Tag Archives: Trinity

I Can Only Imagine

27 Tuesday Dec 2022

Posted by in All, Journey, Self, Trust, Uncategorized

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I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk by Your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes would see
When Your face is before me
I can only imagine

Surrounded  by Your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for You Jesus
Or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in Your presence
Or to my knees, will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine
I can only imagine
“I Can Only Imagine,” Mercy Me

If you’ve listened to Christian radio since 2002 you have undoubtably heard this song, “I Can Only Imagine,” by Mercy Me. It was the most popular Christian song played in 2002 and even cracked the mainstream chart Top 100 in 2003. As a matter is full disclosure, I have seen the band twice, and each time they have performed this song. It is a great song.

For all humans, it captures our deepest longing, as Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until it rests with [God].” For the Christian, the lyric is particularly powerful. It provides a magnificent vision of what it will be like when we are finally face-to-face with our greatest love…Jesus. The song’s words express our deepest emotions and longing in a way that most of us cannot formulate.

I’d like to be able to tell you that the imagery certainly captures what I hope to experience: the overwhelming relief of a good finish to my life, a race well run, a battle well fought, along with the overwhelming sense of wonder and worship at finally being in the presence of ineffable glory of Jesus Himself. To finally find true rest in God free from the weariness of this world.

I’d like to be able to tell you that…but I can’t.

The Divine Liturgy celebrated in the Orthodox church (“Eastern Orthodox”) has been an enigma to my western, enlightened mind. A mystery would be a better description…and a “mystery” in the truest sense. From the opening words of the Liturgy, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit now and forever unto ages of ages” to the final “Amen,” the Church has always assumed that during the Divine Liturgy the worshippers are actually(!) in the Kingdom that is both at hand and is to come, the place where all time exists in the present moment: Christ, the lamb slain before creation; the promise to Abraham; the Passover meal, the Last Supper, and the final Wedding Banquet; the giving of the Law to Moses; the birth, death, resurrection, and second coming of Jesus…all moments present in the moment. Further, in the Kingdom, where every knee now bows, we are worshipping God with all those who were, are, and will yet be, and with the tens of thousands of angelic beings. During the Liturgy we are in the very presence of the Most Holy Trinity, which means Jesus is also there, and Jesus is most literally fully present in bodily form in the transfigured bread and wine.

Honestly, though, during the Liturgy it is usually hard for me to feel like I am actually in the Kingdom and in the presence God, but it is not about “feeling” a particular way; rather it is about my faith, believing it to be true.

I can only image…Given this mystery of the Divine Liturgy, I don’t have to image what it will be like in God’s presence as though it is some future event. I can dare say I am in His presence during every Liturgy. And the body and blood of Jesus literally become part of me as I ingest Him from the Eucharist chalice. However, for me, being in Jesus’ presence it bears no resemblance to the song, above. Often, my feet and back ache from standing and I’m quite distracted by kids or others moving about or by my own mind wandering to the events of yesterday and tomorrow.

In those moments when I am able to tame the distractions, I do become aware of the Kingdom and I am overcome by the words of the Liturgy: “It is meet and right to hymn Thee, to bless Thee, to praise Thee, to give thanks unto Thee, and to worship Thee in every place of Thy dominion; for Thou art God ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing, and eternally the same…”

And then I am immediately aware how far I am from God in my expression of love for Him and my neighbor. Sometimes I do have the urge to fall to my knees, as the song imagines, but it is in repentance for my failure to be able to love Him and you, dear reader, as He loves both of us.

Such is being in the actual presence of the consuming fire that is God.

Being in the presence of God brings me pain and shame from my Pride, Anger, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Avarice, Slothfulness…each of these is at work within me to lead me away from Life Himself. I feel the shame. And, I experience the pain of His all-consuming fire that is His love for me as the Spirit slowly, so slowly, works in me to burn away the goat in my heart. I pray there will be found some sheep in me and that I will be saved through the His loving fire.

Being in the presence of God brings me fear. I too often believe the words of the serpent telling me that I can’t trust God. I want retain control of just enough of my own life so I can salvage it in the event I find I can’t really trust God. I’m like the character in the C.S. Lewis novel, The Great Divorce, who has a lizard-parasite on his shoulder. He is afraid for it to be removed; he doesn’t believe he will become truly himself without it. Like him, I’m comfortable with my demons; removing them is to give up control, to move toward the unknown—in trusting faith. I pray I would have the faith of Christ and come to fully trust God.

Despite the pain, shame, and fear I experience in His presence, I can’t seem to stop walking deeper into His fire. Where else would I go? Jesus has the words of eternal life. His refining fire draws me like a moth. What God most wants from me is no more than He has already offered to me: Himself. He has first offered me a gift that cost Him the death of His Son; it is His gift to me of immeasurable cost and value. What He wants from me is a gift of similar value: all of me. But God’s refining fire still burns me—this is the suffering of becoming one with God. Yet God doesn’t want my fear and pain and shame; He is not a wrathful God. Rather, me bearing my fear, shame, and pain is the cost I to me to give the gift of myself to Him. And when I can no longer bear it, God offers me rest along the way.

While there have been many article written and movies made that focus on Jesus’ agony of His scourging and subsequent death on the cross, the biblical writers actually have little to say about it. Rather, they focus on God’s gift to us in the person of Jesus and the joy of Christ as He faced the cross…His gift to us. This should inform how we think of sacrificial gift-giving.

Rather than me focusing on my suffering, my pain, my shame, and my fear, I should focus on the gift I want to give God—the all-of-me-I-am-able-to-give gift. It is by focusing on the gift and not the cost where we find the peace and joy of Christ. This, after all, is His promise: “Come to Me and I will give you rest.” There is no need to imagine. We can experience it now.

A Lesson From Leroy

10 Wednesday Aug 2022

Posted by in All, Life

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It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them, and every new dog who comes into my life gifts me will a piece of their heart. If I live long enough all the components of my heart will be dog, and will become loving as they are.
-Anonymous

Leroy, our dog of more than 10 years died last month.  He was a little guy with feet too big for his body; something upon which everyone who met him commented.  Those big feet have left enormous footprints in our lives.

He was part of our family.  As a Caviler King Charles Spaniel, I think Leroy knew his breed contained the word “king.”  As the “king,” he demanded our attention, usually in the best of ways.  While he was happy to be fed, walked, and have his ear scratched, his greatest delight seemed to come from simply being  near us.

Anyone who has had a dog knows of the unconditional love they can show.  Leroy didn’t care about how we looked, how we dressed, how we spoke, our politics, our morality, our economic status, our jobs, our education, the color of our skin, our country of origin…I don’t ever recall an argument with him or getting a lecture from him on any of those subjects.  Instead, whenever our eyes would meet, his tail would wag, which made me smile.

I think their hearts are what first attracts us to our dogs and makes us fall in love with them. Leroy’s heart was always open to me, inviting me in, and, despite its small physical size, his heart was big enough to hold without judgment all that was me.

Looking back on the moments we shared together, I am aware that Leroy was simply always fully present in the moment; he was never lost in his past or worried about his future.  Sadly, I was rarely fully present with him.  Too often I was elsewhere, “anywhere but here, anytime but now.”  My mind was too noisy and my heart was too small for his 25 pounds.  Even so, with his big eyes, big feet, and his heart bigger than mine, Leroy always accepted from me without complaint the little or the much I could offer him in that moment.  It is a remarkable offering of love.

Why could I not be as fully present in our moments together as Leroy was with me?  Why is my heart too small for even a little dog?

Well, it seems to be a hallmark of humanity to live in our heads and to be anywhere but “now.”  While the mind is not evil, its needs and desires are endless.  So are its fears…Analysis [which can be good] is achieved by the mind…the mind does not have an “off” switch.  When we are not actually using it, it carries on under its own power behaving as if it were in charge and issuing a constant stream of comments and challenges, almost all of which are of a negative character…The stream of thoughts is negative because the mind dwells in a land of unrelenting desire and boundless fear, and it attempts to influence us to experience these two areas as our rightful home…The mind prefers to work in the past or future, since these dimensions are both actually constructs of the mind’s own workings and thus the mind controls them.  The present moment, however, is completely outside its control and therefore ignored.1

The human mind races; we learn to do that from the youngest age.  We look at everything and render analysis and judgment: safe or dangerous, tasty or sickening, beautiful or ugly, good or bad.  We need analysis and judgment; however, if your head is like mine, it too often runs amok in ways that are not relationally or psychologically or spiritually helpful.

And even my morality—which comes from my Christianity and, admittedly, sometimes from my culture—encourages judgment: Are you one of us or one of them? Sinner or saint? Woke or not? Progressive or conservative? Pro-choice or pro-life?  Noise, always noise.

The noise in my head can be deafening.  How I long to have the large heart of little Leroy that was fully present to me and fully accepting of me; like him, I want to have room in my heart for the person in front of me, simply taking in all that they are.

