Perfect. I attended your Erasmus lecture. As to your comment: “How many of us can even see ourselves? Sometimes I get glimpses from the outside and I feel like hiding under the duvet for the next four days,” the person I was with and someone we met sitting next to us could feel in your presence that “special thing” that you only get a few times in your life—from people who by their mere presence affect you for the better, it’s something you feel from them. I know you hate this type of thing but others must have communicated this sentiment.
This piece was perfect. Sacrifice creates the future. Wonderfully said.
When I saw the title, Paul, I thought you meant the first Moses! And I thought of a skull-bashing fugitive who laid low for forty years in the mountains, marrying the pretty daughter of a pagan shaman and raising children and sheep, until coming face to face with the Holy One, in the fire-blossoms of some incandescent alpine flora, returning to the Empire, this time as a liberator and basically god-man, who went head to head with another god-man, the Pharaoh, and one-upped him ten times in a row, in terms of weather control, and led his people out in wild, fleet-footed droves, leaving the Empire behind them in smoldering ruins. So, that was confusing! Ha! But this other Moses is cool, too, of course. What I really want to know is how to empty the self, exit the world, and so on, as a family man, not a monastic. You can sacrifice yourself, and that is heroic, but sacrificing your children and their future is cowardice. And the real difference between the (ancient Hebrew) Moses Option and the (later) Christian one is that the Hebrews were fiercely determined to be fruitful and multiply and live in the world, not escape it.
Well, not being a Hebrew I don't have to worry too much about that ;-)
We've talked about the sacrifice thing a bit here recently. It's been useful. You can only ever sacrifice yourself - not anyone else. Since we're also called upon to defend the weak, we have to defend our children, and anyone else we can. Obvious cliched example: if the Nazis arrive, you may choose to practice non-violent resistance to them (which will probably get you killed) but you are, I would say, mandated to save as many Jews as you can while you're at it.
We only live in the world for a short time! The question is what happens next. If your answer is 'nothing' then you may come to all sorts of conclusions, from nihilism to hedonism to activism, I suppose depending on your personality. If your answer is 'the kingdom' then this could lead to anything from escapsim to self-emptying love. The first of those being much easier! But not really the point.
The question of how to do it as a family man/woman rather than a monk is the key. I would say that lots of Christians have offered answers though. I like what the Bruderhof people do, at least in terms of their lifestyle. And recently I've been thinking about the new Orthodox saint, Matushka Olga. I'd like to learn more about her. It seems that she has an answer to that question.
All very true! I've been reading both Nietzsche & NT Wright lately, so take this with a grain of salt, but we have all this immense world-building creative energy in us, too (which, yes, if not married to our capacity to be quiet, listen, and surrender, comes out chaotic and destructive), and this world-building energy must go somewhere! To turn it entirely within ourselves, to "building" the inner spiritual man, quickly slides into a world-weary, sickly, egoistic narcissism, as eloquently and devastatingly described by Yannaras, in his "Against Religion". You know I have no nostalgia for Byzantium -- and agree with people like Sherrard and Ellul who point out that the whole idea of Christian empire itself was incoherent and self-defeating -- but at least there was some ambition there! Some vast creativity! At least they tried to DO something! One of the great beauties of the early Christian vision, still very Hebraic in its outlook, is the idea that, even though whatever man builds is basically delusional, grass-like, and doomed to wither in time, still: In the transfiguration of the Earth to come (this was before "we're only here for a little while, and when we die, we'll be going somewhere else anyway" took hold), whatever the Creator deems good, true, and beautiful of ours -- that we created, as his little co-creators -- will be perfected and eternalized. This is symbolized in one crazy image in scripture -- of a Renewed Jerusalem coming down from the sky. The city -- civilization -- is man's idea, man's creation, not God's. But God will embrace it in the end and complete it, so it lasts forever -- on Earth! This Earth! You know?
Well, I've just come back from a few day in some of the monasteries of Romania - and boy, are those people busy! The astonishing architecture, the gardens, the beehives, the food being grown, the churches being built, the logs being cut for the winter ... all in the service of the contemplation of God.
I suppose it is always a tension. But as I said, everything is 'action'! There is no 'inaction' in the world. We are always moving, working towards something. I can't agree that 'building the inner man' slides into narcissism. That's about as anti-Christian an idea as I can imagine. Anti-any kind of religious practice really.
I keep coming back to the same observation: that only a well-builty inner man can produce a well-built external world. I think the state of things right now bears this out.
Quick clarification, or point of emphasis, or something --> what I said was "To turn it **entirely** within ourselves, to "building" the inner spiritual man, quickly **slides into** a world-weary, sickly, egoistic narcissism." Of course, building the inner man is essential -- agreed. But to redirect *all* of one's creative energy inward becomes a sickness. The monks, as you say, have plenty of external things to do with their bodies, in their little islands of refreshing human sanity -- building temples, gardens, beehives, cutting firewood, etc -- and that externalized world to construct is essential, too. And if the inner worlds and outer worlds being built are harmonious and reciprocally energizing to one another, wow -- there's human flourishing for you. I think part of the anguish and confusion of being a Christian non-monastic today is that the external world comes already pre-built and finished -- the Machine -- and totally at odds with the inner world that you are meant to work at it in your private prayers and the occasional church service. What's the external world that we non-monastics can be building now? (I have my own ideas on this, but I want to hear yours....)
