Why vigilance? If there is one aspect of the Christian life that I have grown in as I continue to read the Fathers and monks of the Church it is the understanding of the Christian life as a battle. When we accept Christ and are baptized, we are now free in Christ, but now are under the radar of the enemy. Satan is angry that we have sworn our allegiance to Christ and have enlisted into his Army. Now, Satan and his minions are doing whatever they can to destroy us by deterring us from our focus on Christ. It is in our vigilance in mind and body that we are able to guard against these attacks and therefore, stay focused on our Commander Jesus Christ.

Why repentance? I used to see repentance as something that I had to do because I did bad things and needed to become morally right again. With this mentality, I saw grace and forgiveness as something that was constantly in danger of being lost, not to mention I had to work for them. As I have grown in my understanding of my union with Christ in baptism, I now see repentance in a new light. Repentance is something that I want to do. In my repenting, I don’t receive more forgiveness; I have already received forgiveness in its fullness, I now repent out of thankfulness to the deep grace that I have.

If we want to continue to grow in our relationship to Christ like Symeon, and be swept up in His presence, growing in our desire for His commands and ordinances, then we must become vigilant and full of repentance.

Mary as Holy Yes

Mary is a model of joyful submission to the Lord. She had a choice, and she said yes to God. Mary paid dearly for this choice; her decision transformed and ordered her life. Yet it was her choice, her desire to say yes to God. We learn from her about acting in freedom and love. Jacob of Serug says her choice was beautiful because freedom was present, and contrasts her with “the sun [which] is beautiful but it is not praised by spectators, because it is known that its will does not give it light.” (p 25) And she kept saying yes, as she raised her son to be a humble, holy man, as she allowed him to go on his mission to the world, as she watched him die.

Jacob of Serug points out that God did not ask just anyone to be the mother of his son. Mary’s soul was beautiful and humble and her heart was desirous of serving God. As I contemplate Mary, I am inspired to prepare my soul to hear God speak. I wonder what the Lord may ask of me, and I ask for her courage to say yes.

Mary as Union with God

Mary experienced a closeness with our Lord that no other human being (or angelic being) has been privileged to know. Knit in her womb, carried in the fiber of her being, formed from her own flesh and blood, was the Creator of the Universe. What a mighty privilege! What a fearsome responsibility! What would it be like to feel the light of the world growing inside you, so real and present that you can feel him kicking? What can Mary teach me about what it means to be the bearer of the Lord to the world? I may not give birth to the next Christ child, but I do carry the Holy Spirit within me. As I ask her how she was transformed by her pregnancy and birth, I see more clearly how God’s presence within me is shaping and forming me.

Mary as Love and Service

Contemplating Mary as the one who births the savior of the world is awesome, overwhelming in its grandeur. Contemplating Mary as the mother who raised the Lord is earthly, humble. No one has loved Christ the way Mary has. But what if we did? What if we asked Mary to show us what it was like to hold the infant Lord, to feel his tiny fingers wrapped around ours? To help up the boy Jesus after he fell and bandage his skinned knee? Or to show us her grown son as he set out into the world, to see the veins in his hands and the dirt on his feet and to love every bit of him completely? What would that do to our relationship with Christ? I believe if we learn from Mary about her love for her son, our love will grow and expand and our gratitude for the sacrifice God made in sending his son to earth will swell.

There is no other human being who has known Christ as intimately, served him as closely, or loved him as deeply as Mary. I have found that as my knowledge of and relationship with Mary has grown, so too has my love for and desire to serve her son, Jesus.

But if it is possible to be saved | without love, O my Christ, |how shall this be? | Impossible!  If we were separated from the light, | how shall we flee the darkness? | If we were deprived of joy, | how would we be free from sorrow? | Having been found outside the bridal chamber, | how would we be completely happy? | Having fallen out of the Kingdom, | –I speak of seeing you, O Savior — | what other salvation, | and what sort of consolation, | or in what other kind of place | would we be able to find salvation? | Certainly, absolutely nowhere…

~ St. Symeon The New Theologian, Hymn 17.426-441, from his “Hymns of Divine Eros.”

