Holy Nativity Orthodox Church

Lesser Commandments

2012-02-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:40). All of God’s commandments are not equal. Most commandments hang on others. That is, all commandments are understood in the light of two others or exist as expressions of the two others. The Old Testament sacrificial laws, for example, existed to instruct those before Christ how their love for God (the first, great commandment) was to be expressed. The commandments not to murder or steal or commit adultery existed to instruct God’s people how to love their neighbors as themselves (the second, great commandment).

Experience teaches us that love must be expressed in concrete actions. Love of God and love of neighbour have no meaning if they are merely good feelings. Children who hear the words “I love you,” but see their parents ignore them know that that love has little meaning. A wife who hears the words “I love you,” but sees her husband sexually enamored by other women knows that that love has little meaning. Christian brothers who hear the words “I love you,” but see no one visit them in hospital when they are sick in body or in prison when they are sick in soul, know that that love has little meaning. And when God hears us say to Him, “I love you,” but sees us busily accumulating wealth, multiplying our bodily comforts, and filling what little discretionary time we have with empty entertainments so that we are too tired or too busy to pray, then God too knows that that love has little meaning.

Yet we do want to love God. We do want to love our brothers and sisters, our spouses and children. We do want to love, but we are lost in flood of worldly cares, in a jungle of tangled thoughts, impulses and conflicting cares.

And this is why we have commandments, commandments to help us stay on track and express our love concretely, to nurture love, and to form us in the two great commandments. And commandments are multiplied as experience teaches us habits, rituals and guidelines that help us love concretely. Some examples of multiplied commandments are the date-night commandment: to help keep husband and wife focused in their devotion to one another. The kid’s-hockey-game-is-almost-always-more-important-than-work commandment: to help us attend to our children.

Then there are the commandments that the Church has given us, commandments that help us love God and neighbor. These commandments include commandments about worship and prayer, commandments about fasting and alms giving, commandments about morality and appropriate relationships. All of these commandments exist to help us love God and neighbor.

Sometimes, however, we make the mistake of thinking commandments are an end in themselves. We think that the goal is to keep the commandments, the lesser ones, and lose sight of the greater ones on which the lesser hang. We become excellent parents, losing interest in our children; we become model spouses, lacking genuine intimacy; we become faithful Orthodox Christians--never eating the wrong food on the wrong day, never tithing less than ten percent of our income, never compromising our rule of prayer--we do it all and our hearts are cold, our minds proud, and God is far away.

As we approach Great Lent, a time of stricter attention to the lesser commandments of the Church, let us not lose sight of the goal: the greater commandments of love of God and neighbor.

The Publican And The Pharisee

2012-02-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

This week in the Holy Orthodox Church, we commemorate the parable of our Lord concerning the publican and the pharisee (Luke 18:10-4). This week is the first week of the pre-lenten period. Pre-lent is designed to prepare us to enter Great Lent with a proper attitude so that we can get the most out of the season of abstinence and thus be able to see the Paschal Light.

In preparing for Pascha, humility is the most important thing. In fact, some of our fathers, St. Silouan comes immediately to mind, posit that humility is salvation. Pride is hell, the image of the one who exalted himself against even the Most Hight. Humility is heaven, the image of the One who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but rather took on the form of a servant. Heaven/Hell. Humility/Pride. The Publican/The Pharisee.

Because in his pride the pharisee recites a litany of his good works, one might get the mistaken impression that fasting, alms-giving and moral restraint are irrelevant in the matter of obtaining humility, that perhaps they hinder the pursuit of humility. However, this is not what the hymns of the Church teach us concerning this parable. They teach us that what justifies the publican is his humility: his realization of his unworthiness and his beseeching mercy. And what condemns the pharisee is his boasting: his comparing himself with others and his rehearsal to himself (for the parables says, “he prayed in himself thus”) of his righteous deeds. Humility saves. Pride condemns.

The hymns of the Church go further. They exhort the faithful both to copy the virtues and to avoid the vices of both the publican and the pharisee. We are called to do all the righteous acts of the pharisee while emulating the humility of the publican.

Done properly, good works produce humility because they destroy self will. Of course good works can be and often are done improperly. That is, they are done as an expression of self will. It is possible to “conquer” lent by the strength of your own will, and thus come to Pascha not in the Light of the Resurrection, but in the light of your own righteousness. It is possible to give alms and blow trumpets--if not in the streets, then in your own heart. It is possible to avoid immorality because of disdain for weakness, thus exalting yourself in a virginity that is merely biological. It is possible to be the pharisee.

In my teen years, when I first was attracted to Christ, I imagined that I could live my whole life in Christ in the words, “neither do I condemn you.” However, the words, “go and sin no more” rang in my ears. How do I sin no more? Or at least, how do I sin less?

The Church teaches us that we avoid sin and grow in the image of Christ by subduing our will through self control (fasting), and considering the needs of others to be more important than our own (alms giving), and prayer. However, in order for these three to subdue our will, they must be practiced in obedience, not according to our will. And this is the reason why Lent is structured the way it is in the Orthodox Church.

In the Church, one does not choose how one fasts or prays or gives. The Church tells you how and when and what and where. You do not make up your own asceticism--that destroys the whole purpose. Certainly, people can submit to the fast to the best of their ability, or not. But you do not make up your own fast. In order for fasting, alms giving and prayer to be effective, to bear the fruit of humility, they must be submitted to, they must be obeyed.

And so this is the meditation for the third week before Great Lent. In this week the Church grants a dispensation from all fasting--as a matter of obedience, one may not fast this week. This week we consider the pride of the pharisee and the humility of the publican, and we prepare ourselves to obey. Fleeing pride and cultivating humility through obedience in fasting, alms giving and prayer, we look forward to the Light of Pascha.

Wheat, Tares And The Age To Come

2012-02-04T06:23:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the wheat and the tares. I've been thinking that the parable describes the condition of my own heart.

There is a point, at the sowing, when accepting and rejecting seeds (logismoi, thoughts) is possible. With attention and training and by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, one can often recognize the seed being sown by the evil one and reject it before it grows--or grows very much.

However, it seems in my stubborn heart there are many wicked plants that have established themselves among the wheat. The wheat and the tares have grown up together, and I either can't tell the difference very well, or my attempts to root out the established tares in my soul result in anxiety, grumpiness, despondency, anger or other ungodly passions that seem to destroy what little wheat of virtue there is in my soul.

Attempts to pull some weeds only and consistently result in bad fruit. I cannot do it without also killing what I am trying to nurture.

Really, only the angels can separate the well established tares from the wheat without destroying the wheat. And this only happens at the end of the age.

But what does the Church teach us? The end of the age has already begun (e.g. Heb. 9:26). It is now and not yet. Even now, if for a moment we can transcend this age, the angels can work in our hearts. Even now, I can offer my heart and mind to God, full of mixed fruit, and the angels can sort it out.

This is one of the reasons why we need the prayers of the Church. It is often in prayer and contemplation that we, for a moment, seem to transcend this age and (as Mother Victoria said to me) sense the angels' wings. Here the angels work in our heart separating out "all that offends."

We do what we can, and what we can't do, the angels do for us. In the age to come.

On Humility And Transformation

2012-01-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

Once, when we were on the way to Orthodoxy, the leaders of our community were taking a retreat at a Benedictine monastery. One of the monks casually asked me what I was looking for: what did I (a Protestant) hope to find at a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery. At the time I had read the Rule of St. Benedict several times and one word particularly bothered me. It was a word for which I could find no definition. I said to the monk, "I want to know what humility is. I have no idea what that word means."

The monk did not respond and did not ask me any more questions. Over the years since then, I still ask myself that question: What is humility? What does it mean to be humble? In the Rule of St. Benedict, humility is very important. Humility is the ladder by which one climbs to the knowledge of God. According to St. Dorotheos of Gaza, "In as much as [a believer] is always making progress in virtue, he is always growing in humility. The more humble he is, the more help he gets [from God], and so he advances through this virtue of humility." So we see here too, that humility is a kind of foundation, it is the virtue through which all other virtues are attained.

[By the way, "virtue" is just the traditional Christian word used to refer to Christ-like qualities. So to grow in virtue is to become more like Christ in specific ways: gentleness, peace, self-control, etc.]

Harry Boosalis in his book, The Orthodox Spiritual Life according to Saint Silouan the Athonite, offers this definition of humility based on his understanding of the teachings of the Orthodox Church Fathers: "Humility could be defined as an honest and contrite recognition of one's own shortcomings and weaknesses together with a focus on the mercy of God." I find two aspects of this definition quite helpful.

First, is the word contrite. Contrition is a difficult feeling to find and nurture in a world in which anything goes and the strong finish first. A humble person does not merely acknowledge her weaknesses (any moderately successful person does that). A humble person is heartsick over them. So long as we nurture in ourselves the thought that we could change if we really wanted to, we could have done differently if we had really tried, and our mistakes are our mistakes (the mistakes we chose) and we could have done differently if we had wanted to and had tried harder--so long as this is our thought, we may feel guilt, we may feel remorse, but we will not yet feel or be contrite.

A contrite heart, I think, comes from a knowledge of brokenness. Yes I am sad. Yes I am also guilty. But what breaks my heart is that even when I try really hard, I still fail miserably. This brings contrition, and it is dangerous. The experience of such contrition can be hellish, or even the beginning of hell because it brings one to the door of despair. But there is also another door here: the door of humility.

And now the second particularly helpful aspect of Professor Boosalis' definition: "with a focus on the mercy of God."

Contrition leads to despair when one forgets the mercy of God. Humility continually looks for the mercy of God. The humble person continually calls out to God for mercy because she is contrite, she knows her many weaknesses and she knows that only God can help her.

And here, with despair never far behind her (yet nonetheless behind her) and the mercy of God ever before her, the child of God experiences mercy, an feeling that many have called a "bright sadness." Joy and brokenness; hope and an honest recognition of weaknesses, all weaknesses, mine, yours, the world's. God's greatness and love and mercy incarnate in our messy, brutal reality. Jesus crucified, and we crucified with him. Jesus resurrected, and we resurrected with him. At the same time. All at once.

This my friends, is normal Christian life, at least as far as I can tell. This is the process of transformation from glory to glory.

By Your Words....

2012-01-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

About twenty-five years ago, Bonnie and I had to move to a new area for work and thus had to begin in a new church. A particular couple in our new church community were very gracious to us and helped us settle in. They helped us find a good neighbourhood to live in and generally made our transition much less painful than it could have been. Although their children were a few years older than ours, our families became good friends.
Our friends, however, had an awkward habit. It seemed as though they could always find a double meaning in everything that was said. Just about every sentence was accompanied by a knowing glance, a smirk, a giggle, a raised eyebrow. And just about every double meaning had to do with sex.
At the beginning, I just laughed with them at the irony and edgy-naughtiness of the unintended (or intended) double entendres. It was just fun, we didn't mean anything by it--at least that's what we told ourselves.
However, as I got to know this couple better, I began to see that there were some deep problems in their minds and relationship. It was not that they had or were committing specific illicit actions. They were very devout. Rather, it was that their minds were tormented, tormented by what was not satisfying in their own relationship and fascinated by what they imagined might be satisfying if things were different. In fact, it was probably this imagination of what might be, that, to a large extent, made what was so unsatisfying.
Bonnie and I were increasingly disturbed by this awkward habit of our friends. Our time together was tearing us down, not building us up. Eventually, we began to find excuses not to be with them. When I was with them, I adopted an intentional ignorance: I didn't get the double entendres, and when they were explained or pointed out I just said, "Oh yea, it could mean that; but that's not what I meant." No smirk. No giggle.
At that time, we were not Orthodox. We did not have the spiritual teaching of the Church to help us understand that our thoughts control our lives, and that our words reveal what is in our hearts. We didn't know that the logismoi (the words) of demons enter our mind as evil thoughts that, if we dwell on them, become our thoughts. We didn't know that by playing with words and ideas about sinful behaviour--behaviour that we had no intention of actually doing--we were in fact revealing what we were already to some extent doing in our hearts.
Jesus said that we will be judged by every idle word. This judgement will fully take place on the Last Day; however, the New Testament tells us that we are already in the last days. Even now our words are judging us. May God help me to "set a guard before my mouth, and a door of enclosure upon my lips."

Going To Hell

2012-01-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

I suspect that going to hell, much like going to heaven, will be neither a new nor unfamiliar experience. From an Orthodox Christian perspective, really, there is no actual "going to" in going to hell. Hell is a reality that is spoken of only metaphorically as a place: a lake of fire, a deep abyss, the toasty side of a great gulf, a "where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth," etc. After all, what can "place" mean to a soul without a body?

Furthermore, the very real experiences of weeping, gnashing of teeth, and burning torment are common enough in our fallen world without going anywhere. In fact, I have observed (in myself) that much of my pursuit for entertainment, comfort and importance is motivated by a need to distract myself from the painful worms of conscience, fear, envy, uncontrolled desire, and the like that I often experience gnawing away at my mind. Hell is here. Hell is now. At least the beginning of it.

But if hell is here and now, then heaven is here and now too.

St. Silouan, a contemporary saint of the Orthodox Church, advises those who would know God to keep their mind in hell, but not despair. For those who live in a two storey universe, such advice makes no sense at all (c.f. Fr. Stephen Freeman's Every Where Present). If the spiritual realm is "upstairs," then both heaven and hell can only be realities that will surprise us after we die and "go to" one or the other. However, if heaven and hell are spiritual experiences (realities, ways of being, "places") that we are already beginning to experience in this life, then the saint's words begin to make sense.

Saint Silouan's words make particular sense in an Orthodox Christian theological context. One dogma of the Orthodox Church is that Christ, after His death on the Cross, descended into hell and "loosed the bonds of those who were there." This decent of Christ is part of His kenosis (His humbling of Himself) that began with His Incarnation and continued through His life as the Suffering Servant, to His horribly unjust death on the Cross and even to the depths of hell, the deepest hell, the hell that perhaps some of us have known a little of in our life.

St. Silouan tells us not to distract ourselves from the hellish realities we find in our minds because Christ descends even here. Heaven comes to hell, and we encounter Christ--not hiding from our darkness, but looking for Christ even in the midst of our very dark night.

Silent Work Upon Our Neighbours

2012-01-19T15:24:00.001-08:00

Last weekend, I was blessed to be the speaker at a high school retreat. I ran the meetings in a Socratic style so that I was continually interacting with the young people and doing my best to push them to see within themselves or to hear from one another the answers to their questions. As sometimes happens when I am pushing people to think something through, I pushed too hard on one young woman and I could tell immediately that her countenance fell. By the end of the day, she seemed to be intentionally asking questions that took us off track. My heart was breaking inside me because I knew that her frustration was my fault. I also knew that to say anything would only make matters worse. I spent the whole evening and the next mornning bearing this pain in my heart and silently begging Christ for mercy. The next morning I could see a different look on this young woman's face. She did not share much during the first session, but her words were meek (though her questions were genuinely tough). After the first session, she waited until everyone left. Then she asked me to forgive her. I asked her to forgive me. Then her face glowed. Beginning Monday, I have been attending the annual diocesan clergy seminar. One of the lectures was on prayer and inner work. The words of Elder Paisios were quoted that inner work, prayer within one's heart, with pain, with brokenness, "such work is quiet work upon your neighbor."We can best influence those around us when we work on ourselves, when we bear one another's burdens in our hearts and energized by that pain beg Christ for mercy. This is how we may be saved and those around us.

Some Thoughts on Freedom

2012-01-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

St. Theophan tells us that freedom is part of the divine nature that God has implanted in human beings and that freedom is the gift that we have to offer back to God. However, freedom itself is a faculty of our being that is not easy to identify. Freedom is not the same thing as choice. Much of what we generally identify as freedom is nothing more than a lack of constraint on our passion-driven, culturally-formed urges. Freedom in our culture merely means that no one can tell me what to do--I am "free" to destroy myself in whatever ways my passions drive me and my culture tells me are trendy.

And even when we are "free" to do what we want, how free is that really? How free is a young man who was beaten by his father, sexually abused by his uncle, and was hyperactive in school? Having dropped out of high school, how much freedom does he really have? Sure he has choices--limited choices conditioned by biology and experience that he has had no control over. But even his ability to choose, to see probable outcomes and consequences, is sorely limited. He may make choices, but he is not very free, even if no one but his own inner urgings is telling him what to do.

Although the limits of what our culture calls freedom are easier to see in the extreme (but unfortunately not too uncommon) case I mention above, the limits that a person raised in the best circumstances experiences are much the same--although the choices may be more pleasant and the person's ability to predict probable outcomes may be less damaged. Still, "freedom" is conditioned in this lucky person by nurture and nature that he or she has had no control over: passions, fears, cultural dictates and childhood experiences largely dictate the choices he or she makes. This is not a very free freedom.

So what is freedom then? What is the freedom that St. Theophan talks of? What is that freedom which is part of the divine nature that God implanted in human beings?

To understand this, first we have to do away with the idea that freedom has to do with independence. Human beings are dependent beings. Independence is a delusion. On the merely biological and psychological levels this is obvious. We cannot survive without a supportive physical environment--like animals, we are dependent on our environment (even though we can morph it more than animals can, still without oxygen, water, warmth and food in the correct amount, we will die). Human beings are social. We depend on others not only for physical survival, but for psychological health. There is no such thing as independent human existence. Human beings are dependent beings. Freedom is not independence.

But humans are not mere biological and psychological beings. What makes us different from animals (not just in degree, but in kind) is that men and women, all men and women, are also angelic. That is, human beings have the capacity to know and experience God, even to have a relationship with God. And this angelic capacity is something human beings have the freedom to ignore or develop.

It does not matter where one is, or how gifted or disabled or even religiously inclined one is. This freedom to pay attention to the angelic life within each of us is the same. Religious contexts (or lack thereof) certainly influence how this striving for God, this inner longing for spiritual reality, manifests itself. And I would even go so far as to say that some religious contexts make it easier to pay attention to this inner reality than others. Nevertheless, the freedom is the same: to turn toward God (no matter how poorly conceived) or to ignore the inner longing.

I wish I could tell you that this pursuit of God was easily identifiable. It is not. Even within ourselves. Good religion helps give us concepts, forms and specific actions that make our pursuit of God more fruitful. But religions and the practice of religions can become perverse. Even Orthodox Christianity, which I have become convinced is the True Faith, can be perverted in its practice such that some might think that the God that they want to turn towards could never be found there. Religion (or lack of religion) influences how we express this freedom, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but it influences it none the less.

Each one begins where he or she is, with whatever personal, cultural or familial tools (concepts, rituals, morality, religion, etc.) they have at their disposal. The freedom, however, is the same: to attend to the angelic life, to follow the Star of Bethlehem, to turn toward Life; or to turn toward death, to ignore the angelic reality that may be only faintly perceived and is certainly inadequately conceived.

The life of St. Mary of Egypt is quite instructive in this matter (and certainly provides an extreme case study). Becoming a prostitute at twelve, Mary lived for fifteen years the life of a low-end whore in fifth century Alexandria, Egypt. She said of that period of her life that "Every kind of abuse of nature I regarded as life." So addicted was she to what she regarded as "life," that she often refused payment, "doing free of charge what gave me pleasure."

Mary was a mess. And yet, at some level she was pursuing "life," what she in her very perverse and oppressed circumstances perceived as life. "Life" is her word. This is how she understood her experience. And this thirst for life drew her to the One who is Life, even if she continued prostituting herself along way. Eventually life leads her to circumstances, religion, that provide the forms, concepts and context in which a transformation can take place. The transformation is not a change from not pursuing life to pursuing life. Rather, it is a transformation in how she pursues life. A particular religious context provides the means through which she can encounter this life she is pursuing more clearly as the One who is Life and the categories and institutions through which she is able to understand and peruse that Life in a much more fruitful and healthy way. In St. Mary's case, it is as a hermit.

Freedom was at work in Mary, even in very perverse circumstances. This is why we must be so, so, so careful when we judge. In fact, it is better not to judge. And yet, the realities of our life require us to make some judgements. Certainly we can "judge" that Mary's lifestyle as a prostitute was neither healthy nor righteous. Nevertheless, we cannot judge Mary herself, and all the Marys in the world in their various circumstances, for we cannot know from the outside how they are exercising their freedom to turn toward life. We do not know how abuse and ignorance have perverted their reality. We do not know what they experience as life, and thus we cannot know how they are exercising their freedom to pursue that life, even in their wretched contexts, contexts in which they have very little choice.

