The motto ... provides a key to much of the most notable work that is being done in Greece to-day; 'the victory of the width'--to give a literal translation of a phrase that cannot easily be put into English--ultimately depends upon the faithfulness and energy with which 'the battle of the depth' is waged. There can, in other words, be no fruitful outward activity that does not spring from a deepened interior life. It is only as the missioner himself is truly converted, only as he himself learns to dwell in Christ and as Christ is formed in him, that he can be used as an effective instrument for the conversion of others. Apart from this all his activity is in vain. [2]
We can have no 'victory of the width' until we win 'the battle of the depth.' Christopher Dawson, I believe, was speaking about the same thing when he wrote:
Christians stand to gain more in the long run by accepting their minority position and looking for quality rather than quantity. [3]
I agree, but, we must understand what we mean by 'quality.' If, in the name 'quality,' we delude ourselves with a sort of self-righteous elitism, we will have lost the battle of the depth before it has started, to say nothing of the width.
[1] I will write more on this wonderful book soon, after I am finished reading it. It is a beautiful travel narrative about the Orthodox Church in Greece during the late 1940s. I was so inspired by this book, and wanting learn more about Greece, I immediately purchased a used copy of Kevin Andrew's The Flight of Ikaros which is apparently excellent (and anyway Bishop Kallistos recommends it, so it can't be all bad).
[2] The words of St. Seraphim of Sarov come to mind: “Acquire the spirit of peace, and a thousand around you will be saved."
[3] This is from Dawson's book The Historic Reality of Christian Culture, but I found it quoted in Thomas Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, who adds "Is it possible that if we become too obsessed with quantity we will end up with a 'Christian' mentality that is no longer even superficially Christian?" Sigh.
Incidentally, I've been meaning to read Dawson's classic study Religion and the Rise of Western Culture for years. Sigh.
Oh, and I will continue my writings on Asceticism and the Environment when I have a little more time. Good night.
6 comments:
a trick i like to use, re: the characters, is to find them on a webpage and then copy and paste. that's how i do french film titles
at the Meteora north of Kalambaka, a few monks still live in the rock-top monasteries that once housed hundreds. visitors are allowed to take pictures of the views and the outsides of the buildings, even the room holding the skulls of martyrs, but not of the insides of the churches themselves.
The icon work is beautiful for those who are actually into that sort of thing, but what I took away from it more was that a spiritual life is not something that can be lived vicariously but must be experienced first hand. Quality indeed.
I'm not sure if he exists outside of the Greek Orthodox canon of saints, but Sisoes weeps over the bones of Alexander the Great in one of the (more universal?) paintings, bemoaning the death of the man he claims to spell the doom of humanity: i..e., if Alexander the Great perishes, then so do all men.
Was it asceticism and the environment that you were going to write about? or the seeming paradox of being a Christian and someone who has more than an idle concern about the environment? (or at least the conflict of interests, as described once by my brother whose faith precluded hm from caring about something so very connected to the end of time)
I will need to write about this eventually, I suppose, but I will check back to see what, if any, perspective you may bring to the matter. If it turns out you are thinking of something else entirely, it will be no skin off my nose...speaking of which, I should use some neosporin and return to bed and rest.
I am writing about both those things. I can't write about 'asceticism and the environment' until i discuss the 'seeming paradox of being a Christian and having a concern for the environment.' so i'll write about the latter for a couple posts and then continue on to the former (my main topic), but by that time Lent will probably be over.
Patience and Time.
St. Sisoes the Great was a desert father and so is probably considered a saint by the R. Catholics, too. A couple of my favorite sayings of the desert fathers were about him (I realized when I just looked him up Benedicta Ward's translation of the Apophthegmata Patrum). On his death bed, St. Sisoes's face shone like the sun and all were amazed. He was a very old man, wise, and a miracle worker, but he still asked the angels who came for him to give him more time to repent before he died.
The Greeks were and are a very serious and proud people. No-nonsense, someone said. I imagine that St. Sisoes was not so very different and felt that he truly had a lot to repent--perhaps even just being himself. Our tour guide was the very devout Katarina who spends nine months out of the year walking the four hundred steps to the two visitable monasteries (The Great Monastery or Megalo Meteoro and Varlaam) four times a day, every day. She spoke of Sisoes with great reverence.
I have no idea who and what the desert fathers were. Were they like John the Baptist? I could pick out certain figures among the haloed or sainted in Frangos Katelanos' frescoes, people whom I'd never heard referred to as saints before, such as Lazarus, which made me wonder if I just hadn't been paying very good attention earlier.
Interesting that you mention St. Lazarus because he is commemorated this coming Saturday (Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday).
The desert fathers were the founders of monasticism in the deserts of Palestine and Egypt in the 3rd and 4th centuries. I guess you can say they were spiritually connected with St. John the Baptist, but the "first" desert father is considered to be St. Anthony the Great. Anyway Christian Monasticism began more or less after the Christianity was made the State Religion and therefor martyrdom was not longer possible. Monasticism was a new sort of martyrdom. It was developed in Africa and the Middle East and only later spread to Western Europe.
There is a book of sayings by them online: http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article8134.asp. The translator is a fairly good author but I haven't read it yet...
I recommend, though, if you are interested, Thomas Merton's translation, which is a slim volume called Wisdom of the Desert.
About St. Sisoes: I believe it is common for holy people in general (not just Greeks) to feel their sinfulness more acutely because they are so closed to God. For us who are far away from God, it is easy to compare ourselves with what we think we know about other people and consider ourself righteous and good and we are so used to our faults that we don't even notice them. But the Saints compared themselves only to God and, because they have journeyed much father towards perfection than us, so they always wanted to repent.
When Herbert McAlpert dropped out of society, he went to Tibet to live as a hermit monk (just like the original founders of Meteora) in a cave where ascetics would bring him bread and water occasionally. People would travel from all over having read Be Here Now to garner some sort of wisdom or perhaps to sieve some of his holiness or what have you and time and time again would be appalled to find this little wasteling of a man lying in a cave, barely able to see and silent.
I remember an earlier mention of the Merton book. One of these days I'll get around to it.
A different cautionary tale I remember concerning closeness to God was noted by All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten author Robert Fulghum, who is part humorist and part philosopher. In one of his books (it may have been It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It) chronicled his early trip to become a buddhist, like so many young men did in the fifties and sixties.
He met with a guru who kept scratching his bottom during the interview, all the while asking Fulghum questions about why he wanted to be a buddhist and such and finally, he stood up, still scratching and said that in all of his years of seeking Enlightenment, he had these really nasty hemorrhoids and that no matter how close he got to atman, his hemorrhoids never went away.
Fulghum returned to the States soon after.
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