The Other Shoulder: Resisting Temptation in The Screwtape Letters
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What duties might a guardian angel perform? Does it act defensively, warding off demonic attacks to protect its Charge from horrifying evil? Does it act offensively, harrowing wickedness by equipping its assigned Soul with gifted power? What could an angel do for a child of God that the indwelling Spirit of the Creator’s Holiness does not already do? Yet the Divine Way seems to designate these Messengers for particular service in the created order. They seem designed – at least in part – for, well, messaging.
The Other Shoulder houses a series of lyrics whispered by a guarding angel to a Soul undergoing devilish enticement. The book includes the reflections of that Soul in sketches parallel to the angelic lyrics. Both the sketches and the lyrics probe the psychology, emotion, and agency of resisting temptations advocated in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Read with those letters or as a free-standing exploration, The Other Shoulder offers biblically-based assistance to withstand the allurement of sin.
Ronald E. Wheeler
Ronald E. Wheeler instructs students in composition and literature at Johnson University, Knoxville, Tennessee (fall 1977 to present). He teaches an adult fellowship of readers at Woodlawn Christian Church. He and his wife, Martha, have two adult children and eight grandchildren. He has one book of published poetry: Collecting Dust: Sonnets Thus Far. The Other Shoulder stems from his study and instruction of The Screwtape Letters over four-and-a-half decades – twice the time between Screwtape’s inception (1940) and the death of its author, C. S. Lewis (1963). Ron’s crisp, invigorated prose and poetic voice blend classic form with conversational tone. His compressed style invites readers to return to his work where they may linger, ponder, and receive both encouragement and challenge from observations and reflections on human behavior and spiritual development.
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The Other Shoulder - Ronald E. Wheeler
Also by Ronald E. Wheeler
COLLECTING DUST: SONNETS (THUS FAR)
Meditations on divine mystery, efforts for ritual festivity,
pledges in close relations, and glimpses into critical decline
THE
OTHER
SHOULDER
Resisting Temptation in The Screwtape Letters
RONALD E. WHEELER
39703.pngCopyright © 2024 Ronald E. Wheeler.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
ISBN: 979-8-3850-2207-6 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-3850-2208-3 (hc)
ISBN: 979-8-3850-2209-0 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024906178
WestBow Press rev. date: 05/09/2024
I dedicate this volume to the reading communities I have the privilege to work among. May you continue the stories that continue to matter.
Of special note, my thanks to
Martha
for helping me see behind the veil;
Marie
for your encouragement and copyediting expertise;
Bo
for your enthusiastic support and for the engaging questions.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Reality
Streaming Reality
2 Perception
Feet to Climb
3 Relationships
Inside Out
4 Prayers
Journey Toward
5 Pressure
Resisting Affliction
6 Personality
Goodwill
7 Passion
First Foremost
8 Rhythm
Undulating Seas
9 Inertia
Stasis
10 Influence
Yoke-Friends
11 Humor
Good Humor
12 Drift
Off Course
13 Turnabout
Return
14 Attention
Focus
15 Time
Tense
16 Attendance
Dance
17 Indulgence
Extravagance
18 Competition
One
19 Love Divine
Inquiry
20 Sex
Touch
21 Anger
Mine
22 Transformation
Becoming
23 Corruption
Innocence
24 Conviction
Watchdogs
25 Change
Breathe
26 The Other
Less-Self
27 Petition
Model
28 Endurance
Compass
29 Courage
Hope
30 Fatigue
Sabbath
31 Death
Welcome
Afterword
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Two groups have greatly influenced this collection: Students in my Inklings classes at Johnson University and readers in the Discipleship Walk class at Woodlawn Christian Church. I owe a debt of inspiration and gratitude: First, for their engagement with The Screwtape Letters. The life experiences they bring to the discussion broaden my perspective of temptation’s pervasiveness. Second, for their responses to my thinking on the Letters. The reflections they share about inverting those letters deepened my appreciation of resistance’s possibilities. To both groups: Thank you.
INTRODUCTION
In Medieval Europe, the iconography of capitulation to and resistance of the sinful impulse appears as a struggle of suggestion. On the left shoulder sits the Tempting Demon, whispering impulses for the world, the flesh, and the devil. On the right shoulder sits the Guarding Angel, singing for God’s ways and walk. Poised between these two voices, the Human Soul contemplates its action.
In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis gives readers the Tempting Demon’s advice. The Other Shoulder offers meditations from the Human Soul (in a prose Sketch) and whispers from the Guarding Angel (as a villanelle Lyric). These entries have eight (8) parts as illustrated from SKETCH 1 and LYRIC 1:
Part 1 – Content Summary
Heading the entry, a summary of Screwtape’s tempting advice from the original Letter appears in a single sentence. Granted, this summary reduces the richness of Lewis’s creation, but it provides a memory trigger to recall the letter’s substance. For Letter 1 the summary reads:
Screwtape advises how to confuse reality
by elevating jargon over reason.
Part 2 – Temptation Hook
Next, the entry lists the temptation hook from the letter. The phrase Temptation works through identifies the hooks throughout the collection. For Letter 1 the temptation hook appears as:
Temptation works through
assumptions and indolence.
Part 3 – Sketch (and Letter) Topic
Below the Temptation Hook, the Topic for the Sketch (derived from its corresponding Letter) comes next. The Topic identifies the working temptation. Sketch 1 (and Letter 1) considers:
REALITY.
Part 4 – A Question Title
A Question Title introduces each Sketch (and recalls each Letter). It suggests the human experience addressed in the Temptation Hook and the Resistance Strategy. Rather than the academic markers Ontology and Epistemology
targeted in Letter 1, the Question Title uses informal phrasing:
What’s really real?
Part 5 – The Sketch
With the Temptation Hook in place, the Human Soul considers some angle of the Topic. That consideration grows out of the Topic but does not necessarily parallel it:
Most of us feel temptation on the visceral level . . . .
Part 6 – The Lyric
After the Sketch, the Guardian sings to the Soul offering instruction, direction, correction, and encouragement.
STREAMING REALITY
The truth of paradise goes lost till found . . . .
Part 7 – Resistance Strategy
The Resistance works by statement counters the Temptation Hook:
Resistance works by
screening one’s thoughts rationally and imaginatively.
Part 8 – Reflection Readings
The entry ends with a page of scripture readings for the Soul and Guarding Angel to direct the Discipleship Walk.
The choice to grasp the forbidden fruit or to trust the holy directive remains the business of Earth. Living by the closed fist or the open hand shapes the Self for eternity. May these Sketches and Lyrics enrich your journey.
Ronald E. Wheeler
Seymour, Tennessee
In the Summer of Recovery before the Delta variant of Covid-19
39630.pngSKETCH 1
REALITY
WHAT’S REALLY REAL?
Most of us feel temptation on the visceral level, in the flesh (what we think we need: Sustenance, comforts, gratification). No matter the motivation, our senses, thoughts, and emotions construct our sense of the Real – the conditions for which we would die and by which we would live. Currently, Western culture struggles with whether the Real rests in the mind or in the body.
This dichotomy between mind and body stems from René Descartes’s famous conclusion to his imaginative experiment of doubt. He set out to doubt everything – all sensory data, all mental presuppositions, and all behavioral action. But he found that he could not deny that he himself existed, since some intelligence had to exist to do the doubting in the first place. His conclusion: Cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am.
This conclusion tilts the scales of perceived Reality toward abstraction and the mind. How differently Western culture may have turned