Sometimes my son, Zeke, will mess his diaper and immediately ask to be changed, and all is well.  If the messy diaper goes unnoticed by parents and un-confessed by Zeke, and he’s in it for longer than a few moments, he is less likely to want to be changed.  This may seem counter-intuitive, but if you sit in your own mess for a long period of time, though it’s uncomfortable, you get used to it.  The cleaning process becomes a frightful thought, because the change seems more unbearable since it will require harder scrubbing.

Does this sound familiar?

My wife loves my son very much (so do I, but this story isn’t about me), he knows that she loves him, and he loves her in return.  Just recently, Kelly knew that Zeke’s diaper was dirty and needed to be changed, but he didn’t know that she knew that.  He just wanted to be near her, so he called out, joyfully, “Mommy!” and ran toward her.  Kelly reached out her arms to embrace him, and said, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”  Zeke replied with, “Noooooooo!!!”  And he began to fight her.  Kelly was cleaning him up, but he was calling for her as if she wasn’t even there.  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”  In effect, he wanted the comfort, love, affection, and assurance he receives from Kelly, without actually wanting Kelly herself, at that moment.

Does this sound familiar?

We often speak of what Jesus saves us from, but let me ask: to what does Jesus save us?

Yes, Jesus saves us from sin, death, and hell.  Yes, he frees us from the bonds of our fleshly desires.  Yes, he protects us from our enemy, the one who “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).”  But…is that all he does?  It is true that all of these are amazing and we rightly should want them!  However, if we are playing in a mud puddle (sin), and then get stuck in the mud, Jesus is not content to simply pull us out of the mud and send us on our way.  Nor does he offer that option.  Instead, he pulls us out, embraces us cleaning us up, then he puts his own clothes on us, nourishes us, and bids us to follow him, assuring us that he’ll be with us and we’ll be with him.  But don’t we often think, “Jesus, I really just want you to pull me out of the mud and then let me go on my own way…”?  Here’s the thing, Jesus offers us more than we want.  He offers himself (Light, Joy, Intimacy).  I think we could easily add to Symeon’s set of rhetorical questions in Hymn 17:  “If we were separated from Purity, how would we be made clean?”  If Zeke were separated from his parents, how would he be cleaned, fed, nourished, and loved?

Again, we can go our own way, attempting to escape (or simply accepting) darkness, sorrow, unhappiness, and our own filth, on our own terms, by our own efforts, seeking to fabricate our own rest and peace.  We have that option, but it’s useless, says Symeon, because there is no other dwelling of Light, Joy, Intimacy (or Purity) outside of the Savior’s Kingdom.

How then shall we ever obtain these things that we all so desperately want and need if we can’t find them, take them, or make them ourselves?  This is where fear comes in.

The Gospel is fearfully Good News!  By God’s grace, he offers it to us freely, though it is at great cost to him; we cannot earn it or make it, but it can be received.  God wants to show us “the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7)!  Can you imagine a King coming to you and saying, “I’d like to adopt you.  Though you’ve hid from me, disobeyed me, and even fought me, I want to make you part of my family.”  “What do I have to do?” you ask.  “Nothing, I’ve done everything for you,” he replies, “just say ‘yes,’ and come live with me.”  This sounds too good to be true, and you’re still skeptical.  “What’s the catch?” you ask.  He lovingly looks you in the eyes and says, “You will become part of my family and live as one of my heirs” (cf. Col 1:10-12).

For me, and for Symeon, this rightly causes “fear and trembling” (cf. Php 2:12).  But as we accept his amazing grace and live with him as our Father-King, we grow in our knowledge of his love and care for us, and as we continue to experience this gift of love and adoption, we cannot but love and joyfully obey our Father-King in return (cf. Eph 3:14-19; Php 1:9; 1 John 4:19-21).  Seeking the King’s will, then, because he loves us and we him, is our greatest desire as grateful, loved and adopted members of his family.  John Newton wrote, “ ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear…and grace my fears relieved.”  The fruit of this fear is love, which leads to obedience!  Now, some may obey the King out of fear but not love, but this is a sinful fear, which observes the King’s rules in hopes of earning his favor while avoiding the King himself.  His favor cannot be earned, nor the benefits of the Kingdom gained without loving the King himself.

