"You Are My Enemy"

I think most people, when they think of prayer, are trying to find warm fuzzies and focus on them. And it's not like popular Roman Catholic works don't put forward this form of thinking: think about God and His blessings and how lovey-dovey He is and don't focus on the fact that most of the people that really love God suffer a whole hell of a lot and my goodness isn't His Light amazing and why is Elijah over there wanting to die from sheer despair and....

And there I go, off on another rant.

Let's just let me keep doing that, cool?

Cool.

I'm nervous. This is not a happy memory. It's a good memory, but not a pleasant one.

See, after I remembered the rape, I had more than a space of a year where it was constant, horrific, urgent flashbacks. Every day I woke up, I immediately regretted it. There'd always be something new and horrifying waiting in my mind, demanding my attention away from my incredible family. There was about a space of six months where I practically swam in memories of screaming, laughing at said screaming, and weird physical sensations that I... some truly sickening stuff happened in my body. Still, at the end of the day I'd sit down, and try to do exactly what the first paragraph was talking about. Now, if you had asked me, I would have said I wasn't doing that.

You want a quick clue on how humans operate? It's hard won.

People have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to themselves, hardly ever. Self deception is normal. I expect it the same way I automatically breathe now. Well, I hope I do. Maybe.

So yes, I was trying to do the opening paragraph. And I hit a wall. See, that particular day had been filled with memories of me hating everyone and everything and wanting the whole world to burn in a firey hell-hole and to watch everyone I knew and thought I loved suffer for abandoning me to this monstrous fate I'd been dealt.... at six. Whole days, just re-experiencing a level of rage about being unable to communicate what had happened to me and hating everyone else for not even guessing that something might be wrong with me. Resentment is not a good enough word. It's not nearly strong enough. I wanted everyone to suffer like I was suffering. 

I spent the whole day in the present trying not to inflict my wife and child with this suffering. I succeeded... mostly. I was an unconscionable pain in my wife's backside, and somehow managed to not traumatize my firstborn. It took every last ounce of my willpower not to walk around screaming all day long.

So when I got to the end of the day? I was totally tapped out. There was nothing left. And I do mean nothing. All I had left was rage, hatred, and a burning, urgent need to burn it all down. Still I knelt. Still I tried.

And I finally gave up.

I gave in. 

I began the slide into a place where darkness was not the absence of light, but was an active, positive force, all on its own. I began to feel it in my body and to like it. I let myself like the feeling. 

And all of a sudden it got all quiet in my head. Oh, the Silence! Merciful, merciful, merciful Silence!

You are my enemy, said a Voice. It wasn't an accusation. There wasn't any vitriol. No anger. If anything, it was gentle. Like a soft breeze in summer. The Voice was refreshing, and the words... the words drilled me all the way down. This gentle breeze hurt. I sobbed, body convulsing in pain. My fingers and toes began to tingle and I felt like I was on fire, complete with the lack of oxygen that actually kills people who are burned at the stake. I smelled sulfur. 

I promise you I did.

"But... but You have mercy on Your enemies!" I cried out. "You take pity on those who hate You. And I hate You with everything in my existence. You let this happen to me, FUCK YOU!" I found myself howling. "I hate everything about You! I am Your enemy! I have never not been Your enemy!" I was  before the icons I had painted for my family, body contorted into something vaguely resembling a rabid wolf the pack leaves behind to die.

The Silence returned. Oh, merciful merciful interior Silence. My body slumped. My forehead was on the ground. "You treat Your enemies better than they treat themselves" came out of my mouth. "Please, treat me as an enemy. Judge, flay, whatever it is You do. But, whatever You do, don't leave me with whatever this is. Please!!!"

Happily.

I curled up in front of my icon corner and sobbed. My chotki was against my face, tassel pressed against my eyes. My whole body shook and I wondered briefly if I was going to rip the prayer rope in half. I certainly had enough pressure on it to do so. But the chotki held. And I kept crying. I felt like my soul was vomiting something alive out of it. It felt like Someone had reached down my throat and was pulling something, something alive, out. And each sob forced it out a little bit more. 

And then. 

Just like that.

It was out.

Silence reigned supreme. And I lay on the ground, basking in it, exhausted but relieved. I got up, said my rope of 100 Jesus Prayers.

Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.

And then I went to bed.

I woke up the next morning to do it all over again. But this time I faced the ever-present darkness with a bit of a sarcastic humor. Go ahead. Break me. Let's see what happens when you do I told the trauma. 

