Restore to Me the Joy

Most people think the opposite of joy is sadness. I don’t think so. Joy and sadness can coexist—do coexist. One of the names for the feeling of mixed joy and sadness often used in the Orthodox Tradition is “bright sadness.” It is one of those feelings, or I might better say it is one of those experiences, for which words seem completely inadequate; so I will not try to explain it. What I will try to do is talk a little bit about joy.

Happiness is the opposite of sadness, but the opposite of joy is cynicism. Joy is a way of seeing and knowing and being. Joy sees the ray of light in a dark room, whereas cynicism sees only the darkness. Certainly there is much more darkness than light in the world, so cynics often pride themselves in being realists. In fact, there is a kind of noble cynic (I am thinking here of Dostoyevsky’s character, Ivan Karamazov) who refuses to find any joy, any light or any goodness so long as there remains even a little darkness in the universe.

Such noble cynicism, I think, comes from a rather Sunday-school like notion of God and the universe. This Sunday-school God is all powerful so He can do “anything He wants.” The logic, therefore, goes something like this. If God can do anything He wants, and since there is evil in the world, the evil is God’s fault, since God allows it. Such an understanding of God and the universe produces cynicism. Sometimes this cynicism is crass, as one often hears in political comedy or in the base humor of many stand-up comics; sometimes it is paranoid, imagining conspiracies everywhere—the ubiquitous “they” who are manipulating “the system”; sometimes it is quite noble, as the cynicism of Ivan mentioned above. Unfortunately, this last group of cynics is the most dangerous. The foul-mouthed and the paranoid cynics are pretty easy to dismiss, but the noble, clear-thinking and in the end ruthless cynics are the ones you have to watch out for. Mao, Pol Pot, and Lenin are a few names that quickly come to mind.

The problem with cynicism, even when it is not ruthless, is that nothing is ever good enough. The cynic creates an inner ideal that in no way conforms to reality—even if reality were perfect. What I mean is that the cynic’s ideal is a world without consequences. In the cynic’s ideal world, what goes up only comes down if he or she wants it to come down. He or she plants corn and potatoes grow; he or she drinks soda all day long and doesn’t get fat; he or she sleeps around yet experiences the intimacy of a couple married for twenty years. The ideal just doesn’t conform to reality. What leads to ruthlessness is the cynic’s focus outside him/herself. The cynic reasons, since no one I see lives up to my ideal, I don’t have to either; and the atrocity-justifying ringer, if one has the demonic courage to go this far, is the thought that my compromise in my ideals is only to make the world better [better conform to my ideal].

The joyful person, on the other hand, looks inside him or herself and sees all too clearly the reason why the world is such a mess. The joyful person takes the first three chapters of Genesis literally: not as science or history, but as the story of the fall: my fall and the fall of the universe. The Garden of Eden is in my heart. I am Adam, I am Eve, I reach out and appropriate for myself what God has not given me. I listen to the seducing voice of the serpent—knowing full well that he is lying—and let myself be seduced to the point that I cannot control my impulse to shop or eat or drink or smoke or fornicate or speak sharp words (and the list goes on and on). The joyful person knows why the world is a mess, and God has nothing to do with it except that He has made a way out of the mess.

And herein is the source of joy. The joyful person is not unaware of the pain and injustice in the world. In fact, I argue that the joyful person sees the pain and injustice more clearly than anyone else, for he or she imposes no illusionary ideal on the world. However, the joyful person also sees the way out: the way of the cross, the Light that shines in the darkness.

It’s a funny thing about joy, it grows. The more light one sees in the darkness, the more joy one has. The more joy one has, the more light one sees. And if we will take the New Testament seriously, the more light one sees, the more one actually becomes light.

Am I an Evangelical?

In my Protestant days, when I began reading Medieval writers, I was often confused by their use of the adjective, “evangelical.” The reference was often made of monks and other holy people that they lived an evangelical life. At that time, the only meaning for evangelical I knew was based on my understanding of Evangelical Protestants. An Evangelical, I thought, was a Christian who emphasized evangelism: aka proselytzation. It took me quite a while to figure out, from repeated contextual jarrings, that for these writers proselytzation had nothing particularly to do with an evangelical life. Finally I succumbed to my Webster’s.

Centuries before the Protestant push to evangelize college students in the 1940s, when the name “Evangelical” came to be applied to those whom this movement produced, “evangelical” was a adjective used in religious literature to refer to a life lived according to the Gospel. For those who do not know, the Greek word translated “Gospel” is euangelion. I, unfortunately, had no excuse for my slow-wittedness, having studied Greek. I was just too bound by my own cultural myopia to look at the word itself.

As an Orthodox Christian, I have often been a little miffed that the Protestants have co-opted “Evangelical” as a sort of brand name. I find it awkward in conversations with some Protestants when they ask (for example, in the context of an interview for employment in an “Evangelical” organization) if I am an Evangelical. There is no short answer. “No,” means to them that I am not a “real” Christian—as in, “Are you a Christian or a Catholic?” [Believe it or not, I have been asked that exact question many times] “Yes,” means I am a Protestant of one of the approximately 30,000 possible varieties. If there is time, I often ask my interlocutor to define “Evangelical,” which almost no one can do. This often opens a lovely can of worms and generally leads to a meaningful conversation about Christian faith.

But am I an Evangelical? I had a long conversation with Neil Sneider, President Emeritus of Trinity Western University, about this when I first started working there six years ago. After lamenting for an hour how difficult it is to define “Evangelical,” Dr. Sneider said to me, “Well since there can be Catholic Evangelicals, I don’t see why there can’t be Orthodox Evangelicals.” Leaving the definition of Evangelical open, I agreed. In as much as I strive to live by the Gospel of Christ, I am an Evangelical. The difference between my definition of Evangelical and the broader culture’s is only about 1940 years of church history.