(speaking of which, I'm off to our land up north now, to put in some cedar trim around the kitchen window, now that the glorious mega-chunk of a slab of black walnut kitchen countertop is done, and needs a beautiful window to rest beneath...)
I think that's all true. In my non-expert understanding, that is exactly why monastics have a strict balance between the inner and outer worlds. They spend the morning washing up or chopping wood or changing sheets, and the evening in vigil or prayer, etc. The stories of solitary ascetics going mad for lack of balance are legion!
Your point about the Machine and the inner life is well taken. I think Dreher's 'Benedict option' is not a bad approach, but it's also bascially a re-formmulation of the old idea of Christian communities. Seems like we have always needed support in a hostile world.
I also wonder whether we can all, in a small way, turn our homes into little lay monasteries of sorts. But I think about this every day and I wouldn't pretend to have some off-pat answer.
I think it was LM Sacasas (in his The Convivial Society substack) that addressed this idea that some people have that if only they could be free from the mundane chores of life they could pursue creative activities unfettered. As I recall his point was that often we need those mundane activities to keep us grounded and to be faithful to our family, friends, neighbors and ourselves.
I'm probably going to get this story slightly wrong, but St. Anthony struggled constantly against his own pride in the desert, and once prayed fervently for God to show him true humility. An angel took Anthony not to some other desert monastic (Anthony not being the first), but back into Alexandria, the bustling heart of what Anthony had fled in the first place, the beating dirty heart of the "machine" of its own day.
The angel then took Anthony to the stall of a cobbler who made and repaired shoes and sandals. There Anthony witnessed the cobbler praying as he worked. He prayed for all who passed by "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on this person and save them. Let me be condemned if only they might be saved."
Saint Porphyrios, a 20th century Orthodox saint, tried himself to be a monastic on Mt. Athos, but through his own pride and disobedience he injured himself and had to return to civilization. Though he longed to return to monastic life, this was denied him for many years, and he was made priest at a busy city church, and made a hospital chaplain, where he served many.
There is a series of books call "Ascetics in the World", which is filled with the stories of the quietly faithful lay Christians, whose lives were blessings to others around them. They had jobs and families, and were in their times just ordinary people whose faith permeated what they did, often in difficult circumstances (but not always). I would also recommend quite strongly the collections of short stories by Fr. Joseph Siniari, which while fiction, are based on his time as the parish priest of a poor working class Philadelphia parish.
We can be overly tied up in the focus on the "inner life", when often what we're called to is simply faithful service in ordinary life. As a father and business owner, that means faithful service to my family, to my employees, to my customers and suppliers. It's also faithful service to my church and church family, to my friends and neighbors, and where else I might be of use.
"The city -- civilization -- is man's idea, man's creation, not God's. But God will embrace it in the end and complete it, so it lasts forever"
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the city is man's creation not God's. Civilization is perhaps the corrupted version (or at least what we see of civilization now) of God's original intent for the Kingdom. The New Jerusalem comes down from Heaven to Earth complete. It's not something humans made or will make. It's, as NT Wright often says, the marriage of Heaven and Earth (just finished his commentary on the book of Revelation).
Lately I have been re-reading the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul. Her way is called the “little way” because she didn’t do anything spectacular. In fact one of her sisters, a Carmelite nun like St. Therese, was surprised when Therese was beatified. She asked, “What did Therese do?”
Perhaps busyness or active-ism is the disease of the 20th and 21st centuries. Do something! But what does that mean? Is a monk or nun shut up in a cell meditating doing something? Not in the view of modern people. Catholics have fallen into this fallacy as well and that is why monasticism has all but died in the West. Meditating and praying are not “productive” as if there’s a GDP meter on top of every monastery gate.
Yet Jesus did tell us to go into our room, shut the door and pray. I don’t think our blessed Lord was concerned about the utilitarian value of prayer or GDP.
I love where St Therese laments that she is so little and feeble that she could never be a great or dramatic saint. So instead, she does what she can and decides to scatter little flowers of love throughout her day so that all who may encounter them are reminded of God.
> In fact one of her sisters, a Carmelite nun like St. Therese, was surprised when Therese was beatified. She asked, “What did Therese do?”
A friend once wrote that this one of the central aspects of Orthodoxy. You don't need to do anything "special" to become a saint. It's not a competition, and it's not about some great deeds.
You can be a law-abiding citizen or a lowly murderer like Moses. You can be someone that flees from power or a power hungry emperor like Constantine. You can devote yourself to charity and serving others, or you can stay still upon a pillar and pray. There's no career path and precondition to sainthood, only freedom. What it takes is merely honestly grasping for it (for God, not for sainthood), and it's open to Grace, and to common people testifying for your fitness.
