Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 1st September 2024

Dear Friends,

C.S. Lewis’s satirical fantasy “The Screwtape Letters” is a series of letters from a senior devil (Screwtape) to his nephew (Wormwood).  Wormwood has recently been assigned as personal tempter to a young man living in England in the late 1930s.  Screwtape advises Wormwood as to how he can best lead his “patient” astray.

Early in the book, the patient becomes a Christian, much to Screwtape’s disgust.  A little later, Screwtape responds to Wormwood’s perception that the patient’s religious phase appears to be dying away.  Rather testily, and with some sharp words about the poor quality of Wormwood’s training, Screwtape explains the Law of Undulation.  Although humans can be directed to an eternal object, “their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change.  Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation – the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks”.  On Screwtape’s account, the  Law of Undulation applies to every dimension of human existence, including the religious or spiritual life.  The apparent decline in the patient’s religious fervour is nothing to do with Wormwood’s efforts – it is a purely natural, cyclical phenomenon.

I was put in mind of the Law of Undulation when trying to think of a subject for this message, and feeling devoid of inspiration.  I think I’m currently in one of the troughs that Screwtape describes:  not in crisis, not depressed, just low on spiritual energy.  It’s helpful to be reminded that this is a normal part of the human condition.  Solidarity to any Friends who find themselves in the same place.

Advices and Queries (18) recognises this state:

“Come regularly to meeting for worship even when you are angry, depressed, tired or spiritually cold. In the silence ask for and accept the prayerful support of others joined with you in worship.”

At a workshop a few years back, I heard a man tell the story of how he became a Quaker.  He started attending Meeting for Worship at a time when his marriage was breaking up.  One morning, he arrived at Meeting full of rage at his personal situation.  Early in Meeting, the passage I’ve just quoted was read in ministry.  He wept, and realised that he had come home.

Tim

on behalf of the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (David Hitchin, Chris Lawson, Tim Pitt-Payne, Caroline Pybus, Theresa Samms and Nancy Wall)