Category: Spirituality

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Love, Love, Love

“All you need is love.”

Thus sang the Beatles in one of their chart toppers (that incidentally also brought in a whole lot of money that they didn’t really need). “Love, love, love.” A beautiful sentiment; fill the world with love. But which love? What were they really after? Did they fill the world with love? No doubt this song had a lovely effect on millions who heard it, but there is also no doubt that everyone interprets that word, ‘love’, in their own idiosyncratic way.

For one person, love is a deep romance with the girl who sits two rows down on the train every morning (to whom, by the way, he has never yet had the courage to speak). For another, love is the suffocating, controlling, manipulating power over her only daughter so that her daughter can ‘have everything I never had’ (translation: fulfil MY needs). For a third, love is that vague and general sense of goodwill towards the human race, although “I can’t stand that annoying old hag in the canteen who insists on smiling and showing everyone her crooked yellow teeth” (Linus in Peanuts: “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand!”)

All you need is love.

I think this idea needs some qualification. Who do I love, in what way, and why? Most of us could honestly and immediately list those close to us as people we genuinely love. Parents, children, spouse, siblings (yes, even those) – perhaps we might add extended family, close friends, colleagues in study or work. If blessed with a nice neighbourhood, we might add the neighbours we often see through the week and stop to chat to. Our fellows at Church.

How real is this love? How strong? What type of love?

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

How many people would I really be willing to give my life for? Would I do it for a complete stranger? Would I do it for an enemy? Would the Beatles do it for anyone? Yet this is the astonishing, awful standard that Jesus set for His followers; “…lay down one’s life for his friends…” And He took it further by calling His enemies (sinful humanity) His friends, and then proceeding to lay down His life, horribly, for the very people who violently wrenched it from Him.
And thus He won them.

Love is very powerful, when practiced the right way. It goes against the intuition, it goes against our instincts, but there can be no doubt that genuine, unselfish, willing love is the one and only invincible power in this world. And I do not mean only power on the large scale, as in the love that conquered the world peacefully through the Christian religion. I am speaking on the day to day individual level for each human being. Everyone genuinely dedicated to divine, unselfish love and living it out unreservedly is, in the long run, victorious over all other forces. And in the short term, they have the added bonus of peace and joy that no one can take from them.

Start the day with love.
End the day with love.
Fill the day with love.

Thus read the sign at a place I worked once. It is very good advice. Instead of awaking with a growl and a grumble, and being obnoxious to everyone until morning tea time, imagine if you awoke with love in your heart. Imagine waking to the joy of a new day gifted to you by a wildly generous Creator who has decorated it with flowers and twittering birds and bright sunshine on glistening green gardens. Imagine spreading that joy with those who are close to you through a smile and a hug and words of happiness that are infectious.

Instead of collapsing in a heap into bed at the end of the day, imagine taking the time and putting forth the effort to remind those you love that you love them, to offer them, more than words, some simple act of kindness, some small gesture that shows them practically what they mean to you; perhaps to turn on their electric blanket for them unasked so that they are pleasantly surprised when they gingerly crawl into bed expecting coldness, or to complete a household task for them so that they don’t have to do it tonight.

Imagine going through today with others in your mind. Thinking about their needs and acting in kindness towards them. Imagine that thoughtful kindness one day becoming a habit, a part of you, no longer something you must consciously choose to do, but rather something that springs forth from you naturally without conscious intention.

Love, love, love.

Yeah, yeah, George. That’s all very good; but which love do you mean?

Fr Ant

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Love, Liberty and Lies

“Love God, and do whatever you will”
– St Augustine

This brief quote from one of the most eloquent Christians in history is a profound description of the liberty of the spirit that has truly known God. Our Lord Jesus Himself described this person’s freedom of spirit poetically when He said:

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

A true Christian lives by the law of liberty. I do not believe that genuine Christianity is about living your life inside a cage of rules and regulations.

“Thou shalt not…” was the baby sitter of our infancy, charged with protecting and teaching us in our vulnerable spiritual childhood. But now we have grown up, we live thus; “All things are lawful to me, but not all things are helpful” (1 Corinthians 6:12). There is no real disagreement between these two. They both direct us to the same goal, humble obedience to God, albeit by different paths. The main difference is that the first is forced upon us, while the second is our own choice.

This liberty means the whole world is mine – there is nothing I need to fear. All doors are open to me, all knowledge is available to me. This marvellous universe God has lovingly created for me is mine to experience and to enjoy. But with liberty comes responsibility, and liberty must be used responsibly if it is to be of benefit and not harm. “All things are lawful to me, BUT not all things are helpful … not all things build up … I will not be made a slave to any” continues St Paul (see 1 Corinthians 6:12 & 10:23).

