Swimming Above The Hands Of Our Teacher

Recently I have encountered several people who are in distress because they don’t feel that they are doing some aspect of their spiritual life correctly. They experience stress, depression, fear, even trembling and extreme anxiety because, for example, they fear they aren’t fasting correctly, or are not believing completely in the resurrection (or incarnation or the authority of the Church), or are not confessing well, or are not attentive enough in divine services, or are inconsistent in their daily prayers, or often have to expel wicked thoughts from their minds—the list could go on and on. These are all common temptations or struggles of those who sincerely give their life to God.

Yes, some struggle with one thing, while others struggle with something else. Like in the Special Olympics, each athlete has his or her own specific handicaps. Thank God that He does not allow us to be overwhelmed with everything at once. That we weak human beings should struggle in some areas of the spiritual life should be no surprise for us. We are beginners. We are beginners with serious handicaps—it’s like we are newly enrolled in the Special Olympics of the the heavenly life.  A young woman with Down Syndrome will need lots of extra help and patience with herself to learn how to throw a discus well.  Similarly, we need not be surprised when, again and again, we have to go through the same motions in our spiritual life, seeming to make the same mistake over and over again. We are learning. God is helping us. Yes, we are spiritually handicapped in some pretty serious ways, but our coach is God—and God is the best, most patient coach.

St. Isaac the Syrian says the same thing, only he says it much more beautifully than I can. He says, “If… [the devil] is permitted to attack [someone], it is for instruction; but the holy power [of God] continues to accompany and support him…”  St. Isaac describes this support in two beautiful metaphors:

The divine power teaches him just as a man teaches a small boy to swim. When the boy begins to sink, the man raises him up, because the boy swims above the hands of his teacher. And when he begins to grow fearful that he will drown, the teacher who holds him in his arms cries out to him encouragingly, ‘do not fear, I am holding you!’ And just as a mother who, in teaching her little son to walk, steps back from him and calls him, and as he comes toward her on his little feet he begins to tremble and is about to fall by reason of their softness and delicacy, and she runs and catches him in her embrace, so the grace of God also embraces and teaches [those] who purely and with simplicity have surrendered themselves into the hands of their Creator, and have renounced the world with their whole heart and follow after Him.

We are the babies with soft and delicate feet. We are the ones learning to swim above the hands of our Teacher.

You know, I think that the devil’s attack is not so much in the fact that we struggle to pay attention in divine services or struggle with doubts or seem unable to fast very well.  I think these are merely the stumblings of a beginner, the stumblings of a handicapped beginner in the spiritual life.  Where I think the devil’s main attack lies is in our anxiety and frustration over our apparent lack of progress in the spiritual life. This is the main dart of the evil one, the poisonous dart that can do real damage. When we allow ourselves to become frustrated with our slow progress (or apparent lack of progress), we are subtly giving place to pride. We are thinking that we should be better than we are, that we should be able to just make ourselves do it (whatever the ‘it’ may be).

It reminds me of a young man I knew with autism.  Whenever he became frustrated that he couldn’t communicate what he wanted, he began hitting himself in the head. In my struggle with spiritual things, I have sometimes treated myself the same way. When I became frustrated that I just couldn’t pray (or love or be kind or patient) like I wanted to, in my frustration I would push myself in ways that were not healthy and in the end in ways that sometimes turned out to be destructive. Somehow I didn’t want to simply trust that I was swimming above my Teacher’s hands. Somehow I just didn’t want to accept that my feet were soft and delicate and my heavenly Mamma was running to catch me ‘in Her embrace’.

So what if I have spiritual autism? So what if I have a serious spiritual handicap? Does God love me any less? Of course not. In fact, we might even say that he loves the handicapped more, because they need more love.  (Although theologically speaking, God’s love is the same for everyone, it never changes because God never changes.) The problem lies not with God or His love, but with me and my willingness to rest in His love. Martin Luther said that faith was like learning to swim in the middle of the deepest ocean. I think he was right. Only we are not learning to swim alone. We are above the hands of our Teacher, and if we will just relax a little and trust His love, we will learn to float above His hands. And once we learn to float, we can begin to swim—but always above His hands.

Maybe that is our problem. Maybe we want to be swimming when we still haven’t leaned to float very well. Maybe like the girl with down syndrome, we have to keep going back to the fundamentals: hold the discus this way, put your feet here, twist with your hips this way. Or like the boy learning to swim we have to keep reminding ourselves to float, to trust, to relax and know that God’s hands are holding us up. Or like the baby with ‘soft and delicate feet’ we take our feeble steps knowing that God, like a heavenly Mother, is running to us to catch us even as we fall again, running to catch us and to hold us in His loving embrace.

Confession In The Orthodox Church

Confession takes various forms depending on the circumstances and your relationship with your confessor.  At a minimum, it involves standing before the icon of Christ, saying a short prayer, confessing your sin to God in the priest's presence, getting whatever counsel the priest may have, and kneeling to receive absolution.

