Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Seraphim's avatar

Personally speaking, when I used to focus on the “news” I noticed it was far worse than a distraction. It was a turning away from God in that I could not be focused on both God and worldly distractions. I could not flip from this piece of news to that on the internet or with an tv and maintain the tension needed for a prayerful life. Almost always, when I put the iPad down and went to pray the iPad things of the day rushed into the prayer. I started asking myself, “if I can’t focus on God here, what am I focusing on?” The answer to that is explained in almost all of the Church Fathers. I have a friend who is very much involved in the church, yet every conversation is about the news of the day. I asked him once why he was so focused on what the devil was doing while God was waiting for him. I’m certainly not suggesting I’ve succeeded in completely turning it off, but the more these kinds of questions come to me, the easier it becomes to continue on the “no mas” trajectory. This is a big question for me lately: At the end of the day we’re struggling for salvation. What do we think that will consist of? News, fancy cars, careers, fat 401k balances, steak dinners out? No, likely not. Then why do we spend so much time on these things now instead of spending all of our time here trying to achieve a small piece of what heaven will truly be if we truly want to spend eternity doing that? God is here every second of our lives waiting for us to make the turn…

Expand full comment
Dionysi's avatar

Dear, in Christ, Jack…and others:

I wrote the following tract over 20 years ago, and is a bit long to qualify as a comment; forgive me. I post it because it occurs to me that it may point to the problem. Not the particular catastrophe that you address in this essay, but the more basic one that is its cause, and that you speak of in your other work. It also suggests the only ‘solution’ that in my 75 yrs I have found that makes any sense. It is certainly not new, let alone ‘original;’ it has been around since the Desert: The only way ‘Out’ is the way ‘In.’ May we all find it…in a hurry…I’m afraid time is not on our side.

Love in XC,

Dcn Dionysi

St. Benedict Orthodox Church (Western Rite)

Wichita Falls, Texas

A Case of Mistaken Identity… or,

We don’t know who we really are…

“… ascetics found that metanoia represented not the loss of ... freedom, but the exploitation of its highest promise. Far from repression of the personality, remembrance of God precipitated its transcendent refinement, as freedom from fear replaced subservience to sin.”

What is the precise relationship between fear and sin? Fear is the natural state of the self/I, understood as the autonomous self. I is a wanting thing; it wants forever because it is forever insufficient. This insufficiency is held for the most part, unconsciously, so is not often recognized as the crippling deficit it is. It does, however, carry with it an explicit experience: a species of fear – a general disposition of unease and discontentment…experienced along a continuum from vague to acute - for it intuitively recognizes that it is not up to the task of satisfying the want that echoes within.

It fears because it is essentially empty. In that sense it could be said to be vain, the root meaning of vanity being emptiness; it can generate nothing from within itself. It necessarily must direct its attention outward, to the world around it…an attention consciously experienced as want…to yield the outcome it desires. In the sense that it must take what it needs from something external to itself, it is parasitic. The fear that is already a fundamental aspect of the autonomous self is exacerbated by the uncertainty of the world upon which it must place its demand: “Will it come through?” “Can I find what I need?” “Do I have what it takes to get it?” Such considerations constantly plague the insufficient self and fuel the intensity of the search.

To say that the autonomous self is empty, while true enough, does not do justice to the perniciousness of the condition. Empty implies the possibility of being filled. Self cannot be filled because it is ultimately not anything that has a limit that can be reached. It cannot even properly be called it, for the word itself implies an eventual boundary. The emptiness of self is infinite, its anti-existence total, which is why it is experienced as insatiable by the one trying to fill it by the wants it demands. It is the emptiness of a lie and has no more reality. The autonomous self is, in fact, THE LIE (Genesis 3:4-5…’…ye shall not surly die…ye shall be as gods…’) that gives birth to all other lies; therein is its direct relationship to evil.

Of all the words associated or synonymous with Empty (vain; futile; worthless; vacant; valueless, etc.) all of which shed some light on it, perhaps the most powerful description is more colloquial in nature, as when we say empty to mean hungry. In such a sense, it then becomes more of what the actual experience of it suggests: that it is beyond simply a neutral, passive emptiness waiting to be filled. Experienced as hunger, it takes on an organic and active quality, parasitic and bestial in nature, that demands vitality from its host. Unless it is interrupted…the case of mistaken identity uncovered and cast off, and true identity recovered … it will lead to eventual and inevitable spiritual death. A recurring line from the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete speaks to it:

“… may I not become the food and possession of the enemy.” (Song 4: 23,25,26,27)

Expand full comment
35 more comments...

No posts