What’s Needed… and Not (Part Won)

Looking over my recent posts and how I began this… I sense some of the fun’s gone out like the air in a left-over balloon. I’m collecting the usual tidbits… big whup. “Gee… that really helps… another droplet from the Thickheaded Dude.” And I guess in part it’s that we’re still in Lent… and ’round ’bout now it seems like it’ll never leave. The smell of a burgers on the grill wafting through the yard is thrilling more than just my dog… who seems to look back at me wondering, “So when are YOU gonna git with the program?” So I started thinking how I got here… is it the journey, or is it just me?

And as I wander through the pages of our Orthoghetto here on the web, there are both wonders… and grumbles. And as the lately come interloper… it’s been my resolve to keep myself from grumbling… I mean in large part, I’ve come to the Church to try not fall into the half of the fifty-plus grumbling geezers…. but find even with this M.O., it’s gittin’ a lot harder these days. Heck, we all love a good rant every now and then. And when you think of the great ones…. how they pull down the high and mighty presumptions of power, wealth, or fame with a little of the humor from the back of the bus where the real people sit… well.. it can be pretty compelling and welcome. This is of course is the excuse we begin all our rants with….

But then there’s that old mote-beam thing: the sort that really bites and suggests the pretense is less in the object than in the eyes of the speaker. These usually come from the “smart” or “fancy” people… who really do know better. No kiddin’. But just as often… they’re plain folks like you and me, who have just given in to a moment of weakness… or without knowing better, simply join someone else’s beefin’. “I dunno…. Felt good at the time.”

So let me say that even here in my naive bulletproof bubble of “nice”… I hear the chattering voices of what’s wrong in America’s religious realms… there is no shortage…. and Orthodox are no shrinking violets just ’cause we’re workin’ on “keepin’ it real” with the “real thing”. We throw stones in our own glass houses as carelessly as everyone else. Sometimes some of these circle the globe and land on our own; other times they fall aimlessly nearby. Collateral damage ain’t make believe.

All of which gets me to thinking…. dangerously…. that I doubt the real spiritual athletes sit around after pressing a few and say, “Hey, the continuous prayer was great, but can we get started now with the gripe session? I mean, I “channelled” a few of the great witnesses last night… and you wouldn’t believe what they’re seeing. Whoah! I mean… St. Silhouan… he’s okay… but how’d this other guy get in here? And those guys over there in… yeah… the folks in THAT parish trying to connect-in for dial-a-prayer…. what’s that about? They’ve got it all wrong… and think just because they have a frequent caller card….”

Maybe they call it intercessionary griping. I don’t know. Seems like this isn’t how it’s supposed to be….. And maybe it’s a bit trite to suggest.. but I’m thinking about cheerleaders. And no, I’m not talking ’bout the ones in skimpy skirts… but the real ones we find everyday among us…. in suits, in tees, and just everyday wear. Wouldn’t you think we could sure use a few ’bout now ?

Maybe it’s not such a bad time to look for them, to hear them, and try to join in. Whether we find them among the Saints… or hidden here among us as well. Just think how many times we hear, “This is one heckuva a game… and it’s gonna tighten up… but there is so much to be thankful for…. just being here.” Usually hear it ’bout some game… but maybe it applies as well to us here, now and always… at the end of Lent and start of Holy Week.

Have a blessed Easter!

Fr. Meletios Webber on The Church

With the Pope’s visit here in Washington, D.C., the papers are full of reflection on the contributions of the Catholic church to our culture, and the “indispensability of Rome”. Fine. I even remember a rather vivid internet discussion some time back of a prominent conversion of an Episcopal priest and his remarks on “swimming the Tiber” that it was the very pugnacious audacity of Rome’s self-proclamation to the world as the bastion of Christianity that he found so important. Good. And at the same time… odd. And I say odd because in many ways this characteristic seems to me almost precisely the sort of tone set by the Reformers in their own manifestos, confessions, and the like. But more true to her roots than her offspring, the Roman Church remains a great institution and I have nothing but respect and honor for her.

