das Es, das Ich, unt das Über-Ich
by Newnameelizabeth
Another thing now-Metropolitan Kallistos Ware brought out in The History of Orthodox Christianity is that in today’s world a person’s Orthodoxy is less about the circumstances of one’s birth and more about a conscious “commitment”. Today’s Orthodox Christian needs to know much more about the details of theology and anthropology and to more consciously follow the Tradition. This subject of consciousness is much within my thoughts lately. I wrote in “Problem Solving” of self-consciousness and goal-consciousness, and careless abandon in “Christmas Spirit”. Others’ thoughts about being observant and employing onesself are also circulating.
The problem I have with the lack of goal orientation or problem solving is the problem of unfinished business. We are to run the race, as St. Paul says. Our goal is Christ, and He has worked this into our own individual teloses. I suppose one has to navigate between acquiring notches on one’s belt and only doing things when one feels love or some other motivating feeling in doing things well. And in doing things well, one needs to love the telos of others. This focus on others leads into the idea of abandonment. Careless abandon is reckless and inconsiderate. We are not to lose consciousness, but to remain vigilant and aware on a very deep level. If we are employing ourselves, we are concentrating deeply on an object besides ourselves.
This gets more tricky when one is looking in a mirror. The refectory bathroom at Holy Archangel’s Greek Orthodox Monastery does not have a mirror. I understand the admonition against vanity, but I believe it can be considerate to others to look in a mirror. I am bad at head coverings, which are required there, and had to have a friend rescue me from having a particularly silly arrangement that would be distracting to others for different reasons that not wearing one would be. However, learning to depend on one’s friends may make not having a mirror of greater benefit. But some friends aren’t bothered by spinach and such, so is it vanity to not want others distracted by things that they may not consider bothersome? Maybe so.
Continuous prayer takes great concentration and vigilance. Yet there are moments where it is not supposed to just seem like work. Great caution is mandated in such experiences though. They can easily lead to prelest and emotionalism. Some people cut them off on purpose. It is also interesting to me how personal most of the prayers are. We not only worship who God is in our prayer, but much attention is given to personal confession (the “me, a sinner” part), crossing ourselves (some people call this blessing ourselves), and petitioning Psalm-like things for ourselves. We are not annihilated in our relationship with God.
If I may expand upon a general impression I’ve had converting to Orthodoxy that I am drawn towards. It does have a sort of self-centered focus. This is the criticism many non-Orthodox have about Orthodox monasticism in particular. A person withdraws from the world and others in order to save himself. The outcome of this is supposed to be that one finds union with God and thus becomes automatically (and unselfconsciously) a more effective intercessor for others, either directly in contact with visitors and fellow monastics, or what can be misunderstood as indirectly.
It is this idea of indirect contact that can almost seem gnostic. I have not worked this out yet. Today in researching Fr. John McGuckin’s film project, Sophia, Secret Wisdom, I find that there haven’t been any updates on the websites since 2008, except for one reference to a name change to Living with God: Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer. I wonder if they came under criticism for any perceived associations with Bulgakovian Sophiology or gnosticism.
One other floating thought about my criticism in my last post of The History of Orthodox Christianity regarding ecumenism. I do sometimes want to stress the common humanity of people with other faiths, but also worry about compromise or dilution. The Greek Church may be able to navigate those mysterious waters. Many look on nervously while even the Orthodox Church in America’s primate, Metropolitan Jonah, seeks to find common ground with the Anglicans. He is a bit more obvious about stressing several points that wont be compromised, like the ordination of women and homosexuals and Calvinism, but still there is the worry that some of the more subtle differences will be glossed over. Perhaps this worrying is a lack of faith in the cleansing power of the Spirit in the Orthodox Church.
Still, to relate again to the ideas in “Christmas Spirit”, and to discussions of Western Rite Orthodoxy and Celtic Christianity, even if some Christmas Carols are “Orthodox enough”, it seems that the errors that occurred contemporaneously in the communions from whence they came may creep in through the cracked door. My thought on Celtic Christianity is that at the time it was Orthodox, but that much of the context in which those Saints worshiped has been lost (reading their lives would still be as valid and in context as reading eastern Saints lives, imo). There may have been an abiding strain in continuing Anglicanism, but trying to extract it requires unbaking the cake or such microscopic dissection that one is not left with an intact body. Eastern Orthodoxy is still intact, and the fullest expressions have been preserved mainly by monastics who are the most serious about saving themselves.
[update: I was speaking of Christmas Carols not being appropriate for Liturgical, not “secular” settings. I do not discount that realizing the Orthodoxy in one’s favorite western carol can be a helpful bridge to Orthodox hymnography however. As I have shared, my first visit to an Orthodox Church was in a Western Rite where they sang Handel’s “He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd” and I felt my first Orthodox feeling of presence while my long nagging cough went away. If I’m not being too polemic, I could justify that Handel’s libretto is solely comprised of Scripture verses. It’s been a while since I heard the whole thing, but I think there may be an emphasis on substitutionary atonement towards the end though. I’ll save comments about western classical style for later, but would meanwhile defer to Father Seraphim Rose, His Life and Works for how to contextualize a love for Bach or Handel. I’ll just say I don’t think he played it in the Temple.]
Words 
Regarding goal orientation, unfinished business, and doing things well, I’m reminded of St. John the Dwarf’s statements in Sayings of the Desert Fathers concerning tireless pursuit of “a little bit of all the virtues”, with “with all the fervor of your soul and body”.
I think I remember the documentary referring to monasticism as the soul of the Church, or something like that while a camera briefly panned Mount Athos, but the percentage of the film given to the topic was terribly disproportionate to my understanding of its importance. I liked the imagery presented throughout the documentary but was disappointed with its priorities and primary messages.
Matthew Galletin noted that the ‘self focus’ in the sense of saving one’s self, according to the church immediately leads one to others. To save ourselves must learn to give up ourselves. We must learn to love others and God himself to save ourselves, Etc. It’s all paradoxical, which is to say it is a representation of a higher-order reality.
Monasticism may be a bit selfish like that, but on the other hand, it is indisputable that monks have been able to keep the commandments of Christ far better than most of us.
It seems to me that in Christ there is no ‘male and female’, borrowing from Maximus’ idea in his interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, temporal oppositions are transcended entirely. They don’t cease to exist – as in the case of selfishness, the self and the other still exist, so there is still a ‘self’ focus and an ‘other’ focus, but in Christ the emnity or disunity is not solved or compromised but simply ‘taken away’ (to borrow from Alexander Schmemman.)
I was a bit off-put by what I saw of the Sophia Secret Wisdom thing, as I am warned that Sophiology itself rides a fine line and is speculative. I don’t know if it classifies along with St. Gregory of Nyssa’s speculative works, but I’ve no mind to tackle something controversial when I have yet to know the Fathers very well at all.
Thanks for your postings by the way! My girlfriend (hopefully soon to be fiance) and I have greatly enjoyed them!
Very good words, Garth (River). I am pleased that you both have enjoyed my ponderings despite my worrying over them. I hope she says yes!
I’m willing to give the movie a chance and since they’ve changed the name, hopefully it wont fall into Sophiology errors. One of the few words I could understand at the Greek Monastery my family goes to from time to time is “Sophia” (Wisdom!) before Scripture readings. Proverbs femininely personalizes wisdom, but Bulgakov took it too far. Hopefully we wont be too put off of it/her(!) as a result.