Archimandrite Vasileios and Abba Isaac the Syrian on Humility

The clarity with which the good Archimandrite Vasileios and Abba Isaac the Syrian  manage  in discussion of humility seems very useful. Even the briefest of meditations on their offerings here seems to open doors for extending these thoughts in ways helpful for reducing what we need to know to the bare minimum. Minimalism may not be the Orthodox Way, but it is more in keeping with the limited retention capacities of  those of us more Thickheaded sorts. And realistic expectations of retention may be the beginning of far more wisdom than at least one of us manages for the time being. And then perhaps if one us retains a bit, then the prospects for one’s Orthopraxis extends far beyond the imagination where it seems so often confined. Hmmmm.

Humility is the end, the final goal.

All the struggles, the asceticism, the virtues, have the goal of bringing us to humility. “Without humility all our works are in vain, every virtue and every righteous labor.

The saints do not receive a reward for their virtue or their toil in pursuit of virtue, but because of the humility it engenders.

“If humility becomes ours, she will make us sons of God, and even without good works she will present us to God.” “But without her, works are of no profit to us, and rather prepare us for many evils.”

This is the fullness of the Kingdom; “the time appointed for the promise and the fulfillment of hope” (Vespers of Pentecost).

“Humility is a certain mysterious power which perfected saints receive when they have completed the whole course of their discipline.”

“This virtue includes all in itself.” It is the power that the Apostles received at Pentecost.

“It was concerning this that the Lord commanded: “Do not depart from Jerusalem, until you are clothed with power from on high”. Jerusalem is virtue; the power is humility.

In fact, it can be said that Abba Isaac is the great mystagogue of the mystery of humility. All his ascetical homilies have this as their goal and their source. All spiritual struggles flow out into the wide sea of humility. And from humility proceeds the divine rest which restores the beauty in which man was first created. “Anything whatsoever possessing humility is of its nature comely.”

He recognizes humility as deification (“the humble-minded man is reckoned by all as God”); and when he is about to speak of it, he hesitates and “is filled with fear” like one who knows that it means speaking about God.

This sacred hesitation and divine sensitivity rises from every page of his book, because the Abba overflows with the gift of humility.

And “this it is which has sweetened the fragrance of the race of men.”

May we, too, aspire to be so sweetened in due course…. this Pascha and ever.

A Shared Reflection from Archimandrite Vaseleios on Abba Isaac the Syrian

At this Pascha Feast, I though I’d share that this Lent I was blessed to be referred to the writings of Archimandrite Vasileios, Abbot of Iveron Monastery, Mount Athos: Abba Isaac the Syrian: An Approach to his World. This short volume is an excellent translation from the Greek by Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff. I’ve read a lot of translation in my time, and few and far between are those that can manage the translation of prose with as much poetry. Seems there is much here that commends it both as a reminder of our faith, the sweep to conversion, the renewal of baptism in chrismation, and our life and illumination as Orthodox Christians. I’ll make no claim to matching the sweep described here other than that the discovery of True Faith seems to share much of the motion that obviously for Abba Isaac continued much further. And as well, it seems to this poor Thickheaded reader that Fr. Vasileios recounts in this short passage much of what describes the distinctive vision of the Christian life experienced or as we would aspire to experience in the Orthodox Church. For through grace, we may have but found the door, yet if we are futher blessed, we will eventually manage to struggle far beyond merely standing in the Narthex to a deeper fullness, and higher vision… beyond the mere visible presence of Church itself and into nothing less than the glories of the Holy Triinity resurrected within. I find much of this echoed in the writings of Archimandrite Zacharias (of Essex), in the teachings of my Bishop Thomas (Charleston, WV) and eslewhere. See what you think. A Blessed Pascha to one and all!

A monk has written: “I read Abba Isaac. I remained motionless. I breathed in. I took in paradise. I was experiencing a marriage between my being and the beyond, what is over there and what is in us. In the whole of my body I was delighting in my baptism into the uncreated and unapproachable.

A gate opened. I went into a different space. Another spirit came and found me. It was very light, enduring, a spirit of resurrection. This was what counted in my life, and nothing else.

