Veni Vidi Credidi

Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov’s “The Arena” offers much humbling advice for monks. But there is also more as well for those of us who aren’t advanced as spiritual warriors but simple lay folks busy in our everyday backsliding lives (me!). The attention to the detail and its close reading in scripture is not overlooked in the Orthodox Church, and the good Bishop is no exception here:

“You are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”           (2 Corinthians 6:16)

Thus begins Ignatius’s discussion of the union of the mind with the heart as the “union of the spiritual thoughts of the mind with the spiritual feelings of the heart”; and it is the core of his description of the joy the christian experiences as “ordained a priest or high-priest by the Holy Spirit”… for the “worship of God in the Spirit and in Truth.”

And as there is much truth in Archimandrite Zacharias’s note that there is a three-fold experience of this structured as: 1) foretaste, 2) withdrawal and purification, and finally 3) re-union (please forgive that I’ve simplified his words here from memory), in some respects the process of conversion to the depth of faith found in this ancient church may seem to involve something of this foretaste though perhaps on a smaller scale. For it is indeed a yearning for the love of God that brings us here, but this is not the end, not deification, but only a beginning of a beginning. Yet all the same, it may offer a glimmer of understanding of what the whole is all about.

Thus when Ignatius continues his discussion of this union, there seems a parallel to the difficulty we OBC’s (Orthodox By Choice) have in describing our conversion to a deeper and more demanding relationship to those we love around us - for all has truly changed, and In so many ways those on the other side can scarcely comprehend - other than that we must be in love:

“The fulfillment of the commandments which precedes the union of the mind with the heart differs from the fulfillment of the commandments which succeeds the union. Before the union the ascetic fulfills the commandments with the greatest labor and difficulty, forcing and compelling his fallen nature; after the union the spiritual power which unites the mind with the heart impels him to fulfill the commandments - makes it easy, light, sweet, delightful. I ran the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart, says the Psalmist (Psalm 118:32).”

Again, Ignatius is speaking of something far deeper than entry into the Church.. for it is not the church per se that we enter, but union with the Church as the Body of Christ. It is this Body, seen and joined here to us in the sacrament of Chrismation (and in his deeper discussion - theosis).. that offers not an earthly experience of the sort we had known before, but something indescribably different that we are called to, chosen out of the world for… and not strictly by our reasoned choice, but by what we experience as almost a necessity of our heart’s longing for God… for we “find no rest until we rest in thee”. And it is for this reason that the Church is not an earthly vessel seen as any other institution, but as a divinely instituted sacramental body wherein we are blessed to experience true worship for the first time. It is beyond words.

Sadly the wonder that lies herein is something like the sword that divides incarnational faith from all other, and as sweet as it is, there is this incommunicable pain as well for those we leave behind and can no longer reach except as they see the animation of our hearts lit upon our faces. If only they could, if only they would…taste and see that the Lord is good… our joy would be that much greater.

Quotations taken from pp. 86-87.

When I first discovered reading, it was mostly short stories - detective stories (Asimov), mysteries (Doyle) and horror (Hitchcock). And then there was F. Scott Fitzgerald - a writer’s writer in a very American way. It wasn’t that he wrote prose as langorous and beautiful as Ray Bradbury (he didn’t); and it’s not that he had the wit of Twain (he didn’t), but he was a keen observer, and somehow he carried you into the story and set you down gently…. as gently and graciously as Jay Gatsby. He had the whole package.

Of course when I went off to really study literature and the like, Shakespearre was modern… and I never got even within 500 years of a 20th century writer. So for as much as I loved F. Scotty, he has remained a mostly a memory for a long, long time. There was of course that very bad movie that came out during the courtship of my first girlfriend - when movies were something you did to get out on your own… and the experience put me off from reading Scott’s most well-known Gatzer novel. It wasn’t a short story, and Robert Redford’s rendition… killed more than Myrtle.

So in filling-in the space between my next Orthobook, I picked up my daughter’s college text of “The Great Gatsby” - complete with all her professor’s lectured notations in the margin. I was done in a blink.. and with these things of course.. someone else’s notes start a dialog in your head.

But let me say what joy there is in reading this unhappy prose, and what a masterpiece of its own in its beautiful account of a period not altogether unlike ours. Talking it over with my wife, I almost want to begin reading it all over again… and of course I’ve started to. It’s not that it is good, but that the art of telling so compliments the setting and the characters as if it were itself the perfect white linen, or a 1920 Pierce Arrow Roadster.

And though I’m struggling to think of one good person in the book, and there’s certainly no conception of this as a description of an Orthodox life, re-reading the opening two-page introduction left me pondering whether there weren’t an Orthodox reading of this. We’re talking about the “reserve of judgment” as a matter of hope after all. And it is this key… this suspension of judgment, this not seeing into others hearts but simply observing them as if from afar that starts the mind along this course.. a sort of ascetic aesthetic. Not suggesting that everytime we see something we have to make a leap into searching for an Orthodox retelling… but maybe it’ wouldn’t be  bad to consider the possibility.

Sure, part of the appeal and wonder of this may lie in the fact that F. Scott’s not a writer of thick Russian books, but rather shared this land (though perhaps through a besotted haze). Though now he lies under a traffic diamond with Zelda in nearby Rockville, Scott knew our people and our dreams. And maybe there is some key to understanding the meaning and place of Orthodoxy in this. Maybe not. Maybe there’s nothing there after all. I’ll have to keep re-reading.