The second part of St Augustine’s words will not work without the first part being in place. Our liberty comes about and may be practiced safely and with benefit because we love God. To those who do not love God, but love the world or themselves above all else, liberty becomes the means of their destruction.

Sadly, there has always been a temptation to misuse this beautiful liberty throughout the history of Christianity. From the time of the Apostles, groups developed who squandered this precious gift and fell far from God (e.g. The Nicolaitans in Revelation chapters 2 & 3). Even today, cults develop that pervert the message and joy of Christian freedom.

And we as individuals commit the same sin when we justify our sins and say, “There’s nothing wrong with that! Who am I hurting?” or “He deserved it!” We also abuse it by allowing ourselves to get into tempting situations that are too hard for us. “I can listen to that violent music all day without being affected by it!” is a clear example of abuse of God’s liberty. I am using it to drag myself away from Him – how sad…

May God grant us the wisdom to use this great gift of liberty effectively and safely.

Fr Ant

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A Painful Subject

Ah, the Pain, the Pain!
– Dr Zachary Smith in Lost in Space

Why did God create us to be able to feel pain?

Pain is one of the most unpleasant experiences a person can go through. We do everything we can to avoid pain. Just think of your fear of the dentist’s chair, or of stepping on a rusty nail, or getting your fingers caught in the car door as it closes … OUCH!

Of course, pain has a very important role to play in our lives. Without pain, we would all be a lot sicker, or perhaps even dead. Pain is the body’s alarm system – it goes off when there is danger. Pain is the first half of our pain reflex. When you touch something hot, the message shoots up to your brain, and without you consciously thinking about it, the brain shoots a message back to your muscles saying “Get out of there right now!” You pull your hand away and save yourself from a nasty burn. The pain in your tummy warns you that your appendix is infected and may be about to rupture, spreading germs throughout your abdomen and possibly killing you. So you take your sore tummy to the doctor who kindly removes the offending appendix.

You get an idea of how important pain is in our lives when you see what happens who lose their sense of pain. For example, long term diabetics may have their nerves so damaged by their diabetes that they no longer feel pain; or anything, at their toes and fingertips. This kind of diabetic must never walk around barefoot, for if she does, she won’t know that she stepped on an old drawing pin. She will continue to walk around with the pin stuck in her foot, banging around and ripping up her sole, opening up wounds that fill with germs and dirt. Some diabetics end up getting gangrene and losing their whole foot just from a simple thing like an old drawing pin; all because they cannot feel pain.

Yes, there are worse things in life than pain.

Pain plays a similarly important role in our spiritual and emotional lives. It is often the sign that something is wrong, and it invites us to investigate and find out what it is. When a disagreement occurs between two friends, the situation may be described as ‘painful’ in the emotional sense. To ease this pain, they will need to forgive each other and reconcile with one another.

The sting of sin is another example of this non-physical pain. That guilt you feel when you’ve done something wrong is like the dull, constant ache of a rotting tooth. You have to see your spiritual dentist (confession father) to have it cleaned out – perhaps, even to have the whole thing extracted! Yes, some pain is actually good for you. No one enjoys going through pain, but we understand that there are times when going through some pain today will save us from much worse pain tomorrow.

Every athlete knows the old adage, “No Pain; No Gain”. Without the constant pushing of the body to its limits, the athlete will never build up the muscles and skills they need to perform at the very highest level. So there are sane people who actually seek out pain, and that for very good reasons. As spiritual athletes, there may be times when we too may seek out certain types of emotional or spiritual pain for the higher goal we wish to attain. I would put fasting into this category, for it involves a ‘painful’ level of self denial, preventing one’s body from having the foods it desires and craves. Yet this pain is building spiritual muscles. It is conditioning the body to understand that the spirit is in charge, and the teaching the spirit to take charge of the body and control it. No pain, no gain.

Life might possibly be more pleasant without pain, but it would also be an awful lot less interesting. People would become lazy and complacent and lose many of the motivations that drive them to achieve and extend themselves. No longer could we speak of things like character, nobility or self-sacrifice. And, like spiritual diabetics, we might end up harming ourselves badly. Should we ask that pain disappear from our lives?

No.

Thank You God, for the gift of pain.