I was enriched with other senses. It was different ground that I trod. I stood on different feet. I saw all that was previously well-known and familiar to me with different eyes, and heard it with new ears. And everything took on meaning.

Suddenly all the same things exist in a different way. A different light comes from within them and makes life shine.

Then the value of each person and his beauty is revealed as something different. There is a different relationship between things and between people.

You move about freely where previously you were stumbling. You speak quite clearly where at first you could not say a word.

You love everyone. And you remain free, leaving them pure and whole.

A sense of forgiveness and forbearance spreads everywhere. You are grateful to God. You forgive everyone. You do not bother anyone. No one touches you. You do not look for human justification.

Gladness comes from all sides. From darkness, light. From poverty, wealth. From jostling, stillness. From despair, calm and renewed hope.

Going further into Abba Isaac, in my mortal body I was wedded to incorruption, making it my spouse (cf Proverbs 8:2, Septuagint version).

I vanished from the earth.

The increase does not end. Life is ours. And death is ours. We live in order to die: we live with the aim of being extended, of becoming capable of entering into a marriage with death, with dying, with loss of everything. And so we gain everything. We find it. We enjoy it. We exist with and for these things, being absent, removed and nonexistent.

Our struggle is to attain to the maturity of ‘non-existence’ – to be found worthy of this crowning honor – to the freedom of traveling and being present everywhere through complete immobility and absence.

We are confined within the prison of the present age, within the walls of appearances – ‘no visible thing is good’ (St. Ignatius of Antioch) – in the sterility of what is relative. In the dumbness of mechanical motion and life.

The music that is truly such swells up as we journey. Movement is prayer. The journey is vision. The extension is gladness. When we have gone beyond everything, this expression, Word (Logos), Passover, Christ.”

+++++

It is a ceaseless journey, an ascent, an ascension.

All things reach the point of transcendence. They are surpassed. They are done away with. They cease.

We enter into absolute silence and repose.

A person is freed from passions, from ignorance, from vice. He is not bound by ‘the other means which dishonor a man.’ The present life is not big enough for him. He does not bind himself to the present life.

He is not confined to worldly ethics and hope. ‘For the hope of this present life enfeebles the thinking.’ Despair shatters the hard, confining shell of worldly hope, the prison of sterility – ‘no weapon is stronger than despair’ – pouring forth torrents of light in darkness.

He does not make good works, virtue, his aim in life. He attains these, and by the grace of God moves on beyond them: ‘Faith’s way of life is more exalted than virtue, and its labor is not works, but perfect rest and consolation.’

Calmly he moves on beyond the bounds of motion, speech, sensation, knowledge, activity of any kind. ‘He becomes a free man and a ruler of himself, and as a son of God with authority he freely wields all things.’

In the end he casts off even his own freedom. ‘Then a man’s nature is deprived of its free will… it is led whither it knows not by some other power… at that moment it is held fast in captivity.’ He finds himself then in the ‘ignorance’ which is above all knowledge and the ‘captivity’ which is the above all freedom.

He has broken every barrier. He has attained the Unattainable. ‘His intellect is confounded and swallowed up in awestruck wonder, and forgets the very desire of its own entreaty.’

From now on ‘the mind no longer possesses prayer, or movement, or weeping, or dominion, or free will, or supplication, or desire, or fervent longing for things hoped for in this life or in the age to come.’

But getting there takes a real struggle.”

St. Tikhon, Metropolitan Philip, and What Not to Wear

In case you missed it in this month’s (April) The Word, Metropolitan Philip made a few points about acculturation:

“Well, I saw pictures of St. Tikhon around the beginning of the 20th Century, and he was dressed like me. He had a collar and suit – a black suit and black shirt. I don’t think we can relate to this culture, we can relate to these people, to the people in this culture, if we all have cassocks and black jibbees and the Turkish hat, the black hat, and go to Nashville, Tennessee, or to Appalachia or somewhere. People will think that we are somehow from outer space. How can they relate to us? I mean first of all, they wouldn’t approach us to say hello or something. They’ll get scared of us. This is about external appearance.

