Greetings, faithful readers,

Just a brief announcement. On the Here to Pray blog (which few if any still read), I promised a new book.

Having taken just over a year to pray and blog the book, Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way, by Matthew the Poor, I’m sure that everyone is just waiting on the edge of their seats to see what I have selected for the next round.

Actually, the new book chose me. I had been planning to read/blog a completely different book that also sat in a pile of spiritual works waiting to be read – but it is not to be. Or at least not yet.

For in a particularly deep time of prayer, experienced only by grace, I found myself simply getting up, going to my bookcase and pulling out an entirely different book.

The new book, begun this holy season of Lent, is Father Arseny 1893-1973: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father.

However, a problem has arisen. I cannot put it down.

And I do not feel worthy to write a word about Father Arseny. Some things are simply too sacred to be commented upon.

And so, for now, I will continue absorbing the book and leave its half-prepared blog site untouched.

Perhaps something will be written about it in the future. That is up to God.

In the meantime, I must read. And read. And have my faith renewed at a level that I did not know was possible.

You are welcome to read with me, even if I remain silent. (I suspect that, if you have already read the book, you will understand.)

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For those who may be curious, I will provide a brief excerpt from the cover description:

Father Arseny, former scholar of church art, became Prisoner No. 18376 in the brutal “special sector” of the Soviet prison camp system. In the darkness of systematic degradation of body and soul, he shone with the light of Christ’s peace and compassion. His sights set on God and his life grounded in the Church, Father Arseny lived by the injunction to “bear one another’s burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2)

However, having read the first 76 pages, I can say that this description only scratches the surface of what lies inside this book. Yes, there are narratives compiled by “servant of God Alexander concerning his spiritual father” – but what they reveal are not simply the details of a man’s life, but the action of God amidst some of the most devastating evil one can imagine.

If I am meant to write, I will share more at a future time. In the meantime, blessed Lent to all.

I’ve decided to come out of the closet at last about it.

Yes, it is something we all do, especially at this time of year, though we don’t readily admit it to others. But I am willing to step forward publicly and acknowledge it, finally.

I paint my kitchen windows.

I know it is shocking to see it in print. It’s one of those things we tend to keep to ourselves, not wanting others to know the shameful truth. But I believe it is time to step forward.

I suppose there are a lot of reasons why we do it. Psychologists such as myself could have a field day analyzing the reasons for such bizarre behavior. And the artists would claim that it is for the sake of art alone, as though that were sufficient justification.

But I think the fundamental reason we do it is that we want to see something fresh and new and beautiful, rather than the drabness of late winter grey. We long for messages of hope that winter will  soon release its grip on us and spring will emerge…

Yes, it is time to reveal all…I will bare my soul and allow you to view my foolish fantasies.

(Of course, the text was added electronically, not that that makes it any better…)

+++

The season of Lent begins. We tend to think of this as a somber time, since repenting is perhaps not our favorite thing to do.

Can I not just fast-forward to Paschal joy, to experience the risen Lord amidst the fresh spring flowers?

Of course, I can. People do it all the time. They don their suits and bonnets, decorating their children like Easter eggs, and proceed on with their semi-annual visit to church. Then, they come home to a lavish meal and return to life as usual.

The only problem is that they have missed a true encounter with the risen Lord – for they have not stayed awake with Him in His agony, nor have they carried the cross with Him on the path toward crucifixion.

I say this, not to sit in judgment, but rather with sorrow and compassion. And empathy.

For I know – though typically only in retrospect – that I too often paint myself as I want to see myself, not as I really am.

I want to see myself as a beautiful person, full of color like the paintings on my windows, rather than looking more deeply within where I might discover some ugliness. I most certainly discover sin inside, if I am willing to look, but also a good deal of a drabness not unlike what truly lies outside my kitchen windows now.

This drabness is my laziness, my indifference, my willingness to be content with myself the way I am.

I see in my backyard the old, dead leaves that didn’t get raked up last fall with the rest. Perhaps we had a cold snap and it no longer seemed worth the time and effort. So I let them lie there. “I’ll take care of them in the spring…”, I told myself.

How much I am willing to “let lie” in my spiritual life! “I’ll get to it…”, the familiar refrain through many of my days.

But there is a great blessing in this…not because I am good but because God is endless in His love for me, giving me so many ways in which to begin again.