Fr Ant
www.stbishoy.org.au

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The Sculptor of Stone

“God is able to make children of Abraham out of these stones”
Matthew 3:9

Like a master stonemason, God carves saints out of many different kinds of stone. Just as the beautiful pearly lustre of white marble differs fromt he sullen, brooding roughness of a dark granite, the Master Craftsman uses the natural properties of each type to bring out their beauty and achieve the desired effect.

Stones are hard, and so are some people’s hearts. That God is capable of producing hearts of soft flesh from these stones is nothing short of a miracle. Consider these three hard-hearted stones He had to work with:

St Moses the Black

The giant of slave could not be tamed. That he would escape to live a lawless life was inevitable, for his spirit was as fierce and fiery as his face. Everyone who met him feared him – and he knew it. He did deprive himself of anything he desired, much to the loss and suffering of many others, for he did not attain them as other people do, through hard work and effort. No, a man like him simply took what he wanted, whether food or riches or women, and woe to the man or woman who tried to stand in his way!

Yet there was one desire he could not satisfy so easily. Homes and shops and travelling caravans he could loot with ease, but the sun was out of his reach. The sun – the greatest thing in all the universe, the giver of life to the world – surely the sun was the god of the universe? Yet he could not be sure. He could not find an answer. His uneducated and violently physcial mind could find no way to answer this question.
Having no other way, he would cry out with his voice in supplication to the sun, yet the sun never answered him, never seemed even to look towards him, there, the little speck on the ground.

And when finally he recieved a response to his cries, it was one he had never suspected; “Go to the monastery, and there you will find the God your heart desires.” The mighty man of action, seeking help from those softly spoken cowards who hide behind their thick walls in the desert? But his desire to find the real God was greater than his pride, and amazingly, that violent and selfish heart humbled itself to submit to gentle spiritual moulding at the hands of the abbot Daniel. The years to come would show that of all the monks of the desert, there was none so compassionate, none so gentle, none so unselfish and humble as the former superthief, Moses the Black.

St Mary the Egyptian

It has always been true that a beautiful woman, if she lacked an overactive conscience, could use her beauty to attain riches, power, and influence. The deader the conscience, the greater the gain.

By that measure, Mary of Egypt was very beautiful, very successful, and had very little conscience. Why would God care about this heart hardened to the hardness of diamonds by continual sin? Perhaps it is because He saw also the potential beauty of this diamond in the rough. Not the beauty she daily abused to achieve her selfish ends, but the beauty of a simple and upright spirit that had fallen into a coma underneath the mound of filth and sin that had become her life. How to dig it out and revive it?

She seeks clients and customers – let her follow the crowds, then. But these crowds are leading her, unknowingly, to Jerusalem. She sees the crowds milling to enter through a great door – let the natural curiosity that first led her to sin lead her now to the turning point of her life. She seeks to enter through the door, but is prevented by some unseen force while others pass through easily. Why can she not pass? What is this place? Why is she alone barred from its pleasures?

She discovers the truth: it is the Church, the place she had long ago abandoned, perhaps after a brief friendship with it in the innocence of childhood. And now, suddenly, her eyes are opened. She sees herself as she has never seen herself before. Not as the wily, worldly-wise manipulator of men and events, but as the evil temptress, the selfish fool, the lost little girl who sold everything that mattered for a few worthless coins … suddenly she sees herself through the eyes of God.

NO, NO!!! Is this what I have become, so rejected by God that He will not even allow me to enter His House while all these people go in and rejoice to dwell with Him? Tears … despair … pain … and then, decision. If He will but give me a sign that He accepts me, I will give Him all that I have, everything. She takes the step one more time, and this time, she too passes, passes through the door with tears, now of joy, not sorrow.

And many more steps does she take, far, far away from the cities of men, out into the desert, where the sun burns her soft skin and bleaches her long hair, where cold and hunger and loneliness make her resemble a skeleton more than a siren. She loses everything, but finds the Lord of Everything, and with Him lives in a peace and joy she had never dreamed of before. A simple door achieves what thousands of words of criticism and blame could never have achieved. The Master Sculptor plies His craft again.

St Augustine

Having a loving and pious mother and a father who did every thing possible to give him a good start in the world did little to soften the heart of young Augustine. As a young teenager he would fight with his desires. But he had already chosen which side he wanted to win: “Give me purity,” he would pray, “but do not give it to me yet!”
He proceeded to live a life of liberty and sin as only a young, talented and wealthy bachelor can. What did he lack in life? His career proceeded successfully, he had more than enough female company to suit his needs, friends to share his life with … and yet …

In the midst of this heart hardened towards the True God by being engorged with the world, there was a small, niggling unrest. As a young boy, he had read the Roman philosopher Virgil and been inspired to seek Truth above all else. But this life he lived did nothing to satisfy this hunger for Truth. Moved by this restless hunger, he explored every philosophy and religion he could find. Soon a pattern developed. He would run to a new movement with enthusiasm and hope. He would ask his questions of the leaders of that movement with anticipation. He would be disappointed by their answers, and leave them heart-broken, saddened that his hope of finding Truth had again been forlorn.