Friends, God has “rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Col 1:13).  Jesus saves us into his Kingdom.  Jesus saves us to himself.  Like Kelly to Zeke, the King will clean us, feed us, care for us, and protect us, because he loves us.  Likewise, this purification, nourishment, sustenance, and protection are inseparable from intimate, loving relationship with him.  This is Jesus’ only offer: himself.  No more, no less.  Salvation can be found nowhere else.  Will you accept his offer?

Skin, dirt, blood, grass.  Oil, ink, paint, metal. Handshake, caress, slap, punch.

Look at our hands.   Think of the mundane everyday grime we get on our hands and casually wash off.  Think of our hands’ utility, their thumb-twiddling fidgets, their immense power when holding the correct tools.  Think of the persons our hands have touched, have soothed, have harmed.  Symeon’s hands were just like ours – dirt under our nails and stains of sin on our palms – and by God’s incredible grace he marvels at the glory of Christ in them: “How do You make my wretched hands resplendent? / Hands that have sinned, and I have defiled them with the defilement of sin” (Hymn 19, lines 15-16).

Defiled though they may be, it is these very hands by which and through which the Lord sets us apart and uses us in his service. In Hebrew, the idiom that is often translated as “ordain” or “consecrate” literally means “fill the hands” (מָלֵא יָד - mālē’ yāḏ).  It’s an odd saying, but one that represents literally the content of priestly ministry.  Exodus 29 describes an elaborate sacrifice of a bull and two rams as part of the ordination ceremony.  Verses 22-24 read:

“You shall also take the fat from the ram and the fat tail, and the fat that covers the entrails and the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them and the right thigh (for it is a ram of ordination [literally 'a ram of filling']), and one cake of bread and one cake of bread mixed with oil and one wafer from the basket of unleavened bread which is set before the Lord; and you shall put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and shall wave them as a wave offering before the Lord.”

To be set apart for the Lord’s service under the Old Covenant was to have your ordinary human hands filled with the bloody reality of the Lord’s sacrifices.  Ministry was not about having clean hands, but about having hands filled with the things of the Lord. And under the New Covenant, our unclean hands are to be filled with Jesus Christ. “At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people” (Acts 5:11).  Everyday objects become vehicles of Christ’s glory (Acts 19:11-12). The people we touch become Christ Himself (Matthew 25:34-40).

But it does not stop there. For Symeon, to say that we are the Body of Christ is more than a metaphor.  Hands that have been filled with Christ’s ministry  which touch Christ in the world also become partakers of Christ:  ” . . . Christ becomes my hand and the foot of all-wretched me, and wretched I become the hand of Christ and the foot of Christ” (Hymn 15, lines 142-143).

These hands which are being transformed into Christ are the same human hands – once filled with harm and filth – now being filled with Christ through worship.  We ask with Symeon, “how would I approach your table? / How would I take your immaculate body / when I have hands completely stained?” (Hymn 20, line 75).  Our stained hands approach His table only because these hands have been baptized into Christ and thus made Christ in order to be filled with Christ in both sacrament and mission.  And from Christ’s presence in such hands, glory shines.

All God’s gifts of grace are flawless and the source of everything good; but the gift which inflames our heart and moves it to the love of His goodness more than any other is theology. It is the early offspring of God’s grace and bestows on the soul the greatest gifts. First of all, it leads us gladly to disregard all love of this life, since in the place of perishable desires we possess inexpressible riches, the oracles of God. Then it embraces our intellect with the light of a transforming fire, and so makes it a partner of the angels in their liturgy. Therefore, when we have been made ready, we begin to long sincerely for this gift of contemplative vision, for it is full of beauty, frees us from every worldly care, and nourishes the intellect with divine truth in the radiance of inexpressible light. In brief, it is the gift which, through the help of the holy prophets united the deiform soul with God in unbreakable communion. So, among me and among angels, divine theology – like one who conducts the wedding feast – brings into harmony the voice of those who praise God’s majesty.