The dark storm-clouds of life bring no terror to those in whose hearts Your fire is burning brightly.  Outside [i.e., in the mind] is the darkness of the whirlwind, the terror and howling of the storm, but in the heart, in the presence of Christ, there is light and peace, silence.  The heart sings, Alleluia!2

Silence.

Silence is the language of the heart, silence is the language of Heaven, silence is the language of God.  The Church has always known of this “silence.”  In fact, the very purpose of the ascetical practices (“spiritual disciplines”) of the ancient Church are to give us a way, working in synergy with God, to quiet our thoughts (control our disordered passions) so that our “minds will descend into our hearts” where Christ dwells within us.  It is the way find to St Paul’s “peace from God that passes understanding.”

Rather than dwelling in our hearts in the moment, experiencing God by contemplating whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—anything that is excellent or praiseworthy (Phil 4:8), we focus on the voice of Satan and stay in our minds dwelling on the thoughts, emotions, and feelings of gluttony, lust or fornication, avarice or love of money, dejection or sadness, anger, despondency or listlessness, vainglory, and pride.3

The Church warns us about these unchecked “deadly thoughts”—this constant noise in our heads—because the language of God is silence; not silence of emptying my head of all the “noise”; rather, it is the silence that comes from filling my mind with God so that I let my mind descend into my heart where Jesus dwells.

You, me, God…we are not things to be judged, items to be sorted, categorized, and labelled; rather, we are persons to be experienced, beings to share life together.  I don’t want to judge you (though I do); there is already too much of that.  And God knows there is good and bad in me—my heart contains both sheep and goats—so that you could very easily judge me.

Life is is not about being “right” it’s about being together, sharing life with each other and with God.  Interestingly enough, Jesus never once suggested to His disciples that they be right.  What He did demand is that they be righteous.4  To be “righteous” is to share in the life of God, which is to be on the journey to becoming “fully human” in which I see myself as part of humanity—all of us “in Him”—and not as an isolated being.

The past is gone and the future is not here.  The only reality is the present moment.  It is the only place God exists.

In the madness of this world and in the noise in my head, being fully in the moment where, in the presence of Christ, I will find Christ’s light and peace, silence.  And my heart will sing, Alleluia!

Join me in learning from Leroy.  Try to inhabit the present in the silence of Christ, so that with Him you might be fully with someone today.  Please pray for me that I might, as well.

—————-

  1. Webber, Metetios. Bread & Water, Wine & Oil: An Orthodox Christian Experience of God. 17-19.
  2. “Akathist to the Glory of God.”  Ode 5.
  3. Called Logismoi, early Church Father Evagrius’ grouped them into eight deadly thoughts.  These later became the “seven deadly sins” of Roman Catholicism.
  4. Bread & Water, Wine & Oil. 40.

Liking God

05 Thursday May 2022

Posted by in All, Healing, Journey

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Pascha 2022

I write this blog anonymously. It is time to reveal my identity. I am actually quite famous. Perhaps you have heard of me.  Many have written about me.  Rembrandt painted me.  Jesus Himself described my journey.  I am the Prodigal Son.

If you know the story, then you know that when I was old enough, I grabbed all that was due me and left, leaving both my real home and my real Father.  I went to a far-off land seeking fun and adventure.

I spent many years in that far-away place living what felt like the good life, reaching for and mostly finding the “American dream.”  By all common metrics, I was at least moderately successful; certainly I was above average in my accomplishments.  I left all that I was behind.  I never called my Father.  I never even texted Him.

Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son

As the years went by, something in my life began to seem amiss.  I was beginning to experience a deep sense that there was something more to life than my American, upper middle-class existence.  The foreign land in which I was living was beginning to feel very foreign indeed.  I was mostly empty inside.  The stuff of life, accomplishments and material things began to lose their interest for me.  The banquet that the world was throwing began to taste like “food given to swine.”  Looking back, I was “coming to myself.”  That is the way Jesus tells it.

As the sparkle of the foreign land was diminishing, the thought of returning home began to increase.  I had begun to realize what I was missing by being away all these years.  Increasingly, I felt drawn back to my home and my Father.  One day, I simply knew I had to go back.  With the decision made, I didn’t hesitate; I started out for home.  I was both eager and afraid.  How would my Father respond?  Along the way I planned what I would say when I got there.  I would stand up straight and look Him in the eye as he had taught me to do.  “Father,” I would say, “I have sinned against heaven, and in Your sight;I am no longer worthy to be called Your son; treat me as one of Your hired laborers.”  Certainly that would soften Him toward me.  All I knew is that I would do anything to be home again.

As I drew close to home so much looked familiar; it felt comfortable…and not.  I had spent my youth here, but I had been gone for a long time.  And, you know what they say about never being able to go home again.

I could see my house in the distance.  And then I saw something else: I saw a figure running toward me.  I couldn’t make out who it was.  Was it someone sent to warn me to stay away?  After all, I was an ungrateful son.  Was it someone sent by my Father to test my motives for returning, to make sure I was properly humiliated by my actions?  The figure drew closer.  No!  It couldn’t be!  It was my Father!  I had never seen Him run before!  I stood frozen; He was on me in an instant.  And then…He embraced me and kissed me!  I stammered out my practiced lines, “Father, I…I…I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight;I am no longer worthy…”  He wasn’t listening; rather, He was calling to have me fitted with His finest clothes; He put His ring on my finger; then, He started planning a welcome-home banquet.  I could only stand there, dumbfounded.  There was no hint of anger in Him; He did not say, “I knew you would be a failure.  I tried to tell you this would happen.”  He did not tell me I had to earn my place back into His good graces.  There was none of that.  Only His tears of joy.

It was as though He had been waiting for me all these many years, each day standing at the window hoping that this would be the day I returned.  What kind of love is that?  It is unworldly love, the kind I had never known.  Had He always loved me like that?  I couldn’t recall…

Slowly, my life began to settle down again.  I had time to reflect on this most remarkable turn of events.  Rather than suffering through the humiliation and toil to earn my right to be called the son of my Father, I had been joyously welcomed back into the family with full privileges, no questions asked.  It was as though I had never left.  And I realized that before leaving home I had never thought much about my Father; I had certainly taken Him for granted.

Coming back, I wanted to get to know Him, to really know Him.  The accepted way for a son to know His Father was through sermons, reading, study, podcasts, and conversation (prayer).  What I learned was not so much about my Father.  I learned instead that Jesus loves me and that I needed to work on my personal relationship with Him.  After all, I was told, it is only because of Jesus that my Father welcomed me home.  I was told that through the love of Jesus and His blood shed upon the cross, I was now shielded from the wrath of God, my Father.  God-my-Father had welcomed me as a worthy son only because Jesus paid the price I cannot pay for my sins of leaving home.  When I walked out, I was told, I had offended the honor of my Father and only Jesus’ punishing death on the cross could restore the honor of my Father.  Another image was given to me: I’m in a courtroom.  My Father sits in judgment of me.  He sentences me to eternal torment for my offense to Him.  Jesus steps up to take my punishment.  Then, my Father-the-judge steps down from the Bench and hugs me.  Welcome home, son.

So I worked at my relationship with Jesus.  Hard.  After all, I was so thankful to be back home.  I didn’t want to ever again disappoint my Father.

I have to admit, though, that as the days, months, and years passed, I began to experience stress and worry at being home again.  You see, in Church I was told to love God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It had become easy for me to be attracted to Jesus.  He died for me.  The Holy Spirit was also attractive, who doesn’t appreciate and grow to love a “helper.”  But, my Father…

Ever so slowly I began to realize that I didn’t know how to feel about my Father.   Almost everything in Church was centered on Jesus and His love for me, and on the Holy Spirit, Who was sent to help me.  Mostly, mention of my Father was limited to a prayer to “Our Father” as Jesus had taught.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven…

Anything else that was said about my Father was usually about His anger and wrath directed toward people like I had been: one of those other Prodigal people who had left their homes.  I began to notice that whenever I thought of my Father my only real concern was with keeping Jesus between Him and me.

It has dawned on me that during that time I loved my Father but I didn’t really like Him.  Truthfully, I had learned to be afraid of my Father’s wrath.  To me, He had become very much like the “Angry God” of preacher Jonathan Edwards; a Father Who, according to Edwards, views the other Prodigal children as “objects”of His wrath; objects, not persons.  Edwards says:

[Prodigal children] are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell.

I was always afraid of again failing my Father.  I was afraid that my Father, in His anger and wrath toward me in a moment of my weakness, would say to me, “Enough!” and kick me out of the house.  And I was afraid for others.  Many of those “lost” people—other Prodigals—about which I was hearing had been my friends when I lived in the foreign land; many remain my friends even after I returned home.  Had my Father felt that anger toward me when I was away?  I had always thought He had been daily watching at the window for my return.

