Straight Talk to a Single Christian About Sex

Dear Friend,

I would like to respond somewhat backwards to your questions about sex beginning with your questions, "Where are the healthy Orthodox Christian marriages in the hagiography? and Why does the Church seem so down on the pleasure of sex?" and then move to the matter of ontologically-based sexual morality, and finally offer some suggestions and some advice about how to think about this matter.  I will speak directly and not pull any punches.  May God help us both!

That you only mention pleasure in reference to Orthodox Christian teaching about sexuality and the saints in your letter identifies you and I both as products of a post birth control, post antibiotic generation, a very, very new phenomenon in history.  The Fathers always connect the pleasure of sex with the pain of childbearing (which includes not only the birth itself, but also the care for and raising of children) along with other relational burdens (such as your body no longer belonging to yourself but to your partner--cf 1 Corinthians 7) and the myriad of diseases that are the fruit of unrestrained sexual practice.  All of these are or can be part of the "pain" that accompanies the pleasure of a relationship that is sexually intimate.  That you and I so easily separate the two perhaps shows how out of step with the Church we are as products of this culture.

Children and the burden of caring for them and raising them into healthy human beings is and always has been the principle (but not exclusive) purpose of sexual intercourse--this is a fact of biology first of all, and only secondarily a matter theology. So, not too long ago historically speaking, the only way to avoid the responsibility of children was to avoid sexual intercourse. If you wanted the leisure to learn to read and to pray with any regularity and discipline, the only two practical options were monasticism or great wealth.  Anyone who was not very wealthy and yet wanted to develop a prayer life or an intellectual life had only one option: celibacy.  If you had sex, you had kids that you had to feed, protect and shelter.  If you were celibate, you only had to care for yourself, and in an intentional community that ate very little and worked very hard (a monastery), it was possible to devote lots of time to prayer and study.  Since the only people for most of history who could read and write anyway were monks, it makes sense that most of what is written about saints in the past is about celibate men and women--or married men and women who became celibate.  However, you don't have to read too deeply to figure out that many of the saints had robust sex lives--even though (for obvious reasons) it is not mentioned explicitly.

The parents (or one of the parents) of many of the saints are also saints.  And these saints came from large families.  Something must have been going on.  Or take our Holy Foreparents Abraham and Sarah (and Sts. Joachim and Anna, and Zachariah and Elizabeth) for example.  They must have still been sexually active in old age if they were still earnestly praying for children in their eighties and nineties--and when they finally do have a child, it is through God-aided regular biology, not immaculate conception.  However, the Orthodox Church very seldom addresses sex directly, except where it goes wrong--which is how the Orthodox Church deals with just about everything: The Church does not multiply dogma unless there is a need.  Saints with children are Saints who are having sex, and if they have a lot of children into their old age, then they are probably enjoying lots of sex for a long time, but obviously that is not what you want to focus on if you are a monk writing for other monks.

If a married man and woman wanted to devote their life to prayer and study, however, then for most of history they had to live together as brother and sister.  In such cases dealing with desire is a huge issue.  And that is why a lot of the Church's writing about sex focuses on controlling desire.  Even St. Paul talks about this in the New Testament.  It has not been at all uncommon in the Church that married people have stopped having sex--not because the pleasure is bad, but because the freedom from responsibility for children is more desirable than the desire for sexual pleasure.  However, that does not make the desire for pleasure go away. And that is why a lot of the Church's writing about sex focuses on controlling desire. It is not unlike the problem with diet.   The desire to be healthy and be of a reasonable weight does not make the desire for the pleasure of eating fattening and unhealthy foods go away.  The Fathers are quick to point out that because of the nature of the world after the fall, pleasure is always coupled with pain, the roses always have thorns.  We have to pick our pleasures.  Who do we want to be?

Which brings me to the matter of ontology--how sex relates to what we are, to our being as creatures of God.  Before the fall, we were certainly sexual creatures, Genesis makes that pretty clear; but we were not driven by sexual passions.  So if we want to talk about sexuality rooted in ontology, then we have to deal with the problem of passion.  Ah, there’s the rub.  Human beings, male and female (together) are created in God's image.  So to understand how sex relates to our being as creatures of God, we have to look at what God says about sex relating to Himself--and in the Bible and the liturgies of the Church, God says a lot about Himself using sexual language. God is the Bridegroom who betroths humanity to himself as a virgin bride.  God has no other lovers.  God does not "consummate" the marriage until the "Wedding Supper of the Lamb."  God suffers everything to present to himself a virgin bride.  The sexuality of man and woman created in God's image reflects this; or rather, the way the Church talks about God using sexual metaphor reflects God's relationship with human kind seen most clearly in how human beings were created to relate to one another sexually.  

Ontologically speaking, we are virgins who offer our virginity to God our Groom who has purchased us with His Life and cares for us forever.  Biological virginity is the manifestation in time and space of this ontological reality.  Thus, there are two states in Christian anthropology: the virgin bride of God expressed in either the monastic state that iconically manifests the virginal longing of the espoused bride for the Bridegroom, or the married state that iconically manifest the longing fulfilled in the fruitfulness (and faithfulness!) of God's ultimate consummated relationship with mankind.  Anything else is an aberration.  Aberrations, though,  are not the end of the story.  God continually calls his unfaithful spouse back to Himself.  Biological virginity is meant to be a manifestation of a deeper, inner virginity--an inner virginity that can be restored through repentance even if the outer virginity has been lost  (i.e. St. Mary of Egypt is listed among the Holy Virgin Women).  

Stepping down from ontology to morality, we have to admit that morality is often influenced by culture.  Yes, King David had many wives and concubines (although he did take responsibility for them and their children for the rest of their lives).  We can also point out that many Christians (Orthodox or otherwise) completely ignore certain Biblical and canonical prohibitions against, for example, lending money at interest and other moral teachings of the Bible or the Church Fathers (e.g. the prohibition against selling church properties, the commandment to tithe, the prohibition against work on the Sabbath/Sunday or against taking a fellow Christian to secular court).  However, in spite of some pockets of cultural waffling or slippage in some areas of the Church’s moral teaching, the moral teaching regarding sexual behaviour has been amazingly consistent throughout both Jewish and Christian history and in multiple different cultural settings.  Even in the midst of secular cultures that were very sexually loose, Christians have never allowed polygamy (or polyandry for that matter) and have only reluctantly allowed divorce (or annulment, which has become a longer and more expensive route to the same end).  Even in ancient Jewish contexts that allowed polygamy, it was expected that the husband was to care for all wives and concubines and their children for life.  And certainly in all Jewish and Christian contexts--I really cannot think of one exception--any sexual intercourse outside of marriage was considered a moral failure, a failure that at least for Christians can be forgiven and healed, but a sin nonetheless, a missing of the mark.  This universality of understanding about sexual morality is, it seems to me, quite significant.  

But what do we do now?  What do we do in an age of birth control and penicillin?  And what do we do in a culture of sexual license?  Well first regarding modern medical technology, I must point out that I do know people who are suffering terribly from physical conditions--not to mention psychological conditions--acquired through sexual licentiousness and despite modern medicine; and despite modern birth control, unintended pregnancy is common and often tragically ends in the death of the child and the serious maiming (if not physically, certainly psychologically and spiritually) of especially the mother and also the father.   Also, regarding Christian morality in a sexually free culture, we must acknowledge that the Church has been here before, often.   It might help us to look at what the Church has actually said in these sexually licentious cultures--but let's save that for another time (take my word for it, the Church teaching has historically become more explicitly strict, not less, in sexually licentious cultures).

