Beauty and Truth Wrapped in Vice and Folly

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I am reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, unabridged, translated by Julie Rose and with excellent historical and cultural notes by James Madden. I alway prefer editions of the classics that have notes and even critical essays attached. It is perhaps a random way of learning, but at least it helps me make connections.

I mentioned before that I was amazed by Hugo’s description of a pious bishop, Monseigneur Bienvenu.  It seems to me that even to imagine such a holy man inspires hope that holiness is possible even amid corruption.  It is for me the same inspiration I experienced reading Anthony Trollope’s description of the Warden of Hiram’s Hospital in The Warden.  Reading about such ideal humility and holiness somehow inspires me to strive for something similar.  

It is a curious thing how men and women can imagine holiness--perhaps based on some small encounter somewhere, such as Tolstoy’s encounter with the Optina monastics, though Tolstoy himself rejected the Orthodox Church formally.  Similarly, Hugo, Dickens, George Eliot and others whose novels hold gems of spiritual insight and inspiring examples of holiness, righteousness and humility, how these very authors are also clearly seen as anticlerical.  They reject Christian religion as they encountered it.  

Nonetheless, they were able to imagine.  And often the imaginings of these writers are not far off the mark.  In fact, as a “religious person,” I have heard many people with no particular talent for imagination explain to me that they reject “organized religion” because it does not conform to an ideal that they hold, which as they tell it, seems to be a pretty accurate description of the ideal held by the same “organized religion” they reject.  It all somehow seems to me like rejecting penicillin because the pharmaceutical companies are in it only for the money.  

We need to distinguish the germ from the husk, the wheat from the chaff--even if the wheat is bound up inside the chaff and only tribulation (literally, being threshed, or beaten with a tribulum) can separate the two.  

And yet there is a reason why religion and faith are synonyms.  Perhaps truth and beauty are hidden in the husks of folly and vice so that we can be free to ignore it.  Were the way plain to all, where would the freedom be?  But if the truth is veiled just enough to be ignored, to be an excuse for self-enforced ignorance, then one has a real choice.  If righteousness is not rewarded, if kindness must be paid for, and if humility seems like foolishness, then you have to really want it to find it.  You have to believe in what is not seen, or at least not seen very clearly; you have to believe in what is behind the veil, what is hoped for.

Hugo himself was a genius, a literary giant; but he was not by any stretch of the imagination a moral or religious example.  Perhaps real people who are like Monseigneur Bienvenu (whom Hugo says dies in the “odor of sanctity”) or like Trollope’s Mr. Septimus Harding (the Warden) could never write with the breadth and insight Hugo has into the many and varied aspects of human experience and history.  Perhaps it takes all kinds of people to make a world.  And perhaps in a world fallen and corrupt, the grains of truth and beauty found or even imagined by the more talented of us corrupt and fallen ones, even these very grains of truth and beauty are too a word of God pointing us in the Way.  

For me, sometimes that seems to be the case.

Peace-O-Meter

My friend Michelle commented on the last post that she wished that her "peace-o-meter" worked well. I love that concept: peace-o-meter.

In Philippians 4:7, St. Paul says, "And the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Somehow in my early years, I came to understand this verse to mean that peace functioned as a kind of sentry or guard in our hearts to tell us when the city was secure and to warn us when we were in trouble. An expression I came to use based on this understanding was "follow the peace." And most of my adult life I have endeavoured to be guided by this principle.  I follow the peace, awkwardly, haltingly, and sometimes reluctantly.

Following the peace occasionally looks very foolish. "Wisdom," as this world knows it, would have us scratch and fight and figure out and most of all WIN.  But the wisdom that is from above is peaceable, according to St. James (3:17).  

I think we all have peace-o-meters that work just fine. The problem is not so much that the meter is broken, but that we don't pay attention to it. And if we don't pay attention long enough, we can forget that it is there. We can even forget what peace is, what it feels like, what it is to be at peace even for a moment.

One of the main goals of the spiritual life is to attend to our peace-o-meter. In fact, I will go so far as to say the purpose of religion (good religion, O/orthodox religion), prayer, asceticism, and good works is to teach us to attend to peace: peace toward God and peace toward one another. When we are at peace with God and neighbour, then we can say we are in God's will or that we are being transfigured into the Image of Christ.

But how do we get there? If I can't even find my peace-o-meter, if I can't even remember what peace is like, what do I do? Certainly there are lots of ways to begin. To begin anywhere is much better than to do nothing because you don't know where to begin. But if we take a look at St. Paul's letter to the Philippians and the context in which he makes this statement about peace guarding our hearts and minds, we can also see some clues, especially for those who are already fully immersed in the Church but have somehow lost their inner way.

I implore Euodia and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all people. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving[s], let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Notice that the passage begins with St. Paul imploring two women whom he calls fellow labourers in the Gospel to be of the same mind--i.e. to stop arguing with each other.  The quickest way to end an argument is to let the other guy win. Do you want to find peace again? Then give up your right to be right. Let the other person have her way. Whatever it is, it's not that important, once you give up your right to be right. Let go and let God. That is, let go of your need to handle it, fix it, control it, guide it, and especially your need to be right; and by letting go you will be letting God, you will be getting out of God's way, you will be saying, "God it is your Church, these are your children, you are the only one who can save." And, you will begin to return to peace.

