Monday, July 09, 2007

Screwtape on Prayer

While reading these semi-recent posts (although I know that this wasn't Miri's focus), I kept thinking of a certain passage from The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis' semi-humorous theological work, down in the style of a senior devil writing advice on tempting to his nephew:
If this fails, you must fall back on a subtler misdirection of his intention. Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment.

But of course the Enemy will not meantime be idle. Wherever there is prayer, there is danger of His own immediate action. He is cynically indifferent to the dignity of His position, and ours, as pure spirits, and to human animals on their knees He pours out self-knowledge in a quite shameless fashion. But even if He defeats your first attempt at misdirection, we have a subtler weapon. The humans do not start from that direct perception of Him which we, unhappily, cannot avoid. They have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare which makes the background of permanent pain to our lives. If you look into your patient's mind when he is praying, you will not find that. If you examine the object to which he is attending, you will find that it is a composite object containing many quite ridiculous ingredients. There will be images derived from pictures of the Enemy as He appeared during the discreditable episode known as the Incarnation: there will be vaguer—perhaps quite savage and puerile—images associated with the other two Persons. There will even be some of his own reverence (and of bodily sensations accompanying it) objectified and attributed to the object revered. I have known cases where what the patient called his "God" was actually located—up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall. But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it—to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. You may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and improvement of his composite object, and to keeping it steadily before his imagination during the whole prayer. For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers "Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be", our situation is, for the moment, desperate. Once all his thoughts and images have been flung aside or, if retained, retained with a full recognition of their merely subjective nature, and the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it—why, then it is that the incalculable may occur. In avoiding this situation—this real nakedness of the soul in prayer—you will be helped by the fact that the humans themselves do not desire it as much as they suppose. There's such a thing as getting more than they bargained for!

Which is all very brilliant and theological, but you have no idea how unhelpful when you're trying to pray. Because if we don't navel gaze, check our feelings, indulge in human understandable imaginations- what's left? Just saying the words?

10 comments:

Scraps said...

A few weeks ago, instead of going to shul on Shabbos morning, I stayed at the home of the family where I was for Shabbos and davened in their yard. It was one of the best things I've done in a long time. Usually, you're right, it's hard to just say the words and get anything out of it, because you're just saying them without thinking, without meaning. I rush to keep up with the chazzan in shul (even in places where the davening is "slow"!), so I never get a chance to pay attention to what I'm actually saying. This time, though, I had however long I wanted, and I took the time to pay attention and concentrate on the meaning of the words that I mumble under my breath week after week. And it was wonderful. So exhilarating, so real. It really felt like I'd been having a one-on-One conversation with G-d for that hour and a half.

I know it's not possible to have that kind of tefillah every day, but having the experience reminded me that it's possible to connect to my Creator in such a meaningful way.

Personally, I also keep up a running coversation with G-d, such that I'm always talking to Him, thanking Him for the little things that are beautiful in His world and asking Him for help with the things that are difficult for me.

Tobie said...

So occasionally I can force myself to feel the words more or less. Sometimes I can even make it a rush. Sometimes I can make myself listen to the words. But I think that C. S. Lewis's point isn't about that. It says that even when you do feel things, that's not really relevant to how good of a prayer it was. I think that his point is that prayer shouldn't be about whether or not you feel connected or feel anything at all. He doesn't seem to provide details as to how to test whether or not it is. But it's certainly a humbler and less self-centered form of prayer, which seems weird to say bc the popular understanding of prayer is as something entirely self-centered. But Lewis says to just focus on G-d. Let Him do the work. It's really hard to be introspective without getting all meta about it- to feel without constantly checking how we're feeling- to be open to inspiration without forcing inspiration on ourselves. But it certainly would be interesting to try.

Miri said...

It is definitely difficult to avoid the naval gazing; and I agree with C.S. Lewis that how the prayer made you feel doesn't necessarily reflect on how good the prayer was. It reflects on how we feel, not whether we made a connection or not. The trouble is, you're right - he doesn't explain how to get to that place of a real awareness of G-d.

Tobie said...

Or how you tell that you're there if you're not checking.

on further reflection, I wonder whether the view isn't uniquely Christian- that man can't achieve things, he can only open himself up and let G-d achieve things. A perspective I actually am not crazy about. Uh oh...

e-kvetcher said...

>But Lewis says to just focus on G-d. Let Him do the work.

Sounds very Eastern - maybe Zen?

PS. Rights to Screwtape Letters bought by same studio that made Chronicles of Narnia. Good chance for a movie...

Miri said...

Zen? Don't they not believe in G-d?

e-kvetcher said...

>Zen? Don't they not believe in G-d?

Zen, being a form of Buddhism does not address the notion of G-d as most Westerners perceive G-d. Buddhism and Hinduism focus on meditation and "being one with the Universe"

Miri said...

yes exactly. so probably they don't believe in G-d doing things for you, seeing as how that would be passive and making yourself become one with the universe is active.

Scraps said...

I don't know if I necessarily agree with C.S. Lewis in all regards. Yes, we do have an obligation to pray regardless of whether we can muster the feelings of connection. However, the act of prayer is not for G-d, but for us. He doesn't "need" our tefillot, but reaching out to Him in prayer is supposed to change us, make us closer to Him. Ideally, we should never be the same person at the end of tefillah as we were at the beginning.

Tobie said...

I'm almost certain that Lewis would agree that prayer is for us, not G-d. I'm just not sure what he would say that 'us' purpose is. Clearly not a feeling of happiness or closeness or anything like that. I think I agree with him, in that I am generally suspicious of feelings. But he does talk about having self-knowledge poured upon you while praying and some phenomenon being apt to happen spiritually were you to pray in just the right way. Again, I don't know what that is exactly or what it would feel like, but I do think that measuring success in prayer by the way it makes us feel is risky. Prayer should make us closer to G-d- should change us- but must we necessary feel changed or closer? Perhaps it's simply standing every day, baring your soul is sufficient to create a change, whether you feel its effects at the time or not.