Yet every disappointment was a stroke of the chisel struck by the Master Sculptor. After twenty years of disappointment, his much battered and crumbling heart finally found what it longed for; in the sermons of St Ambrose of Milan, Augustine finally found a Truth he could depend upon, could build his whole life around.
He would convert to Christianity and become one of the most learned, saintly and eloquent teachers of the Gospel in history. His worldly ambitions turned to heavenly ones, and instead winning debates and court cases, he turned to winning souls for Christ.

Three very different hearts. The first hard through ignorance. The second, hardened by continual sin. The third, hardened through pride and self. Yet all of them softened and moulded lovingly by the hand of the Master Sculptor, who fashioned them indeed into true sons and daughters of Abraham the righteous.

Fr Ant
www.stbishoy.org.au

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The Dragon Who Changed

“He just drives me crazy! When is he going to wake up to himself?!”

Unfortunately, priests hear words like these on an all too regular basis. There is a lovely little story His Holiness Pope Shenouda tells of a man who came to him to confess (before he was Pope). The man launches in to a lecture about So-and-so and all the horrible things he has done, how he is a very bad person, and how frustrated and angry he has made him. HH listens patiently, and at the end, the confessor asks HH to pray the absolution for him. “Sorry,” HH replies, “I can’t do that. You haven’t confessed any of your sins for me to absolve. But if you would like to bring So-and-so, I will happily pray the absolution for him, since you have confessed all his sins for him!”

I always wonder how it is that people maintain such an optimistic hope that they will be able to change other people. Why else would you waste your time or your breath complaining? Wives believe, day after day, that if only they continue to complain about the messy sink, one day, their husbands will suddenly stop in their tracks and say, “Gosh, you’re right! How thoughtless of me! I’ll just turn this dial here in my side to the NEAT setting, and from now on I will always immediately wash up after myself.” And the wife will reply, “Thank you dear. I knew that nagging for thirty-five years would do the job.”

It just doesn’t work that way.

Here’s the deal: there is only one person that can change an annoying, frustrating, difficult person for the better: Himself or herself.

I can’t say it with 100% certainty, but I am pretty sure on this point. I have seen hundreds of people try to change their loved ones, with a pretty solid failure rate. Just think about it from the other side of the equation – has anyone managed to change you simply by complaining about you? What’s your first reaction when someone points out your failings? Is it “Oh gee, I am so glad you pointed that out to me! What a silly duffer I’ve been.”? Or is it more like, “Oh yeah, well what about you, hey? You do this that and the other. How dare you criticise me?!”

No, for most of the human race, we do not react well to criticism. What is needed is insight, liberally sprinkled with good old fashioned humilityand topped with a hearty dose of grace.

The insight is the ability to honestly recognise when we have been a pain to others. Some people are over sensitive in this area. They will read even the slightest little facial expression as implying displeasure and respond with copious apologies and offers to make it up again. But then there are others who have hides like a rhinocerus – they don’t get it even if you shout it in their faces.

Having recognised and understood the problem, one finds it extremely difficult to actually do something about it. We behave the way we do often because that is how we are comfortable. To change one’s behaviour, to alter a habit, is no easy task. It requires oodles of humility just to admit that change is needed, and to put the needs of others before one’s own needs. Yes, my family’s need to live in their own home without wearing gas masks should come before my own need not to walk three meters to the washing basket to dispose of my smelly socks. It takes humility to think that way.

And having decided to make the change, one sometimes meets with an impenetrable barrier of inertia. It is so hard to change!

I feel like giving up.
I’ve tried everything without success.
His standards are just too high.
Why can’t she accept me the way I am?
I feel there is no hope.
I am getting so tired of this.

