Self-Image

This past Sunday we celebrated the miraculous birth and the prophetic ministry of St John the Forerunner (John the Baptist). Though many topics seem to come to mind when thinking of St. John, perhaps the most striking to me on this particular Sunday was the one most directly in front of my nose (though it took me a while to notice it). When Fr. Wayne started into his homily on "owning up to the self that we are and that we are becoming", I have to admit that I was a bit puzzled. "What does this have to do with John the Baptist?" I thought to myself. Though I am never one to knock a homily on the topic of self-reflection, I couldn't see the connection to the scripture reading.

Only then did I notice the text on the scroll that St. John is pictured as holding in the large icon at the front of our church. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" it reads. And at once it struck me that John's message on this earth (like the message of so many Old Testament prophets) was pretty much entirely bound up in the call to repentance.

I think that it is interesting that repentance almost always seems to be the response of people that come into contact with God. No matter who it is that you are reading about (even men described as righteous and/or blameless before the Lord), an encounter with God seems to bring about a rapid confession of worthlessness and a cry of repentance.

In their own encounters with God, John the Revelator cried out that he was a "man of unclean lips", and Job went as far as to say "I despise myself utterly, and repent in dust and ashes". Listening to Fr. Wayne's homily on conforming ourselves to the likeness of Christ, it was interesting for me to note that the process of becoming Christlike almost always starts with this kind of crises. I had thought often before about the fear of those that encountered the holiness of God, and a lot even about the terror of those that were allowed to experience a small bit of His awesome power. I never had trouble imagining the terror of such situations... but it never struck me quite so frankly that the flavor of this particular fear was an acute and overwhelming recognition of the true image of God - an image always confused, smudged, distorted, broken, twisted, and blurred in our own souls (though still present) when viewed through our own petty self-reflection, but perfect and glorious and convicting when witnessed in the perfect image of the Son of God. Before meeting Jesus we might be tempted to think, through the decay of His image in ourselves, that we are doing pretty well in our sanctification... or we may not even think about our sanctification at all, and instead wander around in frustration, wondering why our lives have become so miserable. But both of these feelings - both ignorance and apathy, pride and sloth - become impossible the moment we behold the face of God.

"Oh!" we say as our heart leaves us, and we turn pale and hit the floor as though dead (indeed, we feel dead in comparison with the energy of that life), "that is what it is supposed to look like..." and a rush of repentance floods quickly to our lips, because no matter what me might have made of ourselves on this earth, we have not made that... and we realize that we have failed in our stewardship. Whether we were given ten talents, five, or even one, we have not made a profit with it... indeed, we have not even managed to return the initial gift undiminished.

"So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, `We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.' " (Luke 17:10). These are sobering words from our Savior and Lord, and they lead me to dread more than a little my own immanent encounter with God. As far as the verse goes, I'm still working on the "do all the things which are commanded you" part... and it doesn't look as though that will be done any time soon.

May our Lord have mercy on us...

The Dark Arts: Or, Why I Still Don't Like Depressing Poetry

It seems to me that, after my last post on John Mayer, I might take a little time to fill out one of the concepts that was assumed in the post (and a lot of my criteria for judging art), but wasn't argued for very persuasively.

I despise a certain kind of depressing art. Agree with me or call it a fault if you like, but I have always had a bone to pick with artists who feel good about foisting their morbidity upon us without giving us a way out... and I think that I have good reasons for feeling this way!

Quickly, let me clarify that I DO NOT MEAN that I don't think there is a place for stories with darker themes or sad subject matter. My distaste isn't as simple as not liking to mourn with those who mourn (I actually believe that this kind of charity is vital in a culture with as much heartache as ours, and those of us who, for reasons of maintaining their own personal happiness, refuse to comfort others in pain or to deal with the real problems that exist in the world have a serious problem of their own). Pain and sadness are a real part of life, and as creators we make art about these experiences too.

What I AM talking about is a certain tendency in all of us sub-creating beings to "modify" our stories in order to make ourselves the heroes of our own tragedies... and also a certain kind of weakness that seems to let us prefer to wallow in our pain rather than to seek a way out of it.

