Among the stewards was a certain monk, Father P., who was outstandingly capable, yet somehow always unlucky – his initiatives usually met with no sympathy among the fathers and his undertakings often ended in failure.

One day, after one such enterprise had resulted in disaster, he was subjected to sharp criticism at the stewards’ table. Father Silouan was present but took no part in the ‘prosecution.’ One of the stewards, Father M., turned to him and said:

‘You are silent, Father Silouan. That means you side with Father P. and are indifferent to the interests of the monastery. You don’t mind the damage he has caused the community.’

Father Silouan said nothing but quickly finished eating and then went up to Father M., who by that time had also left the table.

‘Father M. – how many years have you been in the monastery?’

‘Thirty-five.’

‘Did you ever hear me criticize anyone?’

‘No’

‘Then why do you want me to begin with Father P.?’

Disconcerted Father M. replied shamefacedly: ‘‘Forgive me.’

‘God will forgive.’

(From The Monk of Mount Athos, p. 42-43, by Archimandrite Sophrony)

But I’ve also noticed that while this is a fun (in a nerdy sense) topic to read, it’s not spiritual reading. It’s not food for the soul. As I thought this morning about my preference for study and knowledge over purification of heart, I received in my email this excerpt from the Desert Fathers:

A brother once went out on a pilgrimage from the monastery of Abba Poemen, and came to a hermit, who lived in love towards all and received many visitors. The brother told the hermit stories of Abba Poemen. And when he heard of Poemen’s strength of character, he longed to see him.

The brother returned to Egypt. And after some little time, the hermit rose and went from his country to Egypt to see the brother who had visited him: for he had told him where he lived. When the brother saw the hermit, he was astonished, and very glad. The hermit said to him, “Of your charity towards me, take me to Abba Poemen.” And the brother rose up and showed him the way to the elder.

And the brother told Abba Poemen this about the hermit, “A great man of much charity, and particular honor in his own province, has come here wanting to see you.” So the elder received him kindly. And after they had exchanged greetings, they sat down.

But the hermit began to talk of the Holy Scripture, and of the things of the spirit and of heaven. But Abba Poemen turned his face away, and answered nothing. When the hermit saw that he would not speak with him, he was distressed and went out. And he said to the brother who had brought him there, “My journey was useless. I went to the elder and he does not deign to speak to me.”

The brother went to Abba Poemen, and said, “Abba, it was to talk with you that this great man came here, a man of much honor in his own land. Why did you not speak to him?” The elder answered, “He is from above, and speaks of the things of heaven. I am from below, and speak of the things of the earth. If he had spoken with me on the soul’s passions, I would willingly have replied to him. But if he speaks of the things of the spirit, I know nothing about them.”

So the brother went out and told the hermit, “The reason is that the elder does not easily discuss Scripture. But if anyone talks to him about the soul’s passions, he answers.”

Then the hermit was stricken with penitence, and went to the elder and said, “What shall I do, Abba? My passions rule me.” And the elder gazed at him with gladness and said, “Now you are welcome. You have only to ask and I will speak with understanding.” And the hermit was much strengthened by their discourse, and said, “Truly, this is the way of love.” And he thanked God that he had been able to see so holy a man, and returned to his own country.”

Ah, thanks. I can take a hint.

…And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12)

Rotating Obediences and the Plundering of Grace

by Monk Cosmas

As St. Paul says, “If anyone will not work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). So we work. Assigned duties in our monastery are called “obediences” because they are done in obedience to the abbot or the man he designates to assign tasks, and ultimately in obedience both to God and to our brothers in Christ. They fall into two broad categories, revenue-generating on the one hand and housekeeping and upkeep on the other. We do various things to bring in the money needed to pay our bills, and these chores or jobs are given out partly on the basis of an individual’s skills and talents. Revenue-generating obediences include such things as the making of hand-dipped 100% beeswax candles which we sell to churches, a bookstore, our publishing operation, wooden coffins which we make on order, and the importing and selling of liturgical items, primarily priests’ vestments.

The revenue-generating obediences represent the business side of the monastery. What is more interesting in some ways is the set of obediences that fall under the housekeeping and upkeep side of monastic life. These fall into two groups—the long-term assignments and the rotating obediences. My long-term housekeeping and upkeep obediences include making coffee and cleaning the church, the guest bathroom, and the area around the guesthouse. Other people have to sweep and clean the public areas, especially the walkways, the other bathrooms, the office, the dorm, and the dining area. We have a number of vehicles—for the most part fairly old and decrepit—and each vehicle has a “steward” who is responsible for making sure that it has plenty of oil, antifreeze, a good spare tire, and that it is inspected for smog when necessary, and all the other sorts of things required to maintain a car “in the world.”

Now we come to an even more interesting topic—rotating obediences and the plundering of grace. I will try to explain how this works, because it shows the synergy between the rather ordinary and the more spiritual aspect of monastic obediences. Every week a new schedule is posted on the refrigerator in the trapeza—that is, the dining room. It lists the services for that week, including any special feasts and any visits we are making as a group to a nearby church. If we know that the bishop will be visiting that week, that is usually indicated as well, or if a new priest or deacon is coming to practice serving with us before going to his first parish assignment, that will be noted as well. Along the top of the week’s schedule are listed the rotating obediences for the week. There are three of them—dishes, trapeza and compline reader, and tables. Dishes means simply washing dishes after meals and unloading the dishwasher so that the table-setter has plenty of plates, dishes, bowls, glasses, coffee mugs, teacups, and silverware to put out for meals. The trapeza and compline reader has the one-week assignment of reading a selected spiritual or inspirational text while others eat—that is, until someone finishes his meal, and then the abbot nods to him to read so that the assigned reader can sit down to eat—and to be the main reader at the compline service in the evening which is also known as apodeipnon. The obedience we call “tables” consists of setting the table for each meal and gathering the dirty plates, dishes, bowls, glasses, coffee mugs, teacups, and silverware after the meal is over.

