You wake up a little bit early. Do you want to spend some time playing the piano, or just relax and then go to work?
You: play the piano.
You can't. You could read music before you could read English, and you have perfect pitch, but your piano tutor early in your childhood told your parents you did not have any talent, and shut down your music lessons with her or anyone else.
You: go to work.
You turn in a first assignment and you know it was good. Your boss calls you into a meeting, says that his boss (who saw your work and raised no objections) was "livid" when your boss chose to protect you by saying "Early planning stages, nothing to show" on a very second day and would have been even more furious if he had seen your terrible work. You are told, "Your only two friends in the company are in this room" and that you should be "very afraid of anyone else finding out" about your sorry work.
You: go home.
You adapt a classic joke:
I was trying to help a friend's son look into colleges, and yesterday he handed me the phone, really excited, and said, "You have got to speak with these guys." I fumbled the phone, picked it up, and heard, "—online. We offer perhaps the best-rounded of degrees, and from day one our students are equipped with a top-of-the-line Dell running up-to-the-minute Vista. Besides the ins and outs of Office 2007, we address back-end issues, giving students a grounding in Visual Basic .NET, striking the right balance between 'reach' and 'rich,' and a thorough groundings in Flash-based design and web design optimized for the Internet Explorer 6. Throw in an MCSE, and marketing-based communication instruction that harnesses the full power of PowerPoint and covers the most effective ways to make use of animated pop-ups, opt-in subscriber lists, and—"
I interrupted. "Internet Exploder 6? Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Exp—excuse me, but what is your organization called?"
"The A-rist-o-crats."
You sleep a sound sleep.
We hope you enjoyed being a Genius for a Day—Play again!
This gamelet written by C.J.S. Hayward, author of Orthodox Theology and Technology: A Profoundly Gifted Autobiography and Profoundly Gifted Survival Guide, both of which include The Wagon, the Blackbird, and the Saab.
Sneak Peak Review: MBR, "Happiness in an Age of Crisis: Ancient Wisdom from the Eastern Orthodox Church"
I am posting this in honor of my godson Paisios's baptism: a sneak peak of Happiness in an Age of Crisis: Ancient Wisdom from the Eastern Orthodox Church, set to be published February in Donovan's Literary Review and March in the Midwest Book Review.
Happiness in an Age of Crisis
CJS Hayward
CJS Hayward Publications
979-8502272698
$19.99 Hardcover/$12.99 Paper/$2.99 Kindle
Website: www.CJSHayward.com/books
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/
Happiness in an Age of Crisis: Ancient Wisdom from the Eastern Orthodox Church joins others in the Orthodox 'Best Works' series to provide theology readers with keys to better living in modern times. It is particularly accessible and applicable to the rigors of these COVID years.
Happiness in an Age of Crisis opens with a series of life admonitions, old and new, that conclude that "Our social program is the Trinity. The Orthodox martial art is living the Sermon on the Mount." Then it reviews some core principles of Scripture, drawing important connections between Orthodox thinkers and the interpretations of God's word that lead to better living choices.
CJS Hayward's enlightening inspections address everything from worry ("...Do not worry for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Do you think you can add one single hour to your life by worrying? You might as well try to worry your way into being a foot taller!") to finding joy during hard times (this quote is from the Classic Orthodox Bible). Happiness in an Age of Crisis, as his other books, reflects Hayward's trademark lucid and profound depth.
Insights from the lives and choices of St. Philaret and others, examples from the Sermon on the Mount and other spiritual guidelines, and Christian reflections that encourage self-help and understanding all lend to insights and uplifting reflections that spiritual thinkers need to reflect upon.
Among the potentially large readership likely to find Happiness in an Age of Crisis an attraction, there are three major audiences for this work. First (and primary) is Eastern Orthodox in particular; the second is Christians as a whole, and third is non-Christian spirituality readers interested in what the Eastern Orthodox Church has to offer, including many types of the “not religious but spiritual” camps. It's intended to be lucid to inquirers and people interested in Eastern Orthodoxy and those wishing to better understand it, but all the more from someone who understands the tradition deeply and well.
Suitable for theology discussion groups as well as individual contemplation, Happiness in an Age of Crisis applies many principles of Christian thinking to modern controversies in a manner readily accessible to lay readers as well as scholarly audiences involved in Bible or Orthodox study.
Its words of wisdom and insight on how to handle crisis and find happiness in every circumstance of life offers important contemporary reflections that should be a part of any thinking Christian reader's collection. Its deep knowledge of a topic many people are very interested in makes it accessible to both a specific spiritual and a wider audience of lay readers across spiritual disciplines.
You Can Choose to Be Happy in the Here and Now
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.
You can choose to be happy in the here and now.
Grassroots Effort Redefines the Term “Vaccines” to Include Placebos
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…
COVID injections: The greatest breakthrough in human health since DDT!
A passerby interjected.
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.
Someone I know wrote The Consolation of Theology does include A Hymn to Arrogance, and it is well worth reading.
And perhaps there are greater concerns than who assigns the definition of “vaccine.”
Will There be a Place for Me?
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Do not worry for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Do you think you can add one single hour to your life by worrying? You might as well try to worry your way into being a foot taller!
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
The year was 2006 and I was studying at Fordham. A doctor made a mistake that let me be stressed to the point of uninterrupted waking nausea for weeks.
Part of my attendance at Cambridge, and then Fordham, was to get a PhD, the unofficial union card to teaching at university level, and the issue was not whether I would have the superhuman honorific of "Dr. Hayward." Or rather that was a secondary issue that did not help, but my fear was of something much worse: "Will there be a place for me?"
Before all of that, another physician had prescribed medications that made for a year of idleness, lying on my bed, staring at my light bulb, and thinking "This is worse than watching television." When the idleness ended, I found that my interests in the humanities came back quickly, computer work came back more slowly and perhaps not quite as well, but my discipline, mathematics, never came back. I had reconnected with math after four months away from math once before, and that was when I was significantly younger.
My study of academic theology was meant as retooling; since the door to mathematics was closed, information technology work had been a square peg in a round hole, and I looked for what next. I inquired about interdisciplinary PhD, and was told to pick a single academic discipline as his department had tremendous difficulties placing "American Studies" PhD's whose skills were divided between American history and literature: history departments wanted to hire a proper history PhD, and literature departments wanted to hire a proper literature PhD. And advised to pick one discipline, I picked the one that mattered to me most: theology.
And when things were turning ugly around Fordham, the question "Will there be a place for me?" was a question of what Providence I would be given. I've made a couple of forays at trying to teach theology without a PhD and without an Orthodox seminary degree, but no one has nibbled, and that may be just as well. But that left me with the square peg, round hole, and strong personalities who consider it disrespectful for a subordinate to be smarter than them. And I was going ahead, flailing.
