The If-Only Folly

I find myself on occasion tempted to enter fully into a moment, but the passage of the self that is entering is blocked by a strange thought: “The rain falling and the birds gathering down at the end of the block, the smells of winter and its chill against my skin, the silence of the neighborhood, now and then a sweet note from violin practice across the street, the thereness of the sky, of light, of my own seeing and being a part of existence — my entrance into the full enjoyment of this moment would be complete, if only… ____.”

Everything that matters is wrapped up in the eternity of that silent moment. Most obvious is contentment, even amid daily struggles, but also, corollary to that, is faith (and the capacity to escape worry), an implied patience in regard to the future (since one is now enmeshed in the present) that walks hand in hand with hope, love, and finally joy with all its fruits, including both happiness and sadness, and genuine power over death.

Yet, I am blocked by contingencies, hence the blank at the end of the paragraph. I could be here now in silence if circumstances were somehow different, if all my debts were paid off, if I had a new car, if my kids were in better schools, if I was financially stable, or had more money or more recognition, if only ad nauseum. If I lived in some alternate universe, perhaps, this moment would hold me not as a captive, but as one captivated and fully aware.

I do not know how many times I have read the parable of the fool in the Gospel of Luke. It’s the one where the rich man has a huge harvest, and he says to himself that he will destroy his barns and build bigger ones. Once the bigger barns are built, he figures, “I will say to my soul…you have many goods stores up for many years; take your ease: eat, drink and be merry.” In response to this, God says, “You fool! Tonight you are going to die, and then whose will those things be which you have provided?”

Regardless of how many times I have read it and missed the point, one of its primary meanings was brought home to me recently in a homily given by my priest. Jesus is not condemning eating, drinking and merrymaking (as I have always seen as the gist in my own poor reading of the passage), but is rather pointing out the problem of putting one’s trust in things or circumstances on the one hand, and on the other the difficulty of never being able to find satisfaction — never arriving at the point where one can actually eat, drink and be merry, or, as it were, enter the moment.

My priest, Fr Isaac, said that we, of course, might think we are different. I wouldn’t be like the rich man who isn’t satisfied with his profits! If I only had the chance, a huge harvest, a lottery win, for instance, I wouldn’t seek to “build bigger barns”, but would begin the merrymaking immediately! He pointed out that making such a statement is saying the same thing the rich man is saying, and that by saying such a thing we prove ourselves to be exactly like him! Our entrance into the moment is, like the rich man’s, contingent on something else, bigger barns and stored-up wealth, winning the lottery, getting a great job, buying a house, marrying, or whatever…the folly of “if only”.

This revelation, which is probably obvious to others, struck a deep chord in me. We can appreciate the gift of each moment we have now, and offer it back to God; it does not need to be draped in a more perfect circumstance in order for us to receive it. The gift lies before us in each instant, moment to moment, and the only appropriate response is gratitude and enjoyment. The gift of God, of life, of happiness and contentment does not lay in the things we own (or think we own).

This should have always been clear to me given the context of the parable. It is preceded by the request of someone in the crowd to whom Jesus is speaking. The guy wants Jesus to arbitrate a dispute. He says, “tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus refuses, and instead says, “beware of covetousness. Your life does not consist in the abundance of the things you possess.” Then he gives the parable of the fool, whose life is required of him that night, and to whom God asks, “whose will those things be which you have provided?”

This is a huge issue in a consumerist culture. We work hard, and things are our reward! Ownership becomes the first right and the final virtue. From a young age we are reared on advertising and occupational optimism. There are multitudes of things to acquire that purport to make you happy, and if you put enough effort into it, you can be anything you want to be! The more money you make, the happier you will be. The more things you acquire, the more fulfilled you will be as a person, but more than that, you will be a better person, a person of worth, because in a consumerist culture the person who contributes to wealth the most has the greatest value. He or she justifies his existence by being a “productive member of society”, and to not be productive, or to be poor, in this scheme, is to be unjust, is shameful, and is demonized and stigmatized.

But we who strive to find meaning in possessions are never able to attain that plateau which has been promised in the fog of material wealth, so we continue to strive to build bigger and bigger barns with no end in sight. Contentment is just around the corner. One thing is acquired, then suddenly something new is needed.

Jesus says that one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. St John Chrysostom in his sermon on poverty and wealth says there is no need to build bigger barns, that we already have all the barns that we need, “the stomachs of the poor”.

The error of the fool was not only to imagine that his life and security could be found in the abundance of his wealth, but that his things actually belonged to him, that he actually owned them. Yet, St Ambrose writes, “the things which we cannot take with us are not ours. Only virtue will be our companion when we die.”