Sound familiar? These are the words of one who tries to change all on their own. It usually fails. This is where the grace of God comes in. He is able to do that which we cannot…

“My grace is sufficient for you,
For My strength is made perfect in weakness” – 2Corinthians 12:9

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” – Phillipians 4:13

“Do not rejoice over me, my enemy,
For when I fall, I shall surely rise,
When I sit in darkness,
The Lord shall be a light to me.” Micah 7:8

Change is never easy. In CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he has the detestable Edmund transform into a dragon because of his selfishness and greed. Eventually, the Christ figure, Aslan the Lion, meets him by a pool and asks him if he would like to be a human again. Of course, by this stage, Edmund is so lonely and miserable that he has finally understood what a monster he’d been to his friends, so he agrees. All he has to do, he is told, is to take off his dragon skin. Happily, he peels it off, much like a snake shedding an old skin, only to find another dragon skin underneath. This too he sheds, and another, and another of the seemingly endless layers of dragon that enfold him. Finally, Aslan asks if he would like some help, which he accepts. But much to his consternation, the Lion digs His claws deep, deep into Edmund’s flesh and rips… In agony, Edmund cries out, but it is soon over, and he looks down upon himself to find himself wonderfully human once more.

God is more than willing to help me with the difficult changes in myself that I need to carry out. But first, I have to recognise and humbly acknowledge the trouble I cause to others. It is only then, when I come before Him in genuine humility, seeking His grace, and willing to accept the consequences, that I can truly change.

The choice is mine … no one else’s.

Fr Ant

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The Smile of Equal Width

KHRISTOS ANESTY!

I hope you all enjoyed a lovely Passion Week topped by a beautiful Resurrection Liturgy. It’s a lovely time for families too to get together in love and celebrate the Risen Lord , and the life He gave to each and every one of us.

This 50 Days after the Resurrection are sometimes misunderstood. Because the Church virtually bans fasting in this period, it is a natural reaction to take from that the message that this is a time for relaxing spiritually and taking things a bit easy. After the effort and ascetism of nearly two months of Lent, this is the time make up for it by enjoying the delights of various foods and … anything else you gave up in Lent? Surely I’ve given God enough to tide me over for a while now. He won’t mind if I take a bit of a break from Him…

But it really is about so much more than that, just as Lent is about so much more than just a change in your diet and eating patterns. This 50 Days is about living in the joy of Christ, the comforting, glorious presence of Christ.
He is not dead, He is risen!
He has not left us, He has returned to us!
He is not defeated, He is irreversibly victorious!

If you were blessed with grace from God through Lent, you might have been able to feel that what you ate really didn’t matter. After all, whatever you eat will still keep you going and reasonably healthy (junk food aside). And it didn’t matter because there are bigger fish to fry – imagine if your only goal in life was to make sure you ate the best foods. Pretty shallow?

It is, when you consider the other issues facing us in life. Issues such as justice and mercy, poverty and bereavement and death. Is food really all that important in the grand scale of things? Well, what changed on Saturday night? Did any of those really important things suddenly become less important? Just because steak and drumsticks, fattah and ice cream re-entered your life?

Of course not! In Lent, we gave up food so as not to distract ourselves with its attractions. In this 50 Days, we eat without restrictions so as not to distract ourselves by having to pay too much attention to what we eat. Both practices bestow their own unique benefits, and the person who is genuinely focused on the things that matter in life will, I think, appreciate those benefits and get the very most out of them both. And, with a smile of equal width in both seasons. 🙂

This is not a time to sit back and relax, but a time to use whatever resources God gives you at the moment to seek Him and to seek to do His will. That never changes, no matter what the season may be. The life with God, if it is that sort of life, is not one we need a holiday from. Sure, our physical bodies may only be able to cope with so much, but our spirits, if they truly love Him, cannot help but be constantly attracted towards Him without interruption.

That’s part of the beauty and truth of our blessed Orthodox Christian faith – it teaches us to see through the curtains of our earthly and physical limitations into the clear pure world of the spirit, where the light of God is always shining, beckoning, inviting us to come closer and enjoy its light and warmth.

Would you really postpone that for a few squares of chocolate?

Fr Ant

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Pyramid of Principles

Last Sunday’s Gospel, the Paralytic at the Pool who was healed by Jesus after 38 years of patient and fruitless waiting, contained a reference to one of the accusations brought against Jesus by His enemies. He was accused of breaking the Law of God by breaking the Sabbath rest and encouraging others to do so.