My own rule of thumb is that my cycle of rotating duties comes up about every seven weeks, and then I have three weeks of obediences in a row, going from one obedience to the next. In practice it isn’t quite that simple, because we do not have a single list containing all the rotating obediences, but three separate lists and a set of rules for the interaction between the lists. For example, a given person cannot have two of the obediences in the same week, nor can anyone be given dishwashing duty or table-clearing duty if he cooks that week. Besides that, one man has a blessing to be exempted from doing the readings. In addition, if someone is away from the monastery for a week—for example, on a visit to his family—he trades places with someone else. In other words, the formulae for calculating the rotating obediences are something like the formulae for determining moveable feasts and other such niceties of the liturgical calendar. In any case, what it means for me in a practical sense is that most weeks I check the calendar and exclaim, “Oh, cool!—I’m off the hook this week.”

This leads us to the most interesting part of the whole topic—the plundering of grace. As we know, salvation belongs to the violent. But how does “spiritual violence” apply to rotating obediences? Well, one application is that we can seek out opportunities to help our brother when it is not our own turn to do anything that week, and especially when there happen to be a lot of guests at the time. I recall when I was on dishwashing duty the week of Christmas. That night we had the bishop with us for dinner, and we sat around the table late into the night singing Christmas carols and chatting while I contemplated—with great dismay—the huge piles of dishes and pots and pans that I knew were waiting for me in the kitchen. When we finally got up from the table, two of my beloved brothers in Christ asked for a blessing to help me wash dishes, and as a result of their kindness, we were able to finish washing them shortly before midnight. The fact that they willingly helped their brother to bear his burden is a practical example of “taking the kingdom of heaven by force.” What is even more praiseworthy—and I won’t give any examples of it here so as not to spoil the grace of it—is when one of the brothers or fathers sees that someone has left part of his rotating obedience undone and simply does it for him quietly, without complaining about his brother’s lapse or calling attention to the fact that he did something he was not required to do.

Perhaps it seems like we are reading a lot into little ordinary things when we see something so simple as doing another person’s chores as a victory in the spiritual warfare, but stop and think about it. It can mean growth in humility and obedience, and an increased concern for the welfare of others. Those things—not mystical experiences and altered states—are what the real spiritual life in a monastery is all about.

— St. Peter of Damaskos.

How ‘Modest Is Hottest’ Is Hurting Christian Women

…I still wholly affirm modesty as a biblical practice for men and women, but now I hesitate to embrace the “modest is hottest” banner. Those three words carry a lot of baggage. The Christian rhetoric of modesty, rather than offering believers an alternative to the sexual objectification of women, often continues the objectification, just in a different form.

As the Christian stance typically goes, women are to cover their bodies as a mark of spiritual integrity. Too much skin is seen as a distraction that garners inappropriate attention, causes our brothers to stumble, and overshadows our character. Consequently, the female body is perceived as both a temptation and a distraction to the Christian community. The female body is beautiful, but in a dangerous way.

This particular approach to modesty is effective because it is rooted in shame, and shame is a powerful motivator. That’s the first red flag. Additionally concerning about this approach is that it perpetuates the objectification of women in a pietistic form. It treats women’s bodies not as glorious reflections of the image of God, but as sources of temptation that must be hidden. It is the other side of the same objectifying coin: one side exploits the female body, while the other side seems to be ashamed of it. Both sides reduce the female body to a sexual object.

Read more…

Hoddes makes some good points. But her article makes me wonder how her part of Christendom got their definition of “modesty” whittled down to something about bodies? That sounds like the way some folks’ “Christian Morality” consists solely of “No Gay Marriages.”

Modesty is the winsome virtue of not seeking attention. It’s an opposite to arrogance, brazenness, conceit and egotism. Modesty is the virtue of keeping your virtues private — being known by others for what they experience of you, not for what you say or display about yourself.

Dressing modestly doesn’t mean body-consciousness or covering your shameful harlotry; it means dressing in a way that doesn’t seek attention. What’s the point of obsessing over whether you look too sexy, if your dress and mannerisms still say “Hey, look at me”?

Modesty is attractive in that it says you’re not so needy you require affirmation and approval. It’s a kind of humble strength that suggests you would make a good, wise friend — or maybe a spouse capable of love without manipulation.

In one parable Christ describes people who hear about the Kingdom and genuinely, joyfully believe — but they fail to bear fruit and persevere to the end. In the next parable He says that not everybody in the church is His, but we won’t see who’s who until the final Judgment. Elsewhere He says there will be people who are surprised on the last day, thinking they had a relationship with Jesus but discovering they’re strangers to Him. (Here. And here.)

Seems to me an “assurance of salvation” is an arrogant, dangerous thing. It might be better — and a little more humble-minded — to consider that our love of pleasures and self-will, the shallowness of our faith, and our lack of “preparing the way of the Lord” in ourselves might just make us the shallow, rocky weedy soil in which the Word is born but never bears fruit; that we might be the ones just going through the motions of religion and headed for a terrible shock when we’re called to give account.

But that meditation ought to lead us to hope, not to despair. In Jeremiah 4 and again in Hosea 10 we’re called to “Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.” The hard, stony, weed-choked soil of the heart is not incurable: By grace we can break the hard heart, soften the soil, and “prepare the way of the Lord.”

My namesake, Silouan of Mount Athos, heard the Lord tell him “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair.” He learned that the safest, most hopeful and joyful place for the human soul is the assurance that we are unfit for Christ, that we are “sinners, of whom I am first,” that our personal failings and lack of love for God are evidence we have not even begun to repent.

Why is this a good place for the soul? Because it puts the soul at the mercy of the One who delights to show mercy. When we are assured of our unfitness for life in Christ, we quit thinking about justice and put all our trust and confidence in His mercy – then we “receive power to be His witnesses.” We return to the place where we are empowered by Grace: “God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Here is an excerpt from Father Arseny 1893-1973 Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father, trans. by Vera Bouteneff (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999). This series of memoirs circulated as samizdat during the atheist regime, before being translated and published in English. The book may be read online at Google, or in hard copy; likewise the sequel, Father Arseny: A Cloud of Witnesses, at Google or in hard copy.

