Tag: Screwtape Letters

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge one away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
C.S.Lewis in “The Screwtape Letters”
I recall a Twilight Zone episode long ago written by Earl Hamner, Jr. (who later went on to write “The Waltons”) about a back woods hunter and his coon dog who drowned pursuing a raccoon one fateful evening. The next day they found themselves lying alongside the pond, and set down a trail looking for the way back home. The trail took them to an entrance gate where the friendly gatekeeper welcomed the old hunter in but refused to allow the dog (who would have smelled the brimstone far beyond the gate). The hunter refused to enter without his dog so they continued down a long long path that seemed far less traveled.

Eventually they were found by a messenger who was looking for them, and who led them on up the road to paradise–coon hunting and square dances every night. They were told, “You see, a man, well, he’ll walk right into Hell with both eyes open. But even the Devil can’t fool a dog!”

As a child, I remember thinking how quickly I would have been lured in the wrong gate, choosing the easy way rather than seeking the longer way of the harder path that would lead to heaven.

Each step, every day, takes me closer. The path itself may not be an easy one, but it was never meant to be. I hope it won’t take a dog to help me know which way to go.