02.26.09
Brothers Karamazov IX; Settling for less than ideal, or is it?
I am enjoying discussing Brothers Karamazov on this blog as it is a way to accompany input with output. Part of my frustration with reading books is that it is such a one-way street. Blogging about it helps it seem more like a conversation. Most bloggers I know have read it already, so I wont write the jarring spoiler alert warning. I’m trying to work on presenting things gently.
Here are Alyosha’s thoughts when he returns to the monastery after a traumatic day at his father’s house.
Why had the elder sent him “into the world”? Here was quiet, here was holiness, and there – confusion, and a darkness in which one immediately got lost and went astray… (p. 157)
I wrote elsewhere of my first extended stay at a monastery. I felt such overwhelming grace there, and I felt completely at home, even with the schedule of services, when usually I am not a morning person. It was very painful for me to leave. I cried all the way home on the airplane and for about a week after. I hurt my husband’s and my little girl’s feelings because I did not hide my tears or why I had them.
On going back into the world,
Lise is worried that Alyosha would not welcome the contents of her message:
“As soon as I read it [her note offering to be his fiancée], I thought at once that that was how everything would be, because as soon as the elder Zosima dies, I must immediately leave the monastery. Then I’ll finish my studies and pass the exam, and when the legal times comes, we’ll get married. I will love you. Though I haven’t had much time to think yet, I don’t think I could find a better wife than you, and the elder told me to get married… ” (p. 184)
Some people have indeed left their spouse and children to become monastics, but I believe this is mostly advised against. I certainly have not been given a blessing to do so either by my husband, Priest, or the Abbess at the monastery. Since that time three years ago, almost exactly, I have grown to appreciate my home and family more and to see that it is God’s will for me to be here, and thus it is best for me personally to be here. I still get impatient and frustrated, but that is because of my disordered passions, not because they aren’t living up to how I think life in a monastery would be. Part of my attraction to the monastery was that I would not be “the parent”, but that I would have one. For that reason I do not think that I would want to be an Abess, even if I were qualified.
May God grant nourishment, energy, peace, patience and rest to all of the Abbots, Abbesses, and parents out there.
02.23.09
Brothers Karamazov VIII; Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May
Or should I title it, “Forward Women”
The end of Part I
*Spoiler Warning* Dmitri Karamazov is engaged because Katarina Ivanovna offered in a note to be his fiancée, and the last thing in Part I is Alyosha happily receiving a note from Lise offering the same thing. *end Spoiler Warning*
Add to that, today’s delightful Saint, Saint Scholastica, memorialized at Logismoi, detaining her brother, Saint Benedict, to stay and talk with her against his will. In Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, and I think in much of Classic British Literature, the virtuous woman silently waits, like a flower on the wall, for the man to make any advances or to initiate conversations. Marianne Dashwood in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility scandalizes people when she approaches Willoughby in an open and direct way. From this brief foray into Russian Literature, it seems the social constraints of the same century were different over there. It’s been so long since I read Tolstoy that I don’t remember how the codes of etiquette of this nature are presented in his works.
Today’s poem seems fitting,
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a getting;
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
02.19.09
Brothers Karamazov VII; Dmitri’s Confession Part 2
Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 4, “The Confession of an Ardent Heart. In Anecdotes”
After Dmitri tells Alyosha about his sins, Alyosha says,
“I blushed not at your words, and not at your deeds, but because I’m the same as you.”
“You? Well, that’s going a bit too far.”
“No, not too far,” Alyosha said hotly. (Apparently the thought had been with him for some time.) “the steps are all the same. I’m on the lowest, and you are above, somewhere on the thirteenth. That’s how I see it, but it’s all one and the same, all exactly the same sort of thing. Whoever steps on the lowest step will surely step on the highest.”
“So one had better not step at all.”
“Not if one can help it.”
“Can you?”
“It seems not.”
“Stop, Alyosha, stop,[...]“
It has not yet been shown how Alyosha has stepped on the first rung, but I am relieved that he identifies with his brother to some extent. There is comfort in commonality, and with that I think there is greater comfort when “one of us” shows the way off the ladder.