Once the spiritual way has become a reality for us, we shall find it proper and helpful to follow the Lord’s commandment and sell our possessions immediately, distributing the money we receive, rather than to neglect this injunction on the excuse that we wish always to be in a position to obey the commandments. In the first place, this will secure our complete detachment, and a poverty which is in consequence invulnerable and impervious to all lawlessness and litigation, since we no longer have the possessions which kindle the fire of crime in others. Then, more than all the other virtues, humility will warm and cherish us; in our nakedness she will give us rest in her bosom, like a mother who takes her child into her arms and warms it when, with childish simplicity, it has pulled of what it is wearing and thrown it away, innocently delighting more in nakedness than in pretty clothes.

A person who is not detached from worldly cares can neither love God truly nor hate the devil as he should, for such cares are both a burden and a veil. God is not prepared to grant the gift of theology to anyone who has not first prepared himself by giving away all his possessions for the glory of the Gospel; then in godly poverty he can proclaim the riches of the divine kingdom.

I have been captivated since childhood by that line in the hymn “Come Thou Fount” in which we pray, “Teach me some melodious sonnet / Sung by flaming tongues above!” For as long as I have known that written language and, more specifically books, exists I have wanted to be a writer. “Come Thou Fount” contains the only reference I know of in liturgy or hymnody to a specific literary form – which is not to say that there are not others, only that my experience is limited – and so it has been my life-long, church-given prayer to the Christian muse, the Holy Spirit. O God, O Spirit, let me write. Give me words. And someday, please give me the sonnet sung by flaming tongues.

The story of each Christian life is both complex and simple. The simple form is this: Our Father, in His mercy, draws us nearer to Himself through the wound in the side of His Son Jesus Christ. As the blood and water and Spirit pour out, we, through Jesus, are drawn deeper and deeper into the Father’s heart. I will spare out the more complicated version of my story for now, save its most recent development. Some of my brothers and sisters in the House of St. Michael have told me that they believe that to come to know the melodious sonnet might be one of my callings in life. And that I ought to begin pursuing it. Now.

Now? But how? Ah, but in the Faith, allowing God to make us something often comes before our being it. Abraham was a father through faith long before he was a father through the flesh. And whether baptized as Christians or as adults, we were all Christians before we had a very good idea of how to be them. Similarly (I suppose) one decides to be a Christian writer before one may become one. At any rate, I decided, and, tentative as that decision may have been, God responded to my choice with mercy.

Enter Diadochos: Pursuit of the Flaming Sonnet, Lesson One.

In the passages I have excerpted above, Diadochos gives a basic outline of the development of Christian life. It is the story of the treasure hid in the field. We are the field, and the treasure is grace, hidden by God at our baptism deep within our intellect. While grace remains hidden, we look like any other field – both to the world and to ourselves. But then one day, as we are walking along, God allows us to catch a glimpse of the treasure poking up through the soil. Perhaps we have been gardening in the field. Perhaps pesky moles have been digging up the garden we have been trying to make in it. Perhaps our field is on the coastline and a storm came – a storm we thought we would never survive – and washed away the soil. At any rate, suddenly, we see the treasure. And from that moment, nothing will ever be the same.

Once we know there’s a treasure in the field, our life becomes about the acquisition of the field. We must go and sell all we have to buy the field. We must follow Jesus’ command to the rich young ruler: “Go, sell all you have, and, come, follow me.” Twice the Scriptures tell us that we must sell all we have. We must sell all we have to buy the field. We must sell all we have to follow Christ. To buy the field, which is ourselves, we must follow Christ. And the purchase of the field, the following of Christ, is the field’s transformation.

