Modern day Christians are a bad joke. Sorry, but we are. We're perceived as this hypocritical Pharisee jerks who hold to a series of rules that make no sense, with no fruit to show for it. By using our own human judgements of problems we make a mockery of the person who have come to us for help, always get it wrong, somehow, and then look like idiots when we insist that our esoteric learning has merit. It doesn't, but isn't it nice to pretend, even a moment? The ones this hurts the most are our own children who, growing up with aches and pains they do not understand, turn to us, the parents... who then stuff their head with nonsense that has no meaning aside from the Spirit of God. The children then grow up cold and leave, embittered against the Church, even while searching for Him, bitter towards their own parents.
If that made you mad go look in the mirror and stare awhile.
Here's the deal: the Christian is meant to receive the Wisdom of God. Right here, in Proverbs:
"1 Here, then, my son, is counsel for thee; take this bidding of mine to heart;
2 ever be thy ear attentive to wisdom, thy mind eager to attain discernment.
3 Wisdom if thou wilt call to thy side, and make discernment welcome,
4 as thou wouldst fain hoard riches, or bring hidden treasure to light,
5 then thou wilt learn what it is to fear God, make trial of what it is to know God.
6 Wisdom is the Lord’s gift; only by his word spoken comes true knowledge, true discernment.
7 So it is that he watches over the lives of the upright, bids the innocent walk unharmed;"
See that, right there? The bolded? That means wisdom doesn't come from your pastor/priest, from the Scriptures, from the Fathers, nothing is going to make sense without wisdom from God. No human can teach you what you need to know, and anyone who doesn't tell you that is selling you a bill of goods. I don't care who they are, or what they say, or how good the cookies at their church are, if the aim isn't in helping you receive God's gift of wisdom the rest is useless drivel. There are a lot of people I've met who have the wisdom of God and don't know it, there are very few I know of who got the wisdom of God by reading.
Actually I don't know of anyone who got the wisdom of God by reading, as if the words on the page themselves were the point.
The problem is that most Christians have culturally taught to ignore this fact, most definitely since the 18th century, something that was pointed out by Fr. LaGrange in Three Ages of the Spiritual Life.
"... ascetical theology (working on your flaws, blogger) treats of the exercises which lead to perfection according to the ordinary way, whereas mystical theology treats of the extraordinary way... Is this absolute distinction or separation between ascetical and mystical theology entirely traditional, or is it not rather an innovation made in the eighteenth century?"
It's a rhetorical question, folks.
Without direct grace from God to aid you in your struggles you will lose. Period. And the wisdom of God is the beginning of all these things. It allows you to see things from God's perspective, however little of it He shows you. Without God's view this life makes no sense.
Not that you'd normally hear most other Christians talk about it!!! "Read your Bible", some will say. "Go read the Fathers and be a good person! That'll fix it!" Or they'll tell you to do a bunch of different things. And none of this is wrong, but it's certainly not complete. Wait. On. God. He will show up when it is time. Is the only answer anyone should be saying. You sit with them while they wait, you grieve at the silence, you provide hope in that silence, but you wait.
Do you see what the problem is? Does it not scream at you? It screams at me! "Go do the following things" could be construed as waiting, sure. You could do what good you can while you await your answer. Sure. Some try to give answers that just don't answer your questions; frankly no one but God can.
This lack of trust in the saving power of the Spirit has damned many a poor unfortunate, both the people receiving bad advice and those giving it. And sometimes this lack of surety comes out as anger, as judgment, on the person who had the gall to ask the questions in the first place. Actually, it frequently does.
Now take this glaring weakness and spread it out over about three hundred years.
Hey Christians, see why we get such a bad rap? Masquerading as believers while actually teaching some weird form of stoicism isn't really a good look.
Okay, let's say you agree with me, at least enough to keep reading. How do we fix this problem? I don't say "You": I've definitely told people how to fix their worldview before, as if God's perspective didn't exist. It's really easy to do it, I know! And I know I've done a lot more harm than good. I said everyone was gonna get cut here, didn't I?
Well, the only thing I've found that seems to work, the only thing I've run into that's actually helped me, is as follows: generally, I'd find someone I knew could be trusted to keep my privacy and tell them what thing I was having trouble with, and how I couldn't figure it out. Yeah, sure, advice was given and whatnot, but we'd either pray together or go back to our own places to pray about it. I'd not ask for a particular outcome, other than to know what God's thoughts on the matter were, what His perspective was. I'd present the problem as I saw it, either journaling it or finding an icon/statue and using it as a focus in prayer, and just... talk.
And then I'd sit back, close my eyes, and wait. I'm always listening for the small still voice, for the small but powerful presence whose merest existence can cause cataclysms, at least in me. I have never gotten the whole picture, and I wouldn't even begin to tell you how to discern what the darn Voice is saying. It is a presence that your brain somehow decodes. Somehow. And, again somehow, listening to this voice, for whatever reason, always seems to work out. If I question it too hard it goes up like a puff of smoke. I'm not going to pretend that I've liked the answers I've gotten sometimes. But they are true. It does work. Somehow.
That voice? That's in your heart? That's the letter from the living God, as 2nd Corinthians 3:3 states. It is this letter that Saints Silouan and Sophrony call Holy Tradition. This is the real Tradition. And together, prayerfully, we find it together, using the Tradition of the Church, especially Scripture, to help us listen in more to that small still voice.
It is together, praying for each other and trying to help each other struggle through to find the letter in our hearts that is the core of the Christian life. Not throwing Church Father and Scripture quotes at each other like footballs, expecting the other to catch it and do something with it. Such a notion is atheistic, it it assumes that God is not present and loving you at each and every moment, ready to talk with you should you willing to listen to Him. I am not saying this process is easy. I am saying that, together, God will help us. As St. Cyril of Alexandria says: "For it is not the number of those gathered but the strength of their piety and their love for God that is effective."
What, you hear that and you think "But I don't have any faith!" Then say it, out loud: "God help me, I don't have any faith". There, you now have faith. No, seriously, it does work that. God reacts to that sort of thing, and always will.
God is with us. If we acted like that more often we wouldn't like so much of a joke, even if it just means sitting there and going "WHERE HAVE YOU GONE". Because that is a necessary part of the experience.
There lived a man in the world, a man of godly desires. His name was Simeon. He prayed long and his tears were unrestrained: "Have mercy upon me". But God did not hearken unto him.
Many months went by in this prayer, until his strength was exhausted. He despaired and cried out "Thou art implacable!" And when at these words something foundered in his soul grown weak from despair, suddenly for an instant he beheld the living Christ.
St. Silouan the Athonite, by St. Sophrony of Essex
There's another subsection of folks reading this blog who will go "But all this is for my priest, why go to a laymen?" This is a clericalism that needs to die, and the quicker it dies the better. I am not advocating for the elimination of the Sacrament of Confession, but rather its fulfillment.
“Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2)
Notice it doesn't say a priest is supposed to do all the work? This is a general command. The command to show compassion (to bear another's evil) is the purview of all Christians. Like all Sacraments, Confession is the crown of your life, not a substitution for it. And that life is meant to be the taking care of the orphans and widows and all their burdens, with a life rooted in prayer and the care of those in pain. That is your existence, not some "let my priest handle it", which Protestants mock quite justly. Relegating the Sacrament of Confession to the priest is a concession to human weakness, not the full form. I am not advocating for casual stupidity, however. Go to those who you know will pray with you and offer your concerns to God, and go to your priest. Both, not one or the other!
God is with us. Always. We are God's body. Always.
I really wish we started acting liking it.
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