However, such letting go takes practice. How we let go and even whether or not we should let go depends on the situation, the relationships, the matters at hand. It takes discernment, and discernment only comes through counsel and experience. You learn by doing: Is hanging on producing only inner frustration and rancour? Then let go. Are you standing fast accompanied by Grace and inner peace despite the raging storm around you working? Then hang on. Talk to a spiritual mentor, learn from your mistakes.  

Nevertheless, while it is sometimes right to stand fast in an argument, in my life I have found that for every time I should stand fast, there are twenty or more times I should give in. Twenty or more times I am merely driven by my ego, my fears, my lack of faith in God. In my life I have come to the conclusion that if I am not sure what to do, then I almost certainly should give in, I should let go. Letting go almost always leads to peace.

After letting go of your right to be right, St. Paul's advice only gets harder: "Rejoice in the Lord always." He does not say, "Rejoice in being right," but "Rejoice in the Lord." God is the one who saves, not me, and He is who and what I rejoice in. "Let your gentleness be known to all"; not, "Let your correctness be known to all." And why can I take such a risk? How can I risk gentleness (instead of insisting on being right)? I can take such a risk, because "The Lord is at hand."  

St. Paul goes on, "Be anxious for nothing." If you are going to let go, you must also let go of anxiousness. Instead of anxiousness, prayer and supplication with thanksgivings (literally in Greek, meta eucharistias [pl]). The antidote for anxiousness is prayer with (in the context of, or together with) Eucharists--the liturgical life of the Church, communing with God through His Body and Blood together with all the Saints. There is no solitary Christian life. Even hermits are part of a community, have spiritual fathers, sons (mothers, daughters) and commune with Christ and all of the Saints in the Body and Blood of Christ. This is the Thanksgiving that God has given us, our Eucharist.  This is how we give thanks to God in everything.  

So back to the peace-o-meter. Mother Victoria, my first spiritual "father," said to me: "When the Divine Liturgy is completed, and you have eaten the Body and Blood of Christ, then stay still and quiet in the Church as long as you can. Then you will feel the angels' wings. Hold on to that feeling as long as you can, for that will teach you where God is inside yourself."  Mother Victoria's advice has helped me find my peace-o-meter several times when I have lost it.  

May God help us all find our peace-o-meter; assuming, that is, if we are actually looking for it.

The Dangers of E-Mail

I had an intense e-mail exchange yesterday with someone at Power to Change, which used to be called Campus Crusade for Christ (the Canadian national headquarters are located here in Langley, BC).  Somehow I got on their mailing list.  Every other week or so I get a little advertisement from them which I usually glance at and delete.  But yesterday I got something that riled me up.

Power to Change was advertising a book that is supposed to help Christians create “meaningful” relationships with non-Christians, which “are the foundation for all effective evangelism.”

I should have just deleted it.

But, no, snarkiness got the better of me, and I hit the reply button and asked, “Has it occurred to anyone that to have a hidden agenda while building a "meaningful" relationship is hypocritical?” To my surprise, someone from Power to Change got right back to me with a sincere but sophistic argument trying to demonstrate how developing a “meaningful” relationship with someone for the purpose of evangelism is not necessarily hypocritical because it is for their own good. This only steamed me more--a sure sign that I should have said “Thank you very much. Have a nice day” and unsubscribed from the Power to Change mailing list.

But did I do this? No. I shot back another terse response followed by another syllogism from Power to Change based on assumptions I do not hold, followed by yet another terse response and finally an olive branch from Power to Change suggesting that perhaps we agree on essentials but disagree on tactics.  

By this time I was so upset I was shaking--which is not unusual for me when I am upset (I’m an emotional guy).  Finally I realized that I had to let this go. E-mail with a stranger is not a good forum to discuss religion, especially when there are fundamental differences in your presuppositions. 

I let Power to Change have the last word.

Having thought about this experience for a day and having become peaceful again, I realize (yet again) that spiritual things must be shared by the spiritual. What I mean is that I am guilty of the sin I judged another for. My comments did not come out of love. I was not sincerely asking a question, I was taking a jab.  

Evangelism, or any Christian communication, and probably anything a Christian does or says to anyone must come from a place of peace and love. Snarkiness has no place in the Heavenly Kingdom.  

Neither do hidden agendas.  

May God help us to love everyone. May it be said of us again, “Behold how they love one another.”

Upcoming Prayer Retreat - October 25, 26, 27

Please consider joining us for our 2nd Annual Prayer Retreat on Oct. 25, 26, and 27.   Fr. Michael will focusing his talks on "The Sermon on the Mount".

Location: Same as last year - Vernon, BC.  The address and directions will be forwarded to registered participants. 
Cost: $75 per person, including accommodation and meals.
Arrival:  Friday evening - Dinner at 6 pm
Departure:  Sunday afternoon
Register through Fr. Michael.  Send your cheque to him by Oct. 13.  
Space is limited so please let Fr. Michael know if you are planning to attend as soon as possible. 

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.

David and Solomon: An Allegorical Reading

King David is the warrior, which is likened to the ascetic practice of silencing the enemies of God warring in our minds and bodies.  The son of David is peace: Solomon*, born by God's providence of Bathsheba--a wife obtained by sin.  David, the man of ascetic struggle, knows his sin, his weakness; but it is weakness and knowledge of weakness that, by God's providence, produces Solomon: "the peace born of humility" (St. Isaac the Syrian, homily 36).  It is, in the end, this Solomon, this peace born of humility, that builds the Temple of God (the Image of God in a human being) and furnishes it with the adornment of all the sacred vessels (the virtues, the fruit of the Holy Spirit).