Before the field was known to contain a treasure, what was its value? The value of a piece of land is determined by many things: its potential or apparent fertility, the natural resources it contains, its location. Before the discovery of the treasure, the field may have been worth something. But it was not worth Everything. But the future of the field before the treasure is discovered and the future of the field after it is discovered are two different things. After its purchase the field with the treasure must become not a barren wasteland or a parking lot or a gas station or a shopping mall, but the sort of field owned by one who owns a treasure and a field—and nothing else. For the one who owns the field sold all she had to buy it. What else will the owner of the field improve then with the riches she has gained, if not the field itself? And the riches she has gained are not in diamond or emeralds or long-lost gold, but in the person of the Holy One Himself. This means that the field, in its improvement, must become grounds for a temple. And there is no temple save the One Temple of the One Throne of God of which the Father sits, and Jesus with the Father, and we with Jesus. And round that throne, the angels sing the flaming sonnet “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

This is the destiny of those in whom the grace of God is hidden through their baptism.

But “God is not prepared to grant the gift of theology to anyone who has not first prepared himself by giving away all his possessions for the glory of the Gospel; then in godly poverty he can proclaim the riches of the divine kingdom.”

Think of this not as a forbidding, but as an invitation. Jesus loved the rich young ruler, and the rich young ruler would have been the Lord’s servant as soon as he had desired in his heart to sell his possessions – though he still possessed them all. For possession of the body is nothing compared with possession of the heart. Matthew was a disciple as soon as he stood up from the tax collectors table, for in Jesus God does not refuse to dwell with sinners. Indeed, in Jesus God came to us in the likeness of sinful flesh, selling all He had to buy the field of the world so that co-heirs with Christ might benefit from His purchase. When we make the costly purchase of the field of ourselves, we make no purchase not already made through Jesus’ blood. Do you understand? The purchase is already made. We have been bought with a price. But through the gift of free will, the Master hands us the money that we might have the honor of paying for our freedom with our own hands, that our former “masters” might be grieved at the honor and love bestowed on us by God.

Let us be clear, however: we must give all and sell all to buy all. The Scriptures and the saint are clear. The things of this world are snares and traps, waiting to occupy the space in our heart that God would occupy. If we let them, our possessions will occupy the very throne of our heart. Greed is idolatry. God, in His great desire for us, is very happy to give us Himself and receive some of us in return. Indeed, God died for us while none of our hearts were fully His: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.” But Jesus will never be satisfied until He has all of us and we all of Him. And as long as we insist on having any thing, we cannot be fully His. We may begin by knowing less than the fullness of truth and life. That is normal. But in Jesus our journey must be always forward and never back. If we ever become content with less than the fullness of truth and life ­– if we ever come to realize that we want to keep a thing more than we want Jesus and, seeing that, do not cast that thing away – the truth which we possess will become an empty lie and our lives living death. The choice is not whether we will sell all to buy the field or keep our many possessions. The choice is whether we will have Jesus, who is all in all, or, in the end, have nothing.

The gifts are great and the stakes are high. A field with the treasure of hidden grace. The flaming sonnet sung in the temple of our breasts. Look around your room, then, and begin letting go – not in theory, but in practice – of the tangible things of this life. I cannot tell you how to journey into the desert, for I do not yet know how myself. But I am looking around my room. Hard. But from teacups to laptops to houses and cars, let us keep nothing that will separate us form the love of God, nothing that would keep us from owning, in Jesus, the field of the Holy Temple.

Pray for me. If I am going to serve God as a writer, it is going to cost me my life.

Pray for me. If I am going to be a Christian, it is going to cost me my life. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”

“Come Thou Fount of every blessing / Tune my heart to sing thy grace.”

Reading St. John of Karpathos has been a source of great encouragement.  This ought to come as no surprise since the preface revealed that John wrote “Texts for the Monks in India” precisely to encourage young monks being tempted to abandon the monastic life.  This reading comes, I think, at a wonderful time for us as we at the House continue to persevere in the disciplines to which we have been called.  I have seen tremendous growth within each of us over the course of the past year and I thank God for the mercy he has shown us all, for I know that this growth has certainly come at a great cost and with much struggle.  And this is what St. John has done for us I think.  He has recognized our struggles and the difficulty with which we progress, and while remaining sympathetic towards these spiritual battles, he also reminds us of the patience great progress requires and the dedication and commitment that anything worthy of achieving involves.  And I think we would all agree that this thing to which we have been called is the greatest and most worthy thing to which we could possibly be called; and so the very purpose and ultimate goal of our lives is laid out before us:  to live in Christ.  And so, keeping in mind the familiar themes of prayer, repentance, watchfulness, and stillness, I thought it might be profitable to be reminded by St. John what this journey looks like as we continue walking in the way of Christ, with Him ever by our sides, each step drawing us further into the splendid light and glory of Him who is able to keep us from stumbling.

