"We have created a situation where it is possible for ordinary people to casually and without malice kill innocent lives. If we return to the three ethical questions, namely how ships can avoid bumping into each other, how they can internally stay shipshape, and what destination they are meant to reach, we are seeing terrible collisions that sink ships because unrestrained and trusting use of cell phones has devastated what little was left of their being shipshape."
How Can I Take My Life Back From My Phone? A Guidebook for Orthodox and Others is about pursuing life outside of technology. It is highly recommended reading for any modern person who would link theological thinking to the dilemmas of managing modern devices that both distract and offer a form of engagement that's often the antithesis of spiritual reflection.
What do ethical and religious questions have to do with technological use? They translate more reasoned purpose into device usage, creating a dialogue that stems from Hayward's exploration of "What kind of guidance would someone like St. John Chrysostom offer in using technology, if our technology were around in his day?"
From philosophical and historical citation and reflection to guidelines for employing technology in a more positive, purposeful manner that doesn't put it in the driver's seat of decision-making, Hayward provides a thought-provoking discourse that will especially lend to book club and discussion group pursuit.
Chapters tackle everything from Internet porn to missed connections and the altered states of mind and soul created by addiction to all kinds of screens: "He asked me if I had ever observed that an hour after seeing a movie, I felt depressed. I had not made any connection of that sort, even if now it seems predictable from the pleasure-pain syndrome. Now I very rarely see movies, precisely because the special effects and other such tweaks are stronger than I am accustomed to seeing; they go like a stiff drink to the head of the teetotaler. The little pleasures of life are lost on someone used to a rising standard of special effects, and the little pleasures of life are more wholesome than special effects."
This is because he links a modern social, psychological, and spiritual issue to guidelines on how better to take charge of that technological lure that too often creates in its user an emotional and spiritual void.
These topics wind neatly into Biblical passages, analytical reflections on the Word of God, and notes and footnoted references to a wide range of religious thinking that contrasts nicely with the ethical and spiritual topics under consideration.
Hayward also adds autobiographical notes into the inspection. This personalizes his citations and the experiences of loosening technology's allure and distractions.
The result is both a how-to guide and a spiritual work of Christian Orthodoxy which holds the rare power to reach beyond Orthodox audiences alone and into the general public. This topic should hold widespread interest, and ideally will be debated and discussed among many circles.
I'd like to offer a few words about the books of Archimandrite Zacharias, disciple of St. Sophrony, disciple of St. Silouan, and I would like to tell you about my favorite of his leitmotifs, but there is something more basic I would like to appreciate first.
C.S. Lewis said in his writing that reading George MacDonald's Phantastes had baptized his imagination. Archimandrite Zacharias's books do not aim at imaginative fantasy, or imaginative nonfiction for that matter, but they have helped me to want better and want Orthodox monasticism. They baptized my personal hopes and desires, so to speak.
I have identified with, and wanted to be like, various characters in literature: Charles Wallace Murry and Blajeny in Madeleine l'Engle's A Wind in the Door, Merlin in C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength and in Steven Lawhead's Merlin, and others. I have taken seriously what St. Ignatius's The Arena says that Met. KALLISTOS is so quick to offer embarrassed apologies for: the fact that people, having read a novel, want their life to be like their life in the novel.
I have also had such identification with saints in the Orthodox Church: St. Philaret the Merciful, for instance, and it has been said that when Orthodox faithful take interest in a saint, that saint has taken interest in that faithful. But even beyond St. Philaret, Archimandrite has helped me understand more completely what a monk is (though I may never fully know this side of Heaven), and desire a monk's ascetical feat: identifying with, and representing, "all Adam," the entire human race, before God. The priest (whether married or monastic) has a job of representing God to his flock and his flock to God; in Orthodoxy most monks are not also priests, but there is something equally significant in identifying with, and representing, all Adam before God. All sins are cosmic sins like those of Adam, but if a monk repents, that repentance is of cosmic significance, and monastic and non-monastic saints' repentance sustains the world.
One leitmotif
One leitmotif of Archimandrite Zacharias is that of the "inverted pyramid." Men are arranged into upper and lower classes, and those in power lord it over those without power. Christ represents an inverted pyramid, where he is at the very bottom before the entire weight of the pyramid above him, and above him various ranks of angels sustain Creation, and above them all are the human race.