But to be practical, let's look at dating.  For a Christian, dating is not a good idea (please refer to my blog post on Orthodox Christian Dating).  However, many Christians find themselves single and living on their own.  They do not know how to get to know someone whom they might want to marry except through dating.  Yet even in a dating model, it is not that difficult to avoid physical sexual intimacy if you really want to avoid it (which is really the issue).  Physical sexual intimacy requires privacy.  If you don't want to have sex, don't go somewhere with your date where you could have sex.  In other words, only be alone with your girl/boy friend in public settings: parks, restaurants, malls, bowling alleys, etc.  Don't park your car in a lonely spot "to talk."  Talk in a corner in the library, talk walking in a park, talk at church, talk on the bus.  Don't, for God's sake, go to each other's homes.  No news here.  The problem isn't avoiding physical sexual intimacy, the problem is wanting to avoid it, which of course we don't--unless we very much want to live as the Church has taught us to live.  And even then, desire does not go away; so we must, as St. Paul says, "walk circumspectly."  We have to be careful not to let ourselves get into situations in which we could possibly do what our passions are screaming at us to do but that we really don't want to do.

Now regarding compromise.  Many have said, and indeed this is what the general culture says, if it is "really" loving, it is okay.  But what does that mean?  Legion are the people who have given in to this line of reason only to find out a few weeks or months later that "real" love is not really as real as they had thought. If you really love someone (in that way) and really want to spend your life together, then really get married.  Commit.  For life.  That's real love.  At least that is real love as it has been revealed to us by God.  It is how God loves.  It is how God has called us to love.  

But, you might say, a wedding is only a ceremony, a piece of paper.  The real marriage is in our hearts--and in a technical, theological sense, the real marriage may even be understood to be the actual act of sexual intercourse itself with the blood of the first virginal intercourse being the seal of the covenant.  However, the fact is that we don't really want to be married (at least not yet), and we may not even be sure, for sure, for sure, that we want to be married to this person.  We merely want to dance but we don't want to pay the fiddler (as my foster mother used to say)--or we don’t want to pay the fiddler yet, we’ll pay sometime later if it works out.  That is, we may devote our lives to each other as a holy icon of Christ and the Church later, if it works out.  Honestly, this argument that the ceremony doesn't really mean much is actually an argument to wait for sex.  If the sexual act itself is indeed the symbol of the commitment (rather than the ceremony being the symbol), then definitely the sex should wait until the commitment is certain.  That is, if sex is not really merely about mutual affection.  

I'm all for mutual affection, but is that what Christ and the Church has taught us that sex is for?  Typologically, it is kind of like treating the Holy Eucharist as a common thing (c.f. Hebrews 10:29 and 1 Corinthians 11: 17ff).  Holy Communion is our participation in the very Body and Blood of Christ.  It is for the forgiveness of our sins.  It is for our sanctification.  It is our uniting with Christ and His Body.  But if we treat the Holy Eucharist as a mere snack, as something we eat because we have the munchies, then like the Corinthians to whom St. Paul was writing, we are eating and drinking condemnation to ourselves.  Why?  Because the very means of our salvation we are no longer treating as the very means of our salvation.  If we despise what God has given us for our salvation, then there is no other salvation.  It is not as though God has plan B.  Sex functions similarly.  

Sexual intercourse in life-long marriage is an icon in the flesh of God's love for mankind.   Sexual intercourse is how we participate with God in the creation of new human life. Sexual intercourse is part of the glue that keeps a man and women united for life--the secret garden, the spring that does not run into the streets, the hiding place of love.  But can sexual intercourse be all this to us  if we treat it  as a common thing, as an mere expression of mutual affection--or worse yet, as a mere means of giving mutual pleasure?  Not that sex is not or should not be pleasurable.  It should be pleasurable, just as the Holy Eucharist should taste sweet, but mere pleasure is not the purpose.  As far as the Church is concerned, physical pleasure is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg of what sexual intercourse is about. 

And regarding this matter of compromise, I must also point out that if someone and his/her girl/boy friend have significantly different views on sexual morality at the beginning of the relationship, then most likely it indicates that the foundation for a life-long monogamous relationship does not exist.  I am not saying that a relationship is impossible.  But I am saying that how you treat sex before you are married will certainly influence how you experience and think about sex after you are married.  You are setting a pattern, a precedent for life.  

Nevertheless, everything can be healed in the Church.  Nothing is impossible.  But there is the easier way and the hard way and the very hard way.  What do you want sex to mean to you and your possible future spouse for the rest of your life?  Is it merely an expression of affection and mutual pleasure or is it an icon of Christ and the Church, a commitment to be with and for each other forever, a devotion to cling to one another throughout your entire life no matter what?  You have to decide.

My friend, I know this sounds harsh.  But honestly I would speak just as directly to a parishioner who told me that they wanted to join the army so that they could go fight in Afghanistan.  It is a serious matter.  Just like joining the army, sex eventually becomes a matter of life and death, even if it doesn’t seem that way at first. 

Leaning to Learn

My foster brother learned a valuable lesson when he joined the Marines Corps (about thirty-five years ago). He had taken Junior Reserve Officer Training in high school which enabled him to enter the Corps already one rank up. He already knew how to march, clean a rifle, shine his shoes and many other skills that are generally taught in boot camp. However, this step up proved to be a problem because although he could do many things others could not do, he had not learned to listen very well. Consequently, in the first weeks of Boot camp, he lost his rank; but by the end of boot camp he earned it back again.

Taking our spiritual life seriously is in many ways like enlisting in the army. We think we can already do some things well. We think we know basically what our strengths and weaknesses are. We think we know about where we should be, what our inner life should be like.  However, It was (and sometimes is) a painful shock to me when I realize in specific ways that St. Paul's words apply to me: "If anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing as he ought to know it" (1Cor. 8:2). Generally it is only painful confrontation with my own weakness and failure that teaches me that I know nothing as I ought to know it. And once I accept this, I do, somehow, begin to know, really know.

This is one of the profound ironies of Christian life. We painfully realize that we are not who we could or think we should be, but this is the beginning of us becoming who we can and shall be. Like my foster brother in boot camp, we also learn how much we do not know, how much we are not what we think we could or should be in our spiritual journey into the Image of Christ, becoming our true selves. We learn this in a way that is humbling or even humiliating. But if we will accept it, if we will accept that we are false, hypocritical, self righteous, greedy, selfish and not really a Christian (at least as we think a real Christian should be), then we begin to be real Christians. Then we are at the place where real change, real transformation is possible. This is one of the reasons why the Church Fathers put so much emphasis on tears. It is as if our tears are the water that washes our souls. Our hearts are cleansed as we weep over how we have fallen short.

And in this weeping, somehow God comes to us, heals us, helps us, and leads us forward.

By the way, weeping and tears do not always involve actual tears. A wounded heart may weep deeply without necessarily having streams of water pour from the eyes. Sometimes even that connection is wounded.