So, I began to wonder, who really welcomed me home?  Who was it that every day watched for me and then, when finally seeing me, ran out to greet me?  Who was it who clothed me in His finest garments, put His ring on my finger, and threw me a barbecue of His fatted calf, inviting all of the neighbors to welcome me home?  That just didn’t sound like the wrathful Father of whom I was now afraid.

Just before Jesus died on the cross He said, “The one who has seen Me has seen the Father.”  He went on to say, as He had said earlier, that He and His Father were one.  How could it be, then, that there is a wrathful God (Father) and a loving Son (Jesus)?  After all, it is foundational Christian theology that here is only one God.  It sounded more and more that I was being taught that God was bifurcated God, not One, that there was one wrathful God (Father) of the Old Testament and then a second, loving God (Jesus) of the New Testament.  The Father demands obedience; the Son freely gives love.

I began to dig deeper as the question burned within.  Which God was it Who welcomed me home?

I found that the early Church had a viewpoint of God that differed from that which was formulated by Augustine, refined by Anselm, and through the influential preaching of men like Edwards, had become accepted in much of Western Christianity.  It is a viewpoint that was common in the Church in the early years following Jesus’ death and is still widely accepted in Eastern Christianity.  Rather than a wrathful Father appeased by the sacrifice of His Son on our behalf, God the Father is a loving God who longs for our salvation.  Jesus died to defeat death, humankind’s great enemy, not to appease an angry God or to ransom us from Satan.

One of the greatest preachers the Church has known, Saint John Chrysostom (c. AD 347-407) said this:

Enter into the Church and wash away your sins. For there is a hospital for sinners and not a court of law.

This was a very different Father than I had been taught about upon my return.  But, it was the Father whom I had experienced, the Father I was coming to know.  This is my Father, the one who watched and waited for me, who ran out to greet me and rejoiced upon my return.  This Father of the early Church is not a wrathful Father; rather, God the Father, like His Son, is the great physician who desires to “bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:14-21)  This is not a Father who demands my punishment and the punishment of the other Prodigals so that His honor might be restored.  Rather, this is the Father to all, whether His sons and daughters or whether the Prodigals.  This Father, and His Son, Jesus, want nothing more than for all of us to return and remain home and share in their lives, just as you would expect of a Father.  (Ez 18:23, 2Peter 3:9)

Father Michael Pomazansky captures well our Father’s love for us:

God is concerned more for our salvation than even for His own glory. A testimony to this is the fact that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world for suffering and death, solely to reveal to us the path of salvation and eternal life.

Setting aside His own glory…Interested more in my salvation than in His own honor.  That is indeed perfect, sacrificial, other-worldly love.  It is the only love worthy of a God Who “so loved the world…”  This is my Father who ran to welcome me home.  It is our Father who daily waits and watches for the return of all Prodigals.  Father and Son both give love, freely, fully, and unconditionally.

Epilogue

I’ve been back at home for many years now.  In many ways, I’m still that young kid looking over the fence at the grass that looks greener; there’s still a lot of Prodigal Son in me.  I remain much too inattentive to my Father Who loves me unconditionally.  All too often I put myself above Him and my neighbor.  I remain much too full of pride and self love.  I still feel the pull back to the foreign land and the taste of the food of pigs.  I tell myself that I wish I could stop longing for that place, so full of grays and blacks, but the pull is strong and I too often justify a quick trip back.  Sometimes it is a very quick trip manifested in something like a burst of anger.  Other times, it is a longer trip if, for example, I get caught in the despair of the news of the world.  However long my excursion, when once again I “come to myself” I once again tell myself this is my last trip to this place.  Then, once again I turn to home.  Once again my Father runs to greet me.  Once again, with a contrite heart, I say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”  And, once again, the barbecue is laid out.  Each “welcome home” is like the first. 

“Forgive me, Father” is, after all, the only thing I have to offer back to my Father; after all, He owns everything else.  So, it is here in the fire of my struggle against the pull of the foreign land where my Father is forging in me a new heart, a humble and contrite heart with the help of His spirit, His angels, and a “cloud of witnesses” who have gone before me.  A contrite heart, it is all He has ever wanted from me.  And it is everything I have to give.  I long to love God and neighbor much because I have been forgiven much. (Luke 7:36-7:50)

So, finally, all these many years later, I finally have the answer to my question, “Who ran out to meet me?”  God did.  All of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  All of God loves me and has welcomed me home, and all of Heaven rejoices over my return.  I love my Father, in His perfect love there is no room for fear…and I really like Him. 

But, to know Him, to really know Him, will take me all of eternity.

If you don’t know this Father, come and meet Him.  You might find you like Him, too.

Additional reading:
1) “Saint Athanasius and the ‘Penal Substitutionary’ Atonement Doctrine.” 
2) Bailey, Father Spyridon. The Ancient Path.

The Story of God and the Mud

03 Thursday Feb 2022

Posted by in All, Humankind

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Christian Orthodox Icon–The Creation of the World

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…”  And the Lord God formed man of the mud of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being…and He put them in Paradise.  God said, “It is very good.”

Genesis 1:26, 31; 2:7-8

There is a story that is told of a visitor to an Orthodox monastery on the famous Mt. Athos in Greece.  Out for a walk, the visitor encounters a monk. Wanting to be friendly, the man says, “Hi, my name is Joe.  I’m visiting from America.”  Stopping, the monk raises his eyes, and, looking at the visitor, replies, “My name is Sin.  I come from mud.”  The visitor is left with his mouth agape.

Mud.  We rarely give it much thought unless we get it on ourselves, our clothes, or our shoes.  Mud comes in various types…some is as slippery as grease, another is as sticky as glue.  Mud isn’t good for much.  Kids make pies with it, play in it, and throw it at each other.  Once we outgrow childhood, we find mud has some limited use; however, mostly we try to avoid it.  By and large, mud is only a nuisance.

Where we see nuisance, God saw the possibility of sharing Himself.

God brought a pile of mud to life; He gave “non-being” mud the gift of “being.”

It is hard to imagine why God would animate a pile of mud by breathing the life into it.  What’s more, He gave the mud not just simple life, but He breathed the life of His Spirit into it.  He made the mud into His image and likeness by giving the mud the ability to create unimaginable beauty, the capability of engaging in complex reasoning, and the desire for selfless love and sacrifice for other lumps of mud.  He gave the mud the ability to contemplate and love God Himself, to become one with God as lovers do.  And He put the mud in a Garden and walked with the mud.

There is another group to whom God gave the gift of being: the angels.  We are never told whether they, too, came from mud, from something else, or were made out of nothing.  Despite being in the presence of God and enjoying the gifts of God, some angels wanted more.  But, surely they must have known they could never overthrow God.  Perhaps they thought they could get at God another way: by throwing mud at Him. 

These demon-angels were able to convince the animated mud that it could have “being” on its own, without God.  So encouraged, the mud seemed eager to strike out on its own, beholding to no other being, to stand on its own two feet, to pull itself up by its own bootstraps, to become its own man or woman.  So, the mud turned away from God, and God allowed mud to act as mud.

Throughout the centuries, the mud has made remarkable progress.  The mud has advanced from existing as hunter-gathering mud to gaining the knowledge and ability to put mud on the moon.

However, the rebellion against God came at a cost to the mud. 

Everything became harder for the mud.  It was harder for the mud to survive; the earth, of which the mud was once a part, did not yield its fruits and grains easily to the mud.  In fact, the earth itself often rebels against the mud as the mud tries to subdue it.  And, mud throws mud at mud, sometimes causing mass destruction of other mud.  What began as a paradise for the mud became, well, a muddy mess.  You see, when the mud decided to go it alone, without God, the mud turned its back to God.  This gives great pleasure to the demon-angels who continue to whisper to the mud, “You don’t need God.”

But, the mud has never really been apart from God.  What the mud doesn’t know is that even in rebellion against God, it is God that sustains the mud, preventing it from returning to inanimate mud, to “non-being.”

Something else the mud does not know: there can be no status quo.  Over the centuries the consequences of the rebellion are slowly hardening into stone the hearts of the mud; the mud is slowly returning to its original non-being existence.  With no intervention, the mud will once again become just mud.  But because God so loved the mud, He has refused to allow that to happen.  Something had to be done to restore the relationship between God and the mud.  And it can only be done by God.

So, like a comic book superhero, God came to the mud’s rescue, swooping in to offer the mud a way to be saved.

Here is what the Church tells us about the rebellion: God knows that the mud’s rebellion was inaugurated by a trick of the demon-angels.  He knows it was not a rebellion perpetrated and sustained by mud law-breakers.  Further, God knows that the mud was and remains badly wounded by the rebellion and continue to live in a world deeply scarred by the rebellion.  Therefore, God knows that the mud does not need a lawyer but a physician.

So, God sent us a physician.  His Son.  Who became mud.  The God-mud.  the God-mud lived among the mud and told the mud why He came:

[My Father] has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

—Jesus, Luke 4:18-19

But, sending His son, the Great Physician, came at a cost, a sacrifice, to God.

