The Demon of Avarice

July 27, 2010 By Peter Becker Leave a Comment

“The demon of avarice…is extraordinarily complex and is baffling in his deceits.  He pretends to be a steward and a lover of the poor…he makes us mentally visit prisons in the city and ransom those on sale as slaves.  After deceiving the soul…he engulfs it in avaricious thoughts and then hands it over to the demon of self-esteem.  That latter calls up in our imagination crowds of admirers who praise the Lord for the works of mercy we have performed…but let us call down destruction upon all such thoughts and thankfully live in poverty.”  – Evagrios the Solitary, Texts on Discrimination in respect of Passions and Thoughts (Pg 51, 21st text)

I was praying during church and a thought entered my mind, “Buy a lottery ticket.”  I immediately began to think of all the ways I could use the money I was “called” to win.  People would immediately get out of personal debt.  School loans would be paid for and others would get a chance to go to college.  Growing up as a pastor/missionary’s kid, I saw and heard about the hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to “dress up” churches or seminaries even when the church or seminary needed help just operating as an organization.  Well, I knew how foolish that use of money was so I began to think of all the church mortgages I could pay off.  I thought about money that could be set aside for churches so they could do mission work within the inner cities.  I knew I was called to this because I take Jesus very seriously when he says not to let my right hand know what my left hand is doing.  I would give it all away and all my works would be done anonymously; this way the general public would have no way of knowing how generous I was being.  However, I’m not naïve.  I know the word would get out to those who know me somehow.  Those I gave to would be extremely gracious that I thought of giving to them.  Friends and relatives would come out of the woodwork.  They would show up expecting money.  I thought, “Well, where were they when I needed them the most?  They weren’t there for me, why should I be there for them?”  But then I would rebuke myself.  I would say, “Peter, you forgave them.  Show them you aren’t as petty as they are.  Give them a couple thousand dollars.”  I continued to give credence to these thoughts and became very satisfied with what could be done with the money.  This has been a recurring thought for three years.  I never did buy the lottery ticket, but I could never shake the feeling that I was disobeying God.  After reading these words from Evagrios I became relieved for not acting on my thoughts.

 As I contemplated my thoughts further I began to see that the root of these thoughts were, “God is not doing his job, he needs my help.”  If our Father was doing his job, a pastor in the ghettos of Philadelphia would not have to become part time and get a job elsewhere to support his family.  If our Father was doing his job, those who are trying to serve the poor and oppressed wouldn’t be under the thumb of debt.  What a wicked, self-centered child I am!  Do I really think I know how to care for those better than the one who created our inmost beings? 

 In moving forward let us remember the widow’s offering.  Let us remember that we worship a God who thinks that a five dollar offering from one who is in the grips of poverty and on the edge of homelessness is worth more than the giving away of hundreds of millions of dollars from one who can give away from his or her wealth.  We worship a God who is not concerned with grand acts of charity.  Even if I had won the lottery and given it all away, what would I have lost but my humility?  Where’s the dependence on the Father in that?  Let us call down destruction upon all such “well intentioned” thoughts and thankfully live on our daily bread.

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: avarice, charity, debt, dependence, discrimination, Evagrios the Solitary, humility, money, poverty, wealth

Recall the Eternal Fire

July 14, 2010 By Chris Brown Leave a Comment

“Until a man is completely changed by repentance, he will be wise always to remember his sins with sorrow and to recall the eternal fire which they justly deserve.” – Evagrios the Solitary, On Prayer, chapter 144

 Eternal fire. Judgment. Hell. Not the most attractive part of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

 The monks whose writings comprise the Philokalia, however, recommend meditating on judgment. “Recall the eternal fire” which your sins deserve, admonishes Evagrios. Why? To provoke deeper repentance and more complete conversion within us. To induce humility. To remind us of our great need for salvation and increase our thankfulness for the cross and resurrection of Christ. And the people for whom they recommend such mediation aren’t the heathen sinners of the pagan world. They recommend this meditation for people like themselves: those seeking the path of holiness, those whom we now consider saints, whom we might think least deserving of eternal fire.