Part of what I had worried before Fordham was how I would handle the daily grind, but for me a day's worth of daily grind is doable one day at a time. And after my parents explained that they were not going to keep the house indefinitely for me, I was able to retire on disability, and when Section 8 housing would have required injections I am not morally comfortable with, a door had been open and I have been a welcome guest at the little gem of St. Demetrios Skete.
There has always been a place for me. I don't know if I will die in a FEMA camp, but Paradise is wherever the saints are, and I am with (s)aints now. There has always been a place for me, and I believe God always will provide for me if I am faithful. I would recall the Akathist hymn "Glory to God for All Things:"
Glory to God for All Things
ODE 1
Everlasting King, Your will for our salvation is full of power. Your right arm controls the whole course of human life. We give You thanks for all Your mercies, seen and unseen: For eternal life, for the heavenly joys of the Kingdom which is to be. Grant mercy to us who sing Your praises, both now and in the time to come. Glory to You, O God, from age to age.
IKOS 1
I was born a weak, defenseless child, but Your angel spread his wings over my cradle to defend me. From birth until now, Your love has illumined my path, and has wondrously guided me towards the light of eternity. From birth until now the generous gifts of Your Providence have been marvelously showered upon me. I give You thanks, with all who have come to know You, who call upon Your Name:
Glory to You for calling me into being.
Glory to You, showing me the beauty of the universe.
Glory to You, spreading out before me heaven and earth, like the pages in a book of eternal wisdom.
Glory to You for Your eternity in this fleeting world.
Glory to You for Your mercies, seen and unseen.
Glory to You, through every sigh of my sorrow.
Glory to You for every step of my life’s journey,for every moment of glory.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 2
O Lord, how lovely it is to be Your guest. Breeze full of scents — mountains reaching to the skies — waters like a boundless mirror, reflecting the sun’s golden rays and the scudding clouds. All nature murmurs mysteriously, breathing depths of Your tenderness. Birds and beasts of the forest bear the imprint of Your love. Blessed are you, mother earth, in your fleeting loveliness, which wakens our yearning for happiness that will last forever in the land where, amid beauty that grows not old, rings out the cry: Alleluia!
IKOS 2
You have brought me into life as if into an enchanted paradise. We have seen the sky like a chalice of deepest blue, where in the azure heights the birds are singing. We have listened to the soothing murmur of the forest and the melodious music of the streams. We have tasted fruit of fine flavor and the sweet-scented honey. We can live very well on your earth. It is a pleasure to be your guest.
Glory to You for the feast-day of life.
Glory to You for the perfume of lilies and roses.
Glory to You for each different taste of berry and fruit.
Glory to You for the sparkling silver of early morning dew.
Glory to You for the joy of dawn’s awakening.
Glory to You for the new life each day brings.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 3
It is the Holy Spirit Who makes us find joy in each flower–the exquisite scent, the delicate color — the beauty of the Most High in the tiniest of things. Glory and honor to the Spirit, the Giver of Life, Who covers the fields with their carpet of flowers, crowns the harvest with gold, and gives to us the joy of gazing at it with our eyes. O be joyful and sing to Him: Alleluia!
IKOS 3
How glorious You are in the springtime, when every creature awakens to new life and joyfully sings Your praises with a thousand tongues! You are the source of life, the destroyer of death. By the light of the moon, nightingales sing, and the valleys and hills lie like wedding-garments, white as snow. All the earth is Your promised bride awaiting her spotless Husband. If the grass of the field is like this, how gloriously shall we be transfigured in the Second Coming, after the Resurrection! How splendid our bodies, how spotless our souls!
Glory to You for the warmth and tenderness of the world of nature.
Glory to You for the numberless creatures around us.
Glory to you for the depths of Your wisdom–the whole world a living sign of it.
Glory to You: On my knees, I kiss the traces of Your unseen hand.
Glory to You, enlightening us with the clarity of eternal life.
Glory to You for the hope of the unutterable, imperishable beauty of immortality.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 4
How filled with sweetness are those whose thoughts dwell on You: how life-giving Your holy Word. To speak with You is more soothing than anointing with oil, sweeter than the honeycomb. To pray to You lifts the spirit, refreshes the soul. Where You are not, there is only emptiness; hearts are smitten with sadness; nature, and life itself, becomes sorrowful. Where You are, the soul is filled with abundance, and its song resounds like a torrent of life: Alleluia!
IKOS 4
When the sun is setting, when quietness falls, like the peace of eternal sleep, and the silence of the spent day reigns, then in the splendor of its declining rays, filtering through the clouds, I see Your dwelling-place. Fiery and purple, gold and blue, they speak prophet-like of the ineffable beauty of Your presence, and call to us in their majesty. We turn to the Father:
Glory to You at the hushed hour of nightfall.
Glory to You, covering the earth with peace.
Glory to You for the last ray of the sun as it sets.
Glory to You for sleep’s repose that restores us.
Glory to You for Your goodness, even in time of darkness, when all the world is hidden from our eyes.
Glory to You for the prayers offered by a trembling soul.
Glory to You for the pledge of our reawakening on the glorious last day, that day which has no evening.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 5
The dark storm-clouds of life bring no terror to those in whose hearts Your fire is burning brightly. Outside is the darkness of the whirlwind, the terror and howling of the storm, but in the heart, in the presence of Christ, there is light and peace, silence. The heart sings: Alleluia!
IKOS 5
I see Your heavens resplendent with stars. How glorious You are, radiant with light! Eternity watches me by the rays of the distant stars. I am small, insignificant, but the Lord is at my side: Your right arm guides me wherever I go.
Glory to You, ceaselessly watching over me.
Glory to You for the encounters You arrange for me.
Glory to You for the love of parents, for the faithfulness of friends.
Glory to You for the humbleness of animals which serve me.
Glory to You for the unforgettable moments of life.
Glory to You for the heart’s innocent joy.
Glory to You for the joy of living, moving, and being able to return Your love.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 6
How great and how close You are in the powerful track of the storm! How mighty Your right arm in the blinding flash of the lightning! How awesome Your majesty! The voice of the Lord fills the fields, It speaks in the rustling of the trees. The voice of the Lord is in the thunder and the downpour. The voice of the Lord is heard above the waters. Praise be to You in the roar of mountains ablaze. You shake the earth like a garment; You pile up to the sky the waves of the sea. Praise be to You, bringing low the pride of man. You bring from his heart a cry of penitence: Alleluia!