The movement of thoughts in a man originates from four causes.  Firstly, from the natural will of the flesh; secondly, from the imagination of the world's sensory objects which a man hears and sees; thirdly from mental predispositions and from the aberration of the soul; and fourthly, from the assaults of the demons who wage war with us in all the passions through the causes which we have already mentioned. 
(St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 3)

It would take weeks to unpack this saying of St. Isaac, and that is only to the level of my understanding.  I'm sure there are depths of meaning here that I have yet to experience and which I will never experience due to my lack of stillness.  But for now I would like to briefly explain how I understand these four sources of thoughts, or as the later Greek fathers call them, logismoi; then I would like to comment a little on the third source as it applies to the struggle to conquer bad habits.

By "natural will of the flesh," I think St. Isaac is referring to our bodily communication with our mind: My feet hurt, I'm thirsty, I'm aroused, I need to find a washroom.  What the body says to the mind we experience as thoughts which the rational aspect of our mind (ideally in submission to the noetic or spiritual aspect of our being) manages: Acknowledged, keep standing; acknowledged, get a drink of water; acknowledged, run away; acknowledged, wait for the intermission.  Similarly, all four sources of the "movement of thoughts," should be managed by the rational aspect of the mind in submission to the noetic aspect.  However, as we move out from the natural will of the flesh, it becomes more difficult.

The second source of thoughts comes from external stimuli: what we see, hear, smell, taste, etc.  And if I have a little control over my body, I have no control over what is outside me.  I think this is one of the reasons why men and women become monks: to cut themselves off as much as possible from the external stimuli that fills them with distracting thoughts.  Yet even in the world we have some control over what we see or don't see, hear or don't hear, eat or don't eat.  And whether we are monastic or in the world, at the end of the day, it is only God who saves us.  Only God can heal the mind and calm the thoughts.  But what I can do is choose, in whatever ways I can choose, not to provide unnecessary and unhelpful stimulus.  Sometimes I don't have a choice, but sometimes I do: what I look at, what I listen to, what I smell or touch or taste.  Experience teaches us what "sensory objects" disturb us most and which we are able, if we try, to avoid.  It seems to me that God often rescues me and grants peace to my thoughts if I first make some effort, some effort to control what I allow my eyes to see and my ears to hear.  

The third source of thoughts are our own "mental predispositions" and "aberration of the soul," and the forth is from the demons "who wage war in all the passions through the causes which we have already mentioned."  That is, the demons use all of the above in their warfare against us.  For example, I may smell a barbecue cooking somewhere (source #2), have a disgruntled disposition that is angry at God and thinks I deserve a break (source #3) and feel hungry (source #1).  These the demons use to war against my resolve not to eat between meals or to be thankful for the meal I have or whatever godly resolve that I have committed myself to.  It is that these sources of thoughts work together that often foils our resolve.  I think, "Oh, that smells good!  And I have been so good for so long, really I deserve a break--God will understand [yes, more than I know !] and I am really hungry after all...."  Perhaps others experience this inner warfare differently, but for me, the scenario that often defeats me is the coordinated attack of all the sources at once.  However, more on this another time.

What I would like to talk a little more about today are "mental predispositions" and "the aberration of the soul."  It seems that it is here that we often succumb because we figure something like this: "If I really think this, it must be what I really think."  That is, if I really experience covetous thoughts about my neighbour's wife or car or job or house, then it must mean that I really do want my neighbour's wife or car or job or house.  But I don't really want my neighbour's wife--it's taken me thirty-three years to build the relationship I have with my wife: why would I want to start all over again, or what makes me think I could do better?  I have enough headaches with my own car and house and job, someone else's will only be more stressful, not less.  I don't really want what my neighbour has (or seems to have).  So if I don't really want what my neighbor has, what is this thing in me that wants it?  Ah, that's what St. Isaac calls "the aberration of the soul," it is my mental illness, my spiritual disease.  

There are many aberrations of the soul, some we are born with, some we develop as mental predispositions: same sex attraction, kleptomania, gluttony, pedophilia, a driving desire to win, to be the best, to be right, to control.  All of these (and hundreds more) can come from some combination of inherited or learned aberration of the soul or mental predisposition.  They are not who we really are even though we really, really feel them.  These aberrations of the soul are manifestations of our sickness; it is who we were, not who we are becoming.  St. Paul gives a list in 1 Corinthians chapter six of what the Corinthian Christians were: fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards,  revilers, extortioners.  These (and more) are what all of us in the aberration of our souls and in our mental predispositions have been or would be if given the opportunity.  It is sinners such as these, sinners such as I, whom God saves.  However, salvation is not merely the forgiveness of sins, it is also the transformation of the life, it is nothing less than transfiguration with Christ, it is the becoming of who we are in Christ.

But how does this transformation take place?  St. John tells us in 1 John 3: 2, 3 the following: "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as He is pure."  Who we are becoming is not yet seen--even though we are children of God already.  However, transformation takes place in seeing Him.  Even now, before the end, in prayer and quietness of heart we visit the end, we catch a glimpse of the eschaton, and in some small way we see Him--and in seeing Him in some small way, be become like him in some small way.  In fact, St. John tells us, that even the hope of seeing him works purity in us, and by purity I mean healing of the soul.

Of course we have to want it, or want to want it.  And just as it is with anything we want, we must begin to work at it.  Not that we can change ourselves, we cannot; but we can reach out for what only God can give us.  We can begin to act the way we want to be.  We can begin to cut off what feeds and strengthens what we were.  We can have this hope in us, this hope that in seeing Him, we will become like Him.  And most of all, when the thoughts from the aberrations of our soul, the thoughts of the Old Man, the thoughts coming from our sickness seem to overpower us as our thoughts, we must relax (that's right, relax), remind ourselves that it is our sickness speaking to us, and turn gently in our hearts and mind to the One who heals the sick, to the great physician.  And, perhaps, if we do this often enough we may catch a glimps in some small way of the Physician Himself and in glimpsing in some small way experience transformation in some small way.

On Mindless Outpourings

Afternoon Service at Mellstock

(Circa 1850)

On afternoons of drowsy calm

We stood in the panelled pew,

Singing one-voiced a Tate-and-Brady psalm

To the tune of 'Cambridge New'.

We watched the elms, we watched the rooks,

The clouds upon the breeze,

Between the wiles of glancing at our books,

And swaying like the trees.

So mindless were those outpourings!

Though I am not aware

That I have gained by subtle thought on things

Since we stood psalming there.

From Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917)

By  Thomas Hardy

It has taken me a long time to learn to appreciate "mindless outpourings."  Becoming Orthodox, it took me years to overcome the fear of vain repetition--a phrase over-used and misunderstood.  I was able to accept repetition so long as it was not mindless.  My mind had to be engaged.

However, long hours of "psalming" with the brothers in the middle of the night at the monastery and my own regular habit of recitation have beaten my mind into a kind of mindless submission.  There is a kind of calm uniting that takes place in psalmody, a uniting beyond the "subtle thought on things." It is a uniting of my heart, my intuitive knower, my inner self with the words of the psalms as they interpret realities to me beyond mindful reason.  To speak of these realities is useless for words are a paltry lie.  If words could convey this reality, then mindful attention would be sufficient.  But it is not.