However, sometimes confession takes the form of sitting and talking--or at least begins that way, especially if your confessor is more of a spiritual father to you.  Sometimes the two roles of confessor and spiritual father are conflated, but a confessor is any priest (with the episcopal authority to do so) who hears confession and absolves sin.  A spiritual father may or may not be a priest, but is someone who guides you spiritually.  In North America, there are so few monks and priests, that usually your parish priest fulfills both rolls.  God is faithful, and usually a parish priest is sufficient for both roles.  Occasionally, someone just doesn't mesh well with his or her parish priest, and he or she has to seek a spiritual father elsewhere—although they can still confess and receive absolution from their parish priest, even though it may be awkward (confessions are often awkward, regardless of your relationship with your confessor--it's just something you have to work through).

Some people have the misconception that a monk is a better confessor than a parish priest.  Monks and nuns are people struggling for salvation just like you and me.  Only a few monks become spiritual fathers (or mothers).  One needs to be very careful when seeking and receiving spiritual advice.  On the one hand, we all need to be guided; but on the other hand, inappropriate advice can be very destructive (both in your own life and in the lives of those around you).  The best course is to begin with your parish priest and stay with him as a spiritual father and confessor for at least a few years.  If you are unable to get along with your parish priest, then that too must be a matter of confession.  As you meet others whom you suspect may have wisdom for you, you may also talk to them (but not to compare advice or to complain about your parish priest).  If you find someone's advice helpful, and this person is not a priest who has authority to hear confession and absolve sins, then you may continue to get advice and counsel from this person, but you should tell your parish priest, who will still be confessing you that you are getting spiritual advice from someone else (tell your priest who this person is--honesty is essential).  If your spiritual father is a priest who hears confession, then you must tell your parish priest that you want to go to this other priest for confession.  It is essential that your parish priest know that you are confessing regularly because your parish priest is responsible for giving you Holy Communion.

There is a kind of subtle pride that I have experienced myself and that I suspect may be common.  It is the a pride that thinks that only an Elder or Starets, someone who is clairvoyant and very advanced spiritually, can help me overcome my sins and passions.  This prideful attitude assumes that if I could only hear the correct advice I would certainly follow it and so be saved from my sins and passions.  This is a delusion.  In my experience I have found that if I cannot accept and follow the advice that I receive from my parish priest, then I certainly will not be able to follow the advice of a God-bearing Elder.  We must humble ourselves and believe that God has given us the confessor/spiritual father we need, and that God will bring along someone else at the proper time if that is truly needed.

This is not to say that every counsel of our confessor/spiritual father is always right for us.  Priests are not magicians.  Your relationship with your priest is just that: a relationship.  You have to communicate.  You must say what is working well for you and what isn't.  You have to try to follow his counsel, but you also must be honest about your weaknesses.  Humility is key.

Confession and spiritual fatherhood are gifts from God to help us along the path of Salvation.  This is a path that involves struggle.  There are no shortcuts or secret passages.  There is only repentance, confession and forgiveness producing meekness, humility and self control.  These are the tools God has given us for our salvation: to make us like Him.

Passions as disease

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the passions and how they afflict us like a disease. Even when you fight against the passions, I find that I am often tricked by them. Really the only hope I have found is to call out to God (using the Jesus Prayer) when I am strongly feeling a passion. However, if someone doesn’t strongly fight the passions, then they take over his life. Some people fight bodily passions with spiritual passions, thus corrupting the heart to discipline the body. For example, someone may control his appetite out of vanity: he wants to look good more than he wants to eat. That’s the tricky part of fighting passions. It is so easy to let self esteem, pride in one’s self, to be the power that overcomes strong desires (this is often the way the world teaches people to overcome bodily passions). But in the end, pride kills love and cuts one off from God. It ends in either delusion (because one thinks he is better than he is) or in despair (because one thinks that he is worse than he “should” be–he keeps saying to himself, “I should be better than this”).

However, just like a sick man (say he is allergic to peanut butter), there are only two things he can do because he cannot help getting sick. First, he has to go to the Physician (God) to be treated and second, he has to avoid the things (peanut butter) that make him sick. It does no good to say, “I shouldn’t get sick from peanut butter.” The fact is that you do. So if someone, like an alcoholic, gets sick (can’t control himself) from drinking beer (etc.) then he has to stop drinking beer all together. In my life I have found that there are several things that I enjoy, but I just can’t do because often (not always, and so there is where a temptation lies) it results in stirring up my passions. There is no pride or self glorification in this. I am not good because I don’t do certain things. In fact, it is because I am sick that I don’t do certain things. Someone else may be able to do certain things, see certain things, participate in certain activities and not experience the arousal of passions. I rejoice that they are free. I, on the other hand, am quite sickly (spiritually speaking), so I have to be very careful–like a diabetic who continually worries about what he does or doesn’t eat, I have to continually watch out for what I let myself do, think or say; otherwise, I’ll get spiritually sick.