Preface: A version of this text first appeared in Discovering Ratchet (the now-defunct blog) on January 17, 2017. It is reproduced here, with no edits.

Daily Bread: a Lesson from my Baba

I’ve been remembering my grandparents a lot lately (all of them born and raised in Europe/Russia during the revolution and WWII). They too lived through days where a democratically elected government issued executive orders that forever changed history and resulted in a lot of hatred. The fallout of those days was so horrific that most of it was never spoken of again, and the bits and pieces we do know are such that we are ok with keeping those demons of the past dormant.

But here is the thing. My grandparents never believed WWII was a one time thing. They witnessed up close what mankind could do, and always knew that mankind is apt to repeat its mistakes. They believed in the simplest of interpretations of “give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. That was all they could aim for, always. In doing so, they managed to build lives that included moments of happiness, despite the horrors they lived through. Because of my grandparents, here I am. Blessed with opportunities and a life they never could have dreamed of.

These opportunities seem at risk. The events of this past week (Muslim Ban and mass shooting in a Qc mosque), lead me to believe that my future will have strong parallels to my grandparents’ experiences.

Therefore, all I ask for is my daily bread, and the ability to forgive and be forgiven. Anything more or less than that is inadequate. That is all each one of us can do right now.

John Cleese as Screwtape

Growing up, my mother’s poor health and ludicrous levels of medication messed with her appetite. Rather than skip supper, she would read to my father and I at the kitchen table. One of my favorite books she shared with us was C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. It is a satirical novel: a collection of letters written by a Senior demon (Screwtape) to his nephew Wormwood, a junior tempter. Screwtape attempts to mentor Wormwood in his first mandate to secure the damnation of a nameless British man (“the patient”). Set during WWII, its lessons about morals, temptation, resistance to sin and self-awareness have shaped my entire life. It is also very funny. A revelation that religion and faith are not mutually exclusive with humor and laughter.

Although this novel has always provided me with useful guidance, it has been rather at the forefront of my mind recently. It could have been written now, instead of 1942 – that alone confirms my belief that we are headed to terrible times. Nevertheless, I am rereading it, so as to try be aware of the traps that await us, in these times of hatred and fear.

I strongly urge y’all to listen to this particular chapter from the Screwtape Letters – narrated by John Cleese! It is rather pertinent for current day events.

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Postface: the book review below was written in January 2024.

Understanding Domestic Warfare

I was a cynical, somewhat unhappy15 year old when my mother first read us the Screwtape Letters. Initially, I was mildly amused by the premise of a senior devil describing bad behaviours as good and charitable attitudes as products of the Enemy. And then –

In civilised life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face. To keep this game up you and Glubose must see to it that each of these two fools has a sort of double standard. Your patient must demand that all his utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother’s utterances with the fullest and most over-sensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention. She must be encouraged to do the same to him. Hence from every quarrel they can both go away convinced, or very nearly convinced, that they are quite innocent. You know the kind of thing: “I simply ask her what time dinner will be and she flies into a temper.” Once this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offence is taken.

As a moody teenager, I believed myself to be masterful at the art of passive aggressive behaviour. It had never occurred to me that ungracious, petty behaviour could be the topic of an entire chapter written by a devil! If a run-of-the-mill weekend spat with my mother could influence my eventual fate, maybe Hell is not just reserved for the serial killers and mass murdering dictators?

Concentric Circles: A Way to Evaluate Our True Selves

Screwtape’s compares us humans to concentric circles: the challenge is to be distinguish between who we believe ourselves to be (the Wishful Thinking circle) from what we believe (Intellect) from who we actually are (the Heart). Our Heart only can be revealed through action. I hold many virtues quite dear (courage, freedom for all, love) but if I am being honest, much of those virtues remain in my intellectual circle, rarely, if ever, influencing my actions: if I prefer to seclude myself at home, forget friends and family’s birthdays, and rarely lend a helping hand, then my Heart is selfish, and my Intellect’s selected virtues move ever closer to Wishful Thinking. Screwtape would be delighted.

Daily Bread: Explained

As an adult, I come back again and again to Screwtape’s insight on what, exactly, is meant by “daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer.

My dear Wormwood,

I am delighted to hear that your patient’s age and profession make it possible, but by no means certain, that he will be called up for military service. We want him to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, everyone one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.

Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy’s will. What the Enemy means by this is primarily that he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him – the present anxiety and suspense. It is about THIS that he is to say “Thy will be done”, and for the daily task of bearing THIS that the daily bread will be provided. It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are all incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practice fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that suffering consists of fear, is far easier and is usually helped by this direct action.

This passage singlehandedly prevents me from ever becoming an atheist, despite my faith remaining on life support: I continue to pray the Lord’s Prayer week after week. I have clung to it throughout the years, when my brain was trying to kill me, during the scary isolated days of the pandemic, and when current day events tempt me to despair.

War: Disliked Even By Devils

Given current day events (South Africa’s case filed with the ICJ), Screwtape would no doubt remind his nephew of the following.

