By Anne Gagliano
For Part 1, click HERE
My dear Wormwood,
In my last letter to you, I identified ‘Our Father Below’s’ urgent wish to destroy “The Enemy’s” beloved servants: firefighters. I hope you have been thinking on this matter, as it is ever pressing. Times are tough for humans, but firefighters are consistently intervening and alleviating suffering. They continue to risk their lives for others, and “Our Father Below” grows tired of this.
The firefighter has certain vulnerabilities that we wish to exploit. These are more accessible to us if we separate them from their spouse, as written before, thus we are targeting their marriages. Divorced firefighters are three times more likely to kill themselves than married ones, hence it is our number-one aim to cause them to divorce. Intimacy is the glue that binds two as one, so intimacy must be shattered. Here is how this is to be done. Please be sure and employ your friends in these pursuits, as there are many firefighters—both paid and volunteer—whom we wish to bring down, one by one by one. Like dominoes. It is a pleasant game.
What makes firefighters willing to sacrifice themselves is an unselfish mindset. This unselfishness carries into their intimate relationships as well, strengthening their marriages. Therefore, our plan is to target the mind. We must provide many distractions, ideas, and stimuli that turn the married firefighter’s thoughts ever inward toward selfishness; selfishness is the catalyst to all chaos. It is our best weapon, and it can be used incrementally to impact the firefighter marriage in the following ways:
Step one: Destroy the married couple’s conversation. Turn it from dialogue, which is The Enemy’s highest form—a language of love and listening—to harping and criticism instead. Criticism is a death blow to marriage, as it shatters trust. And once trust is gone, conversation shuts down. Use their very nature to begin this destruction. Firefighters tend to be fixers, so make them feel it is their duty to fix their spouse every time he or she opens their mouth. Watch the sparks fly on this one! It’s such fun. Make them believe their advice is constructive, but make sure the spouse sees it as pure criticism or personal attacks. The Enemy tells married couples to always edify one another; thus, we must make sure they do the opposite.
Confuse their conversation. Consistently draw past fights into current discussions, even if they have nothing to do with the present. Do this by keeping old wounds and memories of pain and failure ever forefront in their thoughts. Don’t let them forget. Don’t let them forgive. Encourage them to push the buttons that have caused previous fights. And make sure they go to bed angry, as then the emotion will still be there first thing in the morning to ruin the next day as well! It will build and build until intimacy is nearly gone. Just think of the momentum this can create! I know it’s pure foolishness to you and me, but words are very powerful to humans, especially women. Encourage your charges to use them as a weapon whenever possible. Words have the power to create or destroy intimacy as nothing else.
Step two: Encourage firefighter couples to lead separate lives. This will grow easier as conversation breaks down. You have an especial advantage with firefighters as they tend to “love” their work and are powerfully drawn to it. Use their desire to serve others; make it more compelling than being at home to “serve” their families. This too will be entertaining; in their believed nobility, they will instead be playing right into our hands! The Enemy says that a man that neglects his own family is worse than an infidel. See how easy it is?
The more the firefighter is away, the more the spouse will grow to resent the fire service. What is supposed to be a noble calling can instead be a wondrously disastrous experience for the marriage! The spouse will show less and less interest, will give little or no support, and will hopefully pursue his or her own interests instead. How lovely! The distance will grow till the two become virtual strangers living under the same roof.
Step three: Keep their sex life as awkward as possible. “Love-making,” as The Enemy likes to refer to this senseless act, is the physical manifestation of human intimacy. As conversation breaks down and interests drift apart, so too will the physical connection, and the marriage may soon end.
Sex is an easy one for us to attack. Use fatigue from daily problems to keep it minimal, perfunctory, manipulative, and unsatisfying. Try television in the bedroom. Make sure they constantly compare the faults of their spouse to the perfections on screen. Encourage belief that these doctored images are real; that they are better than what they have; and, ultimately, that they deserve perfection and should not settle for less.
The firehouse can aid you in this as well. The best source of marital sexual discord is “Our Father Below’s” adaptation of human sex: pornography. Try to get your charges addicted to this, as it is indeed, addictive. And, if you’re lucky, you can make inroads into firehouses where this practice is not only ignored but even encouraged by other firefighters. If the officer is withdrawn or complicit, then it will be celebrated, and the addictions will soar. If you should encounter an officer who condemns pornography, make sure the firefighters mock him or her openly and completely in the hopes that they will cave to the pressure and allow the pornographic presence to continue. And thrive. Pornography addiction thwarts and supplants marital sexual satisfaction; let the divorce proceedings begin!
Step four: Encourage firefighters to serve the true god, “Our Father Below” in his less obvious form: mammon (or as they call it today, money.) Mammon is a powerful lure; it can eventually tear the firefighter away from his “noble calling” to serve humanity as it is a necessary tool to provide for his or her family. We have succeeded in keeping fire wages low, as the community values the service less and less. We’ve done this by elevating other, more preferable role models such as promiscuous athletes, vain movie stars, indulgent rock stars, and crooked politicians. These people have incredible wealth and are increasingly worshipped, admired, and emulated. Hooray! The Enemy’s self-sacrificing favorites, however, barely make enough money to survive. Tee-hee. Exploit this. Make them feel ashamed. Encourage them to work extra shifts and second, third, and even fourth jobs. Tell them to live beyond their meager means and incur lots of debt. This will enslave them to work, and ultimately, to us.
These obstacles we have stacked against them, yet they still come. They still serve as The Enemy desires them to. But be not dismayed; you have a weapon, Wormwood, use it well: selfishness. A selfish mindset in the form of words, interests, sex, and money will help you destroy the firefighter’s best source of strength: his or her marriage. This noble breed of creature stands between humanity and us. Therefore, they must go. I hope my words of wisdom help you in this pursuit. If you fail, you know to whom you will answer.
Your affectionate uncle
— SCREWTAPE
Author’s Note: The Characters Screwtape and Wormwood, and the letter format used in this column were borrowed from C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters,” 1942©, First HarperCollins Publishers Paperback Edition Published, 2001.
Anne Gagliano has been married to Captain Mike Gagliano of the Seattle (WA) Fire Department for 32 years. She and her husband lecture together on building and maintaining a strong marriage.