02.16.09
Brothers Karamazov V; Seek Happiness in Sorrow
Part 1, Book 2, Ch 7, “A Seminarist-Careerist”
Frail Elder Zosima counsels Alyosha,
“For the time being your place is not here. I give you my blesing for a great obedience in the world. You sitll have much journeying before you. And you will have to marry – yes, you will. You will have to endure everything before you come back again. And there will be much work to do. But I have no doubt of you, that is why I am sending you. Christ is with you. Keep him, and he will keep you. You will behold great sorrow, and in this sorrow you will be happy. Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly. Remember my words from now on, for although I shall still talk with you, not only my days but even my hours are numbered.
Strong emotion showed again in Alyosha’s face. The corners of his mouth trembled.
“What’s wrong now?” the elder smiled gently. “Let worldly men follow their dead with tears; here we rejoice over a departing father. We rejoice and pray for him. Leave me now. It is time to pray. Go, and hurry. Be near your brothers. Not just one, but both of them.”
This sort or reminds me of the director telling Jane to go obey her husband (who thankfully had a conversion experience accompanied by true repentance) in That Hideous Strength. Not all are called to monasticism though, like is brought out in the post below on Mother Raphaela’s Living in Christ, we all struggle to attain purity, illumination, and theosis. Sometime I would like to see if any non-monastics attain theosis in this life. Maybe there’s different manifestations, but I don’t know if I’ve heard of any married Saints glowing or being miracle workers, but I am not a thorough student of hagiography. It does seem that many of the married Saints were martyrs. We are all called to martyrdom.
The elder instructing Alyosha to seek happiness in sorrow is a surprise. I look forward to seeing how this plays out. George listened to the audible version during his commute to work a few years ago, but I’ve asked him not to tell me what happens. I’ve tried several times to listen to the audible version but I have trouble with the reader and my attention usually is drawn elsewhere, so I’ve missed big chunks of the first part and have never gone further than that. Luckily, I’ve not seen any movie versions either. George agrees with me that there seems to be big sections left out of the audible version, Garnett translation, which is supposed to be unabridged, compared to the leafed translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky that I am reading now. With this experience, the words are nourishing me like food rather than seeming like work to get through. I just get lazy about picking it up in the first place. Let me attend!
A Call to be Sober Minded
I just came across this review of Living in Christ by Mother Raphaela of Holy Myrrbearer’s Monastery in New York. I am very thankful for the instruction given in this foretaste, and I’ll go ahead and put the book on my wish list, but I’m not sure I should abandon other books yet, which I tend to neglect, by ordering it now. I really want to work on being more diligent in my reading.
Reviewed by Deborah Malacky Belonick
It’s a reality check. This collection of essays stuns the reader at every flip of the page and issues an invitation to a world of perseverance without excuses for bad behavior. The author offers both a tempting image of abundant life in Jesus Christ and a warning of the personal sacrifice and labor necessary to acquire it.
Ironically, she compels her audience to desire to live honestly and in joyous communion with God while cautioning them that such spiritual growth comes neither by magic, nor feigned piety, nor by laziness. It comes by “…proven ability to be responsible and willing to work, plus the inner resources to function even when there is not a great deal of external excitement or stimulation….” plus, oh yes, the acceptance to be humiliated.
The author, Mother Raphaela, is a North American monastic and abbess of Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery in Otego, New York. Formerly a nun in the Episcopal church where she served as a novice mistress for her province, she entered the Orthodox Church in 1977. Drawing on her experience within and without the monastic life, she offers these practical reflections as tools to live with integrity. Her practical wisdom crosses the boundaries of the monastery fences and is applicable to anyone trying to walk a Christian path.
If you’re looking to gather warm, fuzzy kudos for a rainy day, don’t look here. These essays are for people who are serious about giving up excuses, complaints, ingrained bad habits and blaming others for all their problems. They are not chicken soup for the soul. They are strong medicine for intransigent sin. They are the cold showers for hot passions that have led us into anxiety, depression, power trips, and problems with relationships. But if you are looking for sound, solid advice to aerate a parched soul, by all means peruse these gems.
The essays, with titles like “Maturity,” “Challenged by Freedom,” “Work and Obedience,” and “Human Love: a Trilogy,” are brimming with remedies that seem paradoxical to the modern humanist mind. Mother Raphaela encourages readers to put aside our own ideas and opinions to grow into greater freedom; to give up gods of our own making, even religious ones we have enshrined, to let the real God act; to cultivate gratitude and count one’s blessings before attempting ascetical efforts; and to learn the discipline of silence in a world bent on entertainment.
