Unanswered prayer

O my Gosh! (That’s what He gets for not ‘answering prayer’—we change His name when we want to take it in vain, so we can have an alibi in case He’s been eavesdropping!)

I’m trying to think back, even to my childhood
(I have an extraordinary memory, back to about three years old! not quite bragging, but almost) trying to find an instance of unanswered prayer so I can fit in with the rest of God-jilted humanity (and am I exaggerating again? I hope so) but I can’t really find any. Is it maybe because I never really asked Him for anything special? Well, no.

There was the time, years and years ago (I was a very young teenager, maybe high school freshman) when I was misled by a false prophet slash healer on Xtian television to believe ‘for a miracle’ for my sick mom. I stuffed an envelope with some hard-earned cash
(I was a paperboy and made about twelve dollars a month) and wrote my prayer request on a piece of paper and mailed everything to this jerk (excuse my french).

Nothing happened, of course, except mom didn’t die, not yet anyway. She was the most resilient invalid I have ever met, and a woman of very great faith, almost a victim of codependency on God, whom she never stopped talking to, day and night, but especially the latter. I’m afraid that I may have inherited her disposition with regards to this. I also never seem to stop talking to God, and like her, I’m also under the delusion that He talks back, and even that He sometimes initiates the conversation. Some people have told me I’m living in denial. My question for them has always been, ‘so who isn’t?’ 

But unanswered prayer? That time I wrote my request on a sheet of paper and mailed it in an envelope full of one dollar bills (maybe it just wasn’t enough, since I didn’t give all) to the faith healer, well, that doesn’t really count as an instance of unanswered prayer. Why not? I guess it’s because I didn’t go directly to Him, and ask. I mean, I was brought up in an environment where people who wanted God to do things didn’t ask Him directly. That would be too forward. (You can’t be forward with God. He’s ahead of everyone.)

Instead, you brought your requests to His mother. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…’ Actually, I did say this prayer, yes, over and over again while fingering those black beads till some of them lost their finish, but even then, I didn’t have anything special I wanted from God, even through her. I was just happy to be alive, and not be on the wrong side of things.

Aha! That’s it, I guess. When I look back, though I went through some pretty nasty things and had some hair-raising experiences (actually, humiliating would be the better word), it just never occurred to me to ask God to ‘get me outta this mess!’ Even before I became obsessed with the bible and started actually talking to the Lord (when I was twenty-four years old, I finally noticed He’d been talking back to me since I was a child) it somehow seemed irreverent to ask Him for anything. It was as if to ask Him to change something in my life was tantamount (I just made up that word. Does it mean anything?) to tell Him He didn’t know what He was doing to make things so difficult for me.

Even when I only believed in signs and didn’t know Him personally (yes, I admit it. I am ‘born again’!) it still seemed cheeky to put God on the spot, as if He were Someone you could corner.

But wait a minute! I just realized something! I go to church! I pray along with the ‘prayers of the people’ during worship services. ‘In peace, let us pray to the Lord…’ Yeah, that’s right. And I make the sign of the cross over myself when we come to petitions I especially want to add my ‘amen’ to, like ‘for an angel of peace, a guardian of our souls and bodies, let us ask the Lord…’

And guess what! That’s an easy prayer to make, and even easier to get answered. I mean, like, when have I not been sent an angel of peace and a guardian of my soul and body? I wouldn’t be here writing this, if that were an unanswered prayer.

When has God not sent people to me and me to people (yes, I know, angels have wings, or are supposed to, but that is, to me, an unimportant detail) just when I needed it? He is, if I may say so, very careful too. He’s never too early or too late. That does keep you on your toes, I mean, me and mine. Could that be why we call Him (in our better moments, not ‘Gosh!’ but) the man-loving God?

Continuing along the same lines, I admit there are some things I’ve asked Him for (now that I think of it) that haven’t been answered, at least not yet.

‘For the completion of our lives in peace and repentance… for a Christian end to our lives, peaceful, without shame and suffering, and for a good account before the awesome judgment seat of Christ…’

Well, what can I say? If anything were too much to ask, this is it, and yet I pray along with the others at church these very things. So, it’s true, maybe, that some prayer goes unanswered, but only if you take the short view. There are some things we ask for that require a certain amount of cooperation, and even action, on our part. At least, we might have to follow His instructions (which we might find if we ever opened a bible, read it, and took what He says there, seriously).

At most, well, what can I say? There are some things we ask Him that He can’t answer until we’re (gulp!) already dead. And what would be good about that? Well, hmm, I think I have an idea.

‘A good account before the awesome judgment seat of Christ…’

Isn’t this going a bit too far? I mean, anyone can pray that, and who can tell if the prayer will be answered or not? I think, maybe only the one who really prays that prayer as if he or she really means it. That brings the subject to a close, for me anyway.

Unanswered prayer? Did we really pray, did we really ask the Lord for something in the first place? Or were we only mouthing the words? You see, as soon as we’ve opened up the discussion, though we might think we’ve put God in the hot seat, He’s already turned tables on us. As He spoke to the long-suffering patriarch Job, ‘Now it is my turn to ask questions and yours to inform me’ (Job 38:3 JB).

I think something happened to me when I accepted ‘the Lord as He is,’ casting aside all the (even well-intentioned but misguided) teachings about Him that circulated around me in my growing-up years, that made Him out to be a stingy, bossy, meddlesome, heavenly Tyrant who was always nosing around, looking for people who were having a moment of innocent (but filthy) pleasure so He could snuff it out for them and make them cringe.

That was the kind of God who loved to not answer prayer but hold you hostage to what He could do for you if He wanted, but probably wouldn’t. At least, not without a very great deal of effort on your part. And even then, if He granted your request, you’d better be darn thankful, or else He could take it back, like some television faith healer who warns, ‘don’t stop believing, or you’ll lose your healing!’

Yes, I tossed out a lot of misinformation and majestically incorrect notions when I accepted ‘the Lord as He is.’ I had never been taught to really pray, and so I had never known really what to pray for. This is where reading at first, and then praying eventually, the biblical Psalms helped me to become a pray-er, not just to say one.

There has to be a real person before a real conversation can take place, especially when talking to ‘Him who is’ and no better way to walk into His presence and become one, than reading first, and then praying, the Psalms. We learn to ask what they ask, and we find ourselves being answered.

By whom?
By the Lord, of course! And in a way that silences all our musings and speculations and questions.

Unanswered prayer?
Please, how could any real prayer go unanswered?
When we know Him, when we know that He knows everything about us, all our needs, not our imagined ones, but our real needs, how can we even consider that our prayers ever go unanswered?

Yes, saints and others have written volumes of apologetics regarding ‘unanswered prayer’ and despite their best intentions and our curiosity, the question (not the prayer) will remain forever unanswered.

Why?
Because you and I are the prayers,
and He alone is the answer.