This is actually, I think, how Jesus talked about judgment. Unlike the street-corner fire-and-brimstone preachers of today, Jesus preached about judgment and eternal fire to the religious elite. He partied with sinners, showed compassion to prostitutes and tax collectors and touched the unclean. But when it came to the scribes and the Pharisees – who on the outside looked as righteous as righteous could be – Jesus gave words of woe, condemnation, and judgment. Such saintly people as the monks of the Philokalia knew how easily they could step into the Pharisees’ shoes. So they chose to meditate on their own judgment and the punishment they deserve, lest they too be filled with self-righteousness. 

But how? How would one actually meditate on the “eternal fire” which our sins justly deserve? Perhaps one way to do so is to focus on the way Jesus talked about judgment – to let Jesus himself proclaim fire to our souls. So I did a little experiment this morning. I opened my Bible to Matthew 23:13-36 and read the woes Jesus pronounces on the scribes and Pharisees. Or rather, I let the woes read me. Slowly. Jesus told me of the dead men’s bones inside me, the ways in which I neglect the “weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.” Then I turned to Matthew 25:31-46, the separation of the sheep and the goats. Jesus told me how I treat the “least of these”, and I was not proud of what I heard. Last, convicted of the passion of anger, I turned to Matthew 7:21-22. As I remembered a recent angry fit, Jesus told me I was guilty of murder, that my words held me liable to the Gehenna of fire. And all I could say in response was Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

My novice attempt at recalling the judgment my sin deserves may sound depressing, guilt-inducing, morbid. And it would be, except for the sweet prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Awareness of the magnitude of our sin increases our awareness of the magnitude of our Savior.  Evagrios writes earlier, “When you think that you do not need tears for your sins during prayer, reflect on this: you should always be in God, and yet you are still far from Him. Then you will weep with greater feeling” (78).  I have not received the gift of tears yet. But recalling the eternal fire increases my thirst for them. And my thirst for God.

Filed Under: House of St. Michael, Reflections Tagged With: Anger, Evagrios the Solitary, Gift of Tears, Hell, Jesus Prayer, Judgment

The Horse of Self-Esteem

July 8, 2010 By Nick Burdette Leave a Comment

“Of the unclean demons, some tempt man in so far as he is a man, while others disturb him in so far as he is a non-rational animal. The first…suggest to us notions of self-esteem, pride, envy or censoriousness…whereas the second…arouse incensive power and desire in a manner contrary to nature.”
-Evagrios the Solitary, “On Discrimination”, Chap. 19

Evagrios makes an interesting distinction between the two paths of attack demons use, the “rational” and the “animal”. Much of his advice in preceding chapters focuses on mastery of our animal-like appetite for excess—whether that is for food, beer, money, or possessions.

While the devil often tempts us through these things, I wonder if the hierarchy Evagrios uses here of first and second is intentional. After all, it was the sin of pride that caused God to hurl Lucifer from heaven and pride (“you can be like God”) the led to The Fall.

C.S. Lewis has a great passage on pride:

“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.”
-CS Lewis – Mere Christianity

As rational human beings we tend to be alarmed when we briefly loose control, yet have a huge blind spot to pride in our life with others and with God. In my own life, I can easily look back over a day and remember times when I sinned through my “animal” nature. Perhaps my anger rose up quickly and I snapped at my wife or cut someone off in traffic. It is much more difficult to think about where pride or envy motivated my actions through the day.

It’s even likely that this process of looking for sin in my day fills me with pride in how “good” I am becoming. As I learn to repel the demons of lust or anger, the devil can all the while be stroking my pride and destroying my relationship with our Savior even more efficiently.

Because of the nature of pride, the warning of Evagrios against the demons of intellect seems particularly aimed at those pursuing a life of stillness with God. As we move forward in our walk with Christ and (Lord willing) see behaviors that have crippled our walk with Him fall away, how will we react? Do I walk a little higher, proud that I’ve managed to “get my life together”, or do I humbly acknowledge that it’s only through the power of Christ that I am able to get up each day?

As we at the House of St. Michael pursue stillness and knowledge of God, let us closely interrogate our response to the victories Christ wins in our lives. The “horse of self-esteem” stands waiting for us to mount—let us instead choose to kneel in thanks at the foot of the cross.