Mother Raphaela disdains false selves, false gods, and false piety. She challenges those beginning spiritual warfare to “…practice giving up their attachment to resentments, bitterness, the taking of offense at any questioning of their words or behavior….” Only then, she claims, can a person begin to think of the harder disciplines of prayer, fasting, silence, solitude and self-denial which are medicines for the sick soul. In regard to those seeking to enter the monastic life, she warns of the massive battle involved in remaining celibate. But she equally warns the married to grapple with sexual expression, fidelity and temptations.
As far as discerning a monastic vocation, Mother Raphaela scorns a martyrdom of one’s own making: “If a woman sees the monastic life as a ‘terrible sacrifice,’ that is normally a sign that God is not calling her to it.” She also concludes that wounded, fragile people generally are unfit for the rigors of monastic life and would be better healed in alternative settings.
Despite their no-nonsense emphasis, these essays are irresistible. They supply truthful criticism that may lead to healing in an overly tolerant world. Instead of offering the apple of Paradise, the fruit of wayward will, they offer the cross, the way to living in Christ.
Because the author paints the cross with incredible desire and love, she makes us willing to step out in faith, to acknowledge our sins, to fight hard battles, to endure pain, and to do it with joy. In so doing, she leads us from the circular paths in which we spin onto the narrow road to glory.
Recent posts by Aaron Taylor, The Rivers & Seas of the North Were Honoured to Bear Thee, Oh Anskar, and Deacon Monk Felix Culpa, Egoism’s Immense Vigor, also emphasize the need to get serious about Christianity. Lord have mercy.
02.14.09
New Category
I have a new link category that came up by itself when I forgot to click on one, so it has a number which put it at the top. Rather than delete it, I’ll just let it stay the way it is so that prayer and Bible reading come first. I also added a new link that I got from Kevin P. Edgecomb’s Biblicalia that has an annual Bible reading schedule. With Lent rapidly approaching, I hope to be more diligent with keeping up with the proper Orthodox schedule of at least twice daily prayers (Horologion) and Psalm (Kathisma) reading. I believe these are to get us in tune with the rhythm of heavenly worship so that we will feel at home when we get there, and so that the worship of the heavenly hosts will be at home in us even now.
Addendum: HT to Mimi for the Lenten Triodion link.
02.13.09
A Saint for Friday the 13th
The Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates St. Shio of Mgvime several times throughout the year. St. John of Zedazeni and his twelve disciples, among whom was St. Shio of Mgvime, are commemorated on May 7; the repose of St. Shio is celebrated on May 9; and on Cheese-fare Thursday the Church celebrates the miracle that, for centuries, occurred every year at St. Shio’s grave.
The 19th-century historian Marie Brosset wrote that every year prior to the 18th century, on Cheese-fare Thursday, the relics of St. Shio rose up out of the ground from the place of their burial. Those who approached them in faith and reverence received healing of their afflictions.
In the 18th century the Persian shah Nadir (1736–1747) invaded Georgia. Hearing about this miracle and becoming convinced of its truth, the enraged shah assailed the monastery and destroyed the shrine containing the saint’s holy relics. A group of Christians later gathered St. Shio’s holy relics and reburied them in their former place, but to this day they have never risen again.
(from oca.org)
02.12.09
Brothers Karamazov IV; State alone, Church and State, or Church alone
From Part 1, Book 2, Ch. 5, “So Be It! So Be It!”
Elder Zosima gives his opinion on criminal justice to the Karamazov guests, minus Dmitri.
“But, you know, in reality it is so even now,” the elder suddenly spoke and everyone turned to him at once. “If it were not for Christ’s Church, indeed there would be no restraint on the criminal in his evildoing, and no punishment for it later, real punishment, that is, not a mechanical one such as has just been mentioned, which only chafes the heart in most cases, but a real punishment, the only real, the only frightening and appeasing punishment, which lies in the acknowledgement of one’s own conscience.”
“How is that, may I ask?” Miusov (Fyodore’s cousin-in-law) inquired with the liveliest curiosity.
