About

We began our first class with the quote from St Marcarius about the condition of the heart … of its capacity to contain both good and evil. Also in the first class, we gained St. Dimitri’s perspective on God’s purpose for us to “share in his Love, that is, full communion with God … the Good…God created the world for the sake of humanity, that the world be led towards the purpose of full communion with Him.” St Dumitru also has been teaching us how our crosses help us see where we have become attached to the gifts of God not the Gift Giver … or as Father Gabe says “what is the X I’m placing above God”. All of these gifts of God have this ultimate purpose of teaching us to love as He loves us as we unite to Him. The cross of our relationships is the topic of today’s class 5. Perhaps, there is no better teacher about God’s love than his mercy and forgiveness. How do we become vessels and instruments that participate more fully in His love in the reality of our relationships? This 4th century homily from St Macarius seems, to me, incredibly relevant as we explore how to answer this crucial question.

For the Lord, in giving many commandments concerning love enjoined us to seek the “righteousness of God” (Mt 6:11). For He knows that it is the mother of Love. There is no other way to be saved but through our neighbour; according as He commanded: “Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you”(Lk 6:37). This is the spiritual law, written in faithful hearts, the “fulfillment of the first law”(Rom 13:10). For he says “I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17). How is it to be fulfilled? Teach me the first Law by seizing occasion to bless the one who sinned rather than condemn his injustice. For it says “In whatever you judge another , you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same things.” (Rom 2:1). For the Law thus says, “In the midst of judgment, judgment, and in the midst of forgiveness, forgiveness” (Dt 17:8).

The fullness, therefore, of the Law consists in forgiveness. We have called it the “first law”; not that God has set two laws but one law, which is spiritual by its nature, but in regard to retribution, it gives to each person the retribution which is just, forgiving him that forgives, and contending with him that contends. For it says, “With the clean thou shalt be clean, and with the perverse thou shalt wrestle” (Ps. 18:26). Therefore, those who spiritually fulfilled the Law and in proportion as they participated in Grace loved with a spiritual love not only those who did good to them, but also those who reproached and persecuted them, looking forward to receive the gift of good things. Of good things, I say, not because they forgave the wrongs done to them, but because they also did good to the persons who did wrong to them. For they offered them to God as the means whereby they fulfilled the beatitude, as it says: “Blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you” (Mt 5:11).

They were taught to think so by means of a spiritual law. For while they patiently endured and maintained an attitude of meekness, the Lord, seeing the patience of the heart engaged in warfare and the love that lessened none of its ardor, broke through “the middle wall of separation” (Eph 2:14). And they got rid of so great a hatred with the result that their love was no longer forced but served as a help. In a word, the Lord took control over “the sword that turned every way” (Gn3:24) which excited the thoughts. And they “entered into the inner sanctuary of the veil where the forerunner on our behalf had entered” (Heb 6:19), namely the Lord. And they enjoyed the fruits of the Spirit. Having seen the things to come in the certainty of the heart, no longer as the Apostle says,”in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor 13:12), they spoke of “what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor the things that have entered the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor 2:9).

Perhaps nothing in contemporary culture is more revelatory of our perpetually distracted state than our attachment to electronic devices such as iPhones, iPods, iPads, cell phones, and laptops.  It seems as if we are not able to function without the distraction of technology.  Now, technology properly used is a wonderful thing.  However, when technology becomes an end in itself to distract us from who we are and our ultimate destiny as well as from human communication with others, it becomes a problem. And distraction is a problem, for Abba Poimen living far from our world of technology in the simple and barren desert went so far as to say, “distraction is the beginning of evils” (PG 65.332). What would he say today?

Technology and its distractions, like idols in ancient times, refashion human beings into something far different from what they were intended to be. The ego, as mentioned in the last blog post, can become so dominant that people under its sway becomes lost in its seeking and desiring forms of entertainment and distraction. We becomes slaves to our own ego, constantly seeking instant gratification and solutions to mundane problems all the while distracted from the source of our existential problem, which is alienation from God. Our higher self becomes enslaved to our lower self and our lower self to the myriad of distractions that technology sets before our eyes. We lose our ability to be still and focus on the “one good part that should not be taken from us.” We multitask to accomplish more, even though psychological studies have shown that in so doing, we ultimately accomplish less. We’ve sold our royal birthright unknowingly. As the illumined Elder Aimilianos wrote before the age of the internet and cell phones, “In the industrial era, people became consumers and slaves to things produced. In post-industrial society, they are also becoming consumers and slaves to images and information, which fill their lives.”