Prayer through the repetition of Psalms or the continued recitation of the Jesus Prayer or other short prayer seems to open a space in us, a space usually blocked by a busy mind.  Entering this space beyond mindfulness, I think we come close to what the Fathers call entering our heart. Here, sometimes, both the joy and sorrow of repentance are expressed in tears or tear-like pain.  It is as though the armour formed by words and concepts drops away from us and our naked heart stands in the Garden before God: weak, vulnerable, sometimes ashamed, often comforted.

It is not that I am against book learning.  I think we should all study and learn as much as our busy minds will let us. But I think Thomas Hardy has it right.  I don't think we gain much at all "by subtle thought on things," especially if we have not learned to know God in mindless prayer.

Prayer for Beginners

Save The Dates! Fr. Michael will be conducting a weekend retreat on the topic: Prayer for Beginners.
It will be held October 12-13 in Vernon, BC.
All beginners are welcome to join this beginner as we learn together from the Holy Fathers.
Please let me know ASAP if you are interested.

Seed to Fruit to Seed: Resurrection to Death to Resurrection

I was cleaning out some half-written essays and ran across this from last Great Lent.  It seems somehow appropriate in the light of my last few blog entries, so please forgive me for giving you a repeat.  I hope you find it as much a blessing as I have reading it again, and again, and again....


The sixth week of Great Lent is the countdown week to the resurrection of Lazarus.  The resurrection of Lazarus is a pivotal point in Jesus's ministry in at least two ways.  First, in raising Lazarus who had been dead four days, Jesus manifests to all his absolute power over death.  The hymns of the Church tell us that this final manifestation of His power was particularly for the purpose of making clear to His disciples that his own death was voluntary.  Having complete power over death, Jesus gives His life, no one takes it from Him.  In St. John's Gospel, this is further reinforced by the soldiers falling down when Jesus speaks to them when they come to arrest Him--falling down twice.

At the same time, the raising of Lazarus is also the pivotal act that forces the religious leaders to do something to stop Jesus.  The high priest realizes that now all of the people will believe in Him, as we see manifest on Palm Sunday.  The Gospel tells us that the crowd had gathered because they had heard that Jesus had raised Lazarus.  The religious leaders fear that the crowd's enthusiasm for this prophet would upset the tenuous peace they currently enjoyed with the occupying Romans and, perhaps most importantly, their own position of power vouchsafed by the current state of affairs. 

And so in this divine act of raising Lazarus, Jesus both triggers the final chain of events leading to His arrest and crucifixion and manifests His authority over the whole process, even over death itself.  

But isn't this the nature of existence as we know it?  The fruit manifests the tree, and within the fruit are the seeds of new growth, of the next level, of the new life.  When Jesus the Life of all speaks, the fruit is life, even for a man four-days dead.  And the seed of this fruit is His own death, which manifests even greater life--all in the tombs shall arise!

In our own lives this too is what we experience.  The actual fruit of our lives, as disappointing as it often is, manifests what kind of tree we are--fallen, sick, in need of transformation.  Yet this disappointing fruit, our failures, our mistakes, our sins, bears the seeds of new life; for how we respond to our failures to a large extent determines our growth.

Jesus the Life of all enters the world of our experience and by the laws of creation--fruit bearing seed--He plants the tree of resurrection in the middle of the earth.  This is the Tree of Life which grew in Eden of old, the Tree whose fruit we now eat as the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life.

The Chief Hypocrite

Yesterday I wrote these words: "Irenic words and actions have little force when they proceed from a disturbed heart.  They are the words and actions of a hypocrite, a dissembler."  I have been thinking about them while I was mowing my lawn this afternoon.  I feel like I need to go to confession to confess that I am the chief hypocrite.


I struggle to maintain peace within myself.  True, I have experienced extended periods of peace--say, several hours long.  However most of the time I am not at peace within myself.  And some of the time, I am not at peace and do not even realize it because my passions have so roused me that I'm caught on the front lines of mental warfare.  I'm arguing with my thoughts, I'm throwing biscuits at the dogs. 


Sometimes, even while this is going on in my head, I am forcing myself to say prayers, I am speaking to someone about reconciliation with himself, with others, with God.  I am doing what I think will make for peace--even as I struggle to return to peace in my own soul.  Fr. Michael: Chief Hypocrite.


And yet, as a young child plays grownup thus beginning to learn to be grown up, so I think spiritual children must pretend a little to grow up (the word "hypocrite" comes from the Greek word for pretend or act).  We must pray as ones who are close to God even when we feel far away.  We must speak the truth even when we struggle ourselves to fully embrace it.  We must bring peace wherever we can even as we are painfully aware of the disturbance in our own soul.  We must pretend to be good even while we are still struggling to drive wickedness out of our own heart.


The kind of child-like hypocrisy that I am talking about is not the same as being duplicitous.  The hypocrisy of duplicity is to behave one way in one context and another way in a different context.  This is the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Repenting of duplicity is perhaps one of the most foundational areas of repentance.  Pretending to be good in one context while intending to be less than good in another is a willing embrace of hell-like torment.  It is an intentional division of yourself resulting in an inability to know yourself: which self are you?


However, the child-like hypocrisy of the beginner in the spiritual struggle is the painful tension of becoming.  What I am leaving behind still haunts me--and sometimes even "possesses" me.  Nevertheless, it is what I am leaving behind.  I am becoming the New Man that Christ has already implanted in me like a seed.  I am learning to act like a Christian (a little Christ), even if it means that sometimes I feel like I am pretending.  


May God bless the play of His children, we little hypocrites who long to be grown up Christians.

Reflections on St. Isaac The Syrian Homily 2

Be a persecutor of yourself, and your enemy will be driven from your proximity.  Be peaceful within yourself, and heaven and earth will be at peace with you.    St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 2


For years now I have been longing to read the Ascetically Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian.  At the Clergy Seminar last week I was able to purchase a copy of Holy Transfiguration's 2011 revised second edition.  That's why I've been liberally quoting him in my recent posts.  St. Isaac is not one of those Fathers that priests generally recommend for lay people to read.  The homilies were written, not merely for monks, but for hermit monks.  Most of what he writes, I am certain, cannot be deeply understood without living the prayerful life of a hermit.  However--and this is the almost scripture-like quality of his writings--much of what he writes can be scaled down, can be applied fruitfully and powerfully even in the lives of spiritual beginners.


Although the quotation above has at least a month's worth of sermons hidden in it, I couldn't decide which part to leave out.  So I quoted both sentences. Let me briefly comment on them.


Be a Persecutor of yourself, and your enemy will be driven from your proximity.  It amazes me again and again how the "attacks" of the evil one increase as my personal discipline decreases.  When I live a disciplined life--pray when I'm supposed to pray, eat when (and what) I'm supposed to eat, read edifying spiritual books instead of watching t.v., go out of my way to be kind when I don't feel like it--when I am persecuting myself and making myself do what I know I should do, the temptations and disturbing thoughts and fears seem few and easily dealt with.  But when I get busy with STUFF, so busy that I don't have time to pray, don't feel like reading good books, need a break, and am grumpier than normal, when I get like this, temptations abound, lusts and fears attack my mind and only with difficulty do I overcome them--and sometimes not.


