Guest Meditation on Beauty in Orthodox Worship

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

Today, I am offering a "guest meditation" from our catechumen, Jennifer Harkins. Jenny read the essay by Archbishop Kallistos Ware, "The Theology of Worship," that I shared a small passage from a couple of days ago. There are some very fine observations and insights into Orthodox worship in what you will read below. Hope you will enjoy reading this as much as I did:

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Reading this essay felt like sitting with a great physician who could describe my own condition better to me than I could express on my own! Archbishop Ware articulated so clearly and comprehensively what I have felt and known on an instinctive level, but hardly been able to communicate. As he opens with the posture in which we stand before God with our “double attitude... of hope and fear, of confidence and awe,” it’s as if he opens my fists before me to reveal that these paradoxical feelings I’ve been holding are each true and right. There has been this unspoken attraction but also tension in my spirit upon entering more fully into Orthodox worship, where my “nous” tries to apprehend at once the God who “dwells in light unapproachable,” with the “God of personal love, uniquely close, around us and within us.” The latter perspective is more familiar but I have been hungry and strongly pulled towards the transcendent, holy, “the Wholly Other” aspect of our God. 

When we fell prostrate, head to the floor as a whole congregation so many times during Lent and Holy Week, I realized in that movement how starved I was to see and reverence the immense holiness of our Lord. My spirit has felt like a dry sponge soaking up the apophatic mindset in attempting to describe and worship such a One. I am thankful for coming to know Jesus as my friend in Protestantism, but the friendship takes on even deeper meaning when the glorious fullness and transcendence of the Holy Trinity is acknowledged appropriately with awe and trembling. Though foreign in a sense, nothing feels more natural than to lie prostrate and cry “Lord have mercy!” 

The next section of the essay so insightfully worded what feels almost indescribable in nature, the “total act of worship.” “We are to stand before God with the entire person: with the conscious mind, certainly, but also with the aspects of our inner self that reach out into the unconscious; with our instinctive feelings, with our aesthetic sense, and likewise with that faculty of intuitive understanding and of direct spiritual awareness which, as we have noted, far surpasses the discursive reason.” His description of the facets of Orthodox worship which usher in these many layers of total worship makes so much sense and is heartily affirmed in my personal experience of them. From making “use of the primary realities of human existence, such as bread and water, light and fire,” to the beautiful and poetic texts, music, splendor of the priestly vestments, color and lines of the holy icons, design of the sacred space, and symbolic gestures such as the sign of the cross and offering of incense... These all resonate with and reflect upon the many-faceted diamond of a human’s worship- this human at least!

I adore Fr. Schmemann’s description of the Divine Liturgy, it is “before everything else, the joyous gathering of those who are to meet the risen Lord and to enter with Him into the bridal chamber. And it is this joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing in and ritual, in vestments and in ceasing, in that whole ‘beauty’ of the liturgy...” 

Archbishop Ware’s third point of praying without ceasing was a beautiful challenge to me. This concept seems to be my Mt. Everest, how to move beyond specific times and places and let prayer “be an all-inclusive attitude, embracing every object and every moment; that my whole being would be a “continuing act of worship, an uninterrupted doxology.” In my prayer for St. Mary of Bethany’s intercession, I ask her to let the living torch burn strong and steady long into the night, because it kindles so brightly in prayer times, various solo activities, and at church and then I struggle to “maintain the flame” of love and worship in mundane life around the house and work with the family. I’m praying towards a deeper internalization of communion with the Lord so that prayer isn’t just “something we do or say or think, but something that we are!” So that as Paul Evdokimov said, I can be the priest of my whole life and “take all that is human, and turn it into an offering and a hymn of glory!”

The Dormition Fast: Commitment vs. Convenience

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Sunday, August 1, is the beginning of the relatively short Dormition Fast that culminates with the celebration of the Great Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos on August 15.

As we contemplate our own destiny in that of the Theotokos, it is theologically and spiritually appropriate that this is the culminating major Feast Day of the liturgical year. The preparatory fast is very well-placed, falling as it does at the midpoint of summer.