No, God’s sacrifice was not a sacrifice where God substituted Himself (His son) and took the punishment due the mud because of the mud’s rebellious act.  The mud’s rebellion wasn’t an act that required the punishment of someone, either the mud or God’s Son.  Remember, the mud are not law-breaking criminals.

And, no, neither has God viewed the mud’s rebellion as an insult to His honor requiring “satisfaction” like the olden days in which people dueled over matters of honor.  The God-mud Jesus was not sent to substitute for the mud to give God “satisfaction” and restore God’s honor by dying on the cross.  Remember, God is humble.

In fact, Jesus’ sacrifice was not something required of the mud by God but a gift to the mud from God.

God’s sacrifice was the sacrifice of a lover for the beloved, for without sacrifice between lovers there can be no love at all.  Jesus, the God-mud, showed God’s True Love for the mud.

The God-mud gave up the prerogatives of being God and came to live in the mud and among the mud, experiencing heat and cold, love and hate, joy and sadness, pain and delight…all that mud experiences.  And then the God-mud died as mud dies.  In fact, the God-mud so loved the mud He allowed the mud to kill Him so that the mud might know the depth of God’s True Love.

And then…

After three days the God-mud returned to life.  Death, which has held the mud captive was defeated.

This is the sacrifice of Jesus (to paraphrase St. Athanasius, from over 1700 years ago): God became mud so that by His grace the mud could become like God.  Jesus was born as mud, lived, died, and resurrected in order to defeat the mud’s greatest enemy: death.  Jesus freed all mud-kind to enter into a loving relationship with Him.  This is God’s great gift to all mud-kind.  Jesus the God-man is the prototype and the “telos” of all mud.

Curiously, though, when Jesus’ closest mud companions first saw Him again, they scarcely recognized Him.  He looked somehow…different.  It seems that although the mud was originally made in God’s image, when the mud first rebelled against God all those years ago the mud’s appearance changed, the mud began to look more mud-like than God-like.  The companions struggled to recognize the God-mud because when the God-mud returned to life He was no longer the God-mud; no, He is now the God-man.  The God-mud, now God-man,  is now the first “fully human” being: a human properly joined in oneness with God.  And that is how the mud was always meant to be.

The glory of God is a human being fully alive!

—St Irenaeus, c. 1st century

A fully human being is a being whom will one day emerge from the mud.  In this life all we can do is strive toward the fullness of being human; however, we remain mud, but  infused with God’s Spirt, who striving moment-by-moment to love God, to be one with Him and with other human beings.

Our hope is that one day we will be resurrected as fully human beings.  And this is eternal life in  Paradise, which is not so much a location but a state of relationship, of being one with God and other fully humans beings.

It is an easy transition from being mud to becoming a fully human being, but one that will be the hardest thing you have ever done.  You will spend the rest of your life wallowing in and battling your muddy nature as you cooperate with God Whom will transform your mud into the fullness of humanity.

If you want to start, just say to God, “I no longer want to be mud.  Make me a fully human.”  Then, hold on…God will say to you, “Let us make a human, it is very good.”

Too Easy

18 Thursday Nov 2021

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Life seems too easy.

I had asked a friend how he was enjoying being retired.  His words were both a response and a lament.  His work life, he told me, had been one of planning and executing plans for large and complex projects.  Since retiring, he had done volunteer work, engaged his hobbies, played golf, travelled…the usual things retirees do.  However, it all seemed too easy to him; there was no struggle, no challenge as he had experienced in his work life.

I am seventeen months into my own retirement.  I confess to having had the same thought on occasion: my life seems too easy.  I have a wonderful marriage, a comfortable retirement income, my health is good, I have good friends, hobbies, and a good church.  In my work life I had great responsibility: literally holding people’s lives in my hands.  Now, I just have to make sure the dog is fed twice a day.

And, isn’t that the point…to have an easy life?  Growing up I was told that I should work hard all of my life to retire—and retire early, if possible—so that I can enjoy myself in relative physical and material comfort.  And the goal of an easy life in retirement is certainly the main focus of millions of advertising dollars spent on American TV by the financial planning and pharmaceutical industries.

Of course while still in the work force I remember the not-so-subtle shift in the message, that the easy life is no longer just for those retired folks.  I now hear that if I become properly educated in a S.T.E.M. profession, have the latest cell phone, am a member of the right social networks, subscribe to the correct kind of shame-cancelling morality, and am properly woke, then I deserve and should expect to have an easy life with perhaps hundreds, thousands, or millions of virtual “friends.”  Soma for all!

It sounds idyllic, doesn’t it, being the captain of my own ship, the king of my own castle, in full control of my own destiny.  Clear skies, calm seas, and flat terrain ahead!  Who wouldn’t want that life.

Then why does this idea of an “easy life” bother me so much?  After all, by many common measures I was successful in my career and life.  I should feel somewhat proud of myself and blessed by God that I did enough “right” things and made enough “right” choices that God rewarded me with an “easy life” in my retirement years.  Right?  Shouldn’t I?

Then what is wrong with me.

Now I do have to admit to you that some of my angst comes from guilt.  From within my “easy life” I see so many others living life that is not so easy.  I admit to experiencing a form of survivor’s guilt: why do I have it easy and not them.  But there’s more to my angst than guilt.

What if there’s nothing wrong with me.  What if thinking that my life is too easy is a giant red flag waving at me.  What if I should understand these thoughts as moments when I recognize, even sub-consciously, that the culture is winning within me.  What if these are moments in which I am standing at an abyss I don’t recognize, having forgotten that my life is only found in relationship with God.

I was recently reading a book about how the Christian Orthodox Church views salvation, participating in life with God.  In it, the author recounts a conversation he had as a young man with St. Sophrony (Sakarov) of Essex in which he was lamenting to Sophrony how difficult his school exams were.  Sophrony acknowledged that school exams are indeed difficult, then added:

In this world there is nothing more difficult than to be saved.

This is not the Christian message I grew up hearing.  I recall hearing, “say the ‘sinner’s prayer,’ go to church, pray some, give some, and try to be a good person to those around you.  God sees you through the blood of Jesus.  You are saved.”  No one in my Christian world would have talked about it being hard to be saved.

I have been praying, and it can be a tricky thing.  You’ve probably heard the old joke about not praying for patience because God will put you in a place where you have to learn it.  Well, I have been praying for God to do whatever it takes in my life to draw me closer to Him.  So, He opened my eyes and led me to the abyss in my own soul.

Abyss.  It seems like such a perfect word for what it is intended to convey, doesn’t it.  Hearing the word brings to my mind a chasm of unknown depth.  A pit of blackness—blacker than the darkest night.  A place of demons and despair; a hole into which were I to fall there would be only falling.  Forever.  

God has brought me to the abyss within me.  It is the place in my heart where my radical self-love and my self-serving passions exist.  It is the place where there is little or no thought of loving God…or you.  It is the place of Solzhenitsyn‘s line of evil within my own heart.  It is where the goats of St Matthew’s gospel graze within me.

It is hard enough to stand at the edge and look into it.  One has to bear the shame of admitting that kind of darkness exist within one’s own soul.  Standing at the edge is looking at one’s past self-centered behavior and facing it, owning it.  Sophrony again says that we should only stand at the edge of the abyss until we can take it no longer, then we must step back and have some tea.  It is while drinking tea that I am able to talk to myself about the abyss, coolly offering advice and encouragement and remembering the promises of Jesus and repenting of my thoughts and deeds.

As hard as it is to stand at the abyss and peer in, it is quite another thing to recognize real-time that I am in the abyss.  It is being in the darkness and terror of the storm itself.  In these times I can feel myself awash in self-serving self-love manifested by one or more extreme passions of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice, and slothfulness—the seven deadly sins.  The demons toss me shackles to bind myself to them and I gladly put them on.  I experience myself being overwhelmed by my own desires and wanting more while being horrified that I find so much pleasure in it.  I may even hear my inner self shouting faintly to me that what I am doing pushes God and those I love most away from me.  Still I go on.

As the moment subsides, I am convinced that I am not saved because I have no love for God or neighbor within me.  The shame of who I am and the pain of my very existence washes over me.

Accepting the shame without turning from it nor letting it crush me is the most difficult thing.  Recognizing that I am falling into the abyss and trying not to let my passions rule me every time is the most difficult thing.  Remembering and calling upon God’s mercy in my life is the most difficult thing.

Thinking that my life is too easy should indeed be a giant red flag waving at me.  I can and should be thankful for the abundance God has provided. But thinking life is too easy, well, they are the moments of blindness when I no longer see the abyss in my soul.  It is the time of greatest danger to my soul.

There are two roads.  The road of the easy life is wide and comfortable.  The road of sharing life with God is narrow and perilous.