Freedom

2012-01-11T12:02:00.001-08:00

"The goal of human freedom is not in freedom itself, nor is it in man, but in God. By giving man freedom, God has yielded to man a piece of His divine authority, but with the intention that man himself would voluntarily bring it as a sacrifice to God, a most perfect offering." -- St. Theophan the Recluse

Of Dogs and Christians

2012-01-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

I'm reading George Eliot's Mill on the Floss, which is so full of profound ideas I can't begin to paraphrase them. At midpoint, Eliot stops to reflect on the Christianity of the family whose demise she has spent the first half of the novel chronicling. She says of them that "Their religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind; but there was no heresy in it..." I think such non-heretical, semi-pagan religion under the guise of Christianity is more common than we would like to admit. If indeed greed be idolatry, as St. Paul says, then I with many of my Christian brothers and sisters might be classified as semi-pagan.
One of the few generous characters to whom we have been introduced in the novel thus far is Bob, a simple-minded childhood friend of Maggie's (the main character) older brother Tom. Bob has gone off as a travelling felt salesman to make a living for himself and at one point returns and attempts to give Tom all of his savings to help his soon-to-be impoverished family. Tom stiffly refuses. A year or so later, Bob returns with books for Maggie because, as he says, "I'n niver forgot how you looked when you fretted about the books bein' gone." Bob is a simple man, but a generous one. He is a man with very little paganism left in him.
When Maggie thanks Bob for his kindness in thinking about Tom and her, she confesses that she hasn't many friends who care for her.
Then Bob responds with this penetrating word: "[you] hev a dog, Miss!--they're better friends nor [than] any Christian..."
Bob then goes on to relate a comment made about a bitch whose pup he is willing to procure for Maggie. "One chap," he relates, "he says, 'Why, Tobys nought but a a mongrel.'''
Bob responds to the chap, "Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn't much pickin' o' your feyther an' mother, to look at you. Not but what I like [could do with] a bit o' breed myself, but I can't abide to see one cur [dog] grinnin' at another."
There it is. The Christian philosophy of the generous traveling salesman, Bob: one dog ought not to be grinnin' [thinking more highly of himself, c.f. Rom. 12:3] at another.
I wonder how much paganism I could purge from my life if I didn't somewhere in the secret places of my heart think that I was better than someone else? I wonder how much idolatry would be driven from my heart if I "niver forgot" the pain I see others suffer?
Christianity, even without heresy, if it does not produce the broken and contrite heart King David speaks of, can be nothing more than semi-paganism.
One cur ought not be ginnin' at another, for our worth comes not from our breedin', but from our Master's great love and desire to receive all mongrels and mutts into His kennel.

"Faith and Feminism" by Helen La Kelly Hunt

2012-01-03T11:26:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine met Helen LaKelly Hunt at a conference and was impressed with some of her ideas. He asked me to read and comment on her book, Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance, Five Spirited and Spiritual Women Throughout History. For what it is worth, here are my thoughts.

As much as I appreciate what Helen is trying to do in Faith and Feminism, the book presents some serious problems for me. On the one hand, in a secular context, any acknowledgement of faith, no matter how vaguely presented, is a good thing. And I particularly found her examples of St. Teresa of Avila, Sojourner Truth and Dorothy Day inspiring. What Helen seems to miss, however, is that these women were inspired not by an ambiguous faith, but by a concrete faith in a specific God understood in a specific theological construct within a specific tradition. Given the audience Helen is trying to reach, she seems unable to extract the specifically Christian sources of inspiration for these women. Helen seems to be able to do nothing more than trade in the current coin of the realm: to place her 21st century, post-Christian, enlightenment/modern/postmodern categories on the women she highlights and explain what does not fit these categories as "faith." (Indeed, what largely makes her postmodern is that she allows for such a category as faith--ambiguously defined.)

On the other hand, certainly both women and men have been and are oppressed by religious hierarchies, but the feminist insistence on "equality" as the correcting criterion is, in my opinion, sadly misguided and often hypocritical. Very well-educated, generally wealthy and white women in North America and Europe use their positions of power as ruthlessly as any man has. Anyone (male or female) who has worked for or studied under more than a few women in his or her life knows from experience, that just like men, women vary in their use and abuse of power.

Actually, it was a feminist professor (at Claremont School of Theology) who originally pointed this out to me. She realized that equality could never be the basis for a healthy society because human beings do not have equal access to power--children are not equal to their parents; teachers are not equal to their students; a person who is wealthy is not equal to one who is poor; a strong, healthy person is not equal to a weak, sick person. As a society we might generally agree to certain constructs that are more or less applied (such as, all human beings are equal under the law). However, the reality is that, to quote Animal Farm, "some animals are more equal that others." The woman or man who can afford to hire the best lawyer is more equal than the woman or man who is stuck with an over-worked, under-paid and probably less-gifted court-appointed lawyer. The bright, well-educated, and highly-motivated sales person is more equal than the dull-witted sales person who suffers from migraine headaches. And on and on it goes.

Equality, while in many ways a much better social criterion than might equals right, can never produce a harmonious society. This is why the specifically Christian message is so important. Love and self-sacrifice is the only way human beings will transform a sin-soaked, power-abusing culture. Sure, the Church--as all other institutions have and do--has functioned as an agent of oppression. But the Church has also produced saints--both men and women.

Unity, rather than equality, is, I think, the only effective Christian criterion for social transformation. Only as we act in humility as one body, one humanity, one anthropos will each member of the body find his or her place of fulfillment and service. Of course since Christians themselves do not "walk according to this commandment," we have very little to offer those with whom we share this world except just another poetic ideal. And because so few in the Church actually strive to be holy, to be saints, it is probably a very good thing that Helen and others work within the popular categories of the day to create some space, some possible crack in the secularist wall, out of which a genuine Christ-rooted Tree of Justice can grow. If only some of us would let the acorn of our own individual rights die to grow into that tree.

Super Max Visit

2011-12-30T18:31:00.001-08:00

What do you talk about for six hours with a man in solitary confinement?Yesterday Bonnie and I visited Monk Anthony at the Super Maximum Security Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. Monk Anthony is 45 years old; he went into prison when he was 23 and has spent most of that time in solitary confinement. There is a good chance that he will spend most of the rest of his life in solitary confinement. Bonnie and I began corresponding with Rodney (before he became Monk Anthony) about fifteen years ago. At that time Rodney had begun painting Icons in his cell using his hair as a brush and pigments made from his meal tray: mustard for yellow, ketchup for red, coffee for brown , etc. Fr. Dwane, the head of the Antiochian Orthodox Prison Ministry asked Bonnie if she would begin corresponding with soon-to-become Monk Anthony to teach him the basics of Byzantine Iconography. Shortly after we began corresponding, Rodney was tonsured a monk while still in prison by His Eminence Isaiah, the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Dallas. He was the first person ever to be tonsured in prison in the U.S. Over the years we have shared our lives with each other: the marriage of our children, the death of his mother, our struggles in a small Orthodox mission church, his struggle to love the men who want to kill him. That's right, kill him. For several years there has been a contract on his life by the Arian Brotherhood (a white prison gang) because Monk Anthony is kind and "talks to" blacks, Moslems and Jews. Of course there is very little talking in solitary as we on the outside know it, but there are ways: sign language, tapping code, talking through plumbing and venting, and shouting to other cages when out for 30 minutes of "exercise" three times a week (assuming good behavior--yours and others--and good weather). You have to shout in the cages because the concrete walls are ten feet high covered with chain link fencing: you can't see who is in the other cages.This was Monk Anthony's main concern when we spoke yesterday. Last week in the cages a prisoner in the next cage kept saying that he didn't know how and didn't know when, but one day he would kill him. Monk Anthony wasn't bothered by the fact that these men want to kill him; he was bothered that it was hard for him to find the same love in his heart for these men as he could find in his heart for others. He wanted me to help him. "How do you love everyone like Christ asks us to do?"Just to be with him (on the other side of poly glass and through a fuzzy speaker phone) I felt like a liar. I am a priest. It is my job to help others grow in Christ. I had to say something to encourage him. I struggle to love rude drivers and unhelpful clerks. What do I have to say about loving those who want to kill you because you are too kind to blacks, Moslems and Jews? I shared what came to my mind knowing that I was speaking pure conjecture, not from experience as the Fathers exhort, and hoping that somehow the Holy Spirit would use the fuzzy speak phone to morph it into what he needed to hear. We also talked about food. It's one of the only bits of variation in his life: the guards had given the prisoners "Christmas bags" of candy and crackers and fruit juice boxes. Monk Anthony's favorite was the Cheese Its. We talked about crocheting and the sweater he had made for our little rat terrier. We talked about the technique of making prayer ropes and put in our order for the upcoming year. He particularly likes making prayer ropes. He can pray and make knots and "the time flies by." Bonnie and he spoke for at least an hour on the finer points of iconography. And we stopped at intervals to pray first, third, sixth and ninth hours together.We had to pray ninth hour early, so that we would not be interrupted when the guards came. After nineth hour, Bonnie and Monk Anthony were having a lively conversation about the best possible pattern to crochet a tea cozy when the guards came to the steel door behind Monk Anthony. He stood and put his hands behind his back and out the slot in the door so that the guards could handcuff him before they opened the door. Monk Anthony winked at us. I blessed him with the sign of the cross. And he was gone. Bonnie started "leaking." I was lost in thought. Two guards came and escorted us back up the two or three flights of stairs and out of the maze of steel doors to the reception area. We could go home. No one wanted to kill us.

The Jesus Prayer and Desperation

2011-12-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

At the monastery I visit, the brothers have a rule that includes one hour of saying the Jesus Prayer while doing nothing else. Of course they strive to pray at all times, but for at least one hour each day each monk stands before the icons in his cell and says the Jesus Prayer.
When I visit the monastery, I also try to practice this rule. (Gentle snickers are appropriate at this point.) I admit that I have experienced very brief moments of something that smells like a cousin to transcendence, but mostly it is a battle of self discipline that I lose several times within the hour until I finally give up and sit on the edge of my bench-like bed telling God I'm sorry for the last ten or fifteen minutes. There doesn't seem to be any energy to pray that I have learned to tap into.
However, when I am on vacation or at a conference, I experience something very different. I take long walks when I am away from home; and when I do, I say the Jesus Prayer. Although I still do not experience consistency in my prayer, I do experience something else. I experience a kind of desperation that becomes a fervent energy to pray.
When I'm at home (and certainly at the monastery), the temptations I experience are usually of a subtle nature. I don't recognize a train of thought as dangerous right away. However walking the shopping district of Boulder, Colorado, or downtown Chicago, or any city center, I am immediately bombarded with multiple easily-recognizable deadly tempting thoughts. Fear caused by such thoughts so easily gaining traction in my mind and producing almost immediate passionate responses in me creates a desperation that in turn energizes prayer. I find myself internally shouting the Jesus Prayer as I walk as fast as I can.
In my experience, desperation is a key. I think that if I more carefully paid attention to my inner life, I would probably recognize the danger of subtle thoughts sooner. And in turn, I would probably find energy to cry out to God for help in contexts that are actually conducive to Communion--like my own office at home or in my cell at the monastery. Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps. Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.
May God grant us all something like desperate prayer, that even in the quietness of our own prayer corners, our hearts would shout out fervently for mercy.

Happy Weakness

2011-12-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

King Uzziah of Judah is, I think, most famous for his death, or the year of his death. The Prophet Isaiah in the year of King Uzziah’s death had his famous vision of the Lord, highly exalted and sitting on a throne surrounded by cherubim with six wings (“with two they cover their feet, and with two they cover their face, and with two they fly”), who cried out ceaselessly, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

King Uzziah was a good king of Judah, one who “did what was right in the sight of the Lord.” A particularly intriguing verse in the story of his early life says that “he loved the soil.” King Uzziah devoted many public works to improving the land: digging wells in the desert and planting vineyards in the mountains.

I think when my wife dies, she will be remembered as one who loved the soil. I’ll be remembered as one who loved his wife and so helped with the soil.

It says of King Uzziah that he was “marvelously” helped by the Lord, until he became strong. When he became strong, it says that “his heart became proud to his own destruction.” In his pride, King Uzziah entered the temple of God to offer incense, which only a priest should do; and when he resisted the remonstrance of the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead. He spent the rest of his long life living in a separate house, apart from his family and his people.

Isn’t that the way it is? Isn’t that the fruit of pride: separation from those you love and those who love you?

When we are weak, God’s help in our life is “marvelous.” The most dangerous position is one of strength, in war, in argument, in religion, in business, in anything. The strong are preparing for a fall. The weak are hoping in God. Perhaps that’s why the psalmist continually reminds God and himself (which, in prayer, is the same thing) that he is poor and needy.

And really, any illusion of strength or of being right or of having it under control is really just that: an illusion. But illusions are so appealing, all gain and no pain.

Nevertheless, pain is necessary. It’s the reality check. It reminds us that we are dependent, that we are weak, that we have nothing to feel triumphant about over against our brother or sister--no matter how right we seem and how wrong they seem to be.

Oh the happiness of weakness, of loving the soil (or loving someone who loves the soil) and of watching God act marvelously in our lives.

Slipping Out Of The Grace Of God

2011-12-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

Pippi posted a comment on my entry entitled Righteousness, and asked if "it is possible for one to slip out of the grace of God." To answer this question, we have to carefully look at what we mean when we say "grace of God." For many western Christians, the expression "grace of God" is used as a kind of synonym for salvation--salvation defined as going to heaven when you die. Within this paradigm, Roman Catholics and Protestants have many theories as to how one is saved by the grace of God, and most pivot on the question of will: divine or human. That is, is one saved by God's will (so that the human will has no role) or is one saved by one's choosing to be saved? Of course the arguments become quite convoluted because if one is saved by God's will, then the fact that a particular person wants to be saved is because God willed it that way. And if one is saved by choosing to follow Christ, then (to get back to Pippi's question) one can lose salvation by ceasing to follow Christ: can one "slip out of" the grace of God.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, human beings are always understood as free creatures. But freedom does not mean independence. All created things are dependent on the grace of God at all times. There is no existence apart from the grace of God, so it is indeed impossible to slip out of the grace of God, in one sense. In another sense, human freedom is such that God has given us the power to say "no" to Him. Still dependent on the grace of God on one level, human beings have the ability to reject the grace of God on another level.

Further, there is an experience often called the "withdrawal" of the grace of God testified to by many saints. This refers to an experience in which the manifest grace of God (the grace of God that one can experience and know) is (or seems to be) removed. This experience of the withdrawal of the grace of God is sometimes (but indeed not always) associated with a particular sin that seems to be the "cause" of the withdrawal of grace. However, the remedy for this condition is not merely repentance of a particular sin (if a particular sin is known, which is often not the case). The manifest grace of God returns only as one seeks God Himself, by faith, even when nothing at all is felt.

Salvation, as usually conceived in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the restoration of the fallen image of God in the human being. From an Orthodox perspective this restoration requires the will of both God and man. It requires the work of both wills, the effort (or energy) of both. In the Orthodox Church we will often say that salvation is a matter of synergy (working together). Therefore, one cannot "slip" out of the grace of God, but one can nonetheless resist the grace of God--and God will allow you to do it. Salvation is a work of cooperation, a work of transfiguration that requires human desire, will, and participation. However, it is also a free gift, a miraculous work of God in our lives. It is a work of God that you have to accept, have to want, and have to cooperate with.

Salvation, for the Orthodox, is a process. It is not a decision by either God or a human being that settles the matter in a moment. It is a decision by both God and a human being that the human being must continue to make. God does not change. God wills, according to scripture and the teaching of the Orthodox Church, that all be saved. God's decision never changes. We are the fickle ones. Like children, we want to work with Dad in the shop--until we learn that Dad's work requires discipline, patience and self control. We want to be saved, we want to be like God (restored to the image of God that was undistorted in creation) until we realize that salvation means that we have to change. We have to become ourselves, we have to grow up, we have to shed childish ways to grow up into Christ.

And so our journey of salvation is seasonal. We draw near, we draw back. We are excited by the touch of God's manifest grace, we draw back because we fear change. We want to be mature in Christ, yet we don't want to control our minds and bodies. And God is merciful. God is patient. God as the loving Father lets us back into the shop to learn a little more, to try again, and does not hold on to us when we begin to resist. But His word is in our heart. Even when we are (or seem to be) far away, we feel a tug, we hear a gentle calling back, we have an unsatisfied longing. Prodigals are we all. The journey home is always longer and harder than we expect, but not nearly so long and hard as we deserve. And even before we reach home, our Father is running out to meet us.

Rehoboam

2011-12-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

This morning I read about King Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. I feel sorry for Rehoboam. He had a very tough act to follow. Imagine being the son of King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived and the richest man of his age. Imagine inheriting an empire that took a genius to build. Imagine the pressure.

Imagine also growing up knowing nothing but extravagant wealth and privilege: The household utensils, we are told, were all of gold--silver being common.

Rehoboam didn’t have a chance.

At the beginning of his reign we hear about his fatal decision to ignore the counsel of his father’s advisors and to follow the advice of his peers. Really, what else do you expect him to do? He had probably spent all of his time growing up with peers--his teachers would have been from a class far below him--probably slaves. His father and his father’s counselors had a kingdom to build. They didn’t have time to build a relationship with the up-and-coming generation. Rehoboam knew his peers, so of course he trusted them.

However, at the end of Rehoboam’s reign we learn something about him that, I think, helps us understand his failure a little more deeply. After all, Solomon was raised with wealth and privilege and he began his reign by calling on the Lord for wisdom. Just about everyone knows of people who have had all of the spiritual “advantages” as a child, and yet have made a wreck of their lives; and we also know of others who from the gutter have come to have relatively healthy lives rooted firmly in Christ. Human life is far too complicated to apply determinism to any aspect of it. Nevertheless, some knots are easier to untie than others--assuming you want to untie the knot.

And this is the issue for Rehoboam. We read the following commentary made at the end of his life, “And he did evil because he did not direct his heart to seek the Lord” (2 Chron. 12:14).

I find it interesting that it does not say that he did evil because he sought evil or did not seek good. It says that he did evil because he did not set his heart to seek the Lord. What it looks like when one sets one’s heart to seek the Lord, how such a set heart would be manifest in words and actions, I think, varies by culture, generation and person. There is no way to judge another in this matter. We can only reflect: Do I set my heart to seek the Lord?

The story of Rehoboam is, however, not all bad news. After losing almost all of his father’s wealth (having been plundered by the Egyptians), Rehoboam repents and “the Lord does not destroy him completely” (12:12). The theme of the Prodigal Son here is too obvious to ignore. God always receives the repentant, even at the eleventh hour. Really, all that is lost is prestige, power and wealth--nothing of any value in the age to come. However, and this brings me back to why I feel sorry for Rehoboam, repentance at the eleventh hour is brought about by the hell of the first ten hours.

Those of us who live in relative wealth and privilege, and that probably includes everyone who reads this, might learn a lesson from the life of Rehoboam. It doesn’t take intention to do evil, to do evil. All it takes is a heart that is not directed to seek the Lord.

Love Wins by Rob Bell

2011-12-07T15:29:00.000-08:00

I don’t normally read popular Protestant books. However, several of my Protestant friends have read and been disturbed/intrigued by Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. Some have said that it reminds them of some of what they have heard about Orthodox Christian understandings of heaven and hell.

To set the record straight from the beginning, I have to say that there is not a well-defined Orthodox Christian understanding of heaven and hell: except that there is heaven and hell. Various Fathers of the Church have talked about heaven and hell in different ways, in different contexts and for different purposes. The reason why a firm dogma on heaven and hell is impossible is that heaven and hell are realities of another age, an age that has already begun and is also not yet. In his book, Rob Bell does a good job of discussing this problem of ages.

In the Bible, the word aion (age) is often translated “eternal.” This leads to a common misunderstanding that “eternal life” and “eternal judgement” are references to life or judgment that does not end--in the sense that there is no change, day after day after day, forever. Here “eternal” is misunderstood as an adjective describing duration. However, aion refers rather to another age. Eternal life and eternal judgement are the life and judgement of the age to come, the age of the Kingdom of God. You might even say that “eternal” is a quality word, not a quantity word. Eternal life refers to a quality of life, a kind of life--the life of the age to come--not to an unending continuance of life as it is commonly known.

Rob also does an excellent job of pointing out that this life of the age to come is not something that begins after one dies; rather, it began at the Cross (I would say at the Incarnation). All human beings are called to enter eternal life now. Similarly, the torment of hell is not something postponed until the afterlife. Torment and the judgement of the age to come begins now. Every person who continues to despise and abuse his or her neighbor is already building a “great gulf” (c.f. Luke 16:26) and is already beginning to experience a burning torment, although drugs from adrenaline to alcohol and from endorphins to heroin, along with unending distraction, keep us from noticing it too much--until the drugs and distractions are taken away.