*The name Solomon means "peaceful."

Often Talking Past Each Other: Eastern Orthodox and Western Christian Dialog

In Ron Dart’s essay, John Chrysostom and Western Christianity, he points out correctly that back when the East and West formed one Church, Rome often came to the aid of misunderstood and prophetic saints in the East--just as the East became a place of both refuge and inspiration for saints in the West.  I also agree that it is a serious mistake for Orthodox Christians, or any Christian, to idealize just about anything in the Church: The Holy Spirit’s work in the Church is often very messy from a human perspective.  Many, many saints are virtually unrecognized in their generation.

However, I don’t think Ron has got it quite right when he suggests that the Eastern Church does not generally tell the full story of Rome’s positive involvement in Church disputes (personal and theological) during the first thousand years of (mostly) official unity between the East and West.  I can’t recall ever reading or hearing any Orthodox authority disparage or leave out contributions of the West. Our Synaxarion (daily readings of the lives and events of the saints) includes many western saints and does not hesitate to speak well of Rome when Rome has done well.

That said, I do agree with Ron that it is a huge mistake for Orthodox Christians to “write off” all of western Christianity after 1053 (or whenever you chose to draw the line of separation). There have indeed been many inspiring saints and insightful authors in the western tradition since communion between the Churches was lost. Nonetheless, there are also many sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant differences between Orthodox Christian understandings of faith, spirituality, doctrine, ecclesiology and morality when compared to the official and most common western Christian understandings in these same areas. Many of these differences have more to do with the way Orthodox Christians think about these matters when compared to the way western Christians about them.  

While some of the blatant differences such as yeast in the Holy Bread, Married clergy and differences in rite are truly not serious matters and could easily be resolved. Other blatant matters, such as the meaning of Papal Primacy, the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Son and the Father, the nature of divine Grace, and the understanding of the fall, sin and salvation are very serious matters.  Discussion of these serious matters is often made difficult because of the more subtle (yet substantial) differences in the way Eastern Orthodox Christians tend to approach and think about these matters when compared to typical western approaches and ways of thinking. It seems to me that it is sometimes difficult for many western Christians to appreciate or even acknowledge these subtle differences and the effects they have on dialog about more blatant differences. Further, I think it is this inability or unwillingness to appreciate or even acknowledge these differences in way that sometimes lead to misunderstandings about the general Eastern Orthodox reluctance to look to the contemporary West for spiritual guidance.

I am not without hope. What is good and true wherever it is found should be honored by all who love the Truth.  Friendship and dialog between Eastern Orthodox and western Christians are important--especially dialog that includes careful listening. Learning and listening are good for everybody. It is more important to love than to be right; or to put it another way, there is no one right but God, therefore we all must learn, and love is the context in which real learning can take place.  

Les Miserables: Monseigneur Bienvenu

I have wanted to read Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (in translation) for a long time.  Now I have finally got it on Kindle (on my phone and desktop) and will go down to Boarders to pick up a hard copy.  (Kindle on the phone is great for traveling, but I still prefer a hard copy at home.)  

I’m only a few chapters into Les Miserables, but I had to take a few moments to write about Monseigneur Bienvenu, the bishop of “a hard bishopric for a good bishop.”   I love this guy!  He is a man of simple humility born out of a life of suffering who suddenly finds himself in a place of great wealth and influence.  I am amazed at Hugo’s ability to describe so intimately such a good man in the Church.  The bishop is a man who, on his daily walks, “visits the poor when he has money, and the rich when he has none.”  He is a man who has so arranged his lifestyle so as to live on a very small percentage and give away the rest.  A cynic may think that such a thing is truly fiction, but I can vouchsafe that such humility exists not only in fiction--but it is good to read about it in fiction because it helps stir the imagination of those who long for humility, but are just beginning to learn what it looks like.  

Of course, Monseigneur Bienvenu (a nickname, because he welcomes everyone) is an exception: humility is a rare flower.  The church, just like any group of people--a medical association, for example--is made up of people who experience varying degrees of sickness.  Spiritual health among clergy is probably no rarer than physical health among doctors.  We all struggle with the effects of sin.  Nonetheless, the fact that healthy people exist inspires those who want to be well.  And I find the account of Monseigneur Bienvenu inspiring; fictional though it be, still it has the vibration of something true, something that could be true, that should be true.

One of the important steps in becoming like Christ, is to begin to recognize and honor Christlikeness in others.  Even though I cannot attain to much virtue, recognizing and appreciating virtue in others inspires my heart and makes a kind of path for me.  One of the reasons why I have enjoyed much of 19^th century literature is that examples of virtue  are often evident.  So far, Les Miserables has not disappointed me.

“Let us never fear robbers or murderers.  Those are dangers from without, petty dangers.  Let us fear ourselves.  Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers.  the great dangers lie within ourselves.  What matters is what threatens our head or our purse!  Let us think only of that which threatens our soul.”

Mary: Our Example in Work

It occurs to me that after my last post on the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God and how this is an example to us, some of my readers may think that death to this world means that we do nothing in this world, that we don’t care, that we don’t act. This is perhaps due to the skewing that takes place by focussing on one aspect of anything, it gives the impression that it is the only thing.  

