“The more the rain falls on the earth, the softer it makes it; similarly, Christ’s holy name gladdens the earth of our heart the more we call upon it.” St Hesychios the Priest, #41, p.169. The Philokalia
“When combined with watchfulness and deep understanding the Jesus Prayer will erase from our heart even those thoughts rooted there against our will.” #137, p.186.
“Let us hold fast, therefore, to prayer and humility, for together with watchfulness they act like a burning sword against the demons.” #176, p. 193.
Agriculture was the major catalyst toward the technologically advanced societies of today. When people are able to plant and harvest things from the ground, and produce massive amounts of food, populations explode and life flourishes. However, there are several key components that, if not present, hinder the growth of plant life, and thus human life. The first is water. If there is no water, the ground is made hard and plants are deprived of nourishment. The second is someone to till the ground. Without the work of humans agriculture cannot even begin. Further, when a society has a bad harvest it is all the more susceptible to outside attack. The people are weakened and thus less able to fight against those who would seek to destroy them. So, a thriving crop is vital to the protection of life as well as its nourishment.
St Hesychios reminds us of the agricultural nature of soul work when he says, “The more the rain falls on the earth, the softer it makes it; similarly, Christ’s holy name gladdens the earth of our heart the more we call upon it.” The rain, for Hesyshios, is the name of Jesus. Without this name the ground of the human heart becomes dry and hard, unsuitable for the fruits of the Spirit to be produced therein. This barrenness in turn leads to a lack of joy, and thus a lack of motivation or ability to defend our land against demonic attack. What about the human toil necessary for a successful harvest? Hesychios says we must “call upon it.” In order for the rain to fall we must ask for it. Not only that, but we must increase the frequency of our asking, and thus procure more rain.
Farming is hard work. Lack of rain, nobody to work the fields, and the threat of outside attack are ever present; but, unlike real farming, we have control over these factors in our spiritual labor. Every time we call upon the name of Jesus the soil of our heart is watered. We have the Spirit, the prayers of Jesus, the prayers of all the saints and angels, and each other to help us work the field of our soul. Hesychios argues that the Jesus Prayer, watchfulness, and humility become a “flaming sword” with which to slay the demons (# 176). Though the demonic forces continue to lay siege against our heart in order to kill us and steal the harvest, Jesus’ name becomes the walls of defense and the flaming sword in our hand.
Many in the house have commented on how they sing the Jesus Prayer song during the day. Indeed, this song is a powerful tool for keeping the Lord’s name on our lips and in our hearts at all times. I find myself humming it or singing it as I walk across campus or drive to work. Hesychios, however, challenges us to supercharge this discipline by combining this prayer with “watchfulness and deep understanding.” (#137) It is not that saying Jesus’ name is not enough. Rather, saying the name ought to lead to greater spiritual attentiveness and clarity. The coalescence of these virtuous disciplines will inevitably lead to the uprooting of all evil thoughts that have become weeds in the garden of our heart. So let us attend to the garden. May we pray the name until the soil is drenched. May we till the soil alongside the saints and protect the harvest with the flaming sword, which is the name of Jesus.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
To Scorn All Vanities
During Lent, many Eastern Christian churches pray a particular prayer by St. Ephrem the Syrian. One line of that prayer says “give me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, lust for power, and idle talk . . .” The words idle talk are particularly striking to me. Today idle talk could refer to far more than just casual conversations. In our information-saturated culture, we are inundated daily with words that lack genuine value and substance. Think of the media: television, newspapers, magazines, radio, email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, movies. Then there’s the advertising: commercials, billboards, brand logos, product placement, other subliminal forms of marketing. And these are just the forms of idle talk which we tend to absorb passively. Some of this communication certainly has value, but it must be sifted carefully to find what is worthwhile. Compared to the depth of truth found in the Scriptures, so much of the communication we receive and participate in today is hollow, shallow, ultimately meaningless.
This is dangerous, because all this vain communication destroys our ability to listen. Dizzied by a barrage of information, we lose the ability to discern what is true and what is not. Accustomed to distraction, our attention spans shorten and our ability to listen, to God and to one another, grows shallow.
St. Hesychios offers us an alternative: watchfulness. He asks us to step away from the cacophony of voices around us, and listen instead to our own minds. Listen to the chatter inside you own head. What of it is true? What of it is a lie? What of it is glorifying to God? What of it is leading you further from God? Is there too much noise inside to be able to tell? Pray the Jesus Prayer. Call upon the name of the Lord, and he will come to your aid, grant you discernment, and quiet the voices that are not his own.