One specific and practical feature of the inverted pyramid is that if we seek to go down, Satan cannot go with us. Satan wished a throne above God's, and he can go with us whenever we desire more status, more prestige, more human honor. He can go with us if we desire to go above others. But he cannot go with us if we seek to go down, serve others, and serve more like the Servant of all Servants who went even to the depths of Hell to save us.
There is much in these books that is presently over my head, and I want to reread all of Archimandrite Zacharias's books sometime. However, the idea of Christ at the very nadir of the inverted pyramid, and that Satan can never go with us if we go down, is a treasure and a word that has stuck with me. I suffer, like many, from wishing more honor, and not always out of pride. Human honor can serve instrumental purposes that do not amount to pride. But if we seek to go down, if I seek to go down, it is beyond the devil's power to accompany us. He can accompany us well enough when we want honor, but not when we seek to empty ourselves in a participation of Christ's own self-emptying and descending to the depths of Hell to save all Adam.
This is a couple of paragraph's work taken from many profitable volumes of reading, and it cannot but fall short of a worthy account of Archimandrite Zacharias's offering. However, I cannot but thank Archimandrite Zacharias for mediating to me a word that the devil cannot go with us if we go down, and more than that, to baptizing my desires and helping me want to be a monk as much as I have wanted to be like any character in literature.
I was given a ride recently for a hospital visit over an hour away. I thanked the friend and postulant (beginner at an Orthodox monastery). He commented that he liked being with me, because I was very calm and calming to be around. That was exquisite politeness, but it was not flattery. Another postulant, my godson, commented that he liked being around me because he hoped some of my calm would rub off. The thought occurred to me that I might write down some of what I have learned about keeping one's calm, and send a link to both postulants. As I told them, some of my calm is hard-won, and I wanted to talk about what to do that might win it.
I do not believe the Law of Attraction as formulated in New Age to be desirable, but there is a Little Law of Attraction that is worth its proverbial weight in gold. The Little Law of Attraction is that if you think thoughts of peace, you will get more and bigger thoughts of peace, and if you think thoughts of anger, you will get more and bigger thoughts of anger, and conflict with it. If we keep our mind on our circumstances, we will be dragged into a Hell on earth. If we focus on the Lord, we will have peace and a Heaven on earth. Thus I would summarize the better parts of Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives by Elder Thaddeus, which also says that we have an incredibly beautiful sensitivity to the thoughts of others, and pick up on what they are feeling. This is part of why my deep calm was calming to the others. Furthermore, even if we do not realize it, we have a choice whether to be dominated by the anger of others. My understanding, not having read the book, is that this is the same freedom discussed in Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and the latter may be a better starting point. We may not recognize our freedom here, and it comes in a brief window, but we have a choice. Addicts are told, "You have more power than you think," and the power can be exercised in this short window.
That choice is in continuity with nipsis or the spiritual watchfulness of the Philokalia, which on this point I would summarize as follows. If there is a spark that can become a flame in your house, you can put it out before it becomes a proper flame. If it does become a proper flame, you can put it out before it spreads with a fire extinguisher, but this is worse than just putting out the spark. If it becomes a flame that is too big to put out with a fire extinguisher, and spreads through your house, if you leave with your life you can call the fire department and you may have the flame put out then, and get insurance to help, but it is better to put it out with a fire extinguisher than wait until it is too big for a fire extinguisher. There are several ways to escape with your life, but the earlier in the process you stop it, the better, and the least harm it will cause you. If you put out what is still just a spark when it is still just a spark, the entire remainder of the damaging process of a house fire is avoided.
For an Arthurian image, be like the Fisher-King, in a boat on the waters, watching with a spear to stab fish in the water. And there is something further I would like to point out: the Fisher-King is wounded through the thighs, meaning he is wounded between the thighs, and of a damaged virility.
The biggest attack on manhood in the recent past is porn. Porn is, to quote Proverbs, "in the beginning as sweet as honey, and in the end bitter as gall and sharp as a double-edged sword." Lust is the disenchantment of the entire universe, which disenchants everything else, and then disenchants itself. The only goal of lust is more lust, and porn is nothing more than an advertisement for more porn. Furthermore, what men do after looking at porn is an ultimate exploitation of the model, using her unhappy performance just as a tool to spark... if you have this struggle, and most men today do, think about what is really going on. And lust is cruel; it generates anger whenever it is not getting a "fix", and it is a great enemy to inner peace.