A Redemptive Clint Eastwood Movie?

(Spoiler Alert!)

I saw Gran Torino last night. Normally I do not watch Clint Eastwood movies. I struggle enough with thoughts of vengeance and violent impulses in my own soul: I do not need to stir up those passions by watching a misunderstood but basically good loner be pushed by evil men to acts of vengeance and murder which seem unquestionably noble in the context of the movie. At least that's what I expect from a Clint Eastwood movie.

Someone I trust, however, suggested that I see it. She said that my wife would not appreciate it but I would. She was right. I really liked it, but my wife wouldn't get it. Of course "like" is a tricky word. I did not enjoy the graphic depiction of violence, although there is less depiction of actual acts of violence than I expected, but then I had very low expectations. There is a lot of threatening at gun point, a vivid portrayal of a woman after being violently gang raped (thank God Clint, also the director, didn't make us watch that too) and a few other cruel scenes which certainly make this a movie I could not recommend to many. And, by the way, the profanity is abundant and creative. I never knew there were so many racist slurs; and Walk Kowalski (Clint's character) is in no way prejudiced. He insults everyone regardless of race, creed or gender. But in the context of Gran Torino, profanity serves a purpose: it is the language of peers. Mutual respect is established by taking insult and dishing it back out again. Not a pleasant world to be sure, but a real world that at various points in my life I have lived in or close to.

You see, I am really just a wannabe pacifist, and most street violence does not repulse me. (This is not a boast, but a confession of my own wounded conscience.) Repentance has been a long and bumpy road for me. It has been easy for me to accept that Christ did not resist evil but rather conquered evil by allowing himself to be swallowed by it – trampling down death by death. What's been hard to accept is that the pathway of my salvation, the salvation that Christ secured for me through his life, death and resurrection, also passes through a cross. I too will have to trample down death by death. I don't like dying: fighting is much easier. It's so much more comforting to imagine myself the hero, fighting fire with fire.

My father, a career submariner, often used to say to me, "a coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but once" (a paraphrase from Shakespeare: Julius Caesar II, ii, 33-34). Until I was ten I was somewhat of a wimp – today I would call it pure of heart, but my dad called it something else that I won't repeat. But when I began living in foster homes and other institutions, I made a choice (I actually remember doing this) not to keep dying again and again. I learned to speak the language of violence.

Fighting was a means of communication more than anything else, a way of defining boundaries, and how you became accepted in the group. Of course some people like to hurt others. I never did. I just didn't like being hurt. In Gran Torino I completely understand the thousand deaths Thao was experiencing and why he reluctantly obeyed the gang and tried to steal Walt's Gran Torino [a perfectly preserved 1972 Ford muscle car] and almost got his head blown off in the botched attempt. I've known the deaths that make a peaceful boy a fighter.

Father Janovich is the second most important reason why I hope this film wins an academy award or some other such recognition. This is the first movie I have seen in years that portrays a pious clergyman as a sane force for good. Fr. Janovich will not leave Walt alone after his wife's death. He keeps his promise to Walt's wife and patiently and repeatedly (like a real pastor of a flock) endures Walt's insults to gain his trust and eventually respect. When Fr. Janovich knows that violence is imminent, he does what he can to stop it – including placing his own life at risk. If for no other reason than this realistic and noble portrayal of a clergyman, I hope this film gets wide recognition. But as I said, this is the second reason.

Throughout the film, Walt is haunted by his memories of his participation in war-time violence during the Korean War. There are no gory flashbacks, just occasional references: his Silver Star for bravery, snippets of conversation with the priest: "What haunts a guy is the stuff he wasn't ordered to do."

As the movie progresses, Walt has occasion to mention specific actions – "We shot men, stabbed them with bayonets, chopped up 17-year-olds with shovels." He also mentions that they used Koreans as "sandbags" (human shields). But it is near the end of the movie, after he has decided how he will end the gang violence that Thao and his sister cannot escape, when Walt finally goes to confession. His confession mentions nothing of his war experience, and Fr. Janovich is clearly disappointed and asks, "Is that all?" Walt focuses on his failure as a parent and ends it there; he is saving his most important confession for a different "priest."

Young Thao wants to take vengeance on the gang for raping his sister. He has finally "become a man" and is ready to speak the language of violence. Thao will not listen to Walt, who tries to calm him down. Thao knows only his own anger and frustration. In their final conversation we find out why Walt received the Silver Star for bravery: he was the only one to return from a mission to destroy an enemy machine gun nest. Then, locking Thao in the basement so that he cannot foolishly take vengeance (which the gang is expecting and lying in wait for) and looking him straight in the face, Walt confesses: on that mission he had shot in the face "some poor little gook, just like you" who "just wanted to give up." Thao becomes the priest, the icon of Christ, the icon of the boy whom Walt had murdered in the war. Walt makes his confession.

Then Walt goes to "finish things." I almost didn't want to watch the end. I expected a self righteous blood bath. There was blood all right; not the blood of self righteous vindication, but the blood of redemptive sacrifice. Walt ends the violence by dying, not killing. The camera shot of Walt lying dead on the ground, carrying no weapons and with his arms out stretched out in the form a cross, leaves no doubt in anyone's mind how his death is meant to be understood. Walt's redemption is to die in place of Thao as a penance for his own sins. Perhaps foul-mouthed, racist old war heroes can be saved too.

I can only recommend Gran Torino to those who are already familiar with the language of violence and will not be offended by the racist profanity of an old man and of street gang bravado. It is not a movie for gentle souls or the pure of heart; but like Walt, "I'm soiled," so the graphic depiction of violence did not bother me as much as it clearly communicated to me the pain of the characters. And even the abundant profanity was to me at points witty in its innovative use of insult-I giggled several times. My wife would not get it at all, and I'm glad she wouldn't. Gran Torino is about a violent man in a violent world, a world like the one that crucified Jesus, a world like the one just across the tracks or on the other side of town. It is a movie that speaks the language of violence and points to the possibility of redemption, that the cross, rather that killing, is the only end to violence.

