Saint Aidan's recently held our first ever men's night, with a turn out of 12 men! Much meat was consumed, along with wine that gladden's man heart, followed by an hour of so of lively bowling, all punctuated by lots of hearty roaring and high fives. Click on the photo below for a small slideshow.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Irreconcilable Differences
The title phrase is probably the most often cited reason for modern cases of divorce. It refers to a situation in which two married people discover at some point along the road that they are “not compatible,” which means, they don’t get along emotionally, spiritually, physically, most of the time.
Let’s get something straight to begin with. The Eastern Orthodox Church does permit divorce under circumstances of adultery, abuse and abandonment. However, divorce on the grounds of “irreconcilable differences” is generally not admissible in marriages between Orthodox Christians.
Why not? I believe it has something to do with the Church’s rejection of the underlying secular assumption behind divorce due to “irreconcilable differences.” Our culture tends to think of a successful marriage as one in which husband and wife are actually twin souls in different biological clothing. Your “one true love” is that special person who matches you perfectly, who completes you, fulfills you, perfects you, is actually your “other half” and so on.
The Christian understanding of marriage takes a very different view. In chapter five of his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul uses a marital image to speak of the mystery of the Incarnation. The wife’s feminine role represents the human nature of Christ, which continues to manifest itself in the Church. (Ephesians 5:22-23) The husband’s masculine role, on the other hand, represents the divine nature of Christ the Son and Word of God, who is the head of the Church through the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 5:25-26) The union of the two genders in one relationship speaks of the one Person of Christ in whom two natures are united. And this union, St. Paul says, is a “great mystery” (Ephesians 5:32) precisely because those natures—the divine and the human—are so completely exclusive and irreconcilable!
What we have here is more than just a theological conundrum. It has real and profound implications for those of who are married and follow the Christian teaching. For one thing, St. Paul tells us that marriage naturally and necessarily exists within a framework of irreconcilable differences. By using husband and wife as an analogy of divine and human, St. Paul in fact shows that far from being twin souls or complementary beings, the genders in marriage are exclusively different.
This fundamental difference is more than just an unfortunate condition of life in a fallen world. It is the very basis of God’s providential love for us. The Gospel definition of love is that God gave Himself for that which is completely ‘other’ than Himself—humanity. And since we are made in the image and likeness of God, our definition of love is expressed in the same way: love is the giving of oneself to and for someone who is utterly different from us.
Inevitably, couples living the secular myth of the ‘twin souls’ or the ‘one true love’ finally discover that they really are two different people. When this happens, the result may well be divorce because they can’t or won’t reconcile the dissimilarities. For couples operating on the assumptions of the Gospel teaching, however, irreconcilable differences in a relationship are not the end, but the very beginning of their calling to show forth the mystery of Christ in their marriage.
When I strive to serve my wife in the absence of personal comfort, convenience, or emotional fulfillment, that act is nothing less than the enactment of the love of Christ “who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)
When I seek the good and the life of another when there is nothing in it for me—no completion, no needs met, no emotional climax given—then my love is truly selfless, and as such, truly divine. And the greater the differences between myself and my wife, the brighter Christ shines when we continue to love one another anyway.
Are there any circumstances in which irreconcilable differences can genuinely be cited as the basis for a divorce? Possibly, but I believe that truly irreconcilable relationships are much rarer than we suppose. In a narcissistic, self-gratifying culture, we too easily flee from conflict with others. We try to smooth them over, rationalize them away, ignore them, or simply flee from them. Instead, we should see such disparities for what they really are: the canvas upon which we can illustrate the life-giving marriage between us and our Creator, which was consummated in the first century A.D. on a hill outside Jerusalem, and will be lived out in eternity.
Let’s get something straight to begin with. The Eastern Orthodox Church does permit divorce under circumstances of adultery, abuse and abandonment. However, divorce on the grounds of “irreconcilable differences” is generally not admissible in marriages between Orthodox Christians.
Why not? I believe it has something to do with the Church’s rejection of the underlying secular assumption behind divorce due to “irreconcilable differences.” Our culture tends to think of a successful marriage as one in which husband and wife are actually twin souls in different biological clothing. Your “one true love” is that special person who matches you perfectly, who completes you, fulfills you, perfects you, is actually your “other half” and so on.
