Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Slavery to Needs

In Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamozov, Alyosha remembers the final speech of the Starets Zosima.  One small part of that remembrance is a reflection on freedom. What does it mean to be free--or what has our culture taught us it means?


Keeping in mind that this novel was written in 1880 Russia, the comments about the human condition still ring true. For example, the Starets says that freedom according to the "world" is the right to satisfy one's needs, and the right to multiply those needs. That is, our culture teaches us that every person has the right to do what she wants--so long as it doesn't too severely limit someone else's right to do what he wants. (Of course, not even this is quite right; for, like in George Orwell's Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others. If you have the resources to sue your neighbour or you are politically connected in a way your neighbour isn't, then you are more equal. But this is a different matter altogether). The world teaches us that we are basically free and encourages us everywhere to satisfy our needs.


But there is a funny thing about needs. They continue to multiply.  People engender in themselves, according to the Starets, "a multitude of pointless and foolish desires, habits, and incongruous stratagems. Their lives are motivated only by mutual envy, sensuality and ostentation." Even the effort invested in serving the causes of "brotherly love and human harmony," or save trees or bunny rabbits or the polar icecap are very often (but not always) just an attempt to satisfy another need. Needs multiply as you satisfy them. A hungry man needs only his next meal. A satisfied man needs a cigarette. 


We become accustomed to satisfying the needs that we say we have. Satisfying them becomes habit, and habit looks a great deal like slavery. Is a slave free? Just because I can stop a behaviour "if I wanted to," does not make me free because I am a slave to my desire--I don't want to stop.


Christian asceticism is about freedom. It is training in saying no. It is the beginning of freedom. Someone who has developed the habit of saying no to himself can easily say yes to his neighbor. The ascetic is free to love; the needy, at best, merely negotiates.


Honestly, I am very uncomfortable writing these words. I am no ascetic. I have only played around the edges of self-denial. These words function as a mirror to me, revealing my self-induced neediness. I don't think there is much I can do about it, except confess it. I can't transform myself--I know, I've tried.


I can, however, look into the Face of my Father, like a child caught with her hand in the jelly jar, with jelly smeared all over her face and hair. I can say I'm sorry. I can ask for help. I can at least do a little; I can say no to myself in some small ways, knowing profoundly how little I really deny myself.  


One thing is certain. I do not want to run and hide. I do not want to deny my selfishness--the bit of it that I am aware of. I want--I really, really need--to entrust myself to my loving Father who will pick me up from my messy jelly puddle, scrub me clean (even though it sometimes hurts a little getting the jelly out of my hair), and patiently teach me how to eat only a little jelly with my toast.

3 comments:

Ostensive Lyme said...

"Honestly, I am very uncomfortable writing these words. I am no ascetic. I have only played around the edges of self-denial. These words function as a mirror to me, revealing my self-induced neediness. I don't think there is much I can do about it, except confess it. I can't transform myself--I know, I've tried."

I am most interested in how Simone Weil's life will speak to this, for me, for you.
Especially this part: "...I don't think there is much I can do about it, except confess it. I can't transform myself--I know, I've tried."

Because Simone Weil was not Orthodox, and even unbaptized, yet so radical an ascetic that she killed herself.

And we cannot do anything about it but confess?
Why can we not? Salvation is synergy; surely we can do more.

Hopefully this afternoon's film will be food for thought- and thought for what we really can do.
Love;
-Mark Basil

Fr. Michael said...

Dear Mark,
That I can do nothing about it is more a statement of the radical nature of the problem than a statement that I can do nothing at all. You are right, there is a synergy. However, in my experience (and we will see about Simone's), trying harder produces more me than God. Finding the place of synergy is essential and a huge part of that is confession of my weakness. I have a part, which is, ironically, to give everything which is not nearly enough. In fact, what often feels to me like giving everything is merely me trying to fulfil a persona I have created for myself or me trying to accomplish goals I have set for myself. (not that personal goals are necessarily bad, but achieving goals, even very pious ones, is not the same as being transformed into Christ's image).
Fr. Michael

Ostensive Lyme said...

"However, in my experience (and we will see about Simone's), trying harder produces more me than God."

this is insightful.

"In fact, what often feels to me like giving everything is merely me trying to fulfil a persona I have created for myself or me trying to accomplish goals I have set for myself."

Of course as you know, this is my (perhaps principle?) problem.
For some time I have felt like, "yeah but how do the great ones do it? If God does His part faithfully, then clearly all is left is me to do my part and nothing will separate me from Christ, as with the greatest saints."

However, I think more recently this is rooted in faithlessness.
Do I really want Christ? Or do I want his power?
If I had faith I would trust that God *is* faithful, and I *am* on the path He set for me. I should not even presume to know where and how I stray and fall short- as I am increasingly aware that a princile effect of my illness is blindness to my true sins.

I look forward to seeing you tonight, and to our conversations in light of the challenging figure of Simone Weil.

Love;
-Mark Basil