If you look at most Orthodox icons of the Annunciation, you will notice in Mary’s left hand a spindle and small distaff of red wool. In the Temple of God, with Her heart and mind completely submitted to God, Mary is working with Her hands. She is spinning the thread that will be woven into the Veil of the Temple, the very Veil that tears in two at Christ’s Crucifixion.  

Dying to this world and returning, or attending, to Christ in our hearts does not mean that we no longer seek, ask and knock. Dying to this world does not take us out of this world, not at least until we fall asleep. Until then, we are in the world, but not of the world. We labour, work and love; we suffer, sweat and bleed; we heal the sick, raise the dead and cleanse the leper, each to his or her capacity and according to his or her calling and circumstances of life. We work, but it is no longer just our work: we are co-labourers with Christ. 

The problem lies not with the labour, but with the heart.  St. Paul says that we are neither better nor worse off by eating/not eating meat sacrificed to idols because the essential matter is not this or that food. The essential matter is in our hearts and getting the idols out of our hearts, and getting the claws of worldly habits and addictions out of our hearts, and attending to Christ in our hearts. And we do this inner work while we must eat this or that food. The food becomes important only as it is a stumbling block to peace for me or someone else. And as it is with food, so it is with work.

In this world we all have work to do, we all have responsibilities. We must be faithful to these. But as we are faithful in the world, we do not forget that we are merely co-labourers in God’s work. I cannot cleanse a leper, I cannot open someone’s mind, I cannot save anyone. God heals, God illumines, God saves. I merely do my best to speak faithfully, act responsibly, and live myself the way I believe God has called all mankind to live. I fail miserably, of course. I’m just a beginner at this. But this, too, is in God’s hands. God is saving me even as He is letting me participate in His saving of others. What a Mystery! What Grace! God’s hands are so big that I cannot fall out, and my blunders and stupidities and sinful selfishness can’t push others out. God’s hands are that big.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide [anyone] from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

And so, like our Great Example, the Mother of God, we sit in the temple of our hearts at peace. And to the Angel(s) God sends our way, all that we don’t understand, all that doesn’t fit into our scenario, our image of what and how we would do things, we say to these Angels, “let it be.”  (Or at least we try to say, “let it be”; we learn to say “let it be.”) And as we do this work in our hearts, we also spin thread with our hands. We spin the thread God has given us to spin, the work and responsibility that we find at our hands to do. And Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles, sometimes something good happens. Sometimes a little Light shines in the darkness. Sometimes a little kindness, or goodness, or faith or love is evident. Sometimes we get to see with our earthly eyes what we are learning to know by faith in our hearts: that God is at work even in the darkness of this world.

The Falling Asleep of The Mother of God: Our Example

I often say that the Theotokos is a type of the Church and that who She is, is what we are all called to become: Virgin, Mother of God, Bride of God, Handmaiden of God.  As we are in the season in which we commemorate the Falling Asleep (death) of Mary the Theotokos, someone has asked me how Her death is to be understood as our death. At first, I did not know how to answer. But with a few days of reflection, I think I have thought of a few things I can say about this.

First we must distinguish between three types of death, or three ways Christians use the word death. First there is the death that we are all born into, the death of this world, the death to which Jesus referred when He said, “let the dead bury their own dead.” Everyone born into this world through a mother and a father--that is, everyone except Jesus Christ Himself--is born dead in this sense. Roman Catholics also exempt Mary from experiencing this first kind of death through a kind of special grace. However, one of the problems with this theory of immaculate conception is that Mary becomes the Great Exception among Christians instead of the Great Example. The Orthodox consensus, for there is no specific dogma on this, seems to be that Mary experienced no special grace freeing her from the effects and influence of sin and death, but that as She grew and learned to choose good, She always did. 

The second death is the death to this world. This is the death that frees us from the first death. This is the death that brings us Life. When we are born (conceived, actually) we come into existence. We are born with a capacity for Life, but this life has to be chosen. In the beginning, when God created everything, He created everything by divine fiat: “Let it be." He created everything this way except the human being. Instead of saying, “exist! and the human being was,” God said, “Let us make.” Everything else was brought into being as it is and as it is to be. Humans were brought into being as something to be made, as a project (you might say), as something to become. And the first real, fully human being is Christ. He is the Man, the new Adam.  This new Human Being, was the fruit of a Woman’s womb, a Woman who said “Let it be.”

God created everything else by saying “let it be,” and then He created a creature that would develop and only become fully what it is as it learned to trust and love God and freely submit and cooperate with God, and itself say the “let it be.”  It is this learning to say, “let it be,” that is the second kind of death I am speaking of. It is a death to our own death, a death to the world that we have reached out and grabbed and brought into ourselves and we have confused with our life. We are born into the first kind of death, a death that looks to created things rather than the Creator for life. The second kind of death is the death to the first kind of death. It is the laying aside of the fear of death, it is accomplished by cooperation with Grace so that we learn ourselves to say, “let it be,” “not my will but Yours be done.”

Mary the Theotokos learned to embrace this second kind of death, this death of submission to God’s will, this death of trust and obedience, this death of silent prayer, inner stillness, and faith. Mary learned to say “let it be,” and so God could create in and through her a true Human being.  Our calling as Christians is also to learn to say “let it be,”  to learn to trust and pray and be still and know that God is God. It is a kind of death. All of the disordered passions and thoughts inside us scream for a different way. We desperately want to fix it ourselves, we pine for a way to reach out and grab the people, events and situations around us, to grab them and “make an impact,” to make it better, to fix it. Like Eve in the Garden, we want to grab the fruit and make things better ourselves.  

