I just finished The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis - a correspondence between the demon Screwtape and his nephew and neophyte tempter Wormwood. Without getting too bogged down in theology, I thought this was a good choice for the Lenten season – the 40 days and 40 nights before Easter when Jesus was sent into to the desert to be tempted by Satan (as you can tell, I actually wrote this a while back.)  In a series of letters, Screwtape lays out to Wormwood the most effective ways to corrupt a man’s soul. 

It’s a pretty standard list: temptation, lust, greed, contumely, scorn, pride and fear. Screwtape continually refers to humans as “vermin” and “scum” and can never quite figure out why God sacrificed so much to save our collective and eternal souls.

As an avowed believer, this was an interesting read because it focuses on something I think about all the time – how do we find God?  Again, I’m no theologian, but my thought has always been (and echoed in this book) is that God wins when we find Him on our own. But, where is He ? Wormwood is instructed to keep his target away from where he finds fulfillment – something as simple as a walk in the woods or an evening by the fire can offer the kind of peace that gives us a sense of the divine.

When I think about spirituality, I mostly consider it in terms of my flaws and failures (a list that would break the Internet if I were to give to type it all up) and how when I see hardship. Neither God or the Devil can “make” you do something. God won’t stop you from stealing a cookie nor can the Devil force you to pick someone’s pocket. We make the choice on our own.