and-butter miss. The little brute. She makes me vomit". It's quite the tangent. I like the last bit, because I feel like I've gone on mean spirited tangents and ended with a similar declaration. Which is obviously not a testament to myself and my personality and temper.

During the middle of the book WWII stars, which delights Screwtape to no end. Wormwood (irritably) points out that this is not necessarily a good thing.He points out that people turn to long forgotten faith in times of trouble and danger.After all they don't want people just to die, they want people to die who are firmly in their pocket.


I'm not going to tell you how it ends for our demon story tellers and the patient. You will have to read it for yourself. But I will hint for you and say that it ends badly for someone.


Random thoughts:
-I love that the demons refer to Satan as "Our Father Below". I don't know why I like that so much but when I re-read that I was like, man that's clever.

- One of the parts that resonate the loudest with me is the story Wormwood tells about one of his charges and an incident at the British Museum. I'm so easily distracted I know that the demon who is charged with tempting me uses my short attention span to his favor.

-I think that Neil Gaiman probably writes the best villains in the business,but CS does a wonderful job of his villains. Wormwood and Screwtape are main demons but there are also demons mentioned named Scabtree, Glubose,Slumtrimpet,Toadpipe, Triptweeze. Screwtape is my favorite, but Slumptrimpet is a closed second. Doesn't it sounds like a girl demon? I don't think demons have sexes. Right?

-There's also a point where Screwtape tries to get Wormwood in trouble with the demon higher ups. Like, really Screwtape, how did you think Wormwood is not going to hear about that?


So if this book intrigues you, you should read it. If you want to read it and talk to someone while you read it, you certainly can talk to me. If you want to talk to many people when you read it may I suggest you get in on The Inklings Series over at Books and Beverages? Jamie blogs about (wait for it) books and beverages and is a devout CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien fan. The Inkling Series is a monthly feature that features a CS or JRR book. At the end of the month Jame will post her review and a discussion. Check out her post here for more information. When she first mentioned this series I was enthusiastic about it to a creepy point. I've read a lot of CS but only "The Hobbit" from Mr Tolkien so I'm looking forward to expanding my knowledge of him. Ill give you a heads up on the official kick off when we get a little closer to go time!

I love this book. It is dear to my heart. It's funny, it's sad. I feel like this book mirrors things that I see in myself. The flaws, the struggles, and the Redemption that is offered. Whenever I read this book I feel so full, like my cup runneth over.

This is the edition I want. It's so pretty.

This is the edition I have. The demon isn't scary enough.

Book Review and Mini- Bio - Book Review: "Ruthless Trust: A Ragamuffin's Path to God" by Brennan Manning

Today we're going to have to have 2 posts in one! This book, and a look at Brennan Manning's life are both deserving of their own post, but I thought it'd be nice to have them together. This is only the second book I've read by Brennan Manning so there wasn't quite enough to have an author highlight just yet. I'll start with a little peek at Brennan Manning's life and then you can see where he's coming from with his books.

It's impossible to sum up Brennan's life is any one word; hardship, change, variety would all apply at one point or another. He was born in New York City in 1934.He had an unpleasant home life. He served in the Marine Corps during Korea. He was ordained in the Franciscan priesthood in 1963. He served in many capacities, sometimes among the poor, sometimes as a spiritual instructor at schools.He was a part of a group of priests who established a spiritual community in Alabama, reaching out to shrimpers and their families. He struggled mightily with alcoholism at points of his life. He wrote several wonderful books, probably the most famous being "The Ragamuffin's Gospel" which, speaking from personal experience, is a wonderful, moving read. I'm anxious to read his biography, which Im sure will do his life better justice than this little blurb!

Onto the book review!

I wouldn't say that this is a sequel to "The Ragamuffin's Gospel" but they do mention some of the ideas from that book in this book. Starting with what a ragamuffin is :"The unsung assembly of saved sinners who are little in their own sight, conscious of their brokenness and powerlessness before God, and who cast themselves on His mercy."

The main theme this book is built around is trust, as you may have gathered from the title. The trust that Brennan talks about is not an easy trust to come by. This trust is "the conviction that God wants us to grow, to unfold, and to experience the fullness of life. However, this kind of trust is acquired only gradually and most often through a series of crises and trials."