Fierce is the war we rage, yet it is a wise war and a simple one.  If the soul grows to love humility, then all the snares of our enemies are undone and his fortress captured.  In this spiritual warfare of ours we must see to the state of our ammunition and our provender.  Our ammunition is our humility; our provender—the grace of God.  If we lose these, the enemy will defeat us…

Here is the easiest and quickest way to salvation: Be obedient and sober, do not find fault, and keep mind and heart from evil thoughts.  Think that all men are good and beloved of the Lord.  For such humility the grace of the Holy Spirit will dwell in you, and cause you to exclaim, “How merciful is the Lord!”

But if you find fault and are querulous, if you want your own way, even if you pray much your soul will fail, and you will cry out, “The Lord has forgotten me!”  But it is not that the Lord has forgotten you—it is you that have forgotten that you must humble yourself, and so the grace of God abides not in your soul.
—St Silouan the Athonite

Lord have mercy.

The Noonday Demon

10 Monday May 2021

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There is a digital clock on my desk.  The clock tells me it is Thursday.  May 6th.  4:28.  pm.  Central daylight time.  The temperature at my desk is 78 degrees Fahrenheit. The clock read 3:12 when I first sat down.  Now it is 4:29.  On the upper left hand corner of the clock is a map of the United States and the Central Time Zone is highlighted.  I know it is the Central Time Zone because of the letter C below the map.  I know it is the afternoon because above the map are the letters “pm.”  Now 4:32.  The small letters “DST” tells me it is daylight savings time; curiously, “DST” blinks at me silently, the electronic equivalent of the ticking of a clock, I suppose.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  It is now 4:34.  Other symbols on the clock face tell me the clock is receiving a signal from station WWVB, which broadcasts a signal from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado.  A built-in thermometer tells me the room temperature.  4:41.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.

4:48.  The demon stopped by again today.  He (do demons have gender?) and I are old acquaintances.   He is very old now but he seems well for his age.  He used to be quite famous, you know.  There have been many, many pages written about him throughout history, though I believe him to be widely unknown today.  After all, we are too smart to believe in demons.  Too bad for us.  However, I think that’s a good thing for a demon.  It is better for them to work in anonymity, they are much more effective.   Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  4:56.

This demon has a name.  No, not from me.  He has been named for at least 3,000 years:

You shall not be frightened by fear at night, Nor from an arrow that flies by day, Nor by a thing moving in darkness, Nor by mishap and a demon of noonday.
–-Psalm 90:6 (King David.  Septuagint, The Orthodox Study Bible)

He was so named “noonday demon” because of when he generally comes to visit.  Eighteen hundred years ago, many Christian monks moved to the desert caves of the Middle East seeking a life focused on God alone.  Boredom was a constant companion.  For some, the noonday sun seemed to stop in the sky.  This was when the demon would come visit them.

5:02.

Now 5:17.  Early desert-dwelling Christians (Church Fathers and Mother’s of the 4th century and beyond) recognized the noonday demon as “a dangerous and frequent foe” (St John Cassian).  The monk’s day would drag on and on.  And on.  Many would eat and drink as a distraction.  Others would sleep.  Or pace.  Or stand in the mouth of their cave, trying to will the sun to move.  Still others would visit neighboring monks for idle conversation.  Anything to find distraction from the attack of the demon, the pain of the boredom.  5:38.  Blink.  Blink.

The Greeks have a word for the effect this demon’s visit has on us: acedia.  Apparently, it doesn’t translate well.  The English word was sloth, but that word has taken on a different emphasis these days.  Now it is more commonly called “desolation,” not to be confused with depression.  Desolation, as used in the spiritual context, has been described as a sickness—weariness—of the soul.  Father Alexander Schmemann says it is “the suicide of the soul because when a man is possessed by it, he is absolutely unable to see the light and desire it.”  Strong words.  5:52.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.

 It is the apparent futility of living and dying that, more than any other factor, invites the apathy of despondency. 
–Nicole Roccas (Time and Despondency).

Fundamentally, despondency is a sense of futility resulting in hopelessness; one’s soul is sick.   One suffering the demon’s attack seeks to escape by giving in to the apathy (no activity) or by busyness (much activity).  Whether lazy or busy, one has the overwhelming desire to be “anywhere but here, anytime but now.”  Looking back, I now know this demon I first met many years ago when I was a kid.  Futility is part of my early and ongoing  awareness and distraction; a lifelong way of living for me.  (Why is it so rare to see a number change on a digital clock?)  6:44.  6:45.  6:46.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Even as I write I wonder whether it matters.  Will it change anything?   6:48.

Sun set.  Sun rise.

The clock tells me it is Friday.  May 7th.  4:57.  pm.  Central daylight time.  It is 76 degrees in my office.  Since I was last here I’ve visited friends, walked the dog, slept, ate, bought groceries, and played golf.  Feels like activity without importance.  The letters on my clock continue to blink.  Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Space is exposed to our will; we may shape and change the things in space as we please.  Time, however, is beyond our reach, beyond our power. … It belongs exclusively to God.
—Abraham Joshua Herschel. The Sabbath.

5:35.  In 1985, Neil Postman wrote a book entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death.  He believed Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) was the better prophet than George Orwell (1984).  To each of us the noonday demon whispers, “You will live and you will die.  There is no hope.”  If you don’t believe in life after death, then the demon whispers, “Ultimately, nothing matters.  The universe will one day grow cold and die.  All you hold dear will be gone.”  If you believe in life after death, the demon whispers, “You will be as Stepford Wives: perfect people doing perfect things.  There will be nothing new or challenging…for eternity.  How boring.”  5:50.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink. 

Huxley and Postman saw a future of humanity with humans self-medicating to dull the pain of hopelessness.  These modern two prophets say we will set aside the deep things of life, wonder and awe; rather, we will strive after “wow!”  They say we will not notice that “wow” begets the need for more “wow.”  We will live our lives seeking Huxley’s Soma and CS Lewis’ Turkish Delight: Bigger, faster, newer, more features, more excitement, more challenge, more pleasure.  More.  More.  Still more.  It is hopelessness masked by distraction.

It is more serious to lose hope than to sin.
–St John of Karpathos

6:00.  At around 6pm we have happy hour at our house.  I always look forward to a glass of wine.  Usually only one glass for me, though.  I fear if I have another there will be another still.  I find red wine goes best with futility.

Sun set.

The clock tells me it is Saturday.  May 8.  12:43.  am.  Central daylight time.  It is 77 degrees in my office.  I can’t sleep.

History, at least in the West, is on the side of Huxley and Postman.  In 1949, with the carnage of World War II still fresh in the world’s collective memory, Elton Trueblood (Alternative to Futility) wrote this:

Actually most of us like war better than we like peace.  We like it because it saves us from boredom, from mediocrity, from dullness.  It is instructive to note that great numbers of people in Britain say openly that they look back to 1940-41 with nostalgia.  Those were the days in which they really lived!  There was the constant danger of invasion and all the resultant horror; there was the bombing; but there was more.  People stood shoulder to shoulder, united by a common pride.  They were sustained by great rhetoric and great deeds.  Life had significance.  Now all is different.  Now there is no danger, but only a constant round of petty restrictions; life has become commonplace and humdrum.

12:55. am.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Apparently we prefer immediate danger and death over the pain of a slow death by the sense of futility of a commonplace and humdrum life.  The demon whispers.

1:17. am.

With the passage of the years, I have found that the cross Jesus tells me to bear daily is heavy; my soul has grown weary from the struggle.  It is easier to just lay on the ground under my cross than to carry it. 

And the three men I admire most,br. The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.
—Don McLean, “American Pie”

Where is God?  He said His burden is light and His yoke is easy

When the demon comes and I begin to lose hope, I struggle pray.  Going to church becomes a wearisome chore. 1:38.  am.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.

Sun rise.

The clock tells me it is Sunday.  May 9th.  2:24pm.  It is 78 degrees in my office.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.

Some Christians tell me to shout back at the demon, “Get behind me Satan.”  

2:50.

The ancient Church warns me not to take on a demon, for I am not strong enough to take on a demon.

Stay in your cell and it will teach you everything.
–Abba Moses (4th c.)

Those who have been in their cave and faced the demon tell me, “Don’t fight the demon.  Neither should you mask the weariness with distraction.  Cry out to Jesus.  Look to Him and at Him alone.  It is the path to purification.”

They tell me that if I can say nothing else, to pray “Jesus help.”  They tell me prayer is vital.  Father Thomas Hopko says to pray as I can, not as I think I should (“55 Maxims for the Christian Life”).  They tell me I am in need of the Church, the hospital for the soul, where I will find healing.  I know they are right, but the weariness presses in. Where is the rest Jesus promises?

3:08.

