Thursday, October 09, 2003
Good afternoon ppz! last night was pretty interesting.. was watching TV halfway when our 2 buildings blacked out... and when you have about 200+ guys staying in these buildings... its a mess.. hahaha!! but thank God power came back after like 1/2hr +++ hehehe.. well I pigged out last night too... had BK then had another of the Delifrance delipotato.. woohoo!! but felt really very full after that... =) at least I had a good sleep with no sinus problems this morning!! praise God!! ok then.. here's something for you.. pretty long, but its interesting...
An excerpt from "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis
- written from a demon uncle to his demon nephew
"The best thing, where it is possible, is to keep the patient from the serious intention of praying altogether. When the patient is an adult reconverted to the Enemy's (God) party, this is best done by encouraging him to remember ... the parrot-like nature of his prayers in childhood ..."
"One of thier poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray 'with moving lips and bended knees' but merely 'composed his spirit to love' and indulged ' a sense of supplication'. That is exactly the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence as practised by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy's service, clever and lazy patients can be taken in by it for quite a long time."
"Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself we are
defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest thing is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce
feelings there by action of their own wills... When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven..."
"There will be images derived from pictures of the Enemy as He appeared during the discreditable episode known as the Incarnation... where what the patient called His 'God' was actually located ... in a crucifix on the wall. But whatever the nature of the object, you must keep him praying to it - to the thing he has made, not to the Person who made him..."
"For if he ever comes to make the distinction... 'Not to what I think thou are but to what thou knowest thyself to be'... once all his thoughts and images have been flung aside or retained with a full recognition of their merely subjective nature, and the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it - why, then it is that the incalculable may occur!"
~~derek~~ at 10/09/2003 01:04:00 pm
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