“If we desire to be in good things after the death of
this body, let us take every care that our soul does not become glued to the
body, nor mingled with it, staggering around as if drunk with the passions of
the body, trusting itself to bodily pleasures.”
Saint Ambrose of Milan
I sometimes picture
the soul covering itself with velcro hooks, which are the passions, so that the
soul tends to stick to stuff. In conversation or when walking down the street,
we see or remember someone’s mean actions, or their shapely body, and ZIP our
attention is stuck on that image or word. We walk around, even into church or
daily prayers, our souls completely covered in velcro-stuck food, drugs, nice
houses, sexy people, and imaginary arguments that we won.
It’s like showing
up for a sprint race wearing a scuba mask, tanks and fins, plus a parachute and
a hazmat suit over it all, our arms full of kettle-bells and bags of candy
corn. “Let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles
us, and let us run with endurance the race…” (Heb. 12:1).
In a few hours or
decades you and I will step out of this body… how easily? I’m afraid of finding
myself in that life, awaiting the future resurrection, with my soul starving
for all the connections it has learned to crave. Where is my pizza? Where is
the new Game of Thrones episode? Where is my sex-partner? Where is my Facebook?
I have hungered and thirsted for these things, and for a while I was filled,
but now I am only hungry and thirsty and nothing will ever fill me!
“Blessed are those who
hunger and thirst after righteousness for *they* shall be filled” (Mt 5:6).
It is easy enough
to diagnose the human problem of compulsion and distraction with stuff; the
Buddha figured out as much 2500 years ago.
But together with
the diagnosis, the Church offers a prescription.
Our first response
when we see how controlled, compelled, and obsessed we are with stuff is to try
and reduce the amount of stuff. Cut down on TV and gadget time, quit drinking
or using, move out of the girlfriend’s house… And these are good, maybe
necessary things.
But the thing to
note is that these are not only habits, but passions. That word comes from the
same root that gives us pathology, psychopath, and pathetic — it means a
suffering or infirmity. (That’s also why we call Christ’s suffering The
Passion.) The passions are spiritual illnesses. And that is good news, because
illnesses can be treated and even healed.
Along with changing
our behavior, by our own willpower with God’s help — perhaps avoiding buffet
restaurants or liquor stores, or biting our tongue when unhelpful words want to
come out — we have the possibility of uprooting and healing these “sticky”
places in our soul.
That healing
therapy is twofold. First, on a moral level, we can’t simply fight our impulses
and programmed behaviors by white-knuckled denial. We have to plant new
behaviors with which to displace the old. If we are prone to judge and condemn,
then we need to learn mercy by giving alms and serving others. If we are
compelled to use alcohol and other drugs, then we need to write new scripts for
our stress to follow: patterns of behavior that include meaningful
conversation, forming non-dependent relationships, confession and absolution,
and healthy ways to identify and calm stress before it takes the wheel. Others
outside the Church know this: Twelve-step programs and counselors say the same
thing.
What is unique in
the Church is the healing of the soul, which begins to straighten the inward
brokenness underlying our passions.
Remember your basic
Orthodox Catechumen 101? At the very beginning, your priest probably introduced
you to daily prayer, a rule of fasting, frequent confession and communion,
reading scripture, almsgiving. These things are not regulations; nobody will
deduct points from your score for failing to do them, and Christ will not judge
you based on your merit badges. These things are therapy and discipline.
If you’ve got a
broken ankle, you need more than ice bags: Your doctor will prescribe some
exercises. If you don’t do the exercises, you won’t go to hell… but you won’t
get well, either. If you want to walk then you’ll follow the therapeutic
prescription.
If you’re a
mediocre pianist or athlete or martial artist, and you ask an Olympic coach or
master musician or sensei to help you, he may prescribe some specific ways of
eating, times for sleeping, and a lot of inconvenient, repetitive exercises
that cut into your TV and party schedule. These are called “disciplines” (and
if you don’t have disciplines you aren’t a “disciple.”) The Olympic coach or
sensei sees potential in you, and all his rules and corrections are there to
form in you the image that he sees you can become.
We Orthodox often
want to talk about theoria or miracles or why we are smart for having picked
the Right Church. We are quick to post memes and quotes from the Fathers. And
we have so many opinions about ecumenism, tollhouses, and canons.
Now if we could all
just go back to Catechumen Basics 101, review the part about simple weekly
fasting, daily prayers, almsgiving, guarding our lips and eyes… and do these
things… then Orthodox Facebook might be a less septic environment; and more
importantly we would begin to be healed.
Imagine, not only
having fewer distractions for our shattered attention, fewer compulsions
driving us into unthinking scripted behaviors — but beyond this, having a
firsthand, personal, here-and-now experience of the mercy and peace of God that
makes us less “sticky,” and more ready to cooperate with the action of God in
us.
At Gethsemane, the
Lord said, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (Jn
14:30). The tempter owned no territory in Him. There were no passions in Christ
for a temptation to stick to.
That is what all
our disciplines and canons are for. That’s the Olympian gold-medalist that the
coach sees in us. The Church will continue pointing us all back to these basics
– which are practiced daily by monks, nuns, and every Christian being perfected
through faith — “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man [completely-grown adult], to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Talk to your priest?
By Fr. Silouan Thompson
Source: http://silouanthompson.net/2018/10/sticky/
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