Brighter Than Any Royal Chamber

At the end of the Great Entrance, when the priest places the Holy Gifts on the altar, there are several verses which he repeats quietly. They are all deeply meaningful to me, but one has been on my heart much of late: “Bearing life and more fruitful than paradise, brighter than any royal chamber: Thy tomb, O Christ, is the fountain of our resurrection.” For me, these words point to the true and proper source of our healing and the definition of what it means for a human being to be whole.

That may sound almost obvious – but in our culture, the terms and teachings of the Orthodox faith must be carefully defined. We are part of a culture that has made “wholeness” into something of a cult – offering self-help books and related pop-psychology books as though they were just so many Romance Novels. Self-improvement has been a mantra of American culture since nearly its beginning (if not before). Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, that collection of homey sayings (“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”) is only an early example of this cultural fascination.

With the advent of modern psychology our fascination has left off its interests in quaint advice and moved on to self-diagnosis (and the diagnosis of others) in terms and understandings borrowed from various branches of psychology. Thus, words such as “extrovert” and “introvert,” drawn from the work of Carl Jung, have simply become part of our general vocabulary, even if their popular meanings are somewhat removed from the theory which spawned them.

I have a sign beside the door of my church office. It is a quote from the first-century Jewish philosopher, Philo:

Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

In theological terms we would say that everyone you meet is a sinner like yourself. In our modern culture we might very well analyze everyone we meet and try to figure out precisely which battle it is in which they are fighting. Neurotics (of every stripe), Co-dependents, Bi-polars, Attention Deficit Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder – and the list goes on. Of course a century or more ago our ancestors were grouping people as “choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, and sanguine” – based on medical theories that have long since disappeared.

But what we mean by wholeness also has tremendous bearing on what we mean by “sick.” The teaching of the Church maintains that wholeness of the human being is defined by the resurrection and nothing less. We are not complete without the resurrection – it is the fullness of what it means to be in the image of Christ.

Nevertheless, there is a confusion in our culture with “spirituality” and “psychological wholeness” or with any number of other images.

One way around this confusion is to make our wholeness something completely “other” than ourselves. Thus, if salvation is understood as an extrinsic gift, and external reward bestowed on us by Christ, then there is only a good effort here and no particular expectation of more. The spiritual life consists in waiting for the second coming. This approach works well with a secular culture. So long as a relgious minimun is met (various groups have various minimums) all is well. We mark time in a secular world with a secular life. It is the Second Coming that will take care of the world in which we live.

This same external approach can have other versions – some more responsible than others – but all leaving the battle outside ourselves. Of course these approaches leave wholeness as a cultural norm – something we work on because we’d like to be a “better person” or simply through some sort of inner, moral imperative.

Of course, the Scripture offers something more:

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18).

The transformation which is promised us in Christ is not a transformation that is necessarily delayed to the “afterlife” but is simply the work of God in us at all times to save. The resurrection is what salvation looks like. Thus we draw ever closer to that which is the fountain of our resurrection.

Met. Hierotheos Vlachos, in a series of books, writes about the spirtual life as “Orthodox Psychotherapy.” What he teaches is simply the traditional three-fold life of purification, illumination and deification. The Elder Sophrony and his disciples (cf. Archimandrite Zacharias) write of a movement from a “psychological” to a “hypostatic” understanding. In this use of theological terms they are referring to a movement away from experience and problems as commonly understood and an extension, through grace, of ourselves into a fuller life of true personhood. I have found the Elder Sophrony’s writings to be of greater help to me personally – but that is nothing that I would ever generalize.

Our commitment to Christ is not necessarily a call to psychological well-being – as understood by the world. Such a healing may or may not be our lot. I have never been hesitant to recommend that someone see a doctor if it seemed clear that they suffered problems that needed medical help. There are certainly many mental conditions that are helped by medication. But medication is not resurrection. It is a band-aid. If you are bleeding that is a useful thing to have.

The greater realization is that we all share the same call in Christ – a call to go from “glory to glory.” The vision of beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord” is not unique to any one Christian. As St. Paul says, “But we all…” However the Christian beside you, beholding the same glory, may very well do so in the woundedness of his neurosis (or whatever terms we come to use). Our task is not to find ways to “fix” one another – but to love one another. Such love will make room for whatever woundedness it finds in others – perhaps even coming to behold the glory of God in the face of someone they would otherwise be tempted to fix. 