Another excellent point Rob makes is that not everyone who is saved by Jesus Christ, knows that it is Jesus Christ. The image and name of Jesus have been so terribly distorted by those who wish to justify their own perversions that some people may be honored by Jesus Christ for rejecting the Jesus Christ their culture or experience presented to them. Wars are fought in Jesus’ name. Witches have been burned, Africans (and others) have been enslaved, girls have been raped (c.f. Mormon fundamentalism), and children have been mercilessly beaten all in Jesus name. Truly some Jesuses must be adamantly rejected as false.

In Love Wins, Rob takes his readers on a tour through some of the biblical passages that demonstrate that God’s ability to save is not limited to one specific way of “accepting Christ." And he points out that Christ is able to call everyone to salvation, even those who have never heard of Him, and even those who have heard of only a perverted version of Him.

What Rob doesn’t do well, in my opinion, is present the more challenging aspects of Christian life: what Orthodox Christians call asceticism. Using the parable of the Prodigal Son as a template, Rob spends the last couple of chapters of the book arguing that all that is necessary to “join the party” is to trust God’s version of the story of your life. It’s as if he skips the repentance part of the story of the prodigal and jumps right to the “let’s party” part. In Love Wins there seems to be no place for transformation, for disciplining our body to bring it into subjection (c.f.1 Cor. 9:27) or for obedience (e.g. Heb. 13:17).

To be fair, no book can cover everything. My criticism is merely what I think needs to be emphasized along with the rest. After all, a party at God’s house wouldn’t be much fun if you didn’t want to be with Him. Asceticism is teaching ourselves to enjoy being with God.

Nevertheless what I think Rob wanted to say, he says very well: salvation and heaven and hell are much broader concepts than many Protestants (and Roman Catholics and Orthodox, for that matter) imagined.

Animated Nativity Greeting

2011-12-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

Bonnie's drawings were used by Liturgica.com (a company that specializes in ancient and liturgical music) to make an animated Nativity greeting card. I hope you enjoy it.

Romanian Hermits

2011-12-06T09:31:00.000-08:00

I have pasted a video of hermit monks in Romania. It ends with an interview with a hermit. Would to God that we all had his zeal for prayer, love and humility.

It is in Romanian with subtitles. It is a little easier to follow with the sound off (unless you speak Romanian). The video is 10 minutes long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap7kreDRzgQ

Confirmation

2011-12-04T16:02:00.000-08:00

TeresaAngelina asked the following question:

Is there a danger, do you think, of our looking for confirmation in those whom we know will agree with us? And should this be a danger, how does one keep watch for it? From the examples given, it is not only from the clergy that we seek confirmation of our experiences (if we did, you'd all be a little exhausted) but from our trusted friends as well. Perhaps even a chance encounter with a stranger who loves God.

Dear TeresaAngelina,
Yes there is a danger that we might say that we are seeking confirmation when what we are really looking for is affirmation. A reliable spiritual father or mother is someone who is willing to tell us the truth even if it will disappoint us. And, of course, it is only experience that teaches us whether or not someone is reliable in this way.

Yes, God can speak to us through anyone and anything--"The heavens declare the Glory of God." But one must be very careful that he or she does not go "confirmation shopping." The reason we need confirmation in the first place is that our own internal guidance system is broken. If I have to rely on my own discernment to determine the reliability of a stranger's or friend's confirmation, then I have short-circuited the process. It is still me doing all of the discerning.

Certainly clergy and monastics are not the only sources of reliable spiritual discernment--in fact, it is a mistake to trust the discernment of someone merely because he or she is clergy or monastic. It is only in the context of a relationship over time that one can come to trust the reliability of someone's discernment.

Having said that, I must also point out that sometimes the faith of the one seeking advice works in such a way that even an undiscerning priest or monastic or an apparently wise older person nonetheless speaks with great insight and truth. However, a prerequisite to any confirmation of an inner experience or revelation at any time or from any one is that we hold it loosely and be ready to let it go.

Unfortunately, we quickly become attached to our experiences; sometimes we even build an identity around them: "I have the gift of _________." or "God has told me _________." or "God is going to use me to ___________." These are very dangerous thoughts. Our salvation is in humility, not in building an identity. Our only identity is to be hidden in Christ. Our salvation is found in following the example of the Mother of God who, although she was Most Pure and had been ministered to by angels before, nevertheless went to her cousin for confirmation--who was much older than her and the wife of a high priest.

Sometimes we have to rely on writings because we seem to have no living person to turn to. And it has been my experience that (1) God can indeed grant great consolation through the writings of the Fathers and Mothers of our faith, and (2) a word from a living, breathing father or mother is even more powerful. But in every case, humility is called for.

Once I was speaking to my first spiritual "father" in the Orthodox Church--who was a spiritual mother, an abbess. At one point she told me something that, on one level, I knew was true, but that on another level, I struggled with. As soon as I brought up an objection, she said to me, "Well, I am probably wrong then." She was not being facetious. Her humility was such that she easily assumed that she was wrong. Immediately I had to tell her, "No, you are right. I am just struggling."

Humility is key.

Not Trusting Our Own Experience

2011-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Quoted below is a long paragraph from Elder Sophrony's book, His Life is Mine. Because it is a little difficult to understand, I want to unpack it for you.

Elder Sophrony seems to be saying that in our longing for God, we may experience many kinds of consolation that cause us to feel the love and nearness of God; however, we must be careful not to trust in these experiences--our trust must be in God alone. Even the Mother of God, Elder Sophrony points out, went to Elizabeth to have confirmed for her the message of the Archangel Gabriel and St. Paul, to whom Christ appeared, submitted his Gospel to the Church hierarchy in Jerusalem--twice. Self-confidence is the enemy of humility, and humility is the first rung on the ladder of divine ascent.

The soul knows but cannot contain Him, and therein lies her pain. Our days are filled with longing to penetrate into the Divine sphere with every fibre of our being. Our prayer must be ardent, and many-sided is the experience that may be given. In our hearts, subjectively, it would seem—to judge by the love whose touch we feel—that the experience cannot be open to doubt. But despite the all-embracing surge of this love, despite the light in which it appears, it would not only be wrong but dangerous to rely exclusively on it. From Sacred Writ we know that the most pure Virgin Mary hurried off to her cousin Elisabeth to hear from her lips whether the revelation was true that she had received—of a son to be born to her who should be great and should be called the Son of God the Highest; and whose kingdom should have no end (cf. Luke 1.32-33). St Paul, who ‘was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words’ (cf. 2 Cor. 12.4), affords another example. ‘It pleased God ... to reveal His Son in me’(Gal. 1.16); nevertheless, he went twice to Jerusalem to submit to Peter and others ‘which were of reputation’ (Gal. 2.1-2) the gospel he was preaching ‘lest by any means [he] should run, or had run in vain’ (Gal. 2.1-2). The history of the Church provides innumerable such instances, and thus we learn to ask those with more experience to judge whether our case is not merely imagination but grace proceeding from on High. We look for reliable witnesses who are to be found only in the Church whose age-old experience is immeasurably richer and more profound than our individual one. Such in the distant past were the apostles who bequeathed to us in gospel and epistle the knowledge which they had received direct from God. They were followed by a succession of fathers (doctors and ascetics) who handed down the centuries, above all, the spirit of life itself, often endorsing their testimony in writing. We believe that at any given historical moment it is possible to find living witnesses; to the end of time mankind will never be bereft of genuine gnosis concerning God. Only after authoritative confirmation may we trust our personal experience, and even then not to excess. Our spirit ought not to slacken in its impulse towards God. And at every step it is essential to remember that self-confident isolation is fraught with the possibility of transgressing against Truth. So we shall not cease to pray diligently to the Holy Spirit that He preserve our foot from the paths of untruth.

Righteousness

2011-12-01T11:17:00.001-08:00

Just as a mother sees a child reaching for a toy or a bottle and brings it into the child's reach, so God sees us striving for righteousness (which is out of our reach) and brings it near so that we can attain it. This is Grace. But Grace does not come to those who do not want it. We tell God that we want Him and His righteousness by striving for it. And in striving we come to know experientially, not as a matter of theology, that righteousness is beyond our reach, and that righteousness is by Grace alone. Righteousness is not a juridical standing, it is the manifestation of God in our life.

Beatitudes and The Many Ways to be Saved in Christ

2011-11-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

St. Isaac the Syrian:
"But lo, the majority of men do not attain to such innocency [purity of heart], yet we hope that for their good deeds a portion is reserved for them in the Kingdom of the Heavens. This can be ascertained from the understanding of the Beatitudes of the Gospel, which He stated differently in order to make known to us the many variations in the diverse modes of life within these same Beatitudes. For in all the measures of every way upon which each man journeys to Him, God opens before him the gate of the Kingdom of the Heavens."

One way to view the Beatitudes is as a ladder, a progression of spiritual growth. However, St. Isaac points out that the Beatitudes may also be viewed as a list of ways, or examples of ways, the Holy Spirit works in Christ's many-membered body to save the whole. "The majority" of us will strive our whole life, yet the circumstances of our life will preclude the attainment of great purity of mind and heart. But St. Isaac says that from understanding the Beatitudes we know that within the blessing of the Kingdom of Heaven there are many modes. Some may mourn while others hunger and thirst for righteousness. Some may have a meek "mode of life," while others excel in peacemaking. Of course these all together describe Christ, whose body we are.

We need not despair when we see how spiritually poor we are, for the first Beatitude is for us: Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Harsh Parables of Luke

2011-11-25T13:38:00.000-08:00

“You fool, this night your soul will be required of you” (Luke 12:20). Of the four Gospel writers, Luke seems to present the parables of Jesus in the harshest light. For example, Luke’s telling of the parable of the talents includes this grizzly note: the king has slain in his presence those who did not want him to rule over them. Only Luke’s Gospel includes the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, in which we see the Rich Man tormented in flames. And only Luke has the parable of the Unjust Steward, in which Jesus praises a servant who cheats his master. Similarly, only Luke includes the parable of the Prodigal Son. When people speak of this parable, they almost always focus on the loving Father who awaits for the return of the son--they almost never point out that the same loving Father was the one who gave his son what he asked for and freely allowed him to embark on a life of debauchery ending in a pig sty. “Loving Father” takes on more nuance in Luke’s Gospel. Only Luke gives us the parable of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, both with their very low view of good, religious people. Luke’s is a tough Gospel.

In the parable of Successful Farmer (Luke 12: 16-21), Jesus tells us about a prosperous farmer whose land produces so well that he has to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. He says to himself, “You have many goods stored up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” It is at this point that God speaks to him: “You fool, this night your soul will be required of you.” Then Jesus comments on the parable saying, “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Rich toward God? How does one become rich toward God?

I’d like to suggest that some of the other parables in Luke teach us how it is that we become rich toward God. For example, in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus we learn that the reason why the Rich Man suffers in tormenting flames after he dies is that during his lifetime he had his good things while Lazarus, the poor man who begged at his gate, had evil things. The good things the Rich Man had were his, he didn’t steal them; they were his to enjoy. Yet at the same time, a beggar, Lazarus, had evil things. The evil things are not identified as “his,” they were just evil experiences and circumstances that happened to fall upon him. After both men die, we find out that Lazarus is comforted in the next life while the Rich Man suffers torment. And the only explanation we are given for this state of affairs is that during his lifetime the Rich Man had his good things and Lazarus had evil things.

It seems that what we do with our own things in this life has a huge impact on the next.

The parable of the Unjust Steward (whom we might even call the Embezzling Steward), which comes right before the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, teaches the same thing. Here a steward of a wealthy master learns that he is going to loose his position and calls in his master’s debtors and erases large amounts of their debt. The wealthy master learns what he has done and praises the Embezzling Steward for being wise. This parable makes no sense if we think it is really just about money and material goods.

Let me interpret this parable. The wealthy master is God and every human being is a steward of the master’s wealth: our life with all of our abilities, resources and circumstances, which is our stewardship from God, our good things, you might say. Those in debt are those who have very few good things and many evil things. They are in debt because they must depend on others. That the steward learns that he will lose his stewardship means that he realizes that he will die--we all, one day, will lose our stewardship, the life entrusted to us by God. What the steward does next is interpreted for us by Jesus: he uses the “unrighteous mammon” (the resources entrusted to his care) to gain friends who will receive him into “an everlasting home.” Of course, the everlasting home is a reference to heaven, which we find out in the next parable (the Rich Man and Lazarus) is where the poor are comforted. So the poor are the ones who will receive the rich into their heavenly homes if during this life the rich use “unrighteous mammon” to earn their friendship.

Such an interpretation does not go down very well in our Protestant-Capitalist culture. Conveniently, the religious edict against “works righteousness” fits nicely into an economic system that prioritizes the accumulation of wealth--bigger barns. However, the Church Fathers, and none more loudly than St. John Chrysostom, are pretty consistent in their teaching that what one does with one’s resources in this life plays a large role in what happens in the next.

And I would hasten to add, however, that “unrighteous mammon” may refer to more than just money and material resources. It might refer to anything that we tend to horde or protect for ourselves: our abilities, our talents, our influence, our time, our listening ear, our helpful hand, our compassionate tears. Giving, as St. Paul says, is not measured by what you don’t have, but by what you have (2 Cor. 8:12).

And one more thing. Maybe we can all be the poor. The wealthiest man in the world may be starving for an honest word. It seems everyone lies to a rich man. Often those rich in one area are abjectly poor in another. Didn’t St. James say that God has chosen the poor in this world’s goods to be rich in faith? (James 2:5) It may be, if we have ears to hear it, that giving and receiving is something we all must do. The rich person may have to receive as a gift the faith, prayer or thanks of a poor person. It may be the only way in this world that treasures of the next world will enter his heart, so poor in faith he is.

Which brings us back to bigger barns and harsh parables. Life and death, wealth and poverty: these are the realities, harsh realities, of this world. St. Luke wants his readers to be certain that whatever we do in this world will certainly influence what happens in the next world, with its eternal realities that may prove both harsher and more comforting than anything experienced in this life.

Tower Heist

2011-11-23T11:24:00.000-08:00

Last night Bonnie and I saw Tower Heist: I don’t recommend it. I wouldn’t have normally gone to see such a movie, but when I looked at the rating I saw the “PG” but not the “-13.” Even then, I would not have avoided a movie that interested me based solely on the rating without first reading about why it received that rating on the imdb website. I almost always do this, but this time I just didn’t think about it. I saw the trailer and the premise seemed interesting: a very wealthy investment tycoon swindles the pension fund of the workers at the high-end New York apartment building in which he lives, so the workers try to steal it back--classic Robin Hood story.

I should have read the imdb website.

It says that the PG-13 rating is for language and sexual content. The “sexual content,” however, is not scenes of people having or about to have sex. In this case sexual content refers to explicit talking about sex in humorous contexts. I must admit I did laugh a lot. Perhaps a more pious man wouldn’t have found it funny: you are free to draw your own conclusions. Nevertheless in my defense, the film studio did spend a lot of money tweaking the dialog and the settings so that what would certainly be distasteful in any other context was humorous here. Of course Bonnie picks up on these things much more quickly than I do. She didn’t laugh much. It took me half the movie to realize that I had made a mistake about the movie’s rating.

By the end of the movie, I was not laughing much either.

What disturbed me the most about the whole experience last night was not being exposed to explicit talk about perverted sex. I know the pain of real lives trapped in sexual addictions and delusions. What disturbed me most was the nervous couple sitting right next to me. They couldn’t have been more than 14 year old. All they know is the laugh, the glitz, and the implication that everyone is doing it in all sorts of different ways--with no consequences, at least none serious enough to mention.

My heart is very heavy this morning.

Doubt

2011-11-22T16:28:00.000-08:00

Doubt gets a bad rap in the New Testament. James says that one who doubts is a double-minded person who is unstable in everything he or she does, and the writer of Hebrews warns, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.”

I’d like to suggest, however, that there are different kinds of doubt. Or to put it more clearly, a lot of different sorts of inner experiences may be labeled as doubt or unbelief.

One experience that can be called doubt is what James and the writer of Hebrews talk about. This is a questioning in one’s mind that causes one to draw back from God, to draw back from the Church. This doubt manifests itself as a kind of excuse to indulge ones desires.

For example, if I had been raised in a home that does not drink alcohol, I might go through a period when, wanting to do what others are doing or driven by curiosity or even rebellion, I use my doubt of the logic of my parent’s prohibition as an excuse to indulge my desire. I have not really done the mental and spiritual work of thinking though what is indeed appropriate and why I so much want to have a beer (or several) with my friends. I just use the fact that I have some doubts regarding my parent’s prohibition as an excuse to do what I wanted to do anyway. This, in my opinion, is similar to the “departing” or more literally, drawing back, referred to in Hebrews and the double mindedness spoken of by James.

This is the kind of doubt experienced by Eve in the Garden of Eden. The fact that the Serpent and injected an element of doubt into Eve’s mind (“Did God really say…”) was not for Eve a sin. What Eve does with that thought will make all of the difference. In the end, Eve uses the doubt as an excuse to indulge in what appealed to her senses: “the woman saw...the tree was good for food...pleasant to the eyes and to be desired to make one wise….”

But not all doubt goes this direction. Thomas doubted the resurrection. And not Thomas only, for the end of Matthew says that some doubted. But what did Thomas do with his doubt? Did he “draw back” from the other disciples? No, he stayed with them even though they believed in the risen Christ and he just couldn’t. Did he use his doubt to escape from the frightening situation of hiding in an “upper room” (an attic, perhaps?) for fear of the Jews? No, he did not forsake the relationships that he had forged even though he could not believe. Thomas stayed where he was. He stayed with his doubt until the doubt was cleared up.

And when Thomas’ doubt is cleared up, Thomas becomes the first human being in the Bible to call Jesus God. In seeing the resurrection, he sees Christ’s divinity in a way that perhaps the other disciples had not yet seen it. Fighting through doubt, hanging in there in spite of doubt, Thomas eventually not only sees but touches. It reminds me of Job’s great trial, which, after Job is sorely tested yet refuses to curse God, Job sees with his eyes the God whom he had only heard of with his ears.

Someone once said that the secret to dealing successfully with doubt is to stay the course. It is like walking across a room when suddenly the lights go out. As long as you keep walking according to what you last saw before the lights went out, you will be safe. However, if in the darkness you begin to change course, there is a good chance you will bang your shins on the coffee table.

This does not mean that there is never a time to change course. Doubt is also often the beginning of the rejection of something false. To return to the example of doubting a prohibition against drinking any alcohol, doubt may be the beginning of a deeper understanding. Doubt can often lead to a nuanced understanding. Doubt can cause us to ask hard questions and work out hard answers; it makes us look seriously at ourselves and seek out the wisdom of others. The trick is to stay the course, remain engaged, and not allow doubt to become merely an excuse to do what you want.

Masks

2011-11-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

“For just as on the stage actors enter with the masks of kings, generals, doctors, teachers, professors, and soldiers, without themselves being anything of the sort, so in the present life poverty and wealth are only masks” (St. John Chrysostom’s second homily on the rich man and Lazarus).

I have been rereading St. John’s homilies contained in the little volume by St. Vladimir’s Seminary called “On Wealth and Poverty.” One of the things that has struck me in his homilies is his likening of death to an actor’s coming off the stage. In death all of our masks are removed and we must confront who we “really” are in the face of who Jesus Christ is.

In a sense, masks are a necessary part of our lives in this world. We all must serve in different relationships that require that we fulfill certain roles. I am a priest, but to my wife I am a husband. I do not hear my wife’s confessions. This is not a problem. Boundaries and limits are a necessary part of all relationships. I am on the Conciliar Press editorial board, and as a board member I must evaluate works submitted for publication and recommend them or not for publication. I hate this. I don’t want to judge someone else’s labor. And yet such judging as Christ recommends against is nonetheless required if any books are going to be published at all. If children are going to be taught, if doctors are going to be trained, criminals are going to be corrected, someone has to wear the mask of teacher, doctor and judge.

That we wear masks is not our problem. Our problem, I think, is that we sometimes mistake our masks for our selves. We hide behind our masks rather than express ourselves through them. Yes, express ourselves, our true selves, through a mask.

Jesus said that from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Our bodies themselves are a kind of mask, and it is through what we do (and say) with our bodies that our true hearts are revealed. Similarly, what I do and say as a priest, husband, teacher and friend can reveal who I really am. The tricky thing is to stay aware of the self who speaks through the mask, and not to think the mask is anything real, anything enduring. The masks come and go as life ebbs and flows. Who I am in Christ endures forever.

Paying attention to Christ in my heart at all times helps keep me from being deceived by whatever mask I may temporarily be wearing.

Tender-hearted God

2011-11-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

[I wrote the following on the flight from Arkansas to Dallas, after saying good by to my daughter and her children]

Last Sunday, Fr. George at St. Anthony Church in Tulsa spoke about God's tender-heartedness. His text was one of the Orthros prayers that the priest prays while the chanter reads the six Orthros Psalms. The prayer beseeches God's mercy based on God's own tender-heartedness.