The return of Holy Wisdom­¹

Just a couple of days ago, on the 29th of May, some of us remembered the traumatic event of the fall of Constantinople, which finally brought down the moribund Byzantine Empire, and saw the Sultan ascend the throne of the Christian Emperor. Now that the Ottoman Sultanate is no more, and everyone is trying their best to be moderate and friendly, and some Europeans are even in favor of admitting Turkey to the European Union, it's time again to recognize that things aren't that simple. Great wounds can only be healed by great love, and I don't think we've seen even the beginnings of that, just words. But making people feel good doesn't make them good, and feelings don't last. What we need is wisdom, and I am not talking about the church¹.

¹ The Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople/Istanbul

Often the sentiment is expressed, that Justinian's great edifice, the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople—Istanbul—should be returned to its original purpose. It was not erected to be a museum, nor a mosque—though it has been the inspiration to mosque-builders over the centuries. It was built to be a temple of the Lord, the Holy Triad, Father, Son and Spirit. Miracles used to occur within these ancient walls.

I can understand why many hope for the restoration of the great church to Christian use. We recall time-hallowed traditions like the story of the priests disappearing into the walls of the edifice when the Turks broke in to take it during their conquest of Byzantium, as well as the legend that they will reemerge when the church is restored. I've heard this story, and once upon a time I too was charmed by it.

Though casting a warm glow, quite honestly, the story is nonsense. This is not how God works. If priests were slaughtered during the taking of the church, they will emerge from their graves with all the rest of the blessed dead at the end of the world. Perhaps on that Day the great church will be restored—except we won't need it then, because ‘I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple’ (Revelation 21:22).

I don't believe in the priority of Christian real estate. I know it's great to have big, beautiful church buildings, built ‘to the glory of God,’ as emperor Justinian intended Hagia Sophia to be, but such things are not what is important in Christianity. In fact, vast real estate holdings should be an embarrassment to the Church, unless we are in the business of property management.

The rationale for wanting the great church back is understandable. It is an historic landmark, and many momentous events happened there, even holy, even miraculous events. But this whole world has been host to great events and miraculous happenings, and yet it too will one day disappear and be forgotten. ‘The world of the past is gone’ (Revelation 21:4).

And if Hagia Sophia were given back to the Orthodox patriarchate of Constantinople, what then? What will they do with it? Will it be filled with hundreds and even thousands of people in joyous and lengthy worship? Where would they come from? Almost all the Greek Orthodox are gone from the City.

The great church is what it is only when it is the main temple of the Orthodox Christian Empire, the godly jewel set in the crown of Constantinople, the City of New Rome. As it is, Istanbul is a large, sprawling and dirty city, ruinous at worst, secular and unspiritual at best. And this is where the Ecumenical Patriarch should reside?
In my humble opinion, not.

Following Jesus, let him either submit to the cross and martyrdom in a final appeal to the Turkish people to accept their Savior—for they would certainly kill him, if not laugh him to scorn—or let him be realistic, and follow Jesus where He is walking today.
That might make him patriarch of no city at all, except the City of God, which exists everywhere, anywhere there are faithful people of God. Like Moses, journeying through the wilderness with his pilgrim people, the Ecumenical Patriarch will have demonstrated what ‘ecumenical’ signifies.

I am not a romantic when it comes to Christian heritage. I have seen and experienced too much to believe that the Church can be entrusted with riches and power. The psalmist says—and you must know this is one of my favorite verses—‘man in his prosperity forfeits intelligence. He is one with the cattle doomed to slaughter’ (Psalm 49:20). It is the suffering Church that has the hope of following Jesus, and the only Church among whom real miracles can be expected.

Not the showy and ludicrous miracles of priests disappearing into church walls, or statues weeping tears of saltwater or blood, or ikons or bodies of saints gushing forth fragrant myrrh. Yes, such things do, in fact, happen, but to what purpose? That the great church of Hagia Sophia will one day be handed over by the Turks to his all-holiness Bartholomaios or one of his successors would be just such a miracle. Perhaps it will be the bride price of Turkey being allowed to join the European Union.

In the end, will it really bring the joy and the blessing people expect? And will those vanished priests come tumbling out of the walls fully vested and ready to serve the holy mysteries? If they did, they might be in for a surprise.

I hope I haven't upset you by writing down these contrary thoughts, but I am very tender right now, and sensitive to the intrusion of fantasy into my world, whether it is romantic, religious, or whatever. I actually am and can be a romantic person, but for me romance has more to do with a merciful appreciation of all things beautiful trying to exist in a world made ugly by prevailing sin.

As usual, I am going to keep harping on the idea that we must ‘do what we see Jesus doing in the scriptures,’ down to His very thinking where it is apparent, but at least what is clear from His words and his actions. When we try to do this, we begin to notice gradually how much of our Christian and religious ideology seems to have nothing in common with Him at all.

That, by itself, is a very scary thought—or it would be, if we didn't already know how merciful God is. You should know me well enough to know that I am not here saying the Church is wrong about anything, nor will I ever be found opposing her ‘to her face.’ It isn't that the Church is wrong. It's just that often the Church stops too soon. But like myself, with whom I am infinitely patient, the Church deserves our patience and our hope, that sooner or later, she will emerge fully awake and ready to present herself to her Lord.

Finally, brethren, pray for me, Romanós the sinner.

To be more like Jesus

I too sometimes catch myself condemning sinners with the words of my lips, or with the words I have written (which are, of course, much harder to take back). It usually happens, though, when my soul is mobilized by something outside me, like thinking about people who are being oppressed, or whatever.

When I stop and just get quiet, with the Lord being right there with me as He always is, it doesn't even enter my mind to judge or criticise even someone who has purposely wronged me. That's why I always retreat to that private chamber as often as possible, certainly every day, usually several times a day.

The world has a way of soiling our feet as we go about in it. Only Jesus can wash those feet clean again. And He is so faithful to forgive us and turn the other cheek to our sin.

It is so obvious to me after living a very tempestuous life, that the function of the Law is, as holy apostle Paul says, to simply tell us what is wrong. It's the prognosis, but not the cure. Only the living One, the only Lover of mankind, the only Physician, Jesus, can cure, but the medicine He applies is Death. For many Christians that is too severe a treatment, so they prefer to hobble along with the burden of their unforgiven sin weighing them down. In that condition, being too sick to live but afraid of Death, they yield to the kind of grouchiness that exhibits itself as judgmentalism.

Who has been forgiven much, loves much.

How sick our world is! How deceived we all are! Only by turning to Jesus, who is always near, can we be delivered ‘from this body of death,’ by conquering death by death, as He did, and finally be freed from bondage so that we, like Him, can bring life to those in the tombs…

Lord Jesus! I wish You would let me wash Your feet, for it was by walking about in me that You soiled them!

No time for God

Click the image to ZOOM

I liked this Serbian Orthodox poster so well, that I inset the English translation provided, along with the poster itself, by Fr Milovan, and I am posting it here. For the original, click here. The resolution isn't too good, but the poster will zoom a bit larger if you click on it.