IKOS 6
When the lightning flash has lit up the camp dining hall, how feeble seems the light from the lamp. Thus do You, like the lightning, unexpectedly light up my heart with flashes of intense joy. After Your blinding light, how drab, how colorless, how illusory all else seems.
Glory to You, the highest peak of men’s dreaming.
Glory to You for our unquenchable thirst for communion with God.
Glory to You, making us dissatisfied with earthly things.
Glory to You, turning on us Your healing rays.
Glory to You, subduing the power of the spirits of darkness and dooming to death every evil.
Glory to You for the signs of Your presence, for the joy of hearing Your voice and living in Your love.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 7
In the wondrous blending of sounds, it is Your call we hear. In the harmony of many voices, in the sublime beauty of music, in the glory of the works of great composers, You lead us to the threshold of paradise to come, and to the choirs of angels. All true beauty has the power to draw the soul towards You and make it sing in ecstasy: Alleluia!
IKOS 7
The breath of Your Holy Spirit inspires artists, poets, scientists. The power of Your supreme knowledge makes them prophets and interpreters of Your laws, who reveal the depths of Your creative wisdom. Their works speak unwittingly of You. How great are You in Your creation! How great are You in man!
Glory to You, showing Your unsurpassable power in the laws of the universe.
Glory to You, for all nature is filled with Your laws.
Glory to You for what You have revealed to us in Your mercy.
Glory to You for what you have hidden from us in Your wisdom.
Glory to You for the inventiveness of the human mind.
Glory to You for the dignity of man’s labor.
Glory to You for the tongues of fire that bring inspiration.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 8
How near You are in the day of sickness. You Yourself visit the sick. You Yourself bend over the sufferer’s bed; his heart speaks to You. In the throes of sorrow and suffering, You bring peace; You bring unexpected consolation. You are the Comforter. You are the Love which watches over and heals us. To You we sing the song: Alleluia!
IKOS 8
When in my childhood I called upon You consciously for the first time, You heard my prayer; You filled my heart with the blessing of peace. At that moment I knew Your goodness, knew how blessed are those who turn to You. I started to call upon You, night and day, and even now, I call upon Your Name:
Glory to You, satisfying my desires with good things.
Glory to You, watching over me day and night.
Glory to You, curing affliction and emptiness with the healing flow of time.
Glory to You; no loss is irreparable in You, giver of eternal life to all.
Glory to You, making immortal all that is lofty and good.
Glory to You, promising us the longed-for meeting with our loved ones who have died.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 9
Why is it that on a feast-day the whole of nature mysteriously smiles? Why is it that then a heavenly gladness fills our hearts, a gladness far beyond that of earth, and the very air in church and in the altar becomes luminous? It is the breath of Your gracious love; it is the reflection of the glory of Mount Tabor. Then do heaven and earth sing Your praise: Alleluia!
IKOS 9
When You called me to serve my brothers and filed my soul with humility, one of Your deep-piercing rays shone into my heart; it became luminous, full of light, like iron glowing in the furnace. I have seen Your face, face of mystery and of unapproachable glory.
Glory to You, transfiguring our lives with deeds of love.
Glory to You, making wonderfully sweet the keeping of Your commandments.
Glory to You, making Yourself known where man shows mercy on his neighbor.
Glory to You, sending us failure and misfortune, that we may understand the sorrows of others.
Glory to You, rewarding us so well for the good we do.
Glory to You, welcoming the impulse of our heart’s love.
Glory to You, raising to the heights of heaven every act of love in earth and sky.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 10
No one can put together what has crumbled into dust, but You can restore a conscience turned to ashes; You can restore to its former beauty a soul lost and without hope. With You, there is nothing that cannot be redeemed. You are Love; You are Creator and Redeemer. We praise You, singing: Alleluia!
IKOS 10
Remember, my God, the fall of Lucifer, full of pride; keep me safe with the power of Your grace. Save me from falling away from You; save me from doubt. Incline my heart to call upon You, present in everything.
Glory to You for every happening, every condition Your Providence has put me in.
Glory to You for what you speak to me in my heart.
Glory to You for what you reveal to me, asleep or awake.
Glory to You for scattering our vain imaginations.
Glory to You for raising us from the slough of our passions through suffering.
Glory to You for curing our pride of heart by humiliation.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 11
Across the cold chains of the centuries, I feel the warmth of Your breath; I feel Your blood pulsing in my veins. Part of time has already gone, but now You are the present. I stand by Your cross; I was the cause of it. I cast myself down in the dust before it. Here is the triumph of love, the victory of salvation. Here the centuries themselves cannot remain silent, singing Your praises: Alleluia!
IKOS 11
Blessed are they that will share in the King’s banquet; but already on earth You give me a foretaste of this blessedness. How many times with Your own hand have You held out to me Your Body and Your Blood, and I, though a miserable sinner, have received this Sacrament, and have tasted Your love, so ineffable, so heavenly!
Glory to You for the unquenchable fire of Your grace.
Glory to You, building Your Church, a haven of peace in a tortured world.
Glory to You for the life-giving water of baptism in which we find new birth.
Glory to You, restoring to the penitent purity white as the lily.
Glory to You for the Cup of Salvation and the Bread of eternal joy.
Glory to You for exalting us to the highest heaven.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 12
How oft have I seen the reflection of Your glory in the faces of the dead. How resplendent they were, with beauty and heavenly joy; how ethereal, how translucent their faces; how triumphant over suffering and death, their felicity and peace. Even in the silence they were calling upon You. In the hour of my death, enlighten my soul, too, that it may cry out to You: Alleluia!
IKOS 12
What sort of praise can I give You? I have never heard the song of the cherubim, a joy reserved for the spirits above. But I know the praises that nature sings to You. In winter, I have beheld how silently in the moonlight the whole earth offers You prayer, clad in its white mantle of snow, sparkling like diamonds. I have seen how the rising sun rejoices in You, how the song of the birds is a chorus of praise to You. I have heard the mysterious murmurings of the forests about You, and the winds singing Your praise as they stir the waters. I have understood how the choirs of stars proclaim Your glory as they move forever in the depths of infinite space. What is my poor worship? All nature obeys You, I do not. Yet while I live, I see Your love, I long to thank You, pray to You, and call upon Your Name:
Glory to You, giving us light.
Glory to You, loving us with love so deep, divine, and infinite.
Glory to You, blessing us with light, and with the host of angels and saints.
Glory to You, Father All-Holy, promising us a share in Your Kingdom.
Glory to You, Holy Spirit, Life-giving Sun of the world to come.
Glory to You for all things, holy and most merciful Trinity.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 13 (Repeated three times.)
