Toward Attention

"All The Better to Eat You With, My Dear"

The first public-ministry appearance of Jesus in each of the four canonical Gospels indicates what that evangelist wished to highlight about the Person and work of the Master. In the Gospel According to St. Mark, this appearance is the exorcism of the man in the unclean spirit. 

Note that in the Greek, the man does not merely have an unclean spirit, he is not "the man with an unclean spirit" -- he is in an unclean spirit. The spirit has swallowed him. When he enters the Synagogue, the man cries out with the voice of the demon, "What have we to do with you," etc. Then Jesus addresses the unclean spirit, "Shut up! Come out of him!" -- He addresses the demon, not the man, and does not say "expel him," but "come out of him." That agent which encloses him in spiritual filth is also the man's interiority. The filth of the demon is inside and outside. The man is totally gobbled up, with no hope of escape.

(Of course, this points to the ultimate theme in Mark that sin, death and the devil have swallowed man, and so it is only through the victory on the cross, the resurrection from the dead and the distribution of the power of that resurrection by the Spirit that the power of sin is broken, the stomach of death is ruptured and the dominion of the satan is defeated. Thus, the Lord's rebuke  of the demon here in St. Mark and the Lord's rebuke of the serpentine chaos waters in Psalm 104:7 and in Job 26:10-12. In both the mythic Old Testament images and in the Gospel narrative, a world is established after this conquering of dark powers by the Lord.)

This should instantly call to mind the images in the Screwtape Letters, with demons eating other demons, and feasting on the souls of those they have consumed, in this life, through sin. Our sins literally eat us alive. How many souls do we know, who, in old age, have clearly become their sin? Usually it is not so obvious: people function well-enough in public.

Let us "cast off" every weight that binds us to sin, by taking up our cross! The cross is no instrument of death, though we sin-swallowed men will see the abolition of our sin as the abolition of our loves and even the extinction of our identity (the cross is "foolishness to the Greeks"), for sin has grown so many roots in our heart that we are nearly one with it . We must fight this, and receive the operation of the Spirit, and struggle, or else all is lost for us. God does not save us against our will, even though our will has no power to save itself.

We receive salvation by grace and as a divine gift of the Spirit. But to attain the full measure of virtue we need also to possess faith and love, and to struggle to exercise our free will with integrity. In this manner we inherit eternal life as a consequence of both grace and justice. We do not reach the final stage of spiritual maturity through divine power and grace alone, without ourselves making any effort; but neither on the other hand do we attain the final measure of freedom and purity as a result of our ow diligence and strength alone, apart from any divine assistance. If the Lord does not build the house, it is said, and protect the city, in vain does the watchman keep awake, and in vain do the labourer and the builder work (cf. Psalm 127:1-4).

St. Symeon Metaphrastis, Paraphrase of the Homilies of St. Macarius of Egypt I.1.

We must work with the Worker and watch with the Watcher. It is for this that we are freed from bondage to those things that consume us. If we are freed, and to the measure we are freed. "To him who has [ears to hear and so listens], more will be given, but to him who has not [ears to hear, and neglects to attend to the Mirror of the Son Who reveals the truth about ourselves and liberates us], even what he has will be taken away."

I am afraid, and will leave you while I seek the Hem of His Garment.

St. Macarius on the Scarcity of Spiritual Men

"Just as gold is found, washed out of a great amount of sand and it amounts to very small grains like millet, so also out of many human being few will be approved. For those who seek the kingdom are clearly manifested, while those who merely wear its word as a beautiful ornament are the ones most conspicuous. For the same reason those are manifested who are seasoned with the heavenly salt and who speak out of the Spirit's treasures. The vessels appear in whom God is pleased and to whom He gives His grace. There are also others, who, with much patience, receive the sanctifying power in many different ways, as God wishes."

St. Macarius the Great.

Mirror

I called a friend of mine just a few hours ago, who was at that moment on a bus to visit his girlfriend. I asked how their relationship was, and he mentioned something about her behavior -- she's always complaining that they don't communicate well, and that he doesn't really care about her, etc. This is not the first time I've heard stories about how this girl communicates with him, and though there's some ambiguity in his relations with her as he reports it, there's no doubt in my mind that this girl is lonely and whiny and alienates him by her complaints about how distant he is and how they communicate. To my knowledge she has made no attempt to learn anything about his faith or his native language, or to understand the reasons for his usually under-the-surface reservations about her. She complains about the very things she is producing, only she accuses him of it.

I have seen the same thing happen in my relationship with my wife. There have been moments when I've struggled not to dwell on an injury sustained and/or an accusation towards her, and to act with royal dignity towards her, only to find her level the exact same accusation at me minutes later. This made me more than a little suspicious to the potential that I may in fact have been the real culprit. (There's never a moment when I think to ask her if she ever feels the same way that I ever actually feel safe about asking her.)

I think most of us are aware of the ironies exemplified by token political hacks and the typic positions they represent -- the leftist talking about toleration and being egregiously intolerant towards those who do not either sign on to his program or cannot be drafted as an example of it, the right-winger talking about the value of life and the life of the unborn and then showing a callous disregard for the welfare of so many demographics, etc. I could probably find many, many more examples. 

We all do this. I do it. You do it. Why is this the case?

None of us thinks that we do it. We read about these instances in the lives of other people and we think of more examples in the lives of those we know, sometimes with hostility. Why is this?