Filed Under: House of St. Michael, Reflections, Uncategorized Tagged With: CS Lewis, Evagrios the Solitary, Incensive Power, Pride, self esteem, stillness

Be Angry, and Do Not Sin

June 8, 2010 By Chris Brown 1 Comment

“He who has mastery over his incensive power has mastery also over the demons.” – St. Evagrios the Solitary, On Discrimination (section 12, p. 46 of the Philokalia vol. 1)

I do not have mastery over my incensive power. One would normally not expect a pastor to be easily-angered, but I can have a bit of a temper. Usually only a select few see this side of me: my wife, my co-pastor, an occasional friend or family member. But one day at work (at my other job) that anger went public.

I was working at the 61C Cafe on Good Friday of this year. It was a busy day. Customers had come and gone in a steady stream since I’d arrived at 3:00, and by the middle of my shift I was exhausted. In between running the register, making espresso drinks, and blending countless smoothies, I had barely had a chance to catch my breath.

The line had finally subsided when three high-school age boys came in whom I’d never seen before. They were not regulars, and did not look like they were from Squirrel Hill either. Two sat down at a table. One came and ordered a drink from me. I turned my back to him to make the drink, then turned back the register to face him and ring him up. And then I saw it.

A gun. Pointed at me. In the same hand as the money he was handing me.

I paused. Am I being robbed? I thought. I stared at him. He didn’t say anything. He just handed me the money and kept the gun pointed at me.

I said nothing. Counting the change, I half-expected him to tell me to give him all the cash in the register. But he didn’t. I handed him his change and watched him walk to the table with his friends. When he sat down and put the gun on the table I realized what it really was.

A toy. Complete with a laser-pointer that looked like a laser-sight. But just a toy.

I walked to the dishwasher and started putting away clean dishes. My initial shock and momentary fear quickly turned into anger. Inwardly I fumed. What was this kid thinking? Does he think it’s funny to point fake guns at people? Doesn’t he realize that if he’d pointed that at a worker in a store that kept a gun behind the counter he could be dead by now?

The customers started coming again, and as I made smoothie after smoothie I continued to rant inwardly about the kid’s stupidity. An hour later, I looked out the window and saw him standing outside. He held up the gun and pointed it at people in the cafe, using the laser-pointer on it to project a little red dot on people’s books and computers. I stormed out the door and charged at him.

“You idiot! Get out of here! You’re not funny with that thing. Don’t you realize you’re scaring people?” I screamed.

“It’s a toy,” he said plainly, clearly surprised that he had provoked this response.

“Yeah well it’s a toy that looks a lot like a real gun and if you held that up in a store that had been robbed before and had a gun behind the counter you could be dead right now. Get out of here!” I continued yelling at him, threatening to call the police, and using language that no one at the cafe had ever heard me use. After returning a few choice words in my direction, he walked away defiantly.

I walked back into the cafe only to be greeted by the curious looks of customers who couldn’t believe I’d just exploded and cussed out a teenage boy.

Then it hit me: I’d just exploded and cussed out a teenage boy. And I’d done so over a toy gun. What was I thinking? How could my anger have gotten so out of control?

The incensive power is the part of the soul that experiences extreme emotions. As the glossary to the Philokalia puts it, the incensive power “often manifests itself as wrath or anger” but “can be more generally defined as the force provoking vehement feelings.” It can be positive or negative. The positive use of the incensive power is to repel evil thoughts or rebuke demonic attacks. To put it another way, we use the incensive power correctly when – and only when – we are angry at the things that anger God.