Life-giving and merciful Trinity, receive my thanksgiving for all Your goodness. Make us worthy of Your blessings, so that, when we have brought to fruit the talents You have entrusted to us, we may enter into the joy of our Lord, forever exulting in the shout of victory: Alleluia!
IKOS 1
I was born a weak, defenseless child, but Your angel spread his wings over my cradle to defend me. From birth until now, Your love has illumined my path, and has wondrously guided me towards the light of eternity. From birth until now the generous gifts of Your Providence have been marvelously showered upon me. I give You thanks, with all who have come to know You, who call upon Your Name:
Glory to You for calling me into being.
Glory to You, showing me the beauty of the universe.
Glory to You, spreading out before me heaven and earth, like the pages in a book of eternal wisdom.
Glory to You for Your eternity in this fleeting world.
Glory to You for Your mercies, seen and unseen.
Glory to You, through every sigh of my sorrow.
Glory to You for every step of my life’s journey,for every moment of glory.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.ODE 1
Everlasting King, Your will for our salvation is full of power. Your right arm controls the whole course of human life. We give You thanks for all Your mercies, seen and unseen: For eternal life, for the heavenly joys of the Kingdom which is to be. Grant mercy to us who sing Your praises, both now and in the time to come. Glory to You, O God, from age to age.
This song was composed by a high-ranking Orthodox bishop, a few days before death, in a concentration camp.
The song and the beauty in Fr. Arseny: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father is paradise, wherever the saints are—even in a concentration camp. And the two most beautiful passages in The Soul's Longing: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on Biblical Interpretation are from concentration camps.
I do not predict that either of us will die in concentration camps, but God's bard said, "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." And my delightful monastery has blessings that I hadn't even had before going on; one of the fringe benefits is a sweet cat, who is very outgoing, and astonishingly enough doesn't irritate my allergies. The men at the monastery are like the St. Anne's company in C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (though, perhaps, without saving the rest of the world, and perhaps without Merlin).
And on a note of "I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but I know Who brings tomorrow," I believe that I have a chance, and have really always had the chance, to complete my life in triumph (or be subtilized by the returning Christ). I have in the mean time every grace that I need, and really quite a few niceties I do not need but are something to be grateful for.
Some people, learning that I have not been worrying, seem to think that I am fundamentally better at having my ducks in a row. I deny the charge. What I have learned, besides that trying to solve a life's problems on a day's research is a ticket to overpowering despair, is how to make peace with a life that will never be under control, or at least not my control. It is a wonderful world that way.
"Will there be a place for me?" is a serious question, but I've had places for me come out of the blue. If we trust God, he has every ability to make a place for us. And trust is possible, and more than that is trust, when we trust what we cannot see.
As St. John Chrysostom said as his very last words, "Glory to God for All Things!"
Orthodox Affirmations
All Orthodox theology is positive theology.
Nothing can harm the man who does not injure himself.
I can do all things I am charged with through Christ who strengthens me.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first.
God and the Son of God became Man and the Son of Man that men and the sons of men might become gods and the sons of God.
Trying to become god, Adam failed to become god; Christ became man, to make Adam god.
God did not only become man that I might become divine. He also became man that I might become man.
Make peace with yourself, and ten thousand around you will be saved.
Save yourself, and Heaven and earth will make peace with you.
Banish two thoughts and live two thoughts: banish "I am a saint" and "I will be damned," and live "I am a great sinner" and "God is greatly merciful."
All the world will be saved and I will be damned.
In humility consider others better than yourself. It is the key to truly enjoying them.
Keep your mind in Hell, and despair not.
The vilest of sins is a smouldering ember thrown into the ocean of God's love.
Our social program is the Trinity.
The Orthodox martial art is living the Sermon on the Mount.
Could We Pursue a Profoundly Gifted Humility?
Could we pursue profoundly gifted humility?
The gay community's emphasis on pride is a matter of applying poison to a wound. But I want to take a long, and I hope fruitful, detour.
Revisiting the Philokalia
I have generally found efforts to improve a backwards Philokalia of themselves backwards, not to mention a bit stupid and arrogant. The Seven Deadly Sins are what became in the West of the Philokalia's eight demons, and I have read an official from my own theology department frankly ridicule the Seven Deadly Sins because it does not explicitly list hypocrisy. But in the Philokalia at least, the eight demons are the eight gateway sins, eight gateway drugs to other sins, and hypocrisy falls at least partly under the heading of pride, unreservedly condemned as the worst of the lot. The list of eight sins is not an attempt to catalogue each and every sins; another passage of the Philokalia attempts a catalogue and the list weighs in at over 100 named sins. However, this exercise is exceedingly rare compared to the efforts to warn us of gateway sins, of which a few the reader is warned about repeatedly. People who consider themselves to know better than the Philokalia have my suspicion and ordinarily seem to never have really gotten their feet wet in what is quite arguably the #1 Orthodox written treasure after the Bible.
I was surprised when my abbot (at least for now, and I hope it doesn't just last for now and evaporate), Metropolitan JONAH of St. Demetrios Monastery, proposed an update as part of his Reflections on a Spiritual Journey. However unstintingly poor classic monasticism may have insisted on being (one passage gives a short list of allowed items and beyond them "not even a needle"), those who became monastics came from privileges that not only included a great deal of wealth and being born into the Old Boy's Club, but could assume loving and healthy extended families. And maybe the spoiled rich could and should have regarded forms of pride as the nadir of human defilement, and perhaps such it is. In both East and West, in for example St. Seraphim of Sarov or G.K. Chesterton, fornication and drunkenness are considered the sins of men, and pride and rebellion are considered the sins of devils. And the little future St. Seraphim did not need to be cleansed from all human sin, but he absolutely needed to overcome the sin of devils.
However, Metropolitan JONAH points to certain differences today. The extended family has not stayed together but disintegrated into isolated nuclear families, and nuclear families have had a meltdown too. And so many people today have grown up with a broken childhood, with a whole array of situations that were abusive even if squeaky-clean legal (like Mom and Dad outsourcing most of their parenting to a series of daycare centers so they can both bring home the bacon), and the effect of suchlike abuse is a profound shame, a shame that people discover can be anaesthetized, at least temporarily, by engaging in various sins. Addictions, and things like addictions such as various sexual sins, anaesthetize a shame that says, "You're worthless. There's nothing left to love. You are horrible through and through." And so my beloved Metropolitan, whom I am positive understands the Philokalia profoundly, has offered the first update to the Philokalia that I have found to even make sense—and it is a lot of sense that it makes.