The Christian understanding of marriage takes a very different view. In chapter five of his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul uses a marital image to speak of the mystery of the Incarnation. The wife’s feminine role represents the human nature of Christ, which continues to manifest itself in the Church. (Ephesians 5:22-23) The husband’s masculine role, on the other hand, represents the divine nature of Christ the Son and Word of God, who is the head of the Church through the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 5:25-26) The union of the two genders in one relationship speaks of the one Person of Christ in whom two natures are united. And this union, St. Paul says, is a “great mystery” (Ephesians 5:32) precisely because those natures—the divine and the human—are so completely exclusive and irreconcilable!
What we have here is more than just a theological conundrum. It has real and profound implications for those of who are married and follow the Christian teaching. For one thing, St. Paul tells us that marriage naturally and necessarily exists within a framework of irreconcilable differences. By using husband and wife as an analogy of divine and human, St. Paul in fact shows that far from being twin souls or complementary beings, the genders in marriage are exclusively different.
This fundamental difference is more than just an unfortunate condition of life in a fallen world. It is the very basis of God’s providential love for us. The Gospel definition of love is that God gave Himself for that which is completely ‘other’ than Himself—humanity. And since we are made in the image and likeness of God, our definition of love is expressed in the same way: love is the giving of oneself to and for someone who is utterly different from us.
Inevitably, couples living the secular myth of the ‘twin souls’ or the ‘one true love’ finally discover that they really are two different people. When this happens, the result may well be divorce because they can’t or won’t reconcile the dissimilarities. For couples operating on the assumptions of the Gospel teaching, however, irreconcilable differences in a relationship are not the end, but the very beginning of their calling to show forth the mystery of Christ in their marriage.
When I strive to serve my wife in the absence of personal comfort, convenience, or emotional fulfillment, that act is nothing less than the enactment of the love of Christ “who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)
When I seek the good and the life of another when there is nothing in it for me—no completion, no needs met, no emotional climax given—then my love is truly selfless, and as such, truly divine. And the greater the differences between myself and my wife, the brighter Christ shines when we continue to love one another anyway.
Are there any circumstances in which irreconcilable differences can genuinely be cited as the basis for a divorce? Possibly, but I believe that truly irreconcilable relationships are much rarer than we suppose. In a narcissistic, self-gratifying culture, we too easily flee from conflict with others. We try to smooth them over, rationalize them away, ignore them, or simply flee from them. Instead, we should see such disparities for what they really are: the canvas upon which we can illustrate the life-giving marriage between us and our Creator, which was consummated in the first century A.D. on a hill outside Jerusalem, and will be lived out in eternity.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Resentment
Several days ago, my wife and I fell into one of those silly little squabbles that are such a prominent feature of day-to-day married life. You know the kind of fight I am talking about: they are never about the meaning of life, the existence of God, or even the profound ethical implications of cloning. The most fights are rather about those other big issues: whether or not the toilet seat should be left up; whose dirty dishes those are; where the salt shaker should be kept. You get the point.
These petty quarrels unleash what I consider the deadliest poison in any human relationship: resentment. Take my recent conflict, for instance. Something was left out and not returned to where it belonged. I reacted by delivering a little lecture, which my wife did not receive well. We had words, and I went upstairs. A short while later, I apologized ungraciously. The apology was accepted, but not reciprocated.
That, for me least, was the lance that pierced the boil. I had condescended to show some remorse for something that I truly believed wasn’t really my fault. How dare she not apologize in return? I said nothing at the time, but the demon was out. I smouldered with resentment for the rest of the day. I felt depressed, heavy and irritable about everything. Life suddenly became bitter and grey—and all over an item out of place!
This is resentment: the conscious act of nursing a grudge against a fellow human being for a real or imagined wrong they have committed against us. Someone fails to live up to our expectations, gets in our way, interrupts our plans, won’t follow our agenda or meet our deadlines. And when we correct, these persons compound their wrongs by refusing to straighten up and fly right. They may, if they are very accommodating, try to toe the line for a while, but inevitably they fail to become the people we would like them to be.
The result: we resent them. We sulk. We brood. We analyze them endlessly and fruitlessly. We work ourselves up and get frustrated. And all our frustration, our failure to correct the other person’s supposed wrongs lead us to become more angry, more resentful and more miserable within ourselves. Meanwhile the object of our resentment goes on with their life. They may recover from the spat and even interact with us as if it never happened. They begin to act as if this really wasn’t the end of the world...
How dare they!
Spiritually speaking, resentment is our reaction to discovering that we cannot control the personalities and actions of others. In short, we are not God. When people around us fail to submit and act on cue, according to our directions, the limits of our power over them is exposed and we lash out like a thwarted petty tyrant throwing a tantrum. As this “inner Napoleon,” kicks and screams, he may hurt others, but his ultimate victim is the soul that he inhabits, namely, our own. That’s why resentment so often leaves us feeling far worse than the person against whom our resentment is directed. As someone once said, “Resentment is the poison we drink, hoping someone else will die.”
