The Book of the Elders: Prologue

“So nobody has been able precisely to describe their (the saints’) virtuous life for us. Those who labored… have bequeathed to us in writing a few examples of achievements… to rouse those who came after to emulation.”

Book of the Elders: Prologue

There's a growing group of horrifically disillusioned former Christians. Raised upon the bastardization that is "conservative" Christianity, which uses words on paper to excuse perversities and cruelties that will never cease to surprise me, these younger folks leave, trying to find some truth, somewhere. The problem is that the usual place these folks seem to wind up is progressivism, which has all the life of a rotting corpse. Given what they think of as a choice between a more active mental life filled with cruelty or a totally vapid mental life that appears kinder, they miss the trick: there aren't two options. There's a lot more than two.

But I think there's really only one actual answer: they're all wrong. Two seconds of checking sources and taking them at actual face value reveals the conservative and progressive lies.

Book of the Elders is one of those sources you can check.

The above quote is right there in the introduction. Doesn't sound like "Let's be assholes and quote older sources we've clearly never read", does it? Nor does it sound like "Straitjacket your life to these stories because you're either doing exactly this or you're going to Hell" either. Because here's the thing: you cannot describe a full life. You cannot imitate someone in totality. You do not have their experiences, predispositions, biased, flaws, strengths, etc. And you shouldn’t: you’re you. And you’re enough.

Yes, in that sense you’re enough. 

Gosh I hate that phrase so much. Anyways.

The point of The Book of The Elders, one of the foremost collections of monastic stories, is not there to force you to be someone else, regardless of what our misguided parents said. Emulation does not mean you stop being you. Anyone who watches a younger sibling emulate an older one can see that the younger sibling never does what he emulates even remotely similar. And eventually the little sibling stops, because he’s found his own way. But for that little amount of time? The little sibling is happy to have a bigger one around to copy.

The Book of the Elders is a book meant for younger siblings to find something to love. To admire. To push in directions you’d not think to go otherwise. It is a book of possibilities, not a book of condemnations. If a story does not inspire then that’s okay! Maybe another will! This is a menu, not a list of odd impossibilities that you should feel bad for not being able to do. Read one, be puzzled, amazed, fearful, whatever, just feel something!

If you sit with this book long enough, taking the stories as these extraordinary things that happened, that the compilers themselves couldn't explain but they happened so down they go into the book, if you allow yourself to be puzzled, a beautiful thing can happen: you realize that life is just so much more than anything anyone ever told you it could be. Someone ran into a centaur? What? Centaurs don't exist... right? Maybe? The compiler's just writing down what he heard, which means he's actually just as shocked as you. You don't have to do anything more than go "Huh" and keep it in the back of your head.

We're going to break this book down, chapter by chapter, for awhile here on this blog. I'll be going over stories and some of the history behind them. I don't do this to castigate or to hate on the people who gave me these sources, but because I know the people who really could benefit from them don't know to look. I'm begging you. Look again. There's beauty here of a kind that I know you can't get anywhere else. Don't settle for less!