A visit to Fr. John
Fr. John Whiteford, whom I have had the privilege of taking two classes with, is another figure I respect profoundly. He is something like a bulldog for Orthodoxy, with topics such as "The anus is not designed for the penis," and he defends Orthodoxy in something like the fashion of previous bulldogs like G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. (While he writes well, I don't know if he is as epically good as a writer, but I have no hesitation in making the comparison in outlining the type of work by which he serves.) And he called to point an Orthodox Matushka ("Mommy"), meaning a priest's or deacon's wife (which in Orthodoxy is a real office), for saying that the cure for shame is empathy without whispering a word about repentance. And I have shouted a great many words about repentance as Heaven's best-kept secret, but while the Mommy may have left out something important, she also kept in something important.
What was she right about?
There is an absolutely ancient image that has been repeated across centuries for the image of God in us, an image that cannot be damaged or destroyed. Our heart of hearts is like a mirror at the base of a fountain. The waters may be dirty; they may cloud or hide the mirror at the bottom, but there is a real and authentic mirror, and it will shine if the water is cleared up.
John Calvin is perhaps a most extreme example of Western abandonment of this understanding. His successor's formulation of the essentials of Calvinist Christianity opens with a 'T' for "total depravity," that we are profoundly corrupt all the way down to our very core. And Orthodoxy says no to this: in our very hearts is the image of God which is absolutely incapable of being deformed, dissolved, or destroyed. And to pull one example, St. Maximus the Confessor briefly speaks of adding to "the natural good of image" with "the voluntary good of likeness." The term "human nature" as I encountered it as an Evangelical was always seen as something fallen; to admit "human nature" is to admit weakness, fallenness, sin. But the nature of human race was never created as fallen, and the natural good of image is incorruptible. It is not a spark of God, as in Origenism and Hinduism, but it is something created which is incorruptibly good, and thinking it is a spark of God may represent an understandable confusion. It is an image, a symbol, in which the whole God himself is indelibly present. Not even in Hell can this be undone: "Hell," said Fr. Seraphim of Plantina, "is immersion in the love of God."
Now the dirt in the water may hide the mirror to a profound degree. St. Maximus's counterbalance to "the natural good of image" is "the voluntary good of likeness," and the voluntary good of likeness is of water that is limpid, pure, and allows the mirror to shine gloriously. It is a life's work to clear the water, and the clearer the water becomes, the more sharply people become aware of how much muck is still in the water, and the purest consider themselves the most defiled. But nonetheless even their defilement rests exclusively in the water above the mirror. The mirror remains as undefiled as the mirror that shone from Lord Adam in Paradise.
And where does gay pride fit into this? Or disability? Or, for that matter, topless?
The essential draw to all these spiritual diseases is that they self-medicate, and provide some degree of respite to the shame of being utterly worthless and having nothing good in you. And when the effect wears thin, it is possible that the sins of men can't sear away the pain as strongly as devils' sin.
And what about the profoundly gifted? What do we have to be humble about?
Let me bring one rabbit trail before getting on to my real point. If, in history, something goes wrong that leaves over a million murder victims, it is the fruit of profoundly gifted effort. Like Hitler, for instance, or the gospel of "St. Marx." The whole singularity in which the whole world is sinking has the achievements of the profoundly gifted as instrumental. No intellectually disabled individual in history has created a black mirror. It is Steve Jobs who does it. Profoundly gifted can and do things with such good intentions as pave the road to Hell and lead legions down with them. There is something in this that we should be very humble about.
But let me talk about humility for an instant.
G.K. Chesterton says, "It takes humility to enjoy anything—even pride."
Humility is the spiritual wine that opens the eyes to the beauty of the universe, and humility is the spiritual wine that can let profoundly gifted look at IQ normals and see the glory of the image of God at work.
"In humility consider others better than yourself" (Phil 2:3) has got to be one of the least palatable texts in the Bible (or at least unpopular for us to apply it to ourselves), but "In humility consider others better than yourself" is another way of saying, "In humility be surrounded by other people who fascinate you, whom you admire, respect, and enjoy." The Biblical text is more than that, but it really is an opening of the eyes to the glory of the precious other people in your life.
I do not know how to say enough about humility, besides saying in shorthand, "Read the Philokalia" as a shorthand quote. Humility ranks high on the Ladder; it is with discernment one of the two great virtues the Fathers in the Philokalia simply cannot stop talking about or praising enough. Humility is a powerful contributor to God-shaped love, a mother to joy, and it is a Heaven on earth. Heaven is where the saints are, and Heaven is where the humble are.
I don't wish to condemn too strongly people who reach for devil's sin when the sins of men cease to sufficiently anaesthetize pain. But really, even if we allow queers (or whatever they are called this week) to try to feel good on a lasting basis for pride, we might be able to think far enough the box to pursue humility.
And oh, by the way, people are less hostile if we are genuinely humble.
Could we pursue a profoundly gifted humility?
Avoiding Needless Liabilities: "Crank Magnetism" for Orthodox
The militant Rational Wiki's article on crank magnetism isn't pretty. It shows a singular lack of sympathy for fellow human beings and one gets the impression that camps the authors don't agree with are classified as cranks. For instance, its preppers link sounds like people making preparations for a political meltdown are complete crackpots for doing so. The more our present singularity unfold, the less plausible it seems to me that survivalists or preppers are complete kooks. The more things unfold, the more it looks like preppers were right the whole time.
Nonetheless, while I believe some beliefs tarred and featured in that article are right, including intelligent design (thus qualifying myself as an IDiot), and suspicion regarding how much vaccines and post-vaccine genetic therapy really help us, I was dismayed at seeing Young Earth Creationism 2.0 at an otherwise wonderful monastery where Fr. Seraphim of Plantina is held in high esteem, but entirely without the emotional toxicity I tried to document in The Seraphinians: "Blessed Seraphim Rose" and His Axe-Wielding Western Converts. These people, some of which are converts, are none the less emphatically not "Axe-Wielding," and have a profound respect for other human beings. None the less, I was sad when I realized that people living in Fr. Seraphim's wake are embracing flat-earth theory as a method of virtue signalling. (Thus, perhaps, qualifying myself as a stopped clock, allowed to be right twice a day, but the term is still extremely pejorative.)