Petty and imagined grievances notwithstanding, people often act in ways that really cross our boundaries, offend, injure or even abuse us. When such actions reveal our lack of godlike power, however, we are the ones who decide to react by throwing the inner paroxysm that wreaks so much spiritual and emotional havoc in our hearts and minds. Suffering is a reality for any created being. Because we are limited, we are subject to the forces beyond our control. However, resentment of our suffering is a choice we make, the futile fist-shaking of one who would be God and won’t accept his humanity.
If resentment is a spiritual ailment, rooted in the failure of our godlike ambitions, then the cure must also be spiritual. I am not talking merely about more religious activity: prayer, Bible reading, church attendance—good and beneficial as these are. I am talking about concrete action. When others do things to expose our human limitations, we must face the revelation without seeking to escape from them through fantasy, analysis, entertainment, spending, etc. Next we must surrender our struggles to a Power greater than oneself: not just God in the abstract, but God as He makes Himself known in people who are objective, who love us, and who are not afraid to tell us the truth about ourselves. Only then can the abscess of our prideful egos be lanced and drained, and true healing begin.
The end result of this healing is the exact opposite of resentment: acceptance. God is God, and I am simply a member of the human race. To quote from page 449 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake… Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”
These petty quarrels unleash what I consider the deadliest poison in any human relationship: resentment. Take my recent conflict, for instance. Something was left out and not returned to where it belonged. I reacted by delivering a little lecture, which my wife did not receive well. We had words, and I went upstairs. A short while later, I apologized ungraciously. The apology was accepted, but not reciprocated.
That, for me least, was the lance that pierced the boil. I had condescended to show some remorse for something that I truly believed wasn’t really my fault. How dare she not apologize in return? I said nothing at the time, but the demon was out. I smouldered with resentment for the rest of the day. I felt depressed, heavy and irritable about everything. Life suddenly became bitter and grey—and all over an item out of place!
This is resentment: the conscious act of nursing a grudge against a fellow human being for a real or imagined wrong they have committed against us. Someone fails to live up to our expectations, gets in our way, interrupts our plans, won’t follow our agenda or meet our deadlines. And when we correct, these persons compound their wrongs by refusing to straighten up and fly right. They may, if they are very accommodating, try to toe the line for a while, but inevitably they fail to become the people we would like them to be.
The result: we resent them. We sulk. We brood. We analyze them endlessly and fruitlessly. We work ourselves up and get frustrated. And all our frustration, our failure to correct the other person’s supposed wrongs lead us to become more angry, more resentful and more miserable within ourselves. Meanwhile the object of our resentment goes on with their life. They may recover from the spat and even interact with us as if it never happened. They begin to act as if this really wasn’t the end of the world...
How dare they!
Spiritually speaking, resentment is our reaction to discovering that we cannot control the personalities and actions of others. In short, we are not God. When people around us fail to submit and act on cue, according to our directions, the limits of our power over them is exposed and we lash out like a thwarted petty tyrant throwing a tantrum. As this “inner Napoleon,” kicks and screams, he may hurt others, but his ultimate victim is the soul that he inhabits, namely, our own. That’s why resentment so often leaves us feeling far worse than the person against whom our resentment is directed. As someone once said, “Resentment is the poison we drink, hoping someone else will die.”
Petty and imagined grievances notwithstanding, people often act in ways that really cross our boundaries, offend, injure or even abuse us. When such actions reveal our lack of godlike power, however, we are the ones who decide to react by throwing the inner paroxysm that wreaks so much spiritual and emotional havoc in our hearts and minds. Suffering is a reality for any created being. Because we are limited, we are subject to the forces beyond our control. However, resentment of our suffering is a choice we make, the futile fist-shaking of one who would be God and won’t accept his humanity.
If resentment is a spiritual ailment, rooted in the failure of our godlike ambitions, then the cure must also be spiritual. I am not talking merely about more religious activity: prayer, Bible reading, church attendance—good and beneficial as these are. I am talking about concrete action. When others do things to expose our human limitations, we must face the revelation without seeking to escape from them through fantasy, analysis, entertainment, spending, etc. Next we must surrender our struggles to a Power greater than oneself: not just God in the abstract, but God as He makes Himself known in people who are objective, who love us, and who are not afraid to tell us the truth about ourselves. Only then can the abscess of our prideful egos be lanced and drained, and true healing begin.