Looking at the poster again closely for the fifteenth time, I am simply struck by how typically Orthodox the mother's instructions are, especially the "…go immediately—now!" I have heard this most of my life, not only from mothers, but fathers and others as well. It's this "no nonsense, just do it" attitude that has sheared off for me the frills and thrills of false religion and pretended piety. Our God is too loving and too immanent for us to just ignore Him. And when we respond to Him, well, like the little boy says (through wrongly) in the second frame of the cartoon, "my whole life is before me." That is when real life begins.

Seas of leaving

Our elders were too busy, preoccupied with their shock of having survived a world war, having lived with a cold war, being saddled with more than they’d bargained for, bewildered by having as offspring the very people they’d warned their children to keep clear of—yes, too distracted to catch us as we fell.

The wind blew so strongly against their tents, they had to make sure their tent pegs were firmly planted in the earth. The sand blew so steadily in their faces they couldn’t see the sun anymore. They thought we were all safe inside like good children weathering it out. They never thought to look for us in the gradually growing dunes as we drifted away.

Singers wooed us. We were courted and cajoled to abandon our fathers’ tents, to come away with them to some other place, a paradise where we would be appreciated for who we really were or thought ourselves to be. They sang of a garden, invoking ancient memories we shared even with our elders, though they never spoke of them to us. So we listened to other voices.

Shall I go off and away to bright Andromeda?
Shall I sail my wooden ships to the sea?
Or stay in a cage of those in Amerika??
Or shall I be on the knee?
Wave goodbye to Amerika
Say hello to the garden…

So I see, I see the way you feel
And I know that your life is real
Pioneer, searcher, refugee
I follow you, and you follow me
Let's go together
Let's go together
Let's go together right now…

(Let’s Go Together, by Paul Kantner)

This was the time when the world was young, from our point of view, just as we were, and like bees who see nothing but flowers, we ignored whatever world around us that held no nectar, that was colored black and white, that belittled what we felt, thought and desired. We sought to escape, dreaming again of leaving.

Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy,
Easy, you know the way it's supposed to be,
Silver people on the shoreline, let us be,
We are leaving… you don't need us.

Horror grips us as we watch you die,
All we can do is echo your anguished cries,
Stare as all human feelings die,
We are leaving… you don't need us.

Go, take your sister then, by the hand,
lead her away from this foreign land,
Far away, where we might laugh again,
We are leaving… you don't need us.

(Wooden Ships, by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Paul Kantner)

For me, it was leaving sleepless, sub-tropical summers and futureless, sub-arctic winters in rural Illinois, parents intent on tearing apart the vestiges of any childhood gladness I might have saved, a boring, dangerous and thankless job maintaining assembly line machinery in a prison-like factory.

So I set my face to the north and west, waved goodbye to my tearful mother who loved me too much for her own good, and migrated to a commune in Canada which, little could I have known, would collapse under the weight of personality disorders in a matter of months, leaving me stranded and almost friendless, a stranger in a strange land.

Still, I hadn’t learned my lesson, but still ached for paradise and crooned songs that sounded ancient and fed the witless dreams of a boy unable to grow up, groping for light, truth, peace and, yes, even love, in all the worst places, all the wrong ways. Sand of a different sort blinded my eyes, as it had blinded my elders.

Seasons they change, while cold blood is raining,
I have been waiting beyond the years,
Now over the sky line I see you are travelling,
Brothers from all times, gathering here.

Come let us build the ship of the future
In an ancient pattern that journeys far,
Come let us set sail for the always islands
Through seas of leaving to the summer stars…

(The Circle is Unbroken, by Robin Williamson)

Mesmerized, decapitated by songs such as these, with mystic beginnings and haunting refrains, still the glimmerings of truth were there, but how to sort them and separate them from the lies? We were still no closer than before to the garden or to the island.
Did such a place exist after all, whatever we called it?

A whole generation, abandoned in the sands of time, no better than its forefathers, and among them I, a nomad like all my ancestors.

I was a young man treading westward, always west. I left my home at age twenty-one and travelled north and west to Alberta, mimicking my grandfather who had left his home at the same age, taking ship at Hamburg and sailing west for America over a hundred years ago.
Neither of us ever looking back.

West, always west, unsuspecting that the world is round, and that the farthest West is the uttermost East. Seeking the paradise in the West, instead, the garden in the East appeared. And the wooden ships, well, only one was ever really necessary, as I finally found out.
It was the ark.

Friendship

A kindly turn of speech multiplies a man's friends,

and a courteous way of speaking invites many a friendly reply.

Let your acquaintances be many,

but your advisors one in a thousand.

If you want to make a friend, take him on trial,

and be in no hurry to trust him;

for one kind of friend is only so when it suits him

but will not stand by you in your day of trouble.

Another kind of friend will fall out with you

and to your dismay will make your quarrel public,

and a third kind of friend will share your table,

but not stand by you in your day of trouble:

when you are doing well he will be your second self,

ordering your servants about;

but if ever you are brought low he will turn against you

and will hide himself from you.

Keep well clear of your enemies,

and be wary of your friends.

A faithful friend is a sure shelter,

whoever finds one has found a rare treasure.

A faithful friend is something beyond price,

there is no measuring his worth.

A faithful friend is the elixir of life,

and those who fear the Lord will find one.

Whoever fears the Lord makes true friends,

for as a man is, so is his friend.

Ecclesiasticus 6:5-17 Jerusalem Bible

Prick an eye and you will draw a tear,

prick a heart and you will bring its feelings to light.

Throw stones at birds and you scare them away,

revile a friend and you break up friendship.

If you have drawn your sword on a friend,

do not despair; there is a way back.

If you have opened your mouth against your friend,

do not worry; there is hope for reconciliation;

but insult, arrogance, betrayal of secrets, and the stab in the back—

in these cases, any friend will run away.

Ecclesiasticus 22:19-22 Jerusalem Bible

杉原 千畝 Chiune Sugihara

In the Catholic Hagiography Circle webpage dedicated to non-Catholics, I noticed a photo of Japanese diplomat 杉原 千畝 Sugihara Chiune (Japanese place the family name first), whom I knew to be a hero of the Holocaust, or השואה ha-sho’ah, during World War II, when he was instrumental in saving the lives of over 6,000 European Jews by getting them exit visas to Japanese territory. For his heroic acts, he was awarded the status of חסידי אומות העולם Chassidéy ’Ummót Ha‘olám, Righteous among the Nations, by the State of Israel in 1985.

Chiune Sugihara was born January 1, 1900, in Yaotsu, a rural area in Gifu Prefecture of the Chūbu region to a middle-class father, Mitsugoro Sugihara, and Yatsu Sugihara, a samurai-class mother. He was the second son among five boys and one girl. I don't want to repeat his story in this post, but you can read it here in Wikipedia, and also here in a private webpage titled A Hidden Life. This morning, I also found a short video (in English, with Japanese and English subtitles) that tells his story and includes interviews with his wife, as well as many photos.