But the only real impact we can make is on ourselves. We must become peaceful, then we can participate in God’s peacemaking. We must learn to say “let it be.” Like Elijah in the desert, we must learn that God is not in the earthquakes and fires and storms we feel raging within us.  God is in the gentle breeze, (or as the more famous Masoretic texts puts it) in the “still, small voice.”  Or as Isaiah puts it, “In returning [to yourself and God within you] and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” This is not easy, it is a kind of voluntary death. It is a cross to trust in God and to say, “let it be.”  Yet it is a cross that Mary our Mother and example took up, it is a death that she embraced. And She has shown for us that it is through this second death that Life comes, that Christ is born in our heart (in our womb) and after an appropriate period of gestation, Christ in us becomes the Light to those around us, those we love. Through our death to the world, the world experiences Life. This is a mystery, as St. Paul puts it:

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

Finally there is the third kind of death. For those who have entered the second kind of death, the third kind is a mere “falling asleep.” This is why the Church does not remember the “death” of Mary. We remember her falling asleep. For those who have crucified themselves with Christ, those who have learned to say, “let it be,” “not my will but Yours be done,” for these there remains only a falling asleep in the Lord. And here again, we follow Mary as our example. We die daily to this world and its ways; we learn to “return” to ourselves and to God within ourselves, to trust in Him and to entrust all that concerns us to Him; and we learn to say, “let it be to me, to them, to us all according to Your word.”  

These, I think, are some of the ways that the death, the falling asleep, of the Mother of God applies to us and becomes our example.

Born As A Babe, Again

After Jesus rebukes certain cities for not repenting, "cities in which most of His mighty works had been done," Jesus breaks out in an expression of rapturous thanksgiving to God (Matt. 11:25-30). He thanks God that He has hidden "these things" (perhaps the mighty works, or more exactly, the significance of the mighty works) from the wise and prudent and "have revealed them to babes." Only the babes see the significance of what everyone else sees. Everyone sees the sun rise, but only the babes see that God has shown mercy, granting us another day to turn to Him, enduring with great long-suffering our stupidity, selfishness and hatred of Him expressed by our hatred for one another.

It seems good in God's sight to reveal these things only to babes.  

Jesus goes on to say that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, "and those to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." And to whom does the Son will to reveal the Father? I suggest that the Son reveals the Father to the babes, the ones to whom it seems good in God's sight to reveal these things.  

Our hearts are broken by the hurt and hurting of those around us. "If only they could see!" we lament. But perhaps it is more appropriate to lament, "If only we could see."  Maybe we just want the pain to stop, the suffering to end. And like the wise and prudent of Chorazin and Bethsaida, we think we know how to stop it. We want to tell others, tell God, what to do. We labour and are heavy laden. We labour in trying to fix others, trying to figure out a better way, a way that does not hurt so much, a way to make others see what I see, what my wisdom and prudence tell me. And we are heavy laden. We carry the suffering of those we love. We carry the sense of responsibility piled upon us by our own wisdom and prudence. We are heavy laden with the secret guilt of our only semi-acknowledged complicity in the suffering of others, of everyone, of ourselves. We are burdened with the thought that salvation is just around the corner if only I work hard enough, think clearly enough, pray hard enough, say the right things, do the right things, give more, do more, eat less, strive harder. If only I....

And Jesus says, "Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

We are the ones who must become babes. We the wise and prudent ones must come to Christ taking off the load of our own wisdom and prudence and all of the responsibilities and guilt that they have piled on us. We have to learn from Christ to be gentle and lowly, for in gentleness and lowliness is rest. This is Christ's yoke: to be gentle and lowly, to be babes. Christ reveals the Father to babes.  

We cannot change others. We cannot reveal the Father to others. We can only come to Christ ourselves, come to Christ and learn of Him gentleness and lowliness.  This is our rest, our salvation, and it is the salvation of others too. I must acquire peace to be a peacemaker. I must be born again (and again and again) as a babe. Then the Light will shine, not the light of my wisdom and prudence, but the Light of Christ that reveals these things to babes.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But...

I have always been bothered by the "but" in the Lord's Prayer. I have wanted to say, "and deliver us from the evil one." However, the "but" is firmly fixed in the original. We are told to pray this way, to ask the Father not to lead us into temptation--with one exception. Temptation might be necessary to deliver us from the evil one.

It has been said by some of the Church Fathers that all vices, all sins, are not equal. Some sins are of the flesh. They are manifestations of the animal nature out of control, of natural desires run amok. Examples of these sorts of sins are gluttony, thievery, fornication and even anger and murder. These are sins, and they are certainly evidence of spiritual sickness, but they are sins of the flesh. If they are not attended to, they can cause serious problems in one's relationship with God (and others), but they are not the worst sins.

The worst sins are the demonic sins. Demons don't eat or fornicate, steal things or even murder (directly), but they are full of pride, hatred of God, vanity, envy and self esteem (that is, they think too highly of themselves). These are some of the demonic sins, and perhaps these are the kind of "spiritual" sins that sometimes require a fall for us to recognize in ourselves. Perhaps sometimes a fall in the flesh is just the thing needed to make clear to us that we have nothing to be proud of, and that our vain presenting of ourselves and our high self esteem are nothing more than play acting, thin veneer over rotted wood. After all, Jesus came to save sinners, and if we cannot see the sin in our heart, perhaps we need to see it in our flesh to learn that it has really been in our heart all along.