On Washing Feet

St. John records for us the washing of the Disciples’ feet by Jesus before the Last Supper. Peter is embarrassed and doesn’t want to let Jesus wash his feet—not realizing that Jesus has already washed him entirely, for they are already clean because of the word Jesus had spoken to them [15:3]. Peter is already clean, he just needs a little clean up. That Peter needed a little cleaning is, of course, not what bothers Peter. What bothers him is that the Lord and Master wants to do the cleaning, a job normally done by the lowest servant of the house.
In Middle Eastern culture, feet are generally considered unclean. Consequently, lifting one’s heal at someone (exposing the bottom of one’s foot or shoe) is a great insult. It is no coincident that immediately after washing the Disciple’s feet, Jesus cites psalm 41:9: “He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.” By washing all of the Disciples’ feet, including Judas’, Jesus willingly exposes himself to every humiliation that can be poured out on him. If the story ended there, we would merely have another example of the great condescension of God in Christ. If Jesus hadn’t gone on to interpret his actions for us, we could breathe a deep sigh of relief: “Jesus has done great things for us.” But Jesus does interpret his actions: “You ought to wash one another’s feet…I have given you an example…blessed are you if you do them.”
That’s the difficult thing. It is difficult not only because I do not like exposing myself to insult and humiliation, but it is also difficult because I do not have more than a glimmer of an idea what washing other’s feet means in my life today. Washing feet has no emotional impact for me. It’s not embarrassing. It’s not particularly humbling. Now what is humbling and embarrassing to me is to wash the whole body of a disabled adult. Or to wash the dead body of a fellow priest, especially one whom I have known and respected. (In the rites associated with the death of a priest, fellow priests wash the whole body of the departed priest with water, rub it with oil and then dress him as though he were standing at the Altar.) I have only done this once. I’d like to be able to report that it was a deeply moving and spiritual experience—other priests have told me that such was their experience when they have been called upon to perform this act of love. I, on the other hand, felt so awkward and conflicted that I performed my responsibilities as though in a fog. I didn’t let myself think or feel anything. That was five years ago, and still I am processing the experience.
Nurses and care givers (and morticians) wash the bodies of others regularly, so perhaps this image doesn’t help them get at what Jesus was getting at. In fact, “washing” in any literal sense is not at all what Jesus is talking about. Jesus says later that the Disciples are clean because of the word he has spoken to them. And it is from this that I can get a clue as to how this lesson might apply in my life. The words that I speak have the power to cleanse or defile others. What I say can bring encouragement, hope, life; and what I say can bring cynicism, despair, death. When I am with others and the conversation exposes their heels (the dirty part of their soul slips out through their mouth), what will I do? Will I answer in kind, letting out of my mouth equally defiling accusations, innuendos, complaints or cynicisms? Or will I be quiet—always a good choice when you “can’t say something nice”—and bury in myself the filth of my friend? Or, if by God’s Grace I have an uplifting thing to say, will I say that, and perhaps wash a little the feet of my friend?
Lovingly bathing the filth off the body of another is humiliating work, especially as we realize that the same filth we bathe off another is also produced by our own bodies (and souls).

Money Problems?

“We’ve figured out how to solve the problem of our overcrowded little chapel. It will only take five million dollars.” With these words I greeted Lourie and her two small children as she swung by the coffee shop to pick up Andrew. Andrew and I had spent an hour and a half solving all of the world’s problems—especially as they touched our little parish—while Lourie took the car to run around town doing errands. I was joking when I told Lourie that the only problem was money, at least that is what my mind tells me; but emotionally, it was no joke.
Emotionally I get impatient. I look at the needs and the almost magical way they could be met if only we had the money, and feel the frustration level in my stomach rise. Looking outward, I want to coerce or cajole others who seem to have resources into loosening up money to meet what seems to me such a pressing need and such noble cause. But a little deeper down (or is it further in?) I feel something else.
Deeper down I see myself, my own resistance to release resources—money particularly. I have a level of giving that I have become comfortable with. I occasionally go over—for a good cause--but I am not a sacrificial giver. I am not like Sts. Joachim and Anna who gave one third of their income to the Temple, one third to the poor, and lived on the final third. I tithe, which at least biblically speaking, is the minimum level of giving below which one is “robbing” God [c.f. Malachi 3:8]. Tithing is nothing to be proud of. To be proud of tithing is like being proud that you go to church most Sundays, that you avoid meat on church fast days, or that you are faithful to your spouse. These things are not extras, they are just part of a normal Christian lifestyle. I have no basis on which to compare myself with others, for I myself am a charitable minimalist. Ten percent for God, ninety percent for ME, to maintain MY lifestyle.
With the loss of my part-time job, I have become particularly aware of how much of my income is spent on lifestyle maintenance—and here I do not mean the maintenance of a Christian lifestyle. Bonnie and I own our home, so our actual upkeep (after taxes and insurance) requires really quite little. In fact, having recently crunched the numbers, our part-time salary from the mission is sufficient to cover all our necessary expenses. So where did the other money go? Well some went to projects around the house, some went to dinners out and concerts and movies, some went to gifts for children and grand children and others (weddings, graduations, baptisms, etc.), some went to art supplies and software and books (that’s all me), some went to good causes, and a big chunk went to visiting our kids spread out all over North America. All of this expenditure has been reasonable, at least that is what I would tell a parishioner who presented such a scenario to me; but I must admit that it is all lifestyle maintenance. Nothing sacrificial about that.
Don’t get the delusion that this self disclosure is leading to repentance. I’m a hard hearted fellow. The purpose of this self disclosure is to share with you why I can’t rail against others for not being more generous in their giving. Wise Solomon said that as wealth increases so do the mouths that consume it. It is easy to cast our problems in financial terms that those who seem to have more resources than we have could remedy if only they would. It’s always the other guy’s fault. But when I look within, when I look at my own budget and the reasonable extras that go into sustaining my lifestyle, I am struck dumb. With wealth—no matter how much or little—come mouths that consume it.
And looking deeper still, I see an idol. I think his name is Mammon (how did that pesky booger get in my heart, again?) Holy Nativity does not need more money. Trinity Western University does not need more money (Andrew and I were also fantasizing about a minor in Eastern Christian studies at TWU). The problem is not money. In fact, the problem is not outside me at all. The problem is my heart. I do not believe God loves me. I do not believe God loves my spiritual children. I do not believe that God loves all of His children in the Fraser Valley and beyond, Orthodox, not-yet Orthodox, and not-yet-even Christian. Secure in the love of God, there are no needs. And so, I guess, there is a call to repentance after all. My heart must return to my Father’s love, accept it, believe it, trust it.