For when I am ready to stop pretending and actually lift those old leaves from my lawn and garden beds, I discover that they have become compost! And little insects and worms are already at work, converting my negligence to a richness that will nourish many new beginnings.

And so we begin the work, pulling up, cutting back, digging deep.

Not for the sake of making ourselves suffer, as though guilty ruminations and self-reproach have an inherent value. But so we can find the treasures buried down deep in our pain and weakness, ready to be transformed by the cross of Christ.

Not long ago, I heard the message: we are not saved by how much Christ suffered but by how much He loved.

So let us give ourselves over to Him and allow His love to sustain us. Living in the depth of that love, we need not be afraid to do the work which unites us to His cross.

And once united to His cross, once we have made His life our life, we are certain to encounter Him risen and glorious – not just on Easter but every day and throughout all eternity.

Come, my dear friends, by His grace let us begin the journey anew…

The Catholic Church in the United States has designated today, January 23, as a special day to pray for the legal protection of the unborn.

There is certainly nothing wrong with this intention. But it is not nearly enough.

Unfortunately, our primary problem is not a legal one. To suggest that it is implies that merely changing the law would set everything right when it comes to our relationship with God and ourselves regarding life issues.

The disease in our culture runs far deeper than this. Our problem is not simply a poorly considered legal decision by the Supreme Court in 1973. Rather, Roe v. Wade is but a symptom of an insidious illness that pervades our society, with roots reaching far back into our history and with tentacles stretching into the future of those not yet conceived.

And it is a cultural disease, a community disease, not simply the sin of the individual.

Whether we are killing our wartime enemies, our unborn, our criminals or our elders, we are of a race that kills its own kind. While some of the lower creatures may do this on occasion, none do it to the extent that we humans do – nor do they do it for such varied reasons.

We are so “advanced” in this area that we are quite adept at denying that that is what we do. We convince ourselves that we are killing what is evil (in our wars and executions) so that we do not have to look at the evil in ourselves. We convince ourselves that we are being merciful when ending the lives of those we cannot afford or whose suffering we cannot endure (the unborn, ill and elderly).

Or even worse, we convince ourselves that our actions do not involve killing at all. What we have eliminated is not really a life. Euphemisms take over…a clump of cells; a potential life; an embryo; a pregnancy.

We convince ourselves that ending human life is not really ending a human life.

+++

I do not find it difficult to feel compassion for women who consider or have abortions.

If I found myself in hell and, after looking around, saw a door marked “Exit”, would I not go running to open it? Even if I were in hell as a result of my own misdeeds?

Quite naturally I would. Hopefully, once out, I would beg for mercy. But I cannot say that I would resist opening that door.

In one sense, it might be argued that Roe v. Wade constructed this door marked “Exit”, the escape for the woman or family that does not want, cannot afford or fears having a child. Yet, our culture was slowly building this and other “escapes” long before 1973.

Rather than review all of the wars, lynchings and executions permitted in our history, allow me instead to address the root cause of our disease.

Though we may never articulate it, we have a fundamental belief that we should not have to suffer.

Now this might seem like an odd way to tie together all of the symptoms of our disease. But I believe it is so.

If we examine the course of “progress” in our nation, it is not difficult to see how we have built an economy that revolves around products and services that are designed to make life more comfortable, more convenient and more fun than ever before.

This is not the economy of a culture that accepts suffering. Rather, its subliminal message is clear and constant: I must prevent, avoid and stop anything that might lead to my suffering, that might lead to my death.

And what is origin of our hidden belief?

It is, of course, fear.

And fear is one of the strongest weapons (and greatest lies) that the enemy uses to lead us down the path to believing that it not only acceptable but even necessary to destroy the gift of life given to us by our Creator.

Hence, if I fear that I might suffer, I might die, it becomes necessary – to lynch the black man in the south, to execute the criminal on death row, to kill the enemy before he kills me or my family.

Similarly, if I fear witnessing the suffering of someone I love – for it makes me fear my own suffering – ending it becomes an act of “mercy”.

As a society, we have built “exits” all over to escape our fear of suffering, our fear of death – and we have been doing it for a very long time.

Hence, it should be no surprise that we eventually built one to escape the untimely pregnancy – with all of its accompanying fears of ruined futures, destroyed family relationships or overwhelming responsibility with no support.