The end result of this healing is the exact opposite of resentment: acceptance. God is God, and I am simply a member of the human race. To quote from page 449 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake… Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Panentheism
In his seminal work of theology, For the Life of the World, the Eastern Orthodox theologian Fr. Alexander Schmemann made a bold claim. He asserted that contrary to popular opinion, Christianity is not actually a religion at all. “Religion,” he says, “is needed where there is a wall of separation between God and man. But Christ who is both God and man has broken down the wall between God and man. He has inaugurated a new life, not a new religion.”
But isn’t Christianity one of the world’s ‘great religions,’ alongside Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism? Can’t Christianity be described as a ‘faith system,’ with tenets, rules and rituals, just like every other religion?
Yes and no. It is certainly true that Christianity resembles a religion. It has scriptures and spiritual writings, patterns of communal worship, methods of prayer and meditation. Some of us have formal sacramental rituals, such as Baptism and the Eucharist. Our beliefs can be described in creeds and catecheses. In short, Christianity appears very religious upon first inspection.
A closer look, however, reveals that while Christianity is superficially religious, its inward reality is very distinct from traditional notions of religion, which tend to fall into two distinct categories. First are what may be called pantheistic religions, which equate the cosmos with the divine principle. All natural things may thus be worshipped as gods, since all of them (the sun, the moon, the earth, the trees and rivers, and any animal) are simply frequencies of the same divine radiance.
Although pantheism says that one may encounter specific and concrete aspects of God, the divinity itself—sometimes described as the sum total of all that ever was, is, and ever shall be—remains abstract and unattainable. In that sense, pantheistic faiths are religions: systems of beliefs and ritualistic mechanisms that mediate between humanity and an unknowable divinity.
The second category of religion might be called theism. In contrast to pantheism, theism asserts the idea of a transcendent Divinity who exists above and beyond the cosmos. But while God is wholly other from the world that He created, most theistic faiths teach that God has established laws, moral codes, scriptures, and even rituals as points of mediation between God and His creation.
While many Christians might call themselves theists, I would suggest that theism itself is not a full and authentic expression of Christianity. While we can know about God through a text (such as the Bible or the Koran) or a sacrament (such as the Eucharist or the Seder), we can’t actually encounter the Person of God Himself. Like a restricted form of pantheism, the theist God is still mediated by things, and as such the religious ‘wall of separation’ remains standing.
Radically, Christianity offers a third alternative to religion in its pantheist and theist varieties. The classic teaching of Christianity begins theistically: there is one, all-powerful, transcendent God who says of Himself, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9) According to Christianity, however, this transcendent God, who is above all things, mystically united Himself to His creation in and through the flesh of His Son Jesus Christ.
And the most profound mystery of all is that in becoming a man, God did not get lost in His creation. Just as Christ’s human and divine natures were never confused and mingled, so too God remains distinct from His creation, still the one God, YHWH, who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. Christianity is neither pantheist (equating God with the cosmos), nor theist (separating God from the cosmos). Rather, God’s Incarnation in Jesus Christ lifted up the cosmos, binding it forever to His divine nature, so that the universe itself becomes the full revelation of the one Godhead that always transcends the universe.
This is what might be called the ‘panentheist’ vision of Christianity. Panentheism, which means literally ‘all in God’ neither seeks to worship the things of this world (pantheism), nor seeking revelation and illumination in specific religious activities (theism). Rather, for the panentheist, the transcendent Presence of God lies at the heart of the ordinary activities of our lives—work and play and family—like a great bonfire waiting to purify and transform us with its flame. The things of this world are not fragmentary sources of the divine, but channels for the divine fountainhead which flows ‘from above’ and is not of this world. (John 8:23) Divine grace is not mediated only in specific texts or sacramental rituals; rather, life itself is a sacrament. Simply by living our lives as genuine human beings, we can actually meet God and know Him, not just intellectually, but intimately, actually, and completely.
So if Christianity is the end of all religion, why do we need its formal religious aspects at all? Why go to Church, read the Bible, pray, get baptized, or partake in the Eucharist? A little analogy to conclude. As a parent, I am always teaching my children how to say “thank you” with the intention of instilling in them a spirit of gratitude for the gift of life. Without this attitude, the words “thank you” are mere politeness at best, and cynicism and superficiality at worst. But having the attitude without the form is equally meaningless. After all, abstract gratitude without an expression of gratitude has just as little force as an insincere “thank you.”
