We’re moving into the best part of the year, the liturgical year. You may think that is Christmas, but you would be wrong, in my book, at least. Easter is the best! It is the promise of new. It is spring. The awakening. The bountiful. The miracle. Easter with bunnies and eggs, jelly beans and almost everything that is wonderful about sweets.
One of the books I always read during Lent is The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. My copy is from 1961. It’s an old book. Almost bereft of cover, the price at the top right hand corner is $1.95. But this year I couldn’t find it, and I almost didn’t miss it until I started thinking about the end of Lent, the beginning of Easter and all that information about the art of temptation. This is reading about sin and greed as a ‘good’ thing. We read Screwtape’s instructions to his nephew Wormwood on how to undermine faith, and bring more souls to their master. When I was younger I thought of it as an ‘opposite’ book. Just do the exact reverse of what Screwtape suggests and you are golden.
As I grew I realized the exact reverse was harder than it seemed to a thirteen year old. And, during Lent, The Screwtape Letters are a gift, a reminder. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.