I have been thinking about this all morning. Initially, the impression I feel is one of relief--it is God's own tender- heartedness that motivates God's mercy. God pities me, God pities us, His heart is tender toward us--like my heart is tender toward my grandchildren. They are a handful, lost in an ever changing inner world, annoyingly pushing boundaries, blissfully unaware of the inconvenience and stress they create for their parents, overwhelmed by strong emotions that will take them years to control. And did I mention that they are adorable? Tender-heartedness. God is tender hearted toward us.

But while I may begin to experience a sliver of God's tender-heartedness with my grandchildren, I am miles away from sharing in God's tender-heartedness for everyone. God loves everyone much more than I have begun to love my grandchildren. God understands me, my weaknesses, my fears, my insecurities, my still unending childish tendencies much more than I understand and love my grandchildren. And just as God understands me, He understands you, He understands everyone. And here is the miracle that has captured my mind today: not that God could love so well, but that God could pour that same love into our hearts. God can make us tender-hearted too.

But a tender heart, like a tender sore spot, feels pain more quickly than a hard heart. Slowly, slowly God comforts us in our pain, taking away the fear, taking away the sting. Slowly, slowly we learn to trust in hope, to accept, to be at peace even in the pain. And then somehow even the pain is transformed. Somehow rejection and suffering and even death become gateways to life.

And then we can love. Then we can love the unlovely. Then tender-heartedness compels us to give ourselves not expecting anything in return.

Moths, Wool and Arkansas

2011-11-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

I'm on vacation visiting my middle daughter in Arkansas. I packed my favorite Pendleton wool plaid shirt. I always wear wool shirts on vacation--except in the summer. They don't make wool clergy shirts.

This morning when I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw that moths had eatten some small holes in my shirt. I guess I no longer have an excuse not to wear my favorite shirt when I'm doing chores around the house.

I find it interesting to watch how my daughter and her husband (also the son of a priest) live their Orthodox Christian faith. Viewed from the outside (always a misleading thing to do), they are the least pious of my three daughter's families. The outside isn't something they spend time thinking much about.

Let me explain.

I am a convert. Orthodox Christianity is something I put on, kind of like an after-market improvement. I find that I often ask myself, "What is the Orthodox way to do this or that." I am consciously Orthodox.

My daughter and son-in-law never converted. They just are who they are. Faith for them is not something they put on. It is the background of their whole life. It's kind of like my favorite red plaid shirt. There is a lot of busyness in the plaid, but red is background of everything, it is the foundation.

This is the Orthodox faith in my daughter's family. They are a busy, happy, busy, loving,(did I mention busy), hard-working family whose whole life is colored by their faith. Orthodoxy is not something they put on, it is just who they are.

Priests and Prophets; Bishops and Charismatics

2011-10-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

One of the mysteries of the Church throughout the ages, Old Covenant and New, is that God has set up at least two sources of authority among His people. In the Old Covenant these were often typified by the priest and the prophet, in the New Covenant this same reality, this same tension, is seen in the bishop and the charismatic.

The priest/bishop and prophet/charismatic are both sources of authority in the Church, but different kinds of authority. And both are necessary. The priest/bishop preserves the tradition, the law, and the teaching (that is, both the written scripture and its interpretation). In the Old Covenant, it was the priests who preserved temple worship and who preserved the Law of Moses. Were it not for the priests, temple worship as God had revealed it to Moses would have been completely lost (along with the Scripture). It was the priests who preserved the Book of the Law that had been lost during the reign of wicked King Manasseh. It was the priests who preserved the knowledge of temple worship so that the Second Temple could be rebuilt after the return of the exiles from Babylon.

The priests, and the bishop in the New Covenant, are the ones who preserve the form of worship and correct teaching of God's people. They are the ones with the God-given authority to tell God's people how God is to be worshiped and what are the correct ways to speak about God (doctrine) and to guide God's people in orderly assembly.

If you look at St. Paul's criteria for selecting a Bishop, except for the ability to teach, no other specific charisms are called for. What is called for is moral integrity, faithfulness, and good repute in the community. A bishop may have many other charismatic graces, but these are not essential to his calling as bishop. A bishop is an administrator, an overseer, a faithful preserver of the truth "once and for all" handed to the Church, he is the teacher of the Tradition, the Great Shepherd's shepherd of the flock.

Prophets and charismatics , on the other hand, have a different kind of authority. The prophet calls the people to faithfulness to Tradition that the priests have preserved. And sometimes even calls the priests themselves to faithfulness to the tradition they have preserved, but that they follow only in outward form. The prophets do not stand outside of the community of God's people. They also are subject to the Law and Tradition and worship led by the priests. But the prophet by the manifestation of the Spirit becomes a sign to the people of God. Not only the words of the prophet call the people to return to God with their hearts, but the whole life of the prophet is a "word" or sign calling the people to return.

In the New Testament, we see this tension play out in St. Paul's letters. The Corinthians, a community zealous for spiritual gifts, are warned by St. Paul that everything must be done decently and in order and that others are to judge the prophets. Yet he says explicitly, "forbid not prophesying." Charismatic people and graces have their place in the community; however, that place is determined by the overseer (bishop and elders) of the community. This becomes particularly evident in the Pastoral Epistles, where St. Paul is giving instructions to Sts. Timothy and Titus, two young newly-appointed bishops. St. Paul does not quibble about their authority to "teach, correct and rebuke in righteousness."

In the history of the Church since New Testament times, the charismatics have often found their place and their voice in the monastic communities. Bishops have authority over the teaching and worship of the Church, but the holy, charismatic monastics are the ones who through their evident holiness and the power of God manifest in their lives have historically called the Church to repentance, to a faithful return from the heart to the faith preserved and taught by the bishops. And when, as it has happened occasionally in history, the bishops are making a terrible mistake in teaching (as was, for example, the case during the iconoclast controversy) it was the holy monastics and holy lay people who humbly rebuked and resisted the erring bishops.

However, the opposite has also been true. When charismatic persons (monastic or not) have led people away from the Church and into false teaching, the bishops are the ones who stand firm, refusing to be led by charisms away from the Apostolic Tradition.

Both kinds of authority are important to God's people. God has established both. Sometimes those inclined to favour charisms may be tempted to look at the bishops and the structure of the Church as lifeless. This would be a mistake, a mistake as serious as it would be for the bishops to cut off from the Church those annoying monks, and the miracle working saints, and the fools for Christ sake who always seem to be stirring up fervour that threatens to bubble out of control.

Freely Give

2011-10-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

Jesus commanded us to give freely, to lend expecting nothing in return. This applies to all of our life, not just our money.

How often do we give expecting certain results? We give kind words, we help, we give time, money, labor; we do all this expecting some kind of result. We "minister" in various ways--of course it is not really ministry, for if it were, we would merely be doing our duty, fulfilling our calling with no expectation, like a slave, which is what "minister" means. But we expect results. Often we don't even know how to think about giving without first thinking about what we want our giving to accomplish.

The results that we expect vary. We might expect that our good example will be followed by others; or that the Grace of God will touch someone's heart because of what we have done; or that someone will change their ways (even just slightly) because of some word or act or grace or gift that we have given. We expect good things. Yet even to expect good things is not really to give freely.

When Jesus told the rich ruler to sell all he had and give the money to the poor and follow Him, Jesus wasn't telling him the way to fix the problem of poverty. Jesus was telling him how he could be saved. Giving saves us. We give because God gives, and in giving we begin to imitate God. What others do or don't do with the gift is a separate matter completely.

For me, it is easier to apply this principle to money. It is easier, but not easy. When it comes to other things that I give away--time, labour, words, care, tears--when it comes to these things, it is much harder not to expect some good result--or some result that I would recognize as good. It is hard to give love freely. It is hard to give care freely. It is hard to freely weep with those who weep.

More Spacious Than the Heavens

2011-10-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

The icon of the Mother of God, More Spacious Than the Heavens, is found on the wall above and behind the Altar in most Orthodox Churches. This icon shows Mary interceding for the universe with Christ inside her (in some versions of this icon, Christ is surrounded by a circle of sorts, indicating that He can only be seen by faith). So in a mystery, Christ God in the heart/womb of Mary intercedes through Her to the Father on behalf of the universe. And more than that, because Christ already holds the universe in his hand (according to the Psalmist) and holds all things together by the Word of His Power (according to St. Paul), within Mary already is the whole universe. Thus we call Her More Spacious Than The Heavens because she held in Her womb Him who holds the whole universe.

However, in another mystery, Mary is a type or symbol of the whole Church in whom Christ dwells. And at the Divine Liturgy of the Church, like Mary, the Church bearing Christ in its heart--in the hearts of all the faithful--intercedes for the universe. Or Christ through the Church intercedes to the Father. This is one of the reasons why the icon is placed where it is in the Apse (the curved dome above and behind the Altar) of the Church.

Christ in taking on human nature has so united Himself to mankind that He abides (dwells, lives, tabernacles) in the hearts of men and women who draw near to him through faith. St. Paul likens this reality to both a marriage and an adoption. By Christ's dwelling in our hearts, we mere creatures are made partakers of the Divine, for Christ's humanity and divinity cannot be separated. Just as in marriage or adoption someone becomes a member of a new family, so in baptism through faith we become members of God's family--not distant relatives, but as close as a wife or son.

And as Christ ever lives to make intercession, so those in whom Christ dwells also ever live to make intercession. And the first Christian, the first to hold Christ in Her heart, Mary His Mother, is the pattern, the prototype of the Christian people. In Christ She ever intercedes for us that we too might have Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith and ever learn to intercede.

On Trying Harder

2011-10-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

One of the characters in Dicken's Dombey and Son, Mr. Dombey's sister, often comments that people would not suffer as they do if they would only put forth a little more effort.

I am afraid that I too am sometimes tempted to reduce the suffering and failings of others to such a simplistic condemnation: If only they'd make an effort.

Can you imagine the outcry if someone said publicly, "Terry Fox would have made it across Canada if he had only put forth a little more effort"? What a justified outcry we would hear! Terry had only one leg; he was dying from Cancer; he did more than most perfectly healthy people ever do. It is ridiculous to say that he should have or could have put forth more effort. Terry gave 110%, but it was not enough. The deck was stacked against him.

Perhaps we can easily see how unjust it is to say Terry should have tried harder because we could easily see both how hard he did try and how serious his handicaps were. However, what about those whose handicaps and valiant efforts cannot be seen. There are lots of ways the deck is stacked against people.

In the Church we have to always remember that we are a community of the poor, the blind, the maimed and the lame. The handicaps differ widely. Some are obvious, most are hidden. In fact, most of our handicaps are even unknown to ourselves. It takes great spiritual struggle to come to see one's own weaknesses as they really are. And yet whether we see it or not we are handicapped. It is evidenced in our inability to live the lives we long to live, to love the way we long to love, to show kindness, generosity and faith the way we really do want to--when we are in our right minds and being our best selves.

Telling a lame person to try harder to walk does no good and only showcases your own blindness. Telling someone whose life is falling or has fallen apart to try harder manifests the same blindness.

Christians and Halloween

2011-10-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

I have been on all sides of this. I have advocated both a Christianizing strategy and an ignore it strategy. The ignore it strategy is based on the reality that no matter what Halloween may or may not have been in the past, it is certainly not a Christian holiday today. Therefore, it should be treated like all other non-Christian holidays: ignore it. When I have adopted a Christianizing strategy, I have tried to give a Christian focus to it, usually harkening back to Halloween's partial origins in All Saints Day Eve. Using this strategy, I have had my kids dress up like saints to attend a church sponsored All Saints Day Eve/Harvest party; or, if no church party is available, I have even taken my kids on a limited Trick or Treat canvas of known and trusted neighbours. This Christianizing strategy did not come into play until my children were in public school. Before that, I pretty much had an ignore it strategy. And once I began to home school my children (when my oldest was in fifth grade) we gradually returned to ignoring Halloween.

I think ignoring Halloween is ideal, if you can ignore it without causing your children to suffer more than they are able to endure with joy. Yes, I said with Joy. The hymn to St. John the Baptist says, "... and after suffering with joy on behalf of the truth..."

It is easy for parents to impose ideals on their children, ideals for which the parents suffer very little and for which the children suffer a great deal. Parents must be aware of what their children may be suffering--especially at school out of their presence, and realize that suffering without grace will result in bitterness, not saintliness. Certainly if the children are home schooled, it is easy to ignore Halloween. However, if the children are in public school and everyone in the school dresses up, then discernment and perhaps compromise is called for.

Of course there is more than one way to deal with this problem. My main concern is that Christian parents not, for the sake of their own piety, unnecessarily cause their children to suffer. If a parent is very convinced that their child should not participate in any Halloween activities in the public school, then perhaps it would be a good day to take off work and spend with your child(ren) doing something they enjoy. Go to the zoo. Take a picnic. Visit a natural history museum. Take the suffering on yourself by losing a day's work for the sake of your piety. Don't force the suffering unnecessarily on your children.

I realize not everyone can take a day off work for their children (although many could who do not admit it to themselves--just thinking about your children's suffering may be enough to make you ill enough to call in sick). Some may just have to compromise--for the sake of their children's salvation. What exact compromise will be life-giving depends on the family and the circumstances. And I imagine each year will be different--it certainly was in my case.

One thing is certain. Those of us who ignore Halloween should not judge those who compromise with it. In 1 Corinthians 13, St. Paul says that "Love believes all things." I think that means that love believes the best in and of others. I believe that those who ignore Halloween and those who don't are doing the best they can in the circumstances they find themselves in. Perhaps it is a lot like the meat-sacrificed-to-idols issue St. Paul deals with elsewhere in 1 Corinthians. Compassion and concern for the other is called for.

Preaching the Gospel

2011-10-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

In my last post about the movie "Arranged," I wondered out loud about how I as an Orthodox convert might be like the principal who, as an old warrior in the feminist battle, thought she knew what was best for two young women. Someone has asked me how such a reticence to speak to others about matters of faith squares with Christ's command to preach the Gospel.

There are two factors that I consider very important in preaching the Gospel, factors that I think are often overlooked. First, when we preach the Gospel, we must say as Jesus did, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Not everyone has ears to hear the Gospel every time it is preached. Those who do not, should not be coerced into some kind of outward show of acquiesce just because we have the power, money, clout, political will or charisma to coerce it. And there are lots of ways we coerce those who do not yet have ears to hear. We coerce through guilt (as opposed to conviction), through fear (and not godly fear), through bribery; we coerce in all sorts of ways because we are convinced that we know what is best for the other. But we don't.

Think about it. Saul of Tarsus was alive while Christ was preaching. He may even have heard Him. Certainly he heard about Jesus of Nazareth. Yet Saul of Tarsus did not have ears to hear until he was confronted by Christ on the road to Damascus. Had no one preached the Gospel to him before? He had been arresting Christians left and right. Certainly someone had told him the basics of what this sect called the Way believed. He may have even heard Christ Himself during His earthly ministry. Yet it wasn't until many years later that he had ears to hear.

And speaking of Saul of Tarsus, once he became St. Paul, he wrote a letter to the Jewish Christians in Rome, and in the second chapter of that letter he makes an interesting statement (quoting Isaiah), "The Name of God is blasphemed among the nations because of you." Why did the nations blaspheme God? "Because of you." What had they done? Beginning in verse 17, St. Paul explains that they sought to teach others God's Law even though they were not living it well themselves. And this is the second factor that must be considered when preaching the Gospel. Perhaps the reason some people reject the Gospel and blaspheme God is because I do not myself very well live according to the Gospel. Maybe like the Jews Isaiah was speaking to and the Roman Christians St. Paul was speaking to, maybe I myself--my lazy lifestyle, my unwillingness to control my selfish habits, my ungenerous attitudes toward others--maybe I am the reason those around me do not yet have ears to hear the Gospel of Christ.

"Preach the Gospel," St. Frances of Assisi is reported to have said, "use words only when necessary."

I am an Orthodox Christian. I am 100% convinced that Orthodox Christianity is the True Faith (not a true faith). However, that does not mean that everyone else will see what I see as soon as I point it out to them. Furthermore, it may be that they do not see it precisely because I point it out to them. I have a lot of repenting yet to do.

Also, God's love for mankind is such that He is able to save anyone, anywhere, any time they are ready. He can even save Moslems, Jews, Atheists, Hindus, and murderers of Christians like St. Paul. In fact, He is even able to save those who murdered His Son: St. Loginous, the centurion at the Cross. I think my job is to follow St. Frances' advice and do my best to live in such a way that the "nations" will ask for an account for the hope they see evidenced in my life.

Arranged

2011-10-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

Bonnie and I saw the movie "Arranged" last night. It is a semi-autobiographical story based on the experience of the film's producer. The movie deals with themes of religious tolerance and choice in the context of a growing friendship between an Orthodox Jew and a practicing Moslem who are both teaching in a public school in Brooklyn, and who both are having marriages arranged for them according to the tradition of their religions.

The aspect of this film that strikes me most strongly--and there are many aspects of the film that could inspire hours of interesting discussion--is that the old soldier of the last campaign for freedom becomes the persecutor of the next generation's expression of freedom. That is, the principal in the school where they teach is an older feminist who repeatedly encourages Rochel and Nasira to drop their religious way of dress and the "superstitions" of their fathers, whom she assumes are forcing them to dress the way they do. The principal condescendingly declares to them, "There has been a woman's movement, you know. I went through it." She does not seem realize that she has become the oppressor.

As an Orthodox Christian convert who fought hard to find the "True Faith" in the Holy Orthodox Church, I wonder if I am sometimes like that principal. How often do I assume that I know what is good for someone else? How often do I assume that someone else's life needs fixing and I know how to fix it? How often do I assume that the Holy Spirit is guiding me when in reality I just want to re-create someone else in my own image?

I recommend the film. It is on Netfix.

Ungodly

2011-10-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

Every time I read in the Bible the word "ungodly," I have to tell my self, "That does not mean someone without God."

For some reason, the Greek word asebes got translated into English as ungodly instead of impious. But perhaps many of us have no idea what impious means either--it's not a word you are likely to run into in the newspaper.

Piety, godliness and eusebeia, all mean to live or act in a way that is pleasing to God. Therefore, to be ungodly is not to live in a way that pleases God. And while the Bible often uses absolute language (one is either godly or ungodly), the Church teaches us that godliness is actually something we grow in. Therefore, even as we are growing in godliness, we have not yet quite left all ungodliness behind. St. Paul's exhortations to the Churches often include warnings to flee ungodliness. It's a process.
It's a transformation.

Orthodox Worship

2011-10-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

Fr. James Bernstein has done a great video series on Orthodox worship. They are short, three minute videos (well edited). This is a perfect introduction for anyone interested in why Orthodox worship is the way it is.
Here is a link http://stpaul-orthodox.org/video-divine-liturgy.php
The first video is below.

Princess and Curdie Transcript

2011-10-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

Hello, this is Fr. Michael Gillis and I’m speaking of books…

Today I will be talking about George MacDonald's children’s fantasy, “The Princess and Curdie.” This is the sequel to “The Princess and the Goblin,” but you don’t have to read that first to enjoy "The Princess and Curdie."

However, before you enjoy any tale by George MacDonanld, you must first let go of your 21^st century sensibilities and be willing to enter an imaginary world more glorious and more severe than what most of us would call good. In the world of Curdie and the Princess, virtue, loyalty and truth are more important than this transient life--either losing it yourself or taking it from others. In other words, it is a world that we might call brutal, although it is an honest brutality. It is a brutality in which an honest and true person must personally confront that which is wicked and selfish--and the consequent injury to life or limb is merely a natural part of the exchange.

It is certainly a far cry from our politically correct culture which cannot stand the personal pain of an angry slur, but nonetheless enjoys the impersonal violence of video games and movies--and through technology can keep real violence far away through bombs triggered from a distance and hospitals that keep the dying out of our sight. For us (in North America) today, violence is seldom personal, and when it is personal, we consider it an unusual tragedy, not a normal part of life and death in a sin-filled world. But in the world of Mac Donald’s fairy tales, violence is always personal. The wicked and the righteous confront each other personally.

In The Princess and Curdie, the fairy tale at hand, Curdie is growing through his early teen years and beginning to disbelieve in the angel-like Great Great Grandmother of Princess Irene, the young princess whom Curdie had saved from the goblins in the previous novel. Curdie is beginning to care more about what his fellow miners think of him than of what his parents think of him. He is beginning to doubt what he had known so clearly to be true within himself just a short while ago, simply because it is not being confirmed by his peer group.

However the Great Great Grandmother has not forsaken him, and through a random act of violence in which Curdie shoots a white dove with the bow he had made, She reveals the softness of Curdie’s heart in that he is sorry for the harm he has done. In seeking to heal the wounded dove, Curdie reencounters the Great Great Grandmother. She confronts him for allowing himself to be led into cynicism by his peers and calls him to a dangerous mission to serve the King. Really it is just what every teenage boy needs: a noble purpose bigger than himself that will require discipline, suffering, and recognition in the eyes of those in power.