What We Do Not See

One of the most striking features of the Gospels is the frequent response of the Disciples after the resurrection of Christ: doubt. I have always been sympathetic to the doubts and hesitations that afflicted their lives during the ministry of Christ. The disciples are almost endearing in their inability to grasp what Christ is all about. However, the same inability to grasp things after the resurrection seems to carry with it all kinds of difficulties. What was it about the resurrection that the disciples could not or did not believe? A man dies and is buried. Then he is not buried and is not a walking corpse but manifests an entirely new form of existence. Call it resurrection or what have you – but apparently Christ had mentioned this coming reality more than once before it happened. What was the problem?

The problem seems to go to the very heart of things both then and now. Had the resurrection belonged to the classification of events that everyone can see, measure, study, and reach “scientific” agreement, there would surely have been no trouble. But the resurrection does not belong to some general classification. It is sui generis, its own classification.

There are many who want to speak about the resurrection as if it were a car wreck down at the corner drugstore. Whatever it was (is), it is very much more, even, indeed, something completely different – not like anything else.

And it is here, that the continuing problem of vision is made manifest. Orthodox Christian writers are wont to utter things like, “God will save the world through beauty” (Dostoevsky), or “Icons will save the world” (recently in First Things) all of which makes some people want to run out and complain. But at their heart, such statements are trying to say something about the nature of the resurrection and its action in our world.

The resurrection of Christ is something completely new. It is a manifestation of God unlike anything we have ever known. It is Truth made manifest in the flesh – not the truth to be found in an average living man. I am 55 and I look very unlike what I did at 10. I look decidedly unlike what I will in another 100 years (you probably wouldn’t like to see that). Thus we never see anything in an eternal state. But the resurrection is just that. It does not belong exactly to the classification of “things created,” for it is the “uncreated” before our eyes.

And thus the Church paints the things that pertain to the resurrection (including the saints) in an iconic fashion – not like portraiture or the “truth” that generally lies before our eyes. Icons paint the Truth as it appears to eyes that behold the resurrection. By the same token, the Church does not write about the resurrection in the way we write about other things, for the resurrection is not one of the other things but a thing that is unlike anything else. Thus the Fathers of the Church said that “icons do with color what Scripture does with words.”

And both have something to do with vision. The Gospel tells us: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” I am not pure in heart but I think I may have encountered such a person. At the least I have read stories about such persons and I know that such persons see what I cannot and they see in a manner that as yet I do not.

But this goes to the point of salvation. Salvation is not how to get people like me (or like you) into some place safe from the fires of hell. That is a transportation problem at best, or a legal problem, at worst. The point of salvation is how to change people like me (and you). It is about changing us such that seeing the resurrection becomes possible. In order to see the resurrection and those things that pertain to it – one must somehow participate in the resurrection. The vision that is birthed in our hearts at Holy Baptism is the vision born of the resurrection of Christ. He is the “true light” whom we behold in the Holy Eucharist.

In this sense, God will indeed save the world through Beauty. The problem is that so few if any of us have ever seen Beauty. Had you truly seen Beauty, then you would not disagree with the statement. It’s obvious character would be, well, obvious. That people want to argue with it (or with icons) only means that they do not or cannot see. And neither do I, most of the time.

If I could see as I am meant to see then my eyes would not see enemies nor the like. Not that others might not intend to be my enemies or want evil for me – but there are eyes that see beyond all of that and see the Truth of a person. Had I the eyes to see, love would not be an insurmountable problem but as tangible as the Resurrection itself.

And so we have celebrated the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity. Every heart must prepare Him room. More than that, every heart should beg to see the Beauty, to read the Icon of the Gospel of the Nativity, to see what daily escapes our vision and leaves us blind – leading the blind.

Russian Art – Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942)

Nesterov is one of my favorite artists. His work has a marvelous Russian quality with an almost pre-raphaelite technique. His rendering of a couple of icon subjects are perhaps the only things that do not work for me. But you see some of his art posted here from time to time. This youtube is a delightful discovery.

