On Humility And Transformation

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....

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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

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.