When technology becomes the vehicle through which we disconnect from nature and those around us, we become further alienated from our true selves.  Technology usurps the primary role in human life: seeking communion and restoration in God.  The problem can become so acute that we begin to view our relationship with God and prayer as a distraction rather than the source of our salvation and healing.  At this point, our world has been turned completely upside down. Elder Aimilianos has written presciently about this subject, “The most dreadful enemy created by post-industrial culture, the culture of information technology and the image, is cunning distraction. Swamped by millions of images and a host of different situations on television and in the media in general, people lose their peace of mind, their self-control, their powers of contemplation and reflection and turn outwards, becoming strangers to themselves, in a word mindless, impervious to the dictates of their intelligence. If people, especially children, watch television for 35 hours a week, as they do according to statistics, then are not their minds and hearts threatened by Scylla and Charabdis, are they not between the devil and the deep blue sea? (Homer, Odyssey, XII, 85).”

The antidote is the constant and abiding remembrance of God in our daily lives, but such remembrance is itself only possible through stillness.  This is no doubt why Saint Ephraim the Syrian wrote that we must “love stillness in order to be delivered from distraction.” Since we have become so accustomed to our technological attachments, it will take discipline to accomplish this.  If we are serious about combating distraction as a spiritual illness, we must be willing to lay aside these sources of distraction during times of prayer and the Services. We must discipline ourselves to turn off those devices, so that we can allow our hearts and mind to function in the way they were ultimately meant to function in keeping with the commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself” (Luke 10:27).

In this week’s class, we focus on a single question. We will be using the short booklet ‘The Victory of the Cross’ by St. Dumitru Staniloae as our key resource as we examine this question:

• What do the crosses we experience in our relationships have to teach us

We will also review our results from how we dealt with the cross of technology and distraction this past week. As you might remember from our last class, William suggested this as a somewhat universal cross that all of us must face in this tension we live in of ‘being in the world’ but ‘not of the world’. The Orthodox practice of nepsis or watchfulness comes to mind as something that can be helpful here. OCA Bishop Alexis Trader (Bishop of Alaska) has written a book about ‘Ancient Christian Wisdom’ that I find has a helpful quote about some of the specific tools we can use to promote this watchfulness:

For the ancient ascetics, watchfulness can be likened to Jacob’s ladder extending up into the heavens and to a pathway leading to the kingdom within where the believer encounters a “spiritual world of God, splendid and vast”. The fathers refer to watchfulness as “stillness of heart, attentiveness, guarding the heart.” Saint Hesychius the Presbyter describes four approaches to watchfulness: calling out to Christ for help, remaining silent and still in prayer, remembrance of death (i.e. keeping things in perspective), scrutinizing our thoughts (i.e. honest appraisal of what’s happening).

Ancient Christian Wisdom p. 197

I believe this cartoon we’ve used in previous classes is an appropriate way of thinking about the movement we’re attempting as we face this cross of technology and distraction that seems so deeply woven into each of our lives.

What do the crosses we experience in our relationships have to teach us?

Our responsibility towards those who are near to us forms the weight of a particularly heavy and painful cross on account of the fragility of their life which is exposed to a multitude of ills, a multitude of difficulties which arise from the conditions of this world in its present state. Parents suffer intensely and very frequently because of the ills and difficulties of their children; they fear for their life, for their failure, for their sufferings. Therefore the life of parents becomes a life of continual concern, and the cross of the children is their cross. Our cross becomes heavier with the weight of the cross of those with whom we come in contact, for we share responsibility for the life of our children, our relatives, our friends, and even of all men with whom, in one way and another, we are in touch. We bear responsibility for all that can threaten the life of those for whom we have care, and we have the obligation, so far as we can, of smoothing their difficulties and helping their lives. Thus we can reveal and strengthen our love for them and their love for us; thus we can develop the seeds of a future life in strengthening our and their spiritual existence. In this responsibility towards our neighbour we live more intensely our responsibility towards God. Christ has shown this meaning of his cross, he who had pity on those who were suffering, and wept for those who were dead. 

A second sense of the cross in relationships is this: the fallen world is often lived and felt as a cross to be carried until death through the fact that people sometimes act towards us in a hostile way, even though we have done them no wrong. They suspect us of having evil intentions towards them. They think of us as obstacles in the path of their life. Often they become our enemies even on account of the noble and high convictions to which we remain faithful. Our attachment to these convictions brings their evil designs into the light and their bad intentions to view even though we do not intend this. And this happens all the more because by the beliefs which we hold, and which we cannot renounce, we show our responsibility towards them, since we seek the security of their physical and material life and the true development of their spiritual being. This is a responsibility which we reveal in our words, our writings and our actions which become, as it were, an exhortation to them. 