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Has it become apparent yet how abortion is a cultural sin that we all share in? That it is but one facet of a much broader disease that pervades our lives at every turn?

This does not make it right, of course, or even excusable.

What I intend with this perspective is to broaden our vision, to help us see our need to repent together and resist the enemy, instead of making enemies of those who have fallen.

No change of law can do this for us.

Rather, we must pray for and reach down to lift up the fallen. But even before we do this, we must face our own fallen state – our fear of suffering, our fear of death.

How can we hope to pray for or lift up another if we ourselves are running from our own fear, if we believe the enemy’s lies more than we believe the truth of Christ?

While this might seem like a harsh charge, it is only because we are so accustomed to the ways of sin that have been passed down to us from generation to generation. Can any of us deny that to follow Christ means to follow Him into suffering until we arrive at the Cross?

As long as fear rules, we are not following Him.

This does not mean, of course, that we are never to feel fear. Fear is hard-wired into us, as is the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain.

We shall never be held accountable for having felt the wrong thing. No, we will likely be afraid many times during our human journey.

But we can decide. We can choose the life of Christ, living for the sake of love rather than comfort, for truth rather than lies.

In so choosing, our lives thus become lives of repentance rather than judgment. We are ready to join the suffering and so lift them up with the same grace that we have received.

And if we do, hearts will begin to change. More will “look to Him and be radiant” (Psalm 34:5) and the laws of darkness will cease to have meaning.

This is what we must pray for. This is how we must live.

May it be so.

“I have a dream today … I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

 – Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.                                                                                          

(I’m sure you have heard it before – but it is always worth listening again. Every time I listen, I weep. And tonight was no exception. Let us keep this faith, this hope, this dream alive in our hearts.)

In the deserts of Egypt, early Christian monastics lived deeply the lives of prayer and asceticism that developed the heart of the Church. Theirs was largely an oral tradition, having little or no printed word. Even the Scriptures were often committed to memory.

Among these hidden souls, some were regarded as “Abbas” (fathers) or “Ammas” (mothers) to whom others from both the world and the desert would come for spiritual guidance.

“Give me a word”, was often what the pilgrim would say. They could not expect to be given lengthy spiritual counsel by those who lived in silence. The word or phrase given often became a focus of prayer and reflection for many months, years or even for a lifetime.

This tradition was shared with me several years ago and it has become my practice to listen for a word as we transition from one calendar year to the next. While I could choose a word, most often I find that a word chooses me.

It is an interesting experience to have a word choose you. Often it has not been a word I would have “liked”, i.e. most of my words have not been comforting or inspiring but rather challenging – and challenging in the ways I most needed and least liked.

How do I know that a word has chosen me? Well, it enters my mind unbidden and takes up residence. One of them even came to me in a dream. But, however it arrives, it makes it clear that it is not going to go away.

Let’s see now…first there was “obedience”, followed the next year by “humility”. Then came “chasten”, a truly frightening word that, like the others, I became quite fond of once I saw it at work in me. This last past year was “mercy”.

Now another word has found me and will not let me go.

Purify.

An interesting little word is this one. Of course, at the beginning of the year, I cannot know what God has in mind for me. But this word has some interesting potentials – not all of which can be considered pleasant from the human perspective.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that it is a verb. This suggests that something is going to happen or be done with me. I am not going to be allowed to bask in a noun, like “purity” or an adjective such as “pure”.

And, of course, I know that that is what I need. This is not a time for basking.

As I begin my reflections on my word, I am struck by the nuances it has in different contexts.

For example, in the Old Testament, we hear a lot about the need to “purify” in the sense of ritual purity. Various rituals are spelled out in Mosaic law to purify those who voluntarily or incidentally became impure because of disease, menstruation or other bodily discharges, corpse contacts and so on.

Often these rituals for the “unclean” included a temporary isolation from the community where there might be actual washing of the body and clothing, sometimes in special basins. Hair might need to be shaved off. Frequently, animal sacrifices were made at the Temple as part of ritual purification.

In these very tangible examples, I begin to glimpse that to purify is not simply an abstract, spiritual notion. Being purified involves all of me, body and mind, heart and soul.

Viewing more secular definitions and contexts, to purify involves removal or neutralization of contaminants, potentially dangerous substances – such as in the purification systems we build for water treatment.

But the idea remains the same. What is unclean, even dangerous, needs to be removed. What has gone bad needs to be made right.