Perhaps the most powerful theological theme of the book is introduced early. The Great Great Grandmother explains to Curdie that many human beings are becoming like animals and many people with apparently wicked or ugly qualities are actually becoming more human. But you cannot always tell from the outside which way people are going. She uses the example of two men walking up or down a hill side. Viewed quickly from a distance, you cannot easily tell which one is ascending and which is descending. Similarly, from the current appearance of one’s life’s circumstances, you cannot easily tell whether or not the person is becoming more human or more animal.

Curdie receives two gifts from from the Great Great Grandmother for his mission. The first gift is the ability to discern by shaking hands whether one is becoming more human or more animal--and which animal too. And the second gift is an extremely ugly, dog-like creature to be his servant. Right away, Curdie touches the paw of this frightening creature only to discern the beautiful hand of a young woman.

Curdie and the creature, named Lina, journey together to the capital of the kingdom only to find its citizens in a state of deep selfishness (which as Mac Donald describes it sounds in many respects like what we today might call healthy capitalism). Curdie and Lina are thrown in prison for killing the dogs that attacked them--that it was an act of self-defense makes no difference, for the owners blame Curdie for being a stranger and Lina for just being ugly and frightening. However, in the prison they discover a secret passage into the King’s castle. There they uncover a plot to slowly poison the king, and with the help of 49 hideous creatures similar to Lina, (whom they recruited on their journey to the capital) they help the king win back his kingdom.

However, the fairytale ends on a bitter note. Although the king wins back his kingdom, it is largely populated by citizens who cooperated with those who betrayed him. Nevertheless, Curdie is able to go through the kingdom shaking hands and recommending people for the king’s new court--men and women who are becoming men and women. The Great Great Grandmother reveals that Curdie’s parents are of an ancient royal line, and this qualifies him to marry the princess--whom he saved in the first fairytale. You would think this is the final note of a fairytale happy ending, but it is not.

Mac Donald extends the final note to the king who follows Curdie, he and the princess not having any children. In the final passage of the fairytale, we find out that Curdie’s successor to the throne returns to capitalist ways, and driven by greed he exploits the mineral resources of the kingdom to such an extent that the kingdom collapses--literally. The gold mine over which the capital is build collapses and falls into the river.

The End.

Not a very happy note to end a children’s fairytale with. And yet, it is a note that rings very true, especially today, almost 150 years after it was written.

For those of you my dear listeners who have the courage to read real fairytales, I whole-heartedly recommend to you the work of George Mac Donald. The tale I spoke of today is called “The Princess and Curdie,” which is the sequel to “The Princess and the Goblin.” But perhaps my favorite George Mac Donald fairy tale is, “The Back of the North Wind,” but I give you fair warning: it may change your life.

For Speaking of Books, this is Fr. Michael Gillis

Prayer and the Fear of Enemies

2011-10-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine sent me a posting from a certain well known Orthodox leader in the U.S. The posting quoted Orthodox prayers that harken back to the Byzantine wars against the Turks and Saracens--often referred to as "Hagarenes" and "Ishmaelites" in the prayers. The "alarmism," as my friend put it, of this Orthodox leader's reading of these prayers bothered him, and he asked me to comment.

'Let our nation speedily overcome the abominations and blasphemies of the Hagarenes, and submit them to our civil authorities; establish Orthodoxy and raise up the race of Christians, and send down upon us they rich mercy.'

'Bend thy bow and proceed prosperously and be King, O Son of the Mother of God, and by the intercession of her that conceived Thee without knowing a man subject unto our Christ-loving king the Ishmaelite people that warreth against us, we pray, since Thou are God and the Friend of man.'

.... The days of the martyrs is not a time of the distant past, but is upon us....

[Most of the original comments on the texts has been omitted]

Below is my response to my concerned friend.

I, also find such a reading of these prayers hugely unhelpful. Yes, when the (Byzantine/Russian/whatever) empire was Christian and whoever came against the nation was considered evil by the Church, such language was appropriate from a church as state/state as church perspective--of course that only reflects the irony of a "Christian nation." (But then, when has life in a sinful world not been full of irony?) Such political prayer language--common in the Bible too--has always been interpreted on at least two levels. On a national level, it expresses the real fears of those who were really threatened by an attacking army; and those in fear will use whatever weapons they have--including religion as they conceive it in their fear-- to fight the enemy.

However, such prayers have also been understood by those more spiritually minded, who have already died (or are dying) to the world, as a cry to God to destroy the evil within themselves, the infidel, Ishmaelite, Hagarene in their own hearts. It grieves me to hear those who lead the Church succumb to the first interpretation, but I cannot judge them too harshly for I do not experience what they experience. The level of fear that is whipped up by the U.S. media and political system is so high that very few can resist it.

Certainly these are the days of the martyrs. Since the beginning of the world (remember Abel's blood?), it has been the days of the martyrs. Perhaps some in their alarm are just noticing. However, alarm will not help us face martyrdom. (Neither will using prayer as a weapon to smite the enemy outside of us, the neighbour whom we are to love, the ones who crucify us not knowing what they do.) What will prepare us for martyrdom is to begin dying today, to smite the enemy within us with prayer.

Fighting fire with fire only burns up the world.

Nevertheless, some people are alarmed. Some cannot see the infidel within because fear of the infidel without has captured them. And God loves the frightened ones too.

Therefore, Let us together pray, "Subject unto our Christ-loving king the Ishmaelite people that war against us, we pray, since You are friend of man [philanthropos]." Each will pray according to his or her inner state, and God will answer according to His love for mankind, all mankind. Certainly it is better that frightened people pray; it is better that they open themselves in some way to God's saving action--even if they misunderstand the prayer. But who can say that he or she truly understands any prayer? Who of us truly knows what it means that God is the friend of man? Who has known the mind of God? We all need to repent.

Modern Biblical Studies

2011-09-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

[an excerpt from an e-mail response to a graduate student in biblical studies]

For the Orthodox Church, the West has generally been asking the wrong questions. The Orthodox have always read the Bible Spiritually, not literally; so questions of inerrancy--as it has come to be understood in the context of the Liberal-Fundamentalist debate of the 20th century--have been almost completely irrelevant to us. For example, whether or not St. Paul wrote Ephesians (historically) is not very relevant to the received tradition that St. Paul wrote it. Ephesians is "pauline" whether Paul himself, one of his helpers, or someone with the same "rule of faith" wrote it. The Church received it as pauline. Similarly, that Moses actually wrote very little in the Pentateuch (the "Books of Moses") is irrelevant. The Church (and Judaism) has received them as The Books of Moses.
Having said this, I think modern scholarship should be understood and then set on a shelf (in my experience modern scholarship is not completely bereft of insight, just mostly bereft). The rules of modern Biblical criticism assume no God, assume modern scholars know more about the ancient texts than those who actually shared the culture and language of those who wrote the texts, and-most importantly-have removed the texts from the worshiping community where they have any meaning at all. Outside of the communities that have preserved and given meaning to these texts, the bible is only so many words to be speculated on.

For example, in the Gospel of Luke, the Archangel greets Mary with the words that her Son would sit on the throne of David. Now tell me, historical-critically, when did that happen? The Bible has never been read by Christians historically. Sure, most Christians have assumed that the historical events recorded actually happened when and how they were recorded, but that has never been the gist of the Bible. For Christians, the Bible is a spiritual book to be read spiritually by spiritual people. The Bible is eschatological, and only those who have begun to experience the eschaton can have any clue as to what the Bible says, can have any clue what "the throne of David" that Mary's Son will sit on refers to.

Money and Betrayal in the Church

2011-09-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

In St. John's Gospel we get the clear impression that Judas betrayed Jesus for the money. The Gospel tells us that Judas was particularly upset at the "waste" of the woman who poured ointment on Jesus. Judas calculates the value of the ointment--about a year's wages--and complains that the money could have been given to the poor. St. John tells us, however, that Judas was not really concerned for the poor because he was accustomed to helping himself from the collective money box. Indeed, the hymns of the Church during Holy Week repeatedly tell us that greed was the primary motive for Judas' betrayal of Jesus.

I confess that it is hard for me to believe that Judas would betray Jesus merely out of greed, and for such a small amount--30 pieces of silver, a little more than a month's wages, one tenth of the value of the ointment that was freely "wasted" on Jesus. I'm not the only one who struggles intellectually here. Many have speculated on what Judas' real motives were. Speculations range from political to personal to even pious motivations (e.g. Judas thought he could force Jesus' hand to publicly manifest Himself as Messiah). However, very few "intellectuals" theses days seem to be able to buy the Church's explanation: greed. Why? What's our problem?

Well maybe my problem is that I am too much like Judas myself. It too count the value of what others give to the Church in the form of expensive liturgical items and consider whether or not the money might have been "better" spent elsewhere. I too make my living out of our little church community's collective money box. I too fail to give freely, like the generous woman, but rather count my pennies and consider what is enough, rather than what is generous. I too easily, oh so easily, take offence when someone else seems to be "wasting" church resources: "Why does Fr. X drive such a nice car?" "Why does His Grace Y have to stay in such an expensive hotel?" Why does His Eminence Z take so many trips to the Old Country?" Yes, there are times when the Judas demon would feel right at home in my mind.

The parallels between Judas' relationship with money and mine are frightening. And if others have these same greedy tendencies, then it is no wonder we have a hard time accepting the Church's testimony that Judas' betrayal was a matter of mere greed. To admit that is to admit that we too could betray Christ, for we have a similar greed at work in us.

But things are not as frightening as they appear.

While St. John focuses on Judas' motivation for betrayal, St. Mark (14: 3-9) points out that some were indignant, not just Judas; and St. Matthew (26: 6-13) says the disciples generally were indignant. It seems that Judas was not the only greedy one. It seems that we who struggle with generosity and are quick to call waste any expenditure that we do not agree with, it seems we are in good company. Well, good and bad company.

Perhaps the difference between Judas and me, and between Judas and the other Disciples, was not that Judas experienced greedy thoughts and I and others do not. Rather the difference has to do with whether or not we let greed determine our actions, let greed motivate us, allow ourselves to be driven by fear or anger that has greed at it's root.

Of course, such an explanation should not lead us to breathe easy. That I am not generous, that I do "calculate the value of the gift" (as the hymns of the Church say of Judas), that I do sometimes take offence at what appears to me to be the extravagance of others, that any of this is the case, I should fear. I should fear a holy fear that leads me to repentance. The seeds of greed have not been completely weeded from my heart. The thought that I could, if I do not attend to my on-going repentance and under the right circumstances, betray Jesus as Judas did, that thought is enough to scare the hell out of me (quite literally).

Love and More Love

2011-09-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

"Christ's final judgement...does not discriminate between those who need love and those who invite condemnation; it only adjudicates between those who need love and those who need more love."
(Andrew Klager, "Orthodox Eschatology and St. Gregory's [Life of Moses]" in Compassionate Eschatology: The Future as Friend published by Cascade Books.

When I read the above line out loud to my wife, she stopped what she was doing and said, "Ahhh." The kind of "Ahhh" that means, "Yes! That's the God I know in my heart."

Andrew's article is a little tough to work through--he is writing for scholars, after all; but if you get a chance to read it, it is worth the time to work through it slowly. Use a dictionary if you need one (I always do). The vision of heaven, hell and judgement are so Orthodox, so different from what we as a western culture are used to think, that I think you too will say "Ahhh" at several points.

Andrew does not (nor does the Church for that matter) say that there is no hell. He doesn't say that there is no judgement or no condemnation. What Andrew does is help us understand the Orthodox teaching that heaven and hell are not separate places, but they are possibilities of our human experience of the Love of God. God's Love is the Consuming Fire. But what is consumed is only the chaff (our sin, our delusions our vanity) and those who suffer are only those who cling to their sin, their delusions, their vanity.

Of course I cannot unpack in just a few paragraphs what Andrew lays out so well in a twenty-three page article. Let me just repeat that it is worth reading--but get a good dictionary and take your time.

Wisdom, Faith, Hope, and Love

2011-09-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

Today is St. Sophia day. Her daughters, Faith, Hope and Love (aged 12,10 and 9) were martyred in her presence and she, laying on their graves died. She is considered a martyr for what she endured. May God through the prayers of Wisdom, Faith, Hope and Love help us to give our lives away too, in wisdom, faith, hope and love.

Jesus Was Angry

2011-09-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

"And when He [Jesus] had looked around at them in anger..." (Mark 3:5).

Jesus certainly was angry; but what did He experience in His anger? Did Jesus experience what I experience when I am angry?

The Fathers of the Church teach us that there are two basic "natural passions" (sinless passions or feelings) that might be called desire and irritation. These two natural passions are corrupted by sin to become lust in all of its many forms and anger in all of its forms. Most of the time when we speak of anger, we are referring to an experience that is laced with, if not completely consumed by, sin.

When the Bible speaks of Jesus being angry, we must keep in mind that Jesus is sinless. Jesus experienced all that is natural for a human being, yet without sin. Jesus experienced both desire and irritation, what the Bible normally calls anger and sometimes wrath. However, the "anger" that Jesus experienced was completely free of sin: it was a passionless anger. By "passionless" I do not mean that Jesus did not feel it emotionally. What I mean is that the feeling was not touched by sin and it did not control, push or knock Him off balance. What Jesus experienced was nothing like anger as we generally experience it.

We might say that Jesus was angry, but He was not upset. Jesus could feel the irritation caused by the encounter with injustice and sin, but He never loses control of himself. He never acts in any but the most loving, kind and patient way possible (and "possible" is a key word here). However, Jesus does act, when the time is right and for the salvation of all. It is noteworthy that in St. John's account of the cleansing of the temple, St. John specifically mentions that after Jesus found the money changers in the temple, He took the time to make a whip of cords before He started driving them out. Although He felt "anger," Jesus was not driven by anger even as he was driving out the moneychangers. Jesus did not experience anger as a sinful passion.

This is the reason why it is necessary for Christians (or anyone who wants to change the world) to pursue purity of heart. If we are going to do the works of Christ, if we are going to change evil systems and structures in the world, if we are going to drive the moneychangers out of the various temples of our lives, first we have to purify the passions of our own heart. Otherwise, we will only be fighting fire with fire, attacking one evil with another, their injustice with mine.

Spiritual life, the personal pursuit of purity of heart, is no selfish endeavour. It is the foundation from which action can bring about real change. It is the prerequisite for clear vision. It is the bringing of the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, starting with what I have the most power to change (myself) and moving out from there.

Lions In Our Hearts

2011-09-12T16:34:00.000-07:00

Jamie Moran in an article in Raising Lazarus: Integral Healing in Orthodox Christianity, uses the metaphor of an evil lion caged inside us. This lion represents sinful passionate desires or urges. Jamie talks about two common ways Christians deal with this lion that don’t work very well and then suggests a way based on the teaching of the Desert Fathers. The first ineffective way is the way of the “Puritan,” the second ineffective way is the path of appeasement, and the way of the Desert Fathers is the way of identification.

These are some of my reflections on these three ways.

The Puritan insists that the lion does not exist--at least not in her heart. The Puritan sublimates; she forces herself to do the culturally defined good; she acts; she pretends. The Puritan may indeed convince herself that there is no lion caged in her heart, but the repressed impulses find their way out in other unhealthy ways of being and relating. Because the Puritan must give herself so completely to pretending, she loses compassion and empathy; she loses the ability to see what she doesn’t want to see in others because she has worked so hard not to see what she does not want to see in herself. The fruit of this Puritan way is self righteousness and pride.

The second ineffective way to deal with the lion is to hide it by appeasing it. The one who hides the lion is continually negotiating with the sinful impulse--appeasing it, throwing it bits of gratification when no one is looking in the hope that it will stay quiet in public. The lion, however, always wants more. Eventually the lion acts out in ways that cannot be hidden. He who appeases is always burdened with guilt, always tormented by a mostly hidden cycle of building desire, brief pleasure, and long-lasting regret that creeps into all areas of life either as a sense of failure or as over achieving (as a compensation for the sense of failure).

In some ways the appeaser is better off than the Puritan. At least the appeaser recognizes the lion and can thus sympathize with others who suffer from their lions. At least he has something to repent of--if he can find the courage to do so. However, some who are appeasers eventually find their way into the ranks of the crypto-Puritans. The crypto-Puritans, instead of denying the existence of the lion, are proud of the lion. They call evil good and good evil, and in this condition they are worse off than the Puritans.

The third way to deal with the lion is to identify with it--to get in the cage with the lion. I think this is something like what twelve-step programs try to achieve. By saying to yourself and to everyone, “I am an alcoholic,” you begin to know both yourself and your problem as it really is, and you begin to find the power to muzzle the lion.

Sometimes Orthodox Christians have a hard time getting into the cage with the lion(s) in their heart. Sometimes they have a hard time admitting that the lions are there at all because their own heart is a closed book to them.

The following is a hymn from the Octoechos, Sunday evening, Tone 4:

YOU ESTABLISHED REPENTANCE, O CHRIST,

NOT FOR THOSE WHO ARE GOOD,

BUT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BECOME OUTCAST BY SIN,

AS WE LEARN FROM MANY EXAMPLES:

THE THIEF AND THE PRODIGAL SON,

MANASSEH AND THE PROSTITUTE,

PAUL, WHO HAD PERSECUTED THE CHURCH,

MATTHEW, WHO HAD COLLECTED TAXES,

AND PETER WHO DENIED YOU.

HOW THEN CAN I DESPAIR,

KNOWING, O MY SAVIOUR, THAT YOU ARE GOOD AND THE LOVER OF MANKIND ?

I WILL TURN TO YOU IN TEARS,

FILLED WITH HOPE THAT YOU WILL ACCEPT ME.

Jesus came to save sinners. The sooner we look into our own hearts to discover the lions of sin caged there, the sooner we will be able to find the repentance that Christ established and be saved.

The Danger of Miracle Working Icons

2011-09-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

When Jesus performed a miracle, all of the people were amazed; but very few got it. They didn't get that the miracle was a sign, a sign to reveal something else. The miracle was not an end in itself. And more importantly, the miracle was not an affirmation of what the person already believed. The miracles of Christ were signs revealing Christ's divinity, revealing the presence of the Kingdom of God. The miracles commanded those who saw them or heard of them to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. We know this is the case because this is the message of Jesus, his very first words in the Gospels: "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

In my life I have been blessed to have been in the presence of several myrrh streaming icons and one icon that was self-restoring (a blackened icon--of St. Nicholas, I believe--that was slowly cleaning itself from the bottom up). However the community in which these icons resided was in contention with its bishop. From the outside looking in, that is from my limited perspective, it seemed as though many in the community viewed the miraculous icons as a confirmation of their own position against their bishop. I even had one member of the community actually tell me this. In the end, this community separated from its bishop resulting in personal tragedies that continue to ooze pain to this day.

Miracles are dangerous.

We all rejoice when God allows us to see a miracle mostly, I think, because our faith is so weak that anything, any undeniable sign from God that what we can see and measure is not all there is, is a great boost to our faith. We all long for stronger faith. We all cry with the father of the epileptic: "I believe, help my unbelief!" Miracles often do that. They help our unbelief; they strengthen the little faith that we have.

I'm all for the veneration of and wonder at miraculous icons. In fact, this Saturday I plan to venerate the Myrrh streaming icon of the Mother of God from Hawaii. I pray that my weak faith will be strengthened by personally witnessing this miracle. However, if God grants me stronger faith, it is only so that I can better repent of my sins. It is only that I might learn humility. It is only that I might trust God more in all areas of my life, especially those most painful areas where I suspect God has abandoned me. I pray that God does all of this for me and for everyone who venerates this holy icon of the Mother of God.

Yet one thing is certain: Whatever miracle I see or experience, it is not a confirmation that I am right. It is a call to repentance.

The Temptation to Press

2011-08-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

I've gotten started on the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin series. Book one, "Master and Commander," is also the title of the movie starring Russel Crowe based on a couple of the novels in this series. I was hoping to do a podcast on the first book, but I didn't find much in the novel to recommend it as an edifying read for Orthodox Christians. Nevertheless, I'm quite enjoying the novels. It's one of those reads that I feel a bit guilty for liking so much. The story is completely engaging, the characters are real, human, and, unfortunately, for the most part godless. Or I might more correctly say deeply suspicious of the Church, especially the oppressive, coercive earnestness of Evangelicals. What is understood as Evangelical in the context of the novel is the lessons of Sunday school based on "those odious little tracts" teaching that it was God's will for the poor to be poor. But as Captain Aubrey's sweetheart points out, "It's all because they cannot read and write".
However even Captain Jack is tempted to preach a sermon on obedience to authority. His new, mostly pressed, crew was not responding well to his lieutenant's cruel indoctrination techniques. For those who do not know, most sailors were captured against their will--often knocked in the head and waking up in the bowels of a navy vessel.
The Bible is indeed a powerful weapon when used against those who can't or won't read it. Like the caricature of Evangelicals portrayed in the novel, we can all be tempted to read the Bible to buttress what we already believe, and to cudgel those who doubt our wisdom (i.e. To press them into our navy).