What prompted me to research a little further was the question whether or not he was a Christian. From seeing him being included in the Catholic Hagiography Circle webpage dedicated to non-Catholics, I assumed he must have been, but I wanted to find out for sure. Many Japanese that are well known in the West have been Christians, such as my favorite actor Toshiro Mifune, or the conductor Seiji Ozawa, but it hadn't occurred to me that Sugihara might have been one too. Being a Christian in Japan is not quite the same as being one in America or Europe where it's almost something you are born into. Usually, you must choose.

As it turns out, Chiune Sugihara had accepted Orthodox Christianity when he lived in Harbin, Manchuria. He had married a White Russian woman, so the original impetus may have been as it often is, convert in order to marry. Orthodox Christianity does not permit the marriage of believers with non-Christians. But they were divorced, and in 1935 when he married his second wife, a Japanese, she also converted to Orthodox Christianity, taking the name Maria. This leads me to suspect that his Christianity was not merely a formality, as his later actions proved.

In his quiet, modest way, Sugihara very much embodied the noble concept of Tolstoy’s prince. He sought neither fame nor fortune, merely saying ‘I may have to disobey my government, but if I don't I would be disobeying God.’ When asked why he chose to help the Jewish refugees, he responded,

‘You want to know about my motivation, don't you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent. People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people's lives… The spirit of humanity, philanthropy… neighborly friendship… with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation… and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.’

Ikon of Japanese
‘Righteous among the nations’
Chiune Sugihara 杉原千畝
The verse reads:
Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD
and take refuge in him.

Svetlana, an Orthodox Christian ikonographer in Serbia, has written this ikon of Chiune Sugihara. As far as I know, Sugihara, an Orthodox layman, has not been ‘glorified’—that is, formally canonised—by any Orthodox jurisdiction, yet here is an ikon. And this morning, brother Bojan Teodosijevic sent me an audio link to a troparion chanted by Deacon Michael Filmore of the Antiochian Christian Orthodox Church to honor this new saint of the Church. New saint of the Church? Well, yes. Though the process of declaring someone a ‘saint’ has its protocol, it is the people who usually jump start it. In the case of Chiune Sugihara, we have a unique situation. He is a ‘saint’ both to the Jews and to the Orthodox Christians. That has to be a pleasant surprise to God—no, sorry! I think He knows already who Chiune Sugihara is, since He made him, called him, sanctified him, and accepted his sacrifices.

I just wanted to remember this saint as we head toward the Sunday of Πεντηκοστή (pen-dee-koss-TEE), Pentecost, when by the descent and gift of the Holy Spirit, not only was the Church born, but every member of it given the grace to follow Jesus, who says,

I tell you most solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father.
John 14:12 Jerusalem Bible

Bless my enemies

Bless my enemies, O Lord.
Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have.
Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.
Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world.
Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an un-hunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath Your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.
Even I bless them and do not curse them.
They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world.
They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself.
They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments.
They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself.
They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.
Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.
Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a dwarf. Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.
WheneverI have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.
Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.
Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.
Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of your garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.
Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Bless them and multiply them;
multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:
so that my fleeing to You may have no return;
so that all hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs;
so that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;
so that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger;
so that I might amass all my treasure in heaven; ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows,
that a person has no enemies in the world except himself.
One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.
It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good
and who has done me more evil in the world:
friends or enemies.

Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and my enemies.
A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand.
But a son blesses them, for he understands.
For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life.
Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.
Even I bless them and do not curse them.

— Nikolaj Velimirović

To be unmade, and remade

Orthodoxy, and I mean real Orthodoxy (not the kind that can be sold either ideologically or culturally), is a strange ‘something,’ that you seem to be able to see more clearly as you approach it from afar, but when you get closer, it almost seems to dissipate, as you realise that what it looked like from the outside and could be given a name,

‘Orthodoxy,’ yields to something that is too close to us to be able to extract, throw on the table and examine.

And Jesus Christ, who once seemed a Being great, mighty, loving, faithful—whatever it is we experienced of Him—and which we wanted somehow to ‘tabernacle’ as Peter wanted to tabernacle Him on the mount of the Transfiguration, is no longer something or Someone we can glibly think or speak about. He too has become too close.

A song I love, runs ‘We were so close, there was no room. We bled inside each other’s wounds. We all had caught the same disease, and we all sang the songs of peace.’ Even that song had a different meaning before than it has now. Before, I could explain its meaning, now, I can less so, I almost can’t, because as soon as I try, I break into tears. This is how it is with real Orthodoxy and with Jesus Christ who lives among us.

Truly, Christ is in our midst; He is and ever shall be. But what do these words really mean, what can they mean, for us, for today?

Prepare to meet your Maker, and more than that, to be unmade, and remade in an image both strange and beautiful, but to which you will be forever blinded, as you will be standing in the Light Uncreated that shone, that shines, on Tabor.

Expose yourself to the Word

‘Adam!’ the Voice cried out, ‘Where are you?’

Since the beginning, since Paradise, God has been calling us, seeking us, and yet we hide ourselves from Him. ‘I was naked,’ we say when we finally come out of hiding, ‘and so I hid myself.’ And we hear that fearful question, ‘Who told you that you were naked?’

Why am I always harping on this single topic, ‘Read your Bible’? Why do I think this is so important? Who is it I am trying to convince? Well, brethren, it is myself that I am trying to convince, not you. It is myself that I have to keep reminding. It’s just that I don’t want to be the only one who must be reminded, and so I pass on to you what it is I am hearing. I hope that you are past reminder; I know I am not.
It’s just that I feel safer as part of a crowd,
even when I’m hiding from God.

‘My sheep know My voice.’

How can we know the voice of Jesus, if we don’t hear it every day? How can we recognize His voice speaking to us in the world amidst so many other voices clamoring for our attention? First, we have to go where His voice is the only voice, and then stay as long as possible, listening to Him. The more we hear His voice as it is recorded in scripture, the more we will hear it in the world outside. In the Bible, it’s true, He is talking to others, to His disciples, to the curious, and to those who hated Him, and many say, ‘Well, what He said was for them, but not for us!’

Right, and… wrong. Jesus in the Gospels does speak to specific people, and we cannot put ourselves forcibly into the narrative and by our own will decide to be this or that bible character, following exactly what Jesus told him or her to do. Yet, His words are spoken to us even now, sometimes the same as the bible records, sometimes different. It is by knowing His voice in the scriptures, that we recognize it when He speaks to us today. How can He speak to us today? I cannot tell you how, only that He does, and when you do hear His voice, you are given the same opportunity to follow His call as His first disciples were.

‘Follow Me.’

How can we follow Jesus if we believe in Him only as some character in the pages of the bible? Yes, we say we believe He is the Son of God, and that He saves us from death and hell, and even that He is risen, truly risen. ‘But where is He then, so that we can follow Him? Isn’t He in heaven at the right hand of the Father?’