While the cleansing of purification may sound refreshing if I imagine it as shower, Scripture gives me other images, “silver tried in a furnace…refined seven times” (Psalms 12: 6) and “the fuller’s lye” (e.g. Malachi 3:2).

So I view my word with some trepidation, with an awareness that God’s work in me may be uncomfortable, even quite painful. For there is a great deal in me that needs purifying, cleansing, removing, if I am ever to be open to the fullness of His presence.

But, deep in my heart, this is what I long for – the forfeiting of me to make room for the fullness of Him. And it cannot take place without sacrifice.

Thankfully, I am not in charge. Undoubtedly, I would want to take the easy route – step under the shower and call it finished.

But, knowing this cannot and should be the case, I place my trust in Him.

Let His will be my will and may I have no will but His.

A priceless thing indeed.

***

(Is there a word seeking you out this year? Feel free to share it here… Let us pray for one another, as always.)

 

O come, Holy Fire

all-consuming Love!

Burn Thou within me

till my weary heart

can hold Thee in

  no more.

Continue reading →

Even before the day began, I began wondering, tentatively asking. “May I write for You? I would like to write for You.”

All day, this 24th day of December, the heavens were still and my heart cold and lifeless.

I would remind Him, “I would like to write for You, but only if You want me to.”

In years past, God has allowed me to write some wonderful stories and reflections for the feast of His Son’s birth. In more recent months, it seems that whenever I ask Him, “May I write?” He gives me something – some gift that I can share here.

Tonight, a couple of ideas started to form but I was suspicious of them. No, not that, not now. Not on the Feast of His birth.

Then, my computer because to act strangely, getting stuck in airplane mode – though I had never set it in airplane mode. I tried to restart and it got stuck in restarting.

“Perhaps He is trying to tell me No”, I considered, a bit surprised.

When God is so very generous with me, showering gifts upon me whenever I ask, I too easily to begin to assume that He will never say “No”. I want to write for Him – so certainly He will give me what I want, won’t He?

But tonight – tonight I hear something else within.

“Just become small,” He whispers inside of me. “That is what I did.”

And I realize that this is His gift to me this Christmas Eve. He is leading me. “Do not spend the night writing of Me but follow Me. Empty yourself and become small.”

And so I will leave you now, my friends, to prepare my heart to follow Him. To let go of me and all of my perceptions of self-importance. To allow Him to draw me into His humility as He pours Himself out in Incarnation.

All glory to Him.

+Alleluia   +Alleluia   +Alleluia.

As I was driving home from work the other evening, my attention was drawn to a familiar sign bright against the darkening sky.

B-E-E-R-! It proclaimed its message by lighting up one letter at a time and then flashing the message in its entirety several times. I imagine each letter was at least as tall as I am.

While I have seen this sign innumerable times before, on this night it struck me: I don’t belong here. I don’t fit in this world, this culture that wants me to be so excited about not just beer, but drinking, partying and seeking perpetual entertainment.

Similar feelings are often triggered in me by such ordinary aspects of life as the jabbering sounds and flashing images of television or movies. Or even the many secular decorations and advertisements for “Christmas” that have nothing to do with the birth of the Lord.

I live in this world – but I do not belong to it.

Please understand that I am not criticizing anyone who enjoys the occasional beer, or who watches TV or movies or likes to decorate for Christmas.

I imagine that most serious Christians experience some reminders that we are not members of this world but rather are a people in exile from our true homeland. What reminds one person of this reality may be quite different that what reminds another.

What may feel even more troubling, however, is when we Christians run up against the experience of feeling that we do not “fit” in our own church. We may experience this for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes we experience personal injury by individuals in the church, lay or clergy. People we think of as “church” may hurt us with words or actions so inconsistent with the Gospel that we wonder how we could call this church our home.

Other times, we may experience deep disillusionment with the organization we know as “church” because of the stances it takes, actual or implied, regarding scandal within its own ranks or political matters of the world.

Sometimes suddenly, sometimes gradually, we begin to feel like strangers in our own “home”.

“Where do I belong?” becomes the cry we hear from within our hearts, as depression, anger or anxiety sweeps over us. “Am I living my faith in the wrong church? Can I remain a Christian if this is what Christians do?”

It occurs to me that, in order to address this dilemma, we need to consider two basic questions: (1) who or what is a Christian? (2) what is the Church?

