On Suffering

"We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ's large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes, and by showing a real sympathy that springs, not form fear, but from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer." – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer was an amazing man. Flawed, but amazing. His understanding of suffering as inherent to life is incredible. Even amidst waiting for his execution, he understands that the call of the Christian is to rise to the occasion for another as did Christ. He later says that Christ didn't suffer until he had to, but when the moment came, he embraced it and turned it into salvation. As we, too, enter into the suffering of another, we begin to understand the truth of Christ's love for us. That's why Bonhoeffer suggests we should view others according to what they suffer and not just by what they do or do not do. If we fail to see people in the light of their sufferings, we do them a great disservice because we have failed to see one of the fundamental elements of their humanity.

Christ unites himself to fallen humanity through suffering. If we think, as Christians, that the way we develop important and lasting relationships is through corrective measures without first noting the basis of deviant behavior, we are reduced to moralistic theists at best and judgmental hypocrites without compassion at worst. How can we preach the love and condescension of our Lord on the one and, while on the other we demand faux righteousness from others? The Lord understands our weakness and enters into it, assuming its entirety on the cross and making it the doorway of his grace. It's not wonder that young Christians are turning from their faith as they find each encounter with the Lords people and the church to be nothing more than a cataloging of past misdeeds. Indeed, they often feel marginalized, unseen, unheard, and unable to be known. We are not the summation of our deeds; they come from a place within us that needs to be seen and known. As Christians, we must enter into this place with others and hold their hands as they come to realize the truth of their inner world. This is precisely what Christ did for us, and his heart contains us. We, too, must open our hearts, eyes, and ears and join the suffering of those around us.

On Holiness and Christ's Great Mercy

It has been a long time since I have given direct thought to achieving holiness. I normally like to think of things from a safe, theoretical distance. I would much rather discuss what it means for someone to be holy, or how, theoretically, an encounter with a holy man or woman might be (i.e., clairvoyance, miracles, etc.). This sort of postulation does little good when it comes time to actually grow in holiness oneself. I suppose it’s good to do some preliminary thinking about what the course of holiness might entail, but it really isn’t what it takes to achieve holiness. Things become much more rigorous, tiring, and important when one considers the practical aspect of self-denial and practicing the virtues.

I recently endured some great pain in my life as a result of something I did, and the great degree of separation from God that I experienced was nothing short of demoralizing. I came face to face with my own frailty, though even this is not entirely true as I still manage to hide from it in some weird sense of pride. I’m not sure what “entitles” me to this pride considering the sheer depravity of my mind, heart, and soul, but it exists regardless. The path that I must walk now is one that embraces the suffering and the truth about myself. It isn’t much different, I suppose, than what someone who suffers from a borderline personality must undergo in DBT. Though the philosophy of “You’re perfect. Now change,” is paradoxical and admittedly confusing, it carries with it a truth; one really cannot change until one accepts oneself. I can’t move on until I recognize where I am. I guess it’s sort of like a map. It doesn’t do a whole lot of good to just have the map, but in order to use it to find your final destination, you have to know precisely where you are currently. This is much the same with the spiritual life.

I suppose this is what Christ is talking about when he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We are all poor in spirit, but few of us actually recognize this simple truth. We come to the Lord bearing nothing of worth. It is just us and our hearts that we present to him, and as we do so, he opens our eyes to our lives and shows us the way to his divine life. For this reason, the Church cries out to Christ during Great Lent, “Open to me to gates of repentance.” We can only come to Christ in our desperation for him to show us the way home. He presents the way, which is, of course, himself. We present our darkened hearts to Christ that he may fill them with his light everlasting. I have always had this strange idea that Christ somehow wants me to show up already cleansed, but it is simply outrageous to expect that I can wash my own heart from the multitudinous sins that plague my existence. That is why we cry out to the Lord our God to purify us in his compassion.

As Alcoholics Anonymous tells us, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Precisely the same is true in our lives in Christ. We cannot be filled with grace from above until we admit that we are devoid of anything good. We bare our wretched hearts before Christ, asking that he will have mercy upon us in his goodness for this is what he does for those who ask. His mercy endures forever. This is our suffering; we are plagued by our willing separation from the Lover of our souls. We are hardened to his grace and love, but he continually pours forth his abundant goodness despite our continual rejection of it. There is a certain brand of Christian theology that claims that once one is saved, one cannot lose this salvation. I suppose that makes sense within the paradigm from which this belief is generated given that much of the language used is legal in nature. Imputed righteousness takes a front seat in this; Christ dies to remove our sin debt, and in return we get to live in his righteousness. For Orthodox Christians, however, the conversation is about Christ’s work removing the barriers between Man (humanity) and himself.

Three things stand between us and God; our nature (that of flesh), sin, and death. Christ, becoming man, breaks the first barrier in that he shares our nature. In the Nicene Creed, the fundamental statement of Christian belief, the faithful assert that Christ is of “one essence (homoousious) with the Father.” In the 14th century (I believe), a certain saint whose name eludes me used the same word to describe Christ’s relationship with Man: “of one essence.” In this, man is no longer separated from his creator. In his great kindness, Christ takes on our mortal nature, uniting it to himself eternally in the bosom of the Father. Secondly, Christ, in his fleshly existence, lived a sinless life that ended on the cross. By his sinless life, the burden of sin was lifted from Man – second barrier obliterated. Finally, Christ’s Resurrection from the dead on the Third Day destroys the power of Death, and Man is fully united to God in life, death, and, ultimately, resurrection. Each barrier Christ set aside in turn.