For the writers of the Philokalia, the incensive power was given to us as a defense against sin. Using the example of temptations to unchastity, Evagrios writes, “Our incensive power is also a good defence against this demon. When it is directed against evil thoughts of this kind, such power fills the demon with fear and destroys his designs. And this is the meaning of the statement: ‘Be angry, and do not sin’ (Ps. 4:4)” (On Discrimination, section 15, p. 47).  To “be angry and not sin” is to be angry at sin, beginning within oneself. This is why St. Isaiah the Solitary could write, “Without anger a man cannot attain purity: he has to feel angry with all that is sown in him by the enemy.” (On Guarding the Intellect, section 1, p. 22)

What would have angered God in this situation? My internal fuming and my uncontrolled reaction, surely. Would God be angry the boy? Maybe. But I think there were many other elements in this situation that anger God: The fact that a toy had been made in the image of an instrument of death. The racial and economic oppression this young man has already experienced in his short life. The fact that the color of his skin made me more likely to assume the gun was real. A proper use of my incensive power would have meant for me to rebuke the angry response within me, to rebuke the fear and insecurity that I felt, to rebuke my latent prejudices, to take the log out of my own eye before attempting to point out the speck in this young man’s.  Lord have mercy.

Filed Under: House of St. Michael, Reflections Tagged With: Anger, Emotions, Evagrios the Solitary, Incensive Power, St. Isaiah the Solitary

The Science of Stillness

June 1, 2010 By Lauren Burdette Leave a Comment

The phrase “the science of stillness” has stayed with me. For Evagrios, the pursuit of stillness is Serious Business. This is not a hobby, not a fluffy side pursuit for those who can’t hack it in the Real World. There is nothing more real than God, the creator of reality, and no better, more challenging, more rewarding way to spend time than in His presence. Evagrios likens stillness to science, to business, to a race; it is a goal he ruthlessly pursues.
I struggle with how to frame my reading of this single-minded monk, vacillating between two interpretations:
1. Stillness is one calling among many. We are each to discern our own particular calling, as Evagrios did. Evagrios is then read for clues on how to discern your own purpose, and tips on how to relentlessly pursue that individual calling.
2. Stillness is the calling of each of us; we are each to pursue silence before God. Evagrios is then a blueprint to follow for a life of stillness.
These are simplifications, and there are obvious problems with each. If I believe 1, why am I taking the time to sit in the company of this ascetic monk, instead of reading someone with a calling more similar to mine? If I 2, well, do I really believe I can only eat one meal a day and live in a cell? I have already failed.
As I wrestle with defining my own relation to stillness, I find it helpful to return to the definition. Stillness, or hesychia, is “a state of inner tranquility or mental quietude and concentration which arises in conjunction with, and is deepened by, the practice of pure prayer and the guarding of heart and intellect. Not simply silence, but an attitude of listening to God and of openness towards Him.”
When I picture stillness as pure prayer and openness to God, a middle way becomes clear in the distance. This is not an either/or question. I believe we’re all called to stillness, all called to sit in God’s presence. We are then to find a way to carry seeds of that stillness into our days, into our other callings (which are discerned from a place of stillness). Are you called to be a pastor? Pastor with the peace of Christ. A teacher, an artist, an engineer? Pursue it with the peace of Christ dwelling in your heart.
Finding this balance between sitting and activity, finding a way to maintain the Lord’s presence within you throughout your day – that is a grueling calling. The world shouts so loudly, demands so much of us, and it is easy to subject ourselves to the whims of work and people and life in general, sacrificing the peace that is ours as children of God. It is much more difficult to keep still within the whirlwind. Maybe Evagrios had it easy – it’s pretty clear what to do when you’re an ascetic. For us it’s trickier. It’s a delicate business, this science of stillness.
I’d like to end there. It would be catchy to wrap up the post by repeating the title. But there’s a nagging thought in my mind, demanding to be addressed. If the pursuit of stillness is so exacting, the question wants to know, why bother?
Because, as Evagrios says, this is the path to joy. Think about that, joy as the pay-off. Joy as our birthright as children of God, there for the taking if we only seek it. It’s a small word for a big concept that deserves its own post. A word to sit with. A word for something I hunger for deeply. If that’s the goal, the pursuit starts to seem worthwhile.

