Monday, December 21, 2020

Letter 2

Dear Grimwad,

Arrange with his cousin's tempter to make sure that he never gets invited again, since his continual yacking scares the fish. And you have to make sure your patient takes offense at that. This should not need explanation!

Nobody cares whether you could help it or not. The fool has found that he likes peace and meditation. Therefore, starting yesterday you must make him busy. Make him think that quiet times are a luxury, and not an explicit command of the Enemy.

You don't dare let him work in his church right now. He still thinks of himself as a learner, and the church is a dangerous place for the humble. Later, when he is surer of himself, though feeling guilty about not volunteering, you can arrange with Megloth, the secretary's tempter, to select a job for him. When the job proves inconvenient and he finds himself taken for granted, he'll drift out of it and be safely unwilling to work in the future—if you play your cards right.

But in the meantime, keep his occupations as secular as possible. Politics is always a good choice for sidetracking enthusiasm. Is there some local project he can oppose or demand, on nominally Christian grounds? His file says he's a poor writer: try to get him writing posts and letters. He will feel ridiculously self-righteous, waste a great deal of time, and then feel put-upon when other writers object to his arguments or mock him. All of this is delightful, but more importantly, it keeps him away from his duties.

As for prayer: you won't be able to make him stop—not directly. So make his prayer complicated.

Encourage him to think that memorized prayers are mindless or "vain repetition," -- that he must always compose an original prayer. These will always be slower and more forced than either a memorized prayer or simply talking with the Enemy.

In addition, while he is composing a prayer, his focus shifts from the Enemy and whoever he is praying for, to include much more of his own mind. Afterwards, when he is approachable again, you can suggest a little pride in his compositions.

Your patient is distractable. The memorized prayers can become pure rote, but even so they are not harmless—they can "un-distract" him. For him memorized prayers are too great a risk. Don't forget to encourage him to look down on the poor souls who only know how to recite canned prayers and are not "praying from their heart" the way he does.

Don't let him dream that many of the given prayers and songs and psalms are aspirational. If he doesn't happen to _feel_ like praising, make sure he insists on being "authentic" and skipping that part.

You have been careless about his prayer time. I told you his devotions must come at bedtime. In the morning, he must think himself too busy with the day's work to spend time in prayer. Only at night, with the work done, should he feel he can devote himself to God.

Instead of asking for grace to deal with the day, he'll be asking for forgiveness at the end of it, and generally falling asleep before he's done. Yes, it is too painful to stay near him during prayers, but trust me, this is how it works.

He knows he must pray for his enemies—and he has two that afflict him regularly. Try to keep him vague about those—tell him that thinking about his enemies puts him in an un-worshipful frame of mind. If he insists on praying for them, encourage him to pray for their conversion, that they will become better people, the kind who won't afflict him anymore. Don't let him pray for their health or good fortune.

To answer your question: no, I did not ask for you to replace my worthless ex-apprentice. The Lower Marshall made the assignment. I assume you got on his bad side somehow. You still have a chance, if you salvage this operation.

Your mentor, Baldagon

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