With the barriers broken, Man, myself included, is able to enter into relationship with the Lord no matter what the circumstances. He has made his divine life available to all who would come to him in faith. Nothing stands between God and Man anymore. The legality of the sin problem is not an issue. Indeed, it never was. It merely presented a hiccup in the reciprocating relationship between God and Man. It kept us from him because we were enslaved to it. Christ, the Door, has cleared the path for open relationship that can never be broken because God has eternally united Man to himself in his infinite mercy, opening the gates to repentance at all times in every place. Having lived the life of Man, there is nothing that Christ cannot heal for he himself has become the cure. The door to holiness is Christ our God, and as we stand before him, we must acknowledge that which has kept us from coming to him, admitting that nothing good exists within us. This is the heart of holiness. We say, “Lord, I am lost and needy.” We sit in that, understanding that God’s love is unending despite our sinfulness, and as we hold those truths in tension, the only natural request is, “Lord, have mercy!” This can seem like a desperate plea for release from condemnation, but it is a cry for true relationship. Since we come before him admitting what we truly are (lost and needy), we ask him to be what he is (merciful), and the beginning of true relationship occurs. This is our faith. This is our hope. This is our holiness.

On Peace and Repentance

I recently visited Chicago, and the trip was fantastic. Of course, the reason for the visit was a truly worthy one; a buddy was becoming Orthodox over Pentecost weekend. He took the name Silouan, whose story is one for the ages. St Silouan the Athonite lived a marvelous life in many ways, but what's most astounding to me is that three weeks after joining a monastery on Mt Athos, he was given the gift of unceasing prayer. Illumined by the light of the Holy Spirit within him, he prayed ceaselessly for the world, counting all others' sins as his own. Even still, his heart remained peaceful. I can't help but wonder how this could be the case, especially considering that the Lord Himself appeared to the Saint. The only thing that I can see being the answer to such a mind-boggling situation is that Silouan knew who the Lord was and who he was in relation to Him. I suppose this is the true nature of humility, at any rate – knowing who God is and who we are in relation to Him and His purpose. It is only the illumined heart, however, that is able to see things with such clarity.

When I consider this, I have to think of it in terms of my friend's experience of becoming Orthodox – or, at least in terms of how I perceived his experience. He was chrismated on Saturday, and it was beautiful to behold. We went through the service as usual, "The seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit," and at the end we were encouraged to welcome him into the Holy Orthodox Church. When he turned around to give me a hug (I was standing nearby as playing his godfather), his face looked like that of an angel. In the several years that I have been friends with this man, I have never once seen him so full of joy. I could have sworn that he was going to sprout wings and go flying through the stained-glass windows at the top of the church. The joy I beheld on his face was only surpassed by what I witnessed the next day, Pentecost, as he approached the Blessed Sacrament, the Body and Blood of our Lord. As we waited in line to receive the Holy Eucharist, he began to well up with tears (what I imagine to be tears of anticipation and joy). After Communing, he stood in the corner of the church quietly and serenely crying. There was no show to it. No whimpering. Just tears (and a couple sniffles). What I saw may have just been the three years and a half without Communion finally coming to a head for him, but I believe that what my godson experienced was nothing short of Divine Illumination and a true sharing in the peace of the Lord.

The illumined heart is one that is able to look at its shortcomings without anxiety, fear, or despair. This is the crucial part, I think, to walking in love and light of Christ. Just because we can see our failings doesn't mean that we have experienced the Divine Light, rather, it just means we are highly perceptive and prone to self-loathing. The Divine Light points us toward the Sun of Righteousness whose rays and warmth are ever-inviting. We do ourselves a great disservice if we continue to dwell on our failings. Instead, we must turn our hearts, sinful and dark as they are, toward the Compassionate and Merciful God. In our minds, we often spend too much time thinking about ourselves as is, and we can even see this in much of the way we speak about salvation in the Western traditions of Christianity. Much of the time when the question, "Are you saved?" is asked, it implies that the one who needs saving has a say in the matter. We believe too much in our own capacity to answer such questions, regardless of the "Salvation is God's work" language we may be able to add to supporting theology. Rather, in the Eastern tradition, we come to understand who we are before God, and in spite of this, draw near to Him emboldened by His compassion. For this reason, the Church continually prays, "Lord, have mercy." We are basically asking God to be Himself, and to recognize us amidst that.

When we understand who God truly is – the Compassionate One who became like unto us, taking on our fallen nature, submitting to death, and rising again on the Third Day – we have no questions about whether God will receive us in love. When we fail to understand who God is or who we are, relationship with the Divine ceases to be a possibility. Much the problem is that we consistently fail to see clearly on either side of the situation. Here repentance, a change of mind, is of the utmost importance. When I look at the majority of my life so far, I realize that most of the time has been spent letting my own wants and perceived needs dictate the course of my actions. I have put my own self in charge in a feeble attempt to sit on God's Sovereign Throne. Life in Christ is a complete reversal of this. It puts God back in His Throne, and keeps me as a servant of God on earth. Indeed, it is a life that embraces humility – earthiness. We can think wrongly about humility if we consider it as mere lowliness. Yes, it is lowliness, but not in the sense of its relation to how bad we are, but in the sense of it being exactly what we are in the light of Christ. In Genesis, God fashions man from the dust of the earth and breathes life into him. Subsequently, woman is fashioned from man's rib. In this, we can understand that for man to embrace a humble life is an attempt for man to embrace who he really is – fashioned by God from the lowly dirt. Moreover, we see that man and woman are a part of each other. One is not exalted above the other, but they are truly flesh of each other's flesh. We cannot for one second in our life in Christ think that we stand alone as judge and overseer of our lives. Even speaking of "my life" as mine is a disservice to myself. My life is God's. It's sort of like how parents say, "I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it." This reflects a great deal of truth – my life is a gift of God that must be resubmitted to Him for His glory. This gift of my life also belongs to my neighbor. To embrace humility – recognizing who God is (the Creator) and recognizing who I am in relation to Him (His beloved creature) – leads directly to the path of peace, because actively embracing humility is truly an act of repentance.

By God's grace we continue to understand who He is and who we are in His love. If we try to walk away from the truth of the nature of this relationship, we walk directly into a life of anxiety and discord. Only a life filled with the Holy Spirit is able to stand before God in true humility, and pray for others' sins as though they were one's own. Though this manner of life is not always sustainable, it is at least worth praying that the God who created the world and breathed life into man will make Himself known to us. When this happens, the light of God, if only for a moment, shows us who we are, and we are able to repent and walk briefly in peace.