So it is with Christianity. Unless we live as panentheists, immersing our whole life in God, our Christianity is nothing more than dead, nominal religion. But equally necessary are Christianity’s texts, spiritual traditions and sacramental rituals, by which we fulfill our ‘all in God’ way of life by naming the Source of that way in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is proclaimed and handed down from the beginning, who made His divine life human to make our human life divine.
But isn’t Christianity one of the world’s ‘great religions,’ alongside Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism? Can’t Christianity be described as a ‘faith system,’ with tenets, rules and rituals, just like every other religion?
Yes and no. It is certainly true that Christianity resembles a religion. It has scriptures and spiritual writings, patterns of communal worship, methods of prayer and meditation. Some of us have formal sacramental rituals, such as Baptism and the Eucharist. Our beliefs can be described in creeds and catecheses. In short, Christianity appears very religious upon first inspection.
A closer look, however, reveals that while Christianity is superficially religious, its inward reality is very distinct from traditional notions of religion, which tend to fall into two distinct categories. First are what may be called pantheistic religions, which equate the cosmos with the divine principle. All natural things may thus be worshipped as gods, since all of them (the sun, the moon, the earth, the trees and rivers, and any animal) are simply frequencies of the same divine radiance.
Although pantheism says that one may encounter specific and concrete aspects of God, the divinity itself—sometimes described as the sum total of all that ever was, is, and ever shall be—remains abstract and unattainable. In that sense, pantheistic faiths are religions: systems of beliefs and ritualistic mechanisms that mediate between humanity and an unknowable divinity.
The second category of religion might be called theism. In contrast to pantheism, theism asserts the idea of a transcendent Divinity who exists above and beyond the cosmos. But while God is wholly other from the world that He created, most theistic faiths teach that God has established laws, moral codes, scriptures, and even rituals as points of mediation between God and His creation.
While many Christians might call themselves theists, I would suggest that theism itself is not a full and authentic expression of Christianity. While we can know about God through a text (such as the Bible or the Koran) or a sacrament (such as the Eucharist or the Seder), we can’t actually encounter the Person of God Himself. Like a restricted form of pantheism, the theist God is still mediated by things, and as such the religious ‘wall of separation’ remains standing.
Radically, Christianity offers a third alternative to religion in its pantheist and theist varieties. The classic teaching of Christianity begins theistically: there is one, all-powerful, transcendent God who says of Himself, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9) According to Christianity, however, this transcendent God, who is above all things, mystically united Himself to His creation in and through the flesh of His Son Jesus Christ.
And the most profound mystery of all is that in becoming a man, God did not get lost in His creation. Just as Christ’s human and divine natures were never confused and mingled, so too God remains distinct from His creation, still the one God, YHWH, who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. Christianity is neither pantheist (equating God with the cosmos), nor theist (separating God from the cosmos). Rather, God’s Incarnation in Jesus Christ lifted up the cosmos, binding it forever to His divine nature, so that the universe itself becomes the full revelation of the one Godhead that always transcends the universe.
This is what might be called the ‘panentheist’ vision of Christianity. Panentheism, which means literally ‘all in God’ neither seeks to worship the things of this world (pantheism), nor seeking revelation and illumination in specific religious activities (theism). Rather, for the panentheist, the transcendent Presence of God lies at the heart of the ordinary activities of our lives—work and play and family—like a great bonfire waiting to purify and transform us with its flame. The things of this world are not fragmentary sources of the divine, but channels for the divine fountainhead which flows ‘from above’ and is not of this world. (John 8:23) Divine grace is not mediated only in specific texts or sacramental rituals; rather, life itself is a sacrament. Simply by living our lives as genuine human beings, we can actually meet God and know Him, not just intellectually, but intimately, actually, and completely.
So if Christianity is the end of all religion, why do we need its formal religious aspects at all? Why go to Church, read the Bible, pray, get baptized, or partake in the Eucharist? A little analogy to conclude. As a parent, I am always teaching my children how to say “thank you” with the intention of instilling in them a spirit of gratitude for the gift of life. Without this attitude, the words “thank you” are mere politeness at best, and cynicism and superficiality at worst. But having the attitude without the form is equally meaningless. After all, abstract gratitude without an expression of gratitude has just as little force as an insincere “thank you.”
So it is with Christianity. Unless we live as panentheists, immersing our whole life in God, our Christianity is nothing more than dead, nominal religion. But equally necessary are Christianity’s texts, spiritual traditions and sacramental rituals, by which we fulfill our ‘all in God’ way of life by naming the Source of that way in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is proclaimed and handed down from the beginning, who made His divine life human to make our human life divine.
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