I was in third grade when I started reading C.S. Lewis. I was attending parochial school and our third grade teacher encouraged us to read the Chronicles of Narnia. I was so enamored by the books that I read the chronicles six times.
C.S. Lewis has been wandering in and out of my reading life ever since.
A friend gave me The Screwtape Letters when I was in high school – probably when I was in grade eleven or twelve. Developmentally, this timeless class was a great book to read in high school; it was a readable, accessible book that was a developmental step toward reading adult-level books about faith. Just as I read the Chronicles of Narnia several times as a child, I periodically come back around to The Screwtape Letters as an adult.
In this book, exchanges between the devil and one of his underlings provide witty and engaging insight into how the devil seeks to tempt us into sin via his deep understanding of human psychology and our natural foibles and temptations. Crafty and cunning, the devil is shown to use trickster techniques to outwit any effort on our part to live a just and upright life. The book engages us to see just how tempting sin is; how “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24) – that staying on the right and narrow road to righteousness becomes an increasingly narrow path that requires both our active participation and our willingness to allow God to direct us (“small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” Matthew 7:14).
The Screwtape Letters is worth reading.
Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages.
