Father Stephen writes about how we don't often follow the Apostle Paul's example of glorying in our weakness. The title of his blog post is "Your Weakness Saves You." We need to pray out of our weakness and not when we are feeling strong; but Fr. Stephen observes that many of us would prefer to glory in our strength:
At some level, we believe that we are not saved through our
weakness, but will be saved through our strength, and that the whole
life of grace is God’s effort to make us stronger – never suspecting
that God’s grace may actually be purposefully developing our weaknesses.
....
I often tell people who say they are struggling with prayer to quit
trying to pray like a Pharisee and learn to pray like a Publican. We
often want to pray from strength – to approach God when we at least feel
spiritually alive. The Publican refuses to lift his eyes to heaven. The
contradiction of his life and the goodness of God are more than he can
bear. And yet he prays. And, ironically, it is he who goes down to his
house justified rather than the Pharisee.
I find that the Orthodox prayer book cultivates this awareness of my weakness with its many cries of "Lord, have mercy." Sometimes I am engaged in some activity that doesn't allow me to give my full attention to prayer, but I am still burdened over a difficult situation or the need of a friend. I can express my helplessness to do anything by human strength, my inability to even think about what a solution might be, by praying "Lord, have mercy," as many times as necessary to reach a place of quietness of heart.
As Psalm 103 reminds us weekly, "He remembers that we are dust." When I pray that, I feel the love and tenderness of the Lord. He knows our weakness, and when we know it too, and pray with that understanding, we are near to Him.
I guess I've had enough time and thinking power this week to read and ponder, but my activities didn't result in anything of my own to posit or report, so I'll just pass on some recent gleanings.
Women Priests? I love it when a reviewer is bold enough to say "This book is rubbish." Honesty and confidence! Although, if that's all she can say, she won't get a hearing; I want to hear reasons for her belief. I just read this blog post titled "Merlin Stone's book is rubbish", and though I had never heard the author's name before I immediately wanted to read that article.
It's a brief review of When God Was a Woman, which the blogger first had to read in seminary years ago. She writes, "There is neither historical nor anthropological support for her thesis that the Hebrews suppressed goddess worship. She tries to prove that the Canaanites had a matriarchial and matrilineal structure. She is wrong on both counts." Go to the blog Just Genesis to read the supporting details. The writer always has lots of fascinating historical and archeological knowledge to pass on.
Pies, pies, pies... Three women collaborated on a book, which as soon as I read about it I had to have sent as a birthday gift for my granddaughter. It may be a bit early for her, but I like to encourage little girls to start taking a creative role in the kitchen and to look to real grownups for inspiration.
The book is Pieography, written by Jo Packham, Food Styling by Anne Marie Klaske, Photography by Traci Thorson. All of these women have blogs; Jo and Traci feature photos of some pies, but I think you have to get the book if you want the recipes and stories.
I haven't seen the book yet, but I've enjoyed Anne Marie's blog in particular. The clean and elegant style is nice to surf around in and see snippets of the Klaske Family's farm life. On Thursdays you can get inspired to bake pies!
Death of the Old Man: Father Stephen Freeman shared a link to his daughter's blog, on St. John of the Cross and the loss of identity, or the Dark Night of the Soul, or the "death of the old man." Actually the subtitle of the post is "The Loss and Discovery of our Identity in God" (italics mine), so it ends on a very positive note, to be sure.
She writes, "If we had always thought of the death of our old man as purely symbolic,
it may come as something of a shock to think of real pain being
involved. But when our turn inevitably comes to go through pain or
tragedy, then we may take comfort in knowing that many have travelled
down this path before us."
Icons and Images: A book on the history of the use and theology of images in Jewish culture and in the church is the subject of this blog post on Orthodox-Reformed Bridge. Early Christian Attitudes Toward Images is written by Stephen Bigham, and a series of four blog posts is planned to review the book. This structure follows the organization of the book:
The book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 deals with the “hostility theory” which holds that the early Christians were hostile toward images. Chapter 2 deals with early Jewish attitudes toward images. Chapter 3 deals with the early Christian attitudes towards images, that is, the pre-Constantinian period. Chapter 4 deals with Eusebius of Caesarea who witnessed the beginning of Constantinian era.
The author is an Orthodox priest, and the blogger Robert Arakaki was Reformed in his theology before converting to Orthodoxy. I'm looking forward to reading all the reviews of what looks to be a thorough treatment of the subject.