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: calling, Evagrios the Solitary, stillness

Keeping a Watch on our Senses

June 1, 2010 By Peter Becker Leave a Comment

“’Take heed, lest your hearts be overwhelmed with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of this life’ (cf Luke 21:34)…stand guard, then, over your heart and keep a watch on your senses.”- St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect: Twenty-Seven Texts (Pg 24, 12th text)

When St. Isaiah refers to guarding our hearts and keeping watch over our senses, I don’t think he’s speaking of the senses and the emotions that we have grown accustom to protecting.  We rarely allow ourselves to experience discomfort in any way.  We eat what we want to eat and we drink what we want to drink.  We surround ourselves with beautiful images and sweet smells and we clothe ourselves in fine fabrics.  When we hear something on the radio we don’t like, we immediately change it.  We submerge ourselves in comfortable surroundings and only censor ourselves against the things that would deny us of that comfort.  When we couple St. Isaiah’s teachings with Evagrios’s outline on asceticism and stillness, we can see how incredibly different our understanding of censorship is compared to theirs.  Evagrios teaches on pages 35-36 of the Philokalia to, “Concentrate your intellect; remember the day of death, visualize the dying of your body, reflect on this calamity, experience the pain, reject the vanity of this world, its compromises and crazes.”  While we find entertainment in the destruction of celebrities, we have a hard time bringing ourselves to look upon images of death.  We consider them unnecessary and grotesque, but what they’re really doing is penetrating our guarded senses.

We continually fill our senses with stimulation, needing to constantly feel good.  We guard ourselves from the more negative emotions and experiences of life.  We don’t allow ourselves to struggle with loneliness, sadness or depression.  It’s only when we cannot experience that pain that we are in danger of letting debauchery, drunkenness and the cares of this life overwhelm our hearts.  I am 25 and have been single for the vast majority of my life.  It is when I feel lonely and don’t want to struggle with it that I begin to idolize marriage the most.  I begin to think that the presence of a woman will solve the majority of my “problems” and I allow my mind to swim in such thoughts.  As I somersault under water in the pools of my imagination I find myself becoming angry at God.  I begin to accuse God of withholding his blessings from me, as if I can only find comfort in his gifts and not his presence.  It is here that St. Isaiah and Evagrios would rebuke me for allowing the cares of this life to overwhelm my heart.

I believe St. Isaiah and Evagrios are telling us to guard our senses from the comforts of this life and from escapism.  For how do we engage the isolated when we isolate ourselves in our own comfort?  How can we mourn with those who mourn if we do not allow ourselves to experience sadness?  How can we serve the orphan, the widow, and the homeless if we cannot confront our own pain?  Alexander Solzhenitsyn says, “It is impossible for a man who is warm to understand one who is cold.”  Are we really clothing the naked by getting rid of the items in our closets while restocking them with the latest fashion trends?  Can we comfort those who cry if we are not first willing to baptize our soul with tears?  Is it possible to carry each other’s burdens if we do not first pick up our own cross?  It is not!

The power of Jesus Christ is not that we never go cold or hungry.  It is not that we never experience pain, struggle, rejection or isolation.   In fact the Scriptures say that if we want to be co-heirs with Christ, we need to share in his sufferings in order to share in his glories.  The power of Jesus Christ is that we are hard pressed, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.  The power of Jesus Christ is the redemption of our pain, not the absence of it.

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: Blessings, Cares of Life, Censorship, Comfort, Emotions, Evagrios the Solitary, Keeping Watch, Loneliness, materialism, Pain, Redemption, Senses, St. Isaiah the Solitary, Struggle, Sufferings of Christ

Be Ruthless in the Living of Call

May 29, 2010 By Matt Pritchard 1 Comment

For many Christians, following Jesus takes a strong back-seat to other desires, the question for them is “what is the minimum requirement of salvation” and the fruits of such ungodly thinking are quite evident in their lives.  For others of us, the question is continually, “how can I follow God more fully?”  While this is an excellent question, our lack of clarity on call, our lack of understanding as to how God has uniquely made us to be, forces us to attempt to do and be everything.

I have many friends who work in areas where life and death are truly in the balance.  There’s always a sense that if I work a little more, one more street child will be safe, one less person will die of aids or starvation, or one more slave will be set free.  Even in my pastoral work, there’s a sense that if I just spend a little more time with people it will make a difference.  These thoughts are evil!  They are a proclamation that you are the one holding the world together, that you love them more than God does.  Only when we are confident in our call and the character of our God, can we say no with the peace that God doesn’t need us to save the world, he needs desires us to do and be exactly that which he has built and called us to do and be, nothing more and nothing less.  The Kingdom of God comes when we each, with reckless abandon, fall into submission to God, not when we each pursue that which we think will maximize the work of our hands.