On Pressing In

There is less than a week left of the Holy Fast, and it seems like I have made no progress in it. My spirit is weary, and I continue to just come face to face with my insufficiencies, failings, and weaknesses. The struggle is relentless, but instead of just backing out, it is necessary to press into the remaining days of the bright sadness. I sin with such frequency, but God is merciful.

It's funny, the struggles that I am coming up against in the remaining days of the Fast are not turning out to be the ones that I would have expected at the beginning of the fast a month ago. There is something deeply engrained in each of us, I think, that rears its ugly head at this point in the journey toward Pascha. We must deal with these things. I guess I am only speaking in really vague terms right now, and perhaps rightly so. As I said, my spirit is weary, and my body too. 

I think it's God's will that we end up being brought directly into conflict with the things that are worst about ourselves during periods of extended fasting. It is up to us to decide whether or not we are going to do anything about it or do the necessary work to even see the things we struggle with when they are before us. We must, in the remaining time of Great Lent, push further in so that we may see with truly illumined eyes. We need to know what we are repenting of, don't we? The fast does not save us, it merely prepares our hearts for our imminent salvation. We must, however, be like the virgins who wait for the Bridegroom. He is faithful to his word, appearing as he says he will, but in his time. We must be vigilant in the days before Pascha if we wish to taste of the Resurrection. We must see what in us must be crucified so that we can rise into true life in Christ.

May the Lord grant us the eyes of faith to see.

On Stewardship

My relationship with my parents is continually changing. I think this is good, but it often feels like a bad thing or like I am somehow evil for not turning out to be the person they quite expected or think that I should be. I’ve recently been hearing a lot of different things from them, most of which seem intended to precipitate crisis in order to force me to make some changes that they deem necessary. I can understand why they think that I am at a vital point in my life where some really important choices need to get made or my will needs to be adjusted even more severely. I think, however, much of the criticism I am receiving from them is rooted in their fundamental distrust of me. I know that I acted very foolishly as a child and teenager, often scorning their help and failing to hear the lessons that they would teach me, and while I still don’t necessarily think that I’ve learned the lessons that they think I need to learn, I do think I’m in process of learning a different set of lessons that will have a similar effect on my life.

I have real difficulty making myself get up and search for work. My parents have been convinced all along that if I worked more then my life would be complete and I would have it together as a person. This makes sense to me immediately. When I think about it, however, it makes less sense because of the life I had before I moved back to California. I was working all the time when I lived in Wheaton, making plenty of money, but foolishly making excuses to justify my lifestyle. I was drinking, buying lots of stuff that I didn’t need (like a Nintendo Wii), going out to dinner all the time, going to movies, etc. I had no concept of the provision of God. More and more I realize, that the Lord will continually provide for me. He has until now, and I remain confident that if I walk in his will, he is going to provide me only with what I need. I don’t think that I will ever have enough to travel (unless he wants me to), to support a family (unless he wants me to), or to go back to school (unless he wants me to). The point is, however, that the Lord will provide for me what I need and no more than that. If I choose to spend it wastefully, however, that is up to me.

I look at my parents, both of whom are extremely successful and good at who they are, and it makes perfect sense to me why my previous negligence drove them nuts, and why they perceive my current state as similar. Marianne and I have been talking about my life (obviously) and she has been saying that it seems like I have the “vow of poverty” on me. I guess I understand that. I am not someone who is impressed by wealth or turned off by a lack of it. Money is just not something I really have a way of thinking about. Trying to do so stresses me out. I don’t mean that it stresses me out in the way that studying for a test or something necessary might give a normal degree of anxiety, but in a way that is filled with satanic influence. This is not to say that I think money is evil or anything like that, but only that I’m not someone who needs to think of it in a concentrated way. It will come if I pursue God. The closer I draw to him (which is of the utmost importance, and ultimately the only thing that is important), the money will come in. What’s more important is that I learn to pray, work, love God and others. Fr Patrick said something interesting to me today, and I guess I never had really thought of it the way he put it before. We need to work because we aren’t angels, we aren’t just spirits. We have bodies, and work is to the body what prayer is to the soul. We tame our souls through prayer and discipline our bodies through work. Without either we fall easily into the passions. We work for our salvation. It is for that reason that I find myself wanting to pursue work. The conversation before of how I needed to work because I needed to make money so I could one day become a father and support a family is useless to me. I firmly believe that the Lord will provide whatever he needs to for me to be where he wants me to be. As I seek to love him above all else, both in and out of the workplace, he will make the specific steps of my life more clear to me. The Lord provides. I can’t provide for anyone. I can only manage what the Lord provides for me.

I guess part of the thing about this time in my life where I don’t have a job is that I feel like I really need to take advantage of it. I had fallen so far away from the Lord and his Church, that I couldn’t even see straight. In this time, though, he has given me freedom to seek him alone. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the economy failed right before I decided to come home. Again, I was doing fine in Wheaton in terms of amount of money I was making, but because I had no foundation in the Lord, I was squandering my life. I came home because Christ pretty much led me to the doorstep of my parents, and they opened their house to me. I’m grateful for this, and firmly believe that the four months that I have had minimal employment have been the Lord’s way of reminding me that I need to pursue him alone, whether or not I have a job. If I don’t have a job to work at, I need to find or make work for myself. I’m not going to pretend that I have used all my free time to pursue God and his mercy, but I understand now that this is what it was given to me for. I become increasingly convinced that the Lord is preparing me for a life of minimal income and intense service to him and those whom he loves, and really, this is all I want to do anyway. The hard part of this is going to be maintaining that desire, and remembering that I have time and again asked the Lord to grant it to me. He has, but in the same way that he provided enough money for me in Wheaton, it is my duty to put it to proper use. If I do, he will continue to provide enough for me.

My trust is in the Lord.

On Great Lent

Christ is in our midst!

