March 20, 2008
Fighting the passions
We all have great intentions — I know I do anyway. I have great aspirations of maintaining strict disciplines, like a rule of prayer, fasting from certain passions, and even cultivating some of the artistic gifts I’ve been given. But the problem is that my passions (as known by the Orthodox; different from a passion for music, for example) are not passive and do not sit back and allow me to just lay my stake in the ground and claim it done. Unlike Evangelicalism™ which generally professes a transactional version of salvation — an event that happens, and then you’re saved — I am finding that maintaining and working out this gift of salvation and becoming more like God is going to be a long, slow, and arduous process, requiring much patience, faith, endurance, and above all humility.
My friends in my World of Warcraft guild like to joke with each other about hopping on the “failboat”, that is if you do something stupid, bomb a dungeon run, or other epic failures, we kid around that you’ve just bought a one-way ticket on the “U.S.S. Failboat.” In a way, as a new catechumen in the Orthodox faith, I feel like I am frequently commuting on the failboat and letting down God and myself in the process.
As I’ve recently entered the season of Great Lent, which differs in time frame from Catholics and Protestants, I have tried to maintain their fasting schedule — and failed; tried to maintain a daily rule of prayer, praying in the morning and the evening — and have failed; tried to fast from some of my passions (WoW to name one), and invariably failed. But despite the numerous times that I fall down, I do try to get up again and try.
Father Stephen Freeman continues to be God’s tool for reaching me and speaking to my heart, my mind, and my soul with regard to issues I experience regularly. One of his most recent blog entries read as such:
The world is too dangerous and too much in need of a Savior and the truth of the Gospel for such parts of the Tradition to be neglected by any. God forbid that only Orthodox Christians stand and say that the passions are killing us (God help the Orthodox to at least say this much!). But we should have a common voice that speaks to the culture. Slavery to greed, envy, sloth, gluttony, as well as other such passions, is killing us and our children. A common voice should say to everything around us, “Enough!” And to one another, “Join the struggle! Let us follow Christ!”
From the article The Lost Tradition on Glory to God by Father Stephen Freeman
And he couldn’t be more right. Being so entrenched in the culture around me along with its normative values and conditions, I find it extremely difficult to go against the mainstream and do even the most simple of things — simple things like getting up 15 minutes earlier and spend it in my morning rule of prayer; and taking the last 15 minutes before I head to bed to end my day in prayer. It is entirely more difficult fasting from things that can foster greed, envy, sloth, etc — and while I start out with the best of intentions, I end up falling either face forward towards God in repentance, or on my back in apathy and self-resentment for even trying.
Father Stephen also had an incredible podcast that talks somewhat to this issue — how Evangelicalism™ has this “forensic” view of Salvation, or being saved on a transactional and judicial level; like the over-told story of the judge who came off his chair to “take our place” and receive the brunt of our sentence of sin and death. But as Father Stephen pointed out, if one were to go to heaven under this condition of salvation, they would not be transformed or transfigured in such a process and would remain the same, broken, and sin-ridden human being upon entry into the Kingdom of God. There is no room for Theosis (becoming more like God) in that view of salvation.
Father Stephen goes on to say in his podcast:
Orthodox theology has largely been nurtured in the understanding of a salvation as a healing of our heart and a transformation of the whole of our life. Not simply a change in our legal status before God. Others have sometimes referred to these elements that the Orthodox emphasize as belonging to what they call sanctification. But there has never been a distinction between sanctification and justification or salvation within the Eastern tradition. It’s just all salvation…
…It’s difficult for Christians of any sort in our modern world to grasp what it means to be saved by grace, if grace is indeed the very life of God given to us to transform and transfigure us, to change us into conformity with the image of Christ as it says in Romans 8:29. The difficulty with this understanding is that unlike a change in status, a transformation is slow work…
…90% of Orthodoxy is just showing up…
Listen to the postcast… it’s most certainly a great episode that is quite enlightening.
But to his point about just showing up and the idea of transformation being slow work, he’s right. I recall my days at a former evangelical church, praying to God for instant relief from a sin, bad habits, or thoughts I would struggle with — only to be sorely disappointed just a day later (or even the SAME day!) and wonder why God had not lifted that burden off of me. What I had not realized at the time — and am still relearning every day — is that I need to get on my knees daily, repent, and be available for God to work out salvation in me within the context of His Church. That means going to the other services offered by my church, not as a another religious “program” to go to, but as a time where God calls His people together to pray, to hear His word, to repent, and to proclaim our unity in Christ through the creeds and doctrines given to us.
And that means that if I continue to persevere, make myself more available to God, and do my best to work a little harder at this salvation thing (not to be confused with working to earn my salvation, but working it out in my life) and make it more integrated throughout my life. So even though I’ve been kinda failing at this Orthodox thing from time to time — Jamison would say “you’re not even Orthodox… you’re not anything yet” — but I am a catechumen, a learner. And I’m learning more and more of just how long this process will take me, Theosis. I am so vastly different from God and so not-God-like, that this process of Salvation will indeed be life-long… and then some.
Written and posted by Michael on March 20, 2008, 1:29 pm.
Filed under: Culture, Daily Walk, Orthodoxy, Transformation
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Erik said,
March 21, 2008 @ 6:46 am
Thank you for sharing that.
A piece of writing that’s been incredibly helpful/significant for me on this sort of thing has been “On Perfection” by Gregory of Nyssa, it’s worth a look.
also, I had the amusing quasi-theological realization yesterday regarding instant-response to prayer. Jesus died on friday and resurrected on sunday, God himself needed to be patient in the realization of relief.
Matt said,
March 21, 2008 @ 11:05 am
I dunno about saying “You’re not anything yet.” You’re a catechumen in the Orthodox Church. If you were to die today, you could receive an Orthodox funeral (side story: we actually had a catechumen at my parish die recently; she received an Orthodox funeral…at least, as much as we were able to do due to her family’s opposition). I think that’s something.
Anyway, I hear ya’ about the “slowness of grace,” as Fr. Stephen puts it. It’s tough; I wanna be better *now*! At the same time, I can sort of begin to possibly start to realize the wisdom there. If i were to suddenly be relieved of all the passions I struggle with currently, I’m pretty sure vainglory would just take their place. Heck, I prove myself unworthy of the grace I’ve already been given every day!
Also, in line with your post, our pastor the other day was talking about St. Silouan, who received an abundance of grace in his early life. Then, a spiritual father made a comment of praise to St. Silouan, and I guess his vanity was aroused, because he immediately lost that grace he’d been given. He labored ascetically for 15 years before receiving it again.