The Beginning of the End

Living year in and year out with a liturgical calendar – worship which moves from feast to feast – there is a freedom of sorts from the tyranny of your own one-sidedness. The liturgical calendar of the Church inevitably takes you through the whole story of salvation – in a manner that simply requires a year to be unfolded. On the other hand, this same liturgical calendar, particularly as it is manifest in the Orthodox Church, does not unfold the story of our salvation in a manner that is merely historical. Such an unfolding would simply order the events of our salvation along a timeline and place them one after another. The inner relationships between each event would be lost – or would simply be seen as governed by time. Instead, the liturgical life reveals an understanding in which time as a succession of things  (chronos) is repeatedly overturned. Instead events are placed in such a way that their critical content (time as kairos) is revealed.

A few examples:

The great feast, the “Feasts of Feasts,” is that of Holy Pascha (Easter). Everything governing the liturgical celebration of this feast clearly marks it as the greatest feast of the year. There is no debate within Orthodoxy of Pascha versus Christmas – “which feast do you like the most?” That Pascha is the greatest feast is clearly stated in the Church’s Typicon (the directions for liturgical celebrations). For instance, no feast is, by Tradition, to be celebrated earlier in the day than the feast of Pascha. It holds the place of highest honor.

It also has a particular shape – from an Orthodox perspective. Thus there is a Vesperal Liturgy on the Eve of the Feast (a combination of Vespers and the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil in which there are generally 15 readings in Vespers, as well as the remaining required material for Vespers and Liturgy – with a few exceptions). There is also a Vigil of the Feast and, finally, the Divine Liturgy of the Feast itself.

Interestingly, this particular pattern occurs only two other times in the Liturgical Year: Christmas and the Feast of Theophany (the Baptism of Christ). These facts may seem like so much liturgical detail – the sorts of things that priests like to think about – but these patterns are themselves meant to point to the very meaning of the feast itself. It is one of the keys to its interpretation. Thus Pascha becomes the means by which both Christmas and Theophany are to be understood. Christmas is not called the “Winter Pascha” for no reason.

In both Christmas and Theophany – the central, saving action is paschal in nature. In each of these events, Christ saves us through His union with us – His Divine condescension. He humbles Himself to be born; He humbles Himself to be Baptized; He humbles Himself even to death on the Cross. It is His humility by which He unites Himself to our flesh and takes our nature upon Himself. Thus what He accomplishes in Himself is accomplished for all. St. Paul is able to say:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his (Romans 6:3-5).

It is worth noting that such statements by St. Paul are as far removed from Baptism as an “Ordinance,” a mere sign of obedience, as is possible. His language is clearly the language of union. We are saved through our union with Christ. Indeed, the whole of our Christian life, in every aspect, is a life lived in union with Christ. Union with Christ is our salvation.

This liturgical commentary on the meaning of particular feasts is also reflected in the icons of those feasts. The icons for Christmas, Theophany and Pascha all have a similar pattern in which the action is set in the context of a cave, or cave-like space (this is often accomplished in the Theophany icon through the framing of the central picture with stylized mountains that echo the shape of a cave). This artistic similarity of the icons of the feasts is a “grammatical” clue by which the faithful are again instructed to understand the feast through the lens of Pascha.

Indeed, these liturgical and iconographic elements are not isolated nor are they later Byzantine constructs. The Scriptures themselves use a similar “iconic” shape in the telling of certain stories, by which we are taught to see one thing through another. Fr. John Behr of St. Vladimir’s Seminary has commented in particular on the similarity between the stories of Good Friday (part of Pascha) and of Christ’s birth.

The New Testament (particularly the Gospels) tends to be written in this manner because it was already the means of reading the Old Testament. The events of the Old Testament were radically reinterpreted by Christ (as He instructed His disciples) in which He made known to them “beginning with Moses and the Prophets all the things concerning Himself.” Everything in the Old Testament was seen as pointing to our salvation in Christ. The story of Creation, the Fall, the Passover, etc., are all foreshadowings of later events. Their meaning transcends their own history and points to the shape of Christ’s saving mission.

Thus history was not seen by the Church as a chronology – a series of events that lead up to the birth of the Messiah – but rather as a constant foreshadowing of the things that were to be revealed in the coming of Christ. The meaning of these things of “the beginning,” were to be found in their End. Christ is both Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. The Lamb is slain “from the foundations of the earth.”