I mention this point, which may seem none of my business, because really the whole Sermon on the Mount relates to calm. Lust and porn are an enemy to calm, and worth getting free of. The Sermon on the Mount does not just help us reach calm when it touches on stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger's "We suffer more in imagination than in reality," and says not to borrow trouble from tomorrow because "each day has enough trouble as its own." Trying to solve the rest of your life's problems on a day's resources is a gateway to something truly hellish, and worry does nothing but hurt us: "Do you think you can add a single hour to your life by worrying? You might as well try to worry your way into being a foot taller!"
Another point in the Sermon on the Mount has to do with love for enemies. Love for enemies was something I knew to be important growing up, but I did not really know how. My struggles with remembering wrongs others had done against me (a sin by the way—and nothing merry!), became markedly better when I was able to thank God for them. St. Silouan and the writing of St. Silouan's disciple St. Sophrony and St. Sophrony's disciple Archimandrite Zacharias were tremendously helpful in helping me let go of an onerous burden of remembering all the bad things that had happened to me. They also underscore something important: how much you love your enemies is a litmus test for how far you love God, so love for enemies is not just one issue among others. We should not be angry to those who wrong us, but love and pity them for bringing occasion for our suffering. Innocent suffering is a sharing in the sufferings of Christ, and the Sermon on the Plain bids you leap for joy when you are badly treated because of Christ. However, the principle applies to undeserved suffering.
There was a student who worked in my department's office, who talked about having butterflies in her stomach about a shortly upcoming dance performance. I gave permission to offer a word of advice, and I asked her, "Is there a person, or a place, or a memory that is pleasant to think about to you?" She said that yes, there was such a thing. I said that she had practiced and the only thing remaining was to do the performance, and I told her, "I want you to think about that until the performance." Counting your blessings, and being grateful for all that God and other people have given you, is a recipe for joy, and it was more in reach than my telling her not to worry: yes, that is what I wanted, but on her resources, how? If some of what I said above is too much for you now, it may be an easier task to be mindful of your blessings. It has been said that in prayer we should not have very good thoughts but no thoughts, but that's a more advanced lesson. Even if St. Silouan and his spiritual progeny have something better, developing gratitude is a recipe for joy, and it is something else that we can do to try to push out remembrance of wrongs others have done against us.
When I was studying theology and things were getting rough, there was a period of about two or three weeks when I was stressed to the point of uninterrupted waking nausea. Part of it was triggered by a questionable decision a doctor made with my medication, but the heart of my worry was, "Will there be a place for me?" And there has been a place: I was at my parents' house, and then now at this monastery where I am trying to grow up. I am retired on disability. Now the question may come of, "But inflation is taking off," to which I would say, "The Bible never says, 'Lack of money is the root of all evil.'" Most of the original recipients of the Sermon on the Mount was addressed to the poor and downtrodden in what would today be considered a third world economy. As the cliché goes, "I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but I know Who brings tomorrow." Possibly changes in the economy will result in, or rather trigger my death, but I have never in my life gone to bed knowing that I would wake up the following morning. I do not see my death as really negotiable, unless I live to Christ's return, and I would recall a joke where a husband and wife came to Heaven and the husband told his wife, "We could have been here several years earlier if you hadn't cooked such healthy food!" Death is not to be feared, just death outside of repentance, death outside of obedience to the Lord, and the Lord can see that there is a place to me even if I die tomorrow.
There is an old Protestant hymn that says,
Keep your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in his wonderful face,
And the things of this world will grow strangely dim,
In the light of his glory and grace.
My abbot underscores a short maxim of "Never react. Never resent. Keep inner peace." The intent of this posting is not to offer something better, but to offer an aid how. And if you want low-hanging fruit, try to let go of worry and trying to solve tomorrow's problems on today's resources, and start trying to push such thoughts out of your heart by giving them competition in terms of active remembrance of every good blessing God has given you in your entire life. And maybe read e.g. God the Spiritual Father or better the whole collection in Happiness in an Age of Crisis, which includes God the Spiritual Father and several other relevant pieces.
One of my friends said, "Star Wars is my life," and talked about having his father be the best pilot in the galaxy.