Again, I point to the scriptures. Just as we read His words in the Gospels and through hearing them every day come to know His voice, so also we see Him working in the Gospels and through watching what He does there every day, we come to see Him working here in the world of today. That has to be true. How else can we say ‘Just follow Jesus,’ or ‘Keep your eyes on Jesus’ if it weren’t true? This is the proof of His resurrection and victory over death, that He is here among us. It is by seeing Him every day in the scriptures that we can see Him every day in the world. He says to us, ‘My Father goes on working, and so do I,’ and seeing Him at work in the world, and hearing His voice, we can follow Him.

It is very common to have a book of scriptures that is small and portable, containing just the New Testament and the Psalms. The bible has been reduced for everyday use by everyone in every place, so no one can say, ‘Where should I start? The bible is so vast; I don’t know where to begin.’

The Psalms are there to teach us not only to pray, but to recognize the voice of God speaking personally to us. Just as we recognize the voice of Jesus in the world by hearing it in the Gospels, so we also recognize the voice of the Holy Triad—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—when He speaks to us in daily life.

The Psalms are like a revolving door to Paradise. By reading and praying the Psalms every day, we make our petitions known to God, and He responds to us both in the words that we read, and also in the world. Again, we are doing no more than learning God’s language, coming to recognize His voice, learning to distinguish His ways from those of the world. ‘Thus is your servant formed by them; observance brings great reward’ (Psalm 19, Jerusalem Bible).

So listen, my soul. Expose yourself by day and by night to the Word of God, that you may hear His voice calling your name in every place, every time, that after this earthly pilgrimage, you will recognize that same voice saying, ‘Come, faithful servant, into that Paradise prepared for you before the foundation of this world.’

Into the time that remains

I cannot add anything to Aunt Melanie's wonderful, though sobering, essay on the ramifications of ‘getting old’ except to give it a new title as I repost it here on my blog: Into the time that remains. Yes, that's what I'd call it, because that is where her beautiful meditation is heading. Perhaps the theme is not exactly relevant to Memorial Day, or maybe it is. After all, some of us one day soon will join those whom we remember today. You can read Aunt Melanie's essay at her excellent blog Repentance and Ascent.

It is not only senior citizens who are getting old. Everyone ages from the day they are born, but seniors feel the aging process with a greater urgency. Many people seem not to plan for old age, however, until the latter half of their life. I began thinking about retirement when I was in my 40s, and I wish I had started when I was in my 20s. I used to take care of everyone except myself and, honestly, money did not matter much to me. But, as the aging process began subtracting years from my lifespan, I realized that I had to assume more responsibility for my own health and welfare.

Nobody was going to take care of me. I do not expect anyone to take care of me—but I am trying to emphasize the reality of age, how quickly you can lose everything, and how difficult it would be to recover those losses in the senior years. There are illnesses, accidents, stresses, inflation, natural disasters, crime, bad investments, and miscalculations of various kinds. There are homeless people who never expected to become homeless—people like you and me.
 
Senior citizens are not going to get younger. Each birthday brings us closer to death. Each Christmas could be our last. Most people in the world are younger than us. Perhaps worse than death, worse than poverty or isolation, would be a dependence on the medical profession. It is precisely that prospect that motivates me to learn to depend on God. Pills, operations, botched operations, special diets, rehabilitation facilities, walkers, wheelchairs, oxygen tanks. I am not saying that people who need these things do not depend on God or that I am better than they are. I just mean that the prospect acts as a stimulus to deepen my spiritual life.
 
Whatever happens to me, I will trust in God that His will is sufficient for me. Whether medications or miracles, whether another day or another 30 years, whether forgotten or remembered. Ultimately, health does not matter—just as money did not matter to me when I was young. What matters is to go forward into the time that remains, following Christ with every step and praying with every breath.

Healing rain

I awoke in the dark night, the cool air drifting into my room through two wide opened windows, the soft sounds of a gently falling rain soothing to my mind and soul. Healing rain, the heavens liquefying to lay down on hard, unyielding pavements and dry, thirsty soil a moist blanket of peace in the night, peace after a day satisfied with its work, peace and stillness.

Always welcome to me, rain by night or by day invites me to pause, to return to my inner home. I would curl up in a cushioned chair in a corner between two windows, maybe a light blanket over me, and read a good book, or the Good Book, or even just the book of my memories. Taking pause, the selah of the psalms, after words or work, to stop and consider, it is enough.

This night the rain remembered another day when it healed the earth and those that live upon it and are buried in it. That bright day many years ago when, after a week of my wife’s family reunion at Buffalo Lake, Alberta, some of us turned aside to a graveyard in Camrose to commit to the soil the ashes of one of its own, my father-in-law James Raymond Mabbott.

He had come home from Australia to die. After a stormy marriage that produced five children in short order, he had disappeared, leaving his wife and oldest daughter to manage a fatherless family. Canadian farm boy of good stock, he was descended from Christian people from England’s smallest county, Rutlandshire, that came to settle in Wisconsin before the Civil War.

That family fanning out over the great plains, always west and north, to the Dakotah Territory, then spilling over to fill the prairie provinces, to Saskatchewan, to Alberta, leaving sturdy sons and swarthy but fair daughters to build homesteads, first from sod houses, at last produced the generation that was cast into the fiery furnace of the second world war, turning farm boys into killers.

After that war, wishing to forget, one took to alcohol and riotous living, but obligations to kith and kin must still be met. A young man took a wife, daughter of Ukrainian settlers who wished to become ‘white’ as quickly as possible. To be like other Canadians, my wife’s grandmother Domka, daughter of Father Theodosius Taschuk of the Russian Orthodox mission, became Doris.

She sent her children to the Protestant school and church, never spoke the ancestral tongue, the better to make Canadians out of them. When my mother-in-law was six, the old country reappeared in Father Theodosius coming to the settlement, rounding up all the children who hadn’t been baptised, and giving them the triple dunk in a large washbasin. Nancy became Anastasia in a hidden moment.

Then, back to Nancy as she grew up, a nice ‘white’ girl like all the other Smiths and Gordons and MacDearmids, when she became ripe for wedding, the young school mistress became the missus Mabbott, and started bearing children for her gallant young man. But the war had left large scars on his soul, and Christian though he was, what little faith he had was traded for drink.

Before long, the inevitable happened. Paper Christianity doesn’t have much holding power, and the young family was torn in two. As usual the children weighted down their mother’s boat, almost capsizing it. And the father, clinging to his piece of driftwood, was finally lost at sea. They never saw him again for a decade, hearing only rumors that he, like many others, had gone down under.

When he finally returned, it was to come home to die. The family was mostly grown. His oldest daughter had just become my wife. He went about trying to gather his sons and daughters together, and to make amends, tried to give them what he thought they needed, but money can’t atone for missing years. Before long he couldn’t hide his throat cancer any more. He had to pay the piper.