Thus it is that in the Beginning we see the End. In Christmas we see Pascha – for in Pascha we see revealed the fullness of the love of God and of our redemption. How can it be that anything point elsewhere?

Bowing in Bethlehem

Pardon a bit of history – then I’ll get to the point.

St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine the Great (also a saint of the Church), was, according to British legend, the daughter of King Cole of Britain – indeed, the King Cole of the famous English nursery rhyme:

Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he.

He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl and he called for his fiddlers three…

St. Helena, following the conversion of her Emperor son, traveled to the Holy Land and is credited with the discovery of many relics, including, most famously, the true cross. She also initiated a building spree in the Holy Land, erecting Churches at holy sites, for what was now a newly protected religion of the empire. Thus the initial foundation of many churches in the Holy Land date back to the fourth century and the efforts of St. Helena.

However, in 618, the Holy Land was invaded by Persians who destroyed all but three of the churches built by St. Helena (thus foundations remain of others but have later churches built over them). One of those three churches is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The mosaics within the Church are among the oldest in the Christian world, and played a role in the building’s survival of the Persian invasion. It is said that when the Persians entered the Church of the Nativity, they saw in the mosaics depictions of the Magi (who were Persian). They spared the building thinking that there must be Persians somewhere in the area.

This same edifice underwent further danger after the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land. It became a commonplace for soldiers to ride their horses into the Church (a means of harassing the local Christian population). The local bishop, afraid to approach the Sultan directly, instead ordered a secret solution. He had stonemasons work overnight to reduce the size of the entrance – leaving the present entrance which is well below the height of a man’s head. The only way to enter the Church today is to bow deeply as you go through the door. And it certainly does not permit the riding of a horse.

So much for history.

My encounter with this Church and the history of its construction took place during my pilgrimage to Jerusalem this past September. Like all of the pilgrims and tourists, I entered the Church with a bow. It is a very fitting exercise to approach the cave-shrine that marks the place of Christ’s birth. It is an action that follows the image of God’s own humility as He condescended to be born a man. It is a humility that St. Paul enjoins upon us:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).

I am reminded of this physical action everytime I enter my own parish. As is Orthodox custom (not universally observed), the Church is entered with bows (cross yourself and bow – three times before entering). This same action is used as icons are greeted (and this is indeed widely observed) when entering the nave of the Church. Many visitors, unfamiliar with Orthodox customs and the veneration of icons, mistake this bowing as an act of worship. It is nothing of the sort, but rather an act of humility by which we give “honor where honor is due.” We honor those depicted in icons (Christ, His mother, the saints, etc.) because it is either an image of Christ, or an image of the saints – those whom Christ God Himself has honored and shown forth as bearers of His holiness. Orthodoxy makes a distinction between veneration (relative honor) and worship (the honor which belongs to God alone).

This Tradition of the Church, like the door in Bethlehem, requires an action which is unusual in our culture. The culture of democracy has a history of “leveling,” treating all things and all people as equal. This has a benefit when it comes to our standing before the law – even a President has to submit to the laws of the land (theoretically). But it can also lead to a misperception – that all things are, in fact, equal. St. Paul has a small comment on equality:

There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory (1 Cor. 15:40-41).

Even if all things and all people were equal, the admonition in Philippians remains. Christ, though equal with the Father, “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (or clung to).” The humility that is asked of us is an action that sets aside the demands of equality and allows us to bow before God and before all whom He has asked us to serve (which includes all of humanity). To bow as we enter the Church, or as we greet the saints, is nothing more than an outward action that has been demanded of our innermost heart.

 I have said in other places that believing in God is harder than many people think. It may be less difficult to believe that there is Someone who loves me, or Someone who can help me – but it is quite difficult to believe that there is anything greater than oneself. As an old recovering alcoholic once told me, “There’s only one thing you need to know about God – you’re not Him.”

Our culture teaches a form of democracy – one in which we find it difficult to bow before anything – but it also teaches us a form of idolatry – where we bow before things that have no worth (I think particularly of the cult of entertainment). How necessary it is for us to learn to bow – to honor that which is honorable. It is a lesson which teaches the heart the importance of contrition and brokenness before God (Psalm 51).

