By Albert
S. Rossi
To Live in the Kingdom of God, Now
In the
"Our Father" I am taught to pray, "Thy Kingdom come," and
the strong implication is, as C. S. Lewis notes, that the Kingdom can and
should come here and come now, in my heart and in the world at large. The
Divine Liturgy is replete with similar invitations calling everyone to enter
into the Kingdom of God, here and now.
What,
precisely, is the Kingdom of God? And, even more pointedly, how do I enter it?
Reflecting on the meaning of Kingdom of God by looking at St. Paul's epistles,
one Orthodox theologian explains that, from the human perspective and
experience, "the Kingdom of God is ... righteousness, peace and joy in
the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17). He goes on to say that my experience of the
Kingdom is a special kind of joy, namely, joy which is a gift from God and
often found in affliction and suffering for others. St. Paul states this
clearly, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake ..." (Col.
1:24). This is a rather eloquent statement of what I can expect and how I am to
live in our family life.
Precisely
in family distress and family affliction can the New Testament message ring
most real, most profound. In the family, the question "How do I enter the
Kingdom of God?" finds an answer. I enter the Kingdom of God by finding
joy, overflowing joy, superabundant joy, the joy found in the Holy Spirit,
because of and within the heart-ripping suffering experienced and the blessings
given in my family. The joy of the Holy Spirit is inextricably based upon
suffering. But I am not here to look for suffering or to create it, only to
live it as it enters my life. I turn from suffering to joy by accepting,
embracing, and working with the reality that these persons are my family, and
therefore God's family for me. My family members are weak and sinning human
beings who, by definition of living in a fallen state, will wound and seriously
offend me. My vocation is to live fully within this sometimes fractured and
sometimes united lifestyle, love all my family members through it all, and to
try to sustain the gift of a joyful disposition which is from the Spirit.
The
Orthodox view of family, then, stands in polarized opposition to the prevailing
American cultural view of family. For the Orthodox Christian, a family is not
primarily a group of persons who provide mutual comfort, ease, predictability,
and security from loneliness. The family is not primarily a warm hearth and the
smell of baking bread. The family can be those things, but hopefully it is much
more. Infinitely more. Primarily, the family is the God-chosen group of persons
with whom I most intimately live the life of Christ, that is, the agony of the
Cross and the joy of the Resurrection, simultaneously at times.
To Be A Sign of Contradiction
Jesus'
life was a sign of contradiction and, likewise, so must mine be. As life
unfolds I realize I am called, within my family, to love as God loves. As this
is progressively more understood, the power of the insight can be quite
disarming, threatening to dismantle my defense system. This insight slowly
evolves away from a me-at-the-center perspective to a
family-member-at-the-center perspective. Basic questions begin to change. I can
no longer ask, "When does my turn come?" or "How about my fair
share?" or "What about me?" Now I begin to realize that I am
called to give in some areas which will be quite unrequited, or so it will
seem. This might be financial, social, sexual, occupational, educational,
religious, psychological, or spiritual. Of one thing I can be rather sure, that
it will seem to me that in certain ways I will be giving to my family members and
it is quite unreciprocated.
As the
God-life grows within me toward my family members, I can also be rather certain
that I will come to the point where I feel I have no more to give. Maybe I feel
I'm getting older. Maybe I feel I've gone to the well once too often. Maybe I
feel I'm already beyond my real love limit. Regardless of the reason, most
adults arrive at the cutting edge, the flash point where they become aware that
they may not have enough to give to ensure that they, and those around them,
can maintain a sane lifestyle. It's an overwhelming terror to come up against
the parameters, the barbed-wire fence around one's capacity to love. Adults are
then "over the edge," living in a temporary state of suspended
animation.
This
experience may open the door, be the connection, enhance my relationship with
the Infinitely Sustaining God. I am aware, cogently, that it is and has been
God who, all along, is the one who has continually kept me back from going over
the edge and, if I did go over the edge for a time, it was He who sustained my
very life, being more present to me than I was to myself.
For me,
those times of beautiful weakness (the weakness St. Paul mentions) may be times
when I learn that indeed I can live and love here and now, with these flawed
family members, and that I can love boundlessly. I experience this because I
can yield to the infinite, wondrous love of God living through me and directed
toward my family members. Precisely in my vulnerability and sheer inability can
I accomplish what my love limits would not otherwise allow me to accomplish. At
these moments I can experience
the fullness of "casting my burdens on the Lord." At these moments I
can know, with the marrow of my bones, that it is "no longer I who live
but Christ lives in me." This becomes an experience of a miracle in my
life, of being personally touched by the hand of God and enabling me to love
more than I ever thought was possible.
I become
a sign of contradiction because I perceive, probably erroneously, that I am
loving in certain ways that other members of my family are not. In reality, all
of us in the family may be living signs of contradiction, living a life of love
maximally within each unique personality structure. Each may be living
apparently unrequited love in different ways. God's ways are not my ways. God's
calling to each member of a family will be uniquely personal, and probably
quite misunderstood by some other members within the family. I am called to try
to live according to God's ways, not mine.
To Be A Living Prayer
I, like
everyone else in my family, have the grand task, the royal calling, the
priestly vocation to pray arduously for the other members of my family,
especially the alienated and alienating members. This is a no-nonsense calling
which I am probably not fulfilling adequately, probably not even minimally. If
I think I am, that may be the clearest sign that I am not. Abba Agathon says
that prayer is the hardest of all tasks. "If we do not find prayer
difficult, perhaps it is because we have not really started to pray." And
Bishop Kallistos Ware continues this idea by saying, "Prayer means that
each day we renew our relationship with others (family members) through
imaginative empathy, through acts of practical compassion, and through cutting
off our own self-will." Prayer, as the Fathers remind us, is, first and
foremost, a way of life. As Theophan the Recluse states, "But do not
forget the chief thing, to unite the attention and mind with your heart, and
remain there unceasingly, before the Lord."
I know I
am called to "pray always" and I know I am called to "love my
neighbor (family member) as myself." It is also true that more than likely
I grossly underestimate the real, practical, beneficial influence my prayer has
on others (family members). I probably grossly underestimate the amount of love
I deliver to my family members when I sincerely pray for them. As one
theologian said, "Prayer is the greatest gift that one friend (family
member) can offer another." Maybe when I pray for them I am doing as much "good"
for them as putting ointment on their bruises, or buying a useful item, or
being physically and mentally present when someone has a need to talk. Praying
for a family member does "infinite good" in some sense for that
person. Praying for a family member can also help provide me the strength to
put the ointment on the bruise, buy the desired item and be authentically
present with even more graciousness. Praying for a family member can enable me
more to have the "imaginative empathy and practical compassion" which
Bishop Ware suggests. Of all my roles in my family, I still have most to learn
about how I am called to pray for my family members.
Summary
My
vocation towards my family members is, in one sense, no different from my
vocation towards every other living human being. With and towards every one I
am called to live in the Kingdom of God now, to be a sign of contradiction, and
to be a living pray-er. However, as I specifically focus on my family and the
tremendous undertaking God has called me to accomplish, I most assuredly can
get a clearer sense of my vocation in the world-at-large. In the living of my
vocation in my family, I can begin to experience what St. Paul means when he
said, "...dying, and behold we live" (2 Cor. 6:9-10).
"As
for me and my family, we will serve the Lord". - Joshua 24:15
Dr. Albert Rossi is an Associate Professor of
Psychology at Pace University, Pleasantville, NY and has a private practice in
family counseling. He is a member of the Department of Lay Ministries.
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