Evagrius Ponticus (4th c) was one of the earliest Christian cave-dwelling monks to write extensively about acedia.  He believed the thoughts of desolation were the most debilitating of the eight evil thoughts that assail humankind.  His advice is to pray this simple prayer from the Psalms:

Why are you so sad, O my soul? And why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will give thanks to Him; My God is the salvation of my countenance.
–Psalm 41:6 (Septuagint, The Orthodox Study Bible)

The clock tells me it is Sunday, May 9th, 3:17 pm.  Central daylight time.  The temperature at my desk is 79 degrees Fahrenheit.  The letters, “DST,” blink as the ticking of an electronic clock.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.

How Does My Life Mean?

11 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by in All, Healing, Journey, Life, Self

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The Resurrection—Eastern Orthodox Icon

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.
—Jean-Paul Sartre

I have come that people may have life, and that they may have it abundantly.
—Jesus

I have been obsessed with the meaning of life since I was a kid. Early on, I remember reading obituaries in the local newspaper. I noticed that some during their lives had done extraordinary things, accounting for significant advances in science, math, engineering, the arts. Others had led large companies to unprecedented prosperity, providing many jobs and making a lot of money for themselves and others. Yet others lived more modest lives, working hard and raising families. Still others had hard lives marred by poor decisions, struggle, and loss.

There are culturally accepted ways to assign meaning to life and we label and reward accordingly. The “great” person affects humanity and gets public honor: a star named for them (or a star on Hollywood Boulevard), or a monument dedicated to them, or a statue built in their honor, or a street or park named after them An “expert” is widely recognized in their field of expertise and have a wall or a shelf in their home filled with their achievement awards. The “average Jane or Joe” lives a generally nondescript life, invisible to all but those closest to them. About another life we use the word “wasted” or “shameful,” particularly when addiction is involved. If one dies young, then we say their life was “tragically cut short” presumable lamenting that they did not have time to do the things that would have given their life greater meaning.

But even the highest reward for a meaningful life can be fleeting. We have a short collective memory. Have you ever stopped at a statue of a person and wondered who the person was and what they did to have a statue erected for them? I think these questions can be asked of any memorial we come across. I try to stop and read the usual plaque, then say something like, “Hmmmm, that’s interesting” before moving on.

My mom and dad were quite prominent people in our small, midwestern-America town. My dad was mayor for awhile, and when he died there was quite a celebration of his life and accomplishments; the town even named a street after him. Now, thirty years later, I’m sure most people driving down his street wonder who he was. Honestly, if anyone even thinks of him at all it is probably only to wish his street had a shorter name. And I’m sure that now only us, his kids, could find his, or my mom’s, grave site at the local cemetery.

I, too, have accomplished things in my life and have had my own achievement awards; however, even in the midst of the work I always had that small voice chiding me, “One day,” it would say, “this accomplishment will just be a line in your own obituary that will soon be forgotten.”

I am very aware that the day I die my toys and precious belongings will become just troublesome stuff for my kid to dispose of. In two generations, likely no one will know where I am buried. The best I can hope for is that I appear in some future progeny’s web search on an “ancestor” archive.

On my deathbed, if I am able to reflect back on my life, what is it that will have given it meaning? Will I be graded on a scale based on things that can measured, such as philanthropy or adventure or personal achievement? If so, against whose scale will I be judged? And who will grade me? Family? Friends? Society? If no one ultimately remembers me, then why should I really care how I am graded?

So, how does life mean? Wait! That is too big a question. What I really want to know is this: How does my life mean?

This I know: God created humankind—me—to participate in His very life, to be “one” with him and with other Christians. By His graciousness I am invited to become like He is by nature. Therefore, my life’s meaning doesn’t come from a collection of material things or accomplishments but by my movement into relationship with Him. My life begins to have meaning when I am awakened to the Beauty of God and I begin to “come out of myself and move toward Him,” to “run toward God without any regard for myself” (Patitsas)…like lovers do. Here is one way the Bible describes it:

My beloved is a shining and fiery light, Chosen from countless thousands. His head is like refined gold; His locks of hair are shiny and black, Like a raven’s feathers. His eyes are like those of doves Sitting by pools of water, Having eyes bathed in milk and fitly set. His cheeks are like bowls of spices Pouring forth perfumes. His lips are lilies dripping choice myrrh. His hands are like elaborate gold Set with precious stones. (Song of Songs, The Bible)

Isn’t that great imagery! Too often we are hit over the head with the threat of an angry God who is judging our every action and keeping score. That is not really true. It is much more like the paragraph, above. Elsewhere in the Bible it says that God is singing over us. Imagine that…God singing over me, the mess that I am.

To run toward God I have to try to get over myself, specifically to get over my love of myself, so that I might love Him. That is what it means to participate in God’s life.

In my human relationships I know that loving another is never easy for me. I don’t really want to put you first, at least not for very long. Setting aside my desires, my self-love, is often a sacrifice for me, and all too often it is too much of a sacrifice, so I don’t do it. If I’m honest with you, all the evidence in my life points to the fact that I love myself way too much, so that I want any relationship I’m in—with you or with God—to be on my terms.

But, love does require sacrifice. It all sounds so counter-cultural, doesn’t it. And it is, but this is what we were made for: to be in a loving relationship with God and others.

There’s hope for me, mired as I am in self love! Here is the little secret of Christianity that I have discovered: God knows I’ll never do “relationship” very well. Because of how much I want what I want, I’ll spend my life struggling to love you and God more than I love myself. Mostly I will fail at it. And then with God’s help I will get up and try again. And I will fail. And I will try again. And I will fail. And I will try again. For all of my life. With every fall I try to cry out to God Who helps me to get up again. Any successes I have will be entirely God’s doing.

But—and this is the final answer to my question—the only thing that gives my life meaning, eternal meaning, is whether I stayed in the struggle to try and love God and you more than I love myself. There are no monuments or achievement awards given for a life lived like this. There is only eternal life with God…life’s ultimate meaning.

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
—Jesus

Oh, and that little word, “know” means the knowing God in the same way found only in the most intimate of relationship between lovers. Me knowing God (God already knows me)—it is both the meaning and reward of my life.

So, now when I read an obituary I appreciate the person’s accomplishments, but I also wonder how their life meant to them and to God, and I pray for them as I, too, struggle to live my life as one filled with eternal meaning.

Choosing Sides

13 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in All, Journey, Uncategorized

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Ladder of Divine Ascent

In a recent blog, Father Stephen Freeman described faith as loyalty, perhaps as a simple as choosing sides. I found that to be a wonderful pragmatic definition of faith, one that tied in so nicely with my other, recent reading and writing.

In my own previous musing on the reality of the spiritual battle between good and evil, I mentioned that we must choose a side in the battle. As I continue to contemplate the true nature of reality, I am convinced that there is no middle ground available for us, no neutral territory for us to inhabit. One may claim to be agnostic; however, that, too, is to choose a side. There is only a binary choice available to us.

How can this be?

To be human is to be made for worship. It is how we were created. Throughout history, humans have worshipped many things. We have and continue to worship a god or gods or other people. We can worship immaterial things, such as knowledge, feelings, security, science, and religion. We can worship money. We can worship any number of material things: clothes, cars, hobbies, boats, jewelry, books, etc. (this could be a very long list!).

What does it mean to worship something?

Our common understanding of worship someone or some thing means that we offer a sacrifice to that which we worship. Historically, sacrifices have consisted of such things as blood—human or animal—crops, prepared food or drink, jewels, and money. Over time, we humans have offered as a sacrifice anything we consider precious—that which we treasure most—to some one or some thing we have worshipped.

As modern humans, we typically no longer think in this way. We believe that worship and sacrifice are for primitive people, that we are well beyond those silly, unscientific things. Yet, to us modern people, the most precious thing we have is our time and our money. To what, then, do we offer our time and money? Just look at your calendar or your checkbook or your screen time (phone, tablet, computer, or television). Find where you spend your time and money and you will know who or what it is that you worship.

This is not an original thought from me. Jesus said it first: “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.”

If, then, to be human is to be a worshiping being, then so also to be human is to choose that which we will worship. And, choosing who or what we worship constitutes choosing sides in the battle. So, find where you put what you treasure and you will find who or what side you have chosen by knowing who or what you worship.

Why choose? Isn’t it enough to just do good things and to be kind to others?

St Gregory Palamas said, “If God does not act in us everything done by us is sin.” To our modern ears, that sounds like such a harsh, judgmental statement. To use the modern language, Palamas’ statement sounds shaming and cancelling. But that’s only because Christianity, in many circles, has become a moral religion aimed at appeasing a wrathful God rather than an ongoing, relational existence with a loving God. It is fashionable to think that if I “do good” or am generally a “good person” (and how we define “good” is a subject for another blog), then God will not be mad at me and I will go to heaven or obtain whatever other reward I may imagine.

But, as someone said, Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. Sin is rightly defined as our turning away from God, turning toward death rather than life. Sin—death—is our broken relationship with God, not the bad deed.