Be peaceful within yourself, and heaven and earth will be at peace with you.  I believe it was St. John Chrysostom who said, "No one can harm you unless you let him."  He was speaking of real harm, inner harm.  The Martyrs lost their bodies and gained Heaven--they were not harmed.  But this is very hard for us to accept.  All someone has to do is infringe on some right of mine and I am wounded at heart.  I yell at the driver who takes my intended parking spot.  Whether or not others are at peace with me has almost everything to do with me being at peace with myself.  Others may be angry with me for a while, but even their anger can be calmed if I am at peace.  Our connection with and influence on those around us is much more a matter of heart than of words or even actions (although, as Jesus noted, both actions and words proceed from the heart).  Irenic words and actions have little force when they proceed from a disturbed heart.  They are the words and actions of a hypocrite, a dissembler.  But a man at peace, according to St. Seraphim of Sarov, saves thousands around him.

What's So Good About Failing?

In a homily recently I spoke about the Christian experience of “falling and getting back up again.”  That is, I spoke about the need to be intentional about our repentance, to actually try to do the things we suspect would please God and stop doing the things that we suspect are not pleasing.  This intentionality leads almost always to failure.  But it is a very healthy failure.  It is the failure of one who has tried--which is very different from the failure of the one who hasn’t.  He who hasn’t tried, tried really hard, tried with all his might, is susceptible to the delusion that he could have succeeded if he had really tried.

Healthy failure is illuminating on several levels.  Healthy failure reveals our true self, its limits, its arrogance, its foolishness.  It reveals the depths of our dependence on others and on God.  Healthy failure produces humility, and humility is the foundation of all God-like virtue.  

Humility and self knowledge are the goals of falling down and getting back up again.  Success has never been the goal of any Christian endeavor.  Knowledge of God and love of neighbour and transformation of the inner man: these are the goals of the Christian life no matter what endeavor we may find ourselves involved with.  Success is nice, but success too early (or the illusion of success) is often a source of pride.  God has not called us to be successful, He has called us to become like Him.

And even in our endeavor to become like Him (to acquire virtues), it is not our successes that make us successful.  We must labour, for this is how we show God what we really want--words have very little weight; what we do speaks the loudest.  However, just as the Father of the Prodigal Son rose and went to meet him after the Son had begun his journey home, so in our lives God sees our striving and rises to meet us with Grace, with illumination, and with the knowledge of God in the Holy Spirit.

We really don’t know what we need.  In my own repentance I find myself continually realizing that what I thought I needed to change were merely the leaves of a much deeper and more stubborn root.  I cut the leaves down, and they grow back.  I cut the leaves down, and they grow back.  I cut the leaves down, and they grow back.  Somewhere along the line (often with a word from a spiritual father, written or spoken, or a word from my wife or daughter or a parishioner, or with a very rare flash of insight) I realize that I have to look deeper.  And what I see when I look deeper is usually pretty ugly.  But that’s OK.  That’s good.  It’s better to see the wound than to ignore it and let it fester.  

St. Isaac the Syrian in Homily 2 says, “If a man is ill and he recognizes his ailment, his healing will be easy.  If he confesses his pain, he draws nigh its cure….The patient who resists his physician amplifies his torment.  There is no unpardonable sin, save the unrepented one."

A Little Bit on Illumination

"Do not, like the pupils of teachers, over-scrutinize the words that are written from experience for the fostering of your way of life, which render your soul great because of the greatness of the insights found within them" (Homily one of St. Isaac the Syrian Ascetical Homilies).


One of the problems when speaking of the spiritual life is there are no fixed words or categories.  Spiritual writers will use words such as soul, heart, mind and spirit in slightly different ways.  Our tendency is to try to understand spiritual writing in the same way we would understand an academic text--"like pupils of teachers." We define terms and map out logical implications.  


However, St. Isaac warns us that spiritual writing is not understood this way.  We must "discern the purport of all the passages that [we] come upon in sacred writings," he says.  Discernment is a different faculty from the rational, analytic part of the mind.  Discernment is much more intuitive, more reflective, more platonic.  By platonic I mean that the understanding comes not from figuring out what is presented but from recognizing the likeness of what has been presented to something that already exists in yourself.  Exact wording or carefully defined terms do not help here.  What is necessary is self knowledge that recognizes the likeness (image or pattern) of what is presented as something already known (albeit vaguely) in yourself.  But in recognizing this likeness, what is presented becomes a kind of illumination of what is already known (now more clearly).


Lanza Del Vasto, a French Christian philosopher of the mid 20th century said the same thing in his writings.  He said that if what he was saying is true, the hearer will recognize it as something that he had always believed.  This, I think, is part of what illumination means.  Illumination is the seeing more clearly of what you have already known.  This is why, in the Christian tradition, the words of a spiritual father or mother are so important.  Illumination comes from spiritual words--not from analyzing them, but from discerning them as true words because they already exist deep inside you in your heart, in your true self.  Those of us who live in the spiritual desert, however, have very few and very weak spiritual fathers and mothers*, so most of our encounters with spiritual words comes through reading spiritual writings.  But just as Jesus said to his hearers, "Be careful how you hear," so we who read must be careful how we read.  We must read with discernment (and humility!) not expecting to gain spiritual benefit from rational analysis.  And we must hold what we see lightly (this is the humility part) knowing that if we see at all we "see in a glass darkly."  


*Please note that a weak spiritual father is much, much better than no spiritual father. When I say weak here, I mean weak by the standards of the saints of the Church.  I do not mean weak in relation to us, the spiritual children. Nevertheless, many have made the observation that the parents of a teenager know almost nothing, but in the years that the young are away at college, the parents sure seem to learn a great deal.  As we grow, our appreciation for our spiritual fathers and mothers generally grows too.

Some More Thoughts on Purification

As beginners in the spiritual life, when we consider purification, the first of the three steps or aspects of becoming like Christ, we usually think of our behaviour, or our moral life. It is true that any sort of purification must begin with what is easiest to control: what we actually do. St. Paul says, "Let him who stole, steal no longer" (Eph. 4:28). If we are going to take seriously our spiritual life and participate in the transformation into the Image of Christ, then we must begin by changing basic outward behaviour that we know to be contrary to Christ. If we are stealing, we should stop stealing. If we are fornicating, we should stop fornicating. If we are doing anything that we are pretty sure Christ would not want us to do, then we should stop doing it. This is the beginning of repentance.  


However, once one seriously engages repentance, one finds out that our outward behaviour is much harder to control than we imagined.  We find out that our outward behaviour proceeds from a mind a jumble with discordant thoughts and a body driven by strong feelings.  Purification, then, begins with the outward and moves quickly to the inward. Repentance begins with the outward and moves inward.   "First the natural, then the spiritual" (1 Cor. 15:46).  Jesus said that it is from the heart that murders and adulteries flow. So for those beginners who take the spiritual life seriously, the work of purification quickly becomes a matter of spiritual warfare, or controlling of our thought life.


The Fathers of the Church offer several techniques to gain victory over our disordered thoughts. All of them require effort.  St. Isaac of Syria highly recommended the reading of scripture (both the Bible and spiritual works by trusted Fathers and Mothers in the Church). Others recommend physical labour. St. Pacomius recommended the unceasing recitation of the Bible (from memory). However, in the Orthodox Church today, probably the most commonly recommended technique is the recitation of the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner."  