I have some real resonance for C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength. I have come to an odd and eclectic family, a "St. Anne's Company", headed by a Ransom (more than a philologist, His Eminence Metropolitan JONAH).
Where is Merlin? That could be me, and let me explain.
There are three or four characters in literature I was strongly drawn to before becoming Orthodox: Charles Wallace of Madeleine l'Engle, A Wind in the Door, and later Blajeny from the same book; then Michael Valentine Smith of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. And there was something toxic in my identification with each.
I asked one brilliant friend if he knew of any good treatments of gifted children in literature besides A Wind in the Door, and he mentioned Stephen Lawhead's Merlin, and partway through reading it I went from wishing for such spectacular manifestations of awen to "We both belong to the same college!"
A standard distinction between flat and rounded characters in literature is that a rounded character believably surprises the reader. In C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, Merlin comes awfully close to delivering nothing but believable surprises, and he is riveting. He is described, not as a figure from the ?5th? century, but as "the last survival in the ?5th? century of something much older", and while you could then "still do some things innocently, you couldn't do it safely."
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and somewhere in there a sorceror's bargain slips in. "Give me your soul, and I will give you power," but under the circumstances it is not you who have the power. Count distracted parenting, where moms glued to mobile devices are pushing strollers in front of cars. My magnum opus is The Luddite's Guide to Technology, in which, instead of Merlin being told "You can't do that today," I am saying "You can't do that today."
And as far as believable surprises, one of my monastic brotherhood asked, with a warm smile, "Are you from another planet?" He sung a tune, and I said something about newer music. He said it was from ZZ Top in the 70's, and I said that I meant as the centuries go by.
More is perhaps to be said, but I wish to move on.
Here, I have been blessed to read Archimandrite Zacharias (Zachariou), and it talks about the cosmic nature of monastic repentance. He describes giant saints who have extended the life of the world. While this monastery may not have any epic saints or any saints at all, if the world does not end it will be due to the repentance of those today, and the college of Orthodox monasticism may do the job of little St. Anne's overcoming the hideous strength of Lewis's "N.I.C.E." And I am glad to be approaching membership in that team.
New Testament
The analogy could be pushed still further (see the Christmas homily in The Sign of the Grail about how the figure of Merlin, deepened and enriched, becomes an image of Christ, but I do not wish to do so. In things that are truly great, a man may be asked to give up even the motives that led him into seeking something truly great.
I have learned instead a better understanding of what a monk is. A monk identifies with all Adam, and repents for all Adam, and this is a cosmic act, even as each sin is a cosmic act that repeats Adam's sin. The priest is responsible for representing God to his flock and his flock to God, while the monk is a representative of the human race.
The beloved St. Seraphim of Sarov echoed St. Isaac the Syrian: "Make peace with yourself and Heaven and earth will make peace with you." "Save yourself and ten thousand around you will be saved." And this is not primarily through the unlawful, to a monk, means of human struggling, but with a wholehearted flight to God.
The flipside of needing to sacrifice even the motives that led me to monasticism is that monasticism holds treasures I had not even guessed at before approaching monasticism, and a coincidence of similarity to being in a C.S. Lewis novel is an utter consolation prize to the feast I have been invited to and participate, if in the smallest way, to saving the world.
This much is written with heavy use of the discursive reason as applied to divine topics, and true monasticism has the heart hold all things and discursive reason be a sun next to the moon of the heart or spiritual eye. And even this description is dust and ashes next to the realities tasted in monasticism, and many which I am far from tasting even yet.
This "New Testament" is an "Old Testament" next to the realities of the spiritual struggle, the spiritual path, in monasticism.
There's advice I've given to a few people, and I'd like to post it here.
The "Chrysostom" in "St. John Chrysostom" is Greek for "Golden-Mouth," and St. John indeed did have a golden mouth. St. John Chrysostom is a great preacher for a good dose of clear thinking about life's struggles, and I encourage readers to read The Complete Works of St. John Chrysostom (cross-linked to the Bible).
Only there is one clarification I would give.
St. John represents a prolific writer, with his writing filling half a dozen volumes in the standard collection.
Don't weary yourself by trying to read him cover to cover.
Instead, just wait until you are "hungry," spiritually, then read St John Chrysostom only until you are "full," and set the collection down. Digest the material, and then wait until you are "hungry" again to pick him up. And then read more, but again only until you are "full." And let the cycle repeat.