I do not say that one should necessarily disqualify a perspective or political or religious opinion on the grounds that it is tarred as "crank." However, I regard crank theories as a liability, and the sort of thing one should prefer to avoid, and not try to seek out. Enough truth is labelled as crank that we need not scrape the barrel of theories that are labelled as "crank" that are just ridiculous. As far as flat earth theory goes, please, no. As far as the moon hoax theory goes, please, no. I do not trust the government and I can readily believe the U.S. government could and would have hoaxed a moon landing if a bona fide genuine man on the moon was not in reach or for some reason less politically expedient than going to all the trouble to make a real moon landing. I don't trust the U.S. government, but in this case I trust the U.S.S.R. government to have every technical competency and obvious vested interest to expose a hoax. It would have been a coup for them to catch the U.S. with its pants down. As things stand, no matter how mainstream belief in a moon landing hoax may presently be in Russia, the U.S.S.R.'s silence about any unmasked hoax in the U.S. praising itself for landing a man on the moon is really quite deafening.
As far as intelligent design issues go, I'm unhappy with the new Protestant Creationism, but as someone with an M.S. in math, evolutionists approaching me apologetically to try to convince me of the truth of "evolution" repel me. I use the term "evolution" in scare quotes because Darwin's theory of evolution, of a slow and gradual change over time, has not been live in the academy for ages; you're not in the conversation now unless you believe, as my University Biology teacher at IMSA said, "Evolution is like baseball. There are long periods of boredom interrupted by brief periods of intense excitement." Meaning that "evolution" is not an evolution in any older or non-biological use of the term, and "evolutionists" believe, along with old-school and new-school Protestant Creationists, that major new kinds of organisms appear abruptly and without preserved intermediate forms among the fossil record. The assertion of such evolutionists as I have encountered entails that it is statistically easy for a breeding pool to acquire and sustain a large number of beneficial mutations in a geological eyeblink, and I have met as an argument for this a claim that Indian prostitutes have evolved HIV resistance in a single generation. This is unlabelled crank theory in fifteen feet high blinking letters, but no one on the "standard model" raises a whimper about it.
And C.S. Lewis was over the time aghast about people failing to see how the assertion of evolution was self-referentially incoherent [though C.S. Lewis might not have put in these terms, it gets failing marks from the Retortion Principle. Romantic love is explained away as a biochemical state produced by evolution, but this explanation does not only neuter romantic love; the explanation explains away all explanation, including evolution. Evolution can explain why we should have good enough brains to find food, avoid being food, procreate, and other things animals with brains seem to be able to do. It does not in any sense explain, however, why we should have brains good enough to formulate a true theory of evolution. It has been suggested that there is survival value in brains that could find truths, but if that is true, very, very few people have the kind of brains that evolution selects for. (Less than 1% of people who have ever lived have ever seen a printed word, and far less than that have even had even the chance to believe Darwinian evolution. Most of them have believed that life is spiritual in some form, rather than a by-product of mindless forces that did not have any life form in mind in any sense.)
There is also the other intelligent design argument, an argument not addressing biology but physics. I've met evolutionary apologetics who denied that any information needed to be, so to speak, "injected" for the formation of new life forms. I have never met a physicist to deny the physics intelligent design claim that the physical constants have been unimaginably tightly fine-tuned just to allow our life forms to be possible. The more time has passed, the more we recognize the fine-tuning, and we have long passed the time when we realized that the fine-tuning is much more closely tailored just to allow us to exist than, for instance, shooting a particle of light from somewhere around one end of the universe and having it hit the dead center of an atom somewhere around the other side of the universe. The only other way I can state in non-technical terms how low the odds that randomly generated physical constants would let us live are to winning a fair multi-million dollar lottery prize by buying just one ticket at a time many, many times in a row. (It's almost as bad as evolving a new life form by having a breeding population acquire and sustain enough beneficial mutations to make a new life form.)
I will not shy away from truth just because it is tarred as crank. However, I would say that each crank theory you embrace, and there are some I believe you should, is a liability in dealing with people on the "standard model" and you should believe them despite the fact that they are labelled out as crank.
Virtue signalling by seeking out additional crank theories represents serious philosophical and theological confusion. Defining oneself as different by seeking out crank theories represents serious philosophical and theological confusion. Counterculture for the sake of just rebelling against the common culture represents confusion. And both crank beliefs and counterculture represent a liability: one that should not be eliminated, but perhaps treated with some economy and recognizing that you are coming across as crank if you embrace crank beliefs.
And crank beliefs that are genuinely true should be treated with mystagogy: they should not be pushed on people not dislodged from the "standard model." "I will not speak of Thy mystery to Thine enemies:" if you know a truth, and you know that another person will reject that truth if you say it, you do not say it. This is standard Orthodox mystagogy. Come Judgment Day, it will be better for that person not to be judged for hearing the truth and rejecting it: and it will be better for you, too, because you did not set that brother human being up for a greater degree of condemnation.
An adaptation of scientism's much-loved "Ockham's razor" may be helpful. Ockham's razor, "Do not needlessly multiply [explanations]," is however sharp a tool intended to create better explanations by virtue of having fewer explanations. The same might apply to using crank theories to truth and edification.
Think about it. And maybe scale back on crank theories that are inessential.
An Author Interview by... the Author Himself!
Interviewer: You're interviewing yourself? Some of your opponents might say that's a bit odd and egotistical. I'd like to give you a chance to respond to what your opponents are saying.
C.S. Hayward: Um, well, yes, I have plenty of ego, and this is a bit unusual, and some people who know me might find it a surprise, if perhaps a believable surprise. But may I comment?
Interviewer: Certainly. What do you have to say for yourself?
C.S. Hayward: As far as denying that I am proud, I'm not interested in defending myself. If I am to be defended, and I am not innocent, my defense would best be spoken by others' lips. But as for a reason, I do have a particular practical reason for such an odd process.
Interviewer: What's that?
C.S. Hayward: Awesome Gang offers a free interview for an author to promote his book, and I can only call that a work of mastery for all kinds of authors offering all kinds of books. But there is a weakness in such a master-stroke: the cookie cutter allows discussion of the Scandal of the Particular, but I wished something almost entirely driven by suchlike scandal. I want questions that allow me to speak, and at times much more particular questions, even if (for instance) my website's author biography is very unusual for a personal biography:
Who is Christos Jonathan Seth Hayward? A man, made in the image of God and summoned to ascend to the heights of the likeness of God. A great sinner, and in fact, the chief of sinners. One who is, moment by moment, in each ascetical decision choosing to become one notch more a creature of Heaven, or one notch more a creature of Hell, until his life is spent and his eternal choice between Heaven and Hell is eternally sealed.
Man, mediator, midpoint, microcosm, measure: as man he is the recapitulation of the entire spiritual and visible creation, having physical life in common with plants and animals, and noetic life in common with rank upon rank of angel host, and forever in the shadow of that moment when Heaven kissed earth and God and the Son of God became Man and the Son of Man that men and the sons of men might become gods and the sons of God.
He’s also a writer with a few hobbies, but really, there are more important things in life.