One of the mistakes we beginners make as we are learning to purify our thoughts is that we attempt to control our thoughts by our will, or we try to counter one thought with another.  It doesn't take long to realize that thoughts cannot be controlled by will power: Don't think of a pink elephant!  Once you set your mind not to do something, your mind is already doing it.  Forcing yourself not to think about something only increases your thinking about it. The second technique, that of countering one thought with another, sometimes works--which is the problem. Countering thoughts with thoughts sometimes moves our minds away from a specific thought that we want to flee, but such countering often creates a cycle of argumentation in our mind. Soon we find ourselves mentally constructing arguments against antagonists that don't even exist--except in our mind. One of the Desert Fathers said that arguing with your thoughts is like trying to drive away dogs by throwing biscuits at them. A well aimed blow may spook the first dog, but will only attract more dogs.


In my experience, the best way to deal with disordered and wicked thoughts is for me to turn my mind towards God. When I do this, the thoughts will be screaming at me, but if I ignore them and engage God in a short and repeated prayer, the thoughts begin to lose their traction in me.  The Jesus Prayer is a good example of this sort of prayer, but it is not the only prayer I have used successfully.  Sometimes a short prayer to the Theotokos or another saint is effective. Other times, a short passage of Scripture is very effective. Once when I was intensely worried about how my mistakes may be hurting others, I repeated ceaselessly (or at least whenever I was bothered by worrying thoughts--which seemed ceaseless) "Lord, let none who wait on Thee be ashamed because of me" (Psalms 24/25: 3).  It took some time and effort, but before too long, I was seeing victory over my disturbing thoughts.  


When we call out to God, He comes to our aid. I have discovered that I am not smart enough nor strong enough to battle my disordered thoughts. As soon as I notice that I am being besieged, I turn to God and fervently cry out for help. And God does help. The Jesus Prayer and similar prayers are not "Christian mantras."  We are not merely playing a mental game. Like Peter drowning in the sea, we are calling out desperately: "Lord, save me!"  And the Lord has compassion and saves.


Purification of thoughts leads to purification of heart.  And here I'm on thin ice again. I cannot speak much of the heart for I am a beginner. However, I can say that when, with the help of God, the battle in the mind calms a little, peace is often found lingering in my heart. Attending to this peace often keeps the mind from wandering. Attending to peace in my heart often functions as a kind of wall around my thoughts. Or better put, attending to peace in my heart functions kind of like a bright light that keeps shadowy thoughts out of my mind. And perhaps, that is the beginning of Illumination. I couldn't say for sure, but perhaps it is.

Purification, Illumination and Theosis

St. Maximus the Confessor

The Fathers of the Church often use the metaphor of a ladder to discuss the various stages or steps or transformations of Christian life and growth. The steps of the various ladders are sometimes expressed as virtues (obedience, patience, faith), sometimes in terms of experiences (tears, peace making, confessing) and sometimes as abstract nouns (purification, renunciation, detachment). Sometimes the ladder has many steps, like the thirty in St. John Climicus' Ladder of Divine Asscent.  St. Benedict of Nursia describes twelve steps in the acquisition of humility.  Others have based their discussion of Christian growth on the nine Beatitudes mentioned by Jesus in Matthew chapter five.  Many have reduced the steps to three.  Perhaps the most famous version of these three steps in the Orthodox Church is quoted from St. Maximus the Confessor in his Four Hundred Verses on Love (I don't remember exactly where) in the second volume of the Philokalia.  These are Purification, Illumination and Theosis.


Modern Christians seem to make three common mistakes when they read patristic descriptions of the Christian life that use steps as a metaphor.  The first mistake is that they assume that to move from one step to the next is to leave the previous step behind.  This is not the case at all.  Consider the Beatitudes for example.  One who mourns does not cease to be poor in spirit.  In fact, the case has been made that it is exactly spiritual poverty (or the knowledge of one's spiritual poverty) that produces spiritual mourning.  That is, the steps are more like building blocks: the former become the foundation of the latter.  The peacemakers who are called sons of God are also the ones who see God in their pure heart and are merciful and hunger and thirst for righteousness and are meek and who mourn and who are poor in spirit.


The second way that patristic ladder metaphors throw off contemporary Christians is that we sometimes assume one must master one level before we can begin the next, or that because we have experienced some grace in a higher level we have therefore mastered the lower levels.  In the matter of growth in the spiritual life, there is no mastering.  There is only striving on our part and mercy and grace on God's.  Let's take St. Benedict's steps to humility as an example.  Just because one, by the mercy of God, experiences a certain amount of grace in being content to be the lowest in the community (step six in St. Benedict's Rule) does not mean that he does not still have a lot of work to do on some of the lower steps such as obedience in all things or confessing evil thoughts.  I have found it helpful to think of the ladder metaphor as an ascending helix or screw.  The steps are compass points around the helix.  As one ascends from one level to the next, one encounters in varying degrees all or most of the steps, but each time around he or she is at a different place and so experiences the steps differently: the steps work in us at deeper and deeper levels.

Helix

Which brings us to the final and perhaps most serious mistake contemporary Christians make when they seek to apply patristic ladder metaphors to their life.  The ladders or the steps that the fathers of the Church describe are steps in, not out.  The ascent is inward and outward.  Ideas of God from the secular culture  have so influenced most Christians' understanding of God that they really think that God is somewhere outside them, that heaven is a place far away.  Fr. Stephen Freeman has famously referred to this way of thinking as a two storey universe.  In a two storey universe there is a God, but God is far away.  In a two story universe one must ascend up and out to God who comes down to meet us.  However, in a patristic understanding of God, a New Testament understanding of God, God is in our heart, in our midst.  God is not far away; God is near at hand.  The problem, however, is that we have become so alienated from ourselves that only with much difficulty are we able to perceive Him.


In the one storey universe, the ladder, or steps of Christian development, identifies both the means and the markers of the return to one's own heart, one's true self, where one genuinely encounters God.    To return to the three stages mentioned by St. Maximus the Confessor (and others)--purification, illumination and deification--we might say that the means of returning to one's heart begins with purifying one's life.  That someone is purifying his or her life, or seeking to be purified by the grace of God, is also a sign, a marker, that one is likely on the right path inward towards one's heart, to one's true self, to the place where one genuinely meets God.  Purification, although it not possible without the grace of God, is mostly a participatory activity of the mind and life.  That is, one must work at purification.  Illumination, on the other hand, is much more passive.  It is a gift of seeing, of knowing or of understanding that comes from a source deeper than our rational faculty.  One's participation in illumination is to apply what is newly seen or known to deeper levels of repentance and purification.  


Time Out. 
 I must stop and confess at this point that I am treading on very thin ice.  All I have to say on this topic is based on what I have read and my own experience--which dramatically limits my ability to understand what I have read.  Please be aware that there are levels of Christian growth and experience in God to which I have never come close enough even to imagine: "Eye has not seen nor ear heard...But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit"(2 Corinthians 2: 9,10).  St. Paul and other holy men and women throughout history have seen and heard "inexpressible words, which it is unlawful for a man to utter" (2 Corinthians 12:4).  That I am able to write these words down should be a clue to you, my beloved reader, that I am only a beginner in the journey to the heart and that what I have to say is only to help other beginners on their way.
Back to the ice.