But isn’t difficult to get rid of the urge to “do something” especially in the spiritual life? So one ends up piling devotion upon devotion, as if the person who dies practicing the most devotions wins. We are always trying to measure things, to count things. As if the only things that matter are those that can be quantified.
From stories I've heard, practicing monks have all kinds of tricks against this trap. It's part of the fight against temptations, including the temptation of pride and of making devotion a contest. It's not always working perfectly of course, but that's ok too.
This is the deep knowing I have had as of the last few years as well. It reminds me of the popular Mother Theresa quote: "if you want to change the world, go home and love your family." Although I know it's not quite the same sentiment, it's in the same vein. When you see the upside down way of Christ for what it really is and it grabs you by the chin, it's hard to go back. The way you've articulated this actually helps me feel less alone while finding my way along this narrow path.
Ah, THAT. The option I turn from time after time, even as my soul ceaselessly whispers its truth. Thank you again Paul for laying out the case for peace and brilliantly enumerating and neutralizing my objections, each word you write ringing so true just beneath each of them. You have given me the very guidance I prayed for not an hour ago, bless you.
I’m a red blooded American man, steeped in the mythos of fighting the good fight, but there seems no end to good fights nowadays, and it confounds me unceasingly and makes me anxious, reactive, and divides me from friends and acquaintances, but mostly within myself. I find no answers through the endless scroll of modern “life”.
Your words have just potentially changed the course of my remaining days, should I have the courage to reel in the endless projections and scapegoating that I’ve become addicted to. I have no idea how to “do” what you’ve proscribed, but when I survey my inner landscape and consider it, I see for the first time the possibility of some peace, and some relief from the overwhelming task of fixing the world.
As a young woman I read Alice Walker's quote about activism being the rent you pay for living in the world, and that made sense to me: it is a duty of ours to make things better. Yet I was always uncomfortable with the confrontational, fist-in-the-air style of activism that so many of my compatriots on the Left romanticized. Later in life, I also sensed wisdom in the spiritual teachings that tell us in various ways that "what you resist, persists." So much street activism now seems to be about moral smugness and antagonizing others.
Here's the rub, though: activism or political/social action is often undertaken on behalf of others. It is going to bat, if you will, for those who have little power. It is all well and good if one wishes to allow oneself to be eaten by lions, but in doing so does one abandon others? In the human realm, acting on behalf of The Oppressed can be patronizing, and marginalized human groups may not need or desire one's help. But I am thinking, as I always do, of animals, of the biota, of rivers and mountains that are endlessly plundered. Is my meditation and prayer any kind of response to that destruction of others? I long for the luxury to engage with this line of thought for longer, but now I have to get ready for work...
Well, hm. It is a good question. I'd say two things just in response, but others might have better thoughts.
First off, the problem with acting on behalf of others is that you don't ask them first! As you say yourself. Look at the state of leftist activism today. Speaking on behalf of all the various opporessed minority groups they have identified/made up is often a way of simply trying to control the debate. They don't in reality speak for anyone: but claiming to can be the fast lane to domineering pride and arrogance. The Bolsheviks claimed to speak on behalf of 'the workers' and ended up herding them into prison camps.
Secondly, the point, as I said in the essay, is not that we should 'do nothing.' It is that we should do things informed by our self-change, and our attempts to follow God. It seems to me, looking at the lives of the saints, that the more they surrender themselves, the more they feel the pain of the world. Then they may be more able to do useful work, but work which is not primarily about their own ego or anger.
In France, right now, I sometimes think that I am resisting just by saying "hello" to people whose paths I cross in the street, or the park.
Saying "hello" can be a form of resistance right now, as we are pushed into more and more anonymous ? faceless ways of being together. Taking the time to engage in conversation with someone, for example. This seems to me to be the kind of "activism" that is not ideologically oriented, or not so much ideologically oriented.
And you can say hello to the animals... I do. They usually respond, the ones that I feel like saying hello to.
I also tend to think that we have blinders on on the issue of who has power or not. There is a kind of... negative power that is very potent in the world. It has even more power since we won't, don't, or can't see it.
Any time you are acting on behalf of abstractions like 'the oppressed' you are in great danger of going totally sideways. If you act for Bill your brother or Sally the cashier or Tom who lives under the bridge, you can't go wrong.
In that famous prayer attributed to St Francis, he asks that God give him the strength not to be comforted but instead, to comfort. I can only imagine that this exhortation came from within, upon realising that he distinctly desired to be comforted on a day where his mendicant and ascetic lifestyle was paining him. Jesus makes it plain and your essay reminds us that whatever we want, we will only get by giving it away. May God give us the strength and courage to do so when the time comes.
No. Not by giving it away, but by accepting the possibility of losing it. There is a difference.
And I have qualms about even Jesus's remark that it is more blessed to give than to receive, etc, because the world we are living in shows us that receiving in gratefulness is action, and is necessary to make a harmonious world. Too many people are addicted to giving/acting, etc, and do not realize that receiving gratefully, in grace, is equally important. Receiving gratefully in such a way that one does not feel... painfully indebted to the point of having to cancel out all form of debt immediately.