Every Sunday, the faithful of the Orthodox Church affirm this truth. Rarely, however, do we believe it as we say it. It has functionally come to be much the same as "Hey, friend," as we look for an excuse to touch the person next to us and possibly share a laugh. It hardly ever has the effect on us that it should. It calls us to approach those with whom we don't already have outstanding rapport and establish that even in this broken relationship "Christ is in our midst" and we can begin to love one another properly. The Kiss of Peace, then, is a powerful act of love, and not a mere opportunity for socialization among the faithful of a parish. It is not for fraternization with friends, but is a true call to seek and give forgiveness. It allows for me, the sinner, to approach you, the sinned against, and say, "Listen, pal. I know I've done a lot of shit, but the deal is this: Christ is in our midst, and he calls me to approach you and seek your forgiveness." When this is understood, you, the sinned against, will have no choice but to say, "He is and ever shall be, and yeah, I noticed you were kind of a dick, but as I allow Christ's presence to dwell between us, I feel less resentment and can begin to view you as my brother again." We Orthodox affirm weekly that the Lord of all became man and dwelt among us as one of us. We who were separated from him by our sin and darkness, are brought to him through his exceeding love for us. How can this love, which repairs the broken bonds of human relationship, not be transformative in its very nature?  It must be. It is.

I think of this weekend being the last before Great Lent is officially started with the conclusion of Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday and how appropriate it is that we begin the fast with forgiveness. I have so many relationships in my life that I have transgressed and need to seek this forgiveness, miserable sinner that I am. Even since I have been home, it has become abundantly clear how my relationship with my parents is broken, and how I continue to offend their love and grace. Lord, have mercy. I can only imagine how I have wronged my friends as well, and it's truly a humbling thought – especially for someone who sort of prides himself on his ascent to "superhero" status in friendship. The hope that Great Lent offers begins with embracing the forgiveness that Christ offers us and that we offer one another by practicing his presence amidst us. Again, if we can truly begin to accept that Christ dwells in our midst, how could we have any choice but to seek and bestow forgiveness readily?

This forgiveness does not necessarily mean that everything is restored to "hunky-dory" status. Oh, no. This is just the beginning of the work. I understand that, and it's something that is truly difficult for me to accept. I would so much rather believe that I should just be trusted right away after being forgiven, or that I should bestow trust readily. Doing either of these things, however, cheapens the forgiveness by suggesting that transformation is not necessary. This forgiveness that I experience from God is the catalyst for great change in my life. This is the reason that we have Lent at all. It is a time of hope that looks to the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of our Lord who delivers us from death unto new life in him. We no longer have to be subject to the law of death which took such bondage over us before, but we can walk in newness always. Forgiveness is the first step toward walking in new life with Christ. Lord, have mercy.

After meeting with Marianne today, I was brutally aware of how selfish I have been in my relationships. I have used just about every relationship in my life for some gain. I don't know that I could, or even should, necessarily verbalize exactly how, but I was aware that I am an utterly broken man. I have failed to have faith in and love God. I have failed to love my parents. I have failed to love my neighbor. In doing all of these things, I have failed to love myself. As I look toward Great Lent, I remember that Christ, however, offers free and total forgiveness of these sins. The forgiveness, however, is not the end of my journey with him. I must prepare my heart to be undone and healed by his grace. I must enter into the season of Lent and become ready for the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of the Lord – it is not just observing the Feast days, but it is participating in them. Truly, it was Christ who died and rose again, but I also partake in this Mystery. I join him through baptism, through communion, through confession, through virtuous deeds, et al. Lord, have mercy. By his grace, I must be transformed into his likeness more fully. He who dwelt among men, now seeks to dwell within men, and how blessed am I that he accounts me worthy, though unworthy, to be a recipient of his Divine Mysteries? Why do I continue to doubt his presence and so avoid true transformative grace? Lord, have mercy upon me.

I am especially looking forward to Lent this year, I must admit. With so much having changed regarding my circumstances of life, I was beginning to despair that only my circumstances were capable of changing, and that I myself was immune to such fortune. When I, however, consider the beauty and power of pre-Lenten Forgiveness Vespers and, finally, the season of Great Lent afterwards, I am reminded that I can, in fact, change. I understand that Christ offers redemptive hope. I do not have to be weighed down by sins forever. He continues to reach out, and as I become more and more aware of his presence, my life will change around me. Of course, I'll never fail to see my need for forgiveness and grace either, assuming this change of the heart continues. How could I see that? If I am continually made aware of his presence and grace, how will anything but understanding my need for his presence in grace occur? How could I ever say, "Oh, thanks God. I'll take it from here"? Lord, have mercy. Lent is a time where I can look myself in the mirror and say, "Christian, you don't have to be this way forever. God offers you forgiveness today. He asks you to walk in his presence. Will you accept this?" It is the time where changing our diets, the most fundamental part of our human existence, can mirror this call toward newness, a change, repentance, metanoia – the changing of one's mind. It is this time, now, where we can continue to hope that God will have mercy upon us and grant us continual grace and forgiveness of our sins. By changing our diets, we pray that our minds, hearts, and spirits can be changed as well. As I embrace the forgiveness that God has to offer and the newness in the life of Great Lent, I pray that God will work in me, changing my heart so I can become aware of his presence among and within us, and finally begin to love my neighbor as I love myself.

On Practicality

I am a theorizer through and through - which is okay if that fact is balanced with a healthy relationship to the practical parts of life. I am wondering why I have such a joy to sit around and pontificate about the nature of the human condition and make abstractions about how what we really need to do is start loving each other and how people are really good deep down if we look for it, and yet, when it comes to waking up every morning to find a job, I am painfully far from the mark of a man. Though reading a book such as Marion's The Idol and Distance is an excruciatingly complex endeavor, and mind melting one at that, it is nonetheless a true pleasure for me. When it's time to consider picking up The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, though, I begin to tremble with nervousness and a little bit of boredom.

Let's face the facts:

I am twenty-three years old. I have a Bachelor's Degree. I am a Christian. I live with my parents. And I, basically, have no job. Also, I try to ruthlessly assert myself as a man. When it comes down to it, though, my status in life is little better than a high schooler.

This is distressing to me.

I have always wanted to get married and have a family and be a good man. I want to believe in the equality of all people and their respective, objective importance in the world. These are lofty goals for someone who can't even determine to get out of personal debt - goals that I am worthy of, even in the slightest way.