While contemplating the first of these questions, I was delightfully reminded of a passage from C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Grateful to have a copy on my bookshelf, I pulled it out and searched for the appropriate passage where Lewis addresses the question of why, if Christianity is true, Christians aren’t all obviously nicer than non-Christians.

Permit me to quote a particularly relevant passage:

“The world  does not consist of 100 per cent Christians and 100 per cent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergyman. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it.”

He continues on to say that it is easier to compare dogs and cats because at least we know definitely which is which. Dogs don’t suddenly (or gradually) turn into cats or vice versa. Lewis makes many other fine points about the dilemma he is addressing but I will resist the temptation to deviate from our own question.

Bearing this in mind, we recognize that while we can know what a Christian is, we can never know the who, i.e. we can never know with any certainty if any given individual is a Christian. Simply because one is a bishop or a priest, for example, does not guarantee me that they are Christians. And the reverse is true as well: when someone appears to be on the outside, I have no way of knowing whether they actually belong to Christ.

In his extended explanation, Lewis makes another point well worth noting: that we cannot judge by any individual’s negative actions or temperament whether or not they are a Christian. Someone may have their life under the proper “management”, having given over their wills to Christ, but still be engaged in the struggle to repent and overcome their negative beliefs and behaviors.

This makes it apparent that we cannot judge who is a Christian and who is not. And we know, from our Gospel, that it is not our business to judge others anyway but to work on ourselves.

This becomes relevant to our discussion because, whenever we are hurt or disillusioned by individuals (or even subgroups) within the Church, we may be suffering at the hands of people who are either not really Christians (and thus not representing the faith) or individuals who, like us, are still sick and struggling to accept the cure.

Thus, I would suggest that finding such people and behaviors within the Church is no reason to reject either the Church or Christianity. It is simply a reality that accompanies the gift of our free will. God offers His grace to draw all people to Himself – but He does not force it.

To not feel “at home” with other sinners is a case of our pride allowing us to forget that we are as lost as all the rest. If we have been given the grace to see things more clearly than another, we must both give thanks for this unmerited gift and pray that others find their way into such grace as well.

Now, to our second question: what is the Church?

As I have written elsewhere (see “About blog” tab), when I am referring to the Church, I am talking about the Body of Christ here on earth, the community of the faithful. These faithful may be Orthodox or Roman Catholic, Pentecostal or Anglican, or quite possibly, not participating in any organized religion at all.

There is only one Church and it is not about “religion”. Rather it is about the New Life given us by Christ our Savior when He died and rose from the dead. This “Church” that He gave us was never intended to become just another religion (splintered into other “religions” because of human disagreement). In giving us this Church, He has given us the Kingdom of God.

The objections or confusion I often receive at this point typically go something like this, “Well, that’s all fine and good in the abstract. But…” After the “but” may be a listing of all that is different between one human ecclesiastical institution (“church”) and another, with arguments about how certain beliefs or practices of one are more true than the others. We cannot be one Church.

Or, just as well, the “but” may be followed by a listing of the most particularly egregious behaviors of individuals who lead our human institutions – of particular priests, pastors or bishops – or even patriarchs and popes. What they have said and done cannot constitute “the Kingdom of God”.

And there is some truth here. Our sins most certainly do not constitute the Kingdom of God – and our membership and leaders are still quite capable of sin, even delusion.

But none of that undoes what Christ did and what He gave us. And all have been made part of the Body of Christ on earth – unless we choose to leave It. He did not die and rise for just some of us, but for all of us.

Christ can only have one Body. And He brings into it all who accept His invitation – every one a sinner who seeks the Cure.

This may seem odd to us. How can Christ have such an imperfect Body – one made up solely of sinners, most of whom are still sinning?

This can be only because, in His love, He brings in all of the imperfect so that can we be made perfect in Him. And so He draws us in, if we allow it, and He bears the wounds of our sinfulness until the final Resurrection.

If ever we should think, “Perhaps I should leave the Church. I cannot bear that this person or this group in the Church has done this”, shivers should run up and down our spines. Shivers of fear and dread that we would ever think of cutting ourselves off in such a way from our only hope of Life.