Coming after the relatively slow and "silent" month of July, liturgically speaking, the ascetical effort that we are called to embrace can potentially lift us up out of any spiritual torpor that may be afflicting us. This is especially true if the summer heat has taken its toll on us both physically and spiritually. )And, of course, continuing to deal with COVID-19). Spiritual vigilance can replace the apathy and indifference that may be clinging to us at this time of year. As we honor the "translation" of the Mother of God into the eternal life of the Kingdom of God, we simultaneously experience the much-needed spiritual renewal of our being through the time-honored and life-affirming practices of prayer, almsgiving and fasting (Matt 6:1-18).

Yet, every fast presents us with a challenge and a choice. In this instance, I would say that our choice is between “convenience” and “commitment.”  

We can choose convenience because of the simple fact that to fast is decidedly in-convenient. It takes planning, vigilance, discipline, self denial, and an overall concerted effort. It is convenient to allow life to flow on at its usual (summer) rhythm, which includes searching for that comfort level of least resistance. To break our established patterns of living is always difficult, and it may be something we would only contemplate with reluctance.

And perhaps we need to admit that as middle-class Americans we are impatient with inconvenience, since just about every aspect of our lives today is meant to amplify convenience as a "mode of existence" that we ironically desire to embrace "religiously." We may think and feel that we are entitled to live by the "philosophy" of convenience!

So, one choice is to do nothing different during this current Dormition Fast, or perhaps only something minimal, as a kind of token recognition of our life in the Church. I am not quite sure, however, what such a choice would yield in terms of furthering our growth in the life “in Christ.” It may rather mean a missed opportunity.

Yet the choice remains to embrace the Dormition Fast, a choice that is decidedly “counter-cultural” and one that manifests a conscious commitment to an Orthodox Christian “way of life.” To be committed means to care - the spiritual antidote to the passion of acedia which literally means "not caring."

Such a commitment signifies that we are looking beyond what is convenient toward what is meaningful. It would be a choice in which we recognize our weaknesses, and our need precisely for the planning, vigilance, discipline, self-denial and over-all concerted effort that distinguishes the seeker of the “mind of Christ.” And this we have as a gift within the life of the Church.

That is a difficult choice to make, and one that is perhaps particularly difficult within the life of a family with children who are often resistant to any changes. I still believe, though, that such a difficult choice has its “rewards” and that such a commitment will bear fruit in our families and in our parishes. (If embraced legalistically and judgmentally, however, we will lose our access to the potential fruitfulness of the Fast and only succeed in creating a miserable atmosphere in our homes). It is a choice that is determined to seize a good opportunity as at least a potential tool that leads to spiritual growth.

My observation is that we combine the “convenient” with our “commitment” within our contemporary social and cultural life to some degree. We often don’t allow the Church to “get in the way” of our plans and goals and admittedly there are times when that may be hard to avoid in the circumstances and conditions of our present way of life. Yet, the Church as "second choice" can easily harden into an automatic and unchallenged principle. It is hard to prevail in the never-ending “battle of the calendars!” The surrounding social and cultural milieu no longer supports our commitment to Christ and the Church. In fact, it is usually quite indifferent and it may even be hostile toward such a commitment. Though we may hesitate to admit it, we find it very challenging not to conform to the world around us.

But it is never impossible to choose our commitment to our Orthodox Christian way of life over what is merely convenient – or simply desired. That may just be one of those “daily crosses” that the Lord spoke of – though it may be a stretch to call that a “cross.” This also entails choices, and we have to assess these choices with honesty as we look at all the factors that make up our lives. In short, it is very difficult – but profoundly rewarding – to practice our Orthodox Christian Faith today! I remain confident, however, that the heart of a sincere Orthodox Christian desires to choose the hard path of commitment over the easy (and rather boring?) path of convenience. 

We now have the God-given opportunity to escape the summer doldrums that drain our spiritual energy. With prayer, almsgiving and fasting, we can renew our tired bodies and souls. We can lift up our “drooping hands” and strengthen our "weak knees" (Heb 12:12) in an attitude of prayer and thanksgiving.  