Hey Paul, you are taking us all for a walk on thin ice. Following a Jesus who carries his cross, blooded, beaten up, humiliated scourged - and still silent, is very different from following a Jesus who laughs and smiles and blesses and possibly even sings and dances on rainbows! And yet he still loves us and loves the Father while in agony on that cross. Can we - could we ever - love the way He loves? Can we - could we ever - give up all voluntarily? I know I tremble at the thought....
I guess its fitting your named Paul. Maybe start writing letters to the Churches? Just kidding but who knows what's in store for you? God is Eternal but also Imminent, right here right now. No need to figure it out just take a step and then another. He leads us by the Heart.
Sometimes I get tired of EVERYBODY telling me how passion is a sin : the Stoics, the Greek philosophers before them, the Christians, the Enlightenment people, the modern spychiatrists with their reductionist diagnoses, everybody has it in for passion(s).
And I still believe that the Machine thrives on all of our continual activism... against passion.
At this late point in my life, I have come to see that the greatest sins are not those against the spirit, but those that are against the frail flower of the flesh. Ourselves as flesh.
Why ? Because we loathe ourselves as corruptible flesh. We would do anything to get away from our destiny as corruptible flesh. Anything.
And the Machine thrives on all that we do against our corruptible.. flesh.
I have decided to the best of my ability to accept myself as corruptible flesh, and to not try to wiggle out of my destiny as corruptible flesh.
After all, maybe accepting this destiny opens a door for a truly new ? way of living a living life ?
As an example of how radical I have become recently on this issue, I ended up in the Gospel of John, chapter 4, looking at what Jesus said about the living water, spring water vs well water to the Samaritan woman.
And it came to me... that I have spring water IN ME, this poor corruptible flesh. It is present in my pee, my saliva, the spring water that springs from my sex when I desire to welcome a beloved man inside me. All of this spring water that springs from my poor corruptible flesh, that is.. RENEWABLE for as long as I am living.
And... what is wrong with this ? Isn't it a miracle ? Isn't it the miracle of life itself, to be wondered at ? Isn't it.. enough to delight in ? WHAT MORE DO WE NEED ?
Why can we not, after all these millenia, take delight in ourselves as living beings ?
Well, I never said passion was sin! In fact, in Orthodox terminology, they are not the same thing at all.
The problem with 'delighting in ourselves as living beings' is surely that we are not entirely delightful. I mean - we can be, but we can also be awful and terrible. So the balance - which is the Christian balance - is between a kind of pagan self-love on one hand, and a gnostic self-hatred on the other.
I would actually say that the Machine can satisfy both of those.
Tricky balance though! That's why we need help, I suppose.
But there is no escape from being 'corruptible flesh.' Christianity is incarnational after all. Even God become corruptible flesh.
I forgot to add tears to the list of living water. Yes, tears. Important.
As for being entirely delightful, well... you know how I feel by now about the beauty of the fallen world, which I still love. It has sadness AND joy. There is no joy in the fallen world without sadness as a possibility. No love.. without the possibility of loss of love.
After all this time, and noticing that it is not easy to know when we are... delightful, and when we are not, I am content with limiting my action as much as possible. But this has never been a problem, lol.
There is a lot to be said for learning to see the kingdom of God behind the little acts of individual daily life. And in going easy on the flesh...
Several years ago I told you ? asked you ? about the danger of putting oneself up for sacrifice when it was not absolutely necessary. It may be salutory to discern when sacrifice is absolutely necessary, and when it is not, because sacrificing oneself when it is not called for could possibly be a tremendous sin, one with tremendous evil consequences for the world. Sacrifice, particularly self sacrifice is the most potent medecine around, and misusing it... is very destructive, in my opinion.
There are a lot of stories about early Christians desperate to be martyred who are refused by God, because they are operating from pride. A trap for us all!
Hello Debra. Please accept my best wishes to your good self as well. Life can be hard (as I know all too well) but I hope that you can feel some love coming your way.
Yielding, in a nutshell. Wonderful.
Perfect. I attended your Erasmus lecture. As to your comment: “How many of us can even see ourselves? Sometimes I get glimpses from the outside and I feel like hiding under the duvet for the next four days,” the person I was with and someone we met sitting next to us could feel in your presence that “special thing” that you only get a few times in your life—from people who by their mere presence affect you for the better, it’s something you feel from them. I know you hate this type of thing but others must have communicated this sentiment.
This piece was perfect. Sacrifice creates the future. Wonderfully said.
Oh, Paul, please, for the sake of my own precious delusions, stop confronting me with myself! :-)
Actually, don't stop! This is good medicine.
It's not me doing the confronting! I am just writing about being confronted myself. We all know who's behind it ...
Yep, we sure do. Let's me know I'm truly loved.
