Archimandrite Zacharias Interview

I recommend Kevin Allen’s “Illumined Heart” podcast on Ancient Faith Radio for its recent interview with Archimandrite Zacharias. I am thankful that this Church seems to be peopled with men and women of this sort who deflect the light we would shine on them to illuminate Christ and His work amongst us… as much as is possible. The direct link is posted below.

As AFR invites: “Listen in on this sublime conversation between renowned spiritual elder Father Zacharias (Zakarou), spiritual child of Elder Sophrony, and Kevin’s guest host Father Josiah Trenham, senior pastor of St Andrew Orthodox Church, Riverside, California.”

http://audio.ancientfaith.com/illuminedheart/ih_zacharias_pc.mp3

Steps of Transformation (Fr. Meletios Webber)

I have been reading Father Meletios Webber’s “Steps of Transformation: An Orthodox Priest Explores the Twelve Steps”. This is an eye opening, heart wrenching account of the evils of alcoholism and addiction. Most of us either know someone, have a member of the family, or carry these burdens ourselves. We know or have seen these pains first hand, and maybe even seen “Days of Wine and Roses”… a tough movie if there ever was one.

As a teenager, I wrote a paper on Alcoholism, but Fr. Meletios’s background as a counselor adds quite a bit… as does his background as an Orthodox priest. Many of our finest and most loyal members of my pre-Orthodox parish were members of the organization. AA met in our basement, and the 12-step billboards were stored in our parish hall closet. On Sundays, putting away the chairs, you couldn’t help read through them and notice the parallels to the Gospel. Yet that’s easy enough to do in a two-nano Google, too. The eye-opening contribution of Fr. Meletios’s book that I thought worth sharing (even now when I am scarcely a third into it) lies in his suggestion below that broadens the bearing of the book considerably:

 

Although addiction has been around for thousands of years, several factors may make it more prevalent in the modern world than in the past. As a race, we now have access to knowledge and ability which those living in biblical times, or even in the time of the Fathers of the Church, could only dream of. Nuclear bombs, the contraceptive pill, life-support systems, the welfare state, affluence, and a seemingly limitless development of technology may have given all of us a misshapen view of our own importance and our own power. When we challenge God today, we do so at a much more sophisticated level than did our ancestors, and even though our own Towers of Babel may in the future look ridiculous to our descendants, they look pretty challenging to us. It is possible that an imbalance in the way we view ourselves is directly responsible for the condition we know as addiction, and that our modern sense of power and security encourages us in to a false sense of autonomy and self-determination which lies at the heart of that condition.

 

It may be a mistake, though, to assume that this phenomenon is limited to the postindustrial age. Saint Paul describes a particular situation like this: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.” This is a perfect description of an addiction: there is a tendency to sin that dwells within the human personality, and because of it nothing good can result.

 

Saint Paul is not explicit about what he is describing here, and it may be unlikely that he is referring to addiction in particular. It is by no means certain that he would have understood the term in anything like the detail we have in the modern world. However, the question that he may be pondering – that our tendency to sin is something like an addiction – may be a further reason to look at the Twelve Steps with great care. If they can be used in treating one sort of addiction, they might well be used in treating an addiction of quite a different sort.

 

Sin itself may be nothing more than an addiction.

 

Whether one agrees with all, none or parts of the above, it is certainly worth pondering as we approach ourselves in consideration of our own sins, as we address those amongst us addressing (and not addressing) theirs. There is much that can be learned in humility and gratitude in this reading.

The Trouble with Books (Part Deux)

The Trouble with Books is that we need them.

Ours is no longer an oral culture. This holds even to the point where schools seem embarassed whenever memorization is required. Rigorous training of the mind, memory skills and the like are something left for the home. Let Mom and Dad do the grunt work while teacher plays Muppet to our offspring. Today, creativity and originality are highly valued, and the need for conferring familiarity with our cultural inheritance seen as unnecessary. And as much as this devalues this same creativity we pretend to prize by affording it no context, it serves our focus on the immediacy of the “now”. There can be no other choice than to broaden audiences through serving the lowest common denominators.

