From The Living God to the Unfinished Love of God

So I’ve finally finished “The Living God“. I’d repeat that it’s a good, well-balanced and thorough catechesis. Not a jet speed page turner… but that’s probably a good thing. I think taking the time to reflect on its contents is time well spent. For what it’s worth, my reflection on the last section I marked

“It is by believing in Jesus Christ that we discover that God loved us so much, that He gave us His only Son.

When we discover that we are loved, we ourselves begin to love: “We love, because He first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). Faith leads us to love. The reverse is also true: love leads us to faith, for it is through true love that we discover God. “He who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love” (1 Jn4:7-8).

To believe and to love are one and the same thing. This is God’s commandment, that we should cleave to His Son Jesus Christ and love one another. Then we are truly “born of God”: “We know that any one born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God [that is, the Son Jesus Christ] keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 Jn 5:18-19). “He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (Jn 5:24). Thus we are able to overcome Judgment through love.”

I think the authors of The Living God catechism hit it on the head here. As someone who comes at this the opposite way round (i.e. from love into faith), there were two thoughts I would share: First that ultimately love alone opens the language of scripture, and second that this journey from love into faith is simply life though perhaps we haven’t realized it yet.

The journey of love leading us into faith is a very concrete way to encounter God. This is to transit from belief of the mind, the realm of ideas, into the faith of the heart. For most of us I think this is probably not a short journey, but something that takes a lifetime, and yet probably many would recognize its course. For me at least, it extended from the theoretical idea of the “one day” when “you’ll meet someone and your world will change”, crossed over into the real and tangible, became a “goal” with a real, flesh and blood individual (my wife), and then led well beyond all expectations. Yes, of course I expected to live “happily ever after”… but the fact is I had no idea what that meant.

There is no imagining or realm of explanation that can equal the moment when you realize that all those years spent in beating your head against the wall at an office or in running endlessly around the house, the store, the school, and everywhere in between; in all those little sacrifices that were made along the way; the tears shed, the pains felt, the projects put together, the school assemblies, summer camps and all the other events attended when you really had four other places to be; all the things that didn’t happen, too… but still all those joys won and released… all that is just experienced in the raising children, holding of a family and home together, and in simply living and loving together…  all these good things were somehow part of an unconscious ascesis of becoming one flesh. It just never crossed my mind… I was simply too busy to do anything else, and then realized one day… that there it was, a life that was real, filled with love, and beyond holding…

For there you are… no longer young… but so too, you may find that love is no longer something just for young people, or a pursuit of the “perfect” in people, locations, or ambience. It is more than an object, idea or destination, and something far more meaningful, real and at peace in its ordinariness. It is special by its invitation, and yet open to all who seek it out. And it may be exceptional in that it is not for the demanding, but for the patient, and giving…. and becomes a love that is always new, where the same-old-same-old is never tiresome, where there is always joy and release from one’s burdens… and the very breath of life and home – no matter where you are. You breathe together, or hear soft breath in between your own, and feel a togetherness unconfined by place or physical presence… but instead you share even your separateness. And yes this love can still be fed by passion and desire, but more than that, it is fed by whatever or whomever is around – however much or little that may be. In the end, it is simply fed by a spirit of being together, and yet equally it is a giving to those beyond its fires. It is adult in its circumspect intimacy, and childlike in immediacy.

And from this, some of us Thickheaded folks can even manage the insight that our learning to love God follows a similar path… and yet differs in that it endures forever. Yes, it still involves all the day-to-day struggles we so often feel stand between ourselves and God rather than form the heart of it; but it also involves a life of prayer, of reverence, of willing submission and obedience in all these things. For there remains no other way to move from idea to action than by these steps. And the contrast between love on this level, and the love we may more commonly dole out to God as our tithe, our ten percent or our ten-percent-only-when-asked is far, far more pitiful. And it is pitiful all the more given that God accepts this small portion without complaint; accepts our petitions for mercy… and loves us all the same even as He knocks on our hearts once more. Like a child, He keeps coming back. How can our hearts not melt? or remain unmoved? And yet we so often forget ourselves in our forgetting God this way.

Nevertheless, we can be thankful our scriptures seem full of a better language, full of remembrances, full of others struggling to reconcile these longings, and recognize in this an opening to enter a relationship that similarly transits the possible to the real, finds warmth of heart, the breath of life, and all that makes for a more authentic faith in the Living God. But for now, our lives – mine especially – remain unfinished. And the more I live the more I realize how unfinished I am, and the more I understand that the love of one doesn’t just lead to the other, but in turn feeds a fully reciprocating process that is always unfinished, always beyond, never complete and always overflowing. Thanks be to God.

Recommended: Turning to the Fathers Podcast

While the financial crisis has had me pulling out my few remaining hairs and searching for a hard hat, I’ve been reading, writing a bit (roughed only), and mostly trying to soothe the nerves. As part of this, I’ve been listening to “Turning to the Fathers” podcasts with Fr. John McGuckin. Fr. John has that wonderful English cadence and enunciation that makes the language a pleasure to the ears. His introduction by Fr. Chris as a priest, scholar and poet rings with authenticity. His reflections on the sayings of the Fathers are as enjoyable and insightful as the sayings themselves. Plus you get something to think about…. besides the market.