My own course followed a different reasoning and landed in a different place. Maybe the place is the mess folks think it is from the outside… maybe it’s not… but I am. Maybe I’m clueless about the errors of my progression… but I’m here all the same. And hey… I’m still thankful to be here. But odd as it is, I’m here in this ancient church…. this church of the seven councils that is so separate in its mind and heart from the church of Rome… precisely because of the prominence of Pope John Paul. Sure, he did not convince me of his church, but he did convince me of his faith, of the necessity of the Church and making a sincere effort to turn one’s life to God. So I have nothing but gratitude for the church of Rome… her doctrine, her dogma, her faith, people and her leadership. And I thank God that for the church of Rome, and that – if you will forgive me here – there was and is another more ancient and apostolic choice.

So it seems a fine occasion to trot out another section of text from Fr. Mel’s great book (“Steps of Tranformation”). This piece on the Church gently and humbly differentiates the Orthodox Church in a way that seems worthy of her.

“Orthodoxy was not to be invented, but discovered, and the process of that discovery took many strange twists. Often the champions of Orthodoxy were seen as failures during their lifetimes, and on a number of occasions, those who upheld the Orthodox doctrine were a small minority among the majority of believers. On three occasions in particular, Orthodoxy has been defended by lone figures – St. Athanasios in the fourth century, St. Maximos the Confessor in the seventh, and St. Mark of Ephesus in the fifteenth century.”

“The criterion for Orthodoxy, then, is not that it is something good or perfect in men’s eyes, but rather that it is something good in God’s eyes. That is what makes Orthodoxy what its name implies – “right glory,” an authentic expression of the worshiping Church.”

“This situation, then, runs counter to notions that the Orthodox Church has to be the biggest, or the best, or the most powerful. Indeed, she does not need to claim such attributes, since she, as a whole, is the expression of the truth of God.”

“If, then, the Orthodox Church possesses the truth of God, the fullness of the Christian revelation, then ultimately the success or otherwise of the Church is in God’s care, not ours. It is our task to be the best that we can be, but it is not our task to try to convince others of the rightness of our cause.”

Fr. Meletios Webber on Confession

As one who is an OBC (Orthodox-by-Choice or “Convert”), I struggle with confession. Never goes easily. I have read plenty on it thinking, “This ought to help”, but begin to think this is only increasing the apparent complexity and making it harder rather than easier. And of course the puzzle in this is that a large part of my turn-around in view and coming to Orthodoxy lay in feeling a need for this particular mystery as a formal sacrament and a part of Church life. And yet it remains so much more of a mystery to me than it should.

I found the priest’s lecture on confession in “The Way of the Pilgrim” helpful, but I still have a long way to go… and surely more to read that would be on the mark. My guess is that it is less the practice of confession, and more the troubling matters of sin, the role of my will, and my own spiritual blindness – to name just three aspects that complicate the matter for me.

And in a way, the whole of it reminds me of a Life Saving class (swimming). I don’t remember what the point was… but I do remember that they made us walk into the water… to a point where the water was up to your nose… and then you were instructed to take that last step out into the deep… where the water covers your head. Rapidly.. you switch from a calm experience of one thing happening and happening slowly… to a sudden shift where a whole lot of things happened all at once and you have kick and swim for air. This seems in part the shift I feel from preparation for confession… to the actual practice where I flounder, the waters cover my head as if there was something else I was supposed to do… but didn’t, and then I’m kicking for air. Fortunately, the stole comes up about that time, and with a quick blessing, we’re done.

Inescapably.. the notion that there are good and bad confessions comes to mind… with most of mine fitting in the latter category in one way or another. I mean either we’re hiding something… and that’s bad, or we’re candid… and what we confess… well, it isn’t all that good either. And yes, I expect that this notion is fundamentally flawed and there are good and bad experiences. Yes, on some level, it’s also probably true that all confessions are “good” in that they continue the process of unraveling the onion. Surely part of the mystery for me lies in my suspicion that what I experience as “good” may actually be less constructive, and less conducive to producing a good confession the next time…. as if somehow it has not quickened me as should the waters when I am completely submerged. Of course, I could speculate that perhaps all of our confessions are not really separate from each other as they occur, but related as part of a singular experience before Christ. But this only admits that here as ever, I remain a Thickheaded individual stumbling in the dark.