There was one LinkedIn conversation that was bigger than what I realized. One man asked a question of how to handle the fact that he was not in a position to advance professionally and had no meaningful freedom.
I suggested something like,
Let's look at a position where you have as little freedom as possible, and ask if there can be any meaningful freedom. You can probably think of some pretty gruesome examples; I would like to look at Nazi concentration camps and ask, "Is there any way to have real freedom in a Nazi concentration camp?"
One person who answered "Yes"to that question was Victor Frankl, Jewish psychiatrist and Nazi concentration camp survivor who wrote Man's Search for Meaning."
If you are not in a position to advance professionally and don't see yourself as having any real freedom, you are in an excellent position to profit from Man's Search for Meaning."
(I've got to read the book directly and not just be going off of other people's summaries!)
That hit a nerve, although my correspondent was in every sense gracious. I was unwittingly corresponding with the Jewish son of a Jewish survivor of Hitler's concentration camps, and seared by the stories. There was nothing academic to him in the example I chose. He was very gentle about his response, and he was appreciative at my suggestion that if he was in the position he said he was in, he had a great deal of meaningful freedom, and perhaps at my pointer to Man's Search for Meaning.
The core point attributed to Frankl is that we do not automatically go from stimulus to response; we go from stimulus to free choice to response, even if we are unaware of our birthright. Such an insight is also at the core of the Philokalia of the Niptic Fathers, with "nipsis" referring to an inner spiritual watchfulness. It is something like the core of what classical Buddhism has to offer as well. My dear Abbot condensed it to one line. He has said and underscored, "Never react. Never resent. Keep inner stillness."
Enjoying the here and now is a choice. Our surroundings may seem like something to escape, but that is a spiritual trap, the core response in the Philokalia being to just keep on praying until the "demon of noonday" has passed. It is a crushing experience, but over time we can learn to crush it.
Most of our surroundings are beautiful, but we can become immune to the beauty of a wooden floor, an off-white wall. But we can choose to be awake to this beauty to which we have fallen asleep. We can choose to be grateful, and by the way positive psychology is squarely on target that we should be grateful for. Mindfulness also helps; it used to be considered "paying attention" and part of politeness to the boomers, and we are seeking mindfulness from the East because we have rejected it in the West. But gratitude and mindfulness are both choices, as is enjoying beauty. A Russian proverb answers the questions by saying, "When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?" with, "There is only one important time, and that time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the One Who is standing at your side." Today this is recognized as profound mindfulness. It is still also manners at their best, and something that goes beyond manners.
There is also what St. John Chrysostom referred to as "healing an eye". Lust, classic Fathers say, has the characteristic of a lion who looks at a deer and sees only meat. And, perhaps I might add, meat that is rarely enough and does not engender any form of permanent satisfaction. It has been called the disenchantment of the entire universe. But a man looking at a woman has a choice to see an integral and beautiful whole: a spirit adorned with a body and a body adorned with clothing. C.S. Lewis, telling an imagined story with the saints in paradise in The Great Divorce, said,
Long after that I saw people coming to meet us. Because they were bright I saw them when they were still very distant, and at first I did not know they were people at all. Mile after mile they grew nearer. The earth shook under their tread as their strong feet sank into the wet turf. A tiny haze and a sweet smell went up where they had crushed the grass and scattered the dew. Some were naked, some robed. But the naked ones did not seem less adorned, and the robes did not disguise in those who wore them the massive grandeur of muscle and the radiant smoothness of flesh.
We are not ready for such things now and C.S. Lewis offered only an imagination. Or, if you prefer Wendy Shalit's A Return to Modesty, we can be "naked and bored." But there is great deal of benefit in seeing an integrated whole, a spirit adorned with a body and a body adorned with clothing.
More broadly though, our healed eyes can sense beauty, and in rough circumstances, bleeding and in an ER, I know one who was able to see the beauty of a hospital curtain and wait in satisfaction.
It is not easy. But counselors tell those fighting various addictions, "You have more power than you think." Nipsis or spiritual watchfulness extinguishes sparks before they become a fire. If your house is on fire you can call the fire department, and they may salvage surprisingly much. If your chair is on fire a fire extinguisher may see that a fire that started on a chair, stays only with that chair. But the best option is to stomp out the first spark before it has set the rug on fire. Or if I may take the bull by the hand to mix metaphors, don't go near the bait; just ignore it and let it pass by.
