Self-esteem

by Newnameelizabeth

Contrary to popular opinion, self-esteem is not all that it is cracked up to be. Abbot Tryphon explains here, in this 4 minute podcast.

Guaranteed happiness

by Newnameelizabeth

In Bleak House by Charles Dickens, Esther is a young woman who was unloved in her younger life. It is natural that she would crave love as a result. Her character is such that she doesn’t solicit it, however. She focuses more on loving others. When love is expressed, though, this is her reaction, “Well! It was only their love for me, I know very well, and it is a long time ago. I must write it even if I rub it out again, because it gives me so much pleasure. They said there could be no east wind [John Jarndyce’s term for bad feelings] where Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden [their pet name for Esther] went, there was sunshine and summer air.”

What does love mean? That you will always be enough for someone and they will never need anything else? That you will save each other? The way the story plays out indicates that this is not the case. Only the characters who have consistently exhibited strength of character have happy endings. It is not their strength alone that saves them, but it seems a belief in cosmic karma guarantees that they will get the help they need eventually. I have read that Dickens was a universalist. I don’t know how that plays into his pattern of bad characters getting knocked off.

This is somewhat related in my mind to Whitney Houston’s funeral. I was impressed with T.D. Jakes’ sermon about universal resurrection. It is true that all the dead will be raised. But no one talked about Judgment Day. The last sermon, at the end of the 3 hours, given by an Atlanta pastor who was Whitney’s last, I believe, only addressed the prosperity doctrine. I cannot understand what it has to do with her death or the afterlife. I could stretch it into some universalist belief, I suppose, that God only wants everyone eternally happy and well-fed. This is true, but it takes something on our part. How much and when are the universal questions. The Sinner’s Prayer? Another chance after death of intellectual acceptance of Jesus as personal savior with a guaranteed result? Or only upon repentance and constant vigilance in this life, with some trials still to go though after death?

I was so hopeful for T.D. Jakes being on to something that I looked him up yesterday. Oh yes, he’s in nearby Dallas. Oh, he’s into the prosperity doctrine too. Nevermind.

Levels

by Newnameelizabeth

Overall I thought the PBS series, Monastery, was pretty good. The five men who went to spend 40 days at an English Bendedictine Monastery all seemed to make progress in their relationships with God and man. A couple remarkably so. One seemed to undergo a pretty dramatic conversion complete with a couple of spiritual experiences and a conviction to leave his salacious career. Their experiences were convincing so I’ll not say that God can’t touch a person in a Catholic monastery, but I don’t think they’ll go as far getting spiritual advice that has a fair dose of New Agey content mixed in. With that included, I don’t see how they could have prevented one of the visiting men from ending up in a Buddhist Monastery.

Deceptive contrition

by Newnameelizabeth

This next part is so enlightening that I will post the whole thing.

In life there are frequent misconceptions about this despiar over sin, presumably because of a universal preoccupation with frivolity, thoughtlessness, and sheer triviality, and for this reason people as a rule become quite formal and deferentially take off their hats to any manifestation of something deeper. Either in confused haziness about itself and its significance, or with a streak of hypocrisy, or by way of the craftiness and sophistry intrinsic to all despair, despair over sin is not averse to giving itself the appearance of being something good. Then it is supposed to be the mark of a deep nature, which therefore is so sensitive about its sin. For example, if a person who has been addicted to some sin or other but has successfully resisted temptation for a long time has a relapse and again succumbs to temptation, then the depression that sets in is by no means always sorrow over the sin. It can be something very different; for that matter, it may be a bitterness against Governance, as if it were responsible for his succoumbing to temptation, as if it ought not to have been so hard on him, since he had successfully resisted temptation for such a long time. In any case, it is altogether effeminate straightway to regard this sorrow as good, not to be in the least aware of the duplicity in all passionateness, which in turn is a sense of the ominous that can make the passionate one understand later, almost to the point of madness, that he has said the very opposite of what he intended to say. Such a person emphatically declares, perhaps in ever stronger terms, that this relapse plagues and torments him, brings him to despair, and he says: “I will never forgive myself.” This is supposed to sho how much good there is in him, what a deep nature he has. It is a subterfuge. I deliberately used that stock phrase, “I will never forgive myself,” words commonly heard in this connection. And with this very phrase one can immediately straighten out oneself dialectically. He will never forgive himself – but now if God would forgive him this, well, he certainly could have the goodness to forgive himself. No, his despair over the sin is a far cry from being a qualification of the good, is a more intensive qualification of sin, the intensity of which is absorption in sin – and it is this most of all when he is passionately repeating this phrase and thereby denouncing himself ( the least of his considerations), when he “never will forgive himself” for sinning like that ( for this kind of talk is exactly the opposite of the brokenhearted contrition that prays God to forgive). The point is that during the time that he was successfully resisting temptation he appeared in his own eyes to be better than he actually was, he became proud of himself. It is to this pride’s advantage that the past be altogether a thing of the past. But in this relapse the past suddenly becomes very much present again. His pride cannot bear this reminder, and that is the reason for his profound distress etc. But the distress clearly indicates a movement away from God, a secret selfishness and pride, and is a substitute for humbly beginning by humbly thanking God that he helped him to resist temptation for so long a time, acknowledging before God and himself that it is already much more than he deserved, and then humbling himself under the recollection of what he has been.

