I have not written in this blog for quite a while now. I have been busy with my daughter's wedding and the art show in February for which I prepared ten paintings. Lately, though, I have been very excited about the lessons I have been learning from several books. I have been reading sociologist Kyriakos Markides' books about Father Maximos, an Orthodox priest, monk and now bishop who heads up a monastery in Cyprus. Father Maximos has revealed through three of Markides' books the teachings of the Orthodox Church, the stories of the monks of Mt. Athos as they dedicate their lives to union with God through Jesus Christ, and the Orthodox view of the modern world as contrasted with the lives of these monks. Markides' first book was "Mountain of Silence," and was his doctoral dissertation. Originally intended to be on the topic of human trafficking, Markides changed his mind after a visit with a friend to the monasteries on Mt. Athos, and his introduction to Father Maximos. His entire worldview shifted, and he became interested in how the worldview of the ancient Orthodox religion and particularly the teachings of F. Maximos, could utterly change the world.
I feel as though these Orthodox teachings have brought me back to a sort of new beginning in my Christian walk. Orthodoxy is quite fundamental. I would not say Fundamentalist, as that word conjures up all sorts of raw images, but fundamental. It is basically the simple Gospel, told in all its simplicity and its power. Orthodoxy does not worry about doctrine or theology. It does not build up great treatises on the meaning of this or that religious concept. Instead, it seeks to work with each individual's path to God. Its many saints write about all the stages of becoming more and more united with God. They deal with how to strip oneself of worldly passions, and turn constantly to Christ each hour of the day, in order to become like Him. Orthodoxy teaches us the Jesus Prayer, a powerful repetitive prayer that serves to focus one's thoughts on Christ in the right relationship of sinner to savior. Humility and love of God and the Trinity are... fundamental.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Digging the Well
So it seemed I was asked to dig a well in my return to the desert. (see post called "Desert Bloom" :-)). I was to seek sustenance inwardly, dig a well deep in my soul that would be a conduit for the Holy Spirit who would replenish me when there was little spiritual food around. This is what I thought. The desert is dry, hot, dusty, full of prickly things, devoid of sustenance, of people, of life. Its expanse of space may occasionally be interrupted by mountains devoid of vegetation. There is little stimulation for the eye or for the palate. The desert is empty, windblown and gritty. I was to dig a well in order to be sustained.
The spiritual desert can be any variation of the deserts of the world: sage-strewn hills dotted with cacti, rabbit brush, and chola, or vast vistages of lifeless dunes, uninviting, slippery-sloped, and very dangerous. Initially the spiritual desert does not come into your life to comfort, fulfill, inspire you, although these are some of the wonderful outcomes of desert life. No, the desert keeps its distance in mystery. One enters the desert with trepidation and only as a result of being drawn or called there. Most seekers avoid it, and prefer the plains or the shore, where food for the body as well as the soul is abundant. One does not ask for the desert, but goes there out of obedience when asked. And seekers who wish to obey will go there.
The desert was pervasive in the writings of the Jews and early Christians. It seems everyone who ever played a role in the history of the Jews went to the desert: even Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with their newborn child to escape Herod. Likewise, our own spiritual journeys often pass through the desert. So if the desert is a harsh place, why do seekers go there? Or why do they allow themselves to be taken there? Why did Jesus go there for forty days and perhaps longer in those hidden years? Here are some possible answers: We go to the desert
1. Unwittingly, in innocence and obedience
2. To be alone without distraction
3. To manifest our promise to God to leave the world and join completely to Him.
4. To pray and suffer for the world's salvation
5. To discover ourselves and God
6. In search of simplicity: to be stripped of all that encumbers a person in his journey with God.
It is obvious that some of these reasons are not choices one would knowingly make, and all of these reasons are things most pilgrims go through at some time in their life. One doesn't choose to place himself on the road of suffering. I don't believe one says to God, "I am ready, test me!" Believers are taken there, drawn there, or choose to go to the desert to escape the cluttered world. They desire to have God only in their lives. They want to simplify in order to go deeper by making God their entire focus. As a result, many suffer, because the walk through the desert is not an easy one. Deep suffering can take place as one experiences loneliness, abandonment, or, the most frightening of all, facing oneself honestly, without excuses. Often the desert is the place where one lives with physical affliction. Many of our neighbors certainly live desert lives. The test comes when in these difficult times, one is tempted to betray God, or to turn from Him in self-pity, rebellion, or despair.