“Here is how it is,” the elder began. “All this exile to hard labor, and formerly with floggings, does not reform anyone, and above all does not even frighten almost any criminal, and the number of crimes not only does not diminish but increases all the more. Surely you will admit that. And it turns out that society, thus, is not protected at all, for although the harmful member is mechanically cut off and sent far away out of sight, another criminal appears at once to take his place, perhaps even two others. If anything protects society even in our time, and even reforms the criminal himself and transforms him into a different person, again it is Christ’s law alone, which manifests itself in the acknowledgment of one’s own conscience. Only if he acknowledges his guilt as a son of Christ’s society – that is, of the Church – will he acknowledge his guilt before society itself- that is, before the Church. Thus, the modern criminal is capable of acknowledging his guilt before the Church alone, and not before the state. If it were so that judgment belonged to society as the Church, then it would know whom to bring back from excommunication and reunite with itself. But now the Church, having no active jurisdiction but merely the possibility of moral condemnation alone, withholds from actively punishing the criminal of its own acord. It does ot excomunicate him, but simply does not leave him without paternal guidance. Moreover, it even tries to preserve full Christian communion with the crimal, admitting him to church services, to the holy gifts, giving him alms, and treating him more as a captive than as a wrongdoer. And what would become of the criminal, oh, Lord, if Christian society, too – that is, the Church – rejected him in the same way that civil law rejects him and cuts him off? What would become of him if the Church, too, punished him with excommunication each time immediately after the law of the state has punished him? Surely there could be no greater despair, at least for a Russian criminal, for Russian criminals still have faith. Though who knows: perhaps a terrible thing would happen then – the loss of faith, perhaps, would occur in the desperate heart of the criminal, and what then? But the Church, like a mother, tender and loving, witholds from active punishment, for even without her punishment, the wrongdoer is already too painfully punished by the state court, and at least someone should pity him. And it withholds above all because the judgment of the Curch is the only judgment that contains the truth, and for that reason it cannot, essentially and morally, be combined with any other judgment, even in a temporary compromise. Here it is not possible to strike any bargains. The foreign criminal, they say, rarely repents, for even the modern theories themselves confirm in him the idea that his crime is not a crime but only a rebellion against an unjustly oppressive force. Soceity cuts him off from itself quite mechanically by the force that triumphs over him, and accompanies that excommunication with hatred (so, at least, they say about themselves in Europe) – with hatred and complete indifference and forgetfulness of his subsequent fate as their brother. Thus, all of this goes on without the least compassion of the Church, for in many cases there already are no more churches at all, and what remains are just churchmen and splendid church buildings, while the churches themselveshave long been striving to pass from the lower species, the Church, to a higher species, the state, in order to disappear into it completely. So it seems to be, at least, in Lutheran lands. And in Rome it is already a thosand years since the state was proclaimed in place of the Church. And therefore the criminal is not conscious of himself as a member of the Church, and, excommunicated, he sits in despair. And if he returns to society, it is not seldom with such hatred that society itself, as it were, now excommunicates him. What will be the end of it, you may judge for yourselves. In many cases, it would appear to be the same with us; but the point is precisely that, besides the established courts, we have, in addition, the Church as well, which never loses communion with the criminal as a dear and still beloved son, and above that there is preserved, even if only in thought, the judgment of the Church, not active now but still living for the future, if only as a dream, and unquestionably acknowledged by the criminal himself, by the instinct of his soul. What has just been said here is also true, that if, indeed, the judgment of the Church came, and in its full force – that is, if the whole of society turned into the Church alone – then, not only would the judgment of the Church influence the reformation of the criminal as it can never influence it now, but perhaps crimes themselves would indeed diminish at an incredible rate. And the Church, too, no doubt, would understand the future criminal and the future crime in many cases quite differently from now, and would be able to bring the excommunicated back, to deter the plotter, to regenerate the fallen. It is true,” the elder smiled, “that now Christian society itself is not yet ready, and stands only on seven righteous men, but as they are never wanting, it abides firmly all the same, awaiting its complete transfiguration from society as still an almost pagan organization, into one universal and sovereign Church. And so be it, so be it, if only at the end of time, for this alone is destined to be fulfilled! And there is no need to trouble oneself with times and seasons, for the mystery of times and seasons is in the wisdom of God, in his foresight, and in his love. And that which by human reckoning may still be rather remote, by divine predestination may already be standing on the eve of its appearance, at the door. And so be that, too! So be it!”