Trust is obviously hard to come by when terrible things are happening to you. I know personally a question I struggle with is "Why does God allow such terrible things to happen all over the world, he could stop them." I think that's just one of those questions that we will never have an answer to that wholly satisfies us. Brennan quotes author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote this in a letter to a heartbroken friend: "When the heart strings are suddenly cut, it is, I believe a physical impossibility to feel faith or resignation; there is a revolt of the instinctive and animal system, though we may submit to God, it is rather by constant painful effort than sweet attraction". Submitting our will to someone other than ourselves is not something done easily or without effort.

This was my favorite quote in the book: "On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars." (Wesley slumps into chair, with hand on heart).Thank goodness for that, because I don't have much in way of medals and diplomas. As I always like to say "God loves broken things", and this quote reminded of my saying, but in a much more eloquent way.

(This next bit is sad but I'm going to end on a high note, I promise!)

This little anecdote didn't really fit anywhere in the review but it broke my heart and I wanted to include it. So I mentioned before that Brennan didn't have a great childhood. One of these reasons was because his mom was, at best, undemonstrative. He says "I have no memory of being held, hugged or kissed by my mother as a little boy.I was called a nuisance and a pest and told to shut up and be still". He figured that this was somehow his fault and it planted the self-hate that haunted him most of his life. Isn't that just the most horribly sad thing you've ever heard? He reasons out later that it's because his mother was raised in an orphanage and never received any affection and therefore wasn't really capable of giving any.He comes to grips with all of this later in life but this really affected him in a terrible way for a big chunk of his life.

Okay ending on a high note!

Brennan tells a story that he read from a named Robert Johnson.

So there's this famous monastery full of these wise, incredibly skilled monks. But there is one little monk who doesn't have any of these lauded gifts and skills that his brothers have. He wanted to have something special to offer Mary as a form of worship but he thought he had nothing to offer.However, he was a tumbler in a circus before he became a monk. So he would sneak down in the crypt where no one would see him and perform a tumbling act in front of a statue of Mary as his offering to her. Another monk sees him and is flabbergasted and offended at this little monk. He marches right up to the abbot and tells him about these crypt shenanigans. The abbot follows this informer down to the crypt. He watches this tumbler and waits until he finishes his act. The abbot turns to the informer (who is insane with anger) and says "more real worship goes on here than takes place upstairs" (in the church). May we all use our gifts in joyful service like our little circus monk. (I love this story so much, I might be tearing up. I am tearing up. I hope that he was humming the little circus song while he was tumbling too. Do do dootle dootle do do dooooootle)

So I love this book. 4 stars out of 5. Readable, relatable, challenging, sad parts, funny parts. All good parts.

Book Review: "American Saint: The Life of Elizabeth Seton" by Joan Barthel

I received this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

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After having read this book I am shocked that I've never heard of this woman, Elizabeth Seton, before. Elizabeth Seton was the the fist American born saint in the Catholic church, and the ripple effect of her work is still felt today. Uppity women are my favorite, and this woman was uppity, in all the right ways. Before we really talk about the book, basically the story of her life I think it would helps to set the scene a bit.

We're in America, at around 1770 in the beginning. This is a time of big changes in America, obviously some big things happen in 1776. Another thing that is happening in America at this time is waves and waves of immigrants, especially in the larger cities. (Most of the story is set in New England, primarily New York City and Baltimore, though we do deviate over to Europe for a bit.)

One thing that I did not realize (and was surprised to learn) is that in many parts of America Catholicism was illegal. Catholics were barred from several things including "all public activities, including voting, serving on juries and holding hands". An American minister described Catholicism as "the ally of tyranny, the opponent of material prosperity, the foe of thrift and the enemy of the railroad!". (I included that because of the bit about the railroad, because what is that about?) One of the reasons (perchance the main reason) that Catholics were treated with such disdain was because the people in America who were Catholic were almost exclusively immigrants. By restricting Catholics and therefore immigrants people were trying to limit the influence that they had in their new country.

Also this might be a good time to also mention that this isn't a great time to be a woman either. Education was not encourage for them. Also "a wife had no legal identity separate from her husband...she is owned as a person, along with the dresses and shoes and hats she wore".