During one of the winters, a young man was assigned to Father Arseny’s barracks. Aged 23, he was a student and had been sentenced to twenty years in the camp. He had no experience of camp life because he had been sent to this special camp directly from the strict Butirki Prison in Moscow. Still young, he did not fully understand what lay ahead of him. As soon as he entered the death camp, he encountered the criminals.

His clothing was still good for he had only been in prison a few months. The criminals, led by Ivan the Brown, decided to get hold of the young man’s apparel. They proposed a card game with clothing at stake. Everybody knew that this lad would soon be naked, but no one could do anything about it; even Sazikov dared not intervene. The camp rule was that whoever interfered would be killed. Those who had been in the camp for a while knew only too well that if the criminals decided to play for your rags, to resist would be the end of you.

Ivan the Brown won all the young man’s clothes. Ivan approached him and said, “Take everything off, my friend.”

At that point things started to go sour. The young man, whose name was Alexei, thought that the game had been for fun and refused to hand over his clothing. Ivan the Brown decided to make an exhibition of it. He began with mocking kindness; then he started beating him. Alexei tried to resist, to fight back, but by now the whole barracks knew that he would be beaten until he could no longer move, or even to death. Everyone sat still and watched as Ivan bashed Alexei. He bled from the mouth and face and was swaying. Some criminals mockingly urged him to fight.

Father Arseny had not seen the beginnings of the fight; he had been piling up logs near a stove at the other end of the barracks. He suddenly saw what was happening. Ivan was going to kill Alexei. By now Alexei could only cover his face with his hands; Ivan was slamming him and smashing him repeatedly. Father Arseny silently put the logs near the stove, calmly walked over to the fight and, before the amazed eyes of the whole barracks, grabbed the arm of Ivan the Brown. Ivan looked surprised, shocked! The priest had interfered in a fight. This meant he must die. Ivan hated Father Arseny. He had never dared touch him for fear of the rest of the barracks, but now he had a true reason to kill him.

Ivan stopped beating Alexei and pronounced, “O.K. Pop, it’s the end for both of you. First the student, then you.” A knife appeared in his hands and he lunged towards Alexei.

Keep reading…

The marker at Father Arseny’s grave in Rostov.

As Lent begins, I’ve been focusing on Jesus’ temptations in the desert, and looking at how we can engage with those “arch-temptations” in order to reduce the resistance to the “rivers of living water” that are supposed to be flowing out of us. We’ve explored appetite and affirmation. Now we move to ambition.

He makes some excellent real-world observations. The one I’m chewing on:

When our identities are tied to getting what we want, we’re useless to God.

Read it all…

To speak of humility (mukkaka or makkikuta) meant to Isaac to speak of God, for God in his vision is primarily the One who is ‘meek and lowly in heart’. God’s humility was revealed to the world in the Incarnation of the Word. In the Old Testament, God remained invisible to and unattainable by everyone approaching him. But when he clothed himself in humility and hid his glory under human flesh, he became both visible and attainable:

Humility is the raiment of the Godhead. The Word who became human clothed himself in it, and he spoke to us in our body. Everyone who has been clothed with humility has truly been made like unto Him who came down from his own exaltedness and hid the splendor of his majesty and concealed his glory with humility, lest creation be utterly consumed by the contemplation of him.

Every Christian is called to imitate Christ in humility. In acquiring humility, a person becomes like the Lord and clothes himself in Christ:

Wherefore every man has put on Christ when he is clothed with the raiment wherein the Creator was seen through the body that he put on. For the likeness in which he was seen by his own creation and in which he kept company with it, he willed to put on in his inner man, and to be seen therein by his fellow servants.

The King Beetle On A Coconut Estate from the album “It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All A Dream! It’s Alright” by mewithoutYou. Download the song for 99 cents at Amazon.

About this song, Billy Kangas writes:

It’s a story about some beetles that are trying to figure out what fire is. The song is really a parable about trying to know God. I have to say I started weeping when I heard it, and I’m not sure why. The ending chant is “why not be utterly changed into fire?”

Meanwhile, from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers:

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

…on which topic, if you have time, do read St Seraphim’s conversation with Motovilov.

But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be.

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt — the Divine Reason. …

The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own.

Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance.

From Athonite Flowers: Seven Contemporary Essays on the Spiritual Life by Monk Moses. The author was born in Athens, Greece and has been living the monastic life on Mount Athos since 1975. He is the Elder of the Kalyvi of St. John Chrysostom at the Skete of St. Panteleimon of the Koutloumoussiou Monastery. He devotes much of his time to studying the lives of saints and poetry, to writing articles and books.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, St. Kosmas Aitolos foretold that a time would come when a person would have to travel for days to meet another person whom he could embrace as a brother. We are living in an age where this is already happening. Contemporary man, in his loneliness, experiences pathological anxiety, anguish and suffering. He is tormented and, in turn, torments others.

Why? This essay will attempt an answer by bringing the fragrance of community found in the desert to the loneliness and the desolation found in cities.

Contemporary Loneliness

Loneliness is the absence of communication and relationship- the inability to develop and maintain associations with others. Contemporary culture and the structures of society, the mass media reflecting prevailing ideologies, even children’s games, lead to social alienation, political estrangement and personal isolation. The individual person begins, early on, to be possessed by an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy, to lose the meaning and purpose of life, to live without principles and discipline, to be constantly suspicious and in doubt.

Alone and insecure, anxious and disorderly, modern man and particularly the contemporary young person attempts to build bridges, to raise flags, to shout slogans. But without a guide or with bad guides he is readily disillusioned and becomes hard and aggressive, a plaything for political exploiters and power-hungry anarchists. The desire for freedom becomes the bitter death of his freedom.