But hatred is best combined with Fear. Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely painful – horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; Hatred has its pleasures. It is therefore often the compensation by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of Fear. The more he fears, the more he will hate. And Hatred is also a great anodyne for shame. To make a deep wound in his charity, you should therefore first defeat his courage.

How else to explain some of the horrible behaviors we are witnessing by members in the IDF?

Let us therefore think rather how to use, than how to enjoy, this European war. For it has certain tendencies inherent in it which are, in themselves, by no means in our favour. We may hope for a good deal of cruelty and unchastity. But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy, while tens of thousands who do not go so far as that will nevertheless have their attention diverted from themselves to values and causes which they believe to be higher than the self. I know that the Enemy disapproves many of these causes. But that is where He is so unfair. He often makes prizes of humans who have given their lives for causes He thinks bad on the monstrously sophistical ground that the humans thought them good and were following the best they knew. Consider too what undesirable deaths occur in wartime. Men are killed in places where they knew they might be killed and to which they go, if they are at all of the Enemy’s party, prepared. How much better for us all if ALL humans died in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, 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! And how disastrous for us is the continual remembrance of death which war enforces. One of our best weapons, contented worldliness, is rendered useless. In wartime not even a human can believe that he is going to live forever.

May God rest the souls of all the innocent civilians, overwhelmingly Palestinian, who have lost their lives so far. Screwtape must be in despair at the number of them that are being welcomed by “the Enemy”. Similarly, the leaders of the Western world and mainstream media are surely gladdening Screwtape’s twisted heart with their “contented worldliness”.

C.S. Lewis & Islam

When I witness Islamophobia, I am reminded of Screwtape’s warnings about manufactured Hatred (in the case of the book, towards the Germans). Yet, this might appear incongruous to some: there are many who believe C.S. Lewis to have been Islamophobic, for his portrayal of the “Calormen” in the Last Battle (the last Narnia book), and his opinion that Islam is a Christian heresy in his book Mere Christianity.

To the first argument, I will say that reading books written in the past is an exercise in navigating politically incorrect views without losing sight of the wisdom at the core of the message. Contemporary writers look back at some of their earlier works, and realize their views were too narrow or need updating: that is why there is frequently more than one edition of a book! It happens to all of us. However the longer the period between current day views and written views, the more shocking some of the gaps can seem. We are all a product of our environment, and C.S. Lewis was born in Victorian England, at the height of the British Empire. He might have been one of the most popular Christian Apologists to have ever lived, it would be surprising if he did not hold some colonizer views. Unfortunate, but human. It is our duty as readers to exercise critical judgment, and discard that which is not helpful or relevant to our present day.

My childhood memory of the underlying message of the Last Battle is that while the book was written from the point of view of Narnians (Christians), when came the day of judgment, many Narnians were turned away from Heaven for having rejected Aslan, while some Carlomen (Muslims) were, to their surprise, welcomed.

I take to me the services which thou hast done to Tash… if any man swear by him and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him.

Aslan, The Last Battle

With regards to the second argument, a quick refresher of the definition of the word ‘heresy’:

Heresy: dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice.

Given Islam’s rise 400 or so years after the beginning of Christianity, C.S. Lewis’ usage of the word ‘heresy’ is therefore not accusatory but factual if one considers his authorial point of view as a Christian. Moreover, during his prolific writing career, he never wasted time attacking the other religions; rarely, to help illustrate a theological point, he would compare and contrast some of the religions. This is no different than what any scholar in Comparative Religious Studies would do.

My understanding is that, far from being a Christian Exclusivist (believing that knowledge of Jesus Christ is the prerequisite to salvation), C.S. Lewis was a Christian Inclusivist: he believed Christianity was true, but did not believe that it was the only path to salvation.

I don’t know. I definitely don’t know how shocking some of his passages might be to those of the Muslim faith; I too am the product of my environment. What I do know is that it is thanks to C.S. Lewis’ writings that I do not presume to rigidly hold one faith as appropriate for all humans: his message was one of humility and charity, and a reminder that we humans have very limited understanding of the Eternal Truth, and it would benefit us all to remember that on the regular.

Reflections

As I reflect on the lessons from the Screwtape Letters and the stories of my grandparents, I’m struck by their wisdom. My heart aches, yet I ground myself in my grandparents approach of focusing on the present and cultivating forgiveness – our daily bread.

In these times, when history seems to be repeating itself and the future is fraught with uncertainty and continued injustice, I find solace in these enduring lessons. They remind me that we cannot control the events around us, we can only focus on the alignment of our concentric circles: ensuring the values we hold dear are manifested in our daily actions, instead of merely inhabiting our thoughts and aspirations.

And now, dear readers, I turn to you: What stories, books or family wisdom have guided you through challenging times? How have they shaped your perspective on the world today? Let us continue to learn from the past, to practice forgiveness in the present, and to build a future grounded in the wisdom of those who came before us.

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