But in the meantime, I’m not the only one with this standard on my shelf. Surely someone else has given it a thought. All I’m suggesting… is that I’m curious. Feel free to chip in.

You know the cruise line commercial… the one where suddenly the screen fills with the pointed bow of a ship whose immense size and slicing lines would make Columbus scream in terror; would puzzle geometrists and pain naval architects; whose potential treasures in passengers and “booty” lures pirates, “Disco Stu”, and “educators” into giving never ending sales presentations… whose seaworthiness astounds physicists and leaves engineers open to the possibilities for floating other edifices off the East Bronx Expressway… and whose crew of Cap’n Bogart, 1^st Lt. Cagney, First Mate Bronson and a disappointed Steward (Keanu Reeves) greet you with a wry smile, a bottle of whiskey, a couple of rounds from 9mm automatics.. and a “Yo’ duuuuude!”

“Hey…. enough already. We get it. Something’s completely wrong…”

And out of the cold clammy darkness a voice full of luxurious intention booms:

“Somewhere between not sleeping, not exercising, not getting your work done, and not getting home to dinner until ten o’clock at night… suddenly it hits you….. you’re completely inadequate without a week’s ride on our yacht. Yes, we know that after a week of almost daily services (Holy Week - yes, can’t compromise the ol’ nomination prospects for Slacker the Year Award by looking too… too… uh… Orthodox), you can feel the same inadequacies around the home, the office… just about anywhere: Mail piles up, reports go unread, memos unwritten. Even newspapers look irrelevant: Stuff happened; you weren’t a part of it; what else do you need to know? And instead of getting over it…. you feel yourself under it…. And that if only it were over… but it’s not, and it won’t be. So rather than getting back to it, why not just get away… really away… why not come aboard…”

I reach over, and switch it off… and shift back to sifting paperwork and rebuilding the model of my life where the pieces fly off and get re-attached… only to fly off again. Of course, with just the right amount of redefinition of parameters, a small rethinking of the original intent…. “Failure is good”, yeah… and I’m “done” and “moving on”. Can’t hold out over the overlap between the “included” and “excluded” as if it mattered… as if “ought” and “are” could overlap as well…I mean it’s only a model… not the real world. We’ll just keep tweaking… it’ll come out. But the closer you look, the more clearly you see the need to start all over again with something fresh. But opportunity knocks… and even a less than ideal solution clearly serves better than none. Sure.. it won’t feel right and the probability of error is high, but the added value of further paralysis by analysis is offset by diminishing prospects. So you go with what you’ve got, and you use the model anyway. You call it a day. Tomorrow will be another chance, another start, and another compromise… or maybe you’ll finally get it.

Sure, confidence flags a bit… but only slightly. This is it… the top of the game, and the best we can manage. I mean… this is what they’re paying me for….right? And it’s working, isn’t it? At least so long as I’m aware that I’m making these compromises…. I’m still in control? Maybe far more rides on this than admitted…. and maybe less. Maybe I’m overstating my importance, or the importance of the moment; and maybe this confusion is the problem. Hard to tell. G.K. Chesterton had it right long ago that no matter how far we take it, no matter how much research and well-seasoned experience we use to prevent it, … deep down we know there is a degree to which our irrational fears are justified… and an inevitable, almost terrible “wildness lies in wait”… a wildness that doesn’t just trip us later, but trips us even now …and on those things about which we feel most certain.

And thus at root, all our hard sciences and our hard numbers harbor this notion of uncertainty as the limit of knowledge approaches zero, and the “squishiness” of life remains. And like an amoeba, the cell walls of this squishiness divide, and multiply our divergences into limitless possibilities. We see little of this, but in reality, this “choice” represents an unwitting failure to admit the Heisenberg principle that the demarcation between the observed and observer collapses… or at least remains inherent in the design rather than a separate experience. And then it ocurrs to us to wonder, “Who is the designer of my life? Perhaps there is no separate, there is no “sola”… and this is it: our impact on the waters like that under the bow of a ship is something we mistake as a true divide when in truth it leaves no more than a surface wake. For further back the water eddies and re-conforms to the broader currents, and pulls back around us, even swelling against our hulls and rudders as if pushing us downhill from behind and along our way.

And yet here in our secure tacks where we are most confident and self-assured we find that living life is far more art than science, and understand that science itself is something of an art. And here I witness to my own artlessness, as surely portrayed as a Mondrian paint-toss free-for-all rather than the well-framed, perfectly executed Turner landscape I profess. For no matter what anyone might say of his painting, Turner at least knew when he was done, and would turn, pack it up, and walk away while the others continued their “corrections”. By contrast, I find I’ve only begun to understand how I am un-done…. or can’t be done… at least not alone. And were this a canvass of oils… the mess could clean up - and even if muddied, might be painted over once hardened. Yet it seems here far more as if the canvass becomes an ink and watercolor wash where the stains and errors show themselves happily to their advantage in others… but less so the closer we turn to gaze back upon ourselves.

And so it is that I become keenly aware of how much I miss the saintly mark, so close upon Pascha, so close upon Bright Week and its happy seeming respite from repentance.. and here am I.. all but dulled again…and ready for another ride, but lacking the terseness, the immediacy and virtue of St. Mark.