Long story short, it's not good to be Catholic, and it's not something that you would choose to become, generally. Which leads us to our story....
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Elizabeth Seton was born in 1774. Her parents were prominent citizens, her dad an important doctor, her mom the daughter on an important Episcopalian minister. It didn't take long for sadness to strike her life, her mother died when she was 3. His father remarried later, and there were 5 more children. However they eventually seperated. (Her dad is a really interesting part of this book. Something is kind of amiss about him I think. In the language of the time I bet they'd say that he was prone to fits of melancholy and dark moods.)

Elizabeth grew up to be a charming young lady. She was pretty contemplative, thinking deep thoughts about nature, faith, God and she kept a journal. She was also fluent in French and very musically gifted on the piano. At 19 she married Will Seton. He worked in his families shipping business, but after the death of his father the business began to decline, shifting their fortunes to the slightly more poor scale. They had 5 children, though not all would grow to adulthood (this would not be the sum of their problems).

The 1800s did not start well for the Seton family. New York City was awash with yellow fever. Will's business declared bankruptcy, and Will himself was battling a bad case of tuberculosis.
Elizabeth set up a charitable organization to help with widows whose husbands had been victims of yellow fever. She was 22 and "helped set up the first charitable organization in the country managed by women".

Will's sickness worsened.The doctors said that maybe a change in climate would help, and so Will, Elizabeth and their daughter Anne went to Italy to stay with some business associates of Will's who offered to keep them while Will convalesced. Unfortunately, Will died shortly after arriving, after enduring a long quarantine period.

Elizabeth was understandably destroyed.The Filicchi family, with whom they were staying, were a source of comfort and support. They were Catholics, and they introduced her to their faith. This was the first time that Elizabeth had contact with Catholics who were articulate, educated, and rather well off. (Remember the poor immigrant Catholics that she was used to seeing.) Somewhere between her time with them,and the insanely long boat ride back to America, she converted to Catholicism.

In 1809 Elizabeth moved herself and her children to Emmitsburg Maryland where she established St Joseph's Academy and Free School, dedicated to educating girls.This was the first free Catholic school in the United States and the beginning of what would become a very far reaching system.She also helped to establish a branch of the Sisters of Charity, a religious community and was called "Mother Seton".
Also have you heard of Seton Hall, yeah, guess who that's named after.

Elizabeth's life was not an easy one. 2 of her daughters died, money problems plagued the school, interpersonal problems between members of Sisters of Charity and the Catholic church, and more were her constant companions before her death of tuberculosis in 1821 at the age of 46.

I gave this book a 3.5 out of 5 stars rating. It was so interesting to hear the life of this woman, who I previously didn't know existed. It doesn't sugar coat the bad things of her personality either, it seemed quite even handed. (They even include a story about when her nonreligious father was dying and she tried to deal with the Lord to take her brand new baby from her in exchange for saving her father's eternal soul.) Anyway, extraordinary life, easy read, pick it up.

As a closing thought, this little rhyme was prevalent at this time,basically about why teaching girls anything was a waste:

"Why should girls be learn'd and wise?
Books only serve to spoil their eyes.
The studious eye but faintly twinkles
And reading paves the path for wrinkles."

Yeah.So I guess my eyes should be twinkling more if I read less...

Special posts this week...

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that this week on the blog is going to be a unique one.
For Christians all around the world this week is Holy Week, where the death and resurrection of Christ is celebrated/observed. I'm a Christian so I am also celebrating/observing this week. I thought I'd take the opportunity to make my celebrations/observation reach to the blog too. The posts this week are all going to be Christian books. One is about a woman who became the first American born saint and encourage education for girls (true story!). One is about how trust is an incredibly important part of faith. One is going to be a personal favorite written by CS Lewis (written from the perspective of demons, so that's crazy).

Whatever your religious views, if any, I hope you stick around with the blog this week and see what these books can offer you.I am not even remotely close to a perfect person. There are (frequent) days that I'm not even a good person, or a likeable person.So please don't think I'm preaching at you from my perfection pulpit. (Perfection Pulpit is another name for my all girl metal band,btw.)

I'm a broken sinner and God saved me. As simple and as complicated as all of that!