The young, who earlier had declared that they would never compromise with anyone, are now themselves compromised. They take refuge in demonstrations and sit-ins, becoming rebellious in an effort to relieve themselves of the weight of their loneliness, not realizing that they are thrusting themselves into an even more unbearable slavery.

It is particularly unfortunate that all this is happening where least expected even with young people of good education, exceptional intelligence, energy and talent. Unsatisfied with material prosperity and disillusioned by the hypocrisy of their elders, these young people struggle for simpler life, for quality in life, for a better way of life but unfortunately they do not manage to make the right beginning.

Modern art is a good example of the spiritual alienation that we see. Instead of shedding light and opening windows toward others and toward heaven it tends to shut us in and to plunge us, ever deeper, into obscurity and darkness.

It is not long before isolated man begins to talk to himself, to the irrational animals, to the shadows that surround him, and to the dead. By now he is seriously sick. Melancholy, phobias, suspicion and mistrust have made him a psychopath. A most appropriate observation characterizes our time as the century of the psychiatrist. According to World Health Organization statistics for 1985 there are more than 400 million people in the world suffering from deep depression, with about 400,000 committing suicide each year. And these statistics refer only to the developed countries!

In his isolation man is plagued relentlessly by egotism and pride which are the natural parents of his loneliness.

Humility — An Antidote to Loneliness

If egotism and pride foster this kind of loneliness, then true humility — even though the term is misused and loses meaning among those who merely talk about it — produces the climate in which this loneliness is not permitted to thrive. Behold how the desert that good mother, excellent philosopher and theologian speaks about holy humility, silence and peace.

The humble person, according to Abba Poimen, is comfortable and at peace wherever he may find himself.

Abba Isaac tells us that he who makes himself small in everything will be exalted above all. And his discerning voice continues:

“Hate honor and you will be honored indeed. He who runs after honors causes honor itself to be banished from him. But if you merely disdain yourself hypocritically in order to appear humble, God will reveal you.”

In the Gerontikon, which contains a wide variety of spiritual writings from the Fathers, it is repeatedly made clear that:

“The humble-minded and lowly in heart is not the one who cheapens himself and talks about humility, but the one who endures joyfully the dishonors which come from his neighbor.”

In another place the Gerontikon states that:

“The person honored more than he deserves is actually harmed, while the person who is not honored at all by his fellow human beings will be honored in heaven by God.”

Abba Poimen gives us this advice:

“Every possible sorrow that comes to you can be overcome with silence.”

Abba Isaiah agrees with him:

“Until your heart is at peace through prayer, make no effort to explain anything to your brother.”

In studying the writings of the holy fathers of the desert, one can easily observe a common mind, a common noble spirit, a humaneness, an understanding, a wisdom. These are dew drops of the Holy Spirit, which fall in the arid desert after long struggles, which make fragrant flowers grow among the communities of faithful committed totally to God, and which make fragrant the souls of those who truly thirst for God.

Abba Isaiah, that great mind, notes with particular grace and subtlety:

“He who humbles himself before God is capable of enduring every insult. The humble person is not concerned about what others say about him. The person who bears the harsh word of a rude and foolish man for the sake of God is worthy of acquiring peace.”

Abba Mark, on this important topic — our relationship with ourselves and with others, in which we find ourselves stumbling on a daily basis — goes on to note the following:

“When you become aware of the thought in your mind dictating human glory, you should know for sure that this thought is preparing you for shame. And if you discern someone praising you hypocritically, expect also his accusation some time soon.”

And with the daring precision of a surgeon of the soul, the holy Abba continues:

“When you see someone crying over the many insults he has received, you should know that, because he was overcome by vainglory, he is now unknowingly reaping the crop of evils in his heart. He who loves pleasure is grieved by accusations and abuse. On the other hand, he who loves God is grieved by praises and other superfluous remarks. The degree of our humility is measured by slander. Don’t think that you have humility when you cannot forbear even the slightest accusation.”

Abba Zosima goes even further:

“Remember the one who has ridiculed you, who has grieved you, who has wronged you, who has done evil to you, as your physician, your healer. Christ sent him to heal you; don’t remember him with anger.”

Evagrios considered those who spoke badly of him as benefactors.

The divine wisdom of these physicians of the desert has tremendous significance to our topic. It has been said that these remarks are addressed by monks and for monks, but this is a superficial view. The epidemic of loneliness and depression that we are discussing results from proud minds lacking in humility, from failed interpersonal relationships, from unsatisfied egotistical aspirations, from self-aggrandizement, praise-seeking and self-love. This loneliness is strong enough to weaken a person and to make him sick. But love is stronger, capable of healing and regenerating the whole world.

Man has an irrepressible need to communicate, but communication must be properly developed. Initially, we must strike up a conversation a sincere, honorable and courageous conversation with our unknown self. We must rediscover in the very depths of our soul the hidden innocence of our childhood years. Next we must learn to have unmasked face-to-face conversation with the only, true living friend our heavenly Father and God. Only then will we be able to effectively communicate with others, whoever they are — the worst, the best, the neighbors, the distant, our brothers and sisters in Christ. In this manner the webs of loneliness are removed, the inaccessible and sunless dungeons of the heart are illumined, the shell of our ego is broken. When we have rejected the loneliness of miserable, self-centered egotism we can begin to rejoice, to be free, to breathe, to live.

Natural Loneliness: A Sanctuary of Knowledge of Self and of God

There is another type of loneliness — natural loneliness which is not pathological but creative, life-giving, full of grace. It is exemplified by the natural separation of monastics from the world. It is a loneliness to which we all should devote much time. We must be able to withdraw ourselves from the noisy crowds which are so superficial, so distracting, and so counterproductive in a withdrawal which is healthy, beautiful and good. It is important that we learn to shut off the constant communication with the many, which does not allows us to be alone with our self and as a consequence, we are not able to be with the One who is always waiting, the incarnate Logos and God. We must make the time and find the way for this other kind of sacred communication of natural loneliness. And we must pursue this knowledgeably, with an orderly, disciplined program.

