My Dear Foroa,
How dare you, you inept worthless little fool. How dare you. Didn’t I tell you that Rack’s patient is no longer reliable for our side? Didn’t I tell you to keep your patient away from him? Didn’t I tell you that?
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong, you stupid moron. Yes, Rack’s patient may have been our unwitting ally during their last semester of school but, as every demon who graduates from Tempter’s College ought to know, the Enemy can reach in without any warning and rip years and years of hard work right out of our hands. Can you fathom that, Foroa? Oh course, you can’t. You’re the biggest idiot around.
All that being said, however, I still want to make it clear that I care about you and I’m ready and willing to help you clean up this little mess that you’ve gotten yourself into. Make no mistake, you’re awfully lucky to have a tempter of my caliper to help you when you blow your assignment.
First, I see from your letter that your patient has mentioned that she should have done a better job of keeping her mind on some signs that the Enemy wanted her to memorize instead of dreaming about the hot food and warm bed that some Lady in Green promised her. Well, that is interesting, isn’t it? I sure would like to meet this Lady in Green, wouldn’t you? I bet that she would be our ally and, what with all the Enemy’s unfair surprise moves, we need all the accomplices that we can get. I also see that your patient mentioned that this Lady in Green played a musical instrument and had some magical incense. Well, this other place just keeps getting more and more interesting, doesn’t it?
Actually, this business about sweet smells, pretty music, hot food, and a warm bed is more than just interesting. It gives me all the clues that I need to help bring your patient down to Our Father Below’s dinner table. All you need is a fun little tactic called Sloth.
You know, you’d think that the Enemy would have taken more care to create varmints who do what He says, when He says it. Our Father Below certainly doesn’t have any intention of waiting forever and ever while the vermin decide who they will follow.
You know, the temptation of Sloth reminds me of one of my favorite stories from back when I was in school. See, back then, the Enemy’s chosen varmints were wandering around in the desert like chickens with their heads cut off, and our tempters were making a productive time out of it. Of course, unfortunately, there was a bit of a break in our feast because the Enemy interfered by giving ten commandments to the leader of his chosen varmints, but our tempters knew their business back then and they soon had the feast back on.
So, I bet you’re wondering how they did it, right? Well, since the Enemy had told His chosen varmints to always keep His commands on their minds, we naturally used the very tactic that I want you to use on your patient.
I’m telling you, in no time at all, we had His chosen varmints right back where we wanted them and all because they didn’t follow His instructions about memorizing His commandments and passing them to the next generation.
I mean really, I crack up every time I remember it. It’s just so much fun to watch the Human varmints slacking off because they’ve memorized a few of His best lines and then they think that they can handle things.
I’m telling you, it’s one of our best jokes because they almost never remember everything that He wants them to know if they don’t diligently work at it for their whole lives.
And the best part is, one of their best excuses is being too busy. Hilarious, right? Of course, it is.
Now, I bet that you’re wondering how to go about infecting your patient with Sloth, so I’ll tell you. One way is to distract her with perceived busyness so that she thinks that she doesn’t have time to dabble in His word.
You can also suggest that she knows enough about Him. This is quite fun because, unfortunately, there are many different layers to the stories in His book, and varmints who study them more than once might learn something that they didn’t originally notice. It would be a travesty if that happened to your patient, so you’d better not let it. Instead, you could suggest that she should just tune out whenever she is forced to listen to the same old story again.
Another fun way to distract her is by using pretty things. I mean, wasn’t that what you mentioned in your letter? She, like most varmints, likes to be comfortable and take the easiest road to wherever she wants to go. Well, the Enemy will almost never agree with this so, naturally, it would help our side if you could get it into her head.
Say, isn’t it funny how the Human varmints have all these lines like “life isn’t fair” or “life’s rough” and they love to spout those lines off to other Human varmints, but you wouldn’t believe how they whine when another Human says those things to them. And they like to bellyache about not having this or that and they totally forget that the Enemy has supposedly claimed to provide them with everything that they need. He even told them a story about this while He was on earth. It was something about birds and flowers, but I didn’t pay much attention when He told it because I was working in the field. Anyway, the account is right there in His book but, of course, the Human varmints are too “busy” to read it. What a joke.
Now Foroa, before I sign off, let me warn you again that continuing to allow your patient to hang out with Rack’s patient will have a dangerous effect on our schemes, because his little varmint is related to some of the Enemy’s most vile accomplices and it would be horrible if your patient met them.
Also, I see in your letter that your patient has been saying how grateful she is that Rack’s patient nagged her to repeat those Signs that the Enemy wanted her to know. That’s the most awful thing that could possibly happen, because when varmints in His camp band together and encourage each other to stay on His path, it becomes much harder for us to affect them.
Of course, I know that a smart little idiot like yourself will be just fine if you’re competent enough to implement all my great suggestions, so just keep me informed about your progress.
Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape
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Author’s Notes: This letter is based on Deuteronomy 6:6-9.
Foroa is named for Foot Roasting. For this torture, the victim’s feet were put in stocks with hot coals underneath in order to burn them to whatever degree the torturer felt like. I paired Foot Roasting with Jill because the Giants at the House of Harfang would have roasted more than her feet—and they were only there because she forgot to remember the Signs.
Jill might have almost blown the mission by forgetting to remember the signs, but I think that we, as readers, find it easy to forgive her slothfulness because it is borne out of her newness to the faith. Living a Christian life takes a lifetime of disciplined work, so it’s easy to see why she doesn’t have it all together on her first trip to Narnia.