Even if we look at how things played out in the Garden of Eden, we can see that the fall into a sin of the flesh makes evident and perhaps even saves Eve and Adam from a deeper, demonic sin. Before Eve is tempted by the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, before she "saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise," before this happened, Eve had engaged in a demonic conversation with the evil one. Eve had begun to question God's love, to doubt God's word; she had begun to entertain a demonic thought: the thought that one could be like God without God. In a sense, the temptation and fall into gluttony (and it's consequences) make evident to Eve and Adam the certainty that God indeed loves them, keeps His word, and that God Himself is the only pathway to growth in godlikeness. The sin of the flesh makes evident the sin in the heart.

I say the Lord's Prayer with trepidation. I strive to examine myself, to see the poverty of my spirit, the hunger of my soul for righteousness (one is hungry for what one doesn't have). How easily I engage the evil one in conversation. How easily, like my first mother Eve, I doubt God's word and God's love. How easily I begin to think I've got this or that person or situation figured out. But I don't. My sins make that evident to me. But when I am aware of my sins and my sinful tendency, the passions that rage in my mind and body, then I pray in peace. It's an irony. It's the divine irony. Jesus came to save sinners, and seeing my sin, I am delivered from it. When I am not acutely aware of my weakness, however, that's when I fall into it.

O Lord, lead us not into temptation, but....

Experiencing Houston

I went to a Houston Astros baseball game.  Foot-long chilli-cheese dog with all the toppings and a Miller-Lite.

 

They have mounted police officers riding down the middle of the busy downtown streets.  Here's one giving someone a ticket.

 

Row after row of Church "Supplies"  Anyone need a $300. censer?

The morning Bible studies are led by Bishop Anthony, and they are worth the whole trip.  He has been speaking Prophet, Priest and King theme from creation, through the Old Testament, King David, Christ, and in the Church today.  I have been very encouraged by his talks.  The daily Liturgy has also been prayerful and peaceful.  The big clergy meeting was without fireworks (a gift from above). Tomorrow is the general assembly, then home and no more trips for a long time.  

All Is Grace

I'm taking a mini-vacation with Bonnie at the Franklin house in Vernon, BC.  I'm up here to celebrate a Liturgy for a few families who live in the area, but staying with the Franklins is always like being on vacation.  

Last time I was here, I started one of Kim's books, "All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day," by Jim Forest.  This visit, I hope to finish it.  

Dorothy Day was the founder of the Catholic Worker magazine and the Christian social activism that is associated with that magazine.  Nowadays, many consider Dorothy a saint, but for most of her life she was generally considered a trouble maker or basically ignored by both church and government.  Her work for the poor flew largely under everyone's radar.  Her voice calling for pacifism (even during the Second World War and the Cold War that followed) was too small to be anything but slightly annoying to the powerful, and her devout Roman Catholic faith combined with her intense practical and political concern for the disenfranchised was a nonsequitor in an America that equated (and largely still equates) religious devotion with political conservatism.  

What has impressed me most about her life was how mundane her saintliness was.  She continually loved difficult people.  Loving difficult people can only be done by human choice and divine Grace.  Love, for Dorothy, was a command of Jesus, something to be obeyed.  She loved until she couldn't take it any more, and then would retreat for a few days, only to return and love some more.  And those difficult ones she loved were not necessarily the street people and disenfranchised.  The difficult ones to love were often her volunteers, coworkers and all those many who had a better idea, a different perspective, or a better insight.

I told someone today that I do not have two percent of the love and commitment to Christ and neighbor as was manifest in Dorothy Day's life.  May Holy Dorothy pray for us sinners.

Pain into Love

Someone wrote me recently about a problem he was having.  He often felt invisible.  He didn't mean that people couldn't see him, he meant that people wouldn't see him.  The example he gave was at a church coffee hour.  He was talking to someone and another person came up and started talking to the person he was talking to as though he were not there at all.  Apparently, that happens to him often and it bothers him.  This is what I wrote back.

There seems to be two issues here—at least two that I recognize and can address.

First is the general lack of manners common in a church setting.  I'm certainly not Mr. Manners.  I perform many a social faux pas.  Nevertheless, it seems many people treat others as invisible unless they are "important" to them at that moment.  It's just basic rudeness.  At Holy Nativity I am important, so everyone notices me; but in other settings (with lots of priests), I am a nobody, so I am often ignored—especially if I do not have anything to contribute to the conversation.  I hate small talk, I'm terrible at it.  I talk about what is important or not at all.  I say what I think about the topic under discussion—except when I suspect that my contribution will cause more headache (to me or others) than blessing; then when I am done, I say nothing.  I often just say nothing.  I just stand there until I can graciously escape.  

The second issue is your discomfort with being invisible.  Actually, it is an answer to prayer.  God is giving you a chance to look for the outcast and lonely.  When we feel left out, that is a signal to us that others need us and we must find them.  I suggest that you let that feeling of rejection or loneliness or invisibleness (however you feel it) be a kind of guide to help you find and engage others whom you suspect might be having similar feelings.  Look around the room: Who is sitting by him/her self, who is on the edge of a group but not participating, who looks like they are feeling awkward.  Go to them and be friendly—mostly listen because that is a huge gift to others.  That's how you help others feel "normal."  Even when you don't feel quite right, you can give to others the gift of feeling OK about themselves.  