Envy, Self Righteousness and Pity

I am familiar with Envy—you might even say that Envy is a friend of mine. It’s not that I want to envy, it’s just that I often do. I don’t want to be friends, but we have spent so much time together over the years that it seems Envy has its own comfortable chair in the living room of my heart. Over the last little while, however, Envy has been somewhat uncomfortable in my heart. It seems as though my developing relationship with Pity keeps Envy from coming around so often.
For most of my life I have been a comparatively good boy. This may surprise some. Those of you who know about my rather rough childhood and adolescence may wonder: “can anything good come out of foster care?” I have, by God’s grace, largely been a coward. I have looked at all of the evil and wonderfully enticing prodigalities that dangled before me with so many promises of delight, power, or intimacy, and I just couldn’t get up the guts to risk the evident pain that was often the price for such indulgences. I liked being safe, even if it was boring. But that didn’t keep me from envying those who went for the gusto.
Self Righteousness and Envy are buddies. I didn’t drink or do drugs—I was too intelligent, I saw were they led. Yet those who indulged seemed to be cool, seemed to have so many friends, and I so often felt left out. Even in my group, the religious kids, the celebrities were the ones who returned from the prodigal life, the ones with the I-was-trapped-in-the-party-scene testimony. I was so envious that I sometimes construed the one time I really got high as a life of debauchery just so I would have a good testimony.
Perhaps as a response to this envy, I began more and more to feel anger toward those who couldn’t just say no: “sure it’s tough, but I did it, so you can too.” Stories of death by overdose or multiple abortions or suicide following yet another failed intimate relationship evoked no pity in me, just a cold confirmation that the wage of sin is death and a confirmation that I had been right in not taking such paths. I was angry with those who fell away from the faithful: they were now the cowards, they couldn’t hack righteousness, they succumbed—those idiots!
Of course, these thoughts were always mixed with other thoughts. They were mixed with a sense of fear that I too might succumb. If Pastor X, whom I really thought was a man of God, ran off with the secretary, I too might someday meet my nemesis and I too would fair just a badly. Anger was a coping device. Somehow as long as I was angry at the failures of others, I felt safe.
I was mostly unaware of the dynamic of self-righteous envy at work in me until about two years after I became Orthodox. One of my very best friends, a deacon and our head chanter, began suffering from gout. He was a salesman by trade, and in order to keep emotionally “up” (to make enough sales to support his wife and four small children) because of the pain caused by the gout, he began abusing prescription pain drugs. With the abuse came a mental breakdown that eventually led to his abandoning his family and soon death by overdose. I was angry with him beyond words.
Early on, the bishop met with the other clergy in the parish to discuss how we might best reach out to our prodigal deacon and his family. In this conversation I expressed how angry I was with him. The bishop’s response shocked me. I expected him to understand my anger and try to comfort me (It seems self-righteous envy is really all about me, even in the face of the terrible suffering of others). Instead of comforting words, His Grace said (and here I paraphrase), “How dare you be angry! Your friend needs your love and prayers now more than ever.” The shock was like a slap in my face. His words have become for me over the last twelve years a kind of criterion by which I have come to judge my inner life: “how dare you be angry.”
Slowly I have begun to look at sin and righteousness differently. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that I have come to look at sin and righteousness much less. Instead, I have begun more and more to look at human pain. People hurt. They hurt themselves and they hurt others. Some try to cope with their pain through sin (which leads most obviously to death), others through self righteousness (leading to alienation, a kind of hell on earth), but few find their way clear to the Father’s love. Few find their way to the light yoke of Christ: the burden of bearing one another’s burdens, not your own.
Righteousness and sin have not gone away. I just don’t relate to myself, my friends or God in those terms so much anymore. Instead, I try to let my heart be filled with the pain of those around me (bearing their burden). I believe this is called pity. I am not very good at this, so I can’t say were this will lead, but so far my experience has two distinct features. First, pity makes me pray. When I feel the pain of others, it hurts, sometimes a lot. All I can do with the pain is take it to God—offer it to God with the words repeated over and over again, “Lord have mercy.” The second thing is that I think about myself much less, whether I am right or wrong, sinning or not. And the funny thing is that I also don’t think very much about the rightness or wrongness of the person whom I pity. I just feel some of his pain, I carry a little of his burden; I say, Lord have mercy, and somehow God has mercy.