In this case, it was His command to the paralytic to pick up his bed and walk. Not long ago, ultra-orthodox Jews in the Sydney suburb of Bondi successfully campaigned for traffic lights that responded to pedestrians wanting to cross the road without them having to push that button. They consider pushing a button to be ‘work’ and thus prohibited on the Sabbath Day. Clearly, not much has changed in 2,000 years:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20938465-5001021,00.html

This brings up the whole issue of how literally to take God’s commandments. Jesus’ approach to Sabbath rest question cut right to the heart of the subject: “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Another time He reminded the Jews of the Old Testament quote, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

One way to interpret this might be a sort of hierarchy, a ‘pyramid’ of moral principles. Those principles that are higher in the pyramid overrule the lower principles. If you were asked to create such a pyramid, what would you have at the top? I wonder if your pyramid would agree with mine…

As a general rule in my pyramid, I would always put people higher than things. “People are more important than things” is a great motto that has saved me from awful mistakes many times, and I have always regretted it every time I ignored this concept. Should I go off my head about the valuable vase that my friend’s child accidentally broke? People are more important than things. That makes the decision relatively simple, doesn’t it?

At the top of my pyramid, I would have one single word: Aghape. Not just ‘love’, mind you, for the word can be twisted and misused too easily. By Aghape Love I mean the pure, unselfish, giving, and self-sacrificial love that comes from God; the love so poetically described in I Corinthians chapter 13.

In the lower levels of the pyramid, I would put the more ‘exterior’ virtues; observance of very specific rites such as how exactly one should stand when praying, knowing the tunes of all the hymns of the Church, and so on. All these are no more than tools we use to help us reach God, and it is dangerous to mistake them for goals in themselves, rather than just a means to a goal. This of course was the very mistake of the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time; their pyramid was upside down, and not carrying a bed was considered more important than celebrating the miraculous healing power of God. No wonder they didn’t recognise Jesus as the Messiah. He would have probably pushed the button at the traffic lights, just to cross the road and save a soul!!! Humph!

In between would be all the other principles and virtues such as mercy, repentance, practical acts of charity, spiritual exercises and methods, social service and so on. I would try to arrange them such that those that relate to my personal relationship with God were higher, those that relate to the welfare of those I interact with beneath them, and those that relate to the welfare of those I have never met below them.

Isn’t that a bit selfish, putting myself at a higher priority than others? Not if the priority is my own spirituality, my own relationship with God. If you are not a good swimmer, and you see someone drowning in a deep river, you are not really going to do them a lot of good by jumping in to save them and ending up drowning with them! In the same way, I am unlikely to do anyone any good if I am not well connected to God. It is not my own powers and abilities that bring goodness into the lives of others, it is the grace of the Holy Spirit working through me. The best way for me to facilitate that grace is to be as well connected to Him as I can, and then let Him do His work as He sees fit.

As a newly ordained priest, I recall one wise bishop telling me that the best service I could possibly offer to my congregation was to personally be a genuine Christian. The years have shown me the wisdom of those words. It is one of the devil’s favourite tricks to engulf the servant in doing things, keep him or her so busy that they lose their focus, forget their real goals, and lose their connection with Christ. That is the road that ends with becoming a ‘whitewashed tomb’, looking smooth and clean on the outside, but being filled with death and decay on the inside.

I have also put the welfare of those I come into direct contact with above those who are distant since genuine love must seek to serve at every opportunity presented to it, and most of those opportunities are with those closest to us. There is no need to go looking for someone to help among strangers when my own family is in desperate need. You don’t think so? Is your wife falling apart over those unfinished bits of housework? Are your parents freaking out because they think they are losing you? Would a kind word and a little smile from the heart have made any difference to the bloke who sits at the desk opposite you and looked so down this morning? If these or any similar situations apply to your life (and they almost certainly do) then you have more than enough material around you to share God’s love.

That’s not to say it is wrong for us to go further afield to serve. As a community, it makes a lot of sense to delegate some servants or some portion of time to serving those who are far away from us but are in great need. It is quite possible to do the one without neglecting the other. Harder, I grant you, but still quite possible. But to travel hundreds of kilometers to comfort the suffering while there is unresolved suffering in my own home is a bit hypocritical.

So, there’s my Pyramid of Principles. How does it compare to yours?

Fr Ant

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Treading the Tightrope

One of the hardest sins to defeat is pride. One of the hardest virtues to acquire is humility. Yet humility is an essential virtue, for without it, all that we do is worthless.

The devil’s first sin is said to have been pride:

Isaiah 14:12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer , son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said in your heart: `I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ 15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.

I cannot pretend to understand what might go on in the mind of luminous angelic creature, but I can certainly see a reflection of it going on inside myself, a spirit tied to a physical and limited body. If anything, it is even more laughable for a human being to be “proud”. No wonder the devil despises us.