[...Father Paissy:] “It is not the Church that turns into the state, you see. That is Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the devil! But, on the contrary, the state turns into the Church, it rises up to the Church and becomes the Church over all the earth, which is the complete opposite of Ultramontanism and of Rome, and of your interpretation, and is simply the great destiny of Orthodoxy on earth. This star will show forth from the East!”
I have wondered what it would be like if Orthodox Christians were in high state positions, legislative, executive, and judicial. Hopefully they would demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit and hold Orthodox posititions on abortion, war, social responsibility and so on. Dostoevsky’s proposition goes further. Not only would state positions be held by Orthodox, but the state would dissolve into the Church. Meaning that Bishops would be at the head, and Church canons would rule the day. This is quite bold. I could imagine that worries of corruption would quickly enter people’s minds. But if the Church functioned properly and internal order were restored when problems arose, as has graciously occurred for 2000 years, the gates of hell not prevailing, then the deterrent that the Elder speaks of, excommunication and a guilty conscience, would only work if the criminals were also Orthodox. An atheist criminal wouldn’t care, I don’t think.
Russia was an Orthodox country back then, but the Revolution happened not long after Dostoevsky died and the atheist state alone reigned for 70 years. Perhaps his prophecy of Church alone is still yet to be. The last part of the chapter, not copied, stresses that it would not be a Christian socialist state. Then what would govern market affairs? The Church usually doesn’t handle that, except for a 10% tithe, if the Biblical model is to be maintained. It is nice that the Elder is convinced that people would be most desperate to maintain communion with the Church. I wish that were the case in America, and I agree with his statements about punishment.
02.11.09
Brothers Karamazov III; Active Love
Part 1, Book 2, Ch.4 “A Lady of Little Faith”
The mother of a crippled girl who is brought to the elder for healing desires to talk to him about where faith comes from.
“One cannot prove anything here, but it is possible to be convinced.”
“How? By what?”
“By the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able to enter your soul. This has been tested. It is certain.”
“Active love? That’s another question, and what a question, what a question! You see, I love makind so much that – would you believe it? – I sometimes dream of giving up all, all I have, of leaving Lise and going to become a sister of mercy. I close my eyes, I think and dream, and in such moments I feel an invincible strength in myself. No wounds, no festering sores could frighten me. I would bind them and cleanse them with my own hands, I would nurse the suffering, I am ready to kiss those sores…”
“It’s already a great deal and very well for you that you dream of that in your mind and not of something else. Once in a while, by chance, you many do some good deed.”
“Yes, but could I survive such a life for long? the lady went on heatedly, almost frantically, as it were. “That’s the main question, that’s my most tormenting question of all. I close my eyes and ask myself: could you stand it for long on such a path? And if the sick man whose sores you are cleansing does not respond immediately with gratitude but, on the contrary, begins tormenting you with his whims, not appreciating and not noticing your philanthropic ministry, if he begins to shout at you, to make rude demands, even to complain to some sort of superiors (as often happens with people who are in pain) – what then? Will you go on loving, or not? And, imagine, the answer already came to me with a shudder: if there’s anything that would immediately cool my ‘active’ love for mankind, that one thing is ingratitude. In short, I work for pay and demand my pay at once, that is, praise and a good return of love for my love. Otherwise I’m unable to love anyone!”
She was in a fit of the most sincere self-castigation, and, having finished, looked with defiant determination at the elder.
[skipping the much-quoted part about the physician who didn't love individuals but mankind instead....]
It is enough that you are distressed by it. Do what you can, and it will be reckoned unto you. You have already done much if you can understand yourself so deeply and so sincerely! But if you spoke with me so sincerely just now in order to be praised, as I have praised you, for your truthfulness, then of course you will get nowhere with your efforts at active love; it will all remain merely a dream, and your whole life will flit by like a phantom. Then, naturally, you will forget about the future life, and in the end will somehow calm down by yourself.”
“You have crushed me! Only now, this very moment, as you were speaking, did I realize that indeed I was waiting only for you to praise my sincerity, when I told you that I couldn’t bear ingratitude. You’ve brought me back to myself, you’ve caught me out and explained me to myself!”