Forebear Theatening

In Ephesians, as in other epistles, St. Paul fills the last half of the letter with practical advice for Christian living. Here he advises “masters” to “forebear threatening.” Most of us live in circles of relationships in which we are at various times and in various contexts master or slave, parent or child, elder or younger. Almost no one is always only “wife” or always only “child” or always only “master.” However, as a grandfather, experienced teacher and a priest, I often find myself in relationships in which I am master (i.e. supervisor, adviser, mentor, teacher, evaluator, disciplinarian, leader, authority).
I have been paying attention lately to how often I feel compelled to threaten. I am not tempted to threaten in any gross or physically violent way. I merely want to point out certain possible negative out comes. I want to tell someone what might happen if…. I want to energize and motivate certain people by telling them what could happen if they aren’t more this way and less that way.
In discussing this with Bonnie this morning, she said, with the innocent brutality that only thirty years of loving marriage provide, “sounds like witchcraft to me.” And taking another sip of coffee she looked out the window and said, “I need you to cut down the weeds around the garden again.” Ah, the gentle violence of love.
When it comes right down to it, any attempt to manipulate the behavior of others in a hidden way is a form of witchcraft (the pointy hat is optional). This is a subtle matter. Warning and teaching are God-appointed duties for parents, priests and others who are entrusted with such responsibilities. Godly instruction and self-willed threatening may differ only in the attitude of the teacher. When I sense within myself an agenda, a goal for the other that the other is not aware of, then my “teaching” is coming dangerously close to manipulation.

Bear One Another's Burdens

When St. Paul at the end of Galatians tells us to bear one another’s burdens and “so fulfill the law of Christ,” What exactly is he telling us to do? Just three verses later, St. Paul tells the Galatians, “Each one shall bear his own load.” Is this a contradiction?
Most of us, I think, never thought about this. Even if we knew both verses, we would quote them for different purposes. “Bear one another’s burdens” is quoted when we want to motivate others to help out—help us particularly or help someone we care for. “Each one shall bear his own load” is quoted when we want to relieve ourselves of a sense of responsibility to help others out. It is really quite a convenient set of verses.
Of course, St. Paul did not intend for these verses to be used this way. But what did he intend? St. John Chrysostom in his commentary on Galatians gives us a clue. Like any good exegete, St. John first looks at the immediate context for guidance. The verse immediately preceding “bear one another’s burdens” says, “If a man is overtaken in a trespass….” The burden of the other that we are to bear, according to St. John Chrysostom, is the sin or “trespass” that “overtakes” the other. St. John makes quite a big deal about this word, “overtakes.” He says that this word is used because St. Paul wants to emphasize the gentle attitude believers should have toward their brothers and sisters who sin. In fact, St. John compares it to a disease overtaking a person, as if in an unguarded moment a temptation comes upon someone and they succumb, like a man who is susceptible to hay fever who, forgetting to take his medicine, goes for a walk in a field of tall grass only to be “overtaken” with sneezes and swelling and sinus congestion.
The burdens of our brothers and sisters that we are to bear are their trespasses and sins. Bearing our brothers’ and sisters’ trespasses is how we fulfill the law of Christ. (By the way, this should be ringing a bell in all Christians who pray the Lord’s Prayer.)
Erring brothers and sisters are to be corrected, but St. Paul lays out some very specific guidelines about who and how trespassing brothers and sisters are to be restored. First, they are to be corrected by those who are “spiritual.” That is, having given a list of the fruit of the Spirit just a few verses before, St. Paul says that correction can only be administered by those who are bearing the Spirit’s fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. This is good news for most of us. Most of us never—NEVER—are the ones who are supposed to correct an erring brother or sister. In fact, “correct” isn’t the word St. Paul uses at all. The word he uses is “restore.” This is a common name for the sacrament of confession: the sacrament of reconciliation, or restoration. Therefore, in most contexts priests or spiritual fathers or mothers are the ones who restore brothers or sisters overtaken in trespasses. You can relax. Until you are a priest or a spiritual elder, it is generally not your job to correct others, but it is you job to bear the weakness of others. And by bearing their trespasses, you are fulfilling the law of Christ.