I think if we had an oral culture, the advent of mass media might have presented less of a problem. We would have integrated its tools into well-established cultural systems and maintained the rich fabric of a high culture without attendant losses. Unfortunately, our bookish culture was overwhelmed by the expressive emotional power of the media and lost much of its influence. Sadly, this was not offset by the protections afforded in a well-guarded oral tradition.

Accordingly, one of our first steps in returning home to a richer and deeper faith through the Orthodox Church seems to involve a return to recovering both our bookish and oral traditions… through reading. This is good, for the early church was indeed an oral culture and reading – especially reading aloud – affords entry into its riches. The ancient path was to learn the prayers by rote, by singing, and through worship as an instrumental part of catechesis.

In this it is not all surprising that The Word should be incarnate: after all, there was scarcely another choice. People were the personal media devices of the day, ready to “play” anytime, anywhere… batteries not included. And despite the lack of electronics, the wonder of these human ipods among their beholders was certainly no less than we feel on holding one in our hands today. The stature of the oracles, the poets, the “singers” of lore and legend in the ancient world reflected the common belief that the gods spoke to them through the muses. As a result, the words of these artists were not entirely their own… at least not among the best of them… but delivered to them from on high.

The greatest of these were eventually recorded in text. Joseph T. Lienhard in “The Bible, The Church and Authority” makes this clear as the path of scripture as well. Living witnesses were treasured over the written word. In many cases, the parallel between this oral tradition and scripture continued well beyond the limits of the lives of the first hand witnesses to Christ, and in some measure continues to this day in the lives of our saints and living witnesses, in those for whom theosis is more than an idea, more than a prayer, and more than something for others more perfect and committed than ourselves.

Yet increasingly, the two strains interleaved and depend as much upon one as upon the other. Few would suggest that contemporary saints have done without scripture, or that contemporary understanding of scripture can do without the witness of the saints. In “The Arena”, the good Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov makes clear not just that the line of living witnesses has weakened over time through scarcity and decay, but also that scripture grew in relative stature and in virtue as our understanding of it was expanded through time and cumulative testament.

Today we have a plethora of books in English that help deliver an understanding of scripture according to the Fathers. Among other things, we rely on these to simplify the lives of our overburdened priests and to disseminate a consistent, vetted understanding. We cannot do without these. Again, “The Arena” makes crystal clear in its many warnings that we are to be very careful in relying on each other, on our clergy, and hierarchs that we remain committed first and foremost to Christ, and excuse nothing contradictory simply as “following orders”. Error respects no one.

Fact is, the good Bishop Ignatius demolishes many of my pet thoughts as well. The virtues of one-on-one teaching, the virtues of endeavoring to understand and see Christ through the Old Testament alone as the Apostles were taught… all simply reflect vain temptations.. to see them as some sort of Holy Grail. And as if that weren’t enough, at the end of the day, my correction comes from a book. Surely more will be coming…. both books and corrections.

Finally, books are indeed an enormous aid in the translation of one’s life in the middle of its journey from protestantism into true faith as they offer the prospect of filling some of the gaps in a lifetime missed. Yet this too, is an illusion, as the world itself cannot contain, nor could our lives encompass all the books that would fill these gaping holes (John 21:25). Surely somewhere, we – and especially I – must come to see that the gaps in our lives and understanding were filled in elsewhere with material that matters to God in ways we simply cannot see. We are forgiven. And in this belief we will have life in His name (John 20:31).

Archimandrite Zacharias on Orthodox Humility

I keep trying to organize some of Achimandrite Zacharias’s scattered comments on suffering into one piece… but that’s a bigger project. Here is a short out-take on humility that seems to correspond to discussion points on “The Island”:

“…. if we were truly prophetic, we would not show any of our inner activity, of our inner life; it is more humble not to show anything, in order to preserve humility, which is precious, and so as not to provoke the conscience of our fellows. This is the culture and ethos of the Church. In the Church, we avoid doing anything that might provoke attention. For instance, the way we read in the Church is in a neutral tone, so that the people of God who are present can hear it if they want, and they can disengage if they want to follow their own rhythm of inner prayer. This is the culture of the Church. If I spent the whole night in prayer, and have a different rhythm within me, I am not forced to follow another one: I have my own rhythm, and I do not provoke anyone. Therefore we do everything in order to protect our humility, and to protect the consciences of our fellows. That is why, in the Orthodox Church, truly charismatic people do not make a show of their gifts and graces. “

The contrast between this freedom and respect for fellow worshippers with traditions here in this country at certain times and in certain places couldn’t be more stark. Visit any Colonial American church and you’ll likely find a long pole somewhere used to whack those caught yielding to their own rhythms…. or as Archbishop Ware puts it…. “doing what normally happens when a voice somewhere keeps droning on and on and on….”

