The Entrance into the Temple

 

This is one of my favorite feasts. I like it for how odd it is to our American Protestant sensibilities, the beauty of promises, and that the spiritual experiences of children are immortalized so. 

It is hard for us in America to conceive of this feast. We like to think of spiritual experiences as primarily mental, not experiential. We want to say that only with understanding can know God.  I was brought up Roman Catholic and still have bits of that whole "age of reason" nonsense they've adopted bouncing in my head. That, of course, isn't helped by the whole "Prayer of Conversion" stuff Protestants do. The Theotokos was three when she ran into the Holy of Holies. That sure makes me uncomfortable! That's something for me to work on! Discomfort is not a bad thing, but a sign I have something to work out.

I've always had a bit of a problem with the whole "promise to God" thing, the ancients did. How do you know it's actually God who did what He did? We promise all sorts of desperate things when in rabbit holes, how do we know that it was actually God who intervened? But this feast does assure that God, indeed, did hear you. He was the one Who made sure you got through whatever it  was. That promise was real. And it's up to you how real you want that to be, I suppose, but the Entrance into the Temple certainly has an opinion on what you're supposed to do with that promise.

But the ultimate lesson, I think, is in validating the spiritual experiences of the young. The only difference between an adult and a child that matters is power. We understand God just as well as adults as we did when we were children. And all of us have had some moment of peace or encounter with goodness that helped define who we were, as children. I've met people who've had these experiences, but learned to discount them. The world doesn't work that way, no one is that good, nothing is that good, that was a lie, a flight of fancy, etc. This Feast says otherwise. Definitively. 

God is with us, even as children, before we're able to understand in a way that us wise and rational adults think of as understanding.  No matter how uncomfortable it may make us to acknowledge that fact, no matter how we want to say that promises made under stress are still promises, no matter how we want to forget the wonderful things that God may have done to us because it's painful to acknowledge them, it is still true. God is with us.

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Exaltation of the Cross

 

A few years ago I was talking to a monk I've known since I was a child. This man may have single-handedly gotten me through many a rough time, usually inadvertently, in the form of some talk, or a kind word, or just by walking nearby. This particular time the monk revealed to me that he had been an alcoholic when he was younger. He said this casually, without a second thought, as if he had fallen off his bike when he was little and hurt his knee. 

Within a few seconds my mind went through a swirl of emotions: shock that it had happened to him, the briefest flash of anger as my worldview changed, however slightly, and finally(!!!) sympathy. "I'm so sorry to hear that, Father!" I told him, with there being no discernible pause. "That must have been so hard". And I meant it. I've known many addicts, lived with some, and had to struggle with my own predilections, even if they're not actual addictions. And then there's my lovely PTSD, which has suggested a whole host of coping mechanisms that are truly horrific. Life can be very difficult without addiction; with it life sounds almost unbearable. I was proud of this monk for having gotten through that process. It made me admire him even more.

His voice had just a touch of indignation, although that may have been my imagination. "Oh, I'm not sorry at all!"

That took me a noticeable second. "You're not?"

With a warmth and genuineness that stung he reiterated. "I'm not, not at all. It led me to God, to Christ. Without my alcoholism I would not have found the peace that I have.

Obviously that's stuck with me since. How many religions hold up an instrument of murder, of torture, and horror as the gold standard of life? Christianity does not transcend as we think of it: we do not ignore what happened to us and go away from it. And we say that we get it. Our crosses are the source of our peace. But I've never heard someone say so with such assurance and peace as that monk did, that day. Never before. Never since. His struggle with alcohol had led him to Christ and he was glad it did. Not even a hint of bitterness was in his voice. And I marvel at it.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have.

Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.

Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world.

They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself.

They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments.

They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself.

They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.

Bless my enemies, O Lord, Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.

Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a dwarf.

Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.

Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.

Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.

Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.

Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of your garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:

so that my fleeing to You may have no return;

so that all hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs;

so that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;

so that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins, arrogance and anger;

so that I might amass all my treasure in heaven;

ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except himself.

One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies.

Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and enemies.

A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand. But a son blesses them, for he understands.

For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life.

Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them.

St. Nikolai Velimirovich

 I look at the things that I struggle with and find that my words of thanksgiving for them are hollow. I hate my trauma, even as I find that I need it to be able to face the world. I hate my pain and find I am scared without it. I run away from God and everything else the instant it's gone so that way I do not hurt again. And so our Lord, in His patience, returns the pain and awfulness to me, to return me to sanity. Without pain I am not me. God made pain. And yes, the peace of God is something I try to focus on and find.

But I can boast in nothing except the cross given me. That is mine. My cross. My torture. My slow bleeding out. My annunciation, nativity, theophany, transfiguration, dormition, and resurrection are delivered via that cross. I think it fitting that the first feast of the year is about the prelude of light: darkness given to twilight. Because the thing that the rest of the year hinges on is that cross. While the feastday may have been started for political reasons its spiritual meaning seems very clear to me: by the cross life comes.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

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The Birth of the Theotokos

 

Today is the prelude of universal joy;

today the winds blow that herald salvation,

and the barrenness of our nature is dispelled;

for the barren woman is revealed as the mother 

of her who remained a virgin

after giving birth to the Creator.

From her the One Who is God by nature 

takes what is foreign to Him and makes it His own;

and works salvation through the flesh for those who have gone astray.//

He is Christ, the Lover of man and the Redeemer of our souls. 

 "Today is the prelude of universal joy", says the Vespers service for this feast. 

The prelude. 

God does not work on our time. At all. Joachim and Anna were truly righteous people, but could not have a child. In those days that was a sign of being cursed by God. Joachim and Anna, despite their virtue, were outcasts for something that was not their fault. It's not like they had gone and jilted the poor and hungry, or had murdered someone, or were serial adulterers, or anything else you can think of! No. They did not have someone to carry on their memory to the next generation. And that was a sure sign of personal sin in their day in age. And before we start shaking our heads at the people back then for being so seemingly superstitious, I think it behooves us to ask if we have standards of a similar nature today.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at the most defenseless in our society: the dead.

But Joachim and Anna did not despair. Imagine being a pariah, to the point to where the priest won't even let you in the building! Many people who may stumble acrost this post probably can, actually, but understand this: they did not stop trying. For decades they continued to be kind and wholesome people, as the gathering suspicion of their unrighteousness built up against them. After decades and decades these two finally broke. Joachim was prevented from accessing the temple as a supreme act of prejudice.

And finally God acted.

And that is what is called "the prelude of universal joy": not when things are going well, not when you're looking at your life and going "I really could use x" , not when you're looking at the world and realizing it's going to crap but maybe there's a chance, but when all hope is lost. When you've run out of your last bit of juice. It is at that moment, if we allow God to act, that is the prelude to joy. 

I've talked before about the Church's preference for evening as the beginning of the day. That logic carries through here: at the beginning of the year the Church teaches that it's when our hearts completely break and we are out of all options that God acts. And it took Joachim and Anna decades to get there. But then they had Mary. And she had Jesus. The Church honors the gradual but steady pace that God has with us, by making this the first major feast of the year.

Hang in there.