As I’ve heard so many say, I must do everything I can for the Kingdom of God.  However, that is the wrong.  Following Jesus is not to do all we can, but, rather, to do no more and no less than that which He has called us to do.

If you find yourself growing strongly attached to your cell, leave it, do not cling to it, be ruthless. Do everything possible to attain stillness and freedom from distraction, and struggle to live according to God’s will, battling against invisible enemies. If you cannot attain stillness where you now live, consider living in exile, and try and make up your mind to go. Be like an astute business man: make stillness your criterion for testing the value of everything, and choose always what contributes to it.
-Evagrios the Solitary, On Asceticisim and Stillness (Philokalia Vol. 1, p. 33)

The reality is that most of us have no idea who God has called us to be, if we do have an idea, we lack the confidence to pursue it with the ruthlessness Evagrios describes.  Most of us, including myself, are more interested in who others want us to be and what others want us to do, rather than the unique and peculiar creation God has made us to be.  We’re worried about disappointing others or losing our comfort, control, success, or safety.  We try to be all things to all people.  Often our church communities are interested in our participation more than our discipleship.  What to do?

One of the wonderful things is that God doesn’t expect us to be perfect (in the worldly sense).  Rather His desire is for us to live perfectly into the being that He has created us to be (which takes at least a lifetime).  It is neither sinful nor shameful that there are things that there are ways in which you are not gifted, it is actually by God’s perfect design.

Seek out and celebrate the unique way that God has made you, both the great gifts He has given you and the ways He has not gifted you.  Celebrating your gifts will give you confidence in your identity as a called son of the living God (a longer conversation for later, but son not as in gender, but as in inheritance).  Acknowledging the ways in which God has not gifted you will give you the grace to see, acknowledge, and celebrate the ways He has gifted others.  As you minister with others, knowing your gifts will give you the confidence to step up and use them when needed and step back and encourage others to use their gifts when they are needed.

Having a better grasp on your gifts will help you to understand how you function in your call.  Seek where and how God desires to use you in this season.  Seek to understand to whom and to what you have been called.  Spend time each week in prayer, asking God to show you the work he has for you.  Seek to be deeply connected with others who help you understand, discern, and keep you accountable to your call.

With confidence in your gifts and your call, say no to that which is not aligned.  This certainly includes that which is sinful, but it also includes things which are good or wonderful, even Godly in the general sense, but if they are not in alignment with your gifts and call as discerned, it will be the good that robs the best.  That is to say, goodness and holiness must always be in submission to obedience.  If you wish to be the person God has called you to be, you must be ruthless in your willingness to say no, no to sin and no to that which distracts you from being the disciple God has called you to be.

As with everything, submission to your gifts and call is something that you live into (not just a change of mindset) and will (frustratingly) take a while.  Go, seek out, and live into the person God has created you to be.  May God bless you in your pursuit of Him!

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: call, Evagrios the Solitary, gifts, specific call

Clinging to Stillness

May 18, 2010 By Tom Pappalardo 2 Comments

“If you find yourself growing strongly attached to your cell, leave it, do not cling to it, be ruthless. Do everything possible to attain stillness and freedom from distraction, and struggle to live according to God’s will, battling against invisible enemies……Be like an astute business man; make stillness your criterion for testing the value of everything, and choose always what contributes to it.” ~Evagrios The Solitary

     I was surprised as I read this portion of Evagrios’ writing about stillness. How did he know of my strong attachment to my iPhone in the fourth century?

     Seriously, I do believe that there is something prophetic here with his use of the word “cell.” How many of us find any movement toward stillness during the day interrupted by the ringing of our cell phone? Of course, we justify taking the call because it is a friend or member of our family calling to tell us something of vital importance. Really, of vital importance?