The Dormition of the Theotokos has often been called “pascha in the summer.” It celebrates the victory of life over death—or of death as a translation into the Kingdom of Heaven. The Dormition Fast is our spiritually vigilant preparation leading up to that glorious celebration.  “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Fr. Steven

Beauty in Orthodox Worship

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

"Beauty will save the world."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Last Sunday, the homily focused on the Liturgy, something of a "reminder" of what we are hopefully experiencing as we move from one Lord's Day to the next on our lifelong journey. The Liturgy allows us to experience, here and now, what we hope to experience in a manner beyond understanding and description, in the Kingdom of God. 

I have simultaneously been re-reading a brilliant essay by Archbishop Kallistos Ware entitled, "The Theology of Worship." This is from his collected essays in the book The Inner Kingdom. After speaking of prayer and worship more-or-less on the personal level, he speaks of our prayer and worship in the collective context of the Divine Liturgy. Beauty is essential to Orthodox worship as God is the ultimate Source of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Often, there is a good deal of misunderstanding about the "symbolic" nature of the ritual actions of the Liturgy. Are they really necessary? Would it not be better and "purer" to simplify the Liturgy and dispense with ritual all together. Our whole Tradition responds with a resounding "NO!" Here is a short passage from Archbishop Kallistos as to why the symbolic gestures and ritual of the Liturgy are absolutely essential to its celebration - and to our thirsty souls:

"To an Orthodox Christian it is of the utmost importance that the act of worship should express the joy and beauty eof the Kingdom of heaven. Without the dimension of the beautiful our worship will never succeed in being prayer in the fullest sense, prayer of the heart as well of the reasoning brain. This joy and beauty of the Kingdom cannot be properly expounded in abstract arguments and logical explanations; it has to be experienced not discussed. And it is above all through symbolic and ritual actions - through the burning of incense, through the lighting of a lamp or candle before an icon - that the living experience is rendered possible. These simply gestures express, far better than any words, our whole attitude towards God, all of love and adoration, and without such actions our worship would be grievously impoverished."

The Inner Kingdom, p. 65

The Pattern of our Lives

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

"We must obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29)

In our most recent Bible Study, we read and discussed Ch. 5 of the Acts of the Apostles. There we read that for the second time (the first time is recorded in ch. 4) the apostles were detained or arrested for publicly proclaiming the Gospel that Jesus is the Christ and that He is risen from the dead. The apostles were ordered by the Sanhedrin not to preach openly about Jesus. But the Apostle Peter famously and boldly responded: "We must obey God rather than men" (5:29). 

We went on and heard a passage of commentary from St. John Chrysostom about how this event can be understood in the light of the apostles' and disciples' experience up to that point in time in their newly-established faith in Christ. With his usual insight, St. John reminds us that they have experienced both "dejection" and "joy" in an almost ongoing dialectic between these two very opposite - but very human - experiences. What struck me is to what extent this can describe our own lives and the same movement from dejection to joy that is embedded in the very fabric of our lives. This seems to be an inescapable component of the human experience. Of course, we hope that the joy of knowing, trusting and loving Christ will prevail even when - or especially when - we are overcome by dejection. Here is what St. John wrote:

"First there was dejection because Christ was taken from them; then came joy through the descent of the Spirit; then dejection again because of the scoffers; then joy because of the believers and the sign; then dejection again because of the imprisonment; followed by joy in the result of their defense. And here again both dejection and joy: joy because they were well-known and God made revelations to them; dejection because they made away with some of them. Again, joy from their success and dejection because of the high priest. And the same pattern could be seen throughout.”

HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 12.

Again, sounds just like the pattern of our lives!

Review: ‘Eyes On The Prize’

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

On Sunday, I briefly mentioned in the homily that I recently watched the documentary, "Eyes on the Prize." Below is a piece that I wrote as a kind of review, in case you may be interested. 

