Chance reading

[alpharaposa]

We've been unpacking books. This means that books are in stacks on our floors while we sort them and decide where to put them. This morning, I picked up The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis from the philosophy pile, debating whether it goes there or in fiction, or some other place. And because it's a favorite book, I flipped through it and began to read a little.

(A reminder: this book is written from the perspective of a devil, for whom God is the Enemy.)

I came to this passage:

But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future- haunted by visions of imminent heaven or hell upon earth- ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by doing so we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other- dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

Does this not describe so much of our politics?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, The books, nothing slows you down as much as finding your favorites or a book you haven't read for a while. If only we did not have to do anything, but read.