84.  Do all in your power not to fall, for the strong athlete should not fall.  But if you do fall, get up again at once and continue the contest.  Even if you fall a thousand times because of the withdrawal of God’s grace, rise up again each time, and keep on doing so until the day of your death.  …you will be like a brave soldier who faces the blows of the enemy;  and God will commend you, because even when struck you refused to surrender or run away.

By way of illustration:

I grew up on a farm in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.  I rode my first horse at the age of 5 and fell off my first horse not too long after that.  I remember very clearly my dad picking me up and dusting me off even while I, in the midst of shock and tears, was still trying to figure out what had happened.  And I remember also my dad’s insistence that I get back on that horse and ride again.  Now, my dad was instilling one of those life lessons (I suppose quite literally):  when you fall, you get back up.  But interestingly, I find that this lesson has evolved as I look back on this moment through eyes colored by the words of St. John of Karpathos.  And so I hope that this metaphor may serve useful to some of you as well.

I hope it does because we have all fallen off in the past year.  Sometimes it was due to our own sinful desires and at other times due to the direct attacks of the demons.  Nevertheless, we have, each of us, found ourselves lying on our backs wondering how we had come so suddenly to this place.  We have also, I am sure, realized the opportunity this affords us to grow in humility, for we were forced to reckon with the fact that we were not nearly the great rider we had begun to think we were.  For me, it seemed to be those moments when I felt comfortable enough to take the reins for myself that I ended up losing all control.  And so in the freedom that the Father gave me to do this, he was also gracious enough to, as John puts it, ‘withdraw his grace,’ in order that I would not boast in anything but Him (1 Cor. 1:31).  I fell, and yet at some point I, indeed we, were forced to recognize that the horse was still standing there waiting to be ridden and our Father was in the process of picking us up, dusting us off, and turning us into a rider with more skill than we could have ever imagined.

Now, I suppose that it is at times easier to see the scrapes and the bruises one accumulates from falling a bit clearer than it is to see one’s improvement in riding.  The cuts and the blood are more colorful and are marked by clear events and often followed by disappointment, shame, and regret.  But let us not forget that when we courageously face these blows bestowed upon us by earthly passions (or the hard packed ground) our Father commends us because we refuse to surrender.  Not only does He lift us back up and show us how to be a better rider if we do happen to fall, he also heals those wounds that we have endured for his sake and greatly blesses us because of them.  So, take heart, brothers and sisters, and stay in the saddle, but even when you don’t, remember that there are arms waiting to pick you back up.  Also remember that the marks of your failures may also be the markers of your progress.

Praise be to God, who does not leave us covered in the dirt of our failures, but raises us up anew, continually fashioning us into the glorious and radiant image of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

“Accept scornful criticism rather than words of praise; for a flatterer ‘is no different from one who curses’ (Prov. 27:14).” #11

We are created to crave love, for God is love, and we are created to desire Him. We warp this holy pursuit, however, into the pursuit of the love and approval of man. There is love that is good and holy, an ordered reflection of God’s love for us, love that can teach us about the mysterious identity of our Lord. And there is disordered love, which we make an end out of in itself, and use to feel better about ourselves.

We – or at least I –crave the approval of others. I like to be liked. Subconsciously, I think, ‘if they like me, I must be at least as good as them.’ I tend to see myself through the eyes of others, instead of the eyes of Christ, who sees us all as beloved sinners.