Here is a better image of reality. We are in a war zone, caught between two warring factions: God and His angels vs. the fallen angels (demons). Like when the Allied forces began marching across Europe in WWII, God is advancing on His enemies. God’s victory in the spiritual war is inevitable; however, also like WWII, the battles will continue to the very end. And here is a most important point. We, humankind, are not God’s enemies. Et me say that again. Humankind are not Enemies of God. We are caught in the crossfire and God is trying to save us. We have been enslaved by the enemy and God offers all of us the path to freedom. The choice is ours. Each of us can choose either to turn to God or to remain with God’s enemy.

The decision to choose God brings the battle to us. More literally, it ignites the battle within us. The sin that has infected us and is within us is a powerful enemy. The Apostle, St Paul, admits of his own, ongoing struggle against sin: “..the good that I want to do, I do not do; but the evil I want not to do, that I practice.” Choosing God is not a one-time decision, even for a saint like Paul. We choose God day-by-day, sometimes moment-by-moment. The great St Anthony once said, “Each day I arise from bed and say to myself, ‘Today I begin again’.”

So, what does it look like to choose God moment-by-moment?

Below are 55 practical ways to choose the Christian God in everyday life; they are ways we can offer our worship to Him. Before you read them, remember two things. First, this is not a “to do” list. Recall Palamas’ words, above…without God, doing all of these things is still sin because Christianity is primarily about relationship. Second, Christianity is not about becoming a “better” human. It is about turning to God and joining in His life. These 55 things are simply things that help us to join in with God’s life. But here’s the catch: you will fail at them. Often. In this life you can actually expect very little “improvement” in yourself. So, when you fail, turn back to God, confess your failure, ask Him for forgiveness, then get back in the battle.

Choose God. You are not alone in the battle.

55 Maxims for Christian Living
Father Thomas Hopko

  1. Be always with Christ.
  2. Pray as you can, not as you want.
  3. Have a keepable rule of prayer that you do by discipline.
  4. Say the Lord’s Prayer several times a day.
  5. Have a short prayer that you constantly repeat when your mind is not occupied with other things.
  6. Make some prostrations when you pray.
  7. Eat good foods in moderation.
  8. Keep the Church’s fasting rules.
  9. Spend some time in silence every day.
  10. Do acts of mercy in secret.
  11. Go to liturgical church services regularly.
  12. Go to confession and communion regularly.
  13. Do not engage intrusive thoughts and feelings. Cut them off at the start.
  14. Reveal all your thoughts and feelings regularly to a trusted person.
  15. Read the scriptures regularly.
  16. Read good books a little at a time.
  17. Cultivate communion with the saints.
  18. Be an ordinary person.
  19. Be polite with everyone.
  20. Maintain cleanliness and order in your home.
  21. Have a healthy, wholesome hobby.
  22. Exercise regularly.
  23. Live a day, and a part of a day, at a time.
  24. Be totally honest, first of all, with yourself.
  25. Be faithful in little things.
  26. Do your work, and then forget it.
  27. Do the most difficult and painful things first.
  28. Face reality.
  29. Be grateful in all things.
  30. Be cheerful.
  31. Be simple, hidden, quiet and small.
  32. Never bring attention to yourself.
  33. Listen when people talk to you.
  34. Be awake and be attentive.
  35. Think and talk about things no more than necessary.
  36. When we speak, speak simply, clearly, firmly and directly.
  37. Flee imagination, analysis, figuring things out.
  38. Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance.
  39. Don’t complain, mumble, murmur or whine.
  40. Don’t compare yourself with anyone.
  41. Don’t seek or expect praise or pity from anyone.
  42. Don’t judge anyone for anything.
  43. Don’t try to convince anyone of anything.
  44. Don’t defend or justify yourself.
  45. Be defined and bound by God alone.
  46. Accept criticism gratefully but test it critically.
  47. Give advice to others only when asked or obligated to do so.
  48. Do nothing for anyone that they can and should do for themselves.
  49. Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim and caprice.
  50. Be merciful with yourself and with others.
  51. Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath.
  52. Focus exclusively on God and light, not on sin and darkness.
  53. Endure the trial of yourself and your own faults and sins peacefully, serenely, because you know that God’s mercy is greater than your wretchedness.
  54. When we fall, get up immediately and start over.
  55. Get help when you need it, without fear and without shame.

Life, Luck, and God

29 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by in All, Culture, Death, Humankind

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I read a novel recently in which one of the characters, a man in his twenties, was rightly imprisoned for sexually abusing his thirteen year old sister.  Taking revenge, he used his prison connections and his wealth to have his sister kidnapped, drugged, and sold into sexual slavery where she died after a few years.

This was troubling to me because it caused me to think about the seemingly lucky or unlucky circumstances of our lives.  There are real-life children sold into sexual slavery.  Some people have lost family and homes to war.  Natural disasters disrupt lives and cause widespread death and destruction.  Children are born with mental and physical disabilities.  Random accidents maim and take lives.  Some people are born into poverty, others into great health and wealth.

Life certainly doesn’t seem fair.  So, I find myself wondering what should I, as a Christian, think about the role of luck and God in my life.

Luck, in its most common definition, is the description we use for the things that happen to us that seem to be beyond our control. Philosophers and ethicists speak about the concept of luck.  There is no agreement among them whether luck exists, and if it does, to what degree are we each accountable for the events of our lives.

Authors such as scholar C.S. Lewis and sociologist Max Weber have written about how the modern world has become “disenchanted.”   In the ancient world there was once room for “enchantment”: people believed in gods, spirits, demons, fairies, elves, dragons, and such.  When seemingly unexplainable things happened around people and to people, they created explanations for the mysteries they experienced.  For example, if you make one of the god’s mad and you may experience a fire or an earthquake.  Over the centuries, Christianity vanquished “the gods” and now modern scientism has vanquished the Christian God.  So, in our modern world there is now little room for an enchanted world in the minds of “serious” people; they exclude the possibility of mysterious things “beyond the veil” of the natural world, including God, angels, and miracles.

It seems to me, then, in a disenchanted world, luck is all we have to account for disparities and tragedies of life: Born into or encounter bad things in life? Bad luck.  Born as a “healthy, well adjusted, hard working” person and into a good life?  Good luck.  The examples of good and bad “luck” are manifold as there are lives.  

However, the Christian knows that all of reality is indeed enchanted: there is a God, angels, demons, and the souls of the departed.  So, what about the role of God, luck, and my own free will in my life?

Christians usually avoid reliance on luck.  To explain the events around us, we generally appeal to God’s plan (providence), that usually say that everything comes from God.  Tragedies can occur, we may say, as punishment for the wicked. Or, sometimes we offer that suffering is given to us because it is good for our soul.  We may appeal to God’s love by saying that God wanted a dead loved one more than the family did.  Other times we may appeal to God’s predestination, that these are the events God has for our lives.  We may claim to know the intent of God, that this world is the best He could do given our free will.  We may try to excuse God, claiming that, while He knows how it will end, He doesn’t know how we will get there, again, due to our free will.  Unfortunately, each of these explanations in some way holds God responsible for the tragedy.

God’s plan seems simple: He created humans to enter into a union with Him, for us to participate in His life.  Here is what is in store for those who chose God:

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
—1Corinthians 2:9

It does seem that God’s plan requires that we have free will to choose Him, and His plan for us is so extraordinary that apparently He is willing to risk that we choose otherwise and bring about terrible tragedy and the fall of the cosmos itself.

The hard thing for us is the accepting the paradox that God does have a plan that will not be thwarted and that we do have free will to act.  The problem for us is that exactly how it works itself out in our lives is a mystery.  And herein is an important point: with our western mindset, we want to turn this into a problem we can solve.  We modern people do not like mysteries because they take away our control.  You see, a problem implies a solution that brings the problem under our control.  Mysteries, however, cannot be brought under our control; rather, they must simply be inhabited. Said differently, an enchanted world contains mystery.

While God’s plan mixed with our free will is a mystery, we can know some things about it.

First, God doesn’t need us at all.  Nor does He need evil and tragedy to bring about His plan.  Unfortunately, the first humans, Adam and Eve, exercised their free will poorly; we and all of creations now live in the aftermath of that first decision.  And, through our own actions, we each, too, often reaffirm that fateful decision by also choosing other than God and turning toward the Prince of this world.  The consequences of our choices is death: the continued sin perpetuated by humans and the natural disasters evident in the world.

Because of our free will, not all events in our lives is willed by God: we make choices and all of the cosmos is fallen, which include the weather, earthquakes, fires, etc.  While it may give us some comfort to believe that God wills all things, the cost of that belief is that we must then also believe God wills all of the tragedy around us from the death of a child to the slaughter of millions. 