Since then I've found that the only thing that seems to return  me to that Silence to me is to admit, flat out, that I am its Enemy. Not with rage. Not with self-loathing. But as a statement of fact. And I won't pretend that I do it all that often. Like I said before, self-deception is the norm of humanity. We are not a good race. Our thoughts are not good, and we like to pretend they are. We like to pretend that somehow we are good, even though the world we are in is a nightmare reflection of our nonsense. But it's not the truth.

There is only One Who is Good. Period.

And when that is acknowledged He shows up, without delay. He does not hurry like we do. He waits. And when we are ready, He comes and brings Silence.

Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, haver mercy on me the sinner. 

I am such a wretch. 

Your Nous is not Your Mind

 "I believe that the greatest problem of western philosophy is that it identifies the nous with reason and intellectual knowledge with existential knowledge. Even contemporary scholars in the West point to this fact."

- Metropolitan Hierotheos, "Orthodox Psychotherapy", Preface to the English Translation, pg 13

There is no straight English equivalent for nous in English. It is in no English Bible that I am aware of. Words like "mind", "mind's eye", "perception", etc, are used instead, even though Greek has many different words we translate out to mind. And yet it is of primary importance that one understand what nous is, how it works, where it's referenced in the New Testament, and that it is not your mind. Your mind is a filter. Your nous is what lets you perceive.

Here's where it's used, thanks to Blue Letter Bible's Concordance. Notice how many words we use in English to try and translate this thing! And that's just one word! All translators are traitors; no matter how hard a translator tries he will never be able to get the full meaning of the text passed on. If you're going to seriously examine any text that is translated, that you need to get at least somewhat familiar with the original(s). Truth takes work.

To the best of my knowledge Paul's use of "nous", while it seems to be in line with most ancient thought, has been co-opted to mean merely rational thought today. 

No civilization I know of thought of knowledge as being merely rational. 

The Enlightenment's idea that all of history has been leading to an era of "science" and reason is an invention. A fabrication, even less helpful than a modern idea of the fairy-tale. The Golden Bough, which popularized this nonsense, was thoroughly mocked by scholars of that time (well-sourced Wikipedia for the win!) for being a phantasy (spelling changed to identify the word more closely with a similar word, phantasm, or illusion). Despite its findings having no basis in fact the damage was done; the 20th century exploded with these ideas. At least fairy tales tell us things that are true that we cannot find very easily in the material world. They tell us things that are true, no matter what our eyes tell us. Because, as any one who is being honest will admit, eyes lie all the time. The notion that minds are chiefly rational is relatively new and has no absolutely no basis in any sort of scientific (the process of observation - hypothesis - test - analysis- rinse and repeat) process. At all.

Sorry. 

It's a lie. The 19th century, popularized through the Golden Bough, forced literally every single ancient text through their bullshit lens and we've been force-feeding ourselves their nonsense for the last few hundred years. Our understanding of God has been so mucked with that our modern religious experience has been almost completely neutered.

Because nous does not mean mind, psyche. Nous, when used in British English, means "common sense", alertness. I want to stress that last word, because it's the closest equivalent to the meaning of nous that I know of in English. The nous is aware of everything. It tracks emotions, thoughts, feelings, fantasies, the whole shebang. 

It also hears that small, quiet, Voice, which no honest Christian can deny. 

That Voice of Peace, which is fearsomely powerful. "Soft as iron, safe as lions," as Jon Foreman puts it. 

Because alertness does not mean "filtering". It just means you're alert. Your mind decides what is legitimate to follow up on. To filter and to be aware are two different functions. To say that the thoughts in your head are the only legitimate thing to follow up on is so laughably bad (even by modern standards!) that all it takes is to point this basic fact out to shatter the illusion at once. 

Your feelings are hardly rational, but they are just as important, if not more important, than most thoughts generated to control your world. Feelings cannot be controlled and muzzled. You must live with them. That small, still, Voice that can be heard is definitely not rational and couldn't give a flying fig about what we think makes sense. It simply states the truth, no matter how hard it is for us to stomach it.

Your mind can filter the nous. It is not the nous itself. 

Small perceptions create small minds create small miserable worlds. Small minds can only focus on small things, but the pressure created by weeding out all but rational thought is so intense it can create disasters unheard of before. 

Y'know, like this one:

But don't worry, we're safe from religious wars, which only comprise 7% of all recorded wars. At least we've got that.