I sit around, day after day, expecting my parents to take care of me and offer me good after good, maintaining that I will look for a job "when I'm ready." Wow. What is manly about that? How can I expect to be a family man, a provider, when I can't even begin to provide for myself? How, in the past, could I have dated women and asked them to take a chance on me that, in a couple years, I would get it together well enough to the point where I could make a Mrs. of them? What boldness. What arrogance. What entitlement!

I write all this from a place of great fatigue, having slept a mere hour and a half last night, so even as I am writing I am finding myself getting lost in my thoughts and my inability to express the nature of my predicament very well. It basically comes down to this: I need to get it together. I can't wait around any longer until a Job falls into my lap; I just need a job. Any job. If I were able to just begin to feed myself without my parents help, I would be making a step in the right direction - toward manhood. Toward courage.

I'm too intelligent to be in the situation that I'm in. I don't mean this to say that I'm uber-intelligent, but the facts are that I'm college educated and lack the practical experience in life to own that I can't take care of myself and that this is unacceptable. Again, how can I begin to think about being someone's husband or father when I'm still a child in my parents' house?

They are wonderful people, my parents, but I can't sit around and let them be mommy and daddy forever. I can't keep playing the constant mind game with them and myself that one of us has to be in control or have higher ground. They have provided me with a home, for now, to get my act together so I can grow up. Why have I not leapt at this opportunity? In a lot of way, I think I am more of a man than ever before, but in the area of self-actualization by the grace of God (paradoxical, perhaps unorthodox), I, again, am painfully far from the mark - sinner that I am.

No more, says I. This is where this needs to stop. I should be joyfully embracing this time instead of shying from it or thinking of it as a pain in the ass (which it is). I have an opportunity to become a man and work through things that I don't want to do. I can do something for myself. I can take care of myself in a very practical way that will most likely lead to many other things falling into place with increasing ease (or at least less resistance on my part). This is the first big hurdle, the first big step, and it's probably the scariest. Again, I find myself in a crucial place where I can either rise to glory, or I can fall to the pits of despair and become like my father who never let anyone tell him what to do and hardened his heart against his family, his life, and God. I don't want any of that. God, help me.

It's time to figure this out and make something happen.

I love deeply, and it really would be a shame if I never got to share that with someone just because I refused to grow up and get a job.

On Growing Up

I used to think I was a Toys-R-Us kid. I really did. I never wanted to become the gross old man who just sat on his porch yelling at kids like my-then-self to get off his property. What's the charm in that? It's really just crotchety. No thanks. I wanted to be a kid forever - nothing but planes, trains, and video games to worry about. It's a good thing, I think, that as we grow, our sentiments begin to do so as well. If that doesn't happen, well, things can turn pretty dismal. The hours of entertainment, of childhood make-believe, if not properly sorted through upon, inevitably, arriving at adulthood can lead to never growing up. The thing is, time doesn't wait for us - our bodies don't wait for us. We sit around and find new, adult-themed way to entertain ourselves, to make-believe. Some are physically healthier than others, but they all basically stem from an obstinacy rooted in an indelible desire to never grow up.

Tonight, I got a new glimpse of myself. Though I don't sit around and smoke pot and sit in front of the television all night, I may as well. We have this idea, and rightly so, that drugs are bad because they take us out of ourselves and help us forget the day, turning us into a different version of ourselves that perhaps we enjoy more readily. While chemical intoxication doesn't appeal to me, escaping from myself has a particular allure. I do it readily without the help of drugs. How am I any better than my brothers who escape themselves with chemicals? I'm not. For this reason, stoners, alcoholics, addicts of any kind really, don't seem terribly foreign to me. I guess I would rather just collapse into myself like a dying star than go out with a bang, which might be even more dangerous. At least for the addict or drug-user, he can come to the end of himself at some point, realizing that the drugs just don't offer the same high. With the depressive-anxious among us, well, there's really no telling to how low we can sink. It's not hard sink lower and lower, and really, the human heart is infinite and capable of great(terrible) despair.

My isolation from the world, my family, my friends, even, takes me so deep into myself that there's really no telling when I'll reemerge. It's scary for those around me, no doubt. My family, God bless them, when they see this retreat into entertainment, self-destruction, they readily try to offer help, and I, callously, ignore it. My family, the people who want nothing more than to see me flourish and breathe fully the greatness of God's grace, must be utterly baffled that I would shy away from such benevolence, and choose Facebook instead. I have come to be ruled by the things I love wrongly. If I loved them rightly, I would have a full life. If I trusted in God, what a good life I would have! Television and movies would offer a new way of viewing life so that I could reengage while calling on the name of the Lord. Instead, I have come to view them as alternate realities in which I wish I could write for TGS with Tracy Jordan or look like Jim Halpert or fly like Peter Petrelli. Why do I choose these other worlds that don't exist in lieu of the grace, goodness, and love of God the Father through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit?

My childish imagination has stayed put, refusing to grow up, continuing to live in a Toys-R-Us world, and I am terrified by the horrible, grim, true, wonderful reality of working and repentance. Is it really such a terrible thing to grow up? How could it be? If I existed in reality and regarded myself properly, I would continue to push myself in that direction, I think. I would understand the beauty of the Lord more fully, I would see the glory of my neighbor, and gladly offer myself to him and them as a sacrifice. What is my time to me? What good is it if I am not offering myself to God and to his Church? Why have I been given this life if I am going to refuse to show up for it?

Growing up is perhaps the most important thing to do. I don't want to grow old in childhood, I want to be there. No wonder Ivan wanted to kill himself upon reaching 30. He understood that life really would just become boring if he himself did not have a dynamic self that grew up as he grew old. How long can I drink from the cup of my broken childhood? Why would I want to? God can't reach me in the past of my childhood, in a faulty imagination. I have to offer it to him as it is, right now. How can I think possibly that sitting around in my room all day is possibly going to lead to my eternal salvation and life in Christ? How can I claim to live in him when I don't even want to claim that I have a self to let live? I die slowly at my keyboard each day and refuse to humble myself before the almighty Christ who bore my flesh nature and hung on the cross with his arms wide calling me to him. No longer. By God's grace, no more! May it not be that I continue to escape his glory. Where can I go to hide from him? The psalmist asked that question centuries ago, and he came to the end of himself realizing that the answer is NOWHERE. There is neither height nor depth that can separate me from him. How can I be so bold to ignore his calling? Who do I think I am? Are my plans to sit around and twiddle my thumbs really all that important? Preposterous thinking! May it never be!