Be at peace.  There is nothing wrong with you.  We just live in a rude age, and you (and I) are still learning how to turn the discomfort (or even pain) you (and I) experience into love.  This is an essential Christian calling.  Our bodies and our whole lives are great transformers.  Like Christ, we take the rejection and pain that the world gives us and use it to help us attend to those suffering around us. Thus pain is transformed into love.  Death becomes Resurrection.  Sin becomes Grace.  What else could it mean to be the Body of Christ except to do and be what He did and was in the world?

Turning The Four Spiritual Laws On Their Head

Like many who came to Christ in the days of the Jesus Movement, I was taught and came to believe that the Gospel was summarized by the Four Spiritual Laws.  These laws in order are the following:
1) God Loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life
2) You and all humanity have sinned and turned your back on God
3) God sent His Son, Jesus, to make a way back to God through the cross
4) If you accept Jesus as your personal saviour, you will be saved
There are many slightly different versions of this, but basically they all begin with acknowledging that one is a sinner and separated from God, and end with some kind of acceptance of Christ accompanied by assurance of salvation. 

But what if we got this backwards?

What if, as in the life of St. Paul, we begin with encountering Christ and becoming assured of our salvation, and then grow to accept and know the depth of our sin?  Before St. Paul encounters Christ, he describes himself as righteous concerning the Law.  It is only later in his life that he comes to see himself as the chief of sinners.  

I think many devout Evangelical Christians who have been raised in the theological paradigm summarized by the Four Spiritual Laws find their actual experience in Christ to be quite different from what their theology tells them it should be.  Instead of becoming more sure of their salvation as they grow in Christ, they become more aware of their weakness, failure and inability to love and serve Christ and neighbour as they genuinely desire.  Burnout, depression, moral failure, and just plain giving up are the inevitable outcomes.  

In The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death, Fr. John Behr lays out an ancient Orthodox theology that turns the Four Spiritual Laws on its head.  I am still trying to wrap my head around what Fr. John is saying.  I can’t begin to summarize it at this point.  However, based on his lectures at the Parish Life Conference and the preface and first chapter of The Mystery of Christ, I am coming to see that perhaps it is normal to grow in the knowledge of one’s weakness.  Isn’t it St. Paul who states again and again “when I am weak, then I am strong”?  

In fact, I think it is not only normal to become more aware of one’s deep wretchedness as one continues in the Christian way, but it is the evidence par excellence that one is growing in Christ.  As I know more acutely the depths of my sin, I know also more intimately the heights of God’s love.  As the Grace of God shines more brightly, my darkness becomes more evident in contrast.  And although I might easily acknowledge the truth of such aphorisms, that I experience such darkness and sin in myself always seems to surprise me.  “Shouldn’t I be beyond this by now?  Shouldn’t I have outgrown this?  Haven’t I striven hard enough for Christ?” [This last thought leads many into burnout].

But what if we begin with assurance.  What if we begin with Baptism: we die with Christ and are raised in Him.  Christ died for the sins of the whole world--even the sins hidden deep within me that I will only come to know well after years and years of devotion to Christ.  I regularly eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ.  This is where we begin.  Then as we grow in Christ, we come to know the heights of Christ’s love and forgiveness as we come to know ourselves better.  We need not fear our weakness, looking it in the face, admitting its power.  Christ’s love has already made us one of His Beloved.  We are already in the Church, by Grace, through Baptism and Holy Communion (and all of the other Divine Mysteries).  And because we are safely in the Church, we can see our weakness for what it is and cry out “Lord Have Mercy!”  We can confess our sin, our weakness, our doubts, and our struggles.  We can accept that we with the Apostle are the chief of sinners.

Asperger's, Compassion, and Pain

I'm waiting at the John Wayne airport. So many people. So many stories.  

I'm reading "Look Me In The Eye," a memoir by John Elder Robinson, a man with Asperger's syndrome.  My grandson apparently has Aspergers.  My daughter read it and said it helped her understand better what may be going on in her son's head.  

David is a great kid. We spent the day at Knott's Berry Farm (amusement park) riding roller coasters together. He gets lost in his own head a little bit sometimes and is socially awkward--but it seems to me that he is no stranger than I was as a kid.  I was often lost in my own reality.  It took lot's of life experience (pain and disappointment) to finally figure out what I was expected to do and say--and not do and not say. I still mostly feel like I'm faking it.  

However, unlike people with Asperger's, I have never been very interested in machines or math or music. Maybe I never got much of a chance. My unique weirdness--at least I was continually told it was weird and believed it was weird--was that I was emotionally sensitive. I cry embarrassingly easily.  

This sensitivity got me in lots of trouble with my military dad. The memory of his anger with me for crying through Lassie Come Home has never left me. Still today, I feel other people's pain so easily. When I'm hearing confession, I sometimes cry more than the one confessing.  