I have been aware of this tendency in myself for years, and have not yet broken free of it. When I am praised, it warms that part of my soul that craves the approval of others. Praise is not evil, but I know, for me, that it is a temptation. It can be an invitation to settle for something less than the Lord, to allow the acceptance of others to be the blanket I curl up under at night, instead of resting in the Lord, who John reminds us, “is our rest” (#53).

Because of this, I see how scorn and criticism can be a blessing. That is almost hard to write, because I have actively avoided them and the pain they can cause. I know, though, that I can choose to hear scorn and criticism as ‘do not look for your worth in me. Do not fix your eyes on me. You’ll not find what you are looking for here.’ As praise is an invitation, scorn is a rejection: you cannot rest here. And I can use it to point me to my true rest: our Lord, Jesus Christ.

A theme of my faith over the past few years has been to see it in terms of vision: where do I fix my gaze? There are a million things in this world to focus on; and only one which is true. In my interior life, in my spiritual pursuit, do I allow all of the other things – even my blessings, like my house, my husband, my son – to point me to God and to teach me about Him? Or do I allow them to be my focus, filling my vision? Do I make gods of them by resting my soul there instead of in Christ? Do I settle for less, or do I look for the truth and the light?

And so I praise God for that which breaks my gaze and turns my eyes towards Him, even when it tastes as bitter as scorn and is as uncomfortable as criticism.

This brings me to this month’s reading of St. Diadochos of Photiki and his work On Spiritual Knowledge. To begin, I found it comforting that Diadochos was a priest and with these responsibilities, he lived a life that was perhaps a bit different than the other monks of the desert variety that are in the Philokalia. [a]Diadochos practiced the faith with a fierceness that is unlike any other writer that I have read in The Philokalia so far. It was through his writing this month that I am inspired to see that a radical pursuit of Jesus is more than possible in contexts other than the caves of the desert and that it also possible for us who are called to minister to people as pastor. Like me, I am sure Diadochos found it hard to balance the pursuit of spiritual fruits such as: stillness, watchfulness, patience, gentleness, and self-control in the midst of all the responsibilities of being a priest. But, in this writing, Diadochos shares powerful insight into this journey.

In my reading, I am specifically struck by his robust understanding of baptism and how it is the basis for his pursuit of Christ. He specifically speaks of us receiving the divine grace through baptism in two ways. The first way is at once, as our soul is renewed and cleansed in the actual waters from all the stains of sin and thus restoring the image of God in us. Secondly, he says, “being infinitely superior to the first” (p288), that through our co-operation, baptism actually makes us also into the “likeness” of God. This is powerful. He goes on further to say, “when our intellect begins to actually perceive the Holy Spirit with our full consciousness, we should realize that the grace is painting the divine likeness over the Divine image in us” (p288). Diadochos is pointing to the power that we receive in our baptism and as a result, our natural response is to pursue Christ through the virtuous life in whatever our context. It is through our baptism that we have received the power of Christ and therefore carry it around in us wherever we are. As a result, baptism points to the process of our lives going from simply having the image of God restored in us, to being made in his likeness.

In conclusion, my response is to thank God for his grace and the wonderful example of Diadochos, who, inspires me to pursue a life of holiness that leads to being more and more shaped into the likeness of God. I am also reminded through my baptism the beauty and power that I carry around in me as a child of God wherever I go.

I do not fear God with all my heart.  Instead, I fear people. 

This troubling realization came to me two weeks ago as I read Jesus’ words in Luke 22:34-36: “Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap; for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth.  But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.“ (NASB) 

Jesus tells his followers to pray that they would have strength to stand before Him on the day of judgment. The convicting truth which set upon me after reading the passage was that I too often pray to have strength to stand before the judgment of other people.  On the day I read this verse, my co-pastor and I were preparing to go before the commission which approves grant funding for our church.  The annual season of working on our progress report and standing before the commission which oversees our work fills me with anxiety. I fear disappointing those who’ve supported our work because our church has grown less quickly (or in different ways) than expected.  Irrationally, I fear the loss of support and funding for our work. And in those times of anxiety, my heart dwells in fear of people, rather than fear of the Lord who I believe and trust has called me to this work.  To desire to do my work well is good and holy, but my response to this situation was driven by fear of other human beings, rather than fear of God.   