Let us return briefly to hear what C. S. Lewis wrote about this, when discussing our concerns for those outside of the Body:

“Christians are Christ’s body, the organism through which He works. Every addition to that body enables Him to do more. If you want to help those outside you must add your own little cell to the body of Christ who alone can help them. Cutting off a man’s fingers would be an odd way of getting him to do more work.”

So not only for ourselves must we never leave but for those on the “outside”. And, given the discussion above, we need also remember that some who appear to be on the inside may actually have gone outside.

To see ourselves as a Body is also essential to Christian identity. Belonging to the Church is not at all like being in a social club or a political movement, where I may well choose to leave if I find myself in disagreement.

Lewis’ use of the word “organism” lead us to a deeper contemplation of this reality. My foot does not leave my body because it doesn’t like what my hands are doing. We are all part of each other in the Body. Our collective sinfulness would, of course, be terrifying were Christ not head of the Body. His Headship assures us that we will, in the end, be safe.

Still further concern may be raised. “I wasn’t thinking of leaving the Body. I just want to change to another church, one where…” (After the word “where” hopes are voiced for a better priest, a better ecclesiastical public profile and so on.)

There are indeed times when, with careful prayer and discernment, one needs to make such a move. This is particularly the case when one finds oneself in a denomination that promotes heretical beliefs or leaves one starving for the Sacraments.

However, I suspect that such moves are not needed nearly as often as we may think. If in the Body I am currently in the foot, I may imagine that things will be much better should I move to the hand. But, until the time of fulfillment, the reality is that I will find sinners there as well.

In every part of the Body we find sinners struggling – or not struggling and becoming less and less Christian whether they know it or not. However, in every part of the Body we also find saints who inspire and nurture us in the faith.

We are not made perfect by a change of scenery, even if the current scenery is very much undesirable. Our Cure lies in being in the Body of Christ and learning to see Him and know Him in every “self” we encounter.

The Lord Jesus was not speaking in metaphor when He commanded us to love our enemies. Hence, whenever we encounter someone in the Body – or even an entire organ of the Body – that appears diseased, it is our duty to pray for their healing.

Indeed, we are to make ourselves available should Christ desire to make us the vehicle for their cure. Would we not want the same for ourselves, if knowingly or unknowingly we came to be at odds with the Gospel?

To love our neighbor as ourselves, as Lewis points out, is to want for every other self what I want for my self.

If I may, I will wrap up the article with a bit of my own story. As many of you know, I first stumbled upon Christian Orthodoxy via a Google search that landed me at Fr. Stephen’s blog (glory2Godforallthings).

After about two years of very active reading and commenting on this blog, as well as reading other helpful texts, I felt so close to the Orthodox and their spirituality that I began to wonder if I was meant to become Orthodox.

What happened next was very strange. I cannot adequately describe it but will assure you that I did not see visions or anything of that sort.

First, I went through an experience that I have likened to St. Paul being knocked off his horse (though I realize that he probably wasn’t actually on his horse when confronted by Christ). I felt a sense of confusion and unreality. Suddenly I knew, as though I had been divinely ordered, that I was to fast from Fr. Stephen’s blog.

There was no suggestion that there was anything at all wrong with his blog. It was more about what was happening within me.

At first, I thought perhaps I was just being silenced from commenting, as I had been commenting a great deal. But no, if I even tried to go there just to read, I felt the message within, “you are not to be here”. And so I obeyed.

Although I no longer remember the sequence of events exactly, during this same time period I recalled some of the newly converted Orthodox who commented on the blog indicating that they had finally found their home. Some of them felt it the moment they walked into an Orthodox church.

It was then that another message came to me, “You already have a home”. Again, no visions or voices, just an inner message that I discovered within me. Further, it was given to me to realize that I had been sent to study with the Orthodox but not so that I could stay there.

Eventually, I was “allowed” to return to Fr. Stephen’s – which I do now fairly frequently – but with a different mindset. I recognize there members of the Body. I know that we are one Church and that Christ can make use of any of us to help each other along the way.

And so He has, time and time again. I am so grateful.

My home is with Him, in His Body – and He is teaching me the love that makes us all One.

To Him be glory forever. Amen.

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(All references in this article to the ideas of C.S. Lewis were derived from his book, Mere Christianity.)

It began last Friday with a scratchy sore throat.

Certainly a sensation I’ve had before, though not in a quite some time. Never a welcome experience.

