From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.
Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered.
The Screwtape Letters
C. S. Lewis
From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.
It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very ‘spiritual’, that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards as her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place, since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person daily less and less like the real mother—the sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table. In time, you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment’s notice from impassioned prayer for a wife’s or son’s ‘soul’ to beating or insulting the real wife or son without a qualm.
The Screwtape Letters
C. S. Lewis
Imminent death sharpens Markel’s self-understanding, before God and the world. He acutely perceives the fall of humanity and his own particular place within this total picture. In this, Markel also perceives the deep interconnectivity of all people and things. The dividing line between himself and “the other” is being erased. In this way, his perception of his deep fallenness brings him neither maudlin wailing, nor pathos, nor self-loathing. Instead he experiences joy, compassion, and love. Having come to this awareness, he can’t comprehend how he ever lost his temper with anyone.
How to Be a Sinner
Peter Bouteneff
Better that it create in me a sense of my own responsibility before the world, which can lead me through faith in God into holiness of life, peace of soul, and joy of heart. Dostoevsky captures this concept in The Brothers Karamazov, when the Elder Zosima recounts a conversation between his dying brother Markel and his mother: “[ I] tell you, dear mother, that each of us is guilty in everything before everyone, and I most of all.” . . . “How can it be . . . that you are the most guilty before everyone? There are murderers and robbers, and how have you managed to sin so that you should accuse yourself most of all?” “Dear mother, heart of my heart . . . you must know that verily each of us is guilty before everyone, for everyone and everything! I do not know how to explain it to you, but I feel it so strongly that it pains me. And how could we have lived before, getting angry, and not knowing anything?” Thus he awoke every day with more and more tenderness, rejoicing and all atremble with love.
How to Be a Sinner
Peter Bouteneff
The mistake might have taken one second, perhaps when we impulsively press “send” on a really bad e-mail. It might have taken years of festering in a toxic relationship. But suddenly we realize that we have totally blundered, and are filled with regret. Such failures can lead us into vain replayings of our mental tape-loops, about how stupid I sounded when I made that remark about my colleague. But compunction over our serious errors can sometimes serve as a promising lead-in to a more thorough and constructive inventory of our lives.
How to Be a Sinner
Peter Bouteneff
When we see a person who has committed vicious sins and crimes escaping with impunity, we react with indignation. We want to see that person called to account and punished, and feel angry that this has not happened. But at such moments we should reflect on our own actions; indeed we should turn that sense of indignation inward against ourselves. Each of us should ask: “How many sins have I committed against others, when I have escaped with impunity?” There are, no doubt, many examples in all our cases. Recognizing this fact will cause our anger against others to melt away. More importantly, it will make us turn to God and ask forgiveness of these sins. Yet there is perhaps a difference between our own sins and the sins which we notice in others. Our own sins are probably quite subtle and inconspicuous, whereas the sins of others are obvious and gross. Should we, therefore, regard our own sins as less important or die? On the contrary, we should realize that subtle sins are frequently the most harmful. Obvious sins, such as robber and violence, are easily recognized, and so can often be guarded against by physical means. The more subtle sins, such as lying and slander and power-mongering are frequently hard to spot, and so difficult to prevent.
On Living Simply
St. John Chrysostom
Do you cherish any resentment or hatred towards another, to whom you refuse to be reconciled?
…
Is there some injustice which you refuse to forgive, some charge which you refuse to pay, some wrong which you refuse to confess?
Are you allowing something yourself which you would be the first to condemn in others, but which you argue may be permitted in your own case, because of certain reasons with which you attempt to smother the remonstrances of conscience?
The Gift of Suffering
by F.B. Meyer
But, what if it is impossible to live peaceably with everybody?
* Do not be the cause of the controversy.
Be the crucified not the crucifier. You may face troubles from others, but do not be the beginner of evil. Moreover, do not be over-sensitive with regard to the faults of others.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Fruits of the Spirit
SO GOOD QUOTES 