However, the desert is not just about these spare experiences. Desert pilgrims experience great joy at times, as they discover oases of water in the form of consolations of the Holy Spirit, and as they take nourishment from the Holy Eucharist and from the Word.
Therefore, another reason we go to the desert is:
7. To walk in the unutterable joy of God's presence.
What else strips us but suffering? Pain, sorrow, disenchantment, loneliness, doubt, fear, so many things cause us to want to escape, change direction, and finally, hopefully, search ourselves. But what else gives great delight? Knowing that in our suffering we are communing with the Holy One, basking in His light and love, and being filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we are alone with God there is no one else on whom we can rely. We cannot project our misery or blame on anyone else, not our parents, our spouse, nor our society. We have only God. And He has us. In the kingdom, one's journey is with God. We are separated, we have given all to God, and we must study ourselves from within. We must dig a well.
The spiritual desert can be any variation of the deserts of the world: sage-strewn hills dotted with cacti, rabbit brush, and chola, or vast vistages of lifeless dunes, uninviting, slippery-sloped, and very dangerous. Initially the spiritual desert does not come into your life to comfort, fulfill, inspire you, although these are some of the wonderful outcomes of desert life. No, the desert keeps its distance in mystery. One enters the desert with trepidation and only as a result of being drawn or called there. Most seekers avoid it, and prefer the plains or the shore, where food for the body as well as the soul is abundant. One does not ask for the desert, but goes there out of obedience when asked. And seekers who wish to obey will go there.
The desert was pervasive in the writings of the Jews and early Christians. It seems everyone who ever played a role in the history of the Jews went to the desert: even Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with their newborn child to escape Herod. Likewise, our own spiritual journeys often pass through the desert. So if the desert is a harsh place, why do seekers go there? Or why do they allow themselves to be taken there? Why did Jesus go there for forty days and perhaps longer in those hidden years? Here are some possible answers: We go to the desert
1. Unwittingly, in innocence and obedience
2. To be alone without distraction
3. To manifest our promise to God to leave the world and join completely to Him.
4. To pray and suffer for the world's salvation
5. To discover ourselves and God
6. In search of simplicity: to be stripped of all that encumbers a person in his journey with God.
It is obvious that some of these reasons are not choices one would knowingly make, and all of these reasons are things most pilgrims go through at some time in their life. One doesn't choose to place himself on the road of suffering. I don't believe one says to God, "I am ready, test me!" Believers are taken there, drawn there, or choose to go to the desert to escape the cluttered world. They desire to have God only in their lives. They want to simplify in order to go deeper by making God their entire focus. As a result, many suffer, because the walk through the desert is not an easy one. Deep suffering can take place as one experiences loneliness, abandonment, or, the most frightening of all, facing oneself honestly, without excuses. Often the desert is the place where one lives with physical affliction. Many of our neighbors certainly live desert lives. The test comes when in these difficult times, one is tempted to betray God, or to turn from Him in self-pity, rebellion, or despair.
However, the desert is not just about these spare experiences. Desert pilgrims experience great joy at times, as they discover oases of water in the form of consolations of the Holy Spirit, and as they take nourishment from the Holy Eucharist and from the Word.
Therefore, another reason we go to the desert is:
7. To walk in the unutterable joy of God's presence.
What else strips us but suffering? Pain, sorrow, disenchantment, loneliness, doubt, fear, so many things cause us to want to escape, change direction, and finally, hopefully, search ourselves. But what else gives great delight? Knowing that in our suffering we are communing with the Holy One, basking in His light and love, and being filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we are alone with God there is no one else on whom we can rely. We cannot project our misery or blame on anyone else, not our parents, our spouse, nor our society. We have only God. And He has us. In the kingdom, one's journey is with God. We are separated, we have given all to God, and we must study ourselves from within. We must dig a well.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Desert Flowers
In alluding to the loneliness that one experiences in the desert, one might ask, “Loneliness? Whom do you miss? Whom do you need? Why do you need them? Is not God everywhere? It is here that He may possibly be found!”