It is a lesson taught by a doorway in Bethlehem – a dim shadow of the great Act of humility that emptied itself and was born in a cave – not far from that door itself.

St. John Chrysostom’s Christmas Homily

BEHOLD a new and wondrous mystery. My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn. The Angels sing. The Archangels blend their voice in harmony. The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise. The Seraphim exalt His glory. All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He Who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side, the Sun of justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed; He had the power; He descended; He redeemed; all things yielded in obedience to God. This day He Who is, is Born; and He Who is, becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became He God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassability, remaining unchanged.

 

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Powers, nor Principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

 

Since this heavenly birth cannot be described, neither does His coming amongst us in these days permit of too curious scrutiny. Though I know that a Virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech.  

For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him who works. 

What shall I say to you; what shall I tell you? I behold a Mother who has brought forth; I see a Child come to this light by birth. The manner of His conception I cannot comprehend. 

Nature here rested, while the Will of God labored. O ineffable grace! The Only Begotten, Who is before all ages, Who cannot be touched or be perceived, Who is simple, without body, has now put on my body, that is visible and liable to corruption. For what reason? That coming amongst us he may teach us, and teaching, lead us by the hand to the things that men cannot see. For since men believe that the eyes are more trustworthy than the ears, they doubt of that which they do not see, and so He has deigned to show Himself in bodily presence, that He may remove all doubt.

Christ, finding the holy body and soul of the Virgin, builds for Himself a living temple, and as He had willed, formed there a man from the Virgin; and, putting Him on, this day came forth; unashamed of the lowliness of our nature. 

For it was to Him no lowering to put on what He Himself had made. Let that handiwork be forever glorified, which became the cloak of its own Creator. For as in the first creation of flesh, man could not be made before the clay had come into His hand, so neither could this corruptible body be glorified, until it had first become the garment of its Maker. 

What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infants bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness. 

For this He assumed my body, that I may become capable of His Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His spirit; and so He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me; He gives me His Spirit, that He may save me. 

Come, then, let us observe the Feast. Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, the demons take to flight, the power of death is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused, and spreads on every side, a heavenly way of life has been ¡in planted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and men now hold speech with angels. 

Why is this? Because God is now on earth, and man in heaven; on every side all things commingle. He became Flesh. He did not become God. He was God. Wherefore He became flesh, so that He Whom heaven did not contain, a manger would this day receive. He was placed in a manger, so that He, by whom all things arc nourished, may receive an infant¢s food from His Virgin Mother. So, the Father of all ages, as an infant at the breast, nestles in the virginal arms, that the Magi may more easily see Him. Since this day the Magi too have come, and made a beginning of withstanding tyranny; and the heavens give glory, as the Lord is revealed by a star.

To Him, then, Who out of confusion has wrought a clear path, to Christ, to the Father, and to the Holy Ghost, we offer all praise, now and for ever. Amen.

St. John Chrysostom, “Homily on Christmas Morning”

Obviously, it is not for nothing that St. John is known as “Chrysostomos” the “Golden Throat.” My thanks to Ioannis (Edward Michael) Freeman for sharing this homily with me.

Angels Sing

 

A Serbian Christmas Song – lyrics by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Andjeli Pevaju

Noć prekrasna i noć tija,
nad pećinom zvezda sija,
u pećini mati spi,
nad Isusom andjel bdi.

Andjeli pevaju,
pastiri sviraju,
andjeli pevaju
mudraci javljaju:
Što narodi čekaše,
što proroci rekoše,
evo sad se u svet javi,
u svet javi i objavi:
Rodi nam se Hristos Spas
za spasenje sviju nas.
Aliluja, aliluja,
Gospodi pomiluj!

(deep voice) no matter what you are doing, spin threads for heaven!

Angels Sing  (lyrics)

the night so grand and placid,
a star shining over the cave,
the mother sleeping in the cave,
where the angel of Jesus hast been.

the angels are singing,
the sheperds are fluting,
the angels are singing,
the wise bring it forth:
what the nations awaited,
what the prophets had said,
here and now it is announced,

it is announced and brought forth:
Christ, our Redeemer is born!
for the Salvation of us all.
halleluya, halleluya,
Lord, have mercy!