Interviewer: What would you respond to people who say that's not really the scandal of particular!
C.S. Hayward: It draws attention to something overlooked in a standard statement of what makes your uniqueness, as marketers would have it. I claim for myself the glory and the shame of being human. And I stand indebted to one monk who had managed some prestigious obediences, but as far as the story of his coming to Orthodoxy, wrote, "The story of _________'s coming to Orthodoxy was told to the priest who received him, under the seal of confession, and he received absolution for his sins." And I can't really do better than that. Or rather, I have only said anything much better and much more specific than that under the seal of absolution. I've had an interesting life story, and other aspects are told in my autobiography, Orthodox Theology and Technology (my first impulse was to mention The Luddite's Guide to Technology, which I consider my work most likely to be significant). But the distinction I seek is in repentance, both in the sense of something all Orthodox are called to, and as a term for monasticism.
Interviewer: "Orthodox Theology and Technology?" Do you consider yourself a theologian?
C.S. Hayward: The story is told of a liberal scholar who went to the Holy Mountain and told a monk that he was a theologian, and the monk suddenly acted very obsequious and began kissing his feet. The academician asked why on earth the monk was acting that way, and the monk explained, "We had St. John the Theologian, and then some centuries later we had St. Gregory the Theologian, and then some centuries after that we had St. Symeon the New Theologian, and now, we have... you!
It is not a respected affirmation that one is the fourth in that series, but if I may speak for the "underdog perspective" (Fr. Seraphim of Platina said it is noble to defend the underdog), the standard Western use of "theologian," especially without the idea that you bracket any religious beliefs you have and work in theology in an atheistic approach, is a concept that has legitimate use, and in a devout Western setting the claim to be a theologian is not meant or taken as a claim to be the fourth of that august company that directly experience God. For that matter, the Philokalia talks about people engaging in "theology", meaning the direct experience of God and not the accumulation of the more usual kind knowledge concerning God.
Orthodoxy in recent years, to fill the gap of someone who works to understand God without the claim to be the fourth in that august company, has developed the term "patrologist" to mean someone who devoutly studies what academics trade in, and is the general term for someone who has not specialized in something with a more specific term. And I would claim to be a patrologist lite, perhaps not the best out there even in my interests. It's kind of a way of answering a Westerner's question of whether I study what a Westerner would consider theology, but without the implications of a claim to be the fourth Theologian in the Orthodox Church's history.
I was studying at an Orthodox seminary, but that seemed to get derailed because my need-based financial aid was not registered, and my strong hope is to get to St. Demetrios's monastery in Virginia whether it takes one trip or several, insofar as I am able to. I'm not sure if you've read Everyday Saints and Other Stories, but the words are fragrant with the fragrance of Heaven yet simple such I have rarely, if ever, pulled off myself. In that book, Orthodox seminarians tend to be arrogant and clueless, enough so that a seminarian who should know enough patristics to know that thC.e Orthodox Church claims a wealth of only three Theologians, introduces himself as a theologian and is surprised when he is asked, "You're the fourth?" And I wonder if having introduced myself as a seminarian I have introduced myself as arrogant and clueless in like terms.
Interviewer: Um, you're introducing yourself as "C.S. Hayward."
C.S. Hayward Yes, and may I say a few things about that?
First, I owe C.S. Lewis a greater debt than perhaps any mortal writer. I've read 90% of all he has written, including some of The Neglected C.S. Lewis, and he shaped me enough as an author that I've been told, "You write like an Englishman."
And there's also what Graham Clinton, founder of International Christian Mensa, said.
Interviewer: What's that?
C.S. Hayward: I asked him, in perhaps inexusable vanity, if I might be the next C.S. Lewis. His first reply could be taken as a very diplomatic "No." He said, "Sure, you could be, but why would you want to?"
But the next major point he tried to make was really about how the World Wars emphatically "killed off all our talent." He said simply that all the A-level talent in England got killed off, leaving B's like C.S. Lewis to be promoted when they would otherwise have had to work for a living (his term). The implication was that I was A-level talent wanting to be compared to B-level talent.
And on Facebook, which isn't too keen on having people known by initalism, entered my name as Christos Jonathan Seth Hayward, expecting it to be collapsed and yield "CJSH." Readers found enough kindness and affinity to condense to "CSH" meaning, "C.S. Hayward." So why not?
Interviewer: So what has life been like? I noticed that you are applying, at 46, to a monastery that's looking for novices in their 30's.
C.S. Hayward: Yes; may I say a word about that?
Interviewer: Certainly.
C.S. Hayward: That is not simply an arbitrary or superstitious requirement; they are presumably looking for people who still have a certain flexibility to be able to adjust to monastic ways. And may I speak about that?
Interview: Yes.
C.S. Hayward: The mainstream understanding of learning languages is that languages are best learned as a child, and not as an adult. However, this is a rule of thumb and not an unyielding principle. The usual course of language development is to learn one's first language, and then redeploy the grey matter that can learn languages once no new languages are being learned. But I've continued to learn languages, if not always very well, and at Cambridge I was told I was learning Greek as a child did. And when I took the modern languages aptitude test, as an adult, I scored (mumble) and was told for instance, "I've been scoring this test for thirty years and I've never seen a score this high." I have master's degrees in math and "theology." Both were interdisciplinary, and both were from a world-class institution: UIUC and Cambridge.
I don't want to mindread or psychologize what would motivate a monastery to make such a request, since retirees have become successful monks, but the obvious concern is a rational one: the monastery may prefer candidates who are not too set in their ways to adapt to monastic life.
And I have continued to have changing life circumstances: studying and returning to school, ineptly fitting recruiter roles in information technology, and retirement on disability. I was able to survive for two years studying theology at Fordham, and I have continued to make major adjustments every few years ago. So I believe I could age-wise be accommodated to monasticism. I've kept alive the ability to adjust to different circumstances as I've kept alive, at least badly, the ability to learn languages (and have read the Bible in English, French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Slavonic, and modern Russian and just dipped into Ukrainian). I have a T-shirt that says, "Я ез США. Говорите медленное пожалуеста" ("I'm from the USA. Please speak slowly.").
Interviewer: Who made it?
C.S. Hayward: I did, and I've been clearly advised not to wear it to a Slavic monastery. I might still use it as a night mask or as an undershirt.
Interviewer: I've just taken a look at Profoundly Gifted and Orthodox at Fordham. Eek! What sense did you make of that?
C.S. Hayward: The biggest is that the forces of evil only have a hand on me so far as I disobeyed. The first time they needlessly endangered my life, it was strongly in my conscience to complain to the President of the university. I failed to do so; had I obeyed, I might have had a channel open when things went really wrong. Also, I tried the hardest of my life to befriend the great Fr. John Behr, identified as A____ in the document. My conscience was to give him a wide, wide berth. My faults ratified others' decisions and failings.