I knew him very little, but I could see what sort of man he must have been, and could have been. He was no stranger to virtue, but even loaded with virtues, a man can still be felled by one carefully aimed vice. Not wanting to ‘be buried in the cold earth’ he requested, and was granted, to have his remains cremated, so his bones would not feel the frozen clay, but his ashes had no resting place.

Not even an urn, just a cardboard box contained him, or what was left of him, as we opened the trunk of my car parked at the roadside. His oldest son was angry, was outraged that his father had nothing to show for him but a box of ashes. It was a bright day, its sharp outlines blunted by the steady drizzle that drenched the ground and muddied our boots as we walked into the cemetery.

There was a grave opened and ready to receive his ashes. I don’t remember how they were interred, but someone took charge of them. My part was to perform the memorial service. James, my father-in-law, was not a religious man, but he was a Christian, not a victorious one, but a crushed one. He was a man who had to go through a dark wood by night and was attacked, robbed and killed by a brigand.

No one else in the family knew what to do, and the church affiliations of those present at the interment were sketchy, so it fell to us, to my wife and me, to ‘do something’ for a memorial. What we did was the Greek Orthodox memorial service, singing parts of it in Greek for that little crowd of pious but undiscipled Christian relatives. ‘Meta pnevmaton dikaion teteleiomenon…’

I had printed out the memorial service and the few parts that were in Greek I translated, but no one holding a copy in their hands was looking at it. Something I learned early about the rain: you can cry in it and not be ashamed, because no one can tell the tears from the raindrops on your face, unless they look very closely. One of my wife’s sisters joined in as we sang ‘Aionia i mnimi…’

That simple melody, Ainonia i mnimi, ‘Eternal be his memory,’ still hung in the air as we slowly parted from each other and returned to our cars. Some of the family had stayed in their cars because they were afraid of the rain. It made me wonder at the time, and even now, what people think is important, and why. Me, I am as much an Indian as I can be, bare-chested I love to go out in the rain.

As I sit here by my open window, that beautiful, constant sound of water plays music on the dark hardness outside, finding echoes within me, and I hope that when the sun rises in about an hour, the rain will continue. The world and I both need healing right now, and we cannot heal ourselves. Our memories cannot heal us, our doctrines and covenants cannot heal us, only the rain.

The rain, no, not the water falling that I love to run in or sit quietly under cover and listen to, not that rain, though it can be the harbinger. No, the real rain, that which God sends to water the earth, to water the heart, that is the rain I am talking about. We know the name of that red rain that washes away all stain of sin and the sting of pain. It is blood. It is grace. Healing rain.

Aionía i mními - Eternal be their memory

At their first meeting, Reginald Fleming Johnston, the British tutor of the last emperor of China, Aisingioro Pu Yi, the young prince asks him, ‘Where are your ancestors buried?’ Comes the reply, ‘In Scotland, Your Majesty.’ This was the emperor’s first personal question to his new tutor, after which the conversation quickly moved on to other things, but it demonstrates how important it was to know where one’s ancestors are buried.

When we think of East Asian culture, one of its features that comes to mind is the idea and practice of ‘ancestor worship.’

When I go to an Asian store, anything from a humble grocery to a full-fledged shopping mall, there I always see a shelf or an entire aisle or two devoted to merchandise necessary to the cult of ancestors: statues of Chinese gods, memorial tablets, incense pots and vases, joss sticks (incense) by the bundle, ‘hell money’ in bank notes and gold foil ingots, and joss (burnable) versions of everyday articles and clothing, consumables for the afterlife.

But it isn’t only the East Asians that have this concern for their ancestors. This is intrinsic to many cultures, in my own in fact as an Orthodox Christian, except in my case, and for many Americans and others living a mobile lifestyle, I don’t know where most of my ancestors are buried, and even when I do, there is little or no possibility that I will ever visit their graves in my entire lifetime. Yet, in my childhood I remember visiting graves with my parents, and leaving flowers.

Cemeteries. In theory I love them, and whenever I drive past one, something in me always pauses and I feel like my heart is on the edge waiting for something, waiting for a voice to speak, or for faces to appear: There are people buried there under those stones, hundreds of people, hidden under that vast blanket of comforting grass.

A child said
What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?

I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition,
out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners,
that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child,
the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means,
Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff,
I give them the same,
I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people,
or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come
from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints
about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers,
and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life,
and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

(Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Book 3, ‘Song of Myself,’ Canto 6)

The nature god lover and praiser Uncle Walt’s words come to mind because they announce so well what I feel inside me, though my rational mind rebels against this as mere sentiment, rebuking my heart’s hopes while envying it for them. Like the rest of the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve, I want to believe that my life and their lives are not, were not, all for nothing, that the universe is tamed and given meaning by love, that all that goodness doesn’t just run to waste.

If there is a God—and I do not doubt this—He must have made provision for us. He too must not want all this goodness to just run to waste and disappear. Those corpses in the graveyard once were men and women and children. That’s what they were once, and that they will be again, but now? What are they but objects waiting to be revivified? Is there any real connexion between those endless iterations of decay prevented by vaults and boxes from returning to feed the earth, and the living beings they once were?

‘I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.’ With every new translation of the original Greek προσδοκώ, proz-dho-KOH, ‘I expect, I anticipate,’ comes a new muddling of the real meaning. ‘I look for’ is about as weak a translation as I can imagine. It implies that something has been misplaced, or lost in the shuffle, but maybe in fact something has been lost: whatever it is that, beyond all appearances trimmed to visible size by time, really joins us to one another and to our ancestors.

C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity,

Human beings look separate because you see them walking about separately. But then we are so made that we can see only the present moment. If we could see the past, then of course it would look different. For there was a time when every man was part of his mother, and (earlier still) part of his father as well, and when they were part of his grandparents. If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing—rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.

Every year Memorial Day comes round, at least here in North America, a ready-made ‘holy day’ piled on top of other memorial days that have migrated with every culture that has ever come home to these shores. I live two thousand miles away from the graves of any of my recent ancestors and have never gone to visit their graves. It puzzles me and mystifies me, the feelings some of my ethnic neighbors have for the actual sites and contents of their ancestors’ resting places.

I envy even those of my own ethnic heritage whose little walled graves in church yards, some even surmounted with stone tables for memorial suppers, still understand what it means, still feel it, still feel them, the ancestors, alive and hidden in their own living flesh, and can therefore truly stand firm and confident in their προσδοκώ, in their expectation of the resurrection of not only the dead, but of their dead, their loved ones, who now live only by being carried in the memory of God.

Yes, Αιωνία η μνήμη, aionía i mními, ‘eternal [be] the memory,’ of all my pious and God-fearing ancestors, and yours, and all those who have cried out to Christ, ‘Remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom.’

Επικρανθη! Epikránthi!