When I saw the title, Paul, I thought you meant the first Moses! And I thought of a skull-bashing fugitive who laid low for forty years in the mountains, marrying the pretty daughter of a pagan shaman and raising children and sheep, until coming face to face with the Holy One, in the fire-blossoms of some incandescent alpine flora, returning to the Empire, this time as a liberator and basically god-man, who went head to head with another god-man, the Pharaoh, and one-upped him ten times in a row, in terms of weather control, and led his people out in wild, fleet-footed droves, leaving the Empire behind them in smoldering ruins. So, that was confusing! Ha! But this other Moses is cool, too, of course. What I really want to know is how to empty the self, exit the world, and so on, as a family man, not a monastic. You can sacrifice yourself, and that is heroic, but sacrificing your children and their future is cowardice. And the real difference between the (ancient Hebrew) Moses Option and the (later) Christian one is that the Hebrews were fiercely determined to be fruitful and multiply and live in the world, not escape it.
Well, not being a Hebrew I don't have to worry too much about that ;-)
We've talked about the sacrifice thing a bit here recently. It's been useful. You can only ever sacrifice yourself - not anyone else. Since we're also called upon to defend the weak, we have to defend our children, and anyone else we can. Obvious cliched example: if the Nazis arrive, you may choose to practice non-violent resistance to them (which will probably get you killed) but you are, I would say, mandated to save as many Jews as you can while you're at it.
We only live in the world for a short time! The question is what happens next. If your answer is 'nothing' then you may come to all sorts of conclusions, from nihilism to hedonism to activism, I suppose depending on your personality. If your answer is 'the kingdom' then this could lead to anything from escapsim to self-emptying love. The first of those being much easier! But not really the point.
The question of how to do it as a family man/woman rather than a monk is the key. I would say that lots of Christians have offered answers though. I like what the Bruderhof people do, at least in terms of their lifestyle. And recently I've been thinking about the new Orthodox saint, Matushka Olga. I'd like to learn more about her. It seems that she has an answer to that question.
All very true! I've been reading both Nietzsche & NT Wright lately, so take this with a grain of salt, but we have all this immense world-building creative energy in us, too (which, yes, if not married to our capacity to be quiet, listen, and surrender, comes out chaotic and destructive), and this world-building energy must go somewhere! To turn it entirely within ourselves, to "building" the inner spiritual man, quickly slides into a world-weary, sickly, egoistic narcissism, as eloquently and devastatingly described by Yannaras, in his "Against Religion". You know I have no nostalgia for Byzantium -- and agree with people like Sherrard and Ellul who point out that the whole idea of Christian empire itself was incoherent and self-defeating -- but at least there was some ambition there! Some vast creativity! At least they tried to DO something! One of the great beauties of the early Christian vision, still very Hebraic in its outlook, is the idea that, even though whatever man builds is basically delusional, grass-like, and doomed to wither in time, still: In the transfiguration of the Earth to come (this was before "we're only here for a little while, and when we die, we'll be going somewhere else anyway" took hold), whatever the Creator deems good, true, and beautiful of ours -- that we created, as his little co-creators -- will be perfected and eternalized. This is symbolized in one crazy image in scripture -- of a Renewed Jerusalem coming down from the sky. The city -- civilization -- is man's idea, man's creation, not God's. But God will embrace it in the end and complete it, so it lasts forever -- on Earth! This Earth! You know?
Well, I've just come back from a few day in some of the monasteries of Romania - and boy, are those people busy! The astonishing architecture, the gardens, the beehives, the food being grown, the churches being built, the logs being cut for the winter ... all in the service of the contemplation of God.
I suppose it is always a tension. But as I said, everything is 'action'! There is no 'inaction' in the world. We are always moving, working towards something. I can't agree that 'building the inner man' slides into narcissism. That's about as anti-Christian an idea as I can imagine. Anti-any kind of religious practice really.
I keep coming back to the same observation: that only a well-builty inner man can produce a well-built external world. I think the state of things right now bears this out.
Quick clarification, or point of emphasis, or something --> what I said was "To turn it **entirely** within ourselves, to "building" the inner spiritual man, quickly **slides into** a world-weary, sickly, egoistic narcissism." Of course, building the inner man is essential -- agreed. But to redirect *all* of one's creative energy inward becomes a sickness. The monks, as you say, have plenty of external things to do with their bodies, in their little islands of refreshing human sanity -- building temples, gardens, beehives, cutting firewood, etc -- and that externalized world to construct is essential, too. And if the inner worlds and outer worlds being built are harmonious and reciprocally energizing to one another, wow -- there's human flourishing for you. I think part of the anguish and confusion of being a Christian non-monastic today is that the external world comes already pre-built and finished -- the Machine -- and totally at odds with the inner world that you are meant to work at it in your private prayers and the occasional church service. What's the external world that we non-monastics can be building now? (I have my own ideas on this, but I want to hear yours....)
(speaking of which, I'm off to our land up north now, to put in some cedar trim around the kitchen window, now that the glorious mega-chunk of a slab of black walnut kitchen countertop is done, and needs a beautiful window to rest beneath...)
I like the idea of building beautiful things to celebrate man and God ? and to be useful, too ? Why not ask for everything ?
