Letting Go of Easter

All my talk about mysticism and writing at the end of January had me groping for my dormant liturgical traditions to see if their structures and rhythms might inform my approach to writing as spiritual practice. And since Lent was nigh, I figured I might as well start by taking a stab at observing it for the first time in many years. And since much of the mysticism of the Western Church began in the East—indeed it was the emphasis on mystery that drew me to the Byzantine tradition—I figured I might as well start by attending Divine Liturgy. Or watching it, rather. But I’m in good company. According to St. John Chrysostom, the angels, too, are mere spectators at the “celestial theater” of the Church. 

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In 1999 I became a catechumen in the Orthodox Church, a sort of student studying to convert. It meant leaving evangelicalism and a lifetime of distinguishing myself as the AWANA champion, Miss Conservative Baptist of Oregon 1986-87, and Jesus Nerd par excellence, teaching Sunday School and leading bible studies and worship music all the way up into grad school. My family never had the money to create the hermetically-sealed environment of private or home schooling but I certainly tried to shut out as much of the storm of secularism as I could with daily personal bible devotions, youth group, and Christian music—and tried to ignore where these spiritual and intellectual tarps leaked. In graduate school, my academic speciality was American evangelicalism and the Israel-Palestine conflict, which meant spending a lot of time in the bowels of evangelical history and theology. The growing leaks finally became a flood. I could see how flimsy and tenuous the materials of not only my cognitive coverings but even those seals that were airtight, allowing the solipsism and literalism inside to fester into something noxious and idolatrous. Evangelicalism had made graven images of the individual, the text, and even the nation-state. It was also deeply unsatisfying. I wanted God to be more than just my invisible daddy or bestie. 

A Twenty-Year Old Hail Mary

Workshop of Andrej Rublëv, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Note: I first published this post twenty years ago today. While obviously I was not able to attend today's Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Annunciation in person (and only managed about twenty minutes of an online service this morning before life forced me to deal with more mundane matters), I couldn't help but think of this old post since I'm actually trying to observe Lent for the first time in many years. My faith has changed during these two decades. Reading this now, there is still the faint whiff of the new convert five years after leaving Evangelicalism for Byzantine-rite Catholicism. I would write this differently today. But only slightly so. 

It feels odd not to be fasting on Great and Holy Friday. But, it's one of those once in a lifetime occurrences when the Feast of the Annunciation falls on this somber day. And in the Eastern Church, we don't move dates. So, tonight we commemorated both the beginning of God's finite form and its end with the only Divine Liturgy served on Holy Friday since 1931 as well as the traditional vespers service complete with procession and burial of Christ's icon shroud. The combined liturgies lasted for three hours. Ample time to contrast the joy of God becoming Immanuel -- God with us -- and the suffering such empathy entailed.

Midwinter Spring Is Its Own Season

Silly blueberry bush, it's January!    

It is not uncommon to have a break from the seemingly interminable Portland rain in mid to late January. After months of dim, gray-white skies, the sun feels almost aggressive, with a glare that is blindness in the afternoon even as we all luxuriate in its heart’s heat. Sometimes we even get temperatures in the upper 50s, teasing the bulbs with spring only for the most gullible daffodils—or blueberries (such as mine above)—to bloom and then die in a February cold snap. 

Between melting and freezing, my own soul’s sap is quivering with a tentative spring. Though at 53 years old I’m more in the autumnal time of life rather than winter. Still, a spring time out of time’s covenant. My pedometer may continue reading only 300-400 steps/day (especially since starting the Estradiol patch in August 2024), but I seem to be doing more with those steps. A bit more cooking in the kitchen. A bit more trimming and planting in the garden. An hour or two more out of bed here and there. 

Holistic faith

I read a great article in The Sun (the magazine, not the British tabloid) earlier this week interviewing Yossi Klein Halevi, an author who I'm not familiar with, but after reading this, I want to be. Actually, it wasn't the full interview as The Sun does not have any advertising so buying customers are essential to its survival. But even just the excerpt they printed on the website (via a pdf) has a lot of valuable stuff.

The first aspect of the discussion that intrigued me was Halevi's belief that religion is an essential part in bringing peace to the Holy Land. This is something that I have been thinking about as well and it was encouraging to hear someone else say it also.

"In engaging my Christian and Muslim neighbors in a dialogue of prayer, my goal was to test the possibility that religion, specifically in the Holy Land, could be an instrument for healing rather than hatred...The Oslo peace process, which ended the first Palestinian uprising in 1993, was planned by secular elites who bypassed the vast religious populations on both sides. Now we face a second intifada. There is an urgent need to develop a religious language, and my search for a common language of prayer among the monotheistic faiths was an experiment in that direction."