I am melancholy all the time. Nothing is more painfully apparent to me than the problems of the world, the gravity of my sin, and the terrible plight of those born into bad circumstances. But it is Hell that chooses to dwell on these things because it has nothing better to expect. It is Satan that chooses to be satisfied with becoming the hero of his own tragedy rather than allowing himself to humbly assume a supporting role, and I guess that I always tend to find a slight tinge of this false martyrdom in every melancholy artist I have met - not the desire to cope with the pain that is experienced, but rather the kind of pride that would give up Heaven in order to cling to their claim of injustice. Though I often struggle with pride, I cannot imagine the sort of sickness that would move a person to "love" their own brokenness enough to choose "authenticity" over the humiliation of healing. The kind of artist I admire is one who can look at all of this filth and mire in the face and refuse to give up on hope. The kind of artist I admire has an inexplicable joy that just cannot be crushed. Is there anything in the world more poetic than this?!

The kind of hero I want to follow is one that can go to the cross "for the joy set before him". If our hearts cannot hold within them the hope of glory even as we walk through the valley of death, then we are souls better fit for condemnation than for Heaven. The great saints chose to give themselves up for the life of the world and laughed for joy as they did it. It was not because they were sick and grieved, or because they preferred the company of sombre people, that they visited the sick and comforted the grieving... it was the deep and all-pervading joy of their hearts - the truly supernatural life of Christ within them - that moved them to tend to the pain of their brothers and sisters in need.

I have nothing to speak against people who suffer genuine, undeserved pain. These people deserve all of our genuine, earnest help and charity. But as storytellers, we have the responsibility to lead the way toward life and truth. The devil may sulk and pity himself, but we must be beacons of the very real hope that we possess (by no merit of our own). If we tell dark stories, let them be about the shallow futility of our sin, the patiently enduring goodness of saintly men and women, and the ever-available redemption of Christ that bashes its way through even the darkest parts of our nature.

More than anything, I love the hero that is able to say "peace be with you" before he goes into battle. There is nothing more "real" than this hero, even if he doesn't seem to fit in our world. The melancholy artists will sneer and barely be able to stomach such a sentiment... and they have good reason to feel this way. They are sick down to their very core, and the world that they live in does not operate on such principles of hope as we have described above. They think that we are cheating in our analysis, and by the rules of this sick reality they are right! The feeling of nausea in the face of hope is a "natural" one, given this sickness... and the only thing we can hope is that this sickness will eventually lead to death - unto the death, that is, of this so-called "natural" state of decay and corruption, knowing that the core of our being, after all, does not belong to this world we have described.

If we feel a little queasy when redemption is mentioned, perhaps it is an indication that we have yet to fully realize the life of Christ within us. On earth, the most "real" things we experience may in fact be pain and suffering... but let us not be fooled into thinking that these are the most real things that exist! I feel the thrill of other-worldly intrusion every time I read Christ saying "blessed are the poor in spirit"... not because it makes sense in our world, but because it bears witness to an intruding and redemptive truth. It is only in a Christian world that an artist can make the story of a tiny hobbit that takes the One Ring to Mordor. Though Nietzsche would scoff at this "pitiful" case of "wish fulfillment", I wonder could he stand to look into the eyes of the martyr and to see the beatified smile on his face - a smile not of desperate delusion but of knowledge, love, pity and blessing - or would he be undone by the reality of otherworldly joy?

I will take this kind of storytelling over merely natural morbidity any day. I despise the small artist that desperately clings to the little glory of his own decay... and I bless the artist that is willing to admit that the natural result of coming to realize the utter bankruptcy of one's own being (as well as the utter mess that one has made of one's world) is not to justify it or to glorify it or to "accept it" (may God curse that terrible modern conclusion) but to eagerly look for the hope that first preached to us the resurrection of the dead and the supernatural life that we can find in Christ.

John Mayer... that's what you're missing, bro... and even if you don't realize it yet, I'm glad that you aren't letting yourself be satisfied with less.

The Hope of Glory: Do We Want It?

Last Sunday, Fr. Wayne mentioned the trial of the ointment bearing women as they traveled to the tomb of Christ for what they thought would be a service of love performed for a dead master. These women went to the tomb without any means of removing the great stone that stood in the entrance, and were, in fact, fretting about this quite practical concern as they neared the place where Christ had been laid to rest.