I wrote him to ask whether the texts were collected somewhere – given that his rendition is more in contemporary English rather than the often baroque flourished language of prayer used in the ancient world that can be more difficult for our Hemingway-ish predelictions to penetrate. And Fr. John was kind enough to report back that the texts come from his book, The Book of Mystical Chapters. So of course I added a copy to my pile of books I’m working on… actually, the postman still has it… but it should make its way in time for tomorrow’s air jaunt.

More than that, Fr. John is part of a project to present the Orthodox faith to a wider world through a documentary film focused on how monks and ascetics manage to live their faith in the midst of the most hostile, often explicitly anti-christian environments. From what I can gather, there is an emphasis more on The Way than on the person of Christ.. as one should lead to another. The plan is for this to be out in a year or so. Fr. John reports they now have over 60 hours of film, but hope to add more in traveling through Russia if additional funding can be arranged (Donations are welcome). This clearly ambitious project combines screenings with interactive discussions for “yeuts” (apologies to “My Cousin Vinnie”). And while my read of the brochure at first gives one that ecumenical queasy feeling, further reflection allows that perhaps here is a clever way to present Orthodox faith… to get a hearing from those who might be surprised to never have considered Christianity as something more than an object Bill Maher’s adolescent scorn… but as something far more fascinating and of far greater depth than the “cool” exotica of Tibetan prayer the typical Hollywood glitteratti seem to prefer… for no particular reason. And having listened to these podcasts, I’d tend to trust Fr. John to manage a presentation of the sages and devout of our Church in a way that surpasses “Mountain of Silence” and keeps Christ in the center in one way or another. Anyway, I’m looking forward to the film when it comes out.

Searching for Prayer… and Finding Pascha

“It is a night of vigil to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is that night of vigil to the Lord for all the children of Israel throughout their generations. This is the law of Pascha: no foreigner shall eat it. But every man’s servant bought with money, when you circumcise him, then he may eat it. A sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat it. In one house it shall be eaten; you shall not carry any of the flesh outside the house, nor shall you break one of its bones. All the congregation of the children of Israel shall keep it. But when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Lord’s Pasha, let all his males be circumcised, and the let him come near and sacrifice it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you.” – Exodus

In trying to sort something out… seeking to deal with unbelief and looking for a prayer… the prayer of Moses celebrating the Glory of the Lord for bringing his people out of Egypt, for safely transiting the Red Sea, I found myself in the first  Pascha. It’s all here, isn’t it. You knew, but to me, this reading was clearly the vigil of Holy Saturday, instruction on partaking of the Eucharist, the circumcision of the heart, and the seal of Chrismation, …even infant baptism. I mean it’s there if you go there. Otherwise… it’s just a lot of surgery.

So that’s quite a lot for a few sentences, and a lot I hadn’t recalled. The prayer of Moses was equally beyond my recall. Of course, it seemed like there should be one… and sure enough there was… but at least in my mind, it was different. Where I had imagined a contemplation and giving of thanks and petition for blessings …even intercessions for those left behind or those lost on the way, for those enslaved in Egypt or as servants of Pharoh… even his soldiers… instead I found prayer to the Glory of God as manifest in the Israelites’ safely gaining the far shore.

While not surprising since the text records a public prayer, one wonders what instead might have been the private prayers of Moses… and whether he would have wept. There’s not a lot of that in OT-land, but surely a man who is at once an Israelite and an Egyptian as was Moses; and surely as he wrestles with both Egyptians and later, the stiff-necked Israelites; surely as the Israelites whined to their tour director time and again about the frustrations of their journey; and surely as at least some old, infirm, and reluctant were left behind or lost along the way; and surely as there were some might-have-beens a Moses would have preferred, – it seems only natural that these would have come to mind – especially at this juncture and entered his prayers… just as for some reason these trials came to my mind when I began to think of the problems of unbelief here in our own day…

Then again, we’re doin’ this in OT… and they’re not given to a lot of introspection at this point.  And maybe Moe was just a little too busy getting his flock the heck out of Dodge, and trying to figure out his next move, to worry ’bout the rest and all the “might have beens”. Certainly he was no “Sensitive Seventies” man… even if he was in the Septuagint. Nevertheless… I wonder.

And amazingly… even as I wondered these things… at that very moment… “ping!”…. came an email from Fr. Pat Reardon with his latest missive (“Pastoral Ponderings” for 10/05/08 – not yet up on his website) regarding prayer… and it’s scarcity of examples and instruction in Scripture. You’d think he was reading over my shoulder! He reminds us of Jesus’s admonition to pray in private, and then cites the Prayer of Hanna in the First Book of Samuel as one of our best examples of instruction on how we are to pray.

No, he doesn’t answer my speculation… but the piece is helpful all the same.