This is absolutely contrary to our culture in which we imagine we work in order to own things, and that in our possessions our life consists. Property and money become closer to us than our neighbor, more important to us than genuine virtue, and this plays itself out in the way we live, in our frustrations over things that break or get lost or stolen, in our fear of losing what we have, in our fear of the poor whom we stigmatize and castigate and blame because we are afraid of becoming like them.

It may be obvious and simple, but it is a revelation to me that contentment, peace, happiness, patience, faith, hope, love, and joy are not found at all in possessions or in some future perfect circumstance where we can own the moment; but the gift is before me now in the present, and is not dependent or contingent in any way on what I have or do not have, or on my situation in life. The gift is here for me now in this present moment.

That makes it all the more meaningful when Jesus follows his parable by saying to his disciples, “do not worry.”

[crossposted at http://marginalaccretion.wordpress.com/

A Meditation/Ramble on Expectation

Now into Lent, I am thinking of the idea, culled from Fr Thomas Hopko, that one should have no expectations of either being praised or pitied, and that one should only expect to be tempted until his very last breath.

This is a difficult idea because I usually expect, at the very least, for other people to be polite to me (even if I'm not particularly polite to them.) It occurs to me at that level that one's expectations tie into issues of security, what we treasure, where the needle balances on my personal absorption ratio (i.e., the tension between how self-centered and deluded I am in contrast to how clearly I can see other people).

My own experience seems to be that my expectations are routinely destroyed, most often through the scandal of my life, and I end up being in a situation "I never expected" or never thought would happen. I never thought, for instance, I would be twice divorced, or that rather than being a successful, bestselling novelist by the age of thirty, I'm still a struggling unemployed hack at forty. On the more positive side, I never expected to have children and to love them so much. If you asked me when I was twenty-five if I wanted kids, I would have been ambivalent on the subject, or said it didn't matter to me. Now, having two beautiful sons, I would not have it any other way, though I never expected it.

There are obviously many people who have had expectations dashed, given the present economic crisis. Losing fortunes, billionaires kill themselves. Others have their homes foreclosed, lose their investments, their retirement funds, their life savings and their jobs. The pastor in Illinois who was gunned down and murdered over the weekend likely didn't expect such a thing to happen. So although I may have appropriate expectations, such as to be able to eat, to be able to work and live without being violated, to have access to health care and the freedom to live in a healthy environment, and to give and receive mutual respect from my neighbors -- expectations bound up in human dignity -- it is naive and foolish to hold onto these. It is naive and foolish because the world is in a state of ruin, and although redeemed and liberated by Christ, the process of its eschatological realization is slow.

One also tends to expect that certain conditions or circumstances will end in happiness. If I get a high-paying job and a house in the country, I will be happy. That sort of thing. I know people who run from one to the next, indefinitely, always sure they will find the happiness they seek in the next brainstorm or fantasy, in money, in another person, in a vacation to Tahiti, a new car, a church, or whatever. It doesn't pan out. But such a person diligently runs on to the next pipe dream, thinking, "this time, I will make it work!"

Personally, I do not tend to do this, but my expectations, which are strongly attached to feeling secure, are just as badly bound up in more immediate concerns, the desire to be seen or loved, and the demand that other people live up to their obligations or promises. We often do not, however, live up to all of our obligations. People let us down, and screw up. For me, part of the way of not giving into the impulse of seeking my own safety and security in other people, or in expecting others to meet certain needs that they cannot possibly, in reality, truly meet, is to recognize and remember how often I have screwed up, put myself first, not met my most basic obligations to other people, and have let other people down.

I have learned this through repetition in the context of Christian communities. I've been in bad situations, both as a Protestant and Orthodox Christian. The history of Israel and of the Church is filled with bad situations. I like how Fr David Anderson once put it, when he said, "the church has always had its sleazy side." Without it, the epistles, most of which are corrective, might not have been written. The sleaze is everywhere and in all of us. That is why I am in the Church, to be cured from the disease of my own sleaze. One's expectation should not be bound up in a certain person, a pastor or bishop or situation, but, obviously, in Christ. Everyone says this. However, I still come across people who have left the Church, disavowed Christ, or gone on their way into something else because they are "disillusioned" due to some scandal, or because some people or a group of people let them down. But if we, as Fr Thomas advises, "expect only to be tempted to our very last breath", the failures of others would not have such an effect. False or misplaced expectations can have devastating consequences.