     This passage made me think that indeed the “invisible enemies” that Evagrios refers to are indeed astute. They understand how easily we are swayed by the comfort of friends and family. How easily our stillness and priority on He who indeed fulfills and loves us without condition can be broken by the ringtone of our phones. Don’t get me wrong, relationships with those people we love are an important part of our life and often play an important role in hearing and practicing the Word of God. Yet, how often do we substitute these temporal comforts for communion with the Word? How often do we practice this idolatry and forfeit the best for the good?

     Essentially, Evagrios was talking about a spiritually motivated “media-fast” in the fourth century. The media, although different than ours, had assumed the same role as our modern media, it had become an idol in that it replaced an awareness and sense of God’s presence.

     “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) Being still means dropping everything to acknowledge the presence and power of God. Acknowledging that our sufficiency is found totally in Him. It means releasing ourselves from our own sufficiency or that sufficiency that is found in anyone or anything but God; people, music, work, activity of any sort unless it contributes to stillness in God.

     That brings us to the question of what does contribute to stillness? Evagrios goes on to talk about prayer, specifically undistracted prayer. That is indeed one very important way to move toward stillness. Others might include meditation on the scriptures, silence and withdrawal from activity and people so we can focus on speaking and listening to our creator as He speaks and continues to speak to us.

     Am I suggesting that we cease to cultivate our relationships with those in our community, those with whom we work, our neighbors and family? No, I am not suggesting this. However, we must test the value, as Evagrios advises us, of those relationships and the time we spend cultivating them and evaluate their impact on the most important relationship we have with our God. Indeed, He is a jealous God.

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: attachment, detachment, distraction, Evagrios the Solitary, materialism, prayer, stillness

Lose a Little in the Transaction

May 10, 2010 By Chris Brown 1 Comment

“When buying or selling you can hardly avoid sin.  So, in either case, be sure you lose a little in the transaction.” – Evagrios the Solitary, On Asceticism and Stillness -

My wife and I are in the process of buying a house.  We have been blessed with the ability to do so, and are quite thankful.  Yet the magnitude of the purchase has made me pause and reflect on the presence on sin in our dealing with money.  Making such a large purchase seems contrary to the perspective Evagrios and other monks from the Philokalia take on material possessions.  Money is not inherently evil; it is the love of money that is the root of evil (1 Timothy 6:10).  So too with possessions: material goods are not evil, but attachment to them is.  And ever the idol-makers, our hearts rarely live in genuine detachment toward our possessions.  We all need shelter, and owning a home may be “wise financial stewardship”, but woe to us when the house becomes our idol. 

So how do we guard against such idolatry?

To deliberately seek to “lose a little in the transaction” is countercultural. It’s a bit like saying: Don’t buy what’s on sale.  Tip 50%.  Offer more than the asking price.  I’m reminded of a poem by Wendell Berry, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, and its advice: “So, friends, every day do something / that won’t compute. Love the Lord. / Love the world.  Work for nothing. / Take all that you have and be poor.”

Lose a little in the transaction. Take all you have and be poor. 

We didn’t offer more than the asking price.  But the words of Jesus have been ringing in my head: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). 

Moth and rust (and rain and snow) will destroy parts of this house, no matter how well we care for it.  Robbers could come at any time.  But that should be of no worry to me, for my security rests in Christ.  If the transaction falls through at the last minute, my heart should be able to say, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away” and bless God’s name.

Yet detachment from possessions isn’t only about my interior spiritual health.  Evagrios continues from the quote at the top of this post saying, “Do not haggle about the price from love of gain, and so indulge in actions harmful to the soul – quarrelling, lying, shifting your ground and so on – thus bringing our way of life into disrepute.” Evagrios is concerned that the way in which monks like himself engage in business with the world is a matter of witness. 

Does the way we buy and sell communicate to the world that we’re followers of Jesus?  If a non-Christian looked at my bank statement, would it bring our way of life into disrepute?  Will visitors to our house see simplicity and harmony with God’s creation, or accumulation and indulgence?

In New Testament terms, those seeking the Kingdom of God live as aliens in this world.  We should look different.  Living that life will cost us more, leave us with less, and take a lot more effort. But where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also.

God grant us the faith to take all we have and be poor and the grace to lose a little in the transaction.

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: detachment, Evagrios the Solitary, money, possessions