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“Eyes on the Prize”

A Review

Presvytera Deborah and I have just completed a remarkable documentary on television called “Eyes On the Prize.” This was made as far back as 1987, but has recently been revived on both PBS and Amazon Prime. It is now considered a “classic.” The documentary is comprised of six one hour segments. “Eyes on the Prize” covers the tumultuous decade of roughly 1955 – 1965, the crucial decade of the Civil Rights movement. The documentary begins with Rosa Park’s courageous stance as a black woman who rode in the white section of a Montgomery, Alabama bus, leading eventually to a massive city-wide boycott by black citizens. The culmination of this early protest movement was the integration of both white and black citizens riding on the bus system as equals. The series comes to a fitting conclusion with President Lyndon Johnson signing into legislation the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a bill that gave African-Americans the full legal status of voting citizens. That it took an entire century for this to happen from the time of the Civil War to 1965 is one of the most baffling and troubling pages in American history.

What is so compelling in “Eyes on the Prize” is the simultaneous coverage of the African American community’s organized drive toward freedom and equality, and the equally determined effort of resistance to this pursuit of freedom by white Americans. It was a struggle of titanic proportions. The documentary’s combination of powerful archival film and the interviews of both freedom fighters and white supremacists was totally captivating. It was like a battle of wills and resources. And it important to state openly that there was nothing remotely resembling “moral equivalency” between the two sides. One side stood on grounds of moral integrity and righteousness; while the other side was mired in an immoral and unrighteous stance.

This decade from the mid-1950’s and its relentless movement into the 1960’s was charged with powerful centrifugal forces as the Civil Rights movement was enmeshed with the polarization caused by the War in Vietnam, and the stretching of accepted boundaries of social and moral discourse - and “lifestyle changes” - caused by the counter-cultural efforts often labeled as the “hippie movement.” For those of us old enough to remember those tense times, we can probably draw some real parallels with our current social and cultural polarization based on the equally intertwined issues of the Covid pandemic, a divisive presidential election, and the revival of the “race question” in America. I am a strong proponent of the position that to understand the present, we must understand the past which has shaped the present. That is why the issues, the achievements and the failures documented in “Eyes on the Prize” have a gripping relevancy to them as we, as Americans, are again grappling with a myriad of similar issues around the “race question.” All this in contemporary America well over a half century after its supposed resolution.

Some of the key events that earn well-documented coverage over the course of six episodes are the following:

• The Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and its aftermath.
• The brutal killing of the black teen Emmet Till and the aftermath of the failed conviction of his killers. Nevertheless, the attention of the nation was drawn to this egregious crime.
• The assassination of Medgar Evers and the killing of three freedom riders (a black man, James Chancey; and two white men, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwemer) in Mississippi).
• The attempted integration and resistance to it of the public school systems and universities in Alabama and Mississippi.
• The tension between the federal government and local state governments in the southern states over racial integration.
• The March on Washington of 1963 with an assembled crowd numbering 250,000 protesters – both black and white - culminating in Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.
• The bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, resulting in the deaths of four young black girls only twenty-three days later.
• Focus on the campaign of young idealistic students – both white and black - to promote voting rights in Mississippi and the violent reaction against this basic civil right of all American citizens.
• The Selma to Montgomery march that caught the attention of the nation as this peaceful protest march resulted in a violent backlash by Southern authorities.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights bill of 1965

The stark contrast between the dignity, courage, perseverance, and sense of the moral rightness of their cause among the black citizens of the South; with the open bigotry, prejudice, violence and hatred of many white Southerners is quite overwhelming throughout the entire course of this documentary. It makes your blood boil. For there is no other word that can describe the violent resistance that white people resorted to in order to thwart this compelling movement for equality before the law, equal dignity among citizens, and a recognition of the humanity of African Americans, than hatred. In interview after interview of white officials – former Alabama governor George Wallace and the infamous Bull Connors being two high-profile examples - one hears an unapologetic defense of racial prejudice that assumes black inferiority.