“Is it true what you say? Well, now, after such a confession from you, I believe that you are sincere and good of heart. If you do not attain happiness, always remember that you are on a good path, and try not to leave it. Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on you own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself. And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts. I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one’s life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science. But I predict that even in that very moment when you see with horror that despite all your efforts, you not only have not come nearer your goal but seem to have gotten farther from it, at that very moment – I predict this for you – you will suddenly reach your goal and will clearly behold over you the wonder-working power of the Lord, who all the while has been loving you, and all the while has been mysteriously guiding you.”
When the mother first began to speak, I was thinking she was indulging in too much introspection. We judge wherein we are judged I suppose. But it is through conversation that she is taught about persevering, active love that does not depend on the response of the object (not that she hadn’t been giving it to Lise all along). When I went into nursing school when I was barely 18 I wanted to be a missionary to Africa. I had dreams of saving mankind. I did not want to practice in America for the reason the lady states, I didn’t think Americans were very grateful. They seemed selfishly demanding. Little brown baby Africans would appreciate my philanthropy. I’ll not go into the reasons why I never made it to Africa, but indeed, though most patients were very nice, I did encounter a few negative experiences as described above. One from a head injury patient who had been transformed from a loving young man into a profane, abusive one after being hit by a car. One from the family of a woman dying of cancer, people in pain do act out sometimes. And a couple of psychotic nursing home people would throw things at people. But these weren’t as bad as some of the attitudes among the nurses. You give patients under stress some lee-way, but nurses sometimes don’t give it to each other. There’s a lot of pressure and stress from looming law-suits (another American tendency), impatient, shall we say, doctors, and overly demanding work loads. It got to me, and my romantic “save mankind” bubble burst. Then I became a mother, which is where one must learn active, unappreciated, sometimes unwitnessed, no-quitting-allowed love. But of course a peacefully sleeping or playfully laughing face can recharge a person’s batteries.
I’m late picking up my son and missed posting yesterday so I’ll go ahead and post this without proofreading. I was going to go into seeking praise, but I’ll let the elder’s words on that serve for now.
02.09.09
Brothers Karamazov II; Grieving over infants who have died
Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, Book 2, Ch. 3. Elder Zosima to the “Women of Faith”:
“What are you weeping for?”
“I pity my little son, dear father, he was three years old, just three months short of three years old. I grieve for my little son, father, for my little son. He was the last little son left to us [...] this last one I buried and I can’t forget him. As if he’s standing right in front of me and won’t go away. My soul is wasted over him. I look at his clothes, at his little shirt or his little boots, and start howling. I lay out all that he left behind, all his things, and look at them and howl. Then I say to Nikitushka, that’s my husband, let me go on a pilgrimage, master. He’s a coachman, we’re not poor, father, not poor, we run our own business, everything belongs to us, the horses and the carriages. But who needs all that now? [...] And now I don’t even think about him [her husband]. It’s three months since I left home. I’ve forgotten, I’ve forgotten everything, and I don’t want to remember, what can I do with him now? [...] I’m through with everybody. And I don’t even want to see my house now, and my things, I don’t want to see anything at all!”
“Listen, mother,” said the elder. “Once, long ago, a great saint saw a mother in church, weeping just as you are over her child, her only child, whom the Lord had also called to him. ‘Do you not know,’ the saint said to her, ‘how bold these infants are before the throne of God? No one is bolder in the Kingdom of Heaven: Lord, you granted us life, they say to God, and just as we beheld it, you took it back from us. And they beg and plead so boldly that the Lord immediately puts them in the ranks of the angels. And therefore,’ said the saint, ‘you too, woman, rejoice and do not weep. Your infant, too, now abides with the Lord in the host of his angels.’ That is what a saint said to a weeping woman in ancient times. He was a great saint and would not have told her a lie. Therefore you, too, mother, know that you infant, too, surely now stands before the throne of the Lord, rejoicing and being glad, and praying to God for you. Weep, then, but also rejoice.”
The woman listened to him, resting her cheek in her hand, her eyes cast down. She sighed deeply.