The Island (Ostrov)

Last night I watched the netflix DVD for the first time. I realize this makes me the last orthodox man on earth with this… and I watched it more out of curiosity about “The Buzz” than anything else. And I gotta say that I kept waiting for something that would be “hard” or “grim”. Odd I saw. Northern European I saw. Russian… well… you get the picture. Hard… well.. not especially…. but then I’ve seen a lot of movies in my time… a lot of films… and used “background” movies to speed some of my work grading routines. Some you get a lot of work done… others, you find needing a second DVD to get it done. So maybe there just aren’t a lot of things out there that surprise.

As the Duke would say, “‘Got a couple of DVD’s in the machine. A man could watch them. Maybe even drink some pop.”

“The Island” seemed Ingmar Bergman-ish (“The Seventh Seal”) but without the B&W melodramatics of the chess game. I mean, here the characters play out there lives under God rather than against Satan…. or at least I think so. But maybe it’s better to say simply there was no Chess board, no dove, and no badmitton (the now-dated spoof of the Seventh Seal: “Der Dove”).

Out-of-the-box reaction is that it seems to put a different color on the quirkiness of all those who love us! or at least those of us who are quirky enough to convert to Orthodoxy. The range of emotion from tough love to tenderness, from anger to joking was a surprise for any movie. But then again, character studies tend to be rare subjects on the screen. Mood studies are more common, stories are more common… but character… that’s something we don’t see much of. Think about it: no stunningly beautiful scenery, no car chases, no shoot outs, no hunks, no babes…. and just everyday living.

I think if I hadn’t read accounts of the quirkiness of many of the Fools for Christ… I would have been more puzzled. And yet even with that, you can see how the fellow would be hard to live with on a day-to-day basis. And while surely Fr. Job’s temprament is easy to pillory from the outside… in truth, we are more often like him than we admit. Our own sins are simply less obvious to ourselves than those he represented.

I think one of the parts I liked best was the recitation of the Psalm One…. which seeing it in the context of the film and its story, hearing it as he walks through the site…. brought out its meaning almost more clearly than our esteemed Fr. Pat Reardon’s own comments in his wonderful book “Christ in The Psalms”…. which just tells you I’m not as far along in Fr. Pat’s book as I should be!

Someone raised the question of missing “assurance” for the forgiveness of our sins and joy…. and others seem to see much of the same thing or call the film…. “disturbing” or “troubling”. Mainstream it’s not. Watered down it’s not. But I’m just not sure I see this. Of course I’m thinking our expectations for folks in the far north just aren’t going to be met. Gray is a good day…. sun rare. Bleak is normal. Hey… we’re NOT in the Mediterranean islands! and shouldn’t be expecting Flipper to swim buy with “Thanks for the fish and all that…”! while some uptempo 1960’s music runs in the background.

I think Fr. Anatoly (my DVD translated it with a “Y”) was still engaged in working out his salvation with “fear and trembling”. Fr. Sophrony’s vision of “Keep your mind in Hell and do not despair” seems a more fitting description of the tenor the film conveys rather than “assurance”. By this I mean that there is a humility in his apparent ambivalence but still confidence in God…. and not doubt. If this is “assurance” it is a measured assurance that presumes to expect or demand nothing of God or for ourselves. As our Bishop Thomas once put it, “This ain’t handing God a job description.” So Maybe I’m missing something (surely), but I would tend to see ANY film rendition of “assurance” as something more Hollywoodesque… “bring up the violins here” and a segue to the usual syruppy hagiographic pap. Here the rendition offers something more akin to what I imagine is the reality of everyday temptation and being tried to the last breath. This seems to me more a realistic rendition or attempt to render a life of spiritual warfare… a rare vision. So no, this is not a picnic on a spring day with sunshine at the petting zoo, and those looking for something of this nature will be disappointed.