The commandments of Jesus, if obeyed, absolutely turn the world ‘as it is’ upside down. We don't have to understand why He gives us these commandments. We just have to fulfill them. They aren't many, either. In fact He Himself reduced them down to just two basics. ‘Love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself.’ These commandments are both the easiest and the hardest, just as the yoke of Jesus is both the easiest (as He tells us) and the hardest. Easiest, when we decide to follow them, and do. Hardest, when we inwardly reject them, but try to do them for whatever other reason; in other words, when we resist.

A specific commandment of Jesus? Pray for those who persecute you and willfully abuse you. In other words, pray for your enemies. Your enemies, mind you, not His. At least, there is no one that He makes His enemy, though people make Him their Enemy. We do too, when we resist Him by holding back from following His commandments. But pray for your enemies. A radical thought, from the perspective of the world. But if followed, that world is brought to its knees. Interesting. We bring ourselves to our knees for the world our enemy that persecutes and abuses us, and that brings the world to its knees.
How so? Because it is vexed. 

Epikránthi! It was vexed! The word we shout at the end of the liturgy of the Resurrection, the night of Pascha, many times, as the sermon of John the Golden-Mouthed is read to us. We shout it at the service after the midnight hour, yet in the daylight, we often cannot see how we are to achieve this vexation of the world that afflicted Hades when Christ descended. Yet, it is only by following Him there in our world day by day, praying for our enemies just as He emptied Hell of His, even after they put Him to death. What we shout in the night, by following the commandments of Jesus, we can live in the day.
‘Come, let us drink of that new river…’

More than a lifetime

Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language and people. 
Revelation 14:6

If you look carefully at the language actually used in scripture, you will find that it is very flexible in application, so much so, that every age adapts it to its mentality and culture. It is conservatism inherent in the religious mindset that perpetuates the images of one age in another, making scriptural truth appear unpalatable, and hence unbelievable, in successive, more sophisticated ages. Yet that truth is meant to be universal and eternal.

Imagery associated with the judgment, for example, is drawn almost exclusively from Christ's description of the separation of the sheep and goats, adding to it elements of other biblical passages. We think this blending of texts is the way the Bible should be interpreted, sometimes even at the cost of reversing the literal meaning, yet this can divert us from eternal truths meant to be applicable, and credible, to every age and culture.

Yes, there is a day of judgment. It is a singular event, yet it is not one day, does not consist of twenty-four hours, cannot be located on a map or chart in space or time.

Yes, there is a judge, and a throne of judgment as well as mercy, yet neither He who sits on it, nor the seat itself, are what our human minds conceive or our mortal eyes envision.

Scripture is admittedly a testimony for mankind in our language. Christ alludes to this when He tells the Jews that it is not He who will judge them for their unbelief, but rather the words He has spoken; they will be their judge. How can this be? What has become of our creedal profession that ‘He shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead’? Again, He says, ‘these words are spirit and life,’ unhinging thus our dependence on what language and imagery alone can convey.

The moment of judgment for us is, as Christ says, both inaugurated and accomplished by our hearing the words that He speaks. How can it be otherwise? How can we be guilty of the sin of ‘law-breaking’ if we are not even aware of the content or existence of the law? True, the apostle Paul says we are judged guilty of sin even without knowing the content of the law, and as the Psalm declares, ‘in sins my mother conceived me.’

For everyone, not just the Pharisees of Christ's time, His word holds true, ‘Blind? If you were you would not be guilty, but since you say ‘we see,’ your guilt remains.’

Sin and righteousness, hell and heaven, the significance of all our thoughts, words and deeds in the light of holy and divine scripture—none of these are wholly encompassed within the meagre scope of our understanding. We are on a learning curve whose length we are loathe to admit. It is just too long.

Yes, ‘the best truths take a lifetime to set in’ [*], and even more than a lifetime, at least in earthly terms. What we have here is only the foundation, but what a foundation!

He is the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him; set yourselves close to Him, so that you too, the holy priesthood that offers the spiritual sacrifices which Jesus Christ has made acceptable to God, may be living stones making a spiritual house. As scripture says, ‘See how I lay in Zion a precious cornerstone that I have chosen’ and ‘the man who rests his trust on It will not be disappointed.’
1 Peter 2:4-6

Not by us

Not by us, Yahweh, not by us, by You alone is glory deserved.

Psalm 115

Yes, not by us, not by me,
but what is it we do deserve?
What is it?

This morning, though the sun be bright,
is one of those days when everything I do
and am seems dark to me.

On my own, I affirm, I can do nothing.
Without Him, I confess, I am nothing.
It seems believable,
everything my enemies say about me,
if I have any friends,
and I understand in the depths of my bones
that there is no truth in me. 
Why? 

Because the truth hurts.
The truth stings.
Even if it is not
the whole truth and nothing but the truth,
even if it is only a part.

Well does the devil know this,
as he spends his nights showing to each
the sins and faults of others,
their shortcomings,
their imperfections,
their willful selfishness,
while concealing one’s own.

So he laughs us to scorn,
using our lust for glory as his trump card,
breaking us at the very moment
we think we have achieved victory
over others.

On the way to work,
I pass in full, unashamed view the glory of mankind
on a street that claims its fame
from the prostitutes that ply their trade there.
In the morning
one sometimes sees an unfortunate,
having been scooted out of the bed of a one night stand
onto the street
without having had time to tidy herself up,
but not this morning.

Instead,
I pass a group of four or five handsome youth,
seniors probably,
walking their way together to the high school up ahead.
They are all so happy,
friendliness for each other streaming from glad hearts,
oblivious of what lies ahead.

Innocent in his glory,
the nearest catches my eye,
a tall, slender youth,
his mocha face trimmed in scanty, light brown whiskers,
modly bespectacled—qué guapo!
—my soul rejoices to see him
and speaks a blessing on him and his friends,
that their day be bright.

Not by us, Yahweh, not by us, by You alone is glory deserved.

Aching inwardly,
I feel I could write out my complaint in my own blood,
if I had a pen,
but I am humbled when I remember that
One has written in His own blood
not His complaint against us,
but the whole history of the universe from beginning to end,
and what is my cry against when faced with His,
‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’

I can only continue in seeming despair,
‘How far from saving me the words I groan!’

He has covered all, even me,
with His own vanquished despair and death,
and left me the fruits of a peace
I did nothing to earn.

Along with others, I torment myself
thinking that He has abandoned His friendship for us,
because we sin,
even because we fail,
even when we only think the thoughts
and not do the things that convict us.

But He is nothing like what we think.

Far from punishing,
He stands ready to catch us.

By Your love and Your faithfulness, by Your love and Your faithfulness.
Not by us, Yahweh, not by us, by You alone is glory deserved.