Recently, I heard the spiritual son of Fr Sophrony, who was the spiritual son of St Silouan, on Ancient Faith Radio. He talked about how to respond when other people hurt you. On a most basic level, I think most people, including myself, have the expectation of being treated civilly. Fr Zahkaria pointed out that when someone says an unkind word, or treats one badly, it is a wound that cannot be avoided, and should be acknowledged as such. One is inflicted, one is wounded. But he said that at this point, one has a choice: one can judge the person who has wounded him by thinking such thoughts as, "he's not a very good person", or "I didn't deserve that", which is unproductive and not helpful. Or, he said, one can turn the infliction into a pathway into the heart, and in prayer, use the energy of the wound to pray, not in self-righteousness, "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner." This, he indicated, strengthens the spirit, and encourages one's own heart to love even his enemy.

That comes to the root of my rambling meditation on the subject, which is (and as a fool I include this but bear with me) a dream that I had the other night. I had a dream that I was guilty of a sin, and when I went to Church to confess, I was not allowed in. I was blocked by an invisible barrier, like St Mary of Egypt. I thought, "this is what happened to St Mary of Egypt", and with a sense of panic, I tried to find a side way into the building, but was invisibly blocked. It was a big building, a church I have never seen in real life. Finally, a priest came out to see me, some long-haired, long-bearded guy, who listened to my confession, then waved his hand as if it was inconsequential, like, "yeah, whatever." Rather than address the particular sin I had confessed, he said, "what are you ever going to do about your terrible pride?"

That, I think, is the nub. I expect certain things from other people, or certain things to happen for me, because I think I deserve it. I deserve it because I think I am something I am not, and people generally think they are more worthy than they are. There are legitimate expectations intrinsic to human dignity, which cannot be counted on to be fulfilled due to the fallen state of reality. But most expectations, I think, arise from an elevated sense of the self, in self-absorption and pride. But if we are humble, which means having a real view of ourselves, we will expect nothing but to be tempted, per Fr Thomas, until our very last breath, and when other people sin against us, that is only an opportunity to forgive.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

I've been enjoying reading this book a little during Lent this year, and I could go on for a long time about the experience I've had in doing this. A couple thoughts:

First, I've been hearing a lot recently about the lack of respect people show each other these days. I see this a lot in my work place. Its cool to just tease the heck out of people that you're close to, all in the name of joking around and having a good time. On the whole, everyone involved has a good time, with occassional feelings getting hurt. St. John of the Ladder does not like this. He tells us that we should treat everyone as though we have just met them, that we should live as though we are in exile from our homeland. I strongly recommend his Step 3: "On Exile."

Second, as always, my favorite step is step 4: "On Obedience." Those who know should be laughing at this thought, but I assure you that I enjoy it so much because it strikes me at the heart every time. I cannot even begin to characterize his text. He teaches me to set my own desires down. I walk away from this, remembering that there is so much for me to try to figure out in my own life, that I can stop worrying about what others are doing (or not).

The Seeker

It is common in religious circles to talk about a certain type of person known as a “spiritual seeker”. For many the term “seeker” conjures up all kinds of mystical and adventurous images oftentimes romanticized in popular culture. I was always attracted to these types of characters in books and movies: the lone determined hero on his quest for knowledge and the mystic experience. I was a shy and introverted kid, often spending hours absorbed in imaginary adventures, pretending I was one of these heroes from the popular sci-fi and adventure movies and books I often watched and loved to read. I believe this imaginary world I was often living in gave root to my later attraction to the idea of “the seeker”.

As a teenager I began to explore world religions and spirituality. I felt the exhilaration of an adventurer in discovering the exotic and mystical paths trodden by seekers in religious texts and myths. In my imagination I began to form a caricature of the archetypical “seeker,” like the wondering mendicants of Chinese and Indian Hindu and Buddhist mythologies, or the solitary hermit in a cloister or cave, or the homeless monk who has taken the vow of poverty, fearlessly wandering the earth and plumbing the depths of his own soul to confront his own fears in the darkness within, only to emerge victorious, the conqueror of evil, radiating enlightenment, peace and bliss. This image of the seeker began to replace my childhood heroes, and I would find myself fantasizing about being a wandering seeker myself.

Admittedly, I have had a genuine desire to seek God for as long as I can remember. But coming from a divorced household, with no strong role model to guide me through the transition from childish fantasy to “the real world,” I simply retained my tendency to transform the impressions of my life into my imaginary fantasy world that I was so accustomed to taking shelter in. I naively thought that the caricatures I had created of these heroes - religious or otherwise - were, in fact, reality. I thought that all I had to do was pretend and mimic them to have the genuine experiences I imagined they were having. Perhaps it is common for children to have that kind of imagination, to be able to fantasize about things so deeply that they almost feel like they are their favorite heroes. However, it also seems that it is natural to “grow up” or mature and - with the help of parental figures - to become more acquainted with reality. Somehow, it was not so for me, until I was much older.