I wonder instead that the return of Tikhon isn’t in so many ways is Fr. Anatoly’s last temptation… or at least last great one…. as the finish on the casket was easily tossed off like a sugar coating. But Tikhon’s return is more serious. It seems to tempt the thought that all had been lived as a cruel hoax or accident of circumstance that had led him to a lifetime of repentance for an intention never fulfilled. Yes, he pulled the trigger, but what did he do… and what really did he intend? Fr. Anatoly is the ex-murderer who never murdered anyone. Who wouldn’t have wondered at a God who would offer this strange twist? Yet the significance of Fr. Anatoly’s releasing Tikhon’s daughter from the demon may perhaps parallel his own release from the demon within him that haunted his life… and he found peace. Tikhon forgives him. Unspoken is the implication that Fr. Anatoly seems as well to forgive Tikhon for not returning to search for him, for not releasing him from the burden of his memories, or seeking to recover his body. Law of the sea… ain’t exactly vague on the resposibilities of a captain…. even in war. Maybe it is too much to suggest, but it seems there is absolutely no question that the God who forgives is forgiven as well…. as if. Yet in case there is doubt… there seems to be the offset that at the last, he forgives Fr. Job enough to lie in his coffin and await his time.

So far as this newby is aware, there is not a notion in Orthodoxy that once we say, “Okay, I’m in”… all the hard work is over and “once saved forever saved”. This is more like a beginning rather than the end. And the notion or at least emphasis of the work on the cross is different in Orthodoxy than the views elsewhere.

Another point often made is that we Americans tend to equate Joy with Happiness… and how this narrowed understanding reflects the power of Madison Avenue rather than Gesthemane. I think the difference has something to do with the sense that there can be joy in the tears of pure prayer in Orthodoxy. We see this in the eyes of the witnesses attested to in our icons… that seem on verge of weeping. It is a joy that comes from a singularity of mind in prayer (Fr. Zacharias on Fr. Sophrony again), and it is a valued gift… often the result of channeling emotion into something more.

There is also a matter of factness in Fr. Anatoly that seems to come through in the directness of his prayers. But I think I am less clear on how much seems to depend on the belief of those over whom he prays…. at least for those looking for physical healing. The healing through release from demonic possession is something else. He doesn’t seem to demand much of their faith prior to healing…. just their presence. But he expects their gratitude afterwards to lead them into the Church.

I wonder at his gift of prophecy.. and whether he has it… or whether it is simply a challenge to the faith of those around him. Again, it is matter of fact that he can see in others what he cannot in his own place. I do not see him as broken, but focused, and I’m not sure that he is tormented by his sins… but more channeling the rememberance of his sins into sustaining his repentance…. to be the new man rather than the old man he was who shot his captain in fear. We are not used to this sort of talk…. it amounts to the usual sort of conversation stopper in American life… so to see it anywhere leaves us wondering…. so where’s the hot dogs, chevrolet and happiness? We want our holy men to be holy gurus and Ghandis and almost childlike in their simplicity… not complex questioners and pranksters. This is beyond our normal cultural understanding. Literally. Well….. we did have the Woodman (Woody Allen’s “Love and Death”…. but that was poking fun at Russian literature).

But in the end… for all those troubled by something of this movie…. as my wife would say, “This is a F-I-L-M, not a movie.” The most troubling thing is the sketchy match between the English subtitles… and the enormous amount of syllables spoken… which remain unremarked. Fact is… understanding the rest of what is said might change a whole lot of my understanding. Hmmmmm. Maybe that’s the path to humility… part of the prankster’s last laugh. You don’t watch these things for enjoyment or light entertainment or because you expect to understand them… you watch them for other reasons. For Orthodox Christians, I think it offers a window into an experience of faith we are unfamiliar with seeing in any place other than text. It puts legs to a number of things. It’s now available through Netflix.

