ABOUT
CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE
By John Kalomiros
The Christian faith is a living faith and, as such, it
is transferred live from parent to child and from teacher to student. Everyone
who encounters the faith, if he actually has a love for it, maintains it as something
precious and, respecting the one who willed it to him, does not add to it or
detract anything from it. This pattern of Tradition is holy and it is a
wellspring of life in Christ, flowing into the Church.
An adherence to the elements of tradition must not,
however, result an ossification of Christian life into some kind of formal
mould. Such a pathetic situation prevents one from entering into a content life
and spiritual growth. Unfortunately, it often happens that the elements of
Tradition in the Church are used as an excuse to form a conservative stagnation
of life and draw it into a shell where every aspect of life is pre-determined
and laid out in minute detail. Even some well-intentioned Christians some times
make the mistake of using the Holy Scripture in order to set standards of life
in conditions where life itself has been suffocating and spiritual struggle has
lost its strength.
It is important for us, the Christians of our era to
realize the difference between two opposing approaches to the faith. The first
is to practise the elements of tradition and teachings of the Holy Fathers in a
way that they are living, vital and illuminating to our lives The second is the
pursuit of a psychological security, an adherence to some individual certainties,
a comfort to a conservative culture that often is false Christianity. It is one
thing to look for a light and compass in our life in order to go forward
creatively. However, it is quite a different thing to refuse to follow a
personal path of internal search and self-discovery, using the excuse that
everything is already known and clear in the framework of our holy tradition.
We all have fallen into this trap quite often and when we do, we see no
progress in our spiritual struggle.
Many times we find that we are unable to make real
changes to our lives. Even when we are desiring more spiritual fruit, even
when stagnation burdens on our life, we make neither a spiritual nor a
practical effort. We are reluctant to move forward in a way that will bring about
positive, radical changes for us. Our pursuits and efforts simply return, as if
in bondage to determinism, to the point where they began.
Our inactivity towards a creative examination, and
toward real change where necessary, is deeply conservative and has nothing to
do with Orthodoxy. Unfortunately, this stagnation, pertains not only to some
theoretical concepts, but to the whole view and way of life. It is a way
of life that leads us to hold on uncreative and stagnant cliches.
These cliches are about codes of life, hard cast in communicating, in speaking
and in attitude, and they often indelibly mark our lives and create wounds that
are difficult to heal.
Too often, we cover up our own inability or
unwillingness to take life upon ourselves and set our goals with a spiritual
perspective, by claiming a full reliance and trust in God Who, we may claim,
guides our lives. However, it often happens that behind this alibi there is an
inability or unwillingness to take any personal, responsible initiatives. Let us
look at an example. We say in our prayers "teach me the way in which I
should go." We can repeat this prayer with two different attitudes. We can
say it with a feeling, that since God will actually guide us, there is no need
to concern ourselves with responsibility for our lives. While it is an attitude
that shows trust, but is likely also an indication of indifference. It does not
result any change in us or the undertaking of any painful effort.
Another way to say this prayer, is with real fervour
of heart, with a sense of trepidation that we are not worthy of the guidance we
ask for and with the fear that we may end up not following such guidance. In
this second case we are not content with a dry and brief prayer but we
ourselves undertake the responsibility of self examination, contemplation,
redeeming of wrong situations and vigilance, hoping that God will be merciful
to us. This same self examination is also an avenue of inner change. If this
struggle is real and sincere, it marks man with an indelible imprint. After
such a struggle, a man does not recognize himself any more, he can see that he
is a new person and realizes that he was only an immature child before. This
process entails real spiritual suffering, it is painful and, therefore, most
people prefer to avoid it, sticking to the security of well know territory.
This psychological adherence to already well known things is another definition
of conservatism.
In both the above cases, a man prays to God. In one
case he prays pathetically, unwilling to struggle and change himself. In the
other, the man invokes God to lead him through an internal process, an journey
into the unknown, a personal risk: leading him, and not simply revealing to him
what to do through some miracle.
Let us look at another example. Someone, wondering
about the real meaning of an issue or matter, asks God to enlighten him. He
opens the Holy Scriptures, as a good Christian would, and also locates relevant
words of the holy fathers on the matter in question. He may think that, in
these words themselves he has found the quintessence of life, the rule of
orthodoxy, the end of his personal quest. He does not concern himself about the
deeper meaning of the texts or about the experience which underlies them.
Moreover, he is not endeavouring to examine what he reads under a prism of a
total theological perspective. This man will remain an adherent to fragmentary
phrases, to a rigid frame of mind. He will probably never reflect on the
disposition he has formed, for he believes that through his reading he has
discerned everything about the truth. Such a person will then apply his
incomplete, often isolated, ideas, void of the spirit in which the holy fathers
spoke them or in which the passages of Scripture were written. He will become
frozen into this mindset, and yet may think that he has the key to judging all
issues.