I think that's all true. In my non-expert understanding, that is exactly why monastics have a strict balance between the inner and outer worlds. They spend the morning washing up or chopping wood or changing sheets, and the evening in vigil or prayer, etc. The stories of solitary ascetics going mad for lack of balance are legion!
Your point about the Machine and the inner life is well taken. I think Dreher's 'Benedict option' is not a bad approach, but it's also bascially a re-formmulation of the old idea of Christian communities. Seems like we have always needed support in a hostile world.
I also wonder whether we can all, in a small way, turn our homes into little lay monasteries of sorts. But I think about this every day and I wouldn't pretend to have some off-pat answer.
Now I want to hear your ideas!
That sounds like a good balance, the morning changing sheets, and the evening in vigil or prayer.
We are in danger if we are too much in our "minds", not yoked to our hands/bodies, in my opinion.
I think it was LM Sacasas (in his The Convivial Society substack) that addressed this idea that some people have that if only they could be free from the mundane chores of life they could pursue creative activities unfettered. As I recall his point was that often we need those mundane activities to keep us grounded and to be faithful to our family, friends, neighbors and ourselves.
Here's the essay: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/waste-your-time-your-life-may-depend
I'm probably going to get this story slightly wrong, but St. Anthony struggled constantly against his own pride in the desert, and once prayed fervently for God to show him true humility. An angel took Anthony not to some other desert monastic (Anthony not being the first), but back into Alexandria, the bustling heart of what Anthony had fled in the first place, the beating dirty heart of the "machine" of its own day.
The angel then took Anthony to the stall of a cobbler who made and repaired shoes and sandals. There Anthony witnessed the cobbler praying as he worked. He prayed for all who passed by "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on this person and save them. Let me be condemned if only they might be saved."
Saint Porphyrios, a 20th century Orthodox saint, tried himself to be a monastic on Mt. Athos, but through his own pride and disobedience he injured himself and had to return to civilization. Though he longed to return to monastic life, this was denied him for many years, and he was made priest at a busy city church, and made a hospital chaplain, where he served many.
There is a series of books call "Ascetics in the World", which is filled with the stories of the quietly faithful lay Christians, whose lives were blessings to others around them. They had jobs and families, and were in their times just ordinary people whose faith permeated what they did, often in difficult circumstances (but not always). I would also recommend quite strongly the collections of short stories by Fr. Joseph Siniari, which while fiction, are based on his time as the parish priest of a poor working class Philadelphia parish.
We can be overly tied up in the focus on the "inner life", when often what we're called to is simply faithful service in ordinary life. As a father and business owner, that means faithful service to my family, to my employees, to my customers and suppliers. It's also faithful service to my church and church family, to my friends and neighbors, and where else I might be of use.
I love St Porphyrios. His story is so human.
I'd like to read that book. Asceticism in the world is something I want to find out more about.
"The city -- civilization -- is man's idea, man's creation, not God's. But God will embrace it in the end and complete it, so it lasts forever"
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the city is man's creation not God's. Civilization is perhaps the corrupted version (or at least what we see of civilization now) of God's original intent for the Kingdom. The New Jerusalem comes down from Heaven to Earth complete. It's not something humans made or will make. It's, as NT Wright often says, the marriage of Heaven and Earth (just finished his commentary on the book of Revelation).
The Bruderhof are great!
Lately I have been re-reading the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul. Her way is called the “little way” because she didn’t do anything spectacular. In fact one of her sisters, a Carmelite nun like St. Therese, was surprised when Therese was beatified. She asked, “What did Therese do?”
Perhaps busyness or active-ism is the disease of the 20th and 21st centuries. Do something! But what does that mean? Is a monk or nun shut up in a cell meditating doing something? Not in the view of modern people. Catholics have fallen into this fallacy as well and that is why monasticism has all but died in the West. Meditating and praying are not “productive” as if there’s a GDP meter on top of every monastery gate.
Yet Jesus did tell us to go into our room, shut the door and pray. I don’t think our blessed Lord was concerned about the utilitarian value of prayer or GDP.
I love where St Therese laments that she is so little and feeble that she could never be a great or dramatic saint. So instead, she does what she can and decides to scatter little flowers of love throughout her day so that all who may encounter them are reminded of God.
> In fact one of her sisters, a Carmelite nun like St. Therese, was surprised when Therese was beatified. She asked, “What did Therese do?”
A friend once wrote that this one of the central aspects of Orthodoxy. You don't need to do anything "special" to become a saint. It's not a competition, and it's not about some great deeds.
You can be a law-abiding citizen or a lowly murderer like Moses. You can be someone that flees from power or a power hungry emperor like Constantine. You can devote yourself to charity and serving others, or you can stay still upon a pillar and pray. There's no career path and precondition to sainthood, only freedom. What it takes is merely honestly grasping for it (for God, not for sainthood), and it's open to Grace, and to common people testifying for your fitness.