Help for Seekers

Thing One and Thing Two (Dr. Seuss) seem to be running into each other and over top of me these days. I’m behind. My good intentions seem to have… well… gone down the disposal like my Lenten Cheese projects. I keep forgetting an ingredient or throwing it in the mix when it’s supposed to go somewhere else. Did I tell you I specialize in outdoor grilling? Ooops. Well… the branch into zero saturated fat eating led me into the kitchen which is the source of all male humility…. trumped only by the disease from which we all suffer (or so I am told): “Male Refrigerator Blindness”. Needless to say…. saving the world from another of my “experiments”… one that almost did kill me… is a worthwhile enterprise. So I took a break… okay… the health food store hid the Agar flakes (Kelp! Kelp! Kelp me before I Hill again!) and instead of writing those articles I should have…. I’ve simply linked a few of the better pieces collected through the course of the last year or two. Maybe someone else will find them helpful…. or puzzling.

Just remember: If you’re not overwhelmed in the Orthodox Church…. you’re not in it! Accept no substitutes!

Meanwhile… back on track.. my pointlessness was dwelling on suggestions for those truly gluttonous for punishment: the link at the top of the masthead somewhere by the same name as this post leads to the links which neither involve golf nor sausage… but instead some rather excellent reading material by bona fide sources. Bon jour!

The Inefficacy of Words

Frequent references to “evangelism without words” tugged strongly on my sleeve as I first seriously considered Orthodoxy. I remember the kick I got on reading the admonition, “Evangelize everywhere; sometimes even use words,” and Fr. Stephen Freeman’s note that we are in fact icons… and need the transparency that would make us truly windows into heaven.

And yet I am old enough to have the scars of griefs lived, the joys and sorrows of children now grown, and the wonder of both what has come to pass, as well as the hope for that which is yet to be. There is plenty I could have done or done better, and plenty I am thankful to have missed. These are the skid marks of life… and yet there is gratitude that somehow it has brought me of all people… to here of all places, and to this Church at this time, and especially to this vision of God… and here I can re-start what remains to me in all the richness of the saints. It is a gift beyond measure.

I would rather not have come alone… but in truth, I’m lucky to be here at all. Perhaps indeed, it is my barely managed portion to control little and offer less – and yet somehow to oddly see this meagerness as my “best”. A life lived leanly in need of more iron, passion, and light may yet….

…yet God knows me better, and is entitled to wonder at what it is that this truly confused, professing christian and thickheaded individual would amount to… having missed and continuing to miss the mark in so many ways… and whether this repentance is sincere or just another passion for a specific place and time.. due to wane with whatever phase comes next. Lord have mercy!

And yet since my chrismation last year, my experience has been that there is a peace that expands with time. Yet equally, there is realization of the limits of self-knowledge before the breadth of God in Trinity now before me. In a sense my former self reliance and distrust of God is yielding to distrust of myself and increased reliance on God… at least these are my intentions. And the vastness between this experience of God and myself and the “old man” is really beyond words.

I don’t think I am alone in this. Rather I think in many ways we keep reading books, keep yakking in the parish hall, and keep blogging because we simply cannot fathom the whole fullness of God. Instead we talk around the immensity of a God who is not confined to paper, ideas and speculations, but remains the True and Living God – who demands to be in our hearts and our everyday lives and with our every breath.

And so it is that I marvel at the passage in Archimandrite Zacharias’s “The Englargement of the Heart”… and the wonder of a priest who was able to get our life’s first great calling “done” before all others… in sharing his everyday love of God with his children:

“I will tell you a story. I know a priest who had three sons. He never taught them, and all of them are in the Church now, and one of them is a clergyman. What he did was the following: he waited until they went to bed, and when they were asleep, he went and knelt by their bed and prayed for some time, and, in this way, the spirit of the prayer of the father was imparted to his sons. He never instructed them, but he spoke to God, and God spoke to their hearts. Now one son is a deacon and the other two are his chanters in his parish. Sometimes we think that with words we can accomplish something, and it is the same when we try to help people. If we speak to God, on many occasions it will be more effective, and He will find ways of speaking to them.”

The insight, the trust in God, and the faith in his children implicit in this story speaks volumes, and speaks of a love measured by more than words. May God have mercy on those blessed along this way… that we might be with them as He is with us.

It Takes a Library… or The Trouble with Books (Part 1)

There was a Hitchcock movie, “The Trouble with Harry.” The trouble was that Harry was dead, lying in a field, and no one knew what to do with him. Kind of like what seems to happen when a convert (me) finally reaches the “Full” level on the “OrthoBooks” meter, goes to church and falls down ding dong in the middle of the congregation.