We also feel as a heavy cross the erring ways of our children, of our brethren, and of many of our neighbours and contemporaries. We carry their incomprehension of our good intentions and of our good works as a cross. Almost every one of our efforts to spread goodness is accompanied by suffering and by a cross which we carry on account of the incomprehension of others. To wish to avoid this suffering, this cross, would mean in general to renounce the struggle and the effort to do what is good.

Thus without the cross there can be no true growth and no true strengthening of the spiritual life. To avoid the weight of this cross is to avoid our responsibility towards our brethren and our neighbours before God. Only by the cross can we remain in submission to God and in true love towards our neighbours. We cannot purify or develop our own spiritual life nor that of others, nor that of the world in general, by seeking to avoid the cross. Consequently, we do not discover either the depth or the greatness of the potential forces and powers of this world as a gift of God if we try to live without the cross. The way of the cross is the only way which leads us upwards, the only way which carries creation towards the true heights for which it was made. This is the signification which we understand of the cross of Christ.

Victory of the Cross p.3-5

Father Gabe’s sermon on The Rich Young Ruler from this past Sunday has great synergies with our focus on St. Dumitru’s booklet ‘The Victory of the Cross”.

In this homily, Father Gabe said

Every single one of us, without exception, possesses something or some things that we value more highly than the kingdom of heaven. Things for which we would be willing to abandon God. And by abandoning God, I don’t mean that we become open enemies of God. But rather that we willingly choose something or someone else, something or someone other than God, with which or with whom to become unified.

If we were in the place of the rich young ruler and Jesus asked us to give away or give up X in order to draw closer to Him, we too would walk away sorrowfully, but willingly.

God does not want to see us make this horrible trade.

So, this story is begging us for our own sakes to figure out what X is in each of our lives. So, this thing or things, this could be people, places, goals, expectations, pursuits of respect, honor, glory. This certainly happens within the church as well.  This will be different for each one of us, and they may likely shift over time.

… The things that we think we should unify ourselves with will actually destroy us. And usually it takes them destroying us in some way for us to realize that God asked us to trade up long ago.

And so at its core, this gospel is a good, true fatherly exhortation to wisely spend our limited time and energy in the pursuit of true freedom.

God is here leading us to become like He is, to become completely unbound by anything, completely free and completely happy. This prospect terrifies most of us because it means becoming an entirely different creature, which is not an easy process. It’s a really big deal. And thus God is very, very patient with us.

But be that as it may be, out of true love, God always keeps this transformative task directly before us. We must find the courage which without His help is impossible. We must find the courage to let go of the things that we would trade for the Kingdom of Heaven. To let go of the corruptible things that we would choose to unify with instead of unifying with God. We have to remember, if we choose to unify with that which corrupts and decays, then we also corrupt and decay. Simple math. If we choose to unify with that which is eternal and divine, then we too become eternal and divine.

This is the cross. And crosses really hurt. But they bring us into union with God. This is salvation.

In other words, Father Gabe is also suggesting that we are attached to the gifts of God not the Gift Giver. Our crosses help us identify what the X is that we value more than God … what is it that we are willing to elevate above God. What is my X? What is the X that I seek first above the Kingdom of God?

In today’s class, we will attempt to answer two questions:

• What is my X – Where am I elevating the gifts of God above the Gift Giver
• What do the crosses we experience in our relationships have to teach us

What Is My X – Where am I elevating the gifts Of God above the Gift Giver ?

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me 

Luke 9:23

It’s pretty universal for us to think about gifts as we enter this time of year. St. Dumitru gives us a very different perspective on this relationship between His purpose for us … full communion with God .. and the cross of the reality we experience in the gifts of the world.

The world is a gift of God, but the destiny of this gift is to unite us with God, who has given it. The intention of the gift is that in itself it should be continually transcended. When we receive a gift from somebody we should look primarily towards the person who has given it and not keep our eyes fixed on the gift. But often those who receive a gift become so attached to the gift that they forget who has given it to them. But God demands an unconditional love from us, for God is infinitely greater than any gifts given to us; just as at the human level the person who gives us something is incomparably more important than what is given, and should be loved for himself or herself, not only on account of the gift. In this way every gift requires a certain cross, and this cross is meant to show us that they are not the last and final reality. This cross consists in an alteration in the gift, and sometimes even in its entire loss.

We can see many meanings in this cross imprinted on the gift of the world which God gives to us. St Maximus the Confessor said that ‘all the realities which we perceive with the senses demand the cross’; and ‘all the realities which we understand with our mind have need of the tomb’. To these words of St Maximus we can add this: that in our fallen condition we feel the dissolution of the present world and of our own existence as a pain, a suffering; feel it as a sorrow because we have bound the affections which form part of our very being to the image of this world which is passing away. This attachment to the things of this world is felt particularly strongly by those who do not believe that there is any further transformation of this world after the life which we now know. 