But isn’t difficult to get rid of the urge to “do something” especially in the spiritual life? So one ends up piling devotion upon devotion, as if the person who dies practicing the most devotions wins. We are always trying to measure things, to count things. As if the only things that matter are those that can be quantified.
From stories I've heard, practicing monks have all kinds of tricks against this trap. It's part of the fight against temptations, including the temptation of pride and of making devotion a contest. It's not always working perfectly of course, but that's ok too.
yes, like Saint David of Wales (Dewi Sant) his command to his brothers - do the little things (pethau bychan).
This is the deep knowing I have had as of the last few years as well. It reminds me of the popular Mother Theresa quote: "if you want to change the world, go home and love your family." Although I know it's not quite the same sentiment, it's in the same vein. When you see the upside down way of Christ for what it really is and it grabs you by the chin, it's hard to go back. The way you've articulated this actually helps me feel less alone while finding my way along this narrow path.
I know, it is impossible to go back, isn't it? Then you ahve to work out precisely *how* you are supposed to go forward!
It is a very beautiful and profound article that lives in the mystery of kenosis (cf. Philippians 2:5 ff.).
Amen. It's amazes me how often you speak the very thing that I am musing on.
Ah, THAT. The option I turn from time after time, even as my soul ceaselessly whispers its truth. Thank you again Paul for laying out the case for peace and brilliantly enumerating and neutralizing my objections, each word you write ringing so true just beneath each of them. You have given me the very guidance I prayed for not an hour ago, bless you.
I’m a red blooded American man, steeped in the mythos of fighting the good fight, but there seems no end to good fights nowadays, and it confounds me unceasingly and makes me anxious, reactive, and divides me from friends and acquaintances, but mostly within myself. I find no answers through the endless scroll of modern “life”.
Your words have just potentially changed the course of my remaining days, should I have the courage to reel in the endless projections and scapegoating that I’ve become addicted to. I have no idea how to “do” what you’ve proscribed, but when I survey my inner landscape and consider it, I see for the first time the possibility of some peace, and some relief from the overwhelming task of fixing the world.
Thank you and God bless you.
As a young woman I read Alice Walker's quote about activism being the rent you pay for living in the world, and that made sense to me: it is a duty of ours to make things better. Yet I was always uncomfortable with the confrontational, fist-in-the-air style of activism that so many of my compatriots on the Left romanticized. Later in life, I also sensed wisdom in the spiritual teachings that tell us in various ways that "what you resist, persists." So much street activism now seems to be about moral smugness and antagonizing others.
Here's the rub, though: activism or political/social action is often undertaken on behalf of others. It is going to bat, if you will, for those who have little power. It is all well and good if one wishes to allow oneself to be eaten by lions, but in doing so does one abandon others? In the human realm, acting on behalf of The Oppressed can be patronizing, and marginalized human groups may not need or desire one's help. But I am thinking, as I always do, of animals, of the biota, of rivers and mountains that are endlessly plundered. Is my meditation and prayer any kind of response to that destruction of others? I long for the luxury to engage with this line of thought for longer, but now I have to get ready for work...
Well, hm. It is a good question. I'd say two things just in response, but others might have better thoughts.
First off, the problem with acting on behalf of others is that you don't ask them first! As you say yourself. Look at the state of leftist activism today. Speaking on behalf of all the various opporessed minority groups they have identified/made up is often a way of simply trying to control the debate. They don't in reality speak for anyone: but claiming to can be the fast lane to domineering pride and arrogance. The Bolsheviks claimed to speak on behalf of 'the workers' and ended up herding them into prison camps.
Secondly, the point, as I said in the essay, is not that we should 'do nothing.' It is that we should do things informed by our self-change, and our attempts to follow God. It seems to me, looking at the lives of the saints, that the more they surrender themselves, the more they feel the pain of the world. Then they may be more able to do useful work, but work which is not primarily about their own ego or anger.
Others might have better answers though.
In France, right now, I sometimes think that I am resisting just by saying "hello" to people whose paths I cross in the street, or the park.
Saying "hello" can be a form of resistance right now, as we are pushed into more and more anonymous ? faceless ways of being together. Taking the time to engage in conversation with someone, for example. This seems to me to be the kind of "activism" that is not ideologically oriented, or not so much ideologically oriented.
And you can say hello to the animals... I do. They usually respond, the ones that I feel like saying hello to.
I also tend to think that we have blinders on on the issue of who has power or not. There is a kind of... negative power that is very potent in the world. It has even more power since we won't, don't, or can't see it.
Any time you are acting on behalf of abstractions like 'the oppressed' you are in great danger of going totally sideways. If you act for Bill your brother or Sally the cashier or Tom who lives under the bridge, you can't go wrong.
Yes, this!!
Maybe not act "for" but "with". Gotta be careful about thinking that you know what is good FOR others. Very careful.
In that famous prayer attributed to St Francis, he asks that God give him the strength not to be comforted but instead, to comfort. I can only imagine that this exhortation came from within, upon realising that he distinctly desired to be comforted on a day where his mendicant and ascetic lifestyle was paining him. Jesus makes it plain and your essay reminds us that whatever we want, we will only get by giving it away. May God give us the strength and courage to do so when the time comes.