Beethoven in Space: Lastly, here's a music video featuring Hubble images and beautiful music. A blessed weekend to you all!
The body of Christ is one Body. There is only One Church -- not divided between those who have fallen asleep in Christ and those who remain behind. Whether we are here or in the hand of God, the struggle is the struggle of the whole Church. My success or failure in my spiritual life is not my private business, but the concern of a great cloud of witnesses. Neither are they watching only as disinterested bystanders. They urge us on and support us with their prayers. Were they to watch us without participating at the same time in our struggles, the watching would be like torture. As it is, their watching is prayer and participation of the deepest sort. It is for this reason (among many) that many services in the Eastern Church contain the phrase, "Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of our holy fathers, have mercy on us and save us." It is a humility of sorts, a demurring to the prayers of greater Christians -- but it is also calling on a reality that abides. We are not alone. The great cloud of witnesses stands with me and in me in prayer. Every prayer we ourselves offer is a participation in the life of the world. We have a participation in the great cloud of witnesses, but we also have a participation in everyone who is. The prayer of a righteous few has an amazing salvific impact on the life of the world. If they'd had but a few more righteous men, Sodom and Gomorrah would still be standing. To this day we do not know how many or how few, in their righteous prayers, preserve us before God.
Today, April 23, we remember Holy Greatmartyr, Victorybearer and Wonderworker George, and ask him to also remember us to God.
It's the Feast of Theophany! How can I not post something on this day when there is blessing abounding to the degree that people want to jump into icy waters over it? I am caught between the impulse to spread the riches around, and the awareness of the extreme limitations of my mind when the meaning of Christ's baptism is set before me. There is a lot to take in and try to absorb at Theophany, regarding the Baptism of Our Lord.
I know what I'll do -- I'll post a link to Father Stephen Freeman's recent blog on the subject. An excerpt:
St. John himself does not seem to understand the purpose of Christ’s
Baptism. He is told that “whomever you see the Holy Spirit rest upon and
remain” is the Messiah – but he is given little information beyond
that. Witnessing Christ’s Baptism and the Spirit resting upon Him, he
hears the voice, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”
(Matthew, Mark and Luke all bear witness to the voice). The Church
later celebrates this manifestation of the Trinity (Christ in the water,
the Spirit descending, the Voice of the Father – hence the title
“Theophany”).
But with the text alone, on its literal level, we are left with a
mystery, without context or meaning. The Tradition of the Church,
however, sees the Baptism of Christ in the context of Pascha (Easter) as it sees everything in the context of Christ’s Pascha.
Christ’s Baptism is a foreshadowing (and on more than a literary level)
of His crucifixion and descent into Hades (just as our own Baptism is
seen by St. Paul as a Baptism into Christ’s “death and resurrection”).
When he goes on to explain that in the workings of God in the world, the literal is not all there is, he quotes Fr. Andrew Louth:
Allegory is a way of entering the 'margin of silence' that surrounds the articulate message of the Scriptures, it is a way of glimpsing the living depths of tradition from the perspective of the letter of the Scriptures.
There is so much to think about, even if you aren't part of the Orthodox Tradition in which we will be participating on the praxis level by blessing urns of water, creeks and lakes and oceans of water. In parishes everywhere priests will be blessing houses as my rector described in our newsletter, so as to bring "the joy of the feast of the manifestation of the Holy Trinity to each and every dwelling. Think of the house blessing as a renewal of God's grace in your home."
How could we not be welcoming of that? I won't be jumping into any frozen streams, I hope ever, but I will certainly have the joy of the feast.
In trying to understand ourselves, people have worked out different ways to analyze aspects of the human person. Are we spirit-soul-body or mind-emotions? Is it body-and-intellect, or heart vs. head? It's too bad we have to be always chopped up into warring interests. God intended for us to be unified creatures, as the Holy Trinity is a Unity, but only by God's grace can we begin to know some of that intended wholeness.
What is the heart? Surely it's not just the emotions, as many moderns seem to think. The Orthodox Church understands the heart very differently and more deeply than this. The Greek word nous, the fathers tell us, is not easily translated into English. But some current writers have been able to get through my dullness and give a little more clarity.
One of these is Fr. Stephen Freeman, and his recent blog post "Shopping for God" contains a lot of nourishment that will take me some time to soak up thoroughly. My title is a question posed at the end of his article written on Black Friday Eve.