In my own life, I have recently felt myself increasingly drawn away from my academic roots in the traditional discipline of history and to a lesser extent, politics, towards what at this moment feels to be a bit more ephemeral, yet more powerful spiritual pressure building up throughout the world, including in the two places which are the focus of my studies: the United States and Palestine/Israel.

I remember years back (eek! fourteen years already!) during my freshman year of college when I was attending Biola University, a prominent Evangelical school with a weekly chapel requirement, a man spoke during one of those weekly chapels who worked in South Africa during apartheid and through its dissolution. He explained that it wasn't until there was repentance and reconciliation among clergy behind the scenes that the end of apartheid was possible. It was a powerful idea for me then and has grown increasingly more powerful in my imagination. Lately I can't help but wonder if my illness is a way of turning me away from the secular pursuit of knowledge to a more dynamic, if quieter, spiritual path.

So, today I went to the World Peach Lunch held each month by the Wholistic Peace Institute, an organization which seeks to incorporate spirituality in the quest for world peace. Alicia Thom, one of the authors of the book I've talked about in past posts, Being Human, spoke about her participation in the 2nd Edinburgh International Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace conference a few weeks ago. From the brochure and Alicia's report, it sounded hopeful and exciting. One of the speakers was Abouna Elias Chacour, who's writings and speaking have never ceased to awaken my spirit -- often to point of tears. While Alicia missed his presentation, she did come away with an even greater appreciation of the importance for every culture to tell their stories, as well as shared the sentiment of "better the heaven of unity than the hell of separation."

This need for unity was the other aspect of the Halevi interview that resonated with me. "People of different faiths have always judged each other by what we believe about God rather than by how we experience God's presence." He talked about how reading about mysticism made him realize "an astonishing unity of experience" when it came to encountering the Divine. "It was a seminal moment for me. It made me realize that the claims of religion might actually be true. It helped bring me back to Judaism, but it didn't confine me to Judaism."

Yes! Exactly!

As my gratuitous use of exclaimation marks there suggests, I had a similar seminal moment last week. For awhile now I've been pondering the fact that the world's great religions are so very much alike in many ways. Why do we always look to find what's different? Growing up Evangelical Protestant, we had retreat workshops and Bible Studies devoted to looking at Us versus Them. In my Orthodox supply catalogues are whole pages devoted to books explaining why other religious traditions are wrong and only the Orthodox Church has the correct way to God. We hold the Truth. They are lost.

Yet, when I look at the history of mystical prayer in my Byzantine church, we have traditions that are almost identical to those found in Tibetan Buddhism. At the first Divine Liturgy I ever attended, I was struck by how similar it was to Jewish worship, with a holy of holies behind the iconostasis, the incense that frequently clouded the church, and the chanting that sounded a lot like the chanting of the Torah. During Lent we do prostrations that are almost identical to those I did when I prayed with my Muslim friends while attending the Saturday Islamic school. But, if I embrace the idea that all religions are one, how can I call myself a Christian?

Just as I climbed into bed a week ago, I had my epiphany. In calling myself a Christian, I am stating that Christianity, specifically Byzantine Catholicism and to a lesser extent the Evangelical Protestantism in which I grew up, are the primary constructs through which I understand the Divine. Its rituals and mythos are the primary tools I use to relate to the Divine.

However, I acknowledge that Christianity is an imperfect construct. St. Paul said, "At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially, then I shall know fully as I am fully known." While I believe that the Holy Spirit did inspire the Scriptures as well as the (mostly) men who wrote and interpreted them for the Church, they were still finite men who used a finite tool -- language -- to create a finite construct.

I also feel free to to borrow from other religions -- their understanding of the Divine, their traditions, mythos and rituals, to create a fuller, more dynamic relationship with God.

As I wrote that credo of sorts in the journal I keep by my bed, it was as if it broke the spell of needing the approval of people at church under which I've been since I was a little kid from a broken home desperate for the acceptance of the God-fearing people who held my divorced mother in contempt. I no longer care if the Bush-loving, Natural-Family-Planning-only Catholics with whom I share Communion think my syncreticism is sending me to Hell. I can now be a Christian again. I can have a rich, active, potent relationship with God again. I can be whole.