The Christian, however, carries this cross of the world and of his own existence not only more easily but with a certain joy, for he knows that after this cross there follows an imperishable life. With this faith he sees the world as crucified and dead to him, and he and all his tendencies as crucified and dead to the present world. This does not mean that he is not active in this world, and that he does not exercise his responsibility towards it; but he works in order to develop in the present state of the world, destined as it is to dissolution and death, the germs, the seeds of its future resurrection. He longs that this world, and his own existence in it, may be crucified as Christ was crucified; that is to say he wishes voluntarily to undergo the suffering of the cross with the hope of resurrection into a higher world, an imperishable world, a resurrection which is truly with and in Christ. 

The Christian does not see the transitory nature of the structures of this world and of his own existence as leading towards a crucifixion without hope, or as moving towards a definitive, final death. He see this situation and he lives it, anticipating the crucifixion at its end with hope, the hope of a higher and unchanging life. 

However, it is not only the Christian who lives his own life and that of the world in anticipation of their crucifixion, lives them as nailed to the cross of the passing away of their present form; everyone inevitably does so. For everyone knows that those we love will die, and this certainty introduces a sorrow into the joy of our communion with them. Everyone knows that the material goods which one accumulates are transitory, and this knowledge casts a shadow on the pleasure one has in them. In this sense, the world and our own existence in it are a cross which we shall carry until the end of our earthly life. Never can man rejoice wholly in the gifts, the good things, and in the persons of this world. We feel the transitory nature of this world as a continual cross. But Christians can live this cross with the hope of the resurrection, and thus with joy, while those who have no faith must live this experience with increasing sadness, with the feeling that existence is without meaning, and with a certain despair which they cannot altogether alleviate.

Victory Of The Cross p.1 -3

What do the crosses we experience in our relationships have to teach us?

Our responsibility towards those who are near to us forms the weight of a particularly heavy and painful cross on account of the fragility of their life which is exposed to a multitude of ills, a multitude of difficulties which arise from the conditions of this world in its present state. Parents suffer intensely and very frequently because of the ills and difficulties of their children; they fear for their life, for their failure, for their sufferings. Therefore the life of parents becomes a life of continual concern, and the cross of the children is their cross. Our cross becomes heavier with the weight of the cross of those with whom we come in contact, for we share responsibility for the life of our children, our relatives, our friends, and even of all men with whom, in one way and another, we are in touch. We bear responsibility for all that can threaten the life of those for whom we have care, and we have the obligation, so far as we can, of smoothing their difficulties and helping their lives. Thus we can reveal and strengthen our love for them and their love for us; thus we can develop the seeds of a future life in strengthening our and their spiritual existence. In this responsibility towards our neighbour we live more intensely our responsibility towards God. Christ has shown this meaning of his cross, he who had pity on those who were suffering, and wept for those who were dead. 

A second sense of the cross in relationships is this: the fallen world is often lived and felt as a cross to be carried until death through the fact that people sometimes act towards us in a hostile way, even though we have done them no wrong. They suspect us of having evil intentions towards them. They think of us as obstacles in the path of their life. Often they become our enemies even on account of the noble and high convictions to which we remain faithful. Our attachment to these convictions brings their evil designs into the light and their bad intentions to view even though we do not intend this. And this happens all the more because by the beliefs which we hold, and which we cannot renounce, we show our responsibility towards them, since we seek the security of their physical and material life and the true development of their spiritual being. This is a responsibility which we reveal in our words, our writings and our actions which become, as it were, an exhortation to them. 

We also feel as a heavy cross the erring ways of our children, of our brethren, and of many of our neighbours and contemporaries. We carry their incomprehension of our good intentions and of our good works as a cross. Almost every one of our efforts to spread goodness is accompanied by suffering and by a cross which we carry on account of the incomprehension of others. To wish to avoid this suffering, this cross, would mean in general to renounce the struggle and the effort to do what is good.

Thus without the cross there can be no true growth and no true strengthening of the spiritual life. To avoid the weight of this cross is to avoid our responsibility towards our brethren and our neighbours before God. Only by the cross can we remain in submission to God and in true love towards our neighbours. We cannot purify or develop our own spiritual life nor that of others, nor that of the world in general, by seeking to avoid the cross. Consequently, we do not discover either the depth or the greatness of the potential forces and powers of this world as a gift of God if we try to live without the cross. The way of the cross is the only way which leads us upwards, the only way which carries creation towards the true heights for which it was made. This is the signification which we understand of the cross of Christ.

Victory of the Cross p.3-5