So let me leave my ramblings to agree that we really do have Mysteries in the Church rather than Sacraments. At least that’s the way they seem. In particular, Confession remains a mystery to me. And if I find myself a poor witness before Christ – and I do, then surely it attests that my resolve to offer better remains weak, and my repentance incomplete. And perhaps Fr. Melitios Webber is close to the mark in calling sin something of an addiction, necessitating a program similar to AA’s 12-steps, the Ladder of Divine Ascent, and a life lived within the fullness of the Church to address.

But for my part, I find it more like dealing with athlete’s foot: it burns, and until Samuel L. Jackson screams out, “You’re damn foot’s on fire!” there’s a tendency to ignore it. Then of course, Jackson hands you the fire extinguisher and you spray it until you get frostbite and the fool thing falls off. “Yeah… it was the right idea… and maybe I got a little carried away with the ‘cure’, but I think I can hop around on one foot all right.” The steady-as-she-goes medication applied consistently a little at a time… is just soooo hard to keep up with. So this Forgetful Jones finds that despite “Fast Actin’ Tinactin”, my Athletes Foot seems a pretty constant companion. My sins… well… hmmm.

All of this is simply a poor introduction to Fr. Meletios Webber’s excellent comments (“Steps of Transformation”) on different experiences of confession and why guys like me still don’t get it:

“During my life as an Orthodox Christian, I have come across a wide variety of views concerning the Sacrament of Confession. In some traditions, confession is considered to be the essential preparation for Holy Communion, and frequent, sometimes even weekly, confession is the norm. Admittedly, this tends to be in churches that have been most influenced by Russian tradition. I attended the Divine Liturgy in Finland many years ago, before I was ordained, and I approached the Chalice at the time for Holy Communion. Since the priest did not recognize me, I was led to the side by a young altar server. Another priest then came and heard my confession – while the rest of the congregation waited. The problem was that the priest and I had no common language: he spoke Finnish and Swedish, I did not. Eventually, I was asked to kneel, and I felt the priest’s stole on my head, and a prayer was read. Only then was I free to approach the Chalice and receive Holy Communion.”

“I had a completely different reaction from another priest at about the same time. I went to a church on the South Coast of England where almost all the parishioners were from Cyprus. Since I did not know the priest, I made a point of getting to the service early, and asked to see him. He emerged from the altar, but made it quite plain that he was rather busy, and had better things to do. Nevertheless, I asked him if I might receive Communion at the Liturgy. He looked puzzled. “Can’t you just come up with all the rest?” he said.

“Generally, where there is a practice of going to confession frequently, the sacrament is seen as a pastoral opportunity for the priest and the penitent to look into different aspects of the penitent’s life. The person making the confession talks in fairly general terms about his faults, freely volunteering the information, listing small matters together with large ones. It is possible that the priest might question the person about certain things, particularly to clarify what is being said. People frequently use euphemisms in confession, or a sort of church like language, sometimes to the point where it is difficult to be clear about what the person is actually saying. At the end the priest generally talks in a kindly fashion, encouraging where it is needed, stressing that all men are sinners and that it is necessary to allow God’s love to shine through in spite of our weaknesses. After that the priest prays the prayers of absolution. The wording of the prayer in the Russian tradition is heavily influenced by Roman Catholic thinking, and contains a declaration of forgiveness in the direct form, “I forgive you.”