I haven't finished my Christmas shopping, but even when I come to the end of that I know there will be other anxiety-producing prompts to and from my false self, so I appreciate Fr. Stephen's reminder of my inheritance in Christ, and His Kingdom within.
Here are some excerpts:
Shoppers desire beauty, acceptance, self-confidence, power, intelligence, pleasure, excitement, a host of intangible needs.
They are not natural needs, but the passions of the spiritually
disordered. Our unnatural existence is centered in the false self -- the
sense of identity generated within our memory, thoughts and emotions. It
is burdened with uncertainty. Comparing, judging, measuring, revising
are constant activities of the mind in its role of the false self. .........
Christ at the well
The human life was created to be centered in the heart, the spiritual
seat of our existence. The heart is not subject to the passions, not
driven by desire and necessity. It is not the same thing as the mind. It
does not compare or judge, measure or spin tales of its own existence.
It simply is. It is in the heart that we know God (truly know). Its
aesthetic is true beauty, found within the most ordinary of objects as
well as in the greatest efforts of man. The heart is content.
For Orthodox Christians, today is Lazarus Saturday. We don't celebrate Easter until next week, but the raising of Lazarus gives us a glimpse of Christ's own rising from the dead a week later, and of our own coming resurrection.
This year I am a sponsor/godmother to a catechumen who will be baptized a week from today; last night I attended the last of her classes with her, and listened in on the explanation of all the services to come this week, and their meaning in our lives.
I was reminded of my own baptism five years ago, and also filled with joy in remembering and anticipating the many stops along this last stretch of the journey to Pascha. The liturgical landscape is marked by beloved hymns and prayers I have sung year after year, and which will bring me into the shining presence of Christ again, by His grace.
It's easy to be emotional today, even thinking about an experience that is not primarily emotional, because I am housebound for a relatively minor disability, and have to miss a few services this coming week. So I'm feeling sorry for myself, but trying to be thankful at the same time, and accept all the blessings God is giving me.
When God is constantly pouring down love and blessing, it's easy to get overwhelmed or confused. One day, the blessings look to any passerby to be good fortune, and another day, it takes a discerning eye to see Him, and be at peace. Even in the church services there are so many "things" going on that I can never attend to them all at once. One time I notice a particular hymn and how it blends perfectly into the whole message of the day; another time I spend most of the service in a battle just to return again and again from my distracting thoughts.
In my large parish we have numerous opportunities to participate in the services held, especially during Lent and Holy Week. I'm sure there is no one who can attend all of them, even the priests. Because circumstances change, including the circumstances of our own hearts and health, every Lent is at least a little different in how God deals with us. The upcoming week is part of that reality of having to live day-by-day and moment-by-moment, in thankfulness.
So often I come up against my own weakness and laziness. Father Stephen touches on this in his recent blog post about Lazarus, relating his meditations while sitting in the tomb of Lazarus a few years ago:
For me, he is also a sign of the universal entombment. Even before we die, we have frequently begun to inhabit our tombs. We live our life with the doors closed (and we stink). Our hearts can be places of corruption and not the habitation of the good God. Or, at best, we ask Him to visit us as He visited Lazarus. That visit brought tears to the eyes of Christ. The state of our corruption makes Him weep. It is such a contradiction to the will of God. We were not created for the tomb.
I also note that in the story of Lazarus – even in his being raised from the dead – he rises in weakness. He remains bound by his graveclothes. Someone must “unbind” him. We ourselves, having been plunged into the waters of Baptism and robed with the righteousness of Christ, too often exchange those glorious robes for graveclothes. Christ has made us alive, be we remain bound like dead men.
I sat in the tomb of Lazarus because it seemed so familiar.
Whether you celebrate tomorrow or next week, may your celebration of the Resurrection be a glorious feast.
"The sweet work of repentance that is set before us as followers of Christ, is nothing other than the return to reality."
"How we feel about many things has this same make-believe quality. We find certain styles of clothing and certain products (cars, houses, etc.) attractive and desirable, but often with little more than subjective reasons for our desires. The power of this make-believe is so great that it is well-known that many people “go shopping” to battle depression. It is a strange therapy."
Read the rest of the article by Father Stephen Freeman here -- about the real cause of so much of our grief and misery in everyday life, "a ceaseless struggle with things that have no true existence."
When I look around his blog I always find plenty to provoke my thoughts in a good direction. I'm assuming his book Everywhere Present that just came out will put a lot of this food for the soul together in one nourishing bowl.