It becomes clear to me, then, that if I continue to hide in my childish wishes to never grow up, then I will err fatally. Christ is the Vine and we are the branches - branches are supposed to grow are they not? If they do not or yield no fruit, are they not, then, dead and consequently severed? Lord, have mercy. I don't want to be a Toys-R-Us thinker, but I want to dwell fully in the presence of God in whom my identity is found. And really, as it has been said, "If he is for us, who can be against us?" Really. Who is there that would dare butt heads with he who vanquished Death? You'd have to be a damn fool to do that.

As we continue to grow up, in body, heart, soul, strength, and mind, doesn't it make sense that God would continue to fill those things even more as well? If my imagination grows up, how much more will God enter that space and make it his? And what joy waits for us, then, as we continue to grow! Lord, have mercy.

Growing up is, though, scary and difficult. Letting go of any habit that you've had for the majority of your life has to be. I'm in the particular habit of hiding from my life, refusing to let God get me where it hurts. As I, however, begin to bring that part of myself before him, he will be good and faithful to kill and resurrect it and make it his and whole. As he enters and confirms my life, he will make me an approved doer of his work, but only if I let him reach all the parts I'm afraid of anyone knowing. But again - where can I hide? How can I think that there may escape from his notice even one part of me, one sin, or one iota of thought? If these things, which are hidden from even me, can be touched by his love, then there is hope for the destruction of the despair that plagues my life. He sets captives free, and I am bound by despair, anxiety, and inability to grow up.

Growing up is necessary, unpleasant work. Lucky for us, however, our God knows something about necessary, unpleasant work. Let's talk for a second about the destruction of Hades, shall we?

On Talents

This present reality is God’s greatest gift. I guess I don’t really know what that is supposed to mean. Well, maybe I do. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I can figure it out.

Here I sit, right now. Right now. This moment. This instant. It’s the only one I have. How can I sit around and expect to amount to something “one day?” That’s a little presumptuous, I think. I can’t expect that I can just sit around on life and that the same blessings, same gifts will be accessible to me. Marianne said that my father had gifts, too, but he let them die. He failed to become a man and let his blessings fall to crap, and he curled up around the big pile he made for himself. He died that way.

What, then, can I do with what my gifts are right now? Do I need to focus on them, or do I simply continue to repent and do all I can to serve God in whatever way possible? Yes. Obviously, I do that. That seems like a no-brainer of Christian life. Why is it so hard to do, then? I guess I’m just so unable to live in the present moment of things that I let everything that is good about me go to waste. I don’t value where God has placed me enough. I continue to be presumptuous and think that “the golden job” will simply fall into my lap. No. That’s no way to live.

I was thinking about the whole “saved by grace through faith” dilemma. I remember growing up thinking that all my faith was supposed to do was deliver me from hell, and it was grace because I didn’t deserve to be saved from hell. Not entirely so. My priest yesterday was talking about the synergy of the Christian’s relationship with God. Faith is action. It makes sense. It’s not that I’m saved by the deeds that confirm faith, but it’s sort of like thinking of God’s grace of salvation as a train. Faith is the vehicle that gets me to the train station. Even that is a flawed analogy, but I guess it helps to think about what exactly the nature of faith should be, though. It’s what enables us to get nailed by grace. And faith is something that can only happen in this present moment. Any other time is either presumption/despair (future) or regret (past). I constantly must put myself in the way of God. He’s waiting for me to do it, but he’s not going to force me to. He’s a very patient God.
So, why do I insist on waiting? What am I waiting for anyway? What keeps me from running straight into the arms of God, my Father, the Giver of all good things?

Fear. Plain and simple. Fear coupled with despair. Wow. Is that really it? It must be.
It is in every moment that I am able to turn to him. This present reality is God’s greatest gift. It is there that God can hit me. If the present reality is ever before me, how can I fail to see my need for him and his grace and his love for mankind? If I stay here, stay in the room, I will see the people God has placed before me and the joy of the world. It is impossible to miss. “May those who have eyes, see, and those who have ears, hear.” God, make me worthy to see and hear. How can I see something or hear something if I am not around to hear it? How can I experience life if I don’t show up for it? Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

So if I remain present and focus on the ineffable goodness of God’s love and the insurmountable heights of his glory and grace, that means I acknowledge God’s wisdom in making me a part of the present reality. Right? I don’t disappear from it, but have a place in the world, a place in the room. If I fail to acknowledge my place in the reality that God has ordained, I still fail to be present. So I must recognize my proper place in that reality, and along with that goes acknowledgment of gifts and weaknesses. Acknowledging gifts can seem haughty, but if it is coupled with acknowledgment of crippling fear and impeding despair, there is healing, joy, and grace. Praise be to God for this.

So why is it so difficult to embrace gifts of God? If I embrace them as characteristics of myself, truly I become proud and make way for every other sin to enter - especially despair. If, however, I acknowledge them as gifts, I am compelled to use them humbly. God, have mercy. What a strange paradox humanity is. So why do I think that my resistance to embrace the gifts God has given me is the humble route? It’s not. It’s the most proud way there could possibly be. “I know I have these gifts, but I’m not going to use them.” What the hell, man? Who do I think I am? More importantly, what gives me the right?

Marianne told me recently, “Stop messing with the DNA that God gave you, and embrace it.”

Awesome.

How do I do that? How, how, how?