We have not decided yet what kind of dress we should adopt in this country. I see some of my own priests, you see, in the Antiochian Archdiocese, walking around with ponytails and with long beards. Is that necessary for salvation? What does that have to do with the history of salvation? We don’t know whether our Lord had a beard or not. They paint Him or they picture Him as he had a beard. Everybody in those days had a beard. Everybody. And everybody had a cassock and an outer garment over the cassock, and the Turkish hat is an innovation. I mean it entered the Church during the Ottoman time.

We have to agree on our external identity, our identity as Orthodox, liturgically, we have to. We’re still using liturgies of the ancient world. I’m happy with it because I grew in Lebanon and I am familiar with the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and I wouldn’t change it for anything else, because I am very familiar with it. But will the future Orthodox generation in this country accept this liturgy? This is up to them how to express themselves culturally, how to express their feelings, in their culture, in the Church. The music, for example. The music – we use Byzantine music. I like it. I am familiar with it, but some people don’t like it. Is that the music which we should have for the Church in this country?”

I worship in the Western Rite. I’m okay with it. I like the parish and I like the priest. The rite is supposed to be something I’m used to, but the fact is that I’m from the Broad Church of the Anglican world… smack dab in the middle between high (think Anglocatholic) and low (think clap happy). There was a time when the Lattitudinarian party… well.. we won’t go there. It was the happy medium of the Virginia Seminary across the river, so this whole high church bit is new to me. And though I went to an Episcopalian day school here in town at the National Cathedral, hey… we were kids. We had chapel three to four times during the school week,  and you acclimated. You sang, “Your feet smell.” And someone else would sing back, “Yeah, dude, and you forgot to shower.” The choir boys actually sang the real words… so there was always a cover up… but with most of the teachers back in the lounge getting that last cup of coffee or cigarette before the “little terrors” haunted their day, well… there were only a few old eggs on “ruler patrol”… and what can I say, “All religious institutions are not alike.”

Fact is, I think the dirty little (not so) secret is that if it weren’t for the liturgy of St. John, I wouldn’t be Orthodox. Maybe. I don’t know. Anyway… my ear’s only beef is with the Byzantine “harmony”…. which may have been Greek… and was probably Hebrew before that…. is… uh… “So you call this harmony?” That said, I enjoy Fr. Apostolos Hill’s recordings… and then after a while, I need to get back to the my ear’s native home. ‘Cause let’s face it, I’m one of those European-stock  heritage dudes, and that’s the harmony I understand… so East European, Russian, something… anything… seems more my speed. Not doing Asian or Indian either if we have a choice, but Native American or African – that’s cool. At St. Gregory’s we do the Rite of St. Gregory the Great… and it’s fine. I like it a lot, too. The hymns…. uh…. fit my wife’s old Methodist complaint about the Episcopalian so-called hymnal: “Dirges, dirges, and more dirges.” Whereas, I love just about anything Capella Romana wants to sing.

Okay. That’s my true confession. Now the extent to which Metropolitan Philip is right… I can attest it might have helped convert my wife to Orthodoxy, too. His notes… well they do indeed echo things she’s said put her off, so I read them to her, and she said, “They should listen to him.  He’s on to something.” Yeah. So it didn’t happen. Which means I guess I’m free to move about the country… only I’m not liking doing it alone every Sunday. Makes you feel kind of like some sort of Basque Separatist.. without the guns.

But life is what it is, and the Orthodox faith is so rich, you take it as it comes… or at least some of us do. And let me be quick to add that the Christianity she manages by nature, I come to through a thicker skin, with effort, with learning, and all my artifice and few redeeming qualities… but it is especially my knowledge of God and my relationship of love with God… that all come by way of her. So if ever one of us makes the hallowed pearly gates… yours truly will be let in only because, “Oh you’re with her? Alright… I guess if we have to.”

But rather than suppose as many might, that Metropolitan Philip’s comments and my own echo a protestant approach to the faith… I would underscore his emphasis on these as externals. And I think he’s seeing beyond the details… but I don’t think it’s all or none, nor is it one and not the other either. Rather there’s surely risk in change of one hair on one’s head – so all needs to be done with care. I realize this seems to go down the American Orthodoxy versus Orthodox-in-America split… but I don’t think it has to be seen that way, nor do I think that is the good Metropolitan’s suggestion.