Never react. Never resent. Keep inner stillness.
Happiness in the here and now is a choice, and we have more power than most of us think. When there is a little spark, dash it against the rock. But the metaphor is strained because the best solution is not to engage it and not give it the fuel of your attention.
Happiness is also a by-product of what positive psychology calls "the meaningful life," and there are other things to being healthy in your heart of hearts and having a good condition. A healthy (such as Paleo) diet / exercise / sleep can also make a big difference. But the biggest difference is always in our heart of hearts. Part of that is that we can savor the here and now and be aware of its beauty.
Anytown, USA (DP). Placebos have a long and well-documented history of bringing hope and healing, enough so that drug companies making serious medical trials work hard to neutralize the effects that would otherwise contaminate their research findings, possibly by a fair margin.
A passionate homemaker explains.
In Lewis Caroll’s children’s books, we find a clearly articulated principle that words can do more work as long as they’re adequately compensated. ‘Vaccine’ has been cleverly redefined so that it now includes not only inoculation from a weakened or dead bacterial culture, but also an experimental genetic therapy whose long term effects are not only unknown but scarcely even guessed at. And a placebo is the kind of thing that will work almost for free.
A philosopher of science comments further.
When DDT came out, it stopped an epidemic in its tracks, and equally stopped the lingering menace of malaria that was killing more US soldiers in Vietnam than anything else. After these coups, a pesticide that is highly effective at killing insects and is still not known to cause any serious or direct harm to humans was unimpeachable as something which you could not seriously criticize in any public setting.
Peter Kreeft commented that the prophet sees through a glass, darkly, but the archivist sees through a microscope, sharply. In retrospect there was some serious “philosophical noise,” a faint societal and philosophical static, that we should have heeded but didn’t. Just a few lone naturalists noticed that the frogs in the creeks weren’t singing, and then they noticed fish kill, too, but great DDT was not the sort of thing one could fault for a problem. You could not speak ill of DDT!
Here and now we have philosophical noise at the scale of an out-of-control rock concert. It is, as chivalric literature would say, “passing strange” that FEMA so much wants to cook the books that they’re actually offering a $9,000 bribe if a death certificate says a COVID death. It is also passing illiberal that Americans who need a heart transplant are taken off the wait list entirely if they refuse to be fully injected. Or that diabetics who decline injections once presented as optional are being deprived of treatment that will prevent purely preventable amputation of their feet. Or employers mandatory vaccine requirement for remote employees who never have and never intend to set foot on an employer’s campus. Or…
Vaccines are safe, or at least that’s what it said on one propaganda sheet meant to quell public hysteria. But why then, not long after being even partially vaccinated, did I have blood clotting that would be fatal if untreated, and why did I have to be put on “the Cadillac of blood thinners” which meant that a bad cut could cause me to bleed to death and left the ER asking of my bleeding what had happened when a four by four inch gauze pad was soaked in less than an hour, with my blood dripping on the floor?
“So,” said a grassroots community organizer,
We’re beyond rock concert levels of noise. It’s a “WTF?” in 15 foot high blinking neon. But there’s something else at play. If a word can be redefined after it was taking traction that experimental and untested COVID gene therapy injections simply were not meaningfully vaccines, they decided to redefine “vaccine” to include experimental gene therapy and make “vaccine” and “vax” the word of the year.
The precedent has been set, and now we are redefining “vaccine” at a grass level to the time-tested remedy of a saline placebo: an injection along with the doctor saying “Here is an injection based on a time-tested and powerful principle. Congratulations! You are now fully vaccinated!”
An armchair historian mused:
2022, also callable as 2020 Part Deux, looks like quite a year. We’ve come a long way since The Medieval Experience: Foundations of Western Cultural Singularity developed cubism, for instance, within a generation. Now we seem to be in a Kali-yuga, and things which would have been astonishing in a generation are happening within a year, on top of a financial crisis that escapes by the year. We’ve left the comparably merry “decade from Hell” in the dust… Islamic ascendency, BLM, new installments of demographics that have to be in a politically correct picture, gay marriage, transgender in the limelight, friends forbidden physical affection such as hugs to try and fight COVID, injections, needing booster shots and being told “not to have a false sense of security” just because you’re fully vaccinated—we’ve left cubism in the dust. And in six months to a year, maybe less, people may be able to date my words closely by key new features of the future landscape cannot now even hint at. (Is the Antichrist out yet? Or are we just working on a Matrixy realization that we are “already in the Metaverse?”)