I cannot help but be struck by the conspicuousness of this practical worry. I cannot help but feel that it stands for a far greater sign of a pitiably human spiritual struggle. As Fr. Wayne points out, the hope of the Christian rests entirely on the power of Christ to move the unmovable and to set Himself (and us, by extension) free from the dark bonds of death and prison. But how many of us can actually and eagerly bear to hope for such a hope?

As I sat and listened to this sermon, I thought to myself "what would I do if Christ actually broke from the tomb where I have buried Him, out of pious devotion, in my heart, and started demanding that I take up my cross and follow Him into fullness of life?" Would it be a joy to see Christ rise, or a terror?! Would I be exultant at the resurrection, or would I be struck down in fear like the soldiers at the tomb (or hide myself in the rocks like the poor wretches in the Revelation of John). It is an easy thing to bring oil and spices to anoint the body of a dead lord... after all, there is nothing scary or demanding about something dead. How many of us go day after day to church, bringing our simple (if costly) gifts of prayer, time, money and service, comforting ourselves with the thought "oh well... of course we will never be able to remove the stone... but God could never expect that of us, could He? We will bring our little gifts and come back next week, and even if we are a little sad that He is dead, at least we know what we have to do now! There is nothing simpler or more straightforward than our duty to the dead... we must bring our spices and mourn our loss and comfort ourselves with the hope of the distant resurrection at the end of time... but there is certainly nothing eminent to be demanded of us - nothing to disturb our daily routine! God is here... he is shut inside this tomb, and I am free to go about my business as I please and, when I miss Him, to go and seek Him, for I always know exactly where He will be and what He will require me to do."

But oh... a risen God?! What may He require of us?! What if it is more than we have?! What if it is everything?! Where may He take us?! What if it is somewhere we do not want to go?! What if it is through martyrdom to the presence of angels and before the face of God (whom all in history have fallen down before as though dead and fainted in fear of being "undone")?! What if He wants to make us stay there!? What if He wants to give us more life than we would like to have? What if He will put us through any pain - any denial of pleasure or lack of rest - that is necessary to make us fit for such a life? And what if He wants to start now...

Does this prospect not strike terror into your soul? Would we not do anything... settle for anything... to have our little comforts and conveniences back, and to live a safe and uneventful life? Would we not try to convince ourselves of the great advantage of our current way of living, and cling to our sorrows and disappointments as sweet in comparison to such a monumental ordeal? When Christ rose from the dead, what He gave us was something that we were certainly not looking for... and something that we almost certainly did not want! To have God rise in the future is safe hope of future bliss, but God did not give us safety.

The capacity that we have for apathy is astounding!!! We are so desperately afraid of that which lies outside of our own experience... and we are so wickedly content with our self-centered, fallen lives on this earth. Though we are convinced that we desire fullness of life in Christ, really we have never even thought about the reality of this idea. It is one of those ideas that we are able to embrace only because we have put it off into a vague kind of "other-world" - an idea that is comfortable because it is not "here"- and have not considered the prospect of facing the trial today, in our present state! We are like the pompous knights of the old fairy tales, going about in our shiny armour and boasting about what we would do if we ever encountered a dragon... never really thinking of what fighting a dragon would be like! But what if our commission involves giving everything to this transformation now... this from this very hour? I think that we all too quickly speak of "adoring His third day resurrection".

If this resurrection (and our participation with Christ through baptism) is an actual event that takes place in our hearts as well as in history, and requires the resurrection of our whole being, then it is not a comfortable religious remembrance or a fond story that gives us a comfortable hope! It is a radical break from all things natural, normal, weak and fallen... and it is a call that leads us up into the terrible presence of God, where we will have to be made fit to be sons, and not slaves. If God can raise humanity from the grave and join us to Himself through Christ, then what may He not require of us? A slave can complain that, after all, he is only a slave... and the master cannot expect too much of weak laborers. "The stone is too big," we say, "and He cannot possibly expect us to move it. We will do what we can." But the man Jesus Christ removed the stone. Is any task too difficult for us through the power of Christ's resurrection? What is the measure of the riches that are given to us in the partaking of the Lord's Supper, and what will be our excuse on the Last Day when the Lord finds us feeding at the trough with the pigs, and not yet acting like sons?