Joy, Soul, Passion, Honor, Jesus, Faith, Hope, Salvation, Peace, Repentance, the Lord, Calmness, Love, Charity, Harmony…

(addendum) God’s peace! Christ is born! Truly, He is born!… let’s renew ourselves, let’s lift up the pillars!

Prayers By the Lake – St. Nikolai of Zicha

C

Accept the sacrifice of my words, my Father — accept the babbling of a penitent child, my Father!

Correct my words with Your truth, and accept them on the footstool of Your feet.

 Cense my sacrifice with the fragrant incense of a saint’s prayer and do not reject it, O Triradiate Master of worlds.

 The ranks of angels offer You a more eloquent sacrifice, but their words stream to them from You, and return to You, untainted by the repulsiveness of darkness and not throttled in the throat by sin.

I am poor, and I have nothing else to offer on Your sacrificial altar except these words.

Even if I were to offer up creatures to You, I would be offering up words. For what are creatures except words. You have filled the entire universe with tongues, which are flames when they lift up praise to You and water — when they whisper Your praises to themselves.

Even if I were to offer up a lamb to You, I would be offering You a word.

Even if I were to offer up a bird to You, I would be offering You a word.

Why should I offer up someone else’s word to my Lord, why someone else’s and not my own?

Who has made me master over someone else’s life and someone else’s song, over someone else’s flame and someone else’s sacrifice; who?

My words are my life and my song, my flame and my sacrifice. I have taken from what is Yours and am offering it up to You — accept it and do not reject it, O Mother plenteous in lovingkindness.

I have picked a handful of wheat out of a field of tares, accept even a single kernel of wheat out of my handful and You will make me happy.1

From a single kernel You can bake bread, enough for nations.

Accept my mite, O Son Who Resurrects, accept and do not reject the mite of a pauper.2

Accept my sacrifice not for my sake but for the sake of someone who is even more impoverished than I; is there such a person?

Someone who does not even have what I do, for his sake accept my sacrifice; does such a person exist?

The world squeezed me like an accordion, scarcely did I take a breath and I moaned. Let Your angels give melody to my moaning and let them offer it up before You, my love.

I remind myself of all the blessings You have bestowed on me during my lifetime, my unfailing Companion, and I am offering up to You a gift in return from myself.

I am not offering up to You my entire self, for I am not entirely worthy to burn on Your most pure sacrificial altar. I cannot offer as a sacrifice to the Immortal One what is intended for death and corruption.

I offer up to You only that which has grown within me under Your light, that which was saved in me by Your Word.

Accept the sacrifice of my words, O Triune Bouquet of Flowers; accept the babbling of a new-born child.

When the choirs of angels begin to sing around Your throne, when the archangels’ trumpets begin to blare, when Your martyrs begin to weep for joy, and Your saints begin to sob their prayers for the salvation of the Church on earth, do not despise the sacrifice of my words, O Lord my God.

Do not mishear, but hear.

I pray to You and bow down to You, now and throughout all time, and throughout all eternity. Amen.

Written at Lake Ohrid 1921-1922.

________________________________________________________________

1.          Cf. Matt. 13:24-3O.

2.          Cf. Mark 12:41-44.

What Is Man – That Thou Art Mindful of Him?

In 1839 the eighteen-year-old youth Dostoesvsky wrote to his brother: “Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.”

From Konstantin Mochulsky’s Dostoevsky: His Life and Work

A short time ago I wrote about the “soul as mystery” – the fear and wonder with which human beings are made is a given starting point for me – an assumption that must be afforded to every human being. I have already confessed my debt to Dostoevsky but I wonder, “To what extent is he a man for our time?”

He wrote in the early to mid 18th century. In many ways he was ahead of his time – prescient – able to describe the tragic forces which, if not reigned in, would destroy Europe and the modern world. Those forces were not reigned in – and the twentieth century saw the destruction of Europe in two successive world wars that spent the largest part European cultural inheritance and then engaged in an orgy of madness with the competing worlds of Nazism and Communism. For a time, the mystery of man was placed on a shelf, or trampled underfoot.

But what of our time. We are now better than a generation removed from the last of those wars. My aging father (86) has stories to tell me and I can see about me – in books and in other things – the vestiges of a passed world. There can be no nostalgia for that world. For even Dostoevsky saw its impoverishment 100 years before my father witnessed the madness that would, in time, come to pass.