These past few weeks leading up to this new Lenten season, I have been trying to be honest with myself in coming to terms with my lingering immaturity, especially in regards to spiritual life. Much of my adult life until now - almost 20 years - I have simply been pretending, and indulging in the same old familiar fantasy pretend realms, and thinking that to mimic the caricature is a real spiritual life. I am trying now to learn - thanks be to God that He has been showing me - that it is now time to give up my fantasy play-time, and stop pretending I am someone I am not, to finally be myself, and to start anew.

This process of “growing up” in my relationship with God is painful at times. My ego would rather remain in the fantasy. But I am beginning to see that it is not enough to simply go through all the motions, as I imagine this imaginary “seeker” would, and to expect this to substitute for a genuine relationship with God and my neighbors.

This Lent I am trying hard to follow the fast, and to fast especially from those fantasy images I have created about God and myself. I am trying to follow this fast simply out of obedience and faith, with no expectation of some enlightenment experience like “the seeker” character I have created supposedly has. I’m trying to take off the costume and remove the props and toys I have held onto in my internal fantasy-drama of a “spiritual life”. In fact I have been learning that it is better for me to stand before God naked, as it were, and simply say “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I should do. All my imaginings and fantastic expectations have been illusions and nothing more than a child’s escape from reality. Have mercy on me! Please help me! Guide me and teach me who and what I should be and do.” I am realizing now that it is not enough to read about God and pretend or fantasize about what it might be like to be a saint. I want to be me for real and to know God for real.

The Lot of Normal People

Tonight after my children were put down I asked my wife how close to the brink she felt she was. I told her that I thought that we did a pretty good job of giving it our best - "it" being "life" - and continuing to live it, though despair tends to linger especially now as the winter drags on. I think that we moderns live dangerously close to this margin, that behind the doors of our homes and our minds all of the very real pressures, fears and anxieties of modern life are manifested - while out in the world, at our jobs, our schools, our public lives, we dedicate more energy than we admit to glossing over this glaring reality. I know I do.

I remember walking home late one night almost a decade ago when I was living in Kansas City. I had just read "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown, an extensive account of the Native American Holocaust perpetrated by the encroaching ex-European population, and as I walked I felt, in a very acute way, that there was something profoundly wrong with things, with "the world." At the time I was a Christian, and yet I couldn't see the obvious, that the historical narrative of my own religion had at it's root the most sophisticated, and - more importantly - truth-filled explanation for this inherent gaping in the human heart.

When I finally converted to Orthodox Christianity I learned that the most important aspect of the faith wasn't my intellectual grasp on any ontological or cosmological falleness, but that I was given the "tools," so to speak, that would allow me to confront the darkness in my heart and in my world, and to live in this paradoxical reality.

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Today was the first day of Great Lent, where we do all of those things we do throughout the rest of the year as Orthodox Christians, only more so, and with greater intensity. Yesterday, the Sunday of Forgiveness, is also the Sunday of Adam's expulsion from paradise. I remember being in a class two summers ago and wincing at the instructor and my fellow students derogatory statements concerning Masaccio's famous rendering of the expulsion, as if the idea it attempted to communicate was somehow archaic or primitive. I couldn't help but think that some of my classmates knew all-to-well the horrors of the fall - of emptiness, instability, the crushing prospect of a meaningless existence.

The purpose of this blog is to communicate the life of the spiritual struggler, through the entries of a number of Orthodox laypeople.

Language often works to defeat us in the modern world: when we say "The Spiritual Life," we construct the boundaries between it and an assumed "Real" life. When an Orthodox Christian hears the term "Spiritual Life," he or she hears the words "Real life," and we don't arbitrarily divorce it from "material" life (eating, drinking, driving, burping, etc). When we hear the words "the life of the spiritual struggler" we think to type-cast the image of the some saints of old. We would do good to remember that the spiritual struggle is the lot of normal people. People who fight depression, anger, temptations and bad habits of all sorts, who have the inability to understand themselves or their own actions, who can't help but harbor hatred towards some people or things, who are crippled by shame. This isn't the picture of a psychiatric ward patient - this is the picture of everyone of us.

The spiritual life, the life of the Church, is the life that pulls together what the dynamic forces of sin seek to shatter. Therefore let's look to the life of the Church, her saints and teachings, her services and sacraments, and lift each other up in every way that we have the faculty to do so.

Forgive me if I have sinned against you in anyway,

-J.S.