“In other churches, generally those of the Greek tradition, confession is often considered in an entirely different light. To begin with, confession is not necessarily considered to be a preparation for the reception of Holy Communion. Holy Communion and confession are quite separate sacraments. The essential preparation for receiving of Holy Communion in this tradition tends to be fasting. Moreover, confession is thought of as being something reserved for serious sins, and is a matter of great consequence. One goes to confession quite expecting to be given a stern series of warnings, and even to be questioned in detail about one’s sins. There are prayers of absolution, and they are read, although often with less obvious ceremony than in the Russian tradition, and the wording of the prayers lacks the directness of the prayer of absolution in the Russian tradition. “

“Incidentally, when there are different traditions within the Orthodox Church, as there certainly are in the case of confession, people coming to the Church from other faiths should take care to conform with the general norms practiced within the diocese they have chosen. There is no point of accusing the Russians of not being Greeks, or vice versa. The Church is large enough to bear a number of different traditions in many areas of its life, and it is for the individual to accept, not to judge.”

Archimandrite Zacharias on Suffering

Archimandrite Zacharias addresses both suffering of the heart and physical pain directly in “The Enlargement of the Heart”. Seems from the questions… both he and many of our clergy share the common contemporary ailment of neck pain which I share as well. In my case, it’s termed “degenerative discs” for which there is just not much you can do… and as long as they don’t pinch the sciatic nerve (the preferred abuse)… it’s just a manageable dull “awareness”… always there, but not debilitating.

This somewhat surprising turn in the discussion sessions of the book caught my attention. For me, there is no doubt that my direct experience both fed my conversion to Orthodox or at least my search for something more authentic, something less focused on contemporary “koans” and questions, and more directed at sharing the “findings” of the vast recorded experience of the “company of witnesses”. But also I can attest that in my desire to discontinue pain killers after the first day (of medication), I discovered the utility of prayer beyond a level I had known… to the Theotokos, and to Christ in the Jesus Prayer.

In these things, God ceased to be a construct or academic exercise… but became real in ways I am ashamed to admit had not proved the case before. Thanks to the wonders of selective memory, with remembrance of similar pains lost… I simply could neither fathom a prior physical pain on that scale…. nor its restrictive impact… but only experience the sense that all other life seemed to stop for me, and its continuance beyond was unreachable… even unthinkable… and only a “great out there”. Life became something other people did. And yes… it is similar some ways to the impact of the death of a loved one in the confrontation with eternity and sense of powerlessness…. not the same, but similar… There just seems to be nothing else other than pain. You search and you cannot find… but eventually, in His mercy, you allow yourself to realize Christ suffered far worse… even at our hand, even to this day… and He is there or here… and if he can do this for love, then surely we can manage so much less… and at last your attention shifts a little – even if only a little – and you begin to heal.

All the same, you are also forever changed… and God willing it is for the better. And yet my wondering on this lies more in how we can possibly explain this to someone else… someone else we love and would help if we could. Again, there is a sense of powerlessness and inability to find the words that gives ear to others who have tussled with these problems far better.

So I offer some of Archimandrite Zacharias’s notes here both to stoke my memory and as some utility to others:

“…the only-begotten Son voluntarily and without sin, took pain upon Himself and transformed it into a means of expressing His perfect love. With this love He healed His creature from the great wound caused by the sin of our forefather and made him into a new creation. This is why pain is so precious in the practice of the prayer (Jesus Prayer), and its presence is a sign that the ascetic is not far from the true and holy Way. Without experiencing pain, the Christian cannot know the depths of being, and remains a stranger to the love that conquers sin and death.

“Pain is a way of showing concretely that we have love. As Christ showed His love by suffering for us, so we also, when we endure pain, show our gratitude to Him, and put ourselves on the Way of the Lord. Pain has the following beneficial aspect: for example, if now I break my finger, my whole mind is there because it is painful, my finger burns with pain. I broke the bone of my finger and my mind is concentrated there. If my heart is broken with pain, my mind will go there naturally; and that state is very beneficial. Weeping, fasting, vigilance, accepting offense, all these things have one purpose: to unravel the “deep heart”, to help the mind find the “deep heart”. That is humility finds the heart, while pride buries it. Someone who is proud cannot feel his heart, he has no heart. Vainglory covers the heart completely. So we have to go through the pain of humiliation in order to find the heart, because the heart is not only the physical center of the human being, or the psychological one, but also the spiritual center of personhood. The whole Bible speaks about the heart as the place where the choice is taken for God, as the place where man meets God and where God speaks to him. What is precious in the eyes of God, says St. Peter, is the “hidden man of the heart” (1 Peter 3:4). Pain helps us to find the deep man of the heart.”