“The same way my Nikitushka was comforting me, word for word, like you, he’d say: ‘Foolish woman,’ he’d say, ‘why do you cry so? Our little son is surely with the Lord God now, singing with the angels. ‘He’d say it to me, and he’d be crying himself, I could see, he’d be crying just like me. ‘I know, Nikitushka,’ I’d say, ‘where else can he be if not with the Lord God, only he isn’t here, with us, Nikitushka, he isn’t sitting here with us like before!’ If only I could just have one more look at him, if I could see him one more time, I wouldn’t even go up to him, I wouldn’t speak, I’d hide in a corner, only to see him for one little minute, to hear him the way he used to play in the backyard and come in and shout in his little voice: ‘Mama, where are you?’ [...] But he’s gone, dear father, he’s gone and I’ll never hear him again! His little belt is here, but he’s gone, and I’ll never see him, I’ll never hear him again…!”
She took her boy’s little gold-braided belt from her bosom and, at the sight of it, began shaking with sobs, covering her eyes with her hands, through which streamed the tears that suddenly gushed from her eyes.
“This,” said the elder, “is Rachel of old ‘weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not. This is the lot that befalls you mothers, on earth. And do not be comforted, you should not be comforted, do not be comforted, but weep. Only each time you weep, do not fail to remember that your little son is one of God’s angels, that he looks down at you from there and sees you, and rejoices in your tears and points them out to the Lord God. And you will be filled with this great mother’s weeping for a long time, but in the end it will turn into quiet joy for you, and your bitter tears will become tears of quiet tenderness and the heart’s purification, which saves from sin. And I will remember your little child in my prayers for the repose of the dead. What was his name?”
“Alexei, dear father.”
“A lovely name! After Alexei, the man of God?”
“Of God, dear father, of God. Alexei, the man of God.”
“A great saint! I”ll remember, mother, I’ll remember, and I’ll remember your sorrow in my prayers, and I’ll remember your husband, too. Only it is a sin for you to desert him. Go to your husband and take care of him. Your little boy will look down and see that you’ve abandoned his father, an will weep for both of you: why, then, do you trouble his blessedness? He’s alive, surely he’s alive, for the soul lives forever, and though he’s not at home, he is invisibly near you. How then, can he come to his home if you say you now hate your home? To whom will he go if he does not find you, his father and mother, together? You see him now in your dreams and are tormented, but at home he will send you quiet dreams. Go to your husband, mother, go this very day.”
“I will go, my dear, according to your word, I will go. You’ve touched my heart. Nikitushka, my Nikitushka, you are waiting for me, my dear, waiting for me!” The woman began to murmur, but the elder had already turned to a very little old lady[...].”
Dostoyevsky saw me. I have written a few posts about our stillborn son, Isaac. It is amazing to me how Dostoyevsky captures the grief of a mother. I so many times think my feelings are unique, but not after reading this. Maybe modern people do not get as carried away as this woman, at least for as long as she did. I think I grieved more over him, as described above, after I became Orthodox. As I have written, one of the things that drew me to Orthodoxy was the icon of the little boy with his guardian angel, which caused me to weep for knowing where my son is.
Our modern culture tries to hide from death. You are supposed to move on with your life after someone dies. Grieving after a year is considered excessive. You certainly aren’t supposed to try to maintain a connection with the departed. I like how Elder Zosima supports her grief, but also redirects her to not forget others, and that by remembering the baby’s father, she is also giving security to her departed child. We don’t have to forget or disconnect from our departed loved ones, but neither should we forget our spouse or God, who also love them. It’s weird to me how loss can make us forget about the ones who remain.
I was very traumatized when I found out Isaac was dead, but when I got pregnant a couple months later, I was distracted from my grief. But there is a bond that remains even after a child dies. I think this is what drew me to Orthodoxy, where I could commune with my son in Christ. I believe he intercedes for our family even now. But it’s not as if death has no negative consequences. I think that a woman “losing it” after a child dies is partly because she is connected to him and wants to be where he is. Part of her experiences the separation from this world that death brings. She leaves with her child. We are not made for separation and loss. We are made for union with all things in Christ. After a death in the family, we have to learn how to reattach to our loved ones still in this realm, while keeping the departed loved one’s Memory Eternal.
And I do feel closer to Isaac at my house, surrounded by our icons. I get the feeling he wants me to be home.
(icon from Conciliar Press)