Some Thoughts on the Wrath of Man

2011-08-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

“The wrath of God came against them, and slew the stoutest of them, and struck down the choice men of Israel” (Psalm 78:31).

“For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).

I think we have an anger problem. The problem I’m talking about is not related to self control, but to understanding. Why does human wrath never produce the righteousness of God while God’s wrath seems to be ubiquitous in Scripture? What’s the difference? Why is God’s wrath righteous and human wrath never?

Many of the fathers of the church talk about two central feelings or urges from which all others derive. These two feelings or urges are desire and irritability. In a world without sin, that is in a healthy human being, desire functions as a kind of longing leading us toward what is God-like, what is true, beautiful, real, and healthy. Irritability is a kind of prick on the conscience, a discomfort or uneasiness that helps us recognize or turn away from what is not true, perverse, unreal and unhealthy. Remember, even before human sin, the Serpent was loose in the Garden. God had equipped Adam and Eve with all that was necessary to discern and avoid evil and pursue and do good--that is grow in God-likeness.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was different from other trees. From this tree, human beings were not to eat. This implies that discernment of right and wrong, good and evil is possible without an experiential knowledge of the difference. That is one need never experience evil to discern that it is not good. In the Garden, before sin, the mere contemplation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was sufficient to acquire from the tree what human beings needed; one need not eat. Such food as the experiential knowledge of evil is too bitter a fruit to eat. God’s command not to eat it was His guidance, His leading of humanity into the sweet path toward life and growth and away from the bitter.

All that God created was good and therefore to be desired. It was not wrong for Eve to feel desire for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Where desire became sin was when instead of contemplating the desired fruit, she reached out and took it for herself. Instead of letting God in God’s time and in God’s way fulfill her desire, she rationalized, took it and ate it and shared it with Adam. Spurred on by the Serpent and in direct contradiction to what God had told her, she thought that her desire for this fruit would be fulfilled in exactly the same way her desire for other fruit was fulfilled--by eating it.

In this sin, this missing of the the target that we call the Fall, desire became perverted, desire became mixed with the urge to posses and to control. In eating the fruit of experiential knowledge of both evil and good, humanity chose the bitter path, the path of perverted desires and painful experience (the knowledge spoken of here is the knowledge of direct experience, not the knowledge of or about).

Not only was desire perverted by the Fall, the irascible aspect (as it is sometime translated from Greek) of humanity became perverted too. That is, human anger became something very different from divine anger. Even using the term “divine anger” is a little misleading. What I mean by divine anger is that quality in God that is reflected in the irascible aspect or ability in human beings before the Fall, human beings who are in the image of God.

Just as desire became possessive and controlling, so too the irascible aspect of human beings changed. Perverted irritability became selfishly destructive. Controlling possessiveness when mixed with irritability became wrath and anger in human beings and manifested itself in an urge to destroy, rather than an urge to turn to God, an urge to repent.

God’s wrath is not like human wrath. But even using the word “wrath” is so troublesome. We cannot read this word without equating it to sinful human perversion of a selfishly possessive controlling and destructive tendency. Yet God is neither possessive nor controlling nor destructive. God is the Creator, not the destroyer; God has given freedom to His creature; it is the human being who has chosen the bitter fruit, the painful path. When God acts in history to give to human beings the bitterness they have chosen, when human selfishness and cruelty and destructiveness can no longer be tolerated and the created order sustained, when the last hope for any repentance (turning to God) is gone and the only hope for future repentance is in a radically altered context, God allows the painful consequences of human sin--death in all of its forms--to have its way. And in the Bible, when God does this, it is usually referred to the as the wrath of God.

But God’s wrath is not like human wrath, just as God’s desire is not like human desire. God desires human beings to exist as God Himself exists: the Holy Trinity, a community of persons, equal, free and held together by love. God does not desire to possess; He desires to love in freedom, and where there is freedom there is no control. God does not turn away from evil because he is angry. Evil itself is a turning away from what is Real to unreality. And while God may restrain evil, or the effects of evil, for the sake of love, in the end God’s love and the freedom of God’s love is such that He eventually gives human beings what they choose, even if it is death and unreality. And in human language, for we have no other language but our various human languages conditioned by the human experience of perverted desire and anger, God’s release of restraint is called wrath. But this “wrath” is nothing but freedom and love, the giving to humankind the bitter pill we have chosen.

Human wrath, on the other hand, can never produce a loving result. It can never result in the righteous purposes of God because it is always mixed, it is always selfish and possessive and destructive. Even when what irritates me is sin, anger is not the salvific response. Repentance is the response that saves.

You may ask, but what if the sin that irritates me is in another. I cannot repent for him or her can I?

Well maybe you can’t or maybe you can--repentance is a very deep well. However, one thing is certain: you cannot change the other person. You cannot control, which is sin. Righteousness will never result from manipulating or controlling others. But God who knows the heart, God can lead others to repentance. I do not know how to do that. Anger does not do that. God does that. So no matter what the source (or apparent source) of my anger is, the response is to turn to God, the response is to repent.

Lest I be misunderstood, I’d like to end by saying that repentance and turning toward God does not mean that we do not act. We must act. We must do the works of God while it is day. We must do good and confront evil; however, and this is a huge “however,” we must be on guard against our own sin, our own desire to posses and control. The Serpent is still active, and as in the Garden it is often the very good thing or act or deed that becomes the excuse to indulge in selfish possessiveness.

“And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof….”

Tormenting Fire

2011-08-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

"He that trusteth in the Lord shall not fear when God shall judge all with tormenting fire." (From the second Antiphoy of the Resurrectional Anabathmoi in tone eight).

Notice that "all" will be judged with tormenting fire. In St. Mark's Gospel (9:49) Jesus says that "everyone will be salted with fire." The question is not if, it is when--and what you will do when you experience fiery torment. The promise of this verse that we will pray in matins tomorrow is not a promise for some future rescue after our death, but it is a promise for God's help and deliverance from fear when we face tormenting fire now, in this life.

It seems we are always surprised when doing the right thing (the Christian thing, the holy or godly thing) involves fiery suffering. Self control, for example, often involves a kind of suffering that is often (at least in confession and in the writings of the fathers) compared to fire. Desires can be burning. And the trial we experience as we choose to suffer rather than to obey the desire, this is the judgement of tormenting fire.

It is unfortunate that our culture has taught us to read the words of Christ which speak of hell and fire as something merely future. I find it very interesting that only once (Matt 5:22) does Jesus refer to the "fire of hell" (Gehenna). The other two references (Matt. 18:9 and Mark 9:47) are to the "hell of fire." That is, the hell is an attribute of fire, of torment. Therefore we might say that any time one is enduring a fiery trial, one is experiencing a bit of Gehenna, the hell of fire. And in the midst of that fiery trial, judgement or temptation, one may trust in the Lord. And trusting in the Lord, one will be delivered from fear.

Much of the time, we succumb to temptation because we are afraid that we cannot endure the pain--the pain of unfulfilled desire (and the bodily discomfort that may accompany self-control), and the fear that whatever resources God has given us or will give us will not be enough. Fear pushes us over the edge. Fear makes it too much to bear.

But those who trust in the Lord, we are taught by the hymn of the Church, will not fear when the tormenting fire judges us.

Every temptation and our response to it is a judgement. It is a judgement in the sense that it reveals what's really there. Failing the trial, falling into sin, is not the worse thing that can happen. The worse thing that can happen is not to accept what has been revealed, to blame someone or something else. If a fiery trial reveals that we are sinners, then we can turn to the Lord, who came to save the sinner. And turning to the Lord, we learn to trust the Lord. And trusting the Lord, we are delivered from fear and can endure better the fiery torment next time it visits us.

To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice

2011-08-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

A guest staying with us for a few days mentioned that she had heard a nun (Roman Catholic, I believe) say that the asceticism of monasticism and parenthood are really quite similar. She said that as a monastic, whenever the bell rings, she immediately has to stop what she is doing and obey the bell. For parents, that bell is their children.

Similarly, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh in the introduction to his Essential Writtings is reported to have said that his years of service as a military doctor during the Second World War was "excellent training for the monastic life, teaching him to accept the will of others and to put their needs before his own in the most practical way."

None of us like very much being told what to do--told by other people or told by our circumstances. However, the germ of the ancestral sin, the deep root of our own sin, is our unwillingness to relinquish our will; to trust the judgement of others above our own; to believe that even in the midst of awkward, uncomfortable or even painful circumstance, the Love of God is present and the Power of God is at work.

I think this is the reason why the Church continually brings to our mind the martyrs. When the Church talks about martyrs in Her hymns, the martyrs are often spoken of as being revealed rather than made. That is, their manner of death does not make them martyrs, it reveals that they were martyrs already.

Martyrs are those who have learned to believe, to trust and to know that the Love of God and the Power of God are at work in difficult circumstances. They have learned to discern the voice of God in the voice of others, even others who "know not what they do." They have learned to pray with their whole mind and body, offering their frustrations, pains and sufferings of all sorts to God as a "living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God."

Whether parent or monastic, salvation begins and ends with repentance, with the turning away from our own will and through submission to the will of the Other, who is God, yet who generally rings our bell by the hand, voice, or cry of another.

Master and Commander: Where Did God Go?

2011-08-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

Lately my “fun” reading has been in Patrick O’ Brian’s Aubrey--Maturin series. I read Master and Commander and couldn’t put it down. The series is set during and around the Napoleonic Wars (beginning of the nineteenth century) and revolve around a Captain in the Royal Navy (Aubery) and his best friend and ship’s surgeon (Maturin).

I have been reading so much nineteenth century British literature over the past fifteen years or so, that I was somewhat surprised by the explicit immorality referred to in the novel. The references are subdued by twenty-first century standards, but by nineteenth century standards, they would be shocking indeed, perhaps unpublishable.

I am not naive regarding Victorian era morality. Just because talk about sexual immorality was not explicit, does not mean that it did not happen. Nevertheless, there was a high standard. And while deviation from that standard may have been common, it was understood as deviation, perversion.

O’ Brian wrote the Aubrey--Maturin series between 1970 and 1999. The new sexual morality of the twentieth century certainly colored how he portrayed the early nineteenth. However, there is another factor. O’ Brian’s characters are largely a-religious. Maturin is a Catholic, but doesn’t seem to practice. Aubrey is Protestant enough to hate Catholics generally, but not specifically, unless it is convenient. Mostly, references to God or the “Transcendent” or religion (except in political contexts) are absent.

Why is this?

In an essay on Patrick O’ Brian by William Waldegrave attached to the end of the current text I am reading, I got my clue. Waldegrave refers to a particular navel incident that O’ Brian describes, an incident that Waldegrave’s own great grandfather participated in and described in an unpublished manuscript. Waldegrave commends O’ Brian’s historical accuracy—"though happily Aubrey shows none of my forebear’s tedious commitment to the exposition of the scriptures."

O’ Brian brings a late twentieth century religious sensibility to his retelling of the early nineteenth. Waldegrave in the late twentieth century finds his great grandfather’s regular reference to scripture to be “tedious.” And while I’m sure levels of religious commitment varied among sailors (not everyone had a “commitment to the exposition of the scriptures”), certainly religious reference was much more common in the early nineteenth century than one notices in O’ Brian’s novels.

This is not a criticism of O’ Brian’s novels. He wrote for a late twentieth century audience. Contemporary readers would probably find a historically accurate reflection of the religious feelings, thoughts and references of the time to be “tedious.” I merely wanted to explain to myself what was missing. O’ Brian’s portrayal of the naval life in the early nineteenth century seems to be praised by everyone for its accuracy.

No one even notices that God is missing.

I think therefore....

2011-07-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

What you think others think is probably a good indication of what you think. Much of what we think, that is much of our attitude toward life, our circumstances and our relationships, lies unacknowledged in our hearts. Often our general opinion of our inner lives has more to do with what we think should be going on there rather than what really is. However, counselors and wise spiritual guides have always known that one of the truest indicators of what someone really thinks, what their attitudes really are, is revealed in their candid assessment of others.

This principle is set forth masterfully in Dickens' Dombey and Son. Mr. Carker the Manager is the trusted assistant of Mr. Dombey, the very rich and very proud protagonist of the novel. When confronted by Mrs. Dombey for his deceitful fawning of his employer, Mr. Carker the Manager explains that if he did not play to Mr. Dombey's pride, someone else would. His justification for his deceitful flattery is that others would do the same, or so he thinks.

Later in the novel, Mr. Carker the Manager accuses his brother John, and all of the lower staff of Dombey and Son, of secretly wishing for the fall of the Great Man, Mr. Dombey. Mr. Carker the Manager cannot believe his brother when he tells him that none of the staff that he knows have any but the highest regard for Mr. Dombey and wish him only good. The Manager calls his brother a liar, so sure is he of the malice in the hearts of others. John's denials do nothing more than strengthen the Manager's conviction, for he reasons that subordinates would never admit such evil thoughts.

But the thoughts are only those of the Manager, thoughts that he projects on others creating an imaginary justification for his own deceitful dealings with his employer.

Why Support Monasteries?

2011-07-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

Monasteries are essential because they pray for the world: "they are blast furnaces of prayer for the world." Also monasteries preserve the wisdom of the faith, not in books, but in the lives of holy people whom we in the world can turn to when everything seems to go upside down. Also monasteries provide a home for single people where they can be freed from selfishness, the selfishness that married people have to overcome in marriage and parenting. Single people do not know that they are selfish (generally speaking). The monastery is a place where singles can be saved from themselves.
Since Orthodoxy is so young in Canada, and monasteries are just in the infant stages of their development here, it may be hard to see their importance. But Orthodoxy in Canada is not normal. It is sick in many ways that healthy monasteries could heal. For example, bishops should come from monasteries. Because we have so few monasteries, most of our bishops are just unmarried men--this is courting trouble. Years of monastic obedience and discipline are necessary to form a man who can bear the weight of the church and not be squeezed by stress into some sort of unhealthy behavior. Bishops and priests need very holy and very wise (and very strict) men as father confessors to help them stay on course.
Yes, of course, we should support the poor in all conditions, but monks and nuns are the best example of the poor we should be supporting.

Dombey and Son #1

2011-07-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am again reading Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens. When I started on my Dickens binge about fifteen or twenty years ago, the first work I read was Dombey and Son. I didn't much enjoy it. I didn't get it.

The story is about a completely self-absorbed, successful businessman who fixates on the fame of his company, Dombey and Son. However, to make his fantasy complete, he needs a son. His firstborn, a daughter, is of no use to him, doesn't even exist (as far as he is concerned) except as one who gets in the way. And yet this daughter is a saint. Out of the dry, rocky ground of emotional abandonment, a flower blossoms.

When I first read Dombey and Son it seemed too fantastic to me that love would take hold in the heart of one so despised by her only parent (mother having died as a result of the birth of her brother, who himself lives only long enough to complete his first year of schooling).

At the time I first read Dombey and Son, I was of the raise-up-your-child-in-the-way-he-should-go school. Like Job's comforters, I thought the lines of cause and effect in relationships were pretty clear: Good, loving parenting produced good, loving children; troubled children came from....[I wouldn't have actually said it, but I thought it]. That's why I didn't get Dombey and Son.

Reading Dombey and Son a second time, now that my children are raising their own children, I see things differently. Maybe I get it more. Maybe the lines of cause and effect, while still important, are much more convoluted, interrupted, and influenced by the inner workings of the child herself and the Grace of God and the mysteries of free will than I had ever imagined. Maybe the inner workings of the child, her dispositions and her choices, her responses to her perceptions and interpretations of what is going on around her (regardless of her parent's good, evil or indifferent intentions), maybe these inner workings of the child have as much (or more) to do with who a child becomes as do the quality of the parental nurturing and other circumstances in which a child finds herself.

This is not to say that parenting is irrelevant--clearly it is not. Rather, it is to say that parenting, even very good parenting and advantageous social and economic circumstances only provide a context, a soil if you will, in which the seed of the child grows. But then children are not seeds. Children are human beings who make choices, who interpret, who assume, hope, doubt, believe. Children are very complicated seeds planted in very complicated soil. The lineaments are not easily traced out.

One aspect of a child's inner workings is her openness to God; or rather, her openness to dependance on God, openness to receive from God. In Dombey and Son, Florence, the saintly yet despised daughter, prays: "it is the pouring out of her full heart," Dickens says. And in her prayer, the finite world of her temporal circumstances opens to take in light and comfort from another realm.

Florence's family certainly provides no sterling example of prayer or godliness. How she learns to pray and receive help from God is a mystery. It's always a mystery. Similarly, many a child raised in a pious family never really seems to get prayer. Some do later in life. Some just fake it. Some don't even try. This too is a mystery.

That flowers can grow out of the scorched earth after a forest fire is amazing. That a saint can come from the barren field of parental neglect is even more amazing. But then, isn't it amazing that anyone in this world is saved, that anyone in this world exhibits the qualities of the next?

Crosses We Bear

2011-07-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

Freedom is one of the crosses we bear. This cross is particularly painful in relation to those whom we love the most. There is no love without freedom.

We want the best for those we love. We do not want them to suffer. We do not want to see them suffer. And sometimes, we can no longer bear suffering with them. We want the suffering to stop, yet we see no end. We do not see how the confusion of the tongues--the pride of mankind resulting in our inability to communicate--how this too is part of God's saving love. We do not see how being crucified by those we love saves them.

In my opinion, the greatest tragedy of theology is that it reduces the Cross to a plan, a schema, a balanced and antiseptic explanation of how. The Cross cannot be explained; it can only be suffered, it can only be endured.
Just as Jesus could have called down legions of angels to avoid the cross, so we can set up defences, legions of explanations, excuses, denials, reasons, theologies, plans, and hopes rooted in delusion, all to avoid the pain of love in freedom, all to keep from having to really let go, to let our hearts be crucified through the freedom we give those we love.

We do not believe the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We do not believe the Parable of the Lost Coin. We do not believe that the suffering of the shepherd in search of the lost sheep will be rewarded. We would rather not suffer so much. Its easier (and makes much more sense too) to keep our heart close to the ninety-nine. But love doesn't make sense. And so love suffers. And so love is crucified.

The enigma of the Prodigal Son is that the loving Father gave everything to his son so that the son could all but destroy himself by means of it. How is that love?

Ah, there I go again, asking for a how. There is no how. Love just is, and it suffers.

The enigma continues in the son coming to his senses. Suffering makes him remember what he had always known. And when he comes to his senses, the son knows that his Father will receive him again. He knows this because his Father has already given him freedom, real freedom--freedom to go and thus freedom to return. Hidden in the heart of the son is the knowledge of his Father's love, a loved demonstrated to him in giving, in suffering, and in freedom, which is the cross.

Transforming the Devil into a Serpent

2011-07-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

SEEING HOW LAZY I AM AT USEFUL THINGS,

THE SUBTLE SERPENT BECKONS ME TO EVIL,

TRANSFORMING HIMSELF TO SHOW ME THE SWEETNESS OF SIN,

THE WICKED WORK OF HIS OWN HANDS,

CONTRARY TO THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD.

THUS, HE PUSHES ME, //

THROUGH EVIL HABITS, TO ACCEPT EVIL FOR GOOD.

(Verse one, Lord I Call, Monday Vespers, Tone Three, Oktoechos, Monastery of The Myrrhbearing Women trans.)

I was struck by this verse as I was chanting it this morning.

Yes, I know it is for vespers, but since I only have vespers printed out of the Oktoechos, and I am only chanting daily matins, I chant the Lord I Called verses for the Kathisma verses of the following day. I will print out the whole thing one of these days, just like one of these days I will chant both daily matins and vespers. But "one of these days" may be a very long way off, so for now I am blessed to pray some evening verses on the following morning.

Now back to what struck me. I was struck by the devil's dependence on us. My laziness and my evil habits transform the devil into the lying serpent of temptation making the bitter fruit of sin seem to me to be sweet. Through my bad habits, the devil is transformed, through my laziness, I am tempted.

What is even more amazing to me is that in the end, I accept evil for good. That is, thinking I am grasping the good, I choose evil. Like Eve in the Garden of Eden, I am deceived. God created me to long for sweetness, but my laziness and my unwillingness to control myself (bad habits) creates a space in which the devil is transformed into a serpent of deception. The snake lies to me. It tells me bitter is sweet and evil is good.