Please keep in mind that we are not talking about those who seek to escape from preoccupations with the world in order to find rest, to view beautiful sunsets, to gaze at star-studded skies. Such activities are not spiritual. Neither are we talking about those who seek to meditate using techniques of doubtful origins to achieve dubious results. Nor are we discussing those who devote fleeting moments to superficial daydreams and who presume to have repented when they feel sentimental emotions as they remember indiscretions of their past. And we certainly are not talking about the well-meaning but naïve who think the spiritual life of sacred quietude consists of strolling at the sea shore with a komboschoini (prayer beads) in hand. Furthermore, we are not referring to the spiritual tourists who visit holy places and converse boldly with holy persons, but who do not deny their ego nor sacrifice their will. Activities such as these are only superficial attempts to escape from life, through shallow day-dreaming and capricious imagination.

What we are talking about is sacred quietude achieved with ascetic effort which liberates us from the loneliness of the world, even though we find ourselves in a noisy city or a disorderly household. We are talking about the persistence and the patience which help us probe the deepest roots of our existence and understand its limits, and which dispel the darkness that tires and discourages us.

We need to learn to pray. We need vigils constant vigilance in a posture of immobility and calmness.

When I am near God what do I have to fear? He has guided me to where I may be guided by him. Despairing of friends and acquaintances — sorely disappointed with the arts, the technologies, the ideologies — disenchanted with social chatter and vacuous etiquette — I come to the privilege of ultimate despair. I become aware that, in my nakedness, God himself is there to vest me with authentic hope. And in this miracle the blessed Panaghia and all the saints are present to lend their support.

In this natural loneliness — this divine loneliness — I find relief. The actor’s masks which I had felt obliged to put on or which had been put on me have been discarded. It had been a dreadful state. Every night I needed to go to another gathering, to be part of another group, for I had to be included somewhere. I was constantly changing my mask. Now, however, by turning inward I begin to live, to become aware that I am a child of God, to unveil my unique and irreplaceable identity, my face, my person. I begin to observe the activities of the passions. I can see my strengths and my limitations. I am redeemed from errors, fantasies, excesses, and languid apathy.

A firm resolve helps guide our steps to this lonely sanctuary of knowledge of self and of God. In this sanctuary the loneliness the aloneness which had been feared becomes a delight. For the person who is with God can never be alone since he is in dialogue with himself and with God. Here we find ourselves with less individualism, and greater love for others. We find tears for the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters, and strength for greater efforts that will help them. For the voice which arises from the depths of the lone person cuts through the clouds and reaches the Triune God, who always listens and always responds.

The Divine Loneliness of Man in Communion with God

The man in communion with God knows how to make his voice more fervent and to rejoice while standing in second place. He knows how to be a friend even with the stranger and to be satisfied with little. Moreover, he knows how to become tired in his diligent efforts and how to wash with tears those who are grasping and prodigal. And he knows how to do these things without complaint or dissatisfaction, even if abandoned by relatives, friends, colleagues.

Far from the tumultuous crowds and the confusion of the public arena, in the privacy of your room, choose freely and without coercion. It may appear that you are not offering anything to others and that you are being self-centered, particularly when others are saying that they need you, as they suffer from painful loneliness. This loneliness which you have chosen for yourself is an arduous task, requiring great strength, heroism, persistence. It is a long and endless undertaking. And sometimes it can be preparation for a return to those whom you have left out of your life, although this should never be the purpose of your ascetic commitment.

All the saints of our Church, the most fervent and active missionaries, even the Lord himself in his earthly life, experienced the mystery of divine loneliness. Remember those great personalities, the prophets of the Old Testament Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and John the Forerunner.

Returning to our century, we find it tragically alone, in despair, pessimistic. In spite of efforts to the contrary, the world is in conflict with everyone and everything countries, governments, races, colleagues, parents, friends, children, books, lessons, work. And being in conflict with itself it is also in conflict with God, to whom it never speaks, never says anything.

The most painful loneliness is to be next to your spouse and yet be unable to transmit your inner feelings, even as external messages are transmitted instantaneously from one hemisphere to another. It is painful loneliness for married couples to keep secrets from each other for years. It is painful when dialogue is non-existent between children and parents, between children and teachers, between children and clergy. There is no more cruel loneliness than for a family to sit for hours in front of the television without speaking a word among themselves. We live in a difficult time. Loneliness is at an all-time high. Man is lost. God is silent.

In this loneliness, in this desolation of the cities, in this apparent absence of God, man is called to gather his thoughts, to come to his senses, to put aside his many worldly preoccupations and to retire to his place of prayer speechless, naked, a child so that God may speak to him, clothe him, and endow him with spiritual maturity. Then his loneliness will become the divine loneliness of liberation and he will achieve a sense of fullness. Only such radical loneliness leads to a fundamental understanding and experience of God, destroying every hesitation, doubt and torment.

In this sacred loneliness man finds himself face-to-face with his existential poverty and the fear of death which it provokes. Yet, even here, there is the danger that he may choose procrastination as a solution and, for a time, set his panic-stricken self at ease. He may resume running back and forth endlessly, expanding social activities, and seeking a variety of entertainments a program of extreme busyness. Other people, other things, work and extensive involvements may serve as a cover for his spiritual impoverishment for a time. And he may continue wandering aimlessly, driven by circumstances, tormented, flirting with one thing and another, fighting, being torn and finally annihilated.

A life of work without the liberation of communion with God is slavery. The struggle for excessive wealth is an incurable, tormenting disease. Fear of the future can stimulate greed, miserliness, hoarding. And God can be easily forgotten.

Here is what Abba Markos says, on how man can avoid the slavery of misguided work and instead become a free servant of God:

“The one who casts off anxious cares for ephemeral things and is freed from their every need, will place all his trust in God and in the eternal good things. The Lord did not forbid the necessary daily care for our physical well-being; but he indicated that man should be concerned only for each day. To limit our needs and cares to what is absolutely necessary is quite possible through prayer and self-control, but to eliminate them altogether is impossible.”