Dating non-Orthodox Christians

Single Orthodox Christians have no easy road before them, especially if they suspect that they will be married some day. For most of history and in a large but shrinking portion of the Orthodox world today, single people did not have to worry about who they would marry: someone else chose for them. In the best cases, the people involved had veto power; that is, neither one had to accept the match. But in some cases one or both had no choice. Now we live in a world in which Choice is God. We cannot imagine not choosing our own hair style, clothing and career path; much less not choosing our own spouse.
We vainly imagine this power of choice is the same as freedom, but if we have no basis on which to choose other than our subjective urges, transient likes and dislikes, and fantasies based on movies, novels and occasional glimpses at internet pornography, then choice is not freedom but bondage: bondage to the ideals of a sick culture and the passions of a fallen mind. But this is the reality many Orthodox Christians in North America and Europe today. Some lucky few have relationships with parents or spiritual mentors that are close enough and mature enough to provide some guidance and advice in the search for a mate. Most, however, are out on their own. Even if they do ask for advice or guidance from a priest or parent or other responsible person, many young people are merely seeking confirmation for what they already feel or think or lust for.
So this is where we start: one priest's dating guide for Orthodox Christians.
First, and this applies not only to dating, but to all friendships: Hang out with people you want to become like. This does not mean that you do not hang out with people who are not perfect; that’s ridiculous, no one is perfect. What it means is that you look for Christ-like virtues: kindness, gentleness, self control, faith, joy, etc. People with these qualities or who are seeking these qualities will help you develop these qualities. Now I am going to say something shocking: Orthodox Christians are not always the most Christ-like people you know. (I probably didn’t surprise anyone.) Good people are good people no matter where you find them. Hang out with good people and you will become a better person.
Second, don’t differentiate between “dating” and hanging out, at least not in the early and middle stages of a relationship that may be leading to marriage. That word, “dating,” has killed more potentially wonderful relationships than any other word in contemporary English. “Dating” is a cultural construct defined by popular culture, chiefly movies and TV. Generally the only difference between dating and hanging out is that if you're dating you are admitting that you are sexually attracted to one another—not the best way to begin a relationship that you hope will lead to the martyrdom of Orthodox Christian marriage. Unfortunately, our culture has taught us that sexual attraction is key to finding a suitable life partner; in fact for much of our culture, good sex is the highest form of transcendence conceivable. But let me state the obvious: this is not a Christian culture.
Christians are called to a life of repentance, a life in which Christ is God and my life is His. Sex, even “great” sex, is a normal part of life for married Christians; but, and here is the irony for our culture, great sex is the byproduct of Christ-like loving and giving in the context of a life-long relationship. Feeling sexually attracted to someone you hardly know is certainly no way to determine if someone will make a good wife or husband. A good marriage can never be based on how the other makes me feel. Good marriage is based on my caring for and loving the other, even when it doesn’t always feel good to me.
Third, religion matters. Above I said that good people are good people no matter where you find them, but if you begin to think you might want to spend the rest of your life raising children with someone, then religion is very important. For most people, when things are going well religion is not a very important part of their life (no matter how strenuously they protest that it is). When we feel like things are going well, and nothing feels better than being in love, God drifts to the background, and we basically ignore God. I’m not making this up. Read Deuteronomy 32 sometime. It records the common experience of God’s people: when things are going good (when we “grow fat”) we ignore God. However, marriage, as many have observed, is the remedy for falling in love. Once a man and woman begin the hard work of sharing their lives together, God becomes much more important in their lives. I am not saying that marriage is all work and drudgery. No, not at all. The most wonderful, wonderful gift God has given me is my wife and children; however, marriage has also driven me to my knees again and again. When a couple do not share the same faith and same religious commitment, then when the going gets tough, where do they go for help?
The Orthodox Church allows marriages between Orthodox Christians and other Christians (not non-Christians). The main stipulation is that the couple agree to raise the children Orthodox. This allowance for mixed marriage, however, can be easily misunderstood in our modern world of choosing what’s right for me. This allowance did not have in mind an Orthodox boy choosing a Baptist girl because she’s hot. This allowance came to be in a world in which children were often promised in marriage before they were three years old. They had no choice; and so the church made allowance for the reality of a culture in which a man or woman could not choose his or her spouse. But we have a choice.
Young people, my daughters included, often say that there are no good candidates among the Orthodox Christians they know. I understand this problem. Often Orthodox Christian churches are small and choices are limited. Therefore, if you’re serious about finding and Orthodox Christian spouse, you need to get out and get involved in Orthodox projects, conferences and activities outside your little parish. Organize retreats, participate in diocesan, mission or service organizations, visit monasteries (you never know who else might be visiting), rent a van and crash a archdiocesan convention with seven of your buddies splitting the cost of the room. Be creative.
Let me sum up. It is not a good idea to date non-Orthodox Christians because it is not a good idea to date anyone. It is a good idea to have lots of friends, to learn how to be kind, generous, loving, patient and joyful by hanging out with people who encourage you to be more like Christ. If you suspect that a particular friend may indeed be someone with whom you could spend your life, then enquire if he/she suspects the same thing. If you are too shy to ask directly, then ask a trusted third person to make enquiries for you. Since you are already friends, you can skip the dating thing. You can now continue to be friends discerning together and with your priest(s), parents, and other trusted friends whether or not you are indeed right for each other.

The Staretz Never Came

When I was inquiring into Orthodox Christianity, I (and the group I was a part of) became convinced early on that we needed a staretz, an elder of profound holiness and insight to guide us. At the time, it made perfect sense. In the milieu from which we came, sincere earnestness was the primary—if not the only—indicator we had to spiritual vitality. And since we were an intensely earnest bunch of enquirers, we seemed to ourselves (although we never would have actually said this) to be spiritually alive to such a degree that normal guidance from just any priest would certainly not be adequate for us. We thought we were a special case, but the staretz never came.
After our community had been Orthodox for a year or two, we began to experience a lot of strife among the leaders of the community. The “system” of relationship, leadership and decision making that had created our community and led it to Holy Orthodoxy began to crack. From my perspective, the crisis was perhaps most acutely precipitated by the events leading to the death of our great friend and head chanter, Dn. Timothy. Suffice it to say that our new milieu, the Orthodox Church, provided ways of thinking about conflict and loving those who succumb to weaknesses of various sorts, ways that our community’s leaders did not equally recognize or appreciate. And then, of course, there was the bishop.
We were the first large group of converts that Bishop Joseph had received into Holy Orthodoxy. He had only been in the United States for one year, his English skills were still developing and he was completely unfamiliar with American Evangelical sensibilities. This was a recipe for misunderstanding and confusion if ever there was one. And still no staretz came. Misunderstanding and accusation bloomed like a red tide. Quickly factions emerged. It’s a funny thing about factions in a community: you don’t really have to be on anyone’s “side” to be on someone’s side. The very fact that you don’t vociferously defend (or accuse) the villain (or hero) of the moment makes you a de facto member of one party or another.
The most painful few years of my life were these years of trouble: wishing, hoping and praying for a holy man who could speak definitively and clearly, who could draw a line in the sand so that we could know which was the right side to be standing on. But the staretz never came. Or perhaps a better way to put it is that God did not confirm our delusionary self importance; rather, he let it self destruct. There was no right side or wrong side. There was no line to cross or not cross, as is the case with almost all conflict in the Church (and it’s that “almost” that makes conflict in the church so difficult to negotiate). There were only confused and frustrated people who wanted earnestly to do the right thing; and that earnestness itself was part of the delusion that needed to be purged, along with the assumption that the right thing was anything more than to love one another.