It is strange. Eve did not desire sin. She desired to be wise, to be like God. I do not desire bitterness, but sweetness; not evil, but good. Yet I am deceived--again and again. Somehow within myself I create the space to be deceived. Laziness, lack of attention, mental inertia: these create the eddies, the little vacuums, in which the evil one is transformed into a serpent.

The only little relief I have found is in a kind of constant inner appeal to God for help. This is often in the form of the Jesus prayer (or some similar cry), but is also sometimes in the form of a wordless ache, or sometimes a light and joyful snippet of a hymn, and most seldom but most radiantly in the form of a quiet peacefulness. I don't get there very often. It usually takes work. I have to force myself to pray, to pay attention to the words of prayer. I experience a little relief. And then I get lazy again. I let old habits of thought have their way.

It seems like I create a lot of eddies in my mind for the serpent to fill with misdirected desire.

And through it all, God is merciful, ever waiting to rush to my aid when I call upon Him. He never chastises me for calling on Him. (I think the bitterness that I bring on myself is the chastisement.)

The problem with words

2011-07-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

Words are like husks that carry a germ. This germ comes out of who we are. The husk is what you find in a dictionary. The germ carries the vital force of the seed; it is what determines what plant will sprout from the seed. Sometime, maybe often, the one who listens cannot hear, cannot receive the germ. When we discern that such is the case, it is generally better not to multiply husks.
Silence speaks very loudly. Silence invites the listener to hear differently.
Words have their place, but sometimes that place can only be found in silence.

Truly You Are The God Who Hides Yourself

2011-06-30T14:24:00.000-07:00

The role of a priest is to help people pass from death to life. He has no other calling, no other purpose, no other job to do. Everything a priest does serves this one thing: PASCHA.
The life of every human being is a passage from darkness to light, from deadening passions to enlivening peace. Even the priest himself is making this passage. The one who heals is himself being healed.
I've often wondered why God has chosen to put his Spirit in clay pots, containers made of dirt. Why doesn't God use angels? Why has God chosen to reveal Himself by hiding in the hearts of sinful people? St. Paul says that it is so that the "surpassing power" may be clearly seen as from God and not from man. Sometimes, I confess, the power doesn't seem very surpassing, or very powerful--not that I doubt the power of God--but the dirtiness of the clay is all I can see sometimes.
And yet a light shines in the darkness. The trick is to turn to and follow the light. With our clergy, there will always be plenty of darkness to distract us if that is what we fixate on. God's treasure is in jars of clay. But there is also light, sometimes faint, perhaps, but sparks in the darkness, hints of holiness, brief moments of clarity that point the way to salvation. These are what we must follow. For this is how God has chosen to guide us: through His Spirit hidden in jars of clay.

Clergy Seminar

2011-06-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

For the past three days I have been listening to lectures by Monks from Lebanon, praying three times a day with all of the clergy in the diocese (about eighty of us), eating together and encouraging one another. It has been a huge blessing so far.
The main speaker is the abbot of the St. Michael the Archangel monastery near Tripoli, Lebanon and he is also the Metropolitan of Northern Lebanon. His remarks focused on the need for the priests to be filled with the Holy Spirit--full of peace and virtue. He said that there are no deserts any more. What he meant was that it is no longer possible to escape the world physically (there is even e-mail on Mount Athos). To be saved we must find the quiet desert in our hearts. There we will find the Holy Spirit. It is oh so easy to quench the Holy Spirit. We must "force ourselves" to be quiet so that we can at least begin to pray the words of prayer (the Jesus prayer, for example). Then after a little while, we will feel peace and begin to experience the dawning of real prayer. This is the only gift we have to give the world.
Like Pontius Pilate, everyone around us asks the question, "What is truth?" And not only truth, what is real? What is love? What matters? And like Jesus, we can only remain silent and be who we are. There is no explanation. There are no words. There is only the transformation of the Holy Spirit in the quiet place of our lives. This being-transformed self, who we are, is the only word that can be heard.
This is how we bring the desert to the world. We bring the desert with us. Even at a Marriott hotel in Orange County, it is possible to find the desert.

Praying With The Heterodox

2011-06-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

I received a question from a convert living at home with his heterodox Christian family. He had been advised by a monastic not to pray with heterodox. Obeying this was causing problems at home especially around table grace. Should he say grace before meals with his heterodox Christian mother?

Here is part of my response:

The Church's relationship with the heterodox is not nearly as monolithic as you seem to think. Keep in mind that a person is not a heretic just because he or she is part of a heretical communion. To be a heretic, one must consciously reject Orthodox teaching. So, for example, although some of Origin's teaching was determined to be heretical (a couple hundred years after his death), Origin himself is not a heretic because he did not reject the Orthodox faith: he held some heretical opinions in ignorance but in his lifetime he was never corrected by the Church for the teaching. Similarly, St. Isaac the Syrian was a Nestorian bishop, yet St. Isaac is an Orthodox saint. When NATO started bombing Serbia, there was a city-wide prayer meeting (a vespers service) held at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles and sponsored by the Serbians (a very traditional national Orthodox Church). The Roman Catholic bishop was invited to sit on the front row along with the Armenian, Coptic and Anglican bishops (only Orthodox--all jurisdictions were represented--were at the Altar). And so, to pray for the end of NATO bombing of Serbia, heterodox were invited to join the Orthodox in prayer (but not at the Altar).

If you look closely at the historic situations in which canons were instituted limiting Orthodox interaction with heterodox, you will see that it always has to do with the danger that Orthodox were being seduced by the heterodox. And if you notice how bishops have historically interpreted these canons, you will see that there is great variation. Russian bishops often participated in events and ceremonies in England that involved prayers being offered by Anglican clergy and when Anglican clergy were in Russia, they were invited to participate in events where Orthodox prayers were offered. There was no inter-communion, but a certain amount of praying together was allowed.

What we have in Europe and North America today is unprecedented in Church history. Never before have large numbers of people converted individually (not as whole tribes or nations) to Holy Orthodoxy from heterodox Christian traditions. In the earliest Church, you had people converting from paganism and Judaism, which was different. But even here it is instructive. Notice that in the book of Acts, St. Paul continues to pray at the synagogues. On his last missionary journey, he gets into trouble because he is fulfilling a vow in the Temple at Jerusalem, he is sent to Rome, and the first thing he does there is gather the Jews.

How the True Church has related to those of less-than-true communities has varied throughout history depending on context. That is why we have bishops. It is the responsibility of the bishops (not the abbots of monasteries) to discern how the Church should relate to various heterodox groups. Abbots have a responsibility to their monasteries. Their discernment (Grace) is to guide their monks to holiness. That is as it should be. And certainly, if they think that the bishops have fallen into heresy (which has happened occasionally in history) they should speak up. However, in a matter as pastoral as how converts in the Churches should relate to their heterodox Christian relatives, especially since great variance can be seen in history, I think we should trust our bishops who have been given the Grace to discern such matters. If you were a monk in the monastery, it would be a different matter.

As far as praying over meals is concerned, I think humility is called for. If your mother prays a prayer that is Christian and not heretical, there is no reason why you cannot join her. For example, while it is not Orthodox practice to pray in the name of Jesus instead of in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, neither is it heretical. But this is a matter that calls for discernment. I do not know your family's tradition for table grace nor the exact words of the prayer your mother uses. What I am saying is that love, humility and respect should guide you as you think about these things.

Learning To Be Like Abigail

2011-06-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

"For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:2)

In many ways, the story of Abigail is the story of every Christian, or at least the story we are called to live out.

Just as Abigail is introduced to us married to Nabal (in Hebrew nabal means fool), so we all begin our life married to a fool. The fool each of us is married to is the world, the world the way it is in its fallen condition, our dysfunctional families, our dependance on economic structures that oppress us and others, our bad habits, addictions, prejudices, and various lusts and selfish desires, and our undisciplined minds flooded constantly with contradictory thoughts. Yes, we all begin yoked to a fool.

And though Abigail was married to a fool, she accepts her reality. She is not ashamed to identify herself with the sin of her husband. When Abigail meets David, she immediately prostrates herself before David and says, "O my lord, let this unrighteousness be on me!" Although Abigail's husband had rejected David's servants and although Abigail is at that very moment trying to correct her husband's mistake, Abigail takes the sin on herself. She does not blame her husband. She does not blame her dysfunctional family. She does not blame an addiction or an economic necessity or even an accidental slip. Unlike our great ancestors, Adam and Eve, Abigail blames no one but herself.

But in blaming herself it is not as if Abigail is unaware of the reality that caused the problem. Abigail blames herself while at the same time being aware that her husband had (again) made a foolish (and probably fatal) mistake. In fact, Abigail so identifies with her husband (although he is a fool) that she not only blames herself, but she also takes the initiative to do what is right on behalf of her husband even though her husband had refused to do it. And once she has done her best to repent on behalf of her husband, she accepts the consequences: Abigail tells her husband what she had done--though she wisely waits for an appropriate moment.

In our own lives, we too may know that certain sins and evil, cowardly or impetuously foolish tendencies we find in ourselves indeed have their source in family disfunction, economic realities, addictions or other factors beyond our direct control; yet before Christ, the Son of David, the One to whom we are betrothed, we blame only ourselves. We blame ourselves and we take action. We do what is necessary, what is righteous, to save ourselves and our families and those around us. Like Abigail, we are free to act. And like Abigail, we are somewhat restricted in our freedom, but not completely. (Abigail was restricted due to resources; restricted due to her gender; restricted due to physical constraints like terrain, distance and travel by mule, etc.) Like Abigail, we too must take action, whatever action we can, to save ourselves and those near us "from this perverse generation," to quote St. Peter's sermon on Pentecost.

We can never do enough. Abigail did what she could, David saw it, accepted it, and repented of his plan to wipe out all of the men in Nabal's camp. Abigail saved herself and her family not because she was able to stop David, but because in doing what she could, David accepted it and stopped himself. In the same way we offer to God what we can (100% of what we can--God knows the difference) and God accepts it and shows mercy. And not only does God show mercy. God miraculously delivers us from our oppressors. We do not lift our own hand to smite our oppressor--even if occasionally we have to act in opposition to our oppressor for the sake of our own salvation and theirs. We get along as best as we can with those whom life has thrown us together with--even those who oppress us--until God delivers us from our oppressors.

Just as David did not kill King Saul when he had two chances to do so and although Saul was trying to kill him; and just as Abigail identified herself with her foolish husband, taking his sin on herself and acting to save both herself, her husband and her whole tribe; so we too do not stretch out our hand (or our tongue, our most effective weapon) to smite others. We too wait for God to deliver us. And when God delivers us, He invites us to be His bride: just as David invites Abigail to be his wife after the sudden death of Nabal.

And note Abigail's response to the messengers that David sent (messengers can also be translated angels). It is exactly the same as the response of the Theotokos to the Archangel Gabriel sent to Her by God--"behold your handmaiden." The Theotokos refers to her "low estate." Abigail refers to herself as "a servant to wash the feet of your servants" (i.e. the lowest servant). Humility produced in the furnace of self restraint is the sweetest fruit we offer our Master, our Husband, our Lord.

The Stumbling Block of The Bible: Seeing Myself in King Saul

2011-06-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

"The very stumbling-block of the Bible is its utter simplicity: the mysteries of God are framed into the daily life of average men, and the whole story may seem to be all too human. Just as the Incarnate Lord himself appeared to be an ordinary man."
George Florovsky

I am rereading the biblical history books (1,2 Samuel; 1,2, Kings [=1,2,3,4, Kings] and 1,2 Chronicles) in the Septuagint translation (Orthodox Study Bible). It's a bloody mess. When Florovsky says "the mysteries of God are framed into the daily life of average men," he is talking about average men who lived in a very bloody world. Or, more accurately, in a world where the bloodletting was close at hand, not kept at a distance by economically segregated communities, massive prison populations, and selective immigration policies.

It is easy for me to judge harshly the violence of the "average men" during the reign of Kings Saul and David. I've never been faced with an invading army that is willing to let everyone in my city live as their slaves only after they blind our right eyes (1 Samuel/ 1Kings 11:2). Whether or not I would have found the grace to turn the other cheek (the other eye?), I do not know. Whether or not I would have found the grace to watch my loved ones blinded, then sold to the highest bidder to be used however it pleased them, I do not know. I do know, however, that the Native American proverb holds true here: "Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins."

But even here, in this very bloody world of the biblical history, God is not absent. A man, Saul, is small in his own eyes--until he gets a taste of power. Once Saul is esteemed a hero, he takes to himself the priesthood too, presuming to offer sacrifice in the name of expediency instead of waiting (as told) for the Prophet Samuel to arrive. Instead of obeying Samuel in the specific command to "wipe out" the Amalekites (men, women, children and animals), Saul saves the king and the best sheep and cattle for sacrifice.

This last and greatest failure of Saul intrigues me. Again, Saul takes on himself the role of the priest and builds an altar in Carmel and offered sacrifices. Again, he explains to Samuel that it was a matter of expedience, "for the people."

How often have I let expedience drive me? Samuel says of Saul's excuse that listening to (hearing) God and obeying God is better than sacrifice; that this sin (of not listening to God) is the same as divination (witchcraft) and idolatry (12:22,23).

Not listening to God is the same as witchcraft and idolatry? Maybe I need to take it easy on the Wicca folks too. Maybe I'm not too far from them. How often do I let expediency hurry me into actions and words that I later realize are not appropriate, that are sinful? Much more often than I'd like to admit.

My tendency, sometimes, to avoid times of quiet listening may be the cause of many of my sins. I may, for the sake of expediency, hurry to do what seems popular, seems religious, seems urgent at the moment. When I don't wait quietly, when I don't listen, I become like King Saul. I may even commit sins that are as witchcraft and idolatry.

May God have mercy on me and teach me to listen.

Logocratic Tendencies

2011-06-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

A Greek priest in Athens with whom I have been corresponding recently noted that Protestant converts to Orthodoxy have a "logocratic" mentality. He went on to suggest that this logocracy keeps them from entering very deeply into the Mystery of the Faith. "Logocracy" means rule of or by words.

I thought some of my blog readers might be interested in reading my response:

Dear Fr. C.

Christ is in our midst!

Thank you for your insightful letter. I was particularly intrigued by your characterization of Protestant converts as "logocratic." To tell you the truth, I had to do a little research to find out exactly what that word means. It is not in my standard dictionary. I found it, however, on Wikipedia.

I think that logocratic is an excellent word to describe the habit of western thought generally. I often struggle to express Orthodox concepts/experiences/beliefs/practices because the very words I must use (in English) imply limitations and logic that are not part of the Orthodox Christian experience. And these words are important to western minds. For many, the words are the reality; or the words represent a specific, delineated reality. There is no conception in many western minds of Mystical reality that can only be noetically apprehended and for which words are only and at best metaphors pointing at a reality that cannot be delineated by the human mind.

I was discussing this with my wife this morning and she pointed out how in a family, words are flexible and meanings are fluid because the love within the family is what is known and expressed through the words. In fact, the very tweaking of words and the heavy dependence on tone in intimate family talk shows that the words themselves are not what is important. Rather the words (along with tone, gesture, facial expression, etc.) point to that which cannot be contained by mere words. However, somewhere in middle school it begins to be drilled into children that words have precise meanings and something either is X or is not X.

Perhaps this nonfamilial way of thinking that western (and thus Protestant) adults are so steeped in is part of the reason why they often have trouble accepting Mystery and have trouble emotionally connecting with the Holy Virgin Mother of God. They want Her to be delimited. They want Her to be defined. They have forgotten how to know a Mother, how words are used in a loving family. And I think this also is part of the reason why western minds have trouble with the intercession of the saints and perhaps even with their whole relationship with God. When one's relationship with God is reduced to words, to juridical definitions, it is pretty hard to experience a loving relationship with the God whom the Holy Spirit in us calls out to as Abba Father. It is pretty hard to know the familial love and intimate sharing of all the Saints.

For myself, for my first three years after becoming Orthodox, I accepted the words of the Orthodox faith, but it was not until a particular crisis in my life that I began to know personally and connect emotionally with the Mother of God, and through Her, the Saints. And even after that, it has taken many years to feel a kind of familial intimacy and security (not without fear--but not fear of rejection) in my relationship with God. I have come to the point that I can say in prayer, "Lord, I am a mess; but I am your mess." I feel before God as a three year old before his Mother and Father. The child may lose control of himself or in some way fail miserably, but the love and protection and care of the Mother and Father is never doubted. This sort of experience of God is, I think, rare in western forms of Christianity.

Sincerely in Christ,

Fr. Michael Gillis

A Parable: by an Orthodox Christian priest who has just returned from an ecumenical gathering of largely Evangelical clergy

2011-06-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

Once there was a starving man who found a field of potatoes, and finding the potatoes, he found life. Potatoes alone were enough to keep him alive.

One day a family took a drive out into the countryside for a picnic and happened across the man saved by potatoes. He was a gaunt and sickly man with little strength, but he was alive and thanked God for his potatoes.

“What are all of those things you are eating?” the skinny potato man asked.

“Apples and corn and potatoes and ham and cake for dessert,” they replied.

“Cake for dessert? the man inquired.

“Yes, cake for dessert. Would you like some?”

“Certainly not," said the potato man. "You don’t need cake and ham and corn and apples to stay alive. Potatoes are enough. Look at me. I was dying of starvation and potatoes saved me. Everything I needed was in potatoes.”

The family was shocked. “You mean you only eat potatoes?

“Of course. Don’t you know: God gave us potatoes to eat so that we could stay alive. Potatoes are all we need to eat. Everything else just gets in the way and detracts from what's really important: Potatoes. Potatoes will give you life. 'If it’s not in the potato, then you don’t need it and shouldn't waste your time on it'--that’s my motto.”

Not knowing how to respond to this, the family sat in silence for a while. Then one them said, “We know that God gave us potatoes, but God gave us other food too. Potatoes by themselves are not enough.

“You’re wrong there,” said the potato man. “Potatoes were enough for me. I was dying and potatoes saved me.”

“Yes,” said one slightly overweight but otherwise healthy family member, “I understand that potatoes alone, by God’s grace, may keep a starving man alive for a long time, but God has also given us many other foods that are meant to be eaten along side potatoes. These other foods supply what is lacking in potatoes.”

“Nothing is lacking in potatoes,” insisted the man. “Everything you need is there. Potatoes are God’s gift, and if you don’t eat potatoes you will not find life.”

Stunned into silence, the family could say nothing more. Soon the potato man turned and made his way back into his potato field. The family began to look a each other and eventually shared a nervous giggle. Perplexed and a little saddened they returned to their meal and finished off all of the apples and corn and bread and ham and cake...and potatoes.

What is Not-Church?

2011-06-15T07:24:00.000-07:00

Orthodox Christians affirm that Orthodoxy is the True Faith: That the Orthodox Church is the True Church. Many heterodox Christians are offended by the exclusivity of such a claim. I suggest that they are offended because they think we mean by such a claim what they would mean if they made a similar claim. I do not think we do.

Of course, among Orthodox Christians there exists a range of opinion as to what exactly "True Church" implies. There are a few who argue with the zeal of 17th century Puritans that those outside the Orthodox Church do not have the Holy Spirit and are hopelessly deluded. You can find their message all over the Internet. Thank God this is a small minority. There are some who argue with almost no zeal at all (in my experience) that the differences between the churches are merely qualitative. The Orthodox Church is the best, but they lose no sleep over their children marrying a Catholic or an Anglican and raising their grandchildren in those traditions.

For my own part, I like to say that we Orthodox know where the Church is, but we do not know where it is not. That is, I know that the teaching of the Orthodox Church, its Mysteries, its structure, canons, and its spiritual life are true. I don't know about the Anglicans. I don't know about the Catholics. I know that many, many aspects of Anglican Church and the Catholic Church are similar--apparently the same--as the Orthodox Church, especially the Orthodox Church of the pre-schism West. On the other hand, I know that there are several matters that are not the same. Some of those matters are, from an Orthodox perspective, matters of heresy and manifest serious perversions of the Church.

HOWEVER (and it is a big however), I do not know what constitutes "not church." There have been times when Orthodox bishops have given permission (economia) in emergency situations (i.e. battlefields, etc.) for Orthodox Christians to receive the Eucharist from Roman Catholic priests. Certainly the Orthodox Church recognizes the marriages and baptisms of Catholics and Anglicans (well, recently Anglicans have become a little spotty. You can never tell if the priest(ess) actually baptized in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit or in the name of the Parent, Lover and Friend). But my point is this, while I can say easily that the Orthodox Church is the True Church, the True Faith; I cannot so easily say that what is not Orthodox is therefore not Church--although some Orthodox Christian can easily say it. I cannot. It seems to me that God has revealed what the Church is, but it takes (at least) a series of Ecumenical Councils to determine what the Church is not.

