The lines are used to illustrate the suggestion that our posture or lack of it is vitally important to our prayer life. Why might that be? Are the fragments of the poem enough to draw a clear picture of the desired state of mind?

I'm not very familiar with the arguments for/against "silent prayer". From what I've heard about it, it doesn't sound like an actual prayer, but rather a mindset or focus on God's grace and our need for it. But like Screwtape says, it can be abused by people if it's done out of laziness, or ends up as merely a stirring of contrived emotions. Lewis wrote more on the subject in Letters to Malcolm.

As for posture or lack of it in our prayer life, I think it matters somewhat. That is, if you're in a position that could possibly distract you, there's a danger your focus might not entirely be on God.

Screwtape writes “You will be helped by the fact that the humans themselves do not desire it [real nakedness of the soul in prayer] as much as they suppose. There is such a thing as getting more than they bargained for!” What do you think about this?

I think it means that God is so much bigger than we imagine Him to be, it would terrify us if we knew how he actually was.

What did you find interesting (discussion worthy) in this letter?

Two things in the letter brought up a few questions for me.

1. The letter begins with Screwtape chiding Wormwood for being impudent. It made me wonder what Lewis was trying to show by this, and if it had anything to do with his view of adult/children relationships. In the Narnia books, I remember a few instances when he mentioned the things "tiresome grown-ups" do. And I once read an essay by Douglas Gresham that said Lewis always talked to children as if they were his own age. Like equals. Is it possible that Lewis wrote Screwtape as chiding Wormwood for being disrespectful, because Lewis thought chiding children for such things was evil or somehow bad?

2. In this letter, Lewis talks about the danger of taking someone's prayer to God and instead directing it toward an object. Is it possible Lewis might have written this because of his dislike/disagreement of Catholicism? I've heard debates in the past between Catholics and non-Catholics where the Catholics said they prayed to the bread which they believe literally becomes Christ; and the non-Catholics had issues with that. Do you think what Lewis wrote in this letter might be related to that?

~Riella

1. You can find the complete stanza by Samuel Taylor Coleridge that Screwtape references here (scroll down or search for IV). The lines are used to illustrate the suggestion that our posture or lack of it is vitally important to our prayer life. Why might that be? Are the fragments of the poem enough to draw a clear picture of the desired state of mind?

When I was younger I always prayed in bed before I fell asleep, but one day I decided I would start kneeling to pray.
And I found that I focused and stayed awake much better.
I don't think there is a wrong or right position to be in while praying.
I think when you kneel, close your eyes, and fold your hands, it is to focus and keep yourself from being distracted.
I believe God looks at the heart, whether that be us sitting, standing, kneeling, or laying down.
I Love talking and spending time with God, but sometimes I struggle to find anything to say or talk about with Him.
I will think of things through out the day, but then just go blank when I finally start to pray.
There are days when I am so wrapped up in what I'm doing, Chores, TV, Computer, Video Games, and so on and I keep thinking to myself "I have to go and pray".
But I don't like going to talk with God if I'm going to be thinking of a hundred other things I have to do later, which is why I tend to pray at night.
The only problem with that is that I love to stay up, really, really late (I'm a night owl)! So by the time I'm ready for bed and kneel to pray, I tend to rush through all my thoughts and then hurry to bed because it is so late.
I also like to wait until everyone else is sleeping, when it is completely quiet in the house.
In my house we don't have any doors (long story) so we put up curtains in the archways.
But you can hear everything! So when I go to pray in my room, I can hear the conversation in the Kitchen or the TV on in the next room, it drives me crazy! Because I really want that peace and quiet time with God, so I can completely focus on him.

2. Screwtape writes “You will be helped by the fact that the humans themselves do not desire it [real nakedness of the soul in prayer] as much as they suppose. There is such a thing as getting more than they bargained for!” What do you think about this?

I agree with those above me. I think sometimes we want only the nice parts of real prayer, but we need all of it, even if we don't always like it, God knows what each of us need.

3. I liked how Screwtape said "Teach them to estimate the follow of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling [charity, courage, forgiveness etc]; and never let them suspect how success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are ill, fresh or tired, at the moment." This struck a chord with me, because sometimes after a prayer, I'll have a very 'spiritual' feeling and I'll think how successful that prayer was.

I think it's so easy for us to focus on our feelings, our emotions, and those aren't really very reliable for evaluating anything at all. They are too dependant on our physical state at the given moment - like, if you feel uncertain about your salvation, there are drugs that will make you feel very secure and happy about it for as long as the drug is working!

Our prayers reach out to God, and he is doing whatever comes from it - whether we feel spiritual or just feel very dry has nothing to do with it. But if we turn our focus away from God and towards our own feelings, then our focus is facing the wrong way - as Screwtape observes, when "the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room", that is when God can really meet with us. Whether we feel spiritual at the moment or not.