Seems the point is simply that we all need to be realists. The more authentically realistic and non-pretentious we are while still maintaining the reverence for all that is sacred and holy and integrating this into our lives, our worship and our church in ways that clearly evince that the gospel of Jesus Christ lies at the core, the more we will have become Orthodox… not faux Orthodox, Orthodox Lite, or American Orthodox, or Disney, Greek, Russian, Antiochian or any other sort of hyphenated or non-hyphenated Orthodox… but the real thing.  Everyone of us has our givens and druthers… but that’s just not the point. The one given and druther common to all is for each of us to be whom we were meant to be… no more and no less.

This is Going for it… Win or Swim

Somewhat off topic, but I can’t help keep watching this video. Broadcast reminds me of the old ABC’s Wide World of Sports. And to be young, and skilled enough to manage to get on one of these Aussie 18’s… would be the thrill of a lifetime. Especially as seen here sailing at 30 knots. Long ago, the class became so expensive they had to get corporate sponsors. Recall a 1990’s add with the Citibank sponsored boat’s crew shown in suits, ties and briefcases all out on the traps. So if you’ve ever enjoyed a Hobie… think Hobie only two to three times the speed. Yeah… you kind of have to be something of an acrobat and literally dance through the tacks… and most folks don’t manage it as well as these guys. But sure beats sitting out waiting for the wind in a tub.

Skiff sailing is an art of its own, though, and the Brits like to watch as much for the capsize dramatics as for the race. But it sure turns the old adage about a sail boat race having the excitement of watching the paint peel or the grass grow on its head. Enjoy the “cheeky” narrators almost as much as the footage!

Most of the skiff sailing… or any sailing video seems to select some pretty doggone… “I want to be edgy but I’m a yachtie” rock soundtracks to accompany the views… but this leaves off that banality (my son’s sent me links to a series of youtube cut-ups mocking Loggins & Messina’s “yacht rock”… yes, Dad’s are never edgy or with it).. and… well… that’s enough. Enjoy my fantasy… but like the Chesapeake Bay Log Canoe fantasy… one unlikely to get too close to reality. And if you’ve ever watched or been the little sailor in the soap bar of a sailboat boat moving along at a honking 1 knot in 3 knots of wind… or if you’ve ever gone out on someone’s boat for a sail only to wonder why…  or if you’ve even ridden a jonboat with one of those early 1-1/2 HP Seagull engines struggling to move forward against a 3 knot wind or 2 knot tide…. at least you can appreciate the contrast.

And as you get ready for that last push to Pascha (had to get a tie-in somewhere)… think of these guys. Will you capsize or jibe safely at the mark? Will you raise that spinnaker heedlessly on the last downhill run, or will you play it conservatively? Will you go for it… or will you swim? Don’t know about you, but I’m thinking it would sure help to have one of these Aussie announcers riding shot gun with us, huh? “Look… they’re going into the burger joint… and out the other side…these guys are really going for it… this is how it’s done… and on to the next mark at the Brie bar… they make the turn… and look at them go…” Okay… it’s an idea… and at this point in Lent…another fantasy.

Thoughts about… lowering a net on the other side of the boat

Benadict Seraphim writes:”….were (I) to devise a “program” of introduction for myself… I think I would have focused far more exclusively on the lives of the desert fathers and saints, on practicing various prayers….”

Yeah. There’s the way I wished had been my path into the church… and then there’s the way I followed. As my dad (still) says, “..as for the folks in our family… if there’s an easy way and a hard way… we’ll always find the hard way.” Yeah. Sounds about right.

Trouble is that I think the notion that there’s an easy way is beguiling. Maybe the truth is that sometimes there just isn’t an easy way and the whole notion of choice is a farce. I mean there’s the view that swimming the English Channel just doesn’t get easier whether you start in France or start in England… ’cause it’s still the same cold water, crazy current and waves. Then again, I imagine first words of one swimmer or another on being welcomed ashore… might run: “And to think I could have flown over in 10 minutes…”, but I’m sure they’re equally glad to have come through it and completed the challenge.