Here, as everywhere, is what the old devotional books explain so profoundly, so experientially, so instructively. They teach that God sometimes lets the believer stumble and fall in some temptation or other, precisely in order to humble him and thereby to establish him better in the good; the contrast between the relapse and the possibly significant progress in the good is very humiliating, the identity with himself very painful. The better a person is, the more acutely painful the particular sin naturally is, and the more dangerous is the slightest bit of impatience if he does not make the right turn. In his sorrow, he may sink into the darkest depression – and a fool of a spiritual counselor may be on the verge of admiring his deep soul and the powerful influence good has on him – as if this were of the good. And his wife, well, she feels deeply humbled by comparison with such an earnest and holy man who can sorrow over his sin in this way. His talk may be even more deceptive; he may not say: I can never forgive myself ( as if he had previously forgiven himself sins – a blasphemy). No, he says that God can never forgive him for it. Alas, this is just a subterfuge. His sorrow, his cares, his despair are selfish ( just like the anxiety about sin, which sometimes practically drives a man anxiously into sin because it is self-love that wants to be proud of itself, it be without sin), and consolation is the least of his needs; therefore the prodigious number of reasons that spiritual counselors prescribe for taking consolation merely makes the sickness worse. (The Sickness Unto Death, p. 111, 112)

Kierkegaard and repentance

by Newnameelizabeth

In listening to critiques of Kierkegaard (some found here, #2), I’m getting annoyed with dismissals that seem to me to be excuses not to deal with his main point – in order to live before God, we must get rid of our delusions, with which we are downright crusty and incapacitated. Yes there is strength to cope and grace in the Church, but that is only comfort after individually deciding to get rid of other crutches. He may have felt guilty about Regina, and may not have accepted forgiveness, sort of like Father Anatoly living a life based on his belief he killed his captain in Ostrov, but “cheap grace” is the opposite problem that I believe Bonhoeffer, who was deeply affected by Kierkegaard, dealt with. Modern Christians too easily dismiss personal asceticism, and the need to literally and actively get clean before God, not just passively accept  Christ’s cleanliness and righteousness. Even if repentance is triggered by placing too much importance on a perceived offense. We are often too blind to know what our real offenses are.

Hell or not

by Newnameelizabeth

Seventh, whether or not you believe in an eternal torment for the unsaved will depend in large measure on your broader sense of soteriology and Christology. Did Christ come to save us from hell?  Or did he come to profess the love of God and call together the community of the faithful that will work to redeem the world?  I can’t help but suspect that there is, behind this skepticism toward hell, a skepticism toward the broader vision of substitutionary atonement, a skepticism toward the whole narrative of original sin and the need for eternal justice to be satisfied through the sacrifice of Christ.  Hell makes no sense if the work of Christ is mostly to communicate God’s love to us and encourage us to love one another.  It makes more sense if there is indeed a fundamental rupture of sin between humankind and God, if the holiness of God requires justice, and if the only way to be reconciled to God is by grace through faith in Christ. (from Love Fails – Rob Bell, Hellgate, and the Ethics of Christian Conversation, h/t fb friend)

I think there’s a third way to understand hell besides through the doctrine of substitutionary atonement and universalism. Substitutionary atonement implies an anthropomorphic idea of God and his wrath, which is what turns a lot of people off to western Christianity. To me (I hopefully understand from the Orthodox), life and love are God, so to reject God is to reject life and love, which is existentially, hell. “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair” has to do with the pain of repentance with the help of God’s grace, which is His healing presence. Like Christ with the three youths in the fiery furnace. If one doesn’t repent, he will suffer torment eternally. Sort of like Gollum jumping into the flames. His fixation on seductive alternatives was too habitual.

De clutter

by Newnameelizabeth

One college son’s goal for winter break was to clean out the garage/barn. Today I rented a 17′ U-Haul truck to fulfill his dream. After we dropped off all the non-consumable homeschool books the six kids have ever used at Good Will, and about 20 garbage bags full of clothes, a broken tiller, push mower, plus some odds and ends, we went to the dump where we were weighed before and after unloading the consumed books, broken trampoline, 2 burned up burn barrels, etc. The stuff just dropped off at the dump was 600 lbs over a ton. Now we can park cars and actually get to the ping pong table. Schwew.