Humility, as I have often said, is Truth: no more, no less. The old philosopher’s adage, “Know thyself” is a thumbnail sketch of the road to true humility. If we lived in absolute truth, never once deceiving ourselves or allowing ourselves to be deceived by others, then we would live in absolute humility.

If you are anything like me, you won’t have to look very far to find humbling things about yourself. I have a comprehensive ensemble of weaknesses, faults, character flaws and a prodigious list of sins committed over the years. If anything, an honest look at myself is more likely to make me puke than proud. If that were the end of the story, I’d be pretty miserable about myself and about life. But thankfully it is not the end of the story.

There is another side to each of us that we also need to be brutally honest about. There is the good side. Each and every one of us was made by God, and as the old saying goes, “God doesn’t make junk”. That means that underneath my corrupt and sinful nature, there is the seed of a heavenly being, an eternal spirit that is capable of seeing God. This beautiful creature lives inside even the most evil of sinners in this world, struggling constantly to break free and shine. Occasionally, I let mine out, and those are my best moments, moments of compassion, or unselfishness, or self-sacrificing honesty.

There is no pride in this beautiful creature within – how can I be proud about something I had nothing to do with? St Paul explains this logically;

“For who makes you differ from another?
And what do you have that you did not receive?
Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Follow his argument, and you see how much sense it makes. If I am better than others in some way, then it is because of the gifts I was born with, gifts given to me by Another. So who deserves the praise for those gifts in me? Why should I pretend that I am the maker of the gifts and hog all the praise, when that is clearly not the case?

In fact, there is a profound peace to be found in acknowledging this very basic truth. One of the Desert Fathers described his spiritual state thus:

“When I have succeeded, I lay my past sins before my eyes and remind myself of how easily I fall without the help of God, and thus I avoid foolish pride.
And when I have failed and feel down, I say to myself; Yet God still loves me, and His love lifts me up again from my fall.”

This is the tightrope we walk every day of our lives: foolish pride to the one side, miserable despair to the other. But for those who manage to keep their balance, the feeling is exhilirating! Tightrope walkers use a long pole held horizontally in their hands to help them keep their balance. My pole has one word engraved on it in strong, gold letters …

“Truth.”

Fr Ant

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I Think I Need A Laxative

Sometimes things get lost in the translation. For example, below are a few of the commonest phrases used in the Arabic language, translated literally into English. See if you can guess their original meaning…


“A Jasmine dawn”

“Every year and you are kind”

“From under to under”

When we read the Bible in a translated language (like English), a lot of the more subtle nuances and meanings are also lost. Often the only way to find them is to read a good commentary (or perhaps go the whole way and learn Hebrew and Greek!) Here is one example…

SPLAGCHNA

Please don’t ask me how to pronounce it! It’s a Greek word that literally means ‘bowels’. It is often used in the New Testament, both as a noun and a verb (‘to bowel’). How? Here are a few verses with the word ‘splagchna’ translated literally…

“Through the bowels of mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78,79)

“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on bowels of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering” (Colossians 3:12)

“But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his bowels from him, how does the love of God abide in him? ” (I John 3:17)

It turns out that in the Greek mind of the time, the word ‘bowels’ was used to describe all the organs of the chest and abdomen, especially the ‘nobler’ ones like the heart, the lungs and the liver. It represented the deepest feelings, feelings that stir an almost physical tingle inside you. While Greek poets tended to use it as a metaphor for the more violent passions such as anger, in the east it came to represent more tender affections like kindness, compassion and pity.

The use of the word in Greek strongly relays the sense of a very deep feeling, a feeling that involves the whole person rather than a superficial one. Anyone who has suffered colic or constipation or, God forbid, a twisted bowel will know exactly what I am talking about! It is a feeling you cannot ignore, a feeling that commands your total and complete attention.

So the New Testament authors who use this word are telling us that mercy, pity, compassion and kindness should not be some sort of superficial coat we put on for the public and put in the closet when we go home. They should come from the very depths of our being. Concern for others should cut deeply into the soft tissue of our inward parts, our ‘bowels’. They should be an inseperable part of us, of who we are. They should be ‘gut reactions’ that flow naturally from our Christ-filled nature.

That is how God loves us, in so far as we can describe God in human terms at least (He has no real bowels):

“Through the bowels of mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78,79)

That is how we should deal with each other – not superficially, not artificially:

“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on bowels of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering” (Colossians 3:12)

And that is what should naturally flow into our actions, automatically:

“But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his bowels from him, how does the love of God abide in him? ” (I John 3:17)

Which is a very apt description of “Compassion Constipation” – the state where a person’s ‘bowels’ are no longer ‘moved’ by care for others. He becomes obsessed with his own inner feelings and pain and can no longer give to others.