So, while God does permit good and bad to occur as a result of our free will choices, this does not mean that He simply sits back and watches as history unfolds.  The Christian God is not the god of life and death we see in the natural world; rather, He is the God of love and life found only in true reality, the enchanted world of all of creation.  As such, God does not leave us alone to meaninglessly suffer and death in this natural world, He acts always for our salvation.  Jesus, the innocent God-man, died to defeat the death that enslaves us and to transform the otherwise meaningless suffering and death of those who choose to turn to Him.   Christ on the cross is the ultimate act of love and life: His death also was not a necessary part of God’s plan; rather, it was a completely free, self-less act of love to save us from our free will choice to bind ourselves and the world to someone other than God—to Satan.

In Jesus’ own words, He came—

To preach the gospel to the poor;
[God the Father] has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed.
—Luke 4:18

Perhaps it comes down to this.  While we can argue about the role of God’s plan, our free will, and luck, God has created humankind and willed that we freely choose to be in a loving relationship with Him.  He permits us to choose poorly and Christ has given His life to redeem that choice.  God has something extraordinary in store for us that was worth the risk of the fall of all creation and the horrific tragedies around us.  That brings us to another choice: either we embrace that reality or we decide we cannot turn to that God because we believe that certainly there is a better way to run the universe.

Christians need not feel we must defend God or justify His actions in tragedy.  The radical good news of Christianity is that death is not something to be explained by religion; rather, it is an enemy that has been defeated by Christ.  So, when we look into the lifeless eyes of “the old, the young, the needy, the orphans and the widows, and on all that are in sickness and sorrow, in distress and affliction, in oppression and captivity, in prison and confinement,” or even the dead, we should not see “bad luck” or God’s hand; rather, we must see only the defeated enemy.  Then we must turn our minds and hearts toward God, the God of salvation Who has rescued us from death and Who redeems our suffering and, giving Him thanks, offer to others the love Christ has first shown us. 

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live…

—Moses (Deuteronomy 30:19)

For more on this, I recommend The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? by David Bentley Hart.

I Am Number One

30 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by in All, Journey, Prayer

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This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
—Apostle Paul in a letter to St Timothy (1Timothy 1:15)

I believe, O Lord, and I confess that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
—From a Christian (Eastern) Orthodox Pre-Communion Prayer

Prior to receiving communion, many Christians pray the pre-communion prayer, above, in which each pray-er claims to be “the chief of all sinners.” In other words, as I pray this prayer, I claim that “I am the number one sinner of all time.” That is saying a lot; it is quite a claim for one’s self.

Now, I can certainly say this prayer with a prideful heart and with false humility with the intent of garnering either praise from you for my remarkable piety (“Wow, you really are a very religious person!”), or to seek a compliment from you (“Awww, you really are a great person; don’t be so hard on yourself.”)

Presume for a moment, however, that I mean it sincerely, “I am the chief of all sinners.”  Can that really be true?  Let’s make a simple comparison.  Consider the following dictators and the deaths attributed to them and their respective regimes:

  • Mao Zedong (China): 31 million deaths
  • Adolf Hitler (Nazi Germany): 19 million deaths
  • Joseph Stalin (Russia): 9 million deaths

Does that seem an unfair comparison? Certainly I’m not that bad. Then how about an average mass murderer who might only kill tens of people. Am I really a worse sinner than that?

What about my friend who cheats on his taxes?  Am I worse than that?

At some point, as I compare my sins to the sins of others, likely I can find a place to rank myself among them, which means that I’m not really the chief of sinners; maybe I’m just an average sinner, no better or worse than most people I know.

Here’s another story from the Bible, a story Jesus tells of two men: one a religious leader and the other a hated tax collector (Luke 18:9-14).  The tax collector, realizing how sinful he is, won’t even look upwards to Heaven; rather, he cries out to God for mercy.  Nearby, the religious man thanks God that he is not as bad as those robbers and tax collectors because he does many good, religious things (praying, fasting, giving money, etc.).  Which man does Jesus praise?  The tax collector.

So, it strikes me that if I try to rank myself—I’m not as bad as Hitler but not as good as Mother Teresa—I am like the religious man in the story, above, the man that Jesus condemns.

Jesus wants me to be like the tax collector…so, in that light, what does it mean for me to say, “I’m the chief of all sinners”?  It means just that: I’m the worst of the lot…I’m the worst sinner of all humankind, past, present, and future.  

This doesn’t mean I’m a worse person than everyone else; no, we are all created equal and in the image of God.  However, I am the worse sinner of all.

Yes, God forgives sins for those who repent of them. Not only does He forgive, but He removes our sins from us “as far as the East is from the West” (Psalm 103:12).  So, for me to be the worst sinner must also mean I am the least repentant, which puts my eternal salvation in danger.  

Here is another story. Many years ago (~AD250-350) there lived a man who gave away his fortune to live in the desert of Egypt to seek God. Today, we know him as St. Anthony. One day, after living in the desert for many years, Anthony was in prayer when he heard a voice:
“Anthony! You have still not achieved the worth of the leather tanner who lives in Alexandria.” The next morning Anthony got himself to Alexandria and went to the leather tanner pointed out to him and said: “Tell me of your deeds, because I came here from the desert for this reason.” The leather tanner was greatly surprised at the saint’s request and answered him humbly: “I do not know about me, whether I did anything good. For this reason I get up early from bed, and rather than leaving for work, I say to myself: all the inhabitants of this city, from the greatest to the least, will enter the Kingdom of God for their virtuous deeds, but I alone will go unto eternal tortures for my sins. And these words I repeat in my heart before I go to sleep.” Upon hearing this, Anthony answered: “Truly, my son, you, a skilled craftsman sitting quietly in his home, have gained the Kingdom of God; but I, although I have spent my whole life in the desert, yet I have not gained spiritual wisdom, I have not reached the level of consciousness that you express with your words.”

From this story, not only am I the chief of all sinners, but I should believe that all of you will enter the Kingdom of God and only I will not because of my poor repentance. Or, in the words of other saints over the centuries, “All will be saved, only I will be lost.”

In a previous blog I wrote of our contemplating the Beauty of God. So, for me to say, “All will be saved, only I will be lost” is not to engage in unhealthy, self condemnation; rather, it is the natural result of seeing my own wretchedness in the light of God’s perfect Beauty. It is me recognizing that I have nothing to commend in and of myself. Therefore, I cannot see your sins, I cannot judge you because I become so aware of my own sin. I am the worst of all sinners. I can’t justify my thoughts or my behavior by comparing myself to you or anyone else because there is no one worse than me.

Let me be as practical as I can. It doesn’t matter what is the color of your skin. It doesn’t matter who or what you call your god. It doesn’t matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, whether you are Democrat, Republican, or something else. It doesn’t matter whether you are straight or one or more of the LGBTQ+ letters. It doesn’t matter whether you are in prison for a small crime or a heinous crime. It doesn’t matter your addiction of choice. It doesn’t matter how you treated your significant other or your kids or your friends today. It does’t matter what you are thinking of doing tomorrow. I am a worse sinner than you. I am THE worst sinner of all.

What do I do with this realization?  How do I cope with this understanding of myself?

Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.

—St. Paul the Apostle; 2Corinthians 7:10

St. Porphyrious tells me I can respond to this realization in one of two ways. First, I can let it drive me into despondency. I can beat myself up for every failure to live up to God’s standard. I can become so self-critical that I become useless; worse, joyless. This is unhealthy shame. It is “worldly sorrow” (2Corinthians 7:10) and is from Satan. The second, better response is from God. It drives me to prayer and to deeper, continual repentance and confession. I don’t wallow in my sinful act, nor do I relive it; rather, I confess it, repent of it, and move past it trusting in God’s forgiveness (which means I must forgive myself!). This is healthy shame; it brings humility. It is the “Godly sorrow” (2Corinthians 7:10) which brings me to repentance and gives me the joy of Jesus. It drives me onward and upward toward God and His beauty.

Returning to St. Paul the Apostle and his claim to be the chief of all sinners. In another letter he goes on to say:
I do not count myself as have attained Jesus’ perfection; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14).

This is the better way to which God exhorts us. By becoming our own harshest accusers, there is no more Satan can do to us. I accuse myself before God before Satan can. As the realization of me being the “chief of sinners” becomes part of who I am, as it was with St Paul and the leather tanner, above, I trust I will take on the humility of Christ. I trust I will begin to love and serve others who are my “betters.” I trust I will more readily cry out to God for His mercy, as did the tax collector and the leather tanner, which is the best prayer of all.

Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

–The ancient “Jesus Prayer”

From Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion:
[This is] the one perspective by which the Christian is allowed to think of universal salvation [that all will go to Heaven]: “all will be saved, only I will perish.” It flows from the inner spiritual experience of a [person] deeply conscious of [one’s] sinfulness and brought to repentance for [one’s] own sins and imperfection. Such repentance necessarily includes thoughts of eternal torments, not for others, but for oneself, as well as the hope for salvation, not for oneself, but for everyone else.

It is our transformation into Christlikeness and His humility through the power of Holy Spirit and the Church that gives witness to our faith.