It’s just that… well.. there’s this whole bit about swimming the Tiber to Rome or swimming the Bosporous to the Orthodox Church… when  I’m thinking… y’know you could just walk in. But then if you did, would it be worth it? And if it were easy… would we appreciate it?

We all have different needs. I need to boomerang around a few places first, someone else needs to do laps, and a third enjoys surfing on the back of a great white. It’s all part of the challenge of getting here. Trouble is that a lot of us didn’t know that this was the here we were troubling to find. In fact, some of us tried diligently to find somewhere else. So it’s hard to say how you make a wandering more direct. Maybe we don’t take quite as long as Odysseus… but then again… at least he knew where he wasn’t in a rush to return to, or at least why dinner out still beat dinner at home.

And maybe that explains how it is that we don’t really know where we’re headed, and how those folks we find on the reception committees where we visit aren’t so sure our church-dar is working.. and seem stand-offish. Maybe they can’t tell whether it’s more hospitable to offer welcome and lodging, or to pack us up again and send us on our way.  And maybe some are still distracted, and not so much focused on landing another as figuring out what to do with the last one brought onboard.

And while I’ve thought about this for a while… believe it or not… I can’t seem to come to a conclusion. I think the fact is that we’re all  of the same mind. The fish for their part don’t want to be landed so much as they want to swim over  to the port side and fling themselves into the boat. And for their part, the fishermen don’t want to exceed their limit so much as catch some rays, have a few beers, and enjoy  another day on the water… so they all stand on the same starboard side together, make a few casts, tell a few stories and look the part while in truth they’re throwing unbaited, nasty hooks…. but well… you know how it is. And some call it a fishing exhibition… huh?

And so we fling ourselves into the boat. Yeah. That’s what it amounts to when you “read your way into the church”… as if you could.  Of course this is only part of it… and it’s just a short-hand for a lot more going on under the hood. But it’ll do.  And then once we’re on board, we grab some tackle and join the boys throwing the nasty hooks… you know… the whole dogma, theology, and the rest… I mean, it’s great stuff and I ate it up like the chum that I am… but it’s a headful or a mouthful or shelf full or more than most folks are prepared to digest without  at least a little marinading spirits… or venturing to say, “Is this necessary?”

And no, I’m not saying that anything is really wrong with this picure, or that as some might imply that the whole amounts to Sisyphusian effort on quicksand, but I do wonder what happens were we to allow for  something completely different. I mean.. I wonder what happens when we dress up the lines, bait the hook… or chuck the hard stuff and just drop a big honking net on the other side of the boat?

I mean… let’s get serious. Some of the reasons we get’em in ones and twos has something to do with us; something to do with the fish; and plenty to do with the water conditions, the day, and the weather. Down on the Chesapeake… I’ve sat on a dock at 9:30 at night and watched the crabs literally swim under the lights so thick and fast my buddy netted two large bucketfuls in less than an hour.  Even the watermen couldn’t believe it. But it couldn’t have been easier. Now you wait years for that sort of night… and when it comes… you’re not even planning on it, or even thinking of crabs and crabbing, but maybe you’re just down checking on the dock lines when it happens… and there you are and they’re swimming by as if they want to be caught… so what do you do? You go grab a net and a bucket and do what you can.

In the meantime, of course we’ll take the ones and twos and thank God for them. But the time will come when it’s more like this one wonderful night. And then the questions of whether we’ll be ready; whether we’ll have the gear; whether we’ll be prepared; whether we’ll be helpful, welcoming, and warm; whether we’ll see the opportunity and drop whatever it is we meant to do and take up what comes our way.. or whether we’re even there at all… we can only pray. And that may be enough of a start… and the Lord will do the rest and fill the boat as only He can.

But until that time… I guess what we have is what we have. Like Benedict, I’d like to think we could lay the distinctive spirituality of the church out as a welcome mat… rather than the usual same-old same-old. But the traditions of the place, the proven path of conversion, catechesis and growth – all seem to work the other way ’round. Maybe this is taking too much responsibility upon ourselves, maybe it’s not being loving enough… but I’m just not sure we know another way to assure that we aren’t fueling something completely different.

And so it remains something to ponder.