Dark Belief

If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about what someone has called the dark belief. When God turns out not to be who we thought he was, particularly because the circumstances of our life are more painful than the God whom we had imagined would have allowed, cynicism and atheism (or agnosticism, her sister)seem appropriate coping mechanisms. Initially, there is a perverse joy in attributing to others the worst possible motives because, maybe, you feel like you are seeing clearly for the first time —not that others don’t sometimes have mixed or even completely selfish motives. Eventually, however, cynicism leads to intense loneliness and bitterness. If you are lucky, you meet along the way someone who breaks the mold: unpretentious, he just cares about other people. He too has suffered a great deal. He too has passed through the crisis of denying God because God refused to remain in his life the tame, Sunday School, watered-down and simplified God of his fundamentalist childhood. When you meet someone like him, it is possible to have a frightening experience: hope. It is frightening because you don’t want to go back to the anemic cosmology you had before—you know that will just lead you again to cynicism. But instead of going back, what if you went forward, not assuming you know where it will lead. Follow the light, the good. Long for the good. The ancient monks called this Divine Eros. Even in your physical and emotional pain and confusion, you can find pockets of good, small moments and encounters that bring light, in which someone does or says something that seems to be grace-filled. The world is an ugly place (“do not love the world or the things in the world” St. John said), but it is not devoid of good. Following the good is the narrow way. The narrow way leads to life; but the easy way, the obvious way, to death. In Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor chastises Jesus for making the way too difficult. The Inquisitor claims that he (Scholastic Christianity) really loves the people by simplifying Christianity for the people. Whereas Jesus refused to turn stone into bread, the Inquisitor gives bread (easily understood formulas) so the people do not have to struggle with the meaning of the stones in their life. Whereas Jesus refused honor and clear resolution (“If you are the Son of God throw yourself off…”), the Inquisitor provides honorable positions in society and easy answers. How, the Inquisitor argues, could a loving God force people to live with ambiguity? Most western Christians have grown up with the religion of the Grand Inquisitor, not the religion of Jesus.
The question for each of us is will we follow the narrow way? We do not have to run down the path. Limping is fine. Truth be told, if you could see in the hearts of the people you admire, everyone hobbles, crawls and stumbles toward the light. We are all terribly wounded.

What is worth living for ? A response

You have really asked the fundamental question: What is worth living for? You are right that an external constraint to be good only proves to be a burden that eventually produces some form of mental illness either because of guilt because you ignore the “rules” or fundamentalistic self-righteousness and condemnation of others because you deceive yourself into thinking that you are keeping the “rules.” Why bother? Of course, libertinism only produces more suffering. Suffering is a symptom of our sickness and of the sickness we impose on each other and the world. Suicide may take us out of this world, but it doesn’t change us. At least from an Orthodox perspective, heaven and hell are ways to experience existence, and you don’t have to die to begin experiencing either. I know people whose life is hell and I know a few who already taste heaven. As for me, I experience hellish periods (some last moments, some days); but I smell, sometimes, the roses of heaven, and I try to follow that fragrance.
I think the problem lies in a religious milieu that tends to posit knowledge of God as either emotional high or as ridged conformity to rules. This of course is no one’s dogma, but it is the experience and practice of many, many Christians of all stripes. Finding God, if you really find and know Him, makes suffering through life worth it: suffering has meaning in Christ. The problem is how to find, really find, Christ and know Him.
Genuine life in Christ is full of paradox. I think it begins with hope, even the faintest wish that the Creator cares about me. But this care is not like the Baalim, the gods of the world, who in exchange for sacrifices and offerings of various types promise material happiness and power. This care is rather that of a conscientious doctor who desires to heal the patient, not pander to the patient’s delusions. We are very confused children, sick in our minds and hearts; and if we can begin in hope to trust the Physician—because like physiotherapy the healing process is somewhat painful—the small “deaths” we experience through forgiving ourselves and others and turning away from ways that we hurt others begins to produce a kind of resurrection in our minds and hearts. There are no rules outside our heart, but then again our hearts are sick. We need guidance, a spiritual mother or father to help us along the way. But we live in a day in which reliable spiritual fathers and mothers are rare, and most of us stubble along through trial and error, gleaning bits of wisdom from wise people here and there.
And yet hope shines like a little light in a very dark room. We take small steps toward the Light, toward the True, the Beautiful, the Simple. Along the way we learn about ourselves, how sick we really are, what’s real and what’s delusion, what’s love and what isn’t. And part of the paradox is that the less we care about our healing and health, the more clearly we see ourselves and act and think in healthy ways. The more we look at ourselves, the less we see and the more deluded we become. And so we look to a model outside ourselves: “Looking to Jesus, the Author and finisher of our faith.” I’m not talking about the Jesus of Sunday School and of nine year olds. I’m talking about the Jesus who entered the insane world of a woman who had had five husbands. The Jesus who touched the raving maniac and calmed him. The Jesus who called religious hypocrites vipers and white-washed tombs.