Predictably, it followed its course: sneezing, stuffy nose giving way to the Great Run and back to stuffy. So cold – extra layers of clothing, blanket, space heater, tea – still so cold. Muscles and joints aching.

Efforts to sleep interrupted with odd thoughts and dreams. Or nose-blowing and coughs. So tired.

Feeling unable to do anything but bored doing nothing. Then sleeping uncontrollably during the day, this “luxury” permitted, having stayed home from work.

Not wanting to eat, gut rumbling. Should eat something. I must have something besides lentils here…

Yes, indeed, I have a cold.

Such a common malady – why bother to write of it? Certainly not for sympathy. Everyone gets them and many have far more serious conditions to bear.

I write because I am reminded by this experience of just how very impoverished I am. Almost all that I had planned to do over the weekend had to be set aside. Not only were my capabilities diminished but I did not want to spread the virus.

Things pile up when I am not well. Stacks of newspaper and other recyclables wait to be taken outside. My dining room table remains cluttered with the junk mail that I had promised myself I would go through. Things needed from the store – well, those have to wait.

A wise priest recently preached at a funeral service how we tend to believe that our lives are our own. But they are not. Life is given to us and life can be taken from us at any time by God. We, as believers, know that there is more to this story – but it is still our reality.

We are not in charge. We are poor.

I am not in charge. And to know that even my life is not my own is a condition of utter poverty.

I am not, of course, writing of the material poverty that many throughout the world suffer – nor am I minimizing how horrendous that is. Rather, that poverty is an outward manifestation, a visible expression of the deep poverty that afflicts us all.

When we have enough things (food, shelter, entertainments, etc.), we can live as though we are in charge and convince ourselves, at least for the time being, that we are not poor.

And it is perhaps this belief that enables us at times to believe that what we have is ours – we’ve earned it and therefore have a right to protect it from those whose need might encroach upon it. Whether it be our land, our jobs, our food or our medical resources, it is ours.

Let those others earn it, like we had to. It’s not our fault if their country is unstable. Their mental or physical problems are not our concern. We cannot go about rescuing everyone who has a problem.

We’ve made our choices and they’ve made theirs.

Or so it seems.

So it seems until God intervenes and reminds us that we are all poor. In just a moment’s time, I might discover that all the control I thought I had was never mine to begin with.

An illness. An accident. An unfair job loss.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, we too are among the poor. And we discover it was not a choice.

This poverty extends beyond the material things we believe are ours to all other domains of our lives.

It takes only the common cold to show me that I am not in charge mentally or spiritually either.

I always hate to cancel my patients’ appointments. I know people schedule them because they need them and that it can often disappoint or upset them to have to wait longer. I struggle with this but I cannot work if I cannot do so competently.

This morning, my mind was in a great fog and I knew I could not perform my job. As I attempted to notify my patients, everyone was gracious – but one dear woman was finding it difficult and needed to tell me what had been happening in her life anyway.

As she spoke, I struggled to make sense of her words. She was speaking standard English but my brain was having trouble interpreting it. Fortunately, she seemed to get some relief from the telling and I tried to sound sympathetic. I think I got the gist of it and the rest will wait a few days.

But my brain was not my own. It wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. My poverty was evident.

Yesterday, I wanted so much to participate in Liturgy despite this virus and so I attended a church nearby where I knew I could find an isolated spot. I did not want to spew my germs upon unsuspecting bystanders.

The words of the priest and Scripture droned on and I waited for them to be over. I knew they were good words but I could not feel their goodness. I knew that communion is and was the most wonderful experience I could hope for – but I could feel none of it.

In my poverty, even my spiritual life was barely my own. All I had left was The Choice.

The Choice? What is this?

In the poverty of my being, God teaches me that nothing that I believe to me mine is truly mine. All that I have and am are gifts from Him – that He may take back or suspend at any time to serve His glory.  (And how it serves His glory is completely incomprehensible to me.)

But The Choice is the one thing He does not take back.

The Choice is my will, my option of how I respond in whatever circumstances I am in – material wealth or hardship, good health or desperate illness, spiritual joy or aridity.

It may appear at times as though He has taken it back, especially when bodies or minds fail us.

But The Choice is something so fundamental to our being that it does not die with our brain cells. It is deep in our souls.

And He never takes it from us because He wants to always leave us the freedom to give it to Him – to give Him our wills, our entire selves. This Choice is one that only we can make. And we can make it when it seems that there is nothing else left, when we feel nothing and nothing seems to matter.