What this person needs is something to clear him out – to unblock the obstacle – to free the ‘bowels’. There is no better ‘spiritual laxative’ than love. Love melts the hardened heart and fills the suffocating lungs with fresh clean air. Love takes away our colic and replaces it with a sense of comfort and inner peace. Blessed indeed is the person who is loved.

And we are all loved. Not only by those whom God has given us in our lives to be our family and friends, but especially by God Himself. His love is apparent in His daily care for us, His support and comfort in hard times, and on the Cross, that eternal symbol of His ‘bowel-felt’ compassion for His children. The gut-wrenching agony of the Crucifixion is the greatest image of what love really means.

You are loved.

Let that knowledge move you in the inner parts of your being.

Fr Ant

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Outside Looking In.

I recently heard a talk on CD distributed by St Paul’s Outreach Service (you know, the service that sends them out to a mailing list) by an American convert to Orthodoxy called Francis Schaeffer. He seems to be a very eloquent and deeply thoughtful man. On this occasion, he was speaking about his experiences since abandoning Protestantism and joining the Orthodox Church. The whole talk was an eye-opener, for he gives his impressions from the point of view of an objective ‘outsider’ who has come into intimate contact with the Orthodox Christian community. But the thing I want to address today is a comment he made about how many Orthodox Churches there are. Roughly paraphrased, it went something like this:

“Some people complain that the Orthodox are divided along national and cultural lines – the Greeks, the Russians and so on, but I in fact see only two Orthodox Churches. These two churches often exist within the same parish. Most Orthodox people tend to belong to one or the other of the two, but they drift in and out of each of the two.

“The two Orthodox Churches are the “Social Club” Orthodox Church and the “One, only holy catholic and apostolic Church”.

“The first is where people come to Church just because they ‘belong’. In this Church, people to tend to ignore the reality and the importance of the sacraments and the teaching, focussing more on their interactions with others, maintaining their ethnic identity, internal politics, beaurocracy, gossip and so on. This Church is not going to last very long. There are others out there who do ‘social club’ much better than we ever can. They have more money, more resources, and more experience, and they will rob this Church of its members over time.

“But the other Church, the ‘real Church’, is where people appreciate and value the unique mysteries present in the Church, and avail themselves of its power to transform lives. On any given Sunday, in any given parish, you will find members of both these Churches standing shoulder to shoulder in thel liturgy.”

Schaeffer is speaking from the point of view of one who has not grown up inside the Orthodox Church. He has not had the opportunity to develop ‘tolerance’ (in the sense of tolerance to a drug) through over-familiarity. He expresses his amazement at the amazement of life-long Orthodox who cannot understand why he converted. They seem to him to be saying, “You don’t have to be here. Why on earth would you want to join this leper colony?!” Yet those who react like this are the ones who never really use the power of the Church in their lives. They belong to the Social Club Church, and they see him as leaving much better social clubs for an inferior, ethnically based one.

We have such treasures at our disposal, yet often we need an ‘outsider’ to point them out to us. Hearing Schaeffer speak about the sacrament of confession, how much he has felt the difference that being accountable to someone for his spiritual state has made, and how the Holy Spirit is working to slowly change him through this sacrament made me think of how poorly the ‘life-long’ confessor often benefits from his/her confession. What a pity!

Perhaps our expectations come to be lower? Perhaps we can be too close to see the big picture? Perhaps it is yet another example of the old adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt”, or that one never appreciates a valuable thing until one loses it? I recall working in the Illawarra during my intern year and suddenly feeling acutely the lack of a local Church to go to; suddenly appreciating the immense blessing of weekly Communion when I could no longer get it. I hear many such experiences from our tertiary students who travel to distant places to complete their studies.

Why wait till I lose a precious thing before I appreciate it and benefit fully from it? Why not find that appreciation now? Can you imagine approaching Confession with the expectation of real transformation through the grace of the Holy Spirit combined with your own genuine efforts? Can you imagine approaching Holy Communion in the full understanding of this incredible miracle that occurs weekly before your very eyes? Can you imagine the feeling of walking out of Church carrying Christ in your body, dwelling in Him as He now dwells in you?

Let us not wait to be kicked out of our Father’s house before we realise what we have. Let us not be a Prodigal Son or Daughter. We are rich beyond measure! Let us enter into the joy of our Lord…

Fr Ant