Today is kind of like you’re a little kid and you’ve been engaged in playing outside in the snow and your parents make you come in, and it stings and you don’t want to come in however much you want. You don’t realize how frozen and numb you are until you are shocked by the pain.
And all this without a discussion of whether Romans 1 applies today.
A skeptic in the crowd asked, “Do you think a simple change in words will help?” And a monastic aspirant answered:
The people in power certainly expect as much, and it bothered them that they were losing a debate about whether COVID injections really were in fact vaccines at all. But come, let us dig deeper.
I am at a monastery now, and one hieromonk early on explained that the monastery was trying to act on the problems that I tried to document in The Seraphinians: "Blessed Seraphim Rose" and His Axe-Wielding Western Converts. He explained to me how Protestants were coming with questions that were perfectly respectful, appropriate, mature and so on. Perhaps the deliberate example he gave was an outsider's question, but not a bad question for a respectful outsider to be asking. And they are getting harassed and blasted to smithereens by axe-wielding Western converts.
And what the monastery is trying to do is provide a more wholesome alternative: a social network among other things, but a social network, run by Orthodox Christians, specifically not designed to be addictive, nor to sell advertising, but to serve the genuine interests of its members. The email account they provide is specifically intended to protect your privacy, as is the site as a whole. There is a $5 a month charge to cover costs, so we can serve it without ads.
The network is called oKyrios, Greek for "the Lord," and you can support me by creating an account at at https://lavra.okyrios.org?aff=CJSHayward. After you have created an account, you can log in at okyrios.org.
If you have not already joined, I invite you to do so.
I would, however, like to recommend using some of the lessons learned from Facebook. Like, for instance, the people who enjoy Facebook most are those who dip in and out quickly, not people who languish in depression, from others' happy posts, for hours. If you're going to use the social aspects of oKyrios, do so in limited moderation.
Besides social aspects, oKyrios has for instance a radio stations, a schooling system and recordings of bishops and other leaders offering really good lectures. About the lectures, which eclipse my own offerings, I would say this: Listen to one lecture and then stop for the day. Let it sink in; let it mingle with silence. This is not because I have any real concern about the lectures being anything but excellent, but one lecture sinking in is a good thing. An intravenous drip of noise is not a good thing, and that's true even if the intravenous drip of noise is an intravenous drip of some of the best Orthodox lectures you'll find anywhere on the web.
If you are not familiar with Humane Tech, at very least read their "Take Control" page, and apply its lessons to getting the best out of oKyrios. Consider setting a 15 minute timer and only stay on oKyrios for those 15 minutes.
You can get much better results from online services by making and following deliberate decisions, than if you just do whatever is easiest.
oKyrios is a wonderful resource, and all the better if you use it well!
My conclusion is incorrect because I was judging Matthieu Pageau’s work by the standards of patristic theology. He is in fact not writing patristic theology and not attempting to write patristic theology; his work as reflected in this book represents a handmaiden of theology, as good philosophy has (also) been called, and it is quite a helpful handmaiden at that.
The book reads well given that adjustment and clarification.
Great Expectations
“I am a star at rest, my daughter,” answered Ramandu. “When I set for the last time, decrepit and old beyond all that you can reckon, I was carried to this island. I am not so old now as I was then. Every morning a bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys in the Sun, and each fire-berry takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as the child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again (for we are at earth’s eastern rim) and once more tread the great dance.”
“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.“
The reader is now thinking about evolution. He is wondering whether Genesis 1 is right, and evolution is simply wrong, or whether evolution is right, and Genesis 1 is a myth that may be inspiring enough but does not actually tell how the world was created.
All of this is because of a culture phenomenally influenced by scientism and science. The theory of evolution is an attempt to map out, in terms appropriate to scientific dialogue, just what organisms occurred, when, and what mechanism led there to be new kinds of organisms that did not exist before. Therefore, nearly all Evangelicals assumed, Genesis 1 must be the Christian substitute for evolution. Its purpose must also be to map out what occurred when, to provide the same sort of mechanism. In short, if Genesis 1 is true, then it must be trying to answer the same question as evolution, only answering it differently.