We can always still choose Him.

And so, I choose Him.

I choose Him knowing that I am utterly poor and destitute.

I choose Him recognizing that I have nothing to give Him but the choice itself.

And I choose Him knowing that He first chose me, loving me in my nothingness.

All glory be to Him.

+++

“You do not know what you are asking,” Jesus responded when the mother of James and John made her request of Him (Matthew 20: 22).

Most probably, the wife of Zebedee thought she was quite clear about what she wanted for her sons. After all, her two sons had left everything – most especially the family fishing business – to follow Jesus. She wanted some assurance that they were going to have a special place in His kingdom.

Like many others, this devout Jewish family likely envisioned a King who would overthrow the existing tyrannical order and establish His own rule. She probably imagined Him sitting on a throne and she wanted her sons in positions of honor and power, one on His right and one on His left.

So puzzled must they all have been when Jesus directed His attention to James and John and asked them if they were willing to drink of the cup He would drink. They, of course, did not understand yet what this meant.  But they agreed to do so.

+++

A year ago, on the feast of Christ the King, God gave me a special gift which I posted on this blog about my King.

This year, He gave me an image – an image of my King upon His throne.

Last year, I wrote, “He does not sit on a big throne of gold…”  And, indeed, He does not.

Most would not consider “it” a throne at all. Thrones, after all, are seats of dignity and honor for important people participating in important ceremonies.

Where I saw my King was none of these things.

He wears a crown but it is made of thorns. He has been stripped of His robe and His skin is torn and bleeding. He is dead.

How can I call this Cross a throne? How can I call this dead man my King?

I can only do so because my King Himself is teaching me His Way, as He taught James, John and their mother, Salome.

His Kingdom and its ways are not of this world.

The world conquers by force. He conquers by surrendering Himself completely.

The world kills to gain power. He dies to come into His power.

The world resists suffering and death – even when this results in more death. He enters suffering and death willingly, lovingly.

The world glories in domination and self. He glories in humble gift of self.

But why – why portray my King in suffering and death, enthroned upon the Cross of humiliation? Why not show Him in His glory?

The most obvious reason, of course, is that no one could possibly portray that glory. Any human attempt to do so would fail. It is more extraordinary than we can imagine – and any effort to paint or sculpt it would, unfortunately, look far too much like the glory of this world.

And we need to learn – as James and John and Salome learned – that the way to this glory is completely different. We will not learn and remember if we do not see our King in the fullness of His giving.

Our society has made it safe and easy to be “Christian” in name. Hence, we might too easily forget what it truly means to follow Him, imagining that we can just say “yes, we can drink that cup” and believe we have done so. Having died for us, He will lead us into heaven and we need do no more.

Salome, the mother of the brothers, learned the Truth. She stood at the foot of the Cross as Jesus hung dying.

James learned as well. He was beheaded for the Faith in Jerusalem. But that was not all. Such was the message of James’ words and life that the Roman soldier who led him to execution became a Christian then and there, offering himself to also be beheaded.

And John learned. John is thought to be the only one of the twelve (besides Judas Iscariot) who did not die a martyr’s death. Instead, he lived to be an old man and left us the Gospel of Love. But learn he did.

The early writer, Tertullian, tells us that this younger brother did face martyrdom, being plunged into boiling oil in the Colosseum. However, miraculously, he emerged unharmed. All in attendance saw and believed.

Our beloved King chose that one of His apostolic martyrs, one who was an eyewitness of His Transfiguration, Crucifixion and Resurrection, should survive to tell what he knew.

And so John did. But he did not just repeat the facts of the other Gospels. In fact, he left many of them out, assuming them to be already known.

Instead, John tells us that Jesus, the Word, was “in the beginning” and was with God and was God, with all things coming to be through Him. He shares with us the seven “I AM” statements of the Lord Jesus, bringing into focus His right to use the Name. And more intimately, John allows us to partake of the final words our human Jesus had with His closest friends before He died.

John leaves us no doubt about Who he knew Jesus to be. And he leaves us no doubt as to the meaning of what God did for us in Him.

In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.

In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.

No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.

                                                                  1 John 4: 9-12 (NABRE translation)

This my King.

Suffering, dying, living and loving from His throne in my heart.

Let us follow Him. Let us love as He has loved us.