The Other Shoulder: Resisting Temptation in The Screwtape Letters

By Ronald E. Wheeler

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385022090

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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Copyright © 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

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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: 06/24/2024

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1Reality

Streaming Reality

2Perception

Feet to Climb

3Relationships

Inside Out

4Prayers

Journey Toward

5Pressure

Resisting Affliction

6Personality

Goodwill

7Passion

First Foremost

8Rhythm

Undulating Seas

9Inertia

Stasis

10Influence

Yoke-Friends

11Humor

Good Humor

12Drift

Off Course

13Turnabout

Return

14Attention

Focus

15Time

Tense

16Attendance

Dance

17Indulgence

Extravagance

18Competition

One

19Love Divine

Inquiry

20Sex

Touch

21Anger

Mine

22Transformation

Becoming

23Corruption

Innocence

24Conviction

Watchdogs

25Change

Breathe

26The Other

Less-Self

27Petition

Model

28Endurance

Compass

29Courage

Hope

30Fatigue

Sabbath

31Death

Welcome

Afterword

About the Author

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

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.

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

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SKETCH 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 if Descartes had instead observed that no thought could exist without the breathing mechanism that made the thought possible. In other words: Spiro ergo sum – I breathe, therefore I am.

Biblically, neither statement represents human Reality as described in Genesis: The earthy dust and divine breath becoming a living soul. People often focus attention on material points as the Real but seldom give