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know….”

“Wait…. we got a couple of slip covers, a bookmark, and some… Oh… not….”

“Yeah… another Ortholibremax!”

“Ah… 9-1-1? Would you send the usual crew?”

“Heard they lost one like that over at St. Marks!”

“Wasn’t that the Smith Family…?”

“Two months ago…”

“Hey… slide the Brain defilibrator over here, willya?”

The thing is when so many of us come to the matter of becoming Orthodox from “the outside”, it’s almost worse than going to graduate school or getting a professional certification. You thought you were doing something pretty normal… maybe even learning to pray….But noooooooo! You suddenly discover there’s a whole sub-industry out there convinced you can’t get by without…. You guessed it! Putting an addition to your house just to have the space for your new collection of books, CD’s, prayer ropes, icons, crosses, incense, censers, writing blogs, spare priests… the works!

“Man, I NEED this stuff!”

“So you’ll take the St. Nektarios Special?”

“Huh?”

“That’d be his list of 100 books…. y’know… stuff he read before becoming a Saint.”

“Make it a three-fer…”

“Ah… then you’ll take the Complete Works of the Fathers in Five Languages?”

“Does that include the Power Point version?”

“But of course!”

“Go for it, man!”

“Yeah… ‘cause you’re a hard case, right?”

“Ah… sure.”

“Been ‘round the block… 20 years in this trade. An’ you guys… well… ”

“So maybe I’ll be all right, huh?”

“I wouldn’t get THAT crazy….”

“You guys ship next-day?”

“Is the Pope Orthodox?”

“Oooh…. ahhh….. well…..”

“Don’t stroke out … you’ll be fine. Read book one hundred thirty-three, page 75….”

Now don’t misunderstand me… I love these things (and especially these folks) very much… it’s just that like with cows, there comes a tipping point…. and I for one seem to run way past it. And it’s not just lay folks, but priests. Stories of priests converting into the Orthodox Church seem to center on “how many books did it take…?” One high profile case had well over 1,000 books; another penning the story of his conversion (and it is a G-R-E-A-T story by the way) was asked to “add the list of books read” to flesh it out.

Lest you get the wrong idea, my own book collection…. well, let’s just say it’s expanding at a clip slowed only by efforts to unload… er… I mean donate/lend out… the “non-keepers” to the “parish library” or some other unsuspecting… I mean inquiring mind. My point is that if I had a penny for everyone who said they’d “read their way into the Orthodox Church…” I might not be a rich man, but I’d sure have a stack of pennies.

I’m just not certain this is the way to go… that it puts our most compelling foot forward. Yes, it’s not a bad way… it’s how many of us got here…at least “it worked for me”, and you could do worse. And yes… it’s great as I said that all the pieces fit together… but surely there’s gotta be a better way….surely there’s more than books. And I gotta think it could be simpler somehow. And yes, I know every little bit helps; we need these books… I NEED these books…

But I think about three things:

First, there was once this very powerful and well-intended woman who wrote a book called “It Takes a Village”. She caught some flack for countering the notion that “It Takes a Tax Cut” and has since found herself a little challenged elsewhere… but she had a point… or at least a some of folks thought so (er…. I didn’t read the book… so I don’t know whether I’m one of them or not). Anyway… by contrast, I just wonder whether our idea that somehow when it comes to Orthodoxy, “It Takes a Library”…. well, maybe we might want to re-think it too. Yeah… we could start wearing lumber jack shirts, start a Focus Group somewhere to study it….. probably someplace sunny…. y’know… the usual.

Secondly, seems to me the Lord knew what He was about in looking for just plain old ordinary folks going about their business. People of action… some fishermen, some myrrh bearers, and some others. I love that part where one day He found them all hanging out down at the local library…. drinking their Starbucks over by the card catalog…. and He walks over and says… hey, wait…. did I get that wrong? I don’t mean to take anything away from these folks, or these books ‘cause they have indeed added a lot… and I’m not going to quit the habit either!… but it’s just that really…. it does seem that if this Body is gonna get up and walk anywhere these books are gonna have to start sporting more legs.