By getting present. Yes. Be where you are, with whom you are. “Draw near to Christ and he will draw near to you.” What are these gifts that he has given me? I guess I’m afraid to find out. I don’t want to be one of the servants who lets his talents go to waste, not yielding return on them. More than that, though, I don’t want to be a servant with talents at all. Since, however, that is a ridiculous thing to ask because I can’t do anything about what God has given me. I can either embrace and love it or reject it and hide, and so, become my father who let his talents go to waste, burying them underground. Not wanting gifts is basically like saying that I don’t want to even be alive at all. “I hate to breathe, so I refuse to acknowledge the existence of air.” Preposterous, at best. Is there a difference between the things I love and the things I am good at? Maybe not. As with anything, it takes training. So, maybe, while I love loving people, and am not good at it, I can see this as a gift of mine. I fail to love perfectly - duh - but that doesn’t mean that I can’t grow in love, right? The talents of Christ yield great return only when they are put to use. So that means I might lose some gain before it’s made up and ends up being more than I was given originally. Right? I love writing, but that means I’m going to have to write some pretty terrible things before I get it right, doesn’t it? I can’t just walk into a conversation about philosophy (though I love it) and get anything out of it unless I first misunderstand. It is through this haziness and imperfection that more clarity and wholeness is brought about.

So instead of messing with this DNA that God has given me - the DNA that longs for connection with other people - I should embrace it and get used to the fact that I WILL NOT LOVE PERFECTLY. It simply can’t be done, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t redemption or hope. Thank God for his abundant mercy and love!

My main gift is that I am a people person. I thank you, O God, for this gift! My desire is to help them. I long to see others become fulfilled in God’s love and grace and to realize and actualize their callings. I want to bless all the world. I want to love everyone. I want to see and embrace others indiscriminately. I don’t want to hate anyone for anything or judge them for any misdeed. People are not the summation of their failings, but are the image of God. We are called to glory. We are called to forgiveness. We are called to resurrection from death. Who among us has not sinned? Who among us has not hated? Who among us is without hope? There is no such thing - if so, what kind of God do we worship? What kind of God is he who lets people perish hopelessly from the face of the earth? But he is not that God. He is a good God who restores the lost and seeks the sick. Praise be to him, now and always!

Teach me, O Lord. Break me. Humble me. Restore me. Strike me down and raise me up that I may forever call on your name. Teach me to love others as you do. This is my desire. To minister to the broken, to offer help to the helpless, to preach healing of the soul and body. There is grace. There is love. There is you, O Lord.

Have mercy, O God. Have mercy. Lord, heal us. Save us. Protect us. Help us embrace the gifts you have given us and teach us to use them for your glory and for the good of the world and the Church.

Christ is in our midst.

He is and ever shall be.

From Elation Regarding The Holy Orthodox Church

Christ is in our midst!

I just love that so much. I wish I began conversations like that all the time. What a way to set the tone for the interaction that is to be had. I wish that I had something eloquent or mind boggling to say about the Church, but I don't. I guess I'm just remembering lately why I was so drawn to Christ's Church in the first place, and I remain so continually grateful that he led me to her doors.

Today our parish celebrated its patronal feast - The Chains of St. Peter - and it was a joyous feast! The only thing that would have made it better, though, is if the St. Peter diaspora could have returned. Regardless, though, the beauty of the Church is simply overwhelming.

Man. I wish that I could say something intelligently right now.

I guess that what it comes down to is that I'm pumped that I get to make it to church twice this weekend and receive the holy Body and Blood of our Lord. What a blessing!

Perhaps this is one of the more sentimental posts I've made, but my gratitude and joy is all I feel that I can express right now.

I wish everyone could find such joy and encounter the Lord in such a steady, powerful way.

Lord, have mercy.

Glory to God in the highest!

On Magnanimity

My step-father told me today that he read that being magnanimous means pursuing a worthy goal as well as trying to become worthy of the goal. Poorly explained. It means that someone has courage to do something great and they themselves become worthy of doing the very thing worth doing. It sounds like a scary prospect to me. I guess because rather than just doing something awesome, the pressure to become awesome oneself adds a serious degree of self-worth to the equation. I’m using the word (and variations) “worth” a lot right now, but I guess that’s what it all comes back to - so maybe not totally a bad thing. I guess this is where I need to take a post and be almost entirely self-disclosing to actually work through my thoughts on the matter. It’s so easy for me to talk about things theoretically, but when it gets personal and specific, it’s also really easy for me to shut down, go elsewhere in my mind, talk about what a failure I am since I haven’t realized any of my potential, or any other thing that keeps me from doing work on the situation at hand. Embarrassing, really. So let’s get down to it.

It’s so easy for me to do things that I’m not afraid of doing and they’re most often things that I don’t believe I should be doing. It’s easy for me to not be afraid of smoking, for example, because it doesn’t say anything about my worth. It’s a bad habit and it makes me smell bad (well, did), but there’s nothing personal about it. It’s just a habit. The idea of being a teacher, a counsellor, a director, a pastor - whatever - terrifies me because there is a matter of worth in each of those things for me. Have I instructed well? Have I gotten through this person’s tough exterior so we can do that inner work necessary to make sure that they become the person they are meant to be? Were my actors good enough? Did I save my congregation? Ugh. So many ugly questions and doubts and fears come along with doing something that, to me, is worth doing. I hate waiting tables - fact - but it’s impersonal and without risk. Even though much of me dies inside every time I step foot inside a restaurant in a uniform, I keep going because I can still walk away from the job and, deluded, tell myself I’m a pretty worthy and alright person. With the constant surrender to fear and avoidance of worthiness, I doom myself to a worthless occupation because I have not pursued my vocation - not that waiting tables is a worthless occupation, some people are meant to be waiters and get fabulous meaning out of it and are truly magnanimous.

We’ve all been told that a vocation is “a calling” - what we were meant for. Some of us are less afraid of this word than others, and those are the people the I want to be friends with. Well, I like you people who are afraid, too, so I’ll take you as friends as well. Come to think of it - let’s just all get along, yeah?

I digress.