Fear, Diadochos implies, is not a passive emotion.  Fear is an action. And actions involve choices. Diadochos continues the chapter quoted above by saying, “Through the action of fear, the soul is purified and, as it were, made malleable and so it becomes awakened to the action of love.  No one, however, can come to fear God completely in the way described, unless he first transcends all worldly cares.”   To grow in the fear God requires the deliberate and active choice to pursue deeper reverence for the Holy One.   And deeper growth in reverence for God requires detachment from the world.  Hence Jesus’ words, “Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap.”  This active movement toward deeper fear of God begins with a deliberate choice to fear God alone.  Once the choice has been made, it is manifested outwardly by the choices we make in relation to the things of this world and the cares which accompany them.  We are not victims of our fear; we can freely choose who and what we fear.  By choosing well, we are strengthened in the fight against temptation and led into freedom from the anxieties of this world.

Freedom to fear then becomes freedom to love.  As Diadochos implies, this choice and new pattern of action sets in motion a process leading from fear of God to love of God. Or as Maximus Confessor puts it,    

“When combined with watchfulness and deep understanding the Jesus Prayer will erase from our heart even those thoughts rooted there against our will.” #137, p.186.

“Let us hold fast, therefore, to prayer and humility, for together with watchfulness they act like a burning sword against the demons.” #176, p. 193.

Agriculture was the major catalyst toward the technologically advanced societies of today. When people are able to plant and harvest things from the ground, and produce massive amounts of food, populations explode and life flourishes. However, there are several key components that, if not present, hinder the growth of plant life, and thus human life. The first is water. If there is no water, the ground is made hard and plants are deprived of nourishment. The second is someone to till the ground. Without the work of humans agriculture cannot even begin. Further, when a society has a bad harvest it is all the more susceptible to outside attack. The people are weakened and thus less able to fight against those who would seek to destroy them. So, a thriving crop is vital to the protection of life as well as its nourishment.

St Hesychios reminds us of the agricultural nature of soul work when he says, “The more the rain falls on the earth, the softer it makes it; similarly, Christ’s holy name gladdens the earth of our heart the more we call upon it.” The rain, for Hesyshios, is the name of Jesus. Without this name the ground of the human heart becomes dry and hard, unsuitable for the fruits of the Spirit to be produced therein. This barrenness in turn leads to a lack of joy, and thus a lack of motivation or ability to defend our land against demonic attack. What about the human toil necessary for a successful harvest? Hesychios says we must “call upon it.” In order for the rain to fall we must ask for it. Not only that, but we must increase the frequency of our asking, and thus procure more rain.

Farming is hard work. Lack of rain, nobody to work the fields, and the threat of outside attack are ever present; but, unlike real farming, we have control over these factors in our spiritual labor. Every time we call upon the name of Jesus the soil of our heart is watered. We have the Spirit, the prayers of Jesus, the prayers of all the saints and angels, and each other to help us work the field of our soul. Hesychios argues that the Jesus Prayer, watchfulness, and humility become a “flaming sword” with which to slay the demons (# 176). Though the demonic forces continue to lay siege against our heart in order to kill us and steal the harvest, Jesus’ name becomes the walls of defense and the flaming sword in our hand.

Many in the house have commented on how they sing the Jesus Prayer song during the day. Indeed, this song is a powerful tool for keeping the Lord’s name on our lips and in our hearts at all times. I find myself humming it or singing it as I walk across campus or drive to work. Hesychios, however, challenges us to supercharge this discipline by combining this prayer with “watchfulness and deep understanding.” (#137) It is not that saying Jesus’ name is not enough. Rather, saying the name ought to lead to greater spiritual attentiveness and clarity. The coalescence of these virtuous disciplines will inevitably lead to the uprooting of all evil thoughts that have become weeds in the garden of our heart. So let us attend to the garden. May we pray the name until the soil is drenched. May we till the soil alongside the saints and protect the harvest with the flaming sword, which is the name of Jesus.