But there is one thing I would like to clarify.
Interviewer: Yes?
C.S. Hayward: I haven't ever really been off-track except as... I may have tried plan A to get a Ph.D., and then a plan B, and then a plan C, and so on down the alphabet, but my as my spiritual director told me during one of our first meetings, God is always on plan A, even if we think we're going down the alphabet. Even if I never succeeded at further entering a doctoral program or getting an academic position, even a community college adjunct professorship at a large College of DuPage.
Interviewer: You think you're on a Plan A?
C.S. Hayward: Bookmark and read God the Spiritual Father sometime. I am not on my own Plan A, but God is on Plan A. The International Christian Mensa Founder's unfailing, ever-polite requests for me to wake up, said, "Your job is not to write the books that PhD's write. Your job is to write the books that PhD's read." And I have written books for scholars and nonscholars, gently suggested that Fr. John's St. Vladimir's Seminary can stop sucking Fordham's staff, in more ways than one. (I've gone through that discipline myself).) I have also had a whole lot of being in the right place at the right time. My website is enormous, with a print "Complete Works" series that occupies eleven volumes of four to six hundred pages, and that's a dense four to six hundred pages per book. Not all of it is excellent, but some are pretty good.
Interviewer: Sounds like you've shined through some pretty rough stuff.
C.S. Hayward: I have a lot to be grateful for, and not just in relation for my writing. I have a covered dental visit coming up where I'll end up with a root canal, crown, and partial being paid for. You may say that a root canal is little to be excited about, but really, having dental work covered is something to be grateful for.
Interviewer: And you are grateful.
C.S. Hayward: I am not worthy or capable of thanking God adequately for all the good he continues to show for me. But I give praise, even when I am unworthy to give praise.
And I am glad to be visiting the monastery. I don't know if they will require multiple visits, or whether they'll follow a practice on the Holy Mountain and allow me to come as a pilgrim and stay as a novice. But in any case, the abbot's decision will be part of God's Plan A, even if I am not allowed to join. All that's really left to me is due diligence. And I'm working hard on the "due diligence" part, such as having a collection of pants with varying waist sizes so I'll have pants that fit me as my waist shrinks on a monastic diet. I'm really looking forward to it, I've been told the abbot is kind, and even if he makes a decision I don't want him to make, God will still be on Plan A.
Onwards and Upwards, as we said at Avery Coonley School!
My Life's Work
TL;DR
Own my complete collection in paperback! It is well worth it.
OK, so I'm a dwarf standing on giants' shoulders, but...
A life's work between two covers... er, almost a dozen pairs of covers with four to six hundred pages in between... that could nicely adorn about two feet of space on your bookshelf... a little smaller in size than the complete Calvin and Hobbes...
"Must... fight... temptation.... to read... brilliant and interesting stuff from C.J.S. Hayward.... until.... after... work!"
—Kent Nebergall
If you don't know me, my name is Christos Jonathan Seth Hayward, which I usually abbreviate "C.J.S. Hayward."
But my name has to my surprise trilettered on Facebook to "CSH," for "C.S. Hayward". As in, the natural successor to C.S. Lewis. I take that as a big compliment.
I'm an Eastern Orthodox author, who grew up reading C.S. Lewis, and has read almost everything he wrote, including some of those reviewed in C.S. Lewis: The Neglected Works, but have written many different things in many styles. Readers have written things about parts of the the colllection like (J. Morovich):
A collection of joyful, challenging, insightful, intelligent, mirthful and jarring essays written by an Eastern Orthodox author who is much too wise for his years.
and (D. Donovan):
Each piece is a delight: partially because each 'speaks' using a different voice and partly because a diversity of topics and cross-connections between theology and everyday living makes the entire collection a delight to read, packed with unexpected twists, turns, and everyday challenges.
And all this for some of this collection.
These pieces are a joy to read, and a gateway to help you enter a larger world, and open up doors that you never dreamed were there to open. Want to really see how "There are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy?" Read these.
This little library includes nearly everything I’ve written--roughly 365 works in 12 volumes. The works in each volume are quite varied and most are short.) I omit software projects and the occasional interactive webpage. What all is offered? Works in this series include: novellas, short stories, poems and prayers, articles, and humor.
The one single work I would recommend most by far, and has been strongly recommended by others, is The Consolation of Theology. It is based on a classic The Consolation of Philosophy, and it is meant to give consolation, joy, strength, insights and things that are beyond mere insight. In a pandemic, a collapsing economy, and times when grandmas are buying shotguns, and perhaps other things in the pipeline, happiness is possible, in our reach, and it is real.
My story includes Protestant origins and a progressive discovery of Orthodox Christianity. Because this is a collection of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I have set the works I would particularly recommend in bold in the Table of Contents.
I've also dropped the specified price per volume from $29.99 to $19.99.
Buy the C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works on Amazon now!
(Please note: In the past, a bug prevented an avid reader furious he couldn't read more than the first half of the Kindle edition. The Kindle edition has one review at one star, from someone who read the first half of the book and was infuriated he couldn't read further. I've since fixed that bug, but the review is live and probably deterring people from purchasing. I can and do write well-received titles.)
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 1
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 2
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 3
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 4
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 5
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 6
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 7
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 8
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 9
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 10
- C.J.S. Hayward: The Complete Works: vol. 11
- Paperback that is built to last, and is printed on acid-free paper.
- Kindle on Amazon, and
- the HTML source,.
You can always just buy the first one. (And maybe buy other volumes one at a time if you like it.)
You want to own this in paper!
I'd also like to make available downloads for cheap or for free, but I have a reason for posting this now. I want to keep my website, which has been online since the end of the 20th century, alive for however long I really can, but there are some things I can't control and I am getting ready, I hope, to visit a monastery. What comes of that I don't know, but I'd really like for you to own my books in paper. And I'm not sure how long it will be until Amazon makes a decision that will render my works no longer available. However, as a complement to the availability of paper books, I have available:
(One note:) I had hoped to make a free download available in Kindle and ePub, as well as an option of spending a few dollars on Amazon. However, one of the latest additions reads:
Dear Reader;
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
integer overflow error at 0x0
And when I tried to convert the text to an ePub to distribute freely, the conversion software errored out saying it had reached maximum recursion depth.
So I have it available in the following formats:
(The last two especially have so much content that they are bulky and incredibly unwieldy. If you'd like to just cut to the chase, read The Luddite's Guide to Technology.)
Enjoy!