— Romanós

Spiritual fathers and mothers

Abba Silouan of Athos

Great power lies in the prayers of a spiritual father. For my pride I suffered much from devils but the Lord humbled and had mercy on me because of my spiritual father’s prayers, and now the Lord has revealed to me that the Holy Spirit dwells in our father-confessors, wherefore I hold them in deep respect. Because of their prayers we receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, and joy in the Lord, Who loves us and has given us all things needful for our salvation.

In the modern world that most of us inhabit, it is difficult to find what some Christians call ‘spiritual fathers’ to guide them in their lives. True, if you are an Orthodox or a Roman Catholic, the priest to whom you make your confession might fulfill that role. You might also find an elder or eldress at a monastery as a spiritual friend. But for most of us, this is how it works: ‘To read the teachings of the fathers, and to form peer friendships and journey together as far as possible.’ This has been my experience. For me, only one of these has been my parish priest, but only for a time: he was transferred elsewhere where his talents were more needed.

Yet, for those who are at the right place at the right time, real spiritual fathers and mothers do appear. When they do, they are still very humble, and do not force on us anything, just as the Lord does not force. They love us, affirm us, gently teach and guide us, bless us, pray for us, and guard our lives, taking upon themselves even our personal sins. I have known one or two, two or three, like this, and have benefited from their eldership, and still do. Without pretending to a grace I do not own, this is how I also want to be a spiritual father, and I think that at times, God allowing and arranging, I have fulfilled this role for a handful of people, and perhaps still do.

What is really necessary here, is the mentor who is willing to lay down his or her life for the disciple and even being a disciple themselves, and a disciple who wants to please Christ and receive the Holy Spirit so much, that he or she is willing to trust the untrustable (the mentor) to prove on the battlefield of their own body that they trust the Lord. When this rare conjunction occurs, it is as a miracle, an unearthly tryst of Divine and human natures, meeting in space and time as two mortals whom the Holy Triad is transforming into immortals, by welcoming them into Himself.

The inevitable step

The ascension of the Christ.
Yes, this is the inevitable step in the progression of mankind
into the new reality of the sons of God.

The first new Man has appeared.
He walked the earth in full humanity
cloaking His full Divinity for a mere thirty-three years.

Then, delivering Himself up, to both sorrow and certainty,
He let Himself be taken for a common criminal,
though not at all common,
for kings and prefects do not bother themselves
with the crimes of common men,
nor do noble ladies dream dreams about them.

What no one has ever seen before occurred.
No one could visualize it then or even now.
It is surely incomprehensible,
because we have no eyes for it, not yet.

Still, what men fear most happened in time,
and happens now and ever,
every day till the end of time,
inevitable death has been rolled away from a tomb
then, now, and forever void of the dead.

No, it is not death that men fear most, but life,
unending, beginningless life,
that which they were made for,
but which they cannot bring themselves to accept.

What is worse than being sentenced to death? 
To be sentenced for life,
to be condemned to live forever,
beginningless, endless, without respite,
before the face of Him who creates, loves and preserves all beings.

This is the eternal fire that enlightens those who love Him
and burns those who hate Him.

Hate Him? 
How can they hate the only-lover of mankind?

God is mercy to those who run to Him,
and judgment to those who run away.

Yes, the inevitable step.
Pierced feet fly upwards.
We follow them with our eyes, ignoring angels who tell us,
He returns in exactly the same manner that He departs.

Yes, the inevitable step.
He has taken it.
Now it is our turn, as it has always been.
Die in order to live.
Rise in order to receive what cannot be taken away.
Ascend in order to be present everywhere, to fill the earth.

‘Greater works than these are to be done by you,’ He says,
‘because I am going to the Father.’
He has taken the inevitable step, calling us to follow.

‘Why do you stand there gazing into the sky?’
Do not follow His feet only with your eyes.
Run after Him.
He comes again, in clouds, as we follow Him.
‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…’ 

He has taken the inevitable step.
There is no going back, for Him or for us.
Yes, the inevitable step.

— Romanós

Let God arise

PSALM 68

National song of triumph

For the choirmaster, of David, psalm, song.

Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered,

let those who hate Him flee before Him!

As smoke disperses, they disperse;

as wax melts when near the fire,

so the wicked perish when God approaches.

But at God's approach the virtuous rejoice,

exulting and singing for joy.

Sing to Yahweh, play music to His name,

build a road for the Rider of the clouds,

rejoice in Yahweh, exult at His coming!

Father of orphans, defender of widows,

such is God in His holy dwelling;

God gives the lonely a permanent home,

makes prisoners happy by setting them free,

but rebels must live in an arid land.

God, when You set out at the head of Your people,

and marched across the desert, the earth rocked, selah,

the heavens deluged at God's coming,

at the coming of God, the God of Israel.

God, You rained a downpour of blessings,

when Your heritage was faint You gave it strength;

Your family found a home, where You

in Your goodness, God, provided for the needy.

The Lord gives His couriers the news,

‘Shaddai has scattered a huge army.’

Kings are in flight, armies in flight,

the women at home take their pick of the loot.

Meanwhile you others were lolling in the sheepfolds.

There were dove wings covered with silver,

on their pinions the sheen of green gold;

jewels were there like snow on Dark Mountain.

That peak of Bashan, a mountain of God?

Rather, a mountain of pride, that peak of Bashan!

Peaks of pride, have you the right to look down on

a mountain where God has chosen to live,

where Yahweh is going to live for ever?

With thousands of myriads of divine chariots

the Lord has left Sinai for His sanctuary.

God, You have ascended to the height,

and captured prisoners,

You have taken men as tribute,

yes, taken rebels to Your dwelling, Yahweh!

Blessed be the Lord, day after day,

the God who saves us and bears our burdens!

This God of ours is a God who saves,

to the Lord Yahweh belong the ways of escape from death;

but God will smash the heads of His enemies,

the hairy skull of the man who parades his guilt.

The Lord has promised,

‘I will bring them back from Bashan,

I will bring them back from the bottom of the sea,

for your feet to wade in blood,

for the tongues of your dogs

to lap up their share of the enemy.’

God, Your procession can be seen,

my God's, my King's procession to the sanctuary,

with cantors marching in front, musicians behind,

and between them, maidens playing tambourines.

Bless God in your choirs,

bless the Lord, you who spring from Israel!

Benjamin, the youngest, is there in the lead,

the princes of Judah in brocaded robes,

the princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.

Take command, God, as befits Your power,

that power, God, You have wielded on our behalf

from Your Temple high above Jerusalem!

Kings will come to You, bringing presents.

Rebuke the beast of the reeds,

that herd of bulls, those calves, that people,

until, humbled, they bring gold and silver.

Scatter those warmongering pagans!

Ambassadors will come from Egypt,

Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God.

Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth,

play for the Rider of the heavens,

the ancient heavens, selah.

Listen to Him shouting, to His thundering,

and acknowledge the power of God!

Over Israel His splendor,

in the clouds His power,

God in His sanctuary is greatly to be feared,

He, the God of Israel,

gives power and strength to His people.

Blessed be God.