I do not doubt that modern Psychology has a label for this. I don't know what it is. I'm not sure whether they have a therapeutic regime for it. I suspect they do. (I would be delighted to know what they are). 

What is interesting is that this is a prime example of a problem that pervades the ascetical literature of the Church Catholic. In all of our Orthodox ascetical literature I have seen, at least several mentions of this problem are made. Not surprisingly, it is noted somewhere something to the effect that "the evil you hate in others, that you do yourself."

I suspect that none of us can get beyond this easily. We are not honest with ourselves, or else we might see this. Even if we are, our virtue is not great enough for us to be aware of our own sin -- the sin itself blinds us and limits our freedom. Our friends do not tell us because they (probably rightly) suspect we would not listen. Some friends may, and they may be harsh with us. Whether we cultivate such friendships is a token of our desire for perfection, our desire for Christ:

Rather let the righteous smite me friendly; yea, but let not their precious balms break my head. (Psalm 141:5)

We need some good enemies (bad enemies cannot see our evil clearly enough to name it to us -- those whose mockings hurt us the most are, most likely, the surest guide to truth here) if we do not have friends like this. What we need is to listen. And here, the best ally we have in the war against sin is the voice of those who regularly revile us and pour insults upon our heads. We need the eyes of others, especially of our enemies.

I do not see how we could possibly make much progress in this task without a spiritual father, and a community who know us well enough to see our faults, and to name them to us fearlessly (this does not excuse us, perhaps, from laboring diligently wherever we are planted). Otherwise, we will flee from the company of others in the end, locking the doors of hell from the inside, and asking Leviathan to please close his mouth to shut out our escape from his maw. Perhaps on the way to total isolation we'll gather about a nest of those whose

words were smoother than oil, yet they are drawn swords. (Psalm 55:21)

A throng of such men is not worthy of one Nathan, though. While it is true that

Without counsel purposes are disappointed; but in the multitude of counselors they are established (Prov. 15:22)

yet one can have a throng of diverse individuals all pouring venomous sweetness into one's ear. In the end, it depends upon us, whether we are disposed to seek perfection or not. If we are, our friendships will reflect this -- likely, indeed, even many, most, or all of those which before were unable to yield this rich crop of reward to us before, because of us. As St. Mark the Monk says, 

Just as God assigns to everything visible what is appropriate, so He does also to human thoughts, whether we wish it or not. (On the Spiritual Law, 111)

When harmed, insulted or persecuted by someone, do not think of the present but wait for the future, and you will find he has brought you much good, not only in this life but also in the life to come. (On the Spiritual Law, 114)

Do not say: 'I don't want it, but it happens.' For even though you may not want the thing itself, yet you welcome what causes it. (On the Spiritual Law, 142)

This last note applies not only to temptations we fall into of a more conventional sort -- it applies also to loneliness and a feeling that the other really doesn't care, as in the girlfriend I noted above.

If we are diligent about our perfection, we will cultivate dispassion, without which we will never be able to hear criticism from our friends that we can act upon, much less rejoice over the occasions for perfection that our active enemies who persecute us present us with.

This is not to say that Christianity is a masochistic faith -- it is precisely for our health that we seek perfection, for a greater union with the Glad God in his Gladness, which Gladness is "more than a feeling." We seek to benefit from insults and slander (we certainly do not seek them out) so that we might make them into means of greater fellowship with Christ and communion in the Spirit which he has poured out upon us -- it is for these things that we seek to make our suffering a means of our perfection. We are all broken, and thus we all have a cross to bear, but when our afflictions are not merely marathons of pain to endure for the sake of other things (which is how I have heard them mis-characterized by some religious and non-religious folk), but are themselves the means of greater joy and freedom. It is "for the life of the world" and its salvation that we seek this. It is for the benefaction of those who hate us that we seek this. 

It is easy to perform this kind of a thing to those one can cultivate a vast distance from  -- those whom one sees only in the public square, and that only rarely or infrequently, and who have not truly entered into one's private life. Real repentance like this begins at home.

This makes sense out of a line I read in George Herbert years ago that I never really understood:

Be sweet to all. Is thy complexion sour?

Then keep such company; make them thy allay:

Get a sharp wife, a servant that will lour.

A stumbler stumbles least in rugged way.

    Command thy self in chief. He life's war knows,

    Whom all his passions follow, as he goes.

There is a greater need for self-criticism among the more perfect, especially among the more observant. Those who keep to stricter religious disciplines are in greater danger of falling, and falling far below those who attempt to keep no discipline at all. Often this happens. It is easy to despise others, but the same situation of the girlfriend applies to these. We do not wish to be like those Pharisees, who were as "white-washed sepulchers," keeping the Law that marks out the domain of Life, but themselves having only the shape of strength against chaos and permanence, themselves having a beautiful and elegant appearance (which they should), but inside of whom is Death. (Not all Pharisees were so, as the scriptures leave us with examples to the contrary). To pervert the means of grace by making them an occasion for resenting and anti-loving those who do not keep them, only to accuse these non-observant of hating God, not really being devout, etc. -- this is to hate that which we are doing, again. Sinners are closer to God than these men.

Friends! Let us strive to know our own hearts, and to receive the insults and criticisms we suffer for our salvation -- for otherwise they will be for our damnation. Let us be wise in the giving of them, or else we may break others before they are prepared to ascend towards perfection, and may trap ourselves along the way.

Forgive this sinner, and pray for this son of Elidyr, who is an "exile, far from God," far even from the glory of his patrimony.