I am no Dostoevsky. I am only a priest. I listen to the hearts of other moderns like myself who are struggling to be faithful to the teachings of Christ in this early part of the 21st century. We are not filled with the idealism that bordered on insanity that marked Dostoevsky’s 19th century man. Nor are we the madmen who would come later and destroy all that had been left us.

There is likely no single nor easy way to characterize the man of the postmodern West. Some believe, and some do not. Most of the great cultural forces are either economic or hedonist. If there are ideals they are the dreams of youth who find purpose in “saving a planet” they imagine to be dying.

I believe, however, that man is not infinitely malleable – we cannot, in fact, be anything we want to be. We are creatures and have a telos,an end and a purpose, that is Divinely given. Whether it haunts us just now or lies as a forgotten dream in the pages of a 19th century novelist, our purpose has not changed. The Gospel that was good news both to Galilean peasants and to a Russian intellectual, remains the same. The end and the purpose are eternal, for they are the fearful and wonderful reason of our making.

C.S. Lewis, in his The Abolition of Man, wrote of “men without chests,” describing a certain breed of modern man which had jettison his heart, having substituted false science and a devalued subjectivity for the eternal verities that had once linked human beings together in a common culture. He wrote his work in the immediate years following World War II. Nothing in our educational system has reversed the trends of which he complained. We have not regained our chests – not as a culture.

However, we have no where been commanded to change the world or to save civilization. These are things that are measured on a much larger stage of history and longer period than a single life. It is not the diagnosis of our disease that is so important as it is the medicine of our healing. The heart which must again fill our chests is not some missing part of Western Civilization but the heart of flesh that is our inheritance in Christ. It is an imperishable healing that alone can give us what we lack.

Dostoevsky – in his youth – rightly saw his life’s work and the work of every lifetime well-spent. We do well to ponder the mystery of man – for we are a mystery that is a reflection of God Himself. To know man as he truly is – one must know the God who created him.

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What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:4-9)

The Nature of Things and Our Salvation

A number of you will remember this post from a year ago. It is foundational to many discussions on this site. I thought it might be helpful to post again – after all – new readers are always coming on board.

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The nature of things is an important question to ask – or should I say an a priori question. For once we are able to state what is the nature of things then the answers to many questions framed by the nature of things will also begin to be apparent. All of this is another way of saying that questions have a way of determining answers. So what is the nature of things? More specifically, what is the nature of things such that Christians believe humanity needs salvation? (Non-Christians will already feel co-opted but I write as a Christian – can’t be helped).

I want to briefly state several things which seem to me to be of importance about the nature of things in this regard.

1. It is the nature of things that man does not have a legal problem with God. That is to say, the nature of our problem is not forensic. The universe is not a law-court.

2. It is the nature of things that Christ did not come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live. This is to say that the nature of our problem is not moral but existential or ontological. We have a problem that is rooted in the very nature of our existence, not in our behavior. We behave badly because of a prior problem. Good behavior will not correct the problem.

3. It is the nature of things that human beings were created to live through communion with God. We were not created to live as self-sufficient individuals marked largely by our capacity for choice and decision. To restate this: we are creatures of communion, not creatures of consumption.

So much for the nature of things. (I’ll do my best to leave behind the syllogisms and return to my usual form of writing.)

Much of my experience as an American Christian has been an encounter with people who do not see mankind’s problem as existential or ontological – but rather as moral. They have seen that we behave badly and thought that the primary task of the Church (following whatever event was considered “necessary” for salvation) was to help influence people to be “good.” Thus I recall a Sunday School teacher who in my pre-school years (as well as a first-grade teacher who attempted the same) urging me and my classmates to “take the pledge.” That is, that we would agree not to smoke tobacco or drink alcohol before age 21. The assumption seemed to be that if we waited that long then we would likely never begin. In at least one of those cases an actual document was proffered. For the life of me I cannot remember whether I signed or not. The main reason I cannot remember was that the issues involved seemed unimportant to me at the time. Virtually every adult in my life smoked. And I was not generally familiar with many men who did not drink. Thus my teachers were asking me to sign a document saying that I thought my father and my grandfather were not good men. I think I did not sign. If I did, then I lied and broke the pledge at a frightfully early age.