St. Gregory Palamas

by Newnameelizabeth

I thought I’d get back to The Saving Work of Christ, Sermons by St. Gregory Palamas in commemoration of his Sunday during Lent, which was yesterday. The only Lenten sermon is on Palm Sunday, so I’m reading his “On Epiphany I”. I’ve explored before the distinction between Christ’s uniting Himself to all of creation and taking on human nature in His Incarnation and what baptism into Christ accomplishes. I still don’t want to place a legalistic demand on baptism into Christ, which is influenced probably by my non-sacramental Protestant upbringing, God’s mercy, the saying, ‘we know where the Spirit is, but not where He is not’, the Scripture, ‘even if I made my bed in hell, You are there”, and being somewhat convinced by some non-Orthodox people’s relationship with God, even if they don’t have all the facts or procedures straight. Still, I don’t want to throw out the bathwater. Without further ado, here’s some quotes,

Repentance is the beginning, middle and end of the Christian way of life, so it is both sought and required before holy baptism, in holy baptism, and after holy baptism. We are asked to express our repentance in words at the time of our baptism, when we are questioned about our good conscience towards God, make a covenant with Him and promise to live a God-pleasing life that bears witness to our love for Him. For, having believed, we promise allegiance to Christ, who is good and surpasses all goodness, renouncing the evil and thoroughly depraved enemy, and we take it upon ourselves to hold with all our strength to God’s commandments, which bring about what is good, and to abstain from every evil thought and deed. When asked, we reply, either in person or, as happens in the case of infants being baptized, through our godparents, concerning what we have believed, inwardly accepted and agreed to with our minds. And since, according to the apostle, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:10), when we make this good confession with our mouth we receive salvation through the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5). (p. 19)

This reminds me that in my daughter’s Protestant 4th grade Bible class, when teaching on Nicodemus, the teacher in paraphrasing the verse that says you must be born of water and spirit, said that you only need to be born of the spirit. So much for Sola Scriptura. Back to St. Gregory:

Water is a means of cleansing, but not for souls. It can remove dirt from those being baptized, but not the grime that comes from sin. For that reason the Healer of souls, the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9), Christ, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), enters the water before us to be baptized, as we celebrate today in advance. He draws the grace of the all-holy Spirit from above to dwell in the water with Him, so that later when those being baptized as He was enter the water, He is there, clothing them ineffably with His Spirit, attaching Himself to them, and filling them with the grace that purifies and illumines reasonable spirits. And this is what the divine Paul is referring to: “As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). (p. 21,22)

On Chrismation:

For this reason, the bishop, having clothed the person who has been baptized in a radiant white garment, and anointed him with holy chrism, and having made him a communicant of Christ’s body and blood, then sends him on is way, showing that he has thenceforth become a child of light, both united in one body with Christ and a partaker of the Holy Spirit. For we are born again (cf. John 3:3-5) and become heavenly sons of God (cf. Rom 8:14-19, Phil 2:15, 1 John 3:1-2) instead of earthly beings, eternal instead of transient. God has mystically implanted heavenly grace in our hearts and set the seal of adoption as sons upon us through anointing with this holy chrism, sealing us by means of the all-holy Spirit for the day of redemption (cf. Eph. 4:30), provided we keep this confession firm to the end and fulfil our promise through deeds, though we may renew it through repentance if it drifts a little off course. That is why works of repentance are necessary even after baptism. But if they are absent the words of our promise to God are not only useless but also condemn us. “Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay” (Eccles. 5:5).

[…] Repentance means hating sin and loving virtue, turning away from evil and doing good (Ps. 34:14, 1 Pet. 3:11). These acts are preceded however, by condemning ourselves for our faults, being penitent before God, fleeing to Him for refuge with a contrite heart, and casting ourselves into the ocean of His mercy, considering ourselves unworthy to be counted among His sons. As the prodigal son said when he repented, “Lord, I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants” (cf. Luke 15:19) (p. 22,23)

From addiction to what?

by Newnameelizabeth

What is the goal in overcoming addiction, of finding peace in a relationship, in overcoming anxiety or paranoia? Cessation of pain and anxiety brings relief, but then what? We will still innately hunger and thirst after God, and so must be taught how to be united to Him. If we free ourselves from union with the wrong thing, we’ll still be at loose ends and will unhealthily attach to another thing unless we are immediately redirected toward God. The Church is the only place to do this with our whole heart, soul, body and strength with her prayers and communion with Christ. Otherwise we are trying to construct God in our heads and are continuously being disappointed by our failure.

Conclusively speaking

by Newnameelizabeth

I’ve decided it’s better to be decisive than indecisive. Be whoever you are wherever you are and not someone else. If you feel that you’re a mess, lament with your whole heart. If you feel you are right, doubt it with all your being. Don’t be half-way or wishy washy by justifying partial messiness or being mostly right. That’s confusing. Lament confusion, doublemindeness and gnomicness! It is not the way to be! We are to be sure, consistent, and shining examples of intended, predestined humanity. What does that look like? Christ and the Saints. But the Saints look different from each other! There is more than one way to be one way, sort of.