The Passions and Mere Humanity

I think it is safe to say that I have always been troubled to understand the role of "earthly" activity in the Christian life. In my early years, the tension was between playing games with my brother (the earthly activity) and praying or sharing my faith with others (the "spiritual" activity). Now it is between seeking after spiritual discipline, pursuing pure prayer, practicing quiet contemplation of God, or giving alms to the needy and watching movies, writing poetry, listening to music and riding my motorcycle. Some of the spiritual growth achieved at the Torrey Honors Institute has helped me come to more fully understand the sense in which God's redemption, beauty, goodness and truth can be present in these "merely human" activities... but at the end of the day there is still a difficult tension there.

Perhaps I have been reading too much Philokalia, but I am truly confused as to the worth of human amusements and earthly pleasures. Certainly there is nothing inherently sinful about enjoying a scoop of ice-cream or a well-composed song... but what about this "race" and "fight" terminology that keeps creeping into Paul's epistles. There is a strong sense in the teachings of Christ (and the early monastics who sought to take His words quite literally) that all earthly pursuits are vain and dangerous - at best a waste of time and at worst the tyrannical workings of the devil that seek to mire you down and bring you into bondage. There is a clear danger in any "merely human" enjoyment of becoming a slave to that enjoyment... of letting it rule you and being content to serve it with your body while confessing Christ with your lips. So how do we, as Christians, avoid this danger if we are to continue living in the world? How do we keep ourselves from confessing Christ in word but seeking earthly pleasure and entertainment in our thoughts and actions. How do we kill the selfish monster inside of us? Do we swear off of music, backyard discussions, potato chips and football games, devoting ourselves instead to continual prayer and acts of love?

What spawns these worries, of course, is the fact that we actually want these things. On any given Sunday there comes a time when I have had enough of praying and focusing my mind on God and I want to go play some catch. My heart becomes weary of giving its attention to God and others and begins to think of itself and its own desires. Stated this way, such pursuits seem rather unacceptable! Our faith is one of self-sacrifice after the example of Christ, and one wonders if a heart that wants comfortable, lowly pleasures will really fit in very well with the saints and martyrs that sit in adoration around the throne of God in heaven!

Is God ok with my love of lower things? Am I free to feel comfortable before God as I muse my time away exploring poetic metaphor and literary theme? Some Christian authors have valiantly posited that human beings are made to enjoy the little world that God has made for them, and that our natural activity (though tainted by the fall) is to purely enjoy the things on earth, giving glory and praise to God always for their creation. The monastics, on the other hand, would say that the fall destroyed all hope of earthly happiness, and that we cannot properly enjoy anything on earth without letting our hearts turn from God to our passions.

At the core of this issue is the concept of a pure soul. Whether a pure soul desires to contemplate God only, or to encounter God in a meaningful way through the daily activities of "merely human" life, it is necessary that it first learn to abandon its hope of self-satisfaction. What the rigor of the monastics and the ardor of the Evangelicals both put forth as the greatest enemy to the human soul is the kind of self-love that leads a person to feel comfortable and content as their own god. If I must endure a little fasting and a little less dragon ball z to see this end realized in my life by the power of Christ's sanctification, then so be it...

A Great Poetry Blog

It seems to me that my friend Justin wishes to be an ascetic. So strange to me... how the modern poet (whom we have so often been told likes to draw his sustenance from excess of stimulus and deep inner turmoil) is much more prone these days to speak in admiration of simplicity, retreat, solitude and deprivation than about anything else. Poets have become sick of the modern ruckus and clamber and have sought to say something quiet instead.

I think I like this trend in poetry (the contemplative monastic rather than the eccentric aesthetic hedonist). Sometimes we must walk in "a way in which there is no ecstasy" if we want to move toward purity of soul and true knowledge of God. Sometimes we need to become empty to be filled... Methinks that such poets should be reading their Desert Fathers.

As I said, very interesting. Anyway, check out this blog on a regular basis if you have a taste for some good modern poetry on mostly metaphysical subjects.