“..it is very difficult when you have this physical pain, which does not allow you to concentrate and stay your mind in the heart, but the pain can become a sacrifice to God if at that moment of pain you say, “Glory be to Thee O Lord, glory be to Thee, O Lord.” Just release this little cry from time to time, “Glory be to Thee O Lord, glory be to Thee, O Lord.” The pain will remain, but you will be given grace that overshadows the pain.”

“I knew a sixty year old Cypriot lady who had cancer. She came to the monastery, and told me, “I have cancer. The doctors told me that in six months I shall die.” I said to her, “Androula, then go for the meeting with the Lord, hold on to His word: whether we die or live we are the Lord’s (cf Rom. 14:8), and prepare for the meeting. You have six months. Wonderful! It is the greatest moment of your life.” She was a woman of prayer. I never console people, “Ah, you will live, it will pass.” I say rather, “Prepare for the meeting”, even if they live afterwards.”

Question: “We are told over and over again that we must fight against the pain. The medical disciplines of our culture say, “You fight against it.” The language of the medical discipline is the language of war against pain, war against suffering, and we are bombarded with the whole sort of thing, television and so forth, the whole culture is built this way now.”

Answer: “Yes, but this is the way of the world, and the world is at enmity with God. We know this is the case, and whoever loves the world cannot please God. Well, these things are done slowly, slowly by experience. Forgive me, I will tell you something. I made a small experiment in the following way for myself. I knew from the writings of the Fathers that three things are most pleasing before God. The first, they say, is pure prayer, and to do all our works purely. The second is monastic obedience, because that is a total sacrifice. In monastic obedience, freedom, which is the most precious thing that a man has, is laid at the feet of Christ. The third is giving thanks in illness and tribulations. And once I went to hospital to have an operation, and I thought I would try what the Fathers say. In the week after the operation I was convalescing in the hospital, and all the time I was there I said no other prayer but, “Glory be to Thee, O Lord. I thank Thee, O Lord, for all things.” And it was so beautiful there that at the end of the week I did not want to leave the hospital. So, we have to try these things: “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8).”

The whole of this follows a discussion of prayer and repentance which I’ll get to later. At the moment, pain – both sorts – seems to be the soup du jour. So if you’ll forgive the sequencing, I’ll try to get back to the preliminaries before Pascha.

Bishop Thomas on the Draw of Orthodoxy

If you haven’t stumbled upon Generation Orthodox and their Icon New Media Network, you should. Through podcasts, these folks “delve into pop culture, technology and art from a Gen-X/Y Orthodox Christian Perspective”. But for my money, these folks seem to be able to deliver a touch of enthusiasm in their love for Orthodoxy, for its disciplines as well as its informality and authenticity that…. well, may just be one of the greatest gifts of unpretentious youth. Speaking as someone whose just crossed the mid-century mark, I hope these folks will forgive my perspective as I mean this as a compliment…. for as a geezer, it becomes increasingly clear that the value of what those who come after us see in our Church is indeed a gift that helps clarify our own vision.

Recently, Jacob Lee interviewed His Grace Bishop Thomas of the Diocese of Charleston, Oakland and the Mid-Atlantic (Antiochian). In this, you can hear His Grace’s love for Christ and the Church as he speaks of evangelism in particular. I found his comments on the appeal of Orthodoxy about as direct as any I’ve seen or heard, and with Jacob’s gracious permission, I have transcribed a portion to share here for the more time pressed. Nevertheless, there is much else to be gained in listening to the whole of his comments. Bishop Thomas’s specific thoughts on evangelism through “Come and See”, on the Hospital for Sinners vs. the Social Club , on the necessity of The Great Commission… and much else are worth hearing for yourself, so I commend the whole.

What is it that draws folks into Orthodoxy ? What do they want?

