Vocabulary - Clover Sites



VocabularyIt is a little bit disappointing to expect a detailed report on your work and to receive instead such a vague rhapsody as your last letter.rhapsody: an instrumental composition irregular in form and suggestive of improvisation (made up on the fly / with no preparation).Note – it’s the lack of thought that Wormwood put into the letter that Screwtape is disappointed about. In this case, the music part of the definition doesn’t apply.Give me without fail in your next letter a full account of the patient’s reactions to the war, so that we can consider whether you are likely to do more good by making him an extreme patriot or an ardent pacifist.Ardent: intensely devoted, eager, or enthusiastic.He thinks bad on the monstrously sophistical ground that the humans thought them good and were following the best they knew.Sophistical: a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally false method of reasoning.Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practise fortitude and patience to them all in advance.Fortitude: mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or temptation courageously.The results of such fanciful hatred are often most disappointing, and of all humans the English are in this respect the most deplorable milksops.Milksop: a weak or ineffectual person.There is no good at all in inflaming his hatred of Germans if, at the same time, a pernicious habit of charity is growing up between him and his mother, his employer, and the man he meets in the train.Pernicious: causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful.Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the ‘Cause’ is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal.Coterie: a group of people who associate closely.Questions for Letters 1 – 4What event prompts Wormwood to become “delirious with joy”?(1st paragraph of letter #5)What is Screwtape’s response to this event?(remainder of letter #5)In Letter 5, Screwtape warns Wormwood not to let his temporary excitement distract him from his real business. What, according to Screwtape, is the “real business of demons?(1st paragraph of letter #5)What delights Screwtape about the patient’s age and profession?(1st paragraph of letter #6)Read Matthew 26:26—29 and John 6:27—58. How do Screwtape’s words in Letter 5 parody Christ’s words in these verses? How does the intent of Screwtape’s statements contrast with the intent of Jesus’s statements?(2nd paragraph of letter #5)An allusion is a reference to a famous historical or literary figure or an event, making a comparison or contrast between that and something in the story, generally to add a deeper level of association or understanding. In Letter 6, Screwtape tells Wormwood to get his patient to regard fears of imagined or possible things as his “crosses,” but not to regard current fear of real things as his “appointed cross.” To what does this allusion refer? What do people generally mean when they use this allusion? Read Mark 8:34—37. Is there a difference between Jesus’s statement and the common meaning to one’s “cross”?(2nd and 3rd paragraphs of letter #6)In Letter 6, Screwtape tells Wormwood that hatred of the Germans may not be useful in winning the patient away from God. ‘1hat is his reasoning? Does it ring true for you? Are prejudice or stereotypes similar to the situation described? Have you ever had an experience similar to what Screwtape says English “milksops” experience when they meet real German pilots? If so, how were you changed as a result?(4th paragraph of letter #6)In Letter 7, Screwtape instructs Wormwood to “nurse” the patient into thinking that his religion is merely part of some greater “Cause”—in this case, either the British war effort or pacifism. How can a cause—however good it may be in itself—become an evil? X7hat examples can you think of, either from history or from your own experience?(Last paragraph of letter #7)From Screwtape’s perspective, why is it “... better for us if all humans died in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence, and even, if our workers know their job, withholding all suggestion of a priest lest it should betray to the sick man his true condition!”Read Genesis 3:19; Job 14:1, 2, 5; Psalm 89:48, 144:3, 4; and 1 Peter 1:24. What do these verses say about death?(2nd paragraph of letter #5)In Letter 5, Screwtape says that God has “plainly told” us that “suffering is an essential part of what He calls Redemption.” Using a Bible concordance or your previous knowledge of Scripture, find a text you think supports this statement and explain your choice. (Remember to carefully consider the context.)(Last paragraph of letter #5)In Letter 6, Screwtape tells Wormwood, “[God] wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.” Summarize very briefly what Screwtape is saying. Read Matthew 7:24—27, Ephesians 2:10, and James 3:13. How do these verses compare with Screwtape’s statement about God’s intent for man?Why does Screwtape want us to think about what could happen to us? Read Matthew 6:34; Luke 12:22—26; John 16:33; Rornans 8:31, 37—39; Philippians 4:6. What do these verses tell us about worry, fear, or anxiety for the Christian?(1st paragraph of letter #6)Explain: All sorts of virtues painted in the fantasy or approved by the intellect or even, in some measure loved and admired will not keep a man from Our Father’s house; indeed they may make him more amusing when he gets there.”(Last paragraph of letter #6)What does Screwtape see as the advantage of demons revealing themselves to the human race?What does Screwtape say are the advantages of keeping demons concealed to the human race?(1st paragraph of letter #7)How does having ‘devils’ being seen as comic figures assist in the work of Screwtape and Wormwood?(1st paragraph of letter #7)Explain: “Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.”(Last paragraph of letter #7) ................
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