In the discerning remarks of Abba Markos which continue, let me call your attention to a subtle point which applies to many faithful:

“The necessary services which we are obliged to carry out, we must of course accept and carry out, but we must let go of those other purposeless activities and prefer rather to spend our time in prayer, particularly when these activities would lead us into the greed and luxury of money and wealth. For the more one can limit, with the help of God, these worldly activities and remove the material which feeds them, the more will one be able to gather his mind from such anxious wanderings. If again someone, out of weak faith or some other weakness, cannot do this, then, at least, let him understand well the truth and let him try, as much as he can, to censure himself for this weakness and for still remaining in this immature condition. For it is far better to have to give an account to God for omissions rather than for error and pride.”

Let me repeat this last point:

“It is far better to have to give an account to God for omissions rather than for error and pride!”

A drama is played out in man wherein he continuously and intently seeks peace and knowledge externally. But when he comes to his senses he realizes that true hospitality exists in an unexpected place. For it is precisely within himself that he discovers and experiences the particularity of his personhood. It is here that the divine loneliness of liberation, based on the knowledge of his individual personality, is to be found. It is here, in mystical quietude, that he measures, decides, and takes on his responsibilities.

Achieving the mystical experience of what we are, what we should seek, and what we can do, involves troublesome effort which, nevertheless, is critical. It is within us that we rescue ourselves from the loneliness of ego and where we find the way to the light and joy of communion.

Much of the world is governed by sophistry, wisdom has been ostracized, and decency has been lost. Lies and deception abound, revisionism has made history counterfeit, the Gospel is misinterpreted, schoolbooks are political tools mouthing the ideologies of those in power. There is a tendency to mimic false western ideologies, including sentimental pietism and painless social neochristianitiy. The life of the Church and its life-giving Sacred Traditions are ignored.

The only refuge is for each of us to set up our own sanctuary wherever we can. To a world which considers deception to be intelligence and honor to be weakness, we must dare say “Do not touch me!” We must choose to remain voluntarily and responsibly alone, even though such aloneness requires great courage in a society which aggressively seeks our applause and urges us into amalgamation. The weariness over vanities, bitterness, constant motion and joyless joys that has filled our lives, helps us come to the realization that this is the best form of resistance to the general disorientation.

By restoring our inner world, we increase our resistance, and in time become invincible to, the organized attacks of evil. By placing our whole life at God’s feet and seeking the authentic life he wants us to live we begin to have a foretaste of immortality, where we are never alone but in the company of Christ and his saints. All loneliness is dispelled by inner self-sufficiency.

And it may help you to know that there are many, out of sight, who are assisting you with their prayers. These are the monastics, dedicated totally to God, who keep vigil. Even though you have not met them they pray for you, with arms raised and with knees and knuckles callused by their prostrations.

The Supreme Loneliness of Believers Today

It has been said that each person carries his own loneliness. The mentally unbalanced individual has a dangerous loneliness. The sick person has an agonizing loneliness. One who has unjustly accumulated wealth has a bitter and ugly loneliness. But the believer carries a permanent, incurable and supreme loneliness, the loneliness of the way to salvation.

We have become accustomed to referring to the loneliness of late evening, of mourning, of living abroad. And each of us deals with our own individual circumstances as best we can. But, how long will we continue to go around in circles, examining the subject externally yet never entering its reality? Standing before the eternal enigma of existence, when will we the sons and daughters of God by grace and participation, created in his image and likeness, the children of light when will we dare to cast aside worldly ideas and discussions and, standing face to face before God, make the decision to fundamentally change our lives?

Our movements remain uncertain. We talk about God, yet God remains someone we do not really know. We desire to be with God, we advance toward him, yet at the last minute we find an escape route and evade him.

We love ourselves excessively, beyond measure. We are unwilling to bear God. We are afraid of him, and we try to deceive him — although in fact we only deceive ourselves — with excuses which appear to be convincing. We have come to love our deceptions to the point of no longer being ashamed of them. And yet God himself never tires of seeking us out discreetly, reminding us of his presence in our sufferings and in our joys, in our mistakes and in our victories.

It is necessary for believers to begin again the way of the Lord. Let us abandon the crowds and their excited shouting; let not their words entice and influence us. The way of the Lord is narrow, uphill, demanding, lonely, but it is also salutary, as he himself has promised us. The believer must at last attach himself with love to what is essential to his personal existence, setting aside decisively and irrevocably the secondary and superfluous.

The message of the Book of Revelation is truly awesome. The lukewarm believers will be spewed out of the mouth of God! (Rev. 3:15-16) The term used is most expressive of God’s dissatisfaction with those who are indecisive and ambiguous, neither hot nor cold.

To be in the company of God is both a joy to God and the greatest liberating blessedness to man. But reconciliation with God cannot be detached from reconciliation with ourselves and with our brothers and sisters. These always go together the friend of God is a friend of himself and of others.

The relationships that result have no room for conceit or isolation. Love of God must never degenerate into Pharisaism, nor love of neighbor into sterile duty. Openness in three directions — toward self, God and neighbor — is achieved symmetrically, with balance, with knowledge, with freedom and with love.

The great fourth century teacher of the desert, Abba Isaiah, reminds us that

“the pathological love of self and of others is an obstacle to our relationship with God.”

Cicero used to say that

“a great city is a great loneliness!”

This loneliness produces boredom, lack of appetite, pessimistic bitterness, a constant looking to the future and doing nothing today, dissatisfaction, a desire to escape, cowardice. These conditions, collectively referred to by the ascetic literature as accidia, mercilessly plague many, including the careless monastic.

Here is how St. Maximos the Confessor, the great Byzantine theologian, speaks about accidia:

“All of the powers of the soul are enslaved by accidia, while almost all of the other passions are also and immediately aroused by it, because, of all the passions, accidia is the most burdensome.”