“Simply because people want something that is genuine… they want something that has an unbroken connection to the Church of the apostles. If you listen to the hymns of the Church… whether it be Christmas; whether it be Pascha; whether it be the Feast of the Presentation… they always refer to that particular event as being ‘today’: “Today Christ is born”; “Today Christ is risen”; “Today He is presented in the temple”… And I think the draw to Orthodoxy has to do with the fact that there is an unbroken chord from the Church that was established on the day of Pentecost to this Church. And we do everything we can… most especially those of us in the episcopacy… to make sure that chord is not broken. There have been schisms in the church, sadly… I mean there have been schisms, there have been protests… churches that have begun out of protest… because they’ve become schismatic in their formation and have been born in protest… (and) that chord is broken. I don’t think people want to go… I don’t think that they want Christ to be re-invented… I don’t think they want the scriptures to be re-invented. You can find churches that have rewritten the scriptures to make them politically correct…”

“You receive your station in life as the servant of God and you’re grateful for that. You don’t send God a job description or send him a resume and say, “Well… I want something different.” You’re thankful to God he gives you some sort of ministry. You’re thankful to him that he gives you a diaconate; he gives you a servant hood; and you’re thankful that you’re the clay that he made; and being that you accept what he gives you and you’re part of that, you don’t try in some way to change the Kingdom of God; you don’t change what he has intended you to be; you ask him to allow you to do his will.”

“The Orthodox Church’s appeal is to those people who wish to be slaves of God, servants of God; its appeal is to people who want to be deacons as (St.) Stephen was a deacon; its appeal is to people who really want to be friends with St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, Gregory the Theologian; who want to be in kinship with them; who want to converse with them as they experience the Church triumphant as we battle here in the Church militant. This is the appeal to Orthodoxy.”

“Now if you’re not particularly attached or not in love… not passionately in love with the day of Pentecost and the Book of Acts and the Church that was established by Jesus Christ, then you’re not going to be particularly in love with Orthodoxy. I’m sure there are many people who are not in love with Orthodoxy because they think it’s archaic; they think it’s strange; and they think it’s foreign. Y’know, if you’re a young child five-years-old, and somebody gives you a baseball bat or football or basketball for the first time, that’s as foreign as to you anything else. But you receive it, you watch others work with it, and you grow with it. It’s not too different with the Church. If you’ll open up your mind and your heart to it, you will be part of that continuous chord.”

“One of the great beauties of the Orthodox Church, the traditional Christian church, is that we don’t believe the scripture ended with the Book of Revelations. We hear in the Gospel of John, “Jesus did many other things” and “We suppose that if they were to be written down, all the books in the world could not contain them.” Well it continues, Jesus continues to do these things, Jesus continues to work in the Church; he continues to keep the Church connected; so that everything that happened on the Pentecost continues to happen; it’s an unbroken chord. And I think there’s a considerable number of people in America that are interested in being a part of that…..”

“It doesn’t even matter that this particular society that we live in, or this world that we live in is not particularly geared to piety. As a matter of fact during my time I’ve seen the beginnings of persecution of the Church and piety. But if you study traditional Christianity, if you study Christianity, the Church has always thrived, …it’s always… it’s flourished the most during persecution. I think that being the case, if we’re in times of minor persecution as traditional Christians, I think it means that we can look forward to meeting great saints, great witnesses in the Church, more martyrs, more saints. And if that’s what it takes, persecution is what brings about holiness, then it’s probably best that we say, “Bring on persecution!” so that we may be made perfect and made holy and be made servants of God.”

“You should be prepared… if you are Orthodox or considering to be Orthodox… you should be prepared to be part of that unbroken chord… and most especially in these present times part of that unbroken chord of martyrdom. If you don’t think martyrdom is for you, if you don’t think that giving yourself up for God is for you…then this church isn’t for you. This is a church of martyrs, this is a church of witnesses… and one of the titles that’s given to the saints is Fools for Christ. This is a church of Fools for Christ. and if you don’t feel that being a Fool for Christ is for you, then probably your courtship with Orthodoxy needs to be extended.”