Darwinian evolution is not a true answer to the question, “Why is there life as we know it?” Evolution is on philosophical grounds not a true answer to that question, because it is not an answer to that question at all. Even if it is true, evolution is only an answer to the question, “How is there life as we know it?” If someone asks, “Why is there this life that we see?” and someone answers, “Evolution,” it is like someone saying, “Why is the kitchen light on?” and someone else answering, “Because the switch is in the on position, thereby closing the electrical circuit and allowing current to flow through the bulb, which grows hot and produces light.”
Where the reader only sees one question, an ancient reader saw at least two other questions that are invisible to the present reader. As well as the question of “How?” that evolution addresses, there is the question of “Why?” and “What function does it serve?” These two questions are very important, and are not even considered when people are only trying to work out the antagonism between creationism and evolutionism.
I was enthusiastically introduced to Matthieu Pageau, The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis, and enthusiastically looking forward to posting a review saying, "I speak of answering the question, "Why?" as is neglected in science, but in occasional hints and riddles. This is a full and direct treatment of the matter."
The snake in the ointment
I viewed a podcast with the author, and on rational grounds this looks interesting. The best books to me are ones that challenge me enough to cause culture shock, and this did cause culture shock, and was as different and concerned with the question, "Why?" as I respected.
About two thirds of the way through the book, though, I put my finger on something I'd been ignoring to be able to see other things: reading the book was not prayerful. When my abbot loaned me a manuscript he asked feedback for, the most vital feedback I could give him was that when I began it reading was deliberative information processing, but well before the end reading was prayer, and good theology leads you into the presence of God. As a relatively minor symptom, the comments on divination were all secular in character, and though forbidding divination was mentioned at least once, it was never discussed as an evil sin and a shameful error that opens a gateway to demonic possession. The concepts of 'space' and 'time', put in quotes in the text itself to indicate a usage very different from any mainstream usage, brought the kind of interesting culture shock produced by good science fiction and fantasy, a bit like The Dark Tower that C.S. Lewis wisely refrained from publishing. Also somewhat unusual for an author presented as Orthodox is a claim to "carves Eastern Orthodox and other traditional images." And the book freely refers to later parts of the Old Testament, but never the New Testament or the Church as realities shadowed in the Old Law.
A more serious problem is that the book tastes to me too much like Jung, and was recommended to me by a good friend in the process of leaving Jung behind. Carl Jung has been called the greatest threat to the Church since Julian the Apostate, and some people have said that at the beginning of every failed clerical career known to the speaker came finding insights in Jung. I do not object to a portrait of archetypes as such; I trade in archetypes myself and would never want to leave them behind. But whether this is a fruitful engagement... it is a hint and a riddle to point out that the book briefly mentions alchemy as something you'd never guess by studying today's chemistry. It doesn't mention alchemy as offering a shortcut by technique for inner transformation that all of the major world religions are inclined to answer, "Sorry, kid. You need elbow grease." Even if conservative Protestants may be very eager to clarify that they believe you are sanctified by faith alone and not by elbow grease, they are also usually quite clear in a belief that if you have a living and a healthy faith and relevant opportunity, you had better be producing elbow grease. (Possibly Taoism is an exception? The Buddha left an interlocking eightfold path of ways to produce elbow grease.) But Pageau's book never talks about alchemy as a cheap shortcut, and if you are going to declare that alchemy is different from anything you'd guess from looking at chemistry, you would do awfully well to say its techniques for producing spiritual transformation are shallow and flat next to any proper religious tradition.
There was one conversation I had with a famous egalitarian when I mentioned enthusiastically about John Eldredge's Wild at Heart, and he pointed out how the book was Jungian. And that was the hook when I swallowed a bait of quasi-traditional teaching about men and women at a time when live proponents of the position were few and far between.
I don't want to repeat that error here, and I speak no words of ill-will if my friends fell for something I fell for hook, line, and sinker. But the book pulls off a reconceptualization big enough to provoke culture shock, and a many-layered understanding of symbol, but for all that it I found very little, if anything, that constituted a specifically patristic way of opening up the Old Testament to unhide the New, and while the book mentions details like alchemy and Tarot, I searched and failed to find mention of "Jesus," "Christ," "Church," and so on.
I deem this book a failure, but I would really like to read another book that would succeed where it had failed.