Watch out for big words

A weary priest, after listening to a college student share in rapture all that he has learned from the latest Life of an elder on the Holy Mountain: “Prayer of the heart? Theosis? These are big words. Do me and yourself a favor. Don’t speak those words again until you have either (A) spent a least fifteen years in a monastery under obedience; or (B) you have raised at least five children to love Christ and His Church. Once you have done either of these, then, maybe, you will be able to begin to say these words. For right now the words for you are patience, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control. These words will keep you busy for the next twenty years. Learn to say these little words, then you may come to know how to pronounce bigger words.”
One of the stumbling blocks I find in parish life is that single adults are reading spiritual material written to challenge and stir-up the spiritual life of experienced monastics, and thinking that they understand it! As a pastor, I find that the a young person can carry on happily in his or her delusion—reading more spiritual books, visiting monasteries, and “explaining” Orthodox spirituality to their non-Orthodox acquaintances--until their delusion of spiritual knowledge is shattered by the realities of marriage and family life. I cannot tell how many times I have sat with a weeping young married man or woman who was afraid that he or she had lost Grace.
“By the time I have gotten up two or three times during the night because of the baby,” a young mother says, “I can’t keep my eyes open to say even one prayer from my Rule. Then once I’ve cleaned up breakfast, started the laundry and picked up the house, it’s time to start making dinner. My heart feels so far from God. I can’t even pray in Church. I spend the whole time taking the baby in and out. My spiritual life doesn’t exist anymore.”
A similar tale is told by a young father, working 50 to 60 hours a week at his first real job, trying to make it up the initial rungs of a corporate ladder, barely making rent and car payments. “I try to say the Jesus Prayer as I drive to and from work, but my mind is buzzing with things I have to remember for work or things I have to do at home. I have no peace. When I get home, it is all I can do not to yell at the kids and be angry with my wife. I have not read a spiritual book in years. I am depressed because I seem to have fallen so far spiritually from where I was before the children came along.”
These are not unusual tales, as any parish priest can tell you. Somehow the responsibility of family life throws young parents into a spiritual crisis for which the Church and our culture has not prepared them. While there may be many causes for this lack of preparation, one that seems to be functioning in the church is what Alexander Schmemann called a “monastic trend.” That is, so much emphasis is placed on individual piety, spirituality and asceticism, that young Orthodox Christian adults do not recognize the spirituality of self sacrificial love when the circumstances of life finally force them to practice it.
To a certain extent, this monastic trend (or as a friend of mine called it, “anchoritization”) of popular Orthodox piety is unavoidable. In all western cultures, including many traditionally Orthodox countries (Greece and Russia, specifically), the individual is king. Almost no one lives in an extended family. Technology has made dependence on local community, on the neighbor (whether you loved him or not) a thing of the past. It is really easy to convince myself that I love my neighbor when I don’t even know his name. I succeed if I work hard and am lucky. I fail if I’m lazy and foolish. If I’m spiritually inclined, I grow in my relationship with God through my spiritual activities. Even alms giving is a disembodied act: IOCC conveniently accepts credit card donations and distributes aid to people I will never meet. And of course, all of this success or failure, spiritual growth or not, is at my own pace. No one tells me what to do. I choose my own books, I choose my own spiritual exercises, and if I’m so inclined, I choose my own spiritual father, whom I can ignore if I choose.
Those who actually enter real monastic life discover the communal nature of Christianity right away—they choose nothing. Those who follow the path of marriage often are not confronted with genuine community life until the children come along. For many, this is the first time in their adult life that someone else is telling them what to do. This is the first time they are compelled by love to lay down their life for another. The problem is that no where along the line of their Orthodox Christian experience has it been made clear to them that such self sacrifice is what Christianity is all about. Consequently, young parents are confused: how can losing my “spiritual” life be gaining it?
Books like Mountain of Silence provide a mixed blessing. On the one hand they introduce the Orthodox Church and spirituality to a world hungry for real spiritual life; on the other hand, they do not, they cannot, make evident that the apparently individual spiritual struggle that they describe takes place in a community of self denial and obedience.

For fear of the Jews

One of the phrases that repeatedly appears in the biblical and liturgical texts surrounding the death and resurrection of our Lord is "for fear of the Jews." This is a very misleading, though accurate, translation of the text. It is accurate because, well, that is what the text says. It is misleading--and, I might add, has been used to justify terribly inhuman behavior to Jews throughout Christian history--because it gives the impression that "the Jews" who were feared were somehow a different race or religion from those who were fearing. This is not the case. The followers of Jesus--those who were fearing--were all Jews, too. Gentiles (non-Jews) did not begin to join the followers of Jesus for many years after the resurrection. In fact, the first big argument in the Church was whether or not non-Jews could be followers of Jesus at all.
Within a couple hundred years, the phrase, "for fear of the Jews," actually began to have a meaning that is the exact opposite of what the original writers intended. What the biblical writers intended is something like what I might mean if I said in a letter to my bishop, "We fear the British Columbians." I and everyone in Holy Nativity (except one couple who commutes from the States) are British Columbians. At the time of the Apostles, when all followers of Jesus were Jews, Judea was under foreign occupation by the Roman military. The name "Christian" had not yet been coined--they were just followers of the Way, one of many sects of Judiasm. At that time, Jews were generally in fear of the Romans. But the biblical writers want to make clear that it was thier own people and their own religious and political leaders (and not the Romans) whom the followers of Jesus were fearing. They do not fear someone from another group, a religous or political or racial foreigner. Rather, they fear their own family.
Today, and thoughout most Christian history, "Jew" has referred specifically to a non-Christian religious group, often conceived as a different race from the Christians. Consequently, a phrase like the following, spoken by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost, has almost the opposite meaning today as it did 2000 years ago.
"Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."
When Peter, the Jew, said this, he was speaking to Jews. In this sentence, "you" means "us." Today, "you" means "not us, but them."
Therefore, I do not like the literal translation of "Jew" in biblical and liturgical texts. It just doesn't mean what it used to mean. Furthermore, and this is huge, throughout history this changed understanding has been used as a defense for the undefendable brutality of powerful Christians against Jews. Therefore, wherever possible, I prefer translating "Jews" as either "the people" or "the rulers" or "the Judeans" depending on the context.
Unfortunately, I am on no committies for liturgical translation. I do not have the authority to change texts (only bishops do). However, if you ever hear me reading the Bible or a liturgical text and substitute "Judeans" or "leaders" for "Jews," now you will know why.