1.
Prickly-Pear
Pride
10 January 2012
Dear Souls -
Pride, vein of glory, vainglory, is a soul-threatening disease.
Pride permeates our society and singes our soul. People love pride, and its prickliness goes unnoticed dressed in the flamboyant disguise of self-esteem. When I'm not nice, I ponder how Orthodoxy is a misfit in American society. The root of this country is hearty self-esteem. Humility is un-American; it's the naughty child kept forever in time out.
Why listen to my thoughts when you have this timeless wisdom below from Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent?
(Step 22) On the many forms of vainglory:
"The sun shines on all alike, and vainglory beams on all activities. For instance, I am vainglorious when I fast, and when I relax the fast in order to be unnoticed I am again vainglorious over my prudence. When well-dressed I am quite overcome by vainglory, and when I put on poor clothes I am vainglorious again. When I talk I am defeated, and when I am silent I am again defeated by it. However I throw this prickly-pear, a spike stands upright."
And this:
"A vainglorious person is a believing idolater; he apparently honours God, but he wants to please not God but men."
More:
"Every lover of self-display is vainglorious. The fast of the vainglorious person is without reward and his prayer is futile, because he does both for the praise of men."
For all of us:
"A vainglorious ascetic is cheated both ways: he exhausts his body, and he gets no reward."
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2.
Go in Peace
15 January 2012
Dear Souls -
This is a simple story, though it's not really a story. It's an experience, and this experience lingers in my mind. I write here in a fraction of the time I should spend on my writing: these moments writing are stolen from time I don't have. I'm not a writer at all, I'm not a photographer, and I'm not a happy church-goer. I'm just me. An ordinary Orthodox Christian soul, who happens to like the beach. A lot. I'd rather be at the beach on Sunday mornings than Liturgy. That's mostly the Truth. Some Sunday mornings I like church, and some Sunday mornings it's as painful as a walk through the PICU. But in the ICU I help dying souls, and in church I don't.
Forgive me, I've wandered off topic. Remember, I'm not a writer at all. And if you hang with me, I'll give you solid evidence to back up this claim...
Let me get back to the story, which hasn't any backstory. (At night my dreams are all metaphors, and when I sort them out in the morning they congeal into words with double meanings; it's a tangled mess.) The other day as I was on my way somewhere, I stopped at an intersection where a homeless man sat in the center divide holding a sign. The exact words on the sign are irrelevant, but the message was not. He was hungry and homeless. And I was driving a new car. The contrast struck me in the heart, more than most of Sunday morning strikes me on Sunday morning.
The light changed from red to green, and I grabbed a nutrition bar from my bag next to me. Rolling slowly forward in the car, I extended my arm out the window, dangling the bar from my left hand. The man in the center divide extended his left hand toward mine. Our hands touched, our lives intersected, and he grabbed the nutrition bar from my hand. There was a brief connection, as our hands touched.
I never expected the touch; it caught me off guard. And I was reminded of another story. The story of Jesus in a crowd asking, "Who touched me?" And then He said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me."
And I thought: "Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet."
Healed by her faith.
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| Go in Peace |
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3.
Inside Quiet
19 January 2012
Dear Souls -
All I know is what I know. And the inside of quiet is a mystery, except for my own. I'm reading The Road to Emmaus by Jim Forest, and I'm pondering his chapter on prayer . . . ceaseless prayer. When I peer inside quiet, I don't see a cluttered closet stuffed with tools of varying sizes and shapes: the inside of quiet is a silent well organized space. Inside quiet are long shelves of silence filled with Peace.
I do not live in a monastery, and I'm not a priest. My way is not The Way of a Pilgrim, it's the way of an ordinary soul hiking a trail of everyday life lessons. Inside quiet is a space packed full of God. When the door to quiet is opened I see Peace in an obvious way. It's difficult seeing inside quiet with too much focus on rules or stiff practices (the focus switches from quiet to Rules). Prayer isn't a rule, it's a tool for finding God in the quiet of your heart.
Inside quiet you find the silence of God resonating through the eyes of your soul.
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| Quiet |
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4.
A Thin Place
21 January 2012
Dear Souls -
A thin place is not a Weight Watchers clinic. It's a place where the presence of God is palpable. And this is a term I just learned from Jim Forest's The Road to Emmaus (do not take this as a book recommendation, unless you like reading Fodor's travel guides for fun). The term thin place is a clever way of describing those spots where God touches your heart; I can get carried away with this term, if I don't watch myself. It's descriptive, and yet not wrapped in the heavy God-talk that boggles my brain.
St. Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, are the two most well known thin places on earth, according to Mr. Forest. (I had never before heard of the third most well known thin place he mentions . . . Iona, Scotland?) Both of the first two thin places I cherish, although I've never visited either. God spoke to Moses and gave him the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, so this is an undisputed thin place. And if you're a Christian, then the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of the Resurrection of Christ, is also an undisputed thin place (If you're not a Christian, no worries, you cannot dispute the historic significance of the site . . . and also, my grandmother was baptized there . . . do you care?)
Thin places exist, but recognition of these places may not register in your soul. Or, maybe you're someone who touches on thin spots here and there most days, with other stand out thin places which resonate through your soul. Hospitals are a thin place . . . a large complex of buildings perfused with human suffering. But a shopping mall may or may not be a thin place: a thin place can exist anywhere. Divine Liturgy is a thin place . . . it's Heaven on Earth, but you may not recognize it at the time. Or, during Liturgy the thin spots may leap out in front of you. Icons are known to be thin spots: they're windows into Heaven. Photographs can also be thin spots, if you ask me . . .
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| Christmas Vigil, St. Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai |
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This is a thin place of mine:
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| Mother of God |
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