No. Not by giving it away, but by accepting the possibility of losing it. There is a difference.
And I have qualms about even Jesus's remark that it is more blessed to give than to receive, etc, because the world we are living in shows us that receiving in gratefulness is action, and is necessary to make a harmonious world. Too many people are addicted to giving/acting, etc, and do not realize that receiving gratefully, in grace, is equally important. Receiving gratefully in such a way that one does not feel... painfully indebted to the point of having to cancel out all form of debt immediately.
Hey Paul, you are taking us all for a walk on thin ice. Following a Jesus who carries his cross, blooded, beaten up, humiliated scourged - and still silent, is very different from following a Jesus who laughs and smiles and blesses and possibly even sings and dances on rainbows! And yet he still loves us and loves the Father while in agony on that cross. Can we - could we ever - love the way He loves? Can we - could we ever - give up all voluntarily? I know I tremble at the thought....
"Can we-could we ever-give up all voluntarily ?"
But... do we really have the choice on this one ?
Looking at the world that I loved that is being destroyed under my eyes, am I not called upon to give it up ? voluntarily ? OR ELSE ?
I guess its fitting your named Paul. Maybe start writing letters to the Churches? Just kidding but who knows what's in store for you? God is Eternal but also Imminent, right here right now. No need to figure it out just take a step and then another. He leads us by the Heart.
I expect I'll end up beheaded one way or another!
Thank you so much Paul.
Might not new faiths emerge, in this time of creaking empire and information (& climate) chaos?
In Jesus name
I had a hard time with this one today, Paul.
Sometimes I get tired of EVERYBODY telling me how passion is a sin : the Stoics, the Greek philosophers before them, the Christians, the Enlightenment people, the modern spychiatrists with their reductionist diagnoses, everybody has it in for passion(s).
And I still believe that the Machine thrives on all of our continual activism... against passion.
At this late point in my life, I have come to see that the greatest sins are not those against the spirit, but those that are against the frail flower of the flesh. Ourselves as flesh.
Why ? Because we loathe ourselves as corruptible flesh. We would do anything to get away from our destiny as corruptible flesh. Anything.
And the Machine thrives on all that we do against our corruptible.. flesh.
I have decided to the best of my ability to accept myself as corruptible flesh, and to not try to wiggle out of my destiny as corruptible flesh.
After all, maybe accepting this destiny opens a door for a truly new ? way of living a living life ?
As an example of how radical I have become recently on this issue, I ended up in the Gospel of John, chapter 4, looking at what Jesus said about the living water, spring water vs well water to the Samaritan woman.
And it came to me... that I have spring water IN ME, this poor corruptible flesh. It is present in my pee, my saliva, the spring water that springs from my sex when I desire to welcome a beloved man inside me. All of this spring water that springs from my poor corruptible flesh, that is.. RENEWABLE for as long as I am living.
And... what is wrong with this ? Isn't it a miracle ? Isn't it the miracle of life itself, to be wondered at ? Isn't it.. enough to delight in ? WHAT MORE DO WE NEED ?
Why can we not, after all these millenia, take delight in ourselves as living beings ?
Well, I never said passion was sin! In fact, in Orthodox terminology, they are not the same thing at all.
The problem with 'delighting in ourselves as living beings' is surely that we are not entirely delightful. I mean - we can be, but we can also be awful and terrible. So the balance - which is the Christian balance - is between a kind of pagan self-love on one hand, and a gnostic self-hatred on the other.
I would actually say that the Machine can satisfy both of those.
Tricky balance though! That's why we need help, I suppose.
But there is no escape from being 'corruptible flesh.' Christianity is incarnational after all. Even God become corruptible flesh.
I forgot to add tears to the list of living water. Yes, tears. Important.
As for being entirely delightful, well... you know how I feel by now about the beauty of the fallen world, which I still love. It has sadness AND joy. There is no joy in the fallen world without sadness as a possibility. No love.. without the possibility of loss of love.
After all this time, and noticing that it is not easy to know when we are... delightful, and when we are not, I am content with limiting my action as much as possible. But this has never been a problem, lol.
There is a lot to be said for learning to see the kingdom of God behind the little acts of individual daily life. And in going easy on the flesh...
Several years ago I told you ? asked you ? about the danger of putting oneself up for sacrifice when it was not absolutely necessary. It may be salutory to discern when sacrifice is absolutely necessary, and when it is not, because sacrificing oneself when it is not called for could possibly be a tremendous sin, one with tremendous evil consequences for the world. Sacrifice, particularly self sacrifice is the most potent medecine around, and misusing it... is very destructive, in my opinion.
There are a lot of stories about early Christians desperate to be martyred who are refused by God, because they are operating from pride. A trap for us all!
Thank you for your attention and comfort tonight, Paul. I appreciate them. I need them.
Hello Debra. Please accept my best wishes to your good self as well. Life can be hard (as I know all too well) but I hope that you can feel some love coming your way.
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