In fact, it was George Wallace whose blasphemous paraphrase/parody of Hebrews 13:8 – “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” – by publicly stating: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” - most succinctly expressed white resistance to black demands for civil rights. How jarring those words sound today! On the other hand, a nationally-televised audience heard more hopeful words from President Lyndon B. Johnson, shortly before the Voting Rights Act was signed on August 6, 1965: “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome this crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

I would like to explore this dark side of human nature just a bit more, as this really caught our attention. There is no denial that hatred remains as real as it is irrational. Of course, the violence unleashed on the “Negro” (though an inappropriate term today, this was the accepted term at that time for African American citizens), was very disturbing. Besides the assassination of key Civil Rights figures, such as Medgar Evers, the three freedom riders and others (with no one ever convicted for these crimes), culminating in the sickening bombing of a black church in which four young black girls were killed; together with countless beatings, the attacks of vicious dogs and the turning of fire hoses on black demonstrators (including children); there is image after image caught on camera  of white faces distorted and twisted by hatred – men, women and young adults – as they hurl their usual racial epithets at peacefully marching black people. When Dr. King experienced this same hatred “up north” during a protest march in Chicago for fair and equal-housing opportunities for black citizens, he found it both shocking and intimidating. The questions that inevitably arise are: Just where does such hatred come from? How do law-abiding and church-going citizens mercilessly beat and hate other human being because of the color of their skin? How is such hatred passed down from generation to generation? Is it about power, or the fear of the “other?”

I miss the Christian dimension of this past Civil Rights movement compared to today, for it was the teaching of Christ, a firm belief that God blesses a righteous cause, and the capacity to endure pain in the practice of non-violent resistance, that was clearly a testament to the Christian faith that was so eloquently presented by Dr. Martin Luther King, and practiced by young black men and women with such fortitude. I think this documentary could have focused more attention precisely on the role of the “black Church” and its leaders in both promoting and fighting for racial equality. Prayer and effective sermonizing played huge roles in inspiring that generation of Civil Rights proponents. I would have also wanted to see some further examination of “white churches” in the South. To what extent did they abide or resist the surrounding bigotry, perhaps from their actual parishioners?  There exists an unresolvable tension between the Gospel and racial bigotry. How was that tension handled by white pastors, ministers and preachers?

As taught and practiced within the Civil Rights movement, non-violence was an effective reaction to white hatred and bigotry. The black leaders studied the methods of Ghandi and did their best to implement them into the American context of a segregated South. We have to appreciate the discipline and courage of the protestors who knew that they were going to be beaten and perhaps killed in this context. This was captured on film when black protestors sat at  “white only” lunch counters in North Carolina. These young people were ripped from their chairs, thrown to the floor and beaten as the police stood my in passive complicity with this expression of mob violence. Hard not to be impressed! There is some interesting archival footage of the training sessions these young black protesters underwent, together with their white supporters.

“Eyes on the Prize” also documents the growing tension between the leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – the first president of which was Dr. Martin Luther King - and the Students Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC). It was the more youthful leadership of SNCC that began to challenge the principle of non-violence consistently taught by Dr. King throughout his life. After so much violence inflicted upon the protesters, the effectiveness of non-violence resistance was proving to be far too weak for many in the movement.  Stokely Carmichael was the leading voice from SNCC whose fiery rhetoric led to the “Black Power” movement that would culminate in the formation of such groups as the Black Panthers.

James Baldwin once famously said: “History is not the past. History is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.” To even begin to understand the troubling issue of “race relations” or “racial (in)equality” in the present moment in our society, one must have an informed grasp of the entire history of slavery in America; the Civil War; Reconstruction; Jim Crow segregation; and the Civil Rights Movement of roughly 1955-1965. “Eyes on the Prize” will offer a documentary that will at least fully inform you of the more recent Civil Rights Movement. There are heroes and there are villains. There are moments of intensity and brutality. And there are moments of overwhelming sadness – the murder of the four black girls in Montgomery, AL, is gut-wrenching and heartbreaking. Yet, there are moments of lofty inspiration, of soaring rhetoric in which one hears the words of the biblical prophets, and of undaunted and inextinguishable courage that are deeply moving. The power of a righteous cause is as compelling as unrighteous resistance is repellent.

The Civil Rights movement of 1955-1965 has to be considered the greatest social movement in American history. It was truly a battle for “the soul of America.” For those of us who lived through those years, this documentary is a worthwhile backward glance that reminds us that the struggle for human dignity exists at the most basic level of human existence. For those born after the Civil Rights movement in need of historical context to better understand what is going on today, and to perhaps be inspired by youthful and purposeful idealism, “Eyes on the Prize” will prove to be a worthy primer. 

Fr. Steven