My later experience has proven the weakness of the assumptions held by the teachers of my youth. Smoking wasn’t so much right or wrong as it was addicting and deadly. I smoked for 20 years and give thanks to God for the grace he gave me to quit. I feel stupid as I look back at the actions of those 20 years, but not necessarily “bad.” By the same token, I have known quite a few alcoholics (some of them blood relatives) and have generally found them to be about as moral as anyone else and sometimes moreso. I have also seen the destruction wrought by the abuse of alcohol. But I have seen similar destruction in families who never drank and the continuation of destruction in families where alcohol had been removed. Drinking can have serious consequences, but not drinking is not the same thing as curing the problem.

I had a far more profound experience, indeed a series of experiences, when I was ten years old – experiences that made a much deeper impression and framed the questions that burned in my soul about the nature of things.

The first experience was the murder of an aunt. She was 45 and a darling of the family. Everyone loved her. Her murder was simply a matter of “random” chance – she was in the wrong place at the wrong time or simply in a convenient place for a man who meant to do great harm to someone. No deep mystery, just a brutal death. The same year another aunt died as a result of a multi-year battle with lupus (an auto-immune disease). And to add to these things, my 10th year was also the year of Kennedy’s assassination. Thus when the year was done it seemed to me that death was an important question – even the important question.

It probably says that I was marked by experiences that were unusual for a middle-class white boy in the early 60’s. It also meant that when I later read Dostoevsky in my late teens, I was hooked.

The nature of things is that people die – and not only do they die – but death, already at work in them from the moment of their birth, is the primary issue. The failure of humanity is not to be found or understood in a purely moral context. We are not creatures of choice and decision. How and why we choose is a very complex process that we ourselves do not understand. We can make a “decision” for Jesus only to discover that little has changed. It is also possible to find ourselves caught in a chain of decisions that bring us to the brink of despair without knowing quite how we got there. Though there are clearly problems with our choosing and deciding, the problem is far deeper.

One of the earliest Christian treatments of the human problem, hence the “nature of things,” is to be found in St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation. He makes it quite clear that the root problem of humanity is to be found in the process of death. Not only are we all slowly moving towards some inevitable demise, the process of death (decay, corruption) is already at work in us. In Athanasius’ imagery, it is as though we are falling back towards our origins in the dust of the earth. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

And thus it is that when he writes of the work of Christ it is clearly in terms of our deliverance from death (not just deliverance from the consequences of our bodily dissolution and its separation from the soul but the whole process of death itself.)

This is frequently the language of the New Testament as well. St. Paul will write: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Or even on a more “moral” note he will caution us to “put to death the deeds of the body.”

The importance of these distinctions (moral versus existential) is in how we treat our present predicament. If the problem is primarily moral then it makes sense to live life in the hortatory mode, constantly urging others to be good, to “take the pledge,” or make good choices. If, on the other hand, our problem is rooted in the very nature of our existence then it is that existence that has to be addressed. And again, the New Testament, as well as the Tradition of the Church, turns our attention in this direction. Having been created for union with God, we will not be able to live in any proper way without that union. Thus our Baptism unites us to the death and resurrection of Christ, making possible a proper existence. Living that proper existence will not be done by merely trying to control our decisions and choices, but by consciously and unconsciously working to maintain our union with God. We are told “greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” Thus our victory, and the hope of our victory is “Christ within you, the hope of glory.”

And so if we will live in such communion we will struggle to pray, not as a moral duty, but as the very means of our existence. We pray, we fast, we give alms, we confess, we commune, not in order to be better people, but because if we neglect these things we will die. And the death will be slow and marked by the increasing dissolution of who and what we are.

In over 25 years of ministry, I have consistently found this model of understanding to better describe what I encounter and what I live on a day to day basis. In the past ten years of my life as an Orthodox Christian, I have found this account of things not only to continue to describe reality better – but also to be in conformity with the Fathers. It is a strong case for Christian Tradition that it actually describes reality as we experience it better than the more modern accounts developed in the past four hundred years or so. Imagine. People understood life a thousand years ago such that they continue to describe the existential reality of modern man. Some things do not change – except by the grace of God and His infinite mercy.