We all have a calling to some thing or another. I am afraid of mine. It is obvious to me that my vocation is towards something that involves people. Specifically, I believe that I am meant to encourage them towards magnanimity themselves. I don’t know that I have any sort of prophetical gifting, but I do think that I understand people really well and, by God’s grace and gifting, am able to speak into their lives offering the encouragement that they need. When I don’t depend on him for this guidance, however, I often give terrible advice that can lead people into the complete opposite of what they need to do/hear. That possibility, however, cannot be what keeps me from pursuing what I believe I was intended for. I was not meant to sit in my room and write until my hands fall off. I was not put on earth to sit in a lab and research the mutation of red blood cells and see if we can figure out exactly just how we’re to unmutate them, now. I was put here to love you in, probably, a pretty annoying way. You know what, though? I’m okay with that, more and more.

While I think my operative functionality was “Be liked,” it is slowly morphing into “See, love, and help others.” I think these things have the same basic drive; the problem is one is totally inwardly serving and the other is what God intended for my extraordinarily deep-seated need to be a part of people’s lives. And yes, I do think it’s a need of mine. I need to be involved with people. I need to know what makes them who they are and what they're built for. Then, I need to attach myself to whatever those things are and do all I can to build them up even more and then send them out.

I have spent a lot of time in the spotlight as a friend and an actor, and though I love being in the spotlight, my deeper desire is to push others into self-realization - to encourage them to become the people that they truly are to the fullness of themselves in the grace of God. My patron saint, Andrew the First-Called, did this very thing. He was the first to follow Jesus, but he was not the one that Christ established as the Rock of the Church. It was his brother, Peter, whom Andrew had led to the Lord, that was chosen for this. Andrew pushed Peter into a deeper relationship with God, and by that encouragement from his younger brother, Peter became the “chief among the apostles.” Amazing. Also, this is not to mention that Andrew’s very name means, “manhood; warrior; valor; courage” - magnanimity, dare I say?

What a beautiful calling, then! I wish so badly that I could perfectly follow this bright, holy man’s example and walk fully in the glorious countenance of the Lord, encouraging my brothers to actualize their respective callings. I want to know others so I can learn how to encourage them. It’s my instinct and I love that about myself. I guess the trick, now, is learning how I can hone that skill, embrace that desire, and actually do something about it.

I guess I’ll end with this prayer:

“O glorious St. Andrew, you were the first to recognize and follow the Lamb of God. With your friend, St. John, you remained with Jesus for that first day, for your entire life, and now throughout eternity. As you led your brother, St. Peter, to Christ and many others after him, draw us also to Him. Teach us to lead others to Christ solely out of love for Him and dedication in His service. Help us to learn the lesson of the Cross and to carry our daily crosses without complaint so that they may carry us to Jesus. Amen.”

Amen.

On Taking Risks

There is a certain comfort in not really amounting to anything. I have been a server for the last four years. For a year and half, it is pretty much the only thing that I have been. Except for recently, I completely fell off the map as an writer, a reader, a thinker, and certainly as an actor. As I have continued to sit in the familiarity of my own life, a growing dissatisfaction has begun to rear it’s head. I’m pretty sure that the source of this self-disappointment comes from knowing that I am capable of so much more than what I have been doing and have done so far. Sometimes, the possibility or potentiality of my skills and self almost seem to suffice for accomplishment, but as I get older and grow more dissatisfied and disillusioned with the life that I have established for myself so far, I become less content with not taking risks.

Sure, I could wait tables forever. I know how to do it. I’m good at it. But this is not what my gifts are for. I get by at doing it with relative ease, but remain miserable. My unrealized potential tells me that I’m gifted enough to do anything I would want to do (not that I could do anything - but anything that I desire to do I believe I’m equipped for), yet the longer I stay dormant, the less energy I have to put myself out there and try to find something I believe in doing.

It’s this damn matter of the learning curve that has got me sitting on my ass. My perfectionism astounds me. With my overdeveloped intuition, I have gotten used to understanding things readily, but this normal blessing has become a curse for me. It’s like if I can’t get it right immediately, it’s not a problem with me, it’s a problem with the thing - it’s un-gettable - so I figure, “Screw it. I’ll try something else.” When I examine my life over the last 23 years, I find that most of my frustration and the things that have led me to give up on something has stemmed from this perfectionistic pessimism. Of course, when I was younger, even this perfectionism led me to try different things. I couldn’t get the piano right away, so I started playing guitar. Not only have I learned to quit things once they prove difficult, but I’ve also picked up the nasty habit of not trying anything at all lest I should have to try at something that doesn’t come readily to me. “When the going gets tough, Christian gets gone.”

It’s as if each new experience - potential risk, let’s say - feels like jumping off the high-dive. I stand at the edge of the board, looking at the water below, seemingly a mile away. Sadly, this is as far as I get to the act of jumping. And this is what everyday feels like to me. I’m so tired of standing at the edge of the board, and the longer I stand here and tell myself that it is only my fear that makes the dive seem so perilous, I start to believe that, in reality, the fall is no more than 6 or 7 inches to the water, and I’m not on the high-dive at all. It's that first jump that is the scary one. It's before the leap that I'm in trouble. But what about afterwards?

There may be some residual fear on the other side of finally taking the jump, but the experience has also taught me that it's not really that bad. I remember one time when I actually was jumping from a high point. The cliff was forty or fifty feet high, it took every ounce of courage that I had to throw myself off the edge, trusting I wouldn't be smashed against the water below - an irrational fear, but a fear nonetheless. I jumped. I survived. The thrill was indescribable. Of course, I climbed back up the cliff to get ready to jump, charged with the energy of the first success. When I got to the top, I was reminded of how scary the leap was initially, but quickly, I was able to convince myself that it hadn't been too bad the first time, and that was enough for me to do it again. I guess the point is that while it's going to be scary every time, and my feet may sting more sometimes than at others, the jump is still worth taking. This is the thing that makes life worth living. If I had stood at the cliff for too long, I never would have jumped, and I either would have been stuck up there forever, or had to climb down (always harder than climbing up).

When we get to the place in life where we see that we need to take a leap, it is important to not let the terror take over and cloud our judgment of the situation too much. It's right that it should be terrifying and that we should be anxious about throwing ourselves into some sort of oblivion, subjecting ourselves to the indifferent law of gravity, however, this fear cannot get the last word. It is what leads to deadly inertia.

The longer we, I, stand atop the cliff looking at the water, the harder it's going to be jump.

Why wait?