This is watchfulness. Hesychios tells us that wactchfulness ”completely frees us with God’s help from impassioned thoughts, impassioned words and evil actions” (no.1 / p. 162). But such freedom comes at a cost. As he goes on to say, “watchfulness is to be bought at great price”. To “scorn all vanities for the sake of the beauty and blessings of holiness” is akin to selling all one has in order to purchase the pearl of great price.
What vanities must we scorn today in the pursuit of watchfulness? Hesychios knew nothing of the technological wonders of our day. But he knew the challenges the world poses to the practice of such watchfulness. For him, idle talk came in the form of “random meetings and conversations”. He sensed that banal, purposeless chit-chat does not lead to the Kingdom of God. Perhaps as the leader of a monastic community, Hesychios found that meetings and administrative duties became an obstacle to his own watchfulness. If Hesychios was concerned that indiscriminate conversations and random meetings could disrupt his watchfulness, perhaps we should think more carefully about the purpose behind each of our social interactions. Does each conversation we participate in have the Kingdom of God as its ultimate end? Regarding technology, surely there is potential for good within the myriad forms of communication available today. But such media should be engaged mindfully. Will turning on the television or checking Facebook or pressing play on your mp3 player aid your pursuit of holiness, or multiply the noise you must already sort through in search of God’s voice?
These are demanding and challenging questions. But, thanks be to God, there is grace. Hesychios says that it is with God’s help that we make progress daily by means of watchfulness. That is why he constantly falls back upon the use of the Jesus Prayer in the pursuit of watchfulness. It is in and through the mercy of the Lord that we are granted strength to be watchful and to scorn all vanities. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.
-Chris Brown
This post can be found at http://houseofstmichaelthearchangel.org/2011/04/to-scorn-all-vanities/
Monday, March 21, 2011
Trees
While the diabolical tree of bitterness, anger and wrath has its roots kept moist by the foul water of pride, it blossoms and thrives and produces quantities of rotten fruit.” –Mark the Ascetic, Letter to Nicolas (p. 154)“Keep the humility of the Lord in your heart and never forget it.” –Mark the Ascetic, Letter to Nicolas (p. 154)
Trees have always held special significance for Christians. We hear about them in Genesis when God places two trees in the midst of the Garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2.9). In Psalm 1 we are told that the one who meditates on the Law of the Lord day and night is like a tree planted by streams of water that bears fruit in season. And, John, in his revelation, proclaims the presence of the tree of life in the heavenly Jerusalem, which is for the healing of the nations (Rev 21.2, 14).
In our own lives we find many trees as well. Mark speaks of one tree in particular as the “diabolical tree of bitterness, anger and wrath,” the “tree of disorder.” This is the tree that produces all sorts of fruits of unrighteousness, and it “has its roots kept moist by the foul water of pride.” We wake daily only to find that its roots have grown even deeper, making our struggle that much more difficult. We feel overcome by the desires of anger, lust, laziness, and bitterness, as this tree produces nothing but “rotten fruit.”
What does Mark suggest that we do about this? His advice is that we dry up its source of nourishment, the “foul waters of pride.” This comes only from keeping the humility of the Lord always in our heart. And, once this wicked tree has lost all life we are to cut it down with the “axe of the Spirit,” so that it may be cast into the fire. Instead of rooting ourselves in the waters of pride, we, as believers, are to root ourselves in the Scriptures. Remember Psalm 1? The one who meditates on the Law of the Lord both day and night has his roots planted by streams of water, and bears fruit in season. The Scriptures provide that nourishment for our souls by leading us to Christ.
Furthermore, the Scriptures bring us to the tree of life in the heavenly Jerusalem. It bears fruit at all times; “its leaves are for the healing of the nations” and the healing of our souls. It is the tree on which our Savior allowed himself to be transfixed as he suffered in humility. But, since we have dried up the old water of pride what are we to replace it with? As the blood and water poured forth from Christ’s side it fell upon the ground. This is what nourishes the tree that we are seeking to cultivate through dwelling in the Scriptures. So, may we allow the Spirit to transform our “tree of disorder” into a “tree of life” by rooting ourselves in the Scriptures, seeing and embracing he who humbled himself for our sake, even to the point of death, “through Christ Jesus our Lord. May He be glorified through all the ages. Amen!”
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“Let us thank the One Who gave to taste His Fruit on our tree.” –St. Ephrem
“His Fruit was mingled with our human nature to draw us out toward Him Who bent down to us. By the Fruit of the Root He will graft us onto His tree.” –St. Ephrem
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