Theosis, or deification, is the third step in St. Maximus' three stages of Christian growth.  If illumination refers to a kind of seeing or understanding, theosis refers to the transformative encounter with God.  As a beginner, I have only experienced very brief encounters that might possibly be considered the frontier of theosis.   It is like an encounter with a spark, a spark from a very bright light which seems far away.  It is not far away: God dwells in our hearts by faith.  But it seems far away because of my blindness.  Or it is like the scent of a flower from a garden on the other side of a wall.  My encounter with the flower is real, yet faint.  So are my encounters with God in my heart: they are faint but real.


To see God is to become like Him (1 John 3:2).  Theosis, if it is theosis, is always transformative.  Like Moses who saw only the backside of God and glowed for days afterward, we too, if we really encounter God, will glow with the light of the Holy Spirit.  Some people have been so full of the Holy Spirit that they have glowed with a visible light, the light of the Transfiguration at Mount Tabor.  For most of us, however, the light manifests itself in the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  A person who is full of the Holy Spirit does not necessarily speak in new tongues or work miracles.  But a person who is full of the Holy Spirit is definitely full of love, joy, peace and patience.  In fact, to seem to have the former without the latter makes the former suspect.  


God became man so that man, by grace, might become like God.  We must indeed become like God for Christ has promised mankind a relationship with Himself as intimate as a husband and a wife.  A man does not marry a rock.  A man marries a woman, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.  Christ has betrothed to Himself the Church, and during the engagement period, the time we have left on this earth, we are invited to be transformed into Christ's image.  The Holy Fathers of the Church have provided us with many teachings and metaphors to help us find our way on this road of transformation.  Most begin with some kind of purification, some kind of repentance, desire, faith or some other effort on our part.  God then meets our effort with understanding, with illumination which helps us and encourages us along the way.  But the goal of all of the steps and ladders is the encounter with God Himself and the transformation that occurs in this encounter.  Because of God's merciful care, even beginners can genuinely encounter God in transformative ways.  God helps us encounter sparks from the fire of the godhead.  And these encounters return us to the beginning  of the ladder refreshed and encouraged to again strive for purification so that we might further be illumined and perchance again genuinely encounter God in our hearts.

Last Day of the Clergy Symposium

The Clergy retreat ended today with a Divine Liturgy and a light brunch--eaten quickly to get packed and on the shuttle by noon.
The sound of three hundred priests chanting together is still ringing in my ears. Bishop Anthony gave the homily based on the theme of St. Elias (whose memory we celebrate today). "Just as Elias called down fire on the sacrifice, we too as priests call down the fire of the Holy Spirit on the gifts at the Altar." The fire, he went on to elucidate, is the zeal of Holy Spirit and a life lived on the prophetic frontier. This is God's calling for priests. On the day of our ordination we left the land of safety. It is like the story of the Coast Guard captain who in the midst of a hurricane said to his crew, "We are going out. There is a ship floundering." A young crew member said to the captain, "But sir, if we go out in this storm, we may never come back." The captain replied, "Don't worry, we have only been commanded to go, not to come back."

This is the calling of a priest--and of all God's people really--to go, to leave the land of safe predictablilty and to seek and save those who are floundering. We may lose everything comfortable and predictable in the attempt, but that's OK. We've only been commanded to go.

Words That Make Holy Silence

Up date from the Archdiocesan Clergy Symposium

Day two of the Clergy Symposium found me sleeping through the first session. After a wonderful yet exhausting Sunday, I caught the red-eye flight out of Vancouver at 11:00 pm, arriving at the Antiochian Village Conference Center about 1:00 in the afternoon on Monday. The excitement of catching up with old friends kept me up late, and Matins called me up early. By ten this morning I could barely keep my eyes open.

Everyone said the lecture was wonderful. It was by Bishop Anthony and should be on Ancient Faith Radio tomorrow. I'll try to listen to it during break time tomorrow.

In the afternoon, I attended a session with two speakers. The first speaker, although most of what he said was good, upset me somehow. At one point I even verbally challenged him, trying to put in words what was bothering me. Like usual, I only made things worse, muddied the water and probably upset him or others. When am I going to learn to keep my mouth shut when my spirit is disturbed?

The second speaker, however, even though his style of speaking was similar and the topic the same, instead of disturbing me, calmed me. When he was finished, I just said Amen. It wasn't that I even agreed with every detail of what he said. I just felt calm and as if he were speaking with Grace. He spoke to something inside me. The words and sentences were mere vehicles for something else, something calming and peaceful and maybe even Holy.

This evening (having slipped away from the youth skit night on behalf of the clergy--such things make me nervous) I read Photios Kontoglou's Encomium (essay in praise) of St. Isaac the Syrian. One of the things Kontoglou says of St. Isaac is that "even though he writes so much, he makes a holy silence come to rest within our spirit, just as if there were no one speaking, but we only heard the distant echoing of the sea hidden from our sight."

That's the way I want to speak. That is the way the second speaker this afternoon spoke. What he said was good and true--just as what the first speaker said was good and true. But what was heard in the heart through the words of the second speaker was a kind of peaceful silence, a stillness with a gentle roar, like "the distant echoing of the sea hidden from our sight."

May God help us and teach us both to speak and listen so that the gentle roar of the hidden but echoing Holy Spirit be always the kernel of all we say and do.

Orthodox Christianity: It's Better Than Nothing!

We had a work day at Church today.  We were scraping and painting the south side of the Church.  I was scraping next to one of our inquirers, so I asked him what his parents think of his interest in Orthodox Christianity.  He said, “Well, to tell you the truth, they are pretty much relieved.”

He went on to explain that after being raised by his parents who are “entrenched” Evangelicals (his word, not mine), and after graduating from a famous Evangelical college with honours, and after encountering some serious life problems, he completely gave up on God for a few years.  So now his parents are relieved that he again has an interest in Christ and the Church--even if it is the Orthodox Church.

Then the witty fellow working on the other side of him blurted out: “There’s our new motto to advertise our Church.  The bumper sticker will read: ‘Orthodox Christianity: It’s better than nothing!'”

After we all laughed, I kept thinking about that phrase.  It does seem that many people who come to Holy Orthodoxy come only after they have had a pretty serious crisis in their faith.  They often tell a story of having given up (or almost given up) on the Christ they had come to know in their Evangelical (or other Protestant) world, a Christ who just doesn’t make sense in a world full of suffering, weakness and failure.

I do not want to rag on Evangelicalism.  Evangelical Christianity introduced me to Christ.  I am a Child of Evangelicalism.  I am thankful for those “Bible believing” faithful men and women who loved me, introduced me to Christ and taught me to study the Bible.  They got me on the road.  However, the Evangelical road to Christ is not a very long road.  Or I might better say, it is not a very deep road: it does not offer many resources (beyond basic moral teaching) to a changed heart, to transformation into Christ’s image.  It does not teach prayer or psalmody, or fasting and alms giving (except as a means to get something from God).  There is no worship beyond happy or romantic songs about Jesus.  I like happy songs about Jesus (not so much the romantic ones), but that’s not worship, at least not like the worship we read about in the Old Testament and the Revelation: full of typology, theology, proclamation and mystery.  