I think a better term for the experience of the solitary life is alone-ness, not loneliness. The solitary life, whether spent alone or among people, is a life of learning to be content in all circumstances. The barren scape of the desert does not necessarily attract. It more likely repels. It is not visually appealing, nor are there other distractions to take up one’s time such as are found in the peopled world. Many people run from the desert, but the pilgrim learns to embrace it. The pilgrim purveys the landscape, searching and searching: a whirlwind miles away, a lone coyote, a delicate spot of color. He seeks something else, turning his eyes from the colorless void to the prayer book in his hands. He lowers his gaze to the small yellow bloom emerging on the spiny nest of the barrel cactus. He appreciates the fractaled, unpredictable shape of a branchy cholla. It is not pretty here, it is not ordered, nor is it comfortable. But perhaps it can become so.
To be alive, to be breathing, to be able to make choices no matter where you are placed: what a concept! Moreso, what gifts has God bestowed upon this place? What particular gift has He given you in this place? Can we take time to find out?
I think a better term for the experience of the solitary life is alone-ness, not loneliness. The solitary life, whether spent alone or among people, is a life of learning to be content in all circumstances. The barren scape of the desert does not necessarily attract. It more likely repels. It is not visually appealing, nor are there other distractions to take up one’s time such as are found in the peopled world. Many people run from the desert, but the pilgrim learns to embrace it. The pilgrim purveys the landscape, searching and searching: a whirlwind miles away, a lone coyote, a delicate spot of color. He seeks something else, turning his eyes from the colorless void to the prayer book in his hands. He lowers his gaze to the small yellow bloom emerging on the spiny nest of the barrel cactus. He appreciates the fractaled, unpredictable shape of a branchy cholla. It is not pretty here, it is not ordered, nor is it comfortable. But perhaps it can become so.
To be alive, to be breathing, to be able to make choices no matter where you are placed: what a concept! Moreso, what gifts has God bestowed upon this place? What particular gift has He given you in this place? Can we take time to find out?
The desert produces exquisite flowers, but few people ever see them. Blessed are you if you do see them.
Hubble in Space
I have thought often of this forthcoming God. He is like light, ever coming, ever emitting himself. The Hubble Space telescope, recently worked on by several astronauts so that it will continue producing photographs for another five years, has given us glimpses of light coming across many billions of miles to our eyes. A new telescope will be put into space at the end of Hubble‘s usefulness, and it will be placed one million miles from earth. Its visual clarity should be greatly improved over even the Hubble’s, since its placement will be so far from earth’s distorting atmosphere. One scientist said the taking of these photographs through telescopes is like time travel, and the telescopes are like the time travelers. It is expected that light, billions of years old, will be recorded by the new space telescope. That light, which has traveled at 186,000 miles per second for these billions of years, is light that was emitted near the what is thought to be the origin of the universe. Perhaps light from the original theoretical “big bang” will be measured. Needless to say, these ideas are mind-boggling. Much of what we see in space may not even be there any more, but it is useless to conjecture, since it is impossible to apprehend what is happening so many light years away. It is as if space must bend back on itself in order to accommodate these huge expanses of time and distance. Perhaps what happened 6 billion years ago is not so far away from us in time and space., and we are fooled into thinking that what occurred billions of years ago is occurring at this time also. Kind of reminds you of heaven… everything is in the now… time is no longer existent. It is suspended in light.
The Law
It is thought about some early cultures that often it was the most powerful, and sometimes the most ruthless, who ruled. It makes sense; when men vied for power over family tribes and the greatest hunters or the strongest survived, fear and violence kept people in line, and the leaders held onto their posts with an iron hand. Eventually laws were developed by the likes of Hammurabi to limit and control bad behavior and bring forms of mercy and justice to society. This law was supposed to be above the power of the leader; even he was supposed to abide by it. Unless, of course, he didn’t.... more power and force. Still happens today. Manmade laws do not always win the respect of other men. Men can argue ad infinitum on one point or another, justifying any dictum. The wonderful beautiful idea/ideal of Judaism for the world was that the law was no longer negotiable, nor was it able to be changed, because it didn’t come from man: It came from outside himself, it came from above. THE ALIEN GOD SPOKE THE LAW. The Ten Commandments are to this day as viable as they were three thousand years ago. This law was for everyone, and made every man equal under it. No despot, no king, so tax collector was above it, nor could a person manipulate it. It was the ideal, the perfect, the unattainable, it was everything God hoped mankind would strive for, and receive from Him. Christians believe Jesus perfectly fulfilled this law, and so was the type of the perfect lamb of the Jews, slain for our sins. God fulfilled the law, coming to us from outside time, into our time, into our world, to be the means through His Son by which we attain perfection, through His blood.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)