"Sometimes I feel like I belong to two peoples," said Halevi, "the Jewish people and a pluralistic people drawn from all faiths. I'm a religious Jew, and the Jewish story is the context in which I try to experience the miraculous. But I'm also a pluralist who believes that all the great religions are 'denominations' of one great religion, which teaches that the unseen is more important than the visible, and that this is a universe of unity and intentionality, despite the surface appearance of chaos."

Needing Lent

O Lord and Master of my life.
Keep from me the spirit of indifference and discouragement,
lust of power and idle chatter.

Instead, grant to me, your servant,
the spirit of wholeness of being,
humble-mindedness, patience and love.

O Lord and King,
grant me the grace to be aware of my sins
and not to judge my brother,
for You are blessed, now and ever, and forever. Amen.

(The Prayer of St. Ephraim of Syria, prayed daily throughout Lent.)

It's hard to believe that Lent is already here. As Byzantine Catholics, we follow the Gregorian calendar along with our Roman brethren, but follow the Byzantine liturgical calendar as do our Orthodox brethren who are on the Julian calendar. Christmas just ended last Wednesday for us with the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord to the Temple, though technically we've been in the Pascha (Easter) cycle for a few weeks now.

At least the weather here in Portland is cooperating. It's felt like Spring for a couple of weeks now and there's no sign of a big winter freeze on the horizon.

In my own life it's felt time for Lent as well. This last year I've been struggling a great deal with my faith. Indeed, my very first journal entry of 2004 was about my wrestling with science, other religious traditions, and my own Christian faith. My way of reconciling it all has been to read. A lot. To think. A lot. As an academic, my first reaction is always to research and ponder. To use my brain to get me out of my conundrum. I cannot return to a literal, black-and-white approach to my faith as it would be dishonest. But I cannot give up my faith either. While I'm stuck in the gray, I've simply had to have faith that God can hold me here. And go to church and say my prayers, even if I feel a sort of loneliness while I do so.

As I wrote in my last post, my massage therapist has been telling me that my body keeps saying that my "vegetal" state -- the part that deals with my feelings and emotions -- is not working properly and is keeping me from getting better. That my brain has taken over and is stealing away my emotional life, including my relationship with God. From a Taoist perspective, humans exist between heaven and earth and my brain is blocking out the heavens. That idea seems to fit with Orthodox theology. Bishop Kallistos Ware states that we are created to participate in both the noetic and material realms, and it is our God-given task "to reconcile and harmonize the noetic and the material realm, to bring them to unity, to spiritualize the material, and to render manifest all the latent capacities of the created order (The Orthodox Way, 50)." My faith has become too intellectual and is unable to participate in the noetic. It is suffocating my faith.

Frankly, though, I've always thought of my intellectual proclivity as a good thing. Growing up Evangelical, I've come to disdain the penchant to simply sing a bunch of songs that create some sort of emotional ecstasy. They always felt manipulative. Lacking in substance. Dangerous because it meant people can be so easily manipulated since they have very little substance.

So, my massage therapist recommended something that would appeal to my brain: a book. Specifically, a book called Being Human. And the other day I sat in the Park Blocks and began reading it.

The primary life force (God) contains both penetrating and enveloping aspects. The penetrating force represents the power of the Creator and has a more masculine and active quality. The enveloping force is Grace, which has a more feminine quality as it is a force that encloses and envelopes life.

After explaining this, one of the authors talked about his experience in a Hindu village of Afghanistan where, in watching the mundane of daily life, he experienced that enveloping Grace. It made me think of the line from “"Hold Me, Jesus”" by Rich Mullins.

And this Salvation Army band is playing this hymn. And your grace rings out so deep, makes my resistance seem so pale…...

As I sat there in the Park Blocks reading that, I started to cry and say to myself, “"I miss you God. I miss you Jesus. Come into my life. I miss you.”" I thought of how when I was a teenager and I would listen to songs and be touched. Back when I was open to Grace.

I think there is something healthy and valid about skepticism. And I continue to value the training I have in deconstructing texts and looking at the power structures and marginalized voices that lie beneath them.

But I need Grace.

And right now, I need Lent. I need these forty days of fasting and abstinence. "For the Christian," says Father Philaret Littlefield, "the hunger that results is a real call to be mindful of our thirst for God." I need the prostrations done after each of the petitions of the Prayer of St. Ephraim to humble my intellectual arrogance. I need the emphasis on meditation and surrender to hear God's voice and to let go of my obsessive and pathetic need to have control. I need, as Saint Ephraim says, a spirit of wholeness of being.