Especially mystery.  Real life is full of mystery.  We encounter God in our often confused and certainly unpredictable and generally messy lives.  We encounter God in our joys, but more profoundly in our failures, our tragedies and our pain.  Like the whirlwind out of which Job encounters God, we too encounter God who comes to us mysteriously in the whirlwind of our lives.  This is the God we encounter, not the neat Deity of the Jesus song who makes me feel better because He loves me so much.  The God of the whirlwind is too big just to make me feel better.  He is so big and loves me so much that he will let my life be turned upside down and let the world beat me up terribly in order to get to my heart and change me, and  through me all those around me.

If you, my dear reader, have encountered the God of the whirlwind, and you are about to give up on God altogether because the God you have learned about in church is different from the God you have encountered in life, then let me encourage you to look a little further.  The Orthodox Church is certainly not the perfect Church.  It is made up of God and angels and human beings, human beings whose lives are probably as messy and confused as yours.  And yet, there is mystery.  There is a very long and deep road.  There are spiritual resources for men and women who encounter God in the whirlwind.

And, Orthodox Christianity is better than nothing.

From Pentecostal to Orthodox Christianity

I was speaking to a friend not long ago who is a Charismatic/Vineyard-type Protestant.  At one point in the conversation we were talking about what it might mean if he were to seriously consider becoming Orthodox.  One of his concerns was that he would have to “give up” his Charismatic ways.

“Yes, that’s true,” I said, “but ‘give up’ is probably not the most accurate or helpful way to look at it.”

I explained that when I became Orthodox (I had been Pentecostal), no one said that I had to give up anything.  The year-long catechism process that our community went through (about 85 of us) was all about what we were embracing.  And my first few years as an Orthodox Christian (and continuing) has been about entering into a paradigm of prayer and worship and spiritual warfare that is so deep and profound (and effective!) that the forms of my old Pentecostal paradigm fell away all by themselves--somewhat like the leaves of a flower that fall away as the fruit emerges.  

Language is also a useful metaphor here.  When I am in Stuttgart I speak German, not because someone is making me “give up” English, but because in Germany, the German paradigm communicates more effectively.  The dog is still a dog, but now it is called der Hund.  Similarly, the deep and genuine Christian spiritual realities (sans a lot of emotionalism and hype) are still there. They are, however, no longer expressed in a Pentecostal paradigm, but in an Orthodox Christian paradigm.  And I have found that the Orthodox Christian paradigm has been a much more useful and effective paradigm in which to experience personal relationship with God and transformation into His likeness than the Protestant and Pentecostal paradigm(s) I came from.

When we were first received into the Orthodox Church, some of us angst-ridden Orthodox newbies asked our bishop if anything in our religious past was real.  Had we been in complete delusion?  Our bishop wisely told us that, first off, much must have been good in what we came from because it brought us to Holy Orthodoxy.  Second, the Grace of Holy Baptism both precedes and follows Holy Baptism.  The Grace of the Church was already at work in us drawing us to God in whatever way (paradigm) we could understand it.  Our bishop told us not to despise our Christian past, but rather to glean from it all that is good and (slowly) to discover in the Church its meaning, its fruition.  

And that has been my experience seventeen years later.  I have lost nothing.  What was good and true and useful is carried over (with a few logistical and linguistic adjustments).  Much of what was good and true and useful has fallen away in the face what is better, truer and much more useful.  There were also specific practices and theologies that have been left behind because they are not true, although in my Pentecostal days I thought they were.  It’s almost like cleaning a bathroom by the light of a single candle.  What looks clean in the light of that one candle may indeed be cleaner than it was, but still very dirty.  But you don’t know that until the electric lights go back on.  For me, embracing Orthodox Christianity has been like having the electric lights turned on.

Suffering With Christ

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together (Romans 8: 16, 17).


In as much as I have not faced overt persecution for my faith, I had always assumed that this verse did not apply directly to me--except in the sense that I had to be willing to suffer with Him.  However, I do not think that any more. I think suffering is a normal part of the Christian life no matter where one lives or under what circumstances one lives in this deeply broken world.  


Suffering with Christ is keeping my mouth shut when I desperately want to say something, but I have nothing specifically edifying to say.  Suffering with Christ is speaking when I should speak, but when remaining silent is safer.  Suffering with Christ is saying no to my wandering desires and to my never-satisfied body even when my body and mind seem to be screaming for satisfaction.  Suffering with Christ is being kind when I am tired and annoyed.  Suffering with Christ is hiding the sins of others and confessing my own.  Suffering with Christ is keeping silent and trusting God when I am misunderstood and wrongly accused.  Suffering with Christ is saying prayers and fasting when no one but God knows.  Suffering with Christ is loving those difficult to love.


Of course, suffering with Christ is also enduring overt persecution for Christ's sake--or because you are poor or handicapped or not considered beautiful, or because you are of a different race or cast or political party than those around you.  All of this is suffering with Christ, who became poor and weak and despised and an outsider for our sake.  When we suffer for any reason and we offer that suffering to God, we are suffering with Christ.


As Christians, all that we have and are belongs to Christ.  This includes our weaknesses, most especially our weaknesses.  It is easy to offer to God what we perceive to be our strengths.  Heck, even Pagans do that.  But  to offer to God our weaknesses, to offer to God our suffering--especially if it is suffering we are ashamed of, suffering that we know comes from our sinful weaknesses--this is a major step in our growth in Christ.  This is the true experience of sonship, of becoming childlike; for what three-year old hides from Papa his suffering, no matter what its cause?  

The Order of St. Ignatius of Antioch

The Order Of St. Ignatius of Antioch

One of the spiritual gifts within the Church is the gift of giving. Certainly every Christian is called to give. A strong case can be made that 10% is the starting point: it is the biblically designated sign that all we have belongs to God. However, some, like Ss. Joacim and Anna, have the spiritual gift of giving. For Ss. Joacim and Anna, one third of their income was enough for them: One third they gave to the Temple, one third they gave to the poor and one third they lived on.

In the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, the philanthropic arm of the church is the Order of St. Ignatius of Antioch.

The amount of good work done by the Order is hard to summarize briefly. More than a third of the Archdiocese budget comes from the Order. However, certain programs are funded completely by the Order. The Order completely funds the Archdiocese church camp scholarship program, the clergy travel support program (I, myself received a $780. grant to help cover required travel this summer), and the clergy retirement fund. The Order is also a big supporter of St. Innocent Orphange and a long list of other worthy charitable works.

The Order is set up somewhat like a Medieval order of knights and ladies. This structure, along with some of the traditions such as receiving cross-shaped medals and certain titles based on the level of their contributions, is somewhat off putting for those not raised in an ancient Christian tradition.

Some are quick to point out that this seems somewhat like blowing trumpets in the street. However, anyone who actually knows members of the Order and has seen it in action knows that this is not the case. It is more like the boy scouts. It is merely a structure in which those with this spiritual gift of giving can spur each other on to more and more good works. It is a community of friends who have found that working together they can increase the effect of their spiritual gift of giving for good.

Let me end by tell you a story. Last year at the Parish Life Conference, at the dinner for the Order, one of the members asked me if I would be at the national convention that year. I told him that I would not because it was too much of a strain for our small church to send me. Immediately, he said, "let me make a couple of calls, and I'll talk to you in the morning." But before the evening was over he had personally set up and paid for my flight to Chicago for the convention, and by morning had arranged for the payment of everything else. No fanfare. No trumpets. Only the people involved knew about it. That's the Order of St. Ignatius. That's the spiritual gift of giving.