There is another, better way for one to read the
writings of the holy fathers. This reader will view them as examples of people
who have lived a life in Christ and have been illumined by God. In this case,
the man is seeking the spirit of fathers, not just single views and
words. He is not in a hurry to form an opinion, rather he perseveres in
studying, struggling and striving in order to gain a personal understanding and
experience. His perception is developed day by day.
Alas to people who do not follow such a dynamic
process, but stagnate in adherence to "truths" they think they have
mastered by reading some isolated texts or listening to other people who have
walked a genuine path.
Let us see another example of a latent conservatism
that holds us back from following a spiritually abundant process. We often
speak about our spiritual struggle as Christians. We underline it and say that
our salvation depends on it. What we actually mean by saying "spiritual
struggle"?
In the minds of many people, the spiritual struggle
takes place in a "frozen" form of effort. They think that our
spiritual effort is completed in an external practice of virtues and a simple
participation in Church life. Prayer, studying, fasting, participation in
divine services, keeping Christ's commandments; everything that, surely, we
have to be careful about as Christians. However, it is the crystallization of
our spiritual struggle into specific practices and our reliance on them, that
might be the reason for a fruitless effort. This is especially so if these practices
have become the essence of our struggle.
Our struggle has to be in every way dynamic.
"Dynamic" indicates an inner life and motivation in following these
practices, which bears fruit through time and marks a "route" that
transforms us while we mature. Wisdom and maturity which occur in the process
of time, are blessed in the Holy Scriptures. Alas, such dynamism and maturing
may be constricted because of an adherence to conservative forms and
strictures. In the security of the forms themselves, we may often lack concern
and daily vigilance toward everything that is truly essential. How is it
possible to move forward when we do not feel, whether asleep and awake, a
thirst and agony of heart to make our life meaningful? How is it possible to
pray sincerely when our heart is not seeking? What is it that will impel us
forward when everything seems to be ensured and provided?
If our effort is static and is simply "being
practised," then this means that when the forms are not being practised,
the struggle does not exist. In that case, we have a strange perception of what
a spiritual struggle is. But, if man struggles with a true thirstiness for
learning and wisdom, he will be led to a knowledge and revelation of God which
is genuine and true, because it comes from man's participation within true life
and is not only associated with abstract ideas and codes of life. For sincere
Christians, the participation in Church life opens windows of knowledge,
perception and interpretation of the world that are not available to other
people. One who walks honestly in such a path of inquiry and self-discovery and
knowledge of world and God and of that which is essential, is advancing in his
salvation. This is a struggle similar to that of bees, which gather from every
flower all that is really of worth, leaving the rest behind.
What is the criterion for this selection? The
criterion for an honest pursuit should be our conscience. Our conscience is a
constant remembrance ("alithia" in Greek is non-forgetfulness) of
those things that achieve an actual victory and an essential profit. And what
are those things? Everything that leads us, each one of us personally,
Heavenward. We should not identify "conscience" with shapes, cliches
and rules which have been imprinted in our minds, rather we must perceive it as
a recollection of Heaven. This living and vital remembrance is the conscience.
Everything else is nothing but forms which have been cultivated by culture, of
any authoritative education. All these have an impact on the human heart but do
not always help man to find his true way. We see that what saved the thief on
his cross was a faint nostalgic consciousness of Heaven. This occurrence that
took place during the crucifixion of Christ speaks about the essence of
salvation. We also see that this nostalgia about true things is referred as
"repentance." That is to say, the repentance that saves us is
the process of life based in our conscience, that is based in the
remembrance of Paradise. This rememberance sustained Adam, the first
teacher of repentance.
Many people identify repentance with the control that
guilt exercises over our soul. This is a very slippery way of understanding the
mystery of salvation. Guilt is mostly a matter of upbringing, of learned
judgment, and has nothing to do with the essence of life and salvation. Rather
it often serves to hold man back from walking a genuine path of gradual
knowledge of God and the world.
All the above observations are not only for Christians
but for all people. However, people who ignore God can not go forward with
awareness, but only intuitively. They do not have the same opportunities to
experience an acquaintance with God and His Kingdom. These people will be
judged according to whatever knowledge they do have.
But sometimes we, the Christians of the last times, do
not even try to proceed toward a path of knowledge. We feel a sense of security
in just applying some rules and avoiding any risk that take us beyond a
well-worn path. We hide behind this illusion of security. We tend to subvert
our minds to patterns of thought and attitudes which are forced on us from
outside and are not the result of a living experience and freedom. We parrot
our lives and lose even the primitive ability of common sense. We are afraid
that if we deviate from "the program of our salvation", we shall
"loose our soul". And we do not understand that this cast of life,
this refusal to practise our freedom and our conscience, amount to a refusal to
struggle.
ΚΕΝΤΡΙΚΗ ΣΕΛΙΔΑ