For me it is somewhat like saying the only true human being is Jesus Christ. Those who sin are somehow less than human, but they are not nonhuman beings. Something remains even though something has been lost.

I am particularly nervous when Orthodox Christians begin to apply Aristotelean logic to their faith. What I mean is that I understand how a non-Orthodox Christian could argue, "Either, or, if, then, and therefore." This is how western Christianity became what it is today (a mess of 25,000 denominations). Noetic apprehension and mystical contemplation have been almost completely lost in the West. So western Christians use what they have. But for an Orthodox Christian to apply such mathematical logic to matters of Mystery seems to me to be a colossal failure. Knowing what the Church is does not "logically" lead us to what the Church is not.

"The Wind blows where it will," Jesus said, "you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going." I know/know of very Christian men and women who are not Orthodox, yet the "sound" of the Holy Spirit in their lives is so loud that I am almost ashamed to call myself a Christian in comparison. I can criticize aspects of their faith and practice and certainly point out that they are not Orthodox, but to say that they are not somehow part of the Body of Christ, the Church, I cannot say.

There is no "mystical church" in the Protestant sense--no church made up of all real believers regardless of their affiliation. The Church is historical. It is in time and space. It is identifiable. However, history is messy. St. Isaac the Syrian was a member of the heretical Nestorian Church. There must have been enough "Church," enough of an echo of the Orthodox Faith in the heterodox Nestorian Church to produce such a saint. Then there is the famous example of a prayer attributed to St. Philaret of Moscow that begins,"Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace." Fr. Thomas Hopko has discovered that this prayer was originally written by a Roman Catholic bishop in France, François Fénelon, and popularized in Russia by St. Philaret. Again, there must have been enough "Church" in the heterodox Latin Church of France in the 18th century to produce such a man who could write such a prayer, a prayer offered by millions of Orthodox Christians daily.

I am not saying that a heterodox group is the True Church because it produces a true saint. What I am saying is that even within heterodox Christian assemblies, there remains something of the True Church. How much remains, how Grace functions in it, what does or doesn't take place in their sacraments, I do not know. Like I said, I don't know what the Church isn't.

Love Wins - An Orthodox View

2011-06-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

I think this little demonstration goes a long way to explaining some of the central differences between the way Orthodox Christians understand salvation and the way most Protestants understand it. Of course we have a rough summary here that experts would want to nuance. But I think he fairly presents the gist of the matter in a clear and simple way.

a life together: too ecumenical?

2011-06-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

I'm a third of the way into a life together by (OCA retired) Bishop Seraphim Sigrist (2011 Paraclete Press) He reminds me of many of the mid 20th century Orthodox thinkers who were much more ecumenically minded than many of the writers of today. By ecumenical, I do not mean that they advocate the obliteration of boundaries. They do not, as they are sometimes falsely accused, argue that there are no important or real differences between the Orthodox Church and heterodox churches. What they do argue is that the Christian mystery, transformation in Christ by the Holy Spirit, is not limited to the Church--and in worse case scenarios is hindered by some of the people in the Orthodox Church.

Nowadays, there is a kind of backlash led in good part by some on Mt. Athos, insisting on the Old Calendar, baptism of all converts from any heterodox Christian background, and generally very strict observance of outward ascetic practices.

I don't think one is right and the other wrong. I think both charisms are within the Church and we only hurt one another trying to force a sort of Aristotelian "either/or" onto what sometimes seems to be the contradictory opinions of holy and faithful Orthodox men and women.

The metaphor that has been on my mind a lot lately is that of the icon: the image and the materials. The materials are used to form the image, and they share in the reality of the image, but they are not the image. The materials are very important. The correct materials make it possible to create the most perfect images, images that will last for centuries. However, correct materials do not guarantee correct images. In fact, the best materials can be wrongly used to create idols or images of demons. Moreover, it is possible to produce pretty good images even with less than perfect materials.

What is my point? It is that the image of Christ is the most important thing. Yes, the materials are essential (doctrine, liturgics, ascetic tradition, etc.). They are essential to form the image of Christ. However, if Christ is not being formed, the same materials may be being used to form the image of deformity and pride. Similarly, the heterodox, those with inadequate materials, less than Orthodox doctrine, very little ascetic practice, make-it-up-as-you-go liturgy, these can yet form the image of Christ in those who long for transformation. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is not limited. He can use even a broken stylus to write on the human heart.

Does this mean that the Orthodox Way is irrelevant? Certainly not! The elements of the very Orthodox faith itself that survive within the heterodox groups, these are what lead them to Christ. Orthodox faith is a light shining: don't put it under a basket! In fact, Orthodoxy is such a light that it shines even to those trapped under the baskets of false doctrine and many the debilitating inadequacies found in heterodox communions. "The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it."

However, we put the light of the Orthodox faith under a basket when we ourselves refuse to be transformed into the image of Christ. When the Fruit of the Spirit is not evident in our lives, how can the Light of the Holy Spirit shine through us to enlighten others? We must glow with godliness, with the same love that led our Lord to lay down his life for the Pharisees, the Samaritans, the Greeks, the Barbarians and false believers and unbelievers of all sorts.

Being right (Orthodox) means very little if we are not holy. If Sodom and Gomorrah will rise up in judgement against Tyre and Sidon, I wonder if on the Last Day some Mormons or Buddhists or Moslems or Secular Humanists will rise up against me in judgement because I have not repented with my whole heart, given the wealth of Orthodox faith and tradition I have received.

May God grant me tears of repentance to cleanse my eyes to see the Image of Christ in every and any human being, even the most confused and the most deprived of light.

Dom Christian de Chergé

2011-06-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

Below is a testament written by a Cistercian monk, Dom Christian de Chergé,  shortly before he was martyred by Muslim terrorists in Algeria. I recommend this testament to every Orthodox Christian.

I have noticed a tinge of fear and sometimes anger in the discussion among Orthodox Christians in North America regarding Islam. It seems that many are relying more on CNN and Fox News to set their tone than they are the Scripture and the Holy Fathers. Perhaps those of us of the True Faith can learn a little something from a Roman Catholic (Cistercian) monk who has been revealed as a martyr of Christ.

The story of the monks and their monastery is told in the 2010 movie, Of Gods and Men. Every North American should see this film.

Facing a GOODBYE....

If it should happen one day - and it could be today -
that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf all the foreigners living in Algeria,
I would like my community, my Church and my family
to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country. I ask them to accept the fact that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure.
I would ask them to pray for me:
for how could I be found worthy of such an offering?
I ask them to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones which are forgotten through indifference or anonymity.
My life has no more value than any other.
Nor any less value.
In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood.
I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems to prevail so terribly in the world,
even in the evil which might blindly strike me down.
I should like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.
I could not desire such a death.
It seems to me important to state this.
I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder.
It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called, the "grace of martyrdom" to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he might be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.
I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on the Algerians indiscriminately.
I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism fosters.
It is too easy to soothe one's conscience by identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists.
For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: it is a body and a soul.
I have proclaimed this often enough, I think, in the light of what I have received from it.
I so often find there that true strand of the Gospel which I learned at my mother's knee, my very first Church, precisely in Algeria, and already inspired with respect for Muslim believers.
Obviously, my death will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naïve or idealistic:
"Let him tell us now what he thinks of his ideals!"
But these persons should know that finally my most avid curiosity will be set free.
This is what I shall be able to do, God willing:
immerse my gaze in that of the Father to contemplate with him His children of Islam just as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and restore the likeness, playing with the differences.
For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God, who seems to have willed it entirely for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of everything.
In this THANK YOU, which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families,
You are the hundredfold granted as was promised!
And also you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing:
Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this GOODBYE to be a "GOD-BLESS" for you, too,
because in God's face I see yours.
May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.
AMEN !   INCHALLAH !

Algiers, 1st December 1993

Tibhirine, 1st January 1994

A New Dog

2011-06-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

Bonnie and I have been wanting a large dog. We live in the countryside, and Bonnie gets a little nervous when I'm out of town. I've been wanting a large dog for other reasons: mostly because a dog under 50 lb. just doesn't seem like a real dog to me.

The last time we got a large dog was in Pomona, near L.A. There, we just went down to the dog pound, picked one out, paid a small licensing fee, and went home. It's not so easy in Langley, BC. At the Langley Animal Shelter, you get interviewed. Then your home gets inspected. Then the dog visits your home. Then you sign papers saying that you will treat your dog almost as well as a human being. Then you pay $350 (which is actually the cheapest of all the animal shelters in the Vancouver area). And finally, the dog is yours. Bonnie and I just couldn't get excited about paying that much money to have a self-appointed 20 year-old animal advocate asking us personal questions and snooping around our home.

Buying a dog out right isn't much better. A mutt puppy costs hundreds and a pure-bred anything is over a thousand.

So Bonnie and I did what we usually do when we do not feel right about our options: we did nothing. Although, nothing is not really accurate. We wanted, and we offered our wanting to God. Bonnie and I both had a peaceful sense that if God wanted us to have a large dog, God would make it obvious to us....

On Sunday, Bonnie had to stop by the Co-op to buy some flowers before Church, and on the bulletin board was a card saying: 10 month old female German Shepherd: free to a good home. Bonnie took down the number.

After Coffee Hour, Bonnie told me about it and we decided to call. We were invited to meet Kota and her current owner, Dave. Dave got Kota from a friend six months earlier. The friend had paid over a thousand dollars for her, but in a few weeks realized that he could not keep a german shepherd puppy in an apartment and be gone to work all day. Dave offered to take Kota to his farm in South Langley where Dave house-trained her and did some basic obedience work with her. Dave socialized her (she loves people) and began conditioning her to be a companion dog. Then this spring Dave realized that he was spending almost as much money feeding Kota and his other two large dogs as he was spending on feeding himself. Dave had to find Kota a home.

Bonnie and I got along very well with Kota (I brought some dog treats, which helped). Dave explained that he had about 30 calls and had invited several people over. He was looking for the right match. He wanted someone who had room for the dog to run but who wanted her as a companion--which is exactly what we were looking for. It didn't take much convincing. Dave let us have Kota.

Although Bonnie and I are happy about a new big dog, our little dog, Tidbit, is very unhappy. As some of you who follow this blog know, Tidbit has had a very bad experience with coyotes, so any large dog seems like a coyote to her. Well it's day two and Tidbit (while being held in Bonnie's arms) will at least let Kota smell her and Tidbit herself is now sneaking an occasional sly sniff of Kota (when she is looking the other way).

For right now we are keeping Kota on a leash as we walk around the house and around the yard. She has to learn that ducks and geese and turkeys and chickens our part of the family too (not play toys). Also, this is helping Tidbit not freak out too much as she can easily escape Kota when she wants to play.

As you can imagine, Bonnie and I are getting nothing done. One of us has to be holding the leash at all times--except, like now, Kota is in my office with me, and Bonnie is with the other dogs elsewhere. Thank God Kota is already partially trained and obeys simple commands (as well as a ten month old can).

It seems that Kota is an answer to prayer for us; but "prayer"seems too strong a word. She is a gift, it seems, from God. May God help us to be faithful with all of the gifts He give us.

Some Christian Commandments

2011-05-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

Twelve Commandments given by an angel to the Holy Apostle Hermas (commemorated May 31): 1. Believe in God; 2. Live in simplicity and innocence; do not speak evil: give alms to all who beg; 3. Love truth and avoid falsehood; 4. Preserve chastity in your thoughts; 5. Learn patience and generosity; 6. Know that a good and an evil spirit attend every man; 7. Fear God and fear not the devil; 8. Perform every good act, and refrain from every evil deed; 9. Pray to God from the depth of your soul with faith that your prayer will be fulfilled; 10. Guard against melancholy, the sister of doubt and anger; 11. Test true and false prophecies; 12. Guard against every evil desire.

This is a summary. In "The Shepherd of Hermas" (chapter 5) a full paragraph of explanation follows each mandate.

What Is Abuse?

2011-05-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

A friend has asked a couple of very important questions and I’d like to address them. The questions are as follows:

Fr Michael your disclaimer intrigues me. I have never really understood where the line is between enduring insults, injustice, persecutions, etc. and rejoicing... and something supposedly psychologically unhealthy like enduring abuse.

Secondly I find it very curious that "abuse" seems to be a modern category unaddressed in the scriptures (for example child abuse, spousal abuse, etc.). How valid is the distinction between abuse and just plain sin, and is there some sort of difference in the spiritual treatment for these?
Why do you suppose the scriptures do not address abuse directly as a category unto itself?

I will attempt to answer these two questions together (in my usual rambling way).

There is no line between abuse and enduring persecution. That is, there is no line outside ourselves. The exact same “abuse” that makes a saint out of one person can destroy another. It all depends on the Grace of God, and more specifically our ability to be open to the Grace of God.

The fathers make it pretty clear that ascetic endeavor must always be freely entered into. Even when the ascetic practice is unchosen or forced upon one, for the Grace of God to have its full work in us, we must accept the deprivation (make a virtue out of necessity). The same thing is true about persecution. We are commanded to avoid persecution: Jesus said, “When they persecute you in one city, flee to the next.” However, when captured, when one cannot flee (or cannot in good conscience flee), then one must entrust oneself to the Grace of God.

In a family situation, certainly there are holy men and woman who have endured with rejoicing and thanksgiving by the Grace of God relationships that are commonly called abusive. But please note, and this is very important, that it is only by the Grace of God that holiness is produced by such suffering. It is a grave mistake to assume that one “should be able to” endure or find grace in a situation that is just not Grace filled--especially if escape is possible. Not to flee when flight is possible is to disobey the words of Jesus, it is to throw your body on the Roman pikes to become a martyr--a practice condemned by the Church.

I find it interesting that the hymns of the Church seldom talk about someone becoming a martyr. Rather they talk about someone being revealed as a martyr. That is, someone is a martyr before their mode of death reveals them as a martyr. Certainly we are all called to martyrdom, to lay down our life for Christ; but the path for each is different. And more to the point, the calling and growth in that calling are different for each believer. It is nothing but pride to assume that you can become a martyr by enduring what God has not given you the Grace to endure.

Actually, I know some people who have become quite saintly by remaining in uncomfortable family settings, but in all of the cases, nothing like physical or severe emotional abuse was taking place. In every case, the holiness of the person was revealed in his or her loving care for aged parents or a disabled child, remaining faithful to a sexually promiscuous spouse or in a particular case, raising nine (or ten, I lost count) very healthy children in a culture that calls three too many. Notice I said “holiness was revealed.” Of course the process of growing in holiness and the revelation of that holiness are mystically the same. And yet the truth remains that there is no doing without being. Attempting to do what you are not always ends in disaster.

The word “abuse” is indeed merely a modern term often used to refer to behavior as trite as someone using crude language in your presence or someone who doesn’t fixate on your aches, pains, worries and fears as much as you do. I have heard abuse used to describe all sorts of behavior that I consider near normal, though often crudely presented. (Consider the source--some people might consider me abusive.) That is not what I mean by abuse. What I mean by abuse cannot really be defined by outward behavior, for each person’s limits, expectations and ability to endure are different. Also there are matters such as love (human and divine) and sense of duty and calling that also play into the matter.

Abuse, as I use the word, has to do with the inner experience of the abused. If he or she cannot find Grace to endure with thanksgiving (this is assuming the person has already searched diligently to find such Grace through prayer and counsel) and he or she can flee, then I think flight is not only appropriate but necessary. When flight is impossible, then matters are different. Then, like the Christians thrown into the gulag or someone with a debilitating handicap, there is no choice. When there is no choice the dynamic changes. And since I have never found myself in such a dire situation, I better not presume to speak about it.

Hell Is A Difficult Place To Go To.

2011-05-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hell is a difficult place to go to. I made this comment a couple of blogs ago in the context of Pauline’s contest with temptation (in Charles Williams’ Descent Into Hell). As someone commented on that blog entry, such a thought is counterintuitive.

Jesus’ words seem to say exactly the opposite: “Wide is the gate and broad is the way,” Jesus says, “that leads to destruction, and there be many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” According to Jesus, the way leading to life is difficult, not the way to to destruction. So what do I mean by saying that hell is a difficult place to go to?

One thing I mean by saying this is that God does not let us go to hell without warnings. One has to intentionally ignore and eventually “sear as with a hot iron” his or her own conscience, shut out the voices of those who love (even a little), and refuse to learn from the pain-filled lessons of life in order to eventually find oneself lost in hell. God does not desire that any perish, so God has done and continues to do all He can to guide us in the right way. God does all He can do as God, which means that he doesn’t lie to us. The red flags tell us the awkward, uncomfortable, painful truth. Temptation lies. This is where its power comes from. And here is the profound irony of our sinful ways: we choose the lie knowing it’s a lie and knowing that the temporary sedative temptation offers will be paid for with greater suffering later. We know it, yet we choose it. Surely hell is a difficult place to go to.

Another thing I mean by saying this is that no matter which way you go, it is difficult. Notice Jesus did not say that the path leading to destruction was easy. Since the curse in the Garden, no one gets through life without a lot of suffering. In fact there is a certain sense in which you can say that life in a fallen condition is already hell for beings created in the image of God. “In sins did my mother conceive me” ; death has been pressing in on me from my very conception. Certainly one can say that for those who are choosing darkness, life in this world is a hellish foretaste of things to come; while for those being saved, life in this fallen world is the shadow of the hell they are escaping. The road to hell is difficult, and so is the road to salvation: they are just different kinds of difficult. Or perhaps better, the same difficult with different sauces.

The narrow path is the difficult path with humility; the broad path is also the difficult path but with pride. The truth requires humility for it reveals that I am a creature, a fallen creature. The darkness lies. It says I can hide and pretend to be whoever I want to be. I can pretend that I am good, I can pretend that others exist to serve me, I can pretend that it’s not my fault (it’s “that woman you gave me,” as that first Adam put it).

The Doctrine of Substituted Love

2011-05-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

One of the most important ideas in Charles William’s Descent into Hell is called “The Doctrine of Substituted Love.” This is William’s attempt to apply the Christian principle of bearing one another’s burdens (...and so fulfilling the Law of Christ) in a way that goes beyond the common interpretation of this Christian imperative. Most people interpret “bearing one another’s burdens” to mean helping each other out in practical ways. But he wants to see it as something deeper, a core principle of the universe, the principle by which Christ could bear the sins of the world. So Williams invents the metaphysical possibility of actually bearing someone else’s fear (and one assumes other negative emotions) so that the other no longer experiences it.

In the novel, the staretz-like old poet Stanhope bears on behalf of Pauline her fear of meeting her double. (One might argue that this is an irrational fear, so Stanhope is merely playing a psychological trick on Pauline. But my experience is that almost all crippling fear is irrational, and psychological tricks almost never work. If they did, several pharmaceutical companies would go out of business.) Stanhope imagines (or something like imagines) Pauline’s fearful experience and feels her fear for her. And because Pauline accepts that Stanhope will bear her fear, she doesn’t experience any.

I like the fact that Williams is trying to find a deeper meaning and application for bearing one another’s burdens, but from an Orthodox Christian perspective, I think he is off the mark here. Emotions such as fear are of course normal and healthy when indeed there is something that one should fear. However, fear becomes unhealthy, becomes what the Church might call a passion, when it is debilitating or is based on unreality. Deliverance from passions only comes through confession and repentance (and maybe some plain old counseling), a process generally requires the guidance and encouragement of someone wiser and more spiritually experienced than yourself. While it is possible for one person to hold in his or her heart other people (even the whole world, I am told) and suffer with them (i.e. com-passion), I do not think it is possible to transfer the suffering away from one person onto oneself.

But I do agree with Williams that there is a deeper meaning and application for bearing one another’s burdens. I would like to suggest that one Orthodox Christian way to understand the bearing of another’s burdens can be evoked by looking at some of Jesus’ sayings from the Sermon on the Mount. Some of the well know and seldom practiced sayings include “turn the other cheek” and “go the extra mile.” Thinking about St. Paul’s exhortation to bear one another’s burdens while reflection on the Sermon on the Mount, I get the impression that bearing the burden of the other has a lot to do with bearing with, putting up with, and accepting the inconvenient, nettlesome, tiring, and sometimes rude, hurtful or maybe just boring behavior of your neighbor (the ones near you).

[Disclaimer: Whenever I say something along this line I must make clear that I am not talking about putting up with long-term violent and abusive behavior. Generally in such cases the most loving thing to do (under the guidance of a counselor or pastor) is to flee, and leave the abuser to learn from the consequences of his or her actions.]

Most of the time, however, bearing the burden of another not a matter of heroic might. It is a matter of gentle endurance, kindness in response to thoughtlessness, mercy toward the shortcomings of others, patience when others don’t see how important something is to you, and stubborn refusal to fight fire with fire. To bear the burdens of others is to prefer to suffer than to cause others to suffer.