St. John of the Ladder, who knows profoundly even the most subtle movements of the soul, described accidia to monks who inquired with characteristic harshness:

“Accidia is the breakdown of the soul, the disorientation of the mind, negligence of ascetic practice, hatred of monasticism, love of worldliness, irreverence toward God, forgetfulness of prayer.”

Evagrios mentions that this unbearable condition of the soul devastates its victim,

“who does not know what to do anymore, seeing the time not passing and wondering when the mealtime will come which seems delayed.”

Antiochos, who lived in the seventh century, is even more vivid and precise in his definition of accidia:

“This condition brings you anxiety, dislike for the place where you are living, but also for your brothers and for every activity. There is even a dislike for Sacred Scripture, with constant yawning and sleepiness. Moreover, this condition keeps you in a state of hunger and nervousness, wondering when the next meal will come. And when you decide to pick up a book to read a little, you immediately put it down. You begin to scratch yourself and to look out of the windows. Again you begin to read a little, and then you count the number of pages and look at the titles of the chapters. Finally, you give up on the book and go to sleep, and as soon as you have slept a little you find it necessary to get up again. And all of these things you are doing just to pass the time.”

St. John of Damascus says that this struggle is very heavy and very difficult for monks.

St. Theodore of Studion says that the passion of accidia can send you directly to the depths of Hades.

Dostoyevski, who had a patristic mind, offered a solution to this problem when he had the Starets Zosima tell us we must make ourselves responsible for the sins of the whole world:

“This understanding of our salvation through others helps us to realize that love is not exhausted only in doing good, but in making the agonies and the sufferings of others our very own. The monks pray daily for the salvation of the whole world. Created in the image of God, we are all his, we are all brothers, his children. Loneliness is abolished in God. We are all ‘members of each other’ according to St. Paul. Thus, our sins and our virtues have a bearing upon the others, since, as we have said, we are all members of one body. Accidia provides a reason for more fervent prayer, and the difficulties are an opportunity for spiritual maturity and progress.”

Let me repeat. Separation from the world, maligned by some as desertion, is courageous and necessary, a resistance to the general leveling of all things. Man finds his authenticity, the beauty of his uniqueness, within the sacred silence of quietude, standing apart from the crowd. His suffering in solitude prepares him to return to the common and familiar, revitalized and ready for whole-hearted service.

Abba Alonios once said:

“Unless a man can bring himself to say to his heart that he alone and God are present in this place, he will never find peace and rest of soul.”

St. John Chrysostom said: “Quietude in solitude is no small teacher of virtue.” Elsewhere he also said:

“No matter where you are, you can set up your sanctuary. Just have pure intentions and neither the place, nor the time will be an obstacle, even without kneeling down, striking your chest or raising your arms to heaven. As long as your mind is fervently concentrated you are totally composed for prayer. God is not troubled by any place. He only requires a clear and fervent mind and a soul desiring prudence.”

St. Makarios of Egypt, in his spiritual homilies, becomes a little more affectionate:

“Even if you find yourself poverty stricken of spiritual gifts, just have sorrow and pain in your heart for being outside of his kingdom, and as a wounded person shout to the Lord and ask him to make you also worthy of the true life.”

Further on, he says:

“God and the angels grieve over those who are not satisfied with heavenly nourishment.”

Finally, St. Makarios makes this significant and remarkable observation:

“Everything is quite simple and easy for those who desire to be transfigured spiritually. They need only to struggle to be a friend of God and pleasing to him, and they will receive experience and understanding of heavenly gifts, an inexpressible blessedness, and a truly great divine wealth.”

Being inexperienced in these more profound spiritual conditions, I should simply work in the beloved desert to uproot my passions. But there is a need to speak of men I have seen and heard, who live on the peaceful mountain sides of the sacred Athonite peninsula, who experience the mysteries of God. They are charismatic monks consumed by heaven, bearing Christ in their hearts and loving God, devotees of quietude, of solitude, thunderous workers of silence, alone but without loneliness, who, in their solitude, remember the loneliness of the whole world. While some in the world suffer involuntarily sleeplessness and others spend their nights without love in strange places, the monks of Mt. Athos keep a voluntary vigil, praying for the health, mercy and salvation of the whole world.

An amazing book by a contemporary hermit, which circulated recently, describes the famous ascetic of Mt. Athos, Hatzi-Georgis, as a faithful friend of quietude in the caves of the desert, an honorable and noble fighter, a great faster who found his rest in vigils, in prayer and in solitude. The desert did not make him wild and harsh like itself. On the contrary it refined and beautified him. His reverend biographer writes as follows:

“Hatzi-Georgis had much innocent love for all. He was always peaceful, tolerant and forgiving. He had a great heart and that is why he had room for everything and everyone, just as they were. In a sense he had been rendered incorporeal. Living the angelic life on earth he became an angel and flew to heaven, for he held on to nothing neither spiritual passions nor material things. He had thrown everything away and, consequently, flew very high.”

The Elder Gerasimos, the hesychast from Katounakia, remained for seventeen years, as noted by his fellow ascetic, at the peak of Prophet Elijah struggling with demons and the elements. He remained an immovable pillar of patience. His tears were flowing constantly. He completed his carefree and quiet life in the sweetness of the constant vision of Christ.

Another hesychast from Katounakia, Fr. Kallinikos, loved pain, toil and quietude beyond measure. He bathed in his tears and perspiration. The last forty-five years of his life he passed in seclusion, praying without ceasing. His face attained the grace of shining like that of Moses when he descended from Mt. Sinai.

The spiritual Father Ignatios had the peculiar habit of closing the shutters of his cell so that he would not notice the coming of the new day, but could continue his prayers. It was his custom to beseech his visitors in this manner:

“Love God who has loved you!”

He would sometimes forget to wash, to comb himself, to eat, but prayer beads were always in his hand and prayer always on his lips and heart. When he lost his eyesight, he became even brighter. He was fragrant in life and he was also fragrant after falling asleep in the Lord.

