Screwtape and Discussions With Robert

For the last month or more Robert and I have been reading and discussing The Screwtape Letters. Okay, well I read them and Robert listens and we discuss. It has been really intriguing and very good. We have enjoyed it so much we are going to continue our plan to find good books and read and discuss them together. Our next find is on the Founding Fathers, their writings and speeches. We found so many great insights into ourselves while reading this book. We talked about how Robert read it in school, but his teacher told him how this book is like seeing people we know and the mistakes they make. Though one can see that, it is not the best part of this book. People don't want to have it be a window to their own mistakes and sins, but that is exactly what it is. And even more so as C.S. Lewis put it, it was a window into his own soul and therefore a window into the natural man. I sat with my highlighter going over my favorite parts of this book. So many that I can't possibly quote them all. But this was one of many favorites:

"The Enemy (meaning to the devil Screwtape, his enemy which is God) wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in he own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in he neighbor's talents... He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His longterm policy, I fear, to restore them a new kind of self-love- a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. For we must never forget what is the repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the (people) he has created, and always gives back to them His right hand what He has taken away with His left"-- The Screwtape Letters

If you haven't ever read it. I suggest doing it. And read it with your spouse. It is a great book to share together because of the discussions it leads to on how we can become better together. Robert and I really like reading things to each other and discussing deep topics. It was what drew us to each other in the first place. Now on to the next book. I will update you on the books I read myself and the ones we read together.