Thirdly, Archimandrite Zacharias in his book “Enlargening the Heart” speaks of Fr. Sophrony’s account of a typical three-fold structure to the Christian life as it begins in earnest with a baptism in quickening of the heart in the Holy Spirit, followed by a sojourn through the dessert, and then a blessing of renewed sweetness at the end. I think he’s on to something…. and there are parallels to this in the structure of our everyday conversion… but more on that next time.

In the meantime, I’ve gotta get back to my catalogs and webpages. Saw where Fr. Pat Reardon’s Book of Job looks like just the thing to follow-up Fr. Sophrony’s account of Job I mentioned the other day. I can probably get it here by…. And hey… ain’t life grand? While I was out-of-town, my last order just came in!!

On the Road

Thanks for visiting. I’ll be wandering down the road for a few days; expect that this will prove an unlikely time for new posts, moderations or whatever… even blogging! I invite you to consider the active conversations hosted at the sites linked below on the left. In the interim, “Glory to God in All Things!”

The Suffering Wisdom of Texas Jack

There is suffering… and then there is suffering love. We tend to experience them separately, but the wonder would lie in one transforming the other.

Father Gregory has a note on suffering that had me thinking over the weekend on a slightly different track. I began to wonder how in so many ways suffering simply does not discriminate… and neither does fortune… as if to show us how God loves all, that God’s mercy and his justice love us despite our merits or demerits and far exceeds our own abilities to comprehend. Just as suffering is visited on the undeserving, so too, good fortune is visited as well on the undeserving. Yet I have never been comfortable with assigning responsibility for our suffering to God as well… because in so many ways that we do suffer… some are self-imposed… some indeed are choices to receive an experience as one of suffering when it in fact may not be. Some, but not all. And so I floundered.

Then along came Dixie’s piece on suffering and the outline she ascribes as “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” that reminded me vaguely of the book by the same title. Read long ago on the death of a very close friend – still my best friend, I found little or no comfort there (in that book), either. Rather the closest thing to comfort at that time lay in the stained glass windows of the Catholic church at the funeral. Here Christ’s suffering walk to Golgotha was laid out window by window… and my wife and I thought, “The Father gave up his only son at thirty-three, my friend, dead at thirty-four… surely God knows this pain, too.” With time, this helped together with beginning something new as a small gift, as a sort of offering in his memory.

By happy coincidence, reading last night in Archimandrite Zacharias’s “The Enlargement of the Heart” offered a response that echoes and expands this:

“Remember Job, when he put the question, “What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?” (Job 7:17). He then gives the answer which in the Greek version of the Septuagint, is extremely beautiful: man holds God’s attention, because he can be… an “accuser of God”, that is, someone who can stand before His Face and even quarrel with Him; not in a bad spirit, but in order to go deeper in the love of God, and fathom His judgments (Job 7:20 Lxx). This calling is incomprehensible, great and wondrous. Its acceptance brings the grace of the Holy Spirit, which preserves and adorns man, leading him to a never-ending likeness to Christ, the Son of God. Consequently, the calling of God in Trinity is a call of love. This love, though, is not of the earth, but of heaven. God is by nature completely free and in His relationship with man remains free from every passion and necessity. But man, too, created according to the image of God, possesses an independence which cannot be constrained. The first visitation to man of divine love comes to fruition when God finds him well-disposed to receive the energy of His grace with a good will.”

And so perhaps the energy of our pain and suffering gives us the opportunity to be transformed in a good spirit… in a spirit of love which for us is akin in many ways to our familial love we knew as children (think of those railings against Mom or Dad’s “rules” – but maybe not as teenagers!). And in this, perhaps it becomes a gift if we can but see it…. even if it takes time, and I think it does. At the time, we no doubt rail at the pain… but perhaps God hears it differently and hears instead our entreaty to understand his love.

So maybe the next time we suffer, maybe the knee-jerk response… isn’t so jerky. Maybe indeed there is something to be gained… maybe we should indeed rail at the heavens… and seek to discover God’s love, here and now. We fancy we can’t have this conversation… this way… at this time. We fancy that we have to get ourselves “all prayerful and stuff”, but maybe instead we should stop and do better. And perhaps like Texas Jack (Larry Storch) in “The Great Race”, we should just grab a bar stool, break it, and start hollerin’ , “Now won’t anyone gimme some fightin’ room?” Nah, not a chance.