This emotional sensitivity has also gotten me in lots of trouble as an adult. It seems that I am cursed always to see and sympathize with all sides of an issue. On the one hand, I recognize that gay marriage is not the right way for society to help those who experience homosexual thoughts and feelings. On the other hand, I understand how those who feel this way would interpret gay marriage as a civil rights issue. I often find myself an outcast in all camps: like a Christian Palestinian, hated by Israel because I am an Arab, and hated by many Arabs because I am a Christian. I'm too liberal to be a conservative and too conservative to be a liberal. I identify with fundamentalists and unbelievers. The pain of one feels just like the pain of the other. I wonder if the angels can tell the difference between the tears of a lost and confused homosexual atheist and the tears of a lost and confused heterosexual Orthodox Christian? God knows. I can't seem to tell the difference.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am a devout Orthodox Christian. I believe all that the Church teaches. My problem is compassion--suffering-with. How am I, how are we, called to suffer with the world?  How do I, how do we, speak the truth with a heart full of co-suffering pain?  

As usual, I have no answers. I'm pretty sure that politics (left or right or middle) is not the answer. I'm also pretty sure that "it doesn't really matter" is not a good way to deal with sin. It does really matter, both in this life and the Life to come. Ancient wisdom became ancient wisdom because, well, it has proven to be wise for a long time. At the same time, I am pretty sure that being merely right is not the answer. The Pharisees were right.  Being right gives you just enough confidence to crucify Christ--and feel good about it.       

So pray for me. Pray for everyone. Christ is the answer. Pray that we can truly be the Body of Christ, that we can truly be an answer to those who hurt around us.

What Weapons Has God Given The Church?

The topic of the Parish Life Conference this year was the Last Judgement.  The key note speaker was Fr. John Behr, Dean of St. Vladimir's seminary.  His lectures were excellent.  I can't even begin to summarize it.  As soon as the recordings are available I will let you know.  

The other hot topic of the convention, especially during the clergy meetings, was the U.S. Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage.  The most vocal response to the matter was arguing for a political battle: Protests in Washington D.C. and strongly worded public statements.  This vocal group used lots of violence-laden language: "We have to fight for"... "the battle is about"... "we have to make our voice heard"... etc.  I must admit I was somewhat shell shocked (to continue in the battlefield metaphors).  I was confused.  My heart was breaking.  "Was this the weapon of peace?" I asked myself.  I could imagine a few hundred Orthodox clergy marching in a rally of thousands, only to have all of the media outlets quote the most outrageous gay-bashers in the group, but show only the Orthodox clergy in their TV footage.  

I wondered if I were alone in my feelings, but during the week, other clergy shared with me their reticence.  No one I spoke to thought same-sex marriage was a good thing.  However, some, like me, felt that an aggressive political response was only a recipe for misunderstanding and almost certainly guaranteed to alienate the very people whom only the Church can help.   

I don't know what the Church should do to respond to this new political reality.  I don't know what the Church should do except what Christ has called the Church always to do: to pray, serve, love, and speak the truth.  These seem to be the tools God has given the Church.  If the prophets of the Old Testament are any guide to us today, perhaps it is because the Church has not done very well what it is called to do that we are in the messy moral and political situation we find ourselves in.  Perhaps the best response is not to fight fire with fire.  Perhaps the best response is to return to our calling, to repent ourselves, and to funnel all of this indignant energy into a renewed emphasis on prayer, self-sacrifice and love of neighbour.  

May God help us find the right way through the darkness. 

Societal Salvation

After my sober comments yesterday, I think some may wonder why they should work at all toward justice and goodness in this world.  Of course we should do all we can to promote justice, health, and moral and political sanity.  However, more important than what we work for is how we work.

In this world, there is very little clear vision.  One pious person's vision of a just society may differ radically from another's.  We may drink the Blood of Christ from the same Chalice, but when it comes to politics, have very different views.  We are all quite blind.

However, when we love those who disagree with us, we are beginning to manifest the justice "from above."  A great deal can be accomplished in this world, but it is not by everyone having the same opinions or the same politics.  Genuine societal change happens when we listen to those we disagree with, when we refuse to demonize our enemy.

Life in this world sucks, but the Kingdom God is manifest in and through us who live in this world. 

What Are You Looking For?

I made it to Orange County. The hotel is filling up with the clergy of churches from Arizona to Alaska. Lots of hugs. Lots of how's it going? One such greeting got me thinking.

When I asked how the Church he serves is doing, this clergyman responded with a knowing nod, "Well, you know, the devil never sleeps."  I don't know, so I smiled knowingly but said nothing.

It seems to me that, while the devil never sleeps, the Holy Spirit also never sleeps.  I guess it depends a great deal on what one is looking for.  "Where sin abounds," St. Paul said, "there does Grace much more abound." Or as I sometimes put it (albeit often with more earthly language), where the manure is piled highest, the garden grows best.

A monk friend of mine shared with me some of the principles that his spiritual father taught him. The first principle is: life sucks. What he meant by that is that so long as we are looking for justice, equity, fairness, health, faithfulness or love in this world, we will be disappointed. This disappointment is the manure.

However, where sin abounds....  When human beings are faithless, God is faithful. Where life is unfair, God's Grace is abundant. Joy is found in sorrow, Bright Sorrow it is often called in the Church. Mercy is found where you don't expect it. It all depends on what you are looking for, because once you accept that the bad news (often terribly bad news) is kind of like backgrond noise, then you see the Good News shining brightly through. The bright flowers of Grace and fruit of Life growing in the parts of the garden most fertilized by death.

We live in a broken world, a broken world inhabited by broken people, broken people made in the image of God, broken people who can still shine with the Grace of the Holy Spirit when you least expect it.  It all depends on what you are looking for.