The remarkable priest and father confessor, Fr. Savvas, from the Little St. Anna, drew his strength from the daily Divine Liturgy which he celebrated in tears. During Liturgy, and during his all night vigils, he would take hours to commemorate thousands of names.

This is the nature of the community of the desert silent, praying, serene, blessed. This is the life of the desert. If a monk does not possess an intense spiritual life and a constant vigilance, he will certainly fall into a myriad of temptations. Accidia will lead him to a barren isolation when, mocked by angels and demons, he will become the worse of the worst, and the loneliness of the desert will become unbearable for him.

Summing Up the Paradoxes

The cities become more and more desolate and they will continue in this direction, while the deserts will become inhabited and will again blossom. No one who remains unrepentant will be able to block the repentance of the willing, the prayer of the faithful, the supplication of the poor. No one can prevent the free person from self-imprisonment, self-exile, from living the mystery of the living God. This miracle is experienced in martyrdom and in humility, where the Orthodox way of life always blossoms in quietude, in silence, in anticipation. We are called to experience the transcendence of Christianity, which is not so much the abolition of evil as it is the honorable acceptance of ourselves and of others, living the wealth of poverty, the health of illness, the blessing of tribulation, the power of weakness, the joy of patience, the victory of defeat, the honor of dishonor, the freedom of seclusion, the majesty of meekness, the resistance to death, the incarnation of God, the deification of man. And we should expect all these spiritual realities, not from the authority of the leaders of this world, but from the authority we exercise over ourselves, and from the creation of healthy and bright spiritual hearths which we call parish, family, cell, workshop, office, auditorium, room.

In this way, though the desolation and loneliness of the cities will continue to exist, it will not penetrate into our hearts. In this way the world can be changed, not from without, but from within and from above.

Do not consider great the missionary to Africa or the significant inventor. Great is the little person who forbears the madness, the injustice, the persecution, the pain of his neighbor and of his own life. According to Abba Isaac, the person who recognizes and overcomes his passions is greater than the person who raises the dead.

All who seek redemption from pathological anxiety, from sorrow and sadness, from emptiness and loneliness are invited to a rendezvous with themselves and with God. And when you do meet, remember the humble person who has offered these thoughts.

Three experiments demonstrated that feeling wronged leads to a sense of entitlement and to selfish behavior. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall a time when their lives were unfair were more likely to refuse to help the experimenter with a supplementary task than were participants who recalled a time when they were bored. In Experiment 2, the same manipulation increased intentions to engage in a number of selfish behaviors, and this effect was mediated by self-reported entitlement to obtain positive (and avoid negative) outcomes. In Experiment 3, participants who lost at a computer game for an unfair reason (a glitch in the program) requested a more selfish money allocation for a future task than did participants who lost the game for a fair reason, and this effect was again mediated by entitlement.

(via Eric Barker)

I wonder if this is related to the way some folks love a good lost cause. I know converts to Orthodox Christianity who, though not remotely Greek in ethnicity or culture, feel a sense of victimhood and anger over the loss of Constantinople 500 years ago to the Turks. Oddly enough, they’re often the same people who champion monarchism – be it the return of the Romanov Tsars or carrying a torch for the Stuart kings – and who grumble that the South got a raw deal in the War Between the States, that something was tragically lost when Arthur and the noble Celts were overwhelmed by the barbaric Saxons, and again when the free, Orthodox Saxons were conquered by the evil Catholic Normans under William the Bastard. (Disclaimer: I’m not making this up…)

In fact it makes me wonder if there are not a few people who are Orthodox because it’s obscure; you get the sense of being an insider and you can argue online from a place of serene superiority based on your Vast Patristic Heritage. Just guessing.

Meanwhile a victim state of mind is an ugly thing in any case. If I believe the world owes me and mine for what we’ve suffered, that does not equip me to be much of a servant to anybody. We Christians ought to be wary of any sentiment that boils down to “I deserve better.”

In the new humanity, them becomes us, they becomes we, and those become ours. This is why it is very dangerous when a church becomes known for being hip, cool, and trendy. The new humanity is not a trend. Or when a church is known for attracting one particular kind of demographic, like people of this particular age and education level, or that particular social class or personality type. There’s obviously nothing wrong with the powerful bonds that are shared when you meet up with your own tribe, and hear things in a language you understand, and cultural references are made that you are familiar with, but when sameness takes over, when everybody shares the same story, when there is no listening to other perspectives, no stretching and expanding and opening up – that’s when the new humanity is in trouble.

The beautiful thing is to join with a church that has gathered and find yourself looking around thinking, “What could this group of people possibly have in common?” The answer, of course, would be the new humanity. A church is where the two people groups with blue hair – young men and older women – sit together and somehow it all fits together in a Eucharistic sort of way. Try marketing that. Try branding that. The new humanity defies trends and demographics and the latest market research.

In Acts 8 some of Jesus’ first followers are healing people, and a man named Simon sees this and offers them money and says, “Give me also this ability.” Simon is seduced into thinking that the movement of the Spirit of God is a commodity to be bought and sold like any other product. The apostles chastise him for his destructive thinking, because … the Eucharist is not a product.

Glossy brochures have the potential to do great harm to the body and blood. Church is people. The Eucharist is people. People who have committed themselves to being a certain way in the world. To try to brand that is to risk commodifying something intimate, sacred, and holy.

A church is not a center for religious goods and services, where people pay a fee and receive a product in return. A church is not an organization that surveys its demographic to find out what the market is demanding at this particular moment and then adjusts its strategy to meet that consumer niche.

The way of Jesus is the path of descent. It’s about our death. It’s our willingness to join the world in its suffering, it’s our participation in the new humanity, it’s our weakness calling out to others in their weakness. To turn that into a product blasphemes the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is what happens when the question is asked, What does it look like for us to be a Eucharist for these people, here and now? What does it look like for us to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the healing of these people in this time in this place? The temptation is simply to duplicate the Eucharist of someone else.

— from  Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile