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THE CHE STE R RONN ING CE NTRE FOR THE STUDY OF REL IGIO N AND PUBL IC L IFE
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the augustana distinguished lectures 2014
The delivery and the publication of the Augustana Distinguished Lectures are made possible through the Hendrickson Memorial Endowment
Three Perspectives on the Sacred Healing Wisdom from the Desert, the Mountain, and the Cosmos 7 the augustana distinguished lectures 2014 by John Chryssavgis D.Phil. Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
camrose, alberta the chester ronning centre for the study of religion and public life 2015
Copyright © John Chryssavgis 2014 Published by permission
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Chryssavgis, John, author Three perspectives on the sacred : healing wisdom from the desert, the mountain, and the cosmos / by John Chryssavgis, D.Phil., Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. (The Augustana distinguished lectures ; 2014) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-55195-347-2 (pbk.) 1. Human ecology—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Ecology—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Healing—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Holy, The. I. Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life, issuing body II. Title. III. Series: Augustana distinguished lectures ; 2014 BT695.5.C57 2015
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Contents Foreword by David J. Goa
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Healing the Wounded Soul: Learning from the Early Desert Fathers and Mothers . . . . . . . . . . .
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Healing a Wounded World: Peace for All Creation in the Beatitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Healing a Wounded Planet: Transforming Perspectives and Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Biographical Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
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Foreword How magnied are Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all. . . . — The Proemial Psalm [103]
The spiritual disciplines of the Orthodox tradition of Christianity cultivate prayer and fasting. Proper praise moves the mind and heart through a regard for the Creator to delight for all that is. The prayer of the church is for the whole of creation, to restore us to a proper relationship to creation in the fullness of our nitude. Fasting, askesis, teaches us that what we need most in our life is to let go of our appetites so we have the opportunity to engage the gifts of life that come to greet us daily. Gluttony makes feasting impossible. Acquisitiveness shrinks our capacity for appreciation of what is before us. Fr Chryssavgis began his exploration of the discipline of askesis contemplating the desert of Australia and continued to deepen his understanding on Mount Athos and through the study of the desert fathers and mothers of the Christian east. He has gone on to work closely with His All-Holiness, Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople–New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, bringing theologians, philosophers, scientists, journalists, politicians, and policy specialists together to consider the challenges that ow from our misplaced appetite, our misunderstanding of development, and our rampant consumerism. This work is undertaken in a remarkably peaceful way, free of the apocalyptic fear that has often character ized those involved in the ecological movement. We are all called to the healing of the mind and heart; a healing that ripples out to all of creation and restores our personhood and
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community, along with a delight in and regard for the sheer wonder of life. The work of Patriarch Bartholomew, Fr Chryssavgis, and their associates is refreshing, grounded as it is in an understanding that we can turn around from our missteps, that the hope that is a theological virtue and gift from God can lead us to sustained engagement in practices of healing for the life of the world. — David J. Goa
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Healing the Wounded Soul: Learning from the Early Desert Fathers and Mothers _______________ Edited text of the Augustana Distinguished Lecture given at St George’s Greek Church, Edmonton, Alberta, on 29 October 2014 _______________
introduction: reclaiming an ancient vocabulary It has become fashionable, for Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike, to be infatuated with certain exotic, technical terms that dene essential dimensions of Orthodox theology and spirituality. Scholars and students alike are generally enchanted by the mystical implications of such concepts as theosis (, deication), the Jesus Prayer, and divine light. It may, therefore, be helpful this evening to offer some terminological clarications of key theological principles and spiritual practices. Indeed, the word “spirituality” itself is vulnerable to misunderstanding and misuse unless carefully “unpacked” and nuanced. Some Orthodox theologians are even quick to claim that there is no reference whatsoever in the classical tradition to “spirituality” as such and rightly emphasize the connection between the Spirit of God and the spiritual life. Nevertheless, words communicate the pregnancy of divine life when approached in a spirit of humility. That is my intention in my presentation as I look to draw on the literary classics of the early Church, particularly from the early Egyptian and Palestinian desert. 1
For in exploring their lives and writings, I nd that conventional vocabulary comes to life and challenges the ways we perceive God and understand the world in our struggle toward personal holiness and social justice. The aim, ultimately, in any discussion about “spirituality” is to bring healing to a world that has grown accustomed to an unholy dissociation between spirituality and morality. Let us, then, look at some of the fundamental and vital concepts of Orthodox spirituality in an effort to translate an ancient faith into a modern language and unveil their intrinsic value today. i. eschatology: “dying, yet behold we live” “I expect . . . the life of the age to come”, proclaims the “symbol of faith”, otherwise known as the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan Creed, formulated in the fourth century and recited at each celebration of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy. The technical term for talk of “the age to come” is “eschatology”; it is the study of the “last events” (, eschata). Most of us assume that the “last times” and the “last things” imply an apocalyptic or even escapist attitude toward the world. But we must disabuse ourselves of the medieval legacy that eschatology is the last, perhaps unnecessary – certainly tedious – chapter in a manual of dogmatics. Eschatology is not primarily the teaching about what follows everything else in this world. It is the teaching about our relationship to those last things and last times. In essence, it is about the last-ness and the lasting-ness of all things – the Omega giving meaning to the Alpha; this world as interpreted in light of the age to come. However, it was my friends in the early desert of Egypt and Palestine who would later plunge me all unwitting into the essence of eschatology. That dry desert, from the middle of the third century until around the end of the sixth century, became a laboratory for exploring hidden truths about heaven and earth, as well as a 2
forging ground for drawing connections between the two. 1 The hermits who inhabited that desert tested and studied what it means to be human – with all the tensions and temptations, all of the struggle beyond survival, all of the contact with good and the conict with evil. And on their course, some of them made many mistakes; others made fewer mistakes. Whoever said that there is a clear and simple answer to the questions of life? Yet, these men and women dared to push the limits; they challenged and deed the norms of what was acceptable in their age and society. I think I received further insights into some of the deeper dimensions of eschatology when I faced my own mortality in the brokenness of my son’s cerebral palsy. The word “eschatology” no longer seemed otherworldly to me; it did not focus exclusively on future events. I was intensely faced with the vulnerability of another human being – so intricately caught up in the last things. And so the lie about heaven-being-elsewhere split wide open, something that could only occur after I admitted that I was really broken. Living life to the full comes only when the ultimate concerns – namely, meaninglessness and death – have been honestly confronted and openly embraced. What is far more difcult, it seems to me, and far more important than learning to live is learning to die. Dying and loss are lessons in how to live and how to love. In fact, remembrance of death is a crucial virtue in the spiritual life, a daily and tangible reminder of human weakness and imperfection. If we want to come out of life nice and polished, we need simply 1
See Benedicta Ward (ed.), The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 1984). There have been numerous translations and editions of the desert fathers and mothers, by such eminent writers as Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Columba Stewart, and others. References in this lecture are to the classic translation by Sr Benedicta Ward.
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think of death. There is hardly an outwardly sense of perfection in nursing homes and hospices! Our spiritual reections are fatally awed if they do not begin with the suffering of the Cross, with the cries of those hurt. An eschatological interpretation of the world introduces a raw criti cism of our struggle for survival, of power dynamics and human domination. It recognizes that what is personal and private is also political and public. An eschatological vision of reality and the world offers a way out of the impasse of provincialism and the evil of confessionalism. It reects our refusal to acquiesce – whether out of innocence or ignorance or intimidation, whether by choice or by force. ii. silence and tears: learning to listen and love But when all words are abandoned, a new awareness arrives and silence awakens us from numbness to the world around us. For the early desert dwellers, silence () is a requirement of life; it is the rst duty of love. Silence is a way of waiting, a way of watching, a way of noticing – instead of ignoring – what is going on in our heart and in our world. It is the glue that binds our attitudes and our actions, our belief, and our behaviour. Silence reects our ultimate surrender to God as well as our gradual awakening to new patterns of learning and living. When we are silent, we learn by suffering and undergoing, not just by speculating and understanding. Silence conrms our readiness to lead a counter-cultural way of life, to choose rather than to be led, to admit our limited perspective as possessors and consumers in society, and to appreciate another, unlimited perspective of the spiritual way.2 2
For more on the tradition of silence, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Silence: A
Christian History (New York: Viking, 2013).
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What we learn rst and foremost in silence is that we are all mutually interdependent, that the entire world is intimately interconnected, even beyond our wildest imagination. Nothing living is self-contained; the brokenness of one person or particle in nature reects the fragility of the whole world: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor. 12.26). There is no autonomy – only a distinction between a sense of responsibility and a lack thereof. The result of any bifurcation between spirituality and reality is inevitably catastrophic. And one of the more tangible ways of expressing our vulnerability, at least according to the classical texts of Orthodox spirituality, is weeping or the shedding of tears (). The gift of tears is “native” to Christianity and was accorded a particular priority in the East. Tears are another means of surrendering – of dying, although always in the context and in the hope of new life and resurrection. They are a way of embracing darkness in order to receive light; in the desert, they are a way of welcoming human failure as the ultimate opportunity for receiving divine grace and strength, which is only “perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12.9). Somewhere on that long trail between childhood and adulthood, many of us lose touch with the vital skills that permit us to know ourselves. Part of the problem is that we set impossible goals, which can be met only by angels. The spirituality of the desert taught its inhabitants that perfection is for God alone; we are called neither to forgo nor to forget our imperfection.3 Strangely, the fragility and vulnerability of life itself reveals the priority of confronting and embracing our innermost weaknesses. Life has a way of nally catching up with us – so that we can look it in the 3
Abba Antony (251‒356) said: “Whoever has not experienced temptation
cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” (Saying 5). Abba Evagrius of Pontus (345‒399) said: “Take away temptations and no one will be saved” (Saying 5).
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face! The truth is that God may be discerned in the very midst of every tension and trial. In this way, tears can express the beauty and the mystery of being all too human. Tears are the closest companions of deication, our sure escape-route from death to life. As such, they are an overture to joy and life, to compassion and love. The desert saints are convinced that one silent tear will advance us further in the spiritual way than any number of louder ascetic feats or more visible virtuous achievements.4 In this way, tears signify fragility and vulnerability, the broken window through which God enters the heart, bringing healing and wholeness to both soul and body. Thus, the silence of tears prepares the heart for self-knowledge and compassion. It allows us the time and space to become alert to ourselves and to others. Curiously, while – in the church life generally and the spiritual way especially – we often understand the need for knowing and loving others through compassion, we less frequently appreciate the virtue of knowing ourselves through silence. Yet, knowing why we do what we do facilitates the awareness also of why other people do what they do, and in the end leads to the acceptance of other people as they are. Permit me humbly to suggest that narcissism is not too much self, but rather insufcient knowledge of our true self. People who are self-absorbed or self-centred normally suffer from too little rather than too much self. Moreover, we often seek intimacy by facing in the wrong direction: instead of looking inward, we turn outward toward others. Nevertheless, the isolation of stillness and the imperfection of tears become the rst step toward intimacy and communion. 4
Abba Poemen (c. 340‒450) said: “One who wishes to purify one’s faults puri-
es them with tears; one who wishes to acquire the virtues acquires them with tears. Weeping is the way that the Scriptures and the Fathers give us, when they say: ‘Weep!’ Truly, there is no other way than this” (Saying 119).
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Silence and tears, then, are the great stabilizers; they resemble a secret compass in our relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. They are about being, and not simply doing, rendering the heart acutely attentive and uniquely receptive. Through silence and tears, the heart is gradually rened in the art of attentiveness. Silence provides the space and the capacity to listen to and soak up what another person is conveying. In brief, it is the skill as well as the tool whereby we acknowledge that what is going on in someone else’s world matters. In the nal analysis, silence and tears introduce an apophatic element () to the way we live and love. For through stillness and tears come the refreshing suggestion of approaching and acknowledging others by “not knowing” them. If we are xed to our preconceptions or fears of people, then we may never enjoy perfect silence. When we “know” someone, we have already shut our eyes to that person’s constant process of change and growth. We limit ourselves by rooting others in the past and not rejoicing in their potential. Therefore, through the power of silence and tears, we can risk embracing the other person in his or her entirety, in his or her eternal dimension – beyond what we could ever comprehend or tolerate. iii. passions: growing through suffering Through silence and tears, we begin to notice what is happening inside and around us. However, we do not change suddenly, magically becoming new people, our old faults forgotten. We can never run away from who we are; we shall never escape temptations and passions ( ), our temper or greed, our vanity or ambition, our fear or envy, our resentment or arrogance. Yet, passions are more than sins, far more than vices. Of course, it isn’t acceptable to speak of sin nowadays. Sin fatigue has led to 7
the demotion, dilution, and demolition of the notion of sin. To quote Richard Dawkins: “The Christian focus is overwhelmingly on sin sin sin sin sin sin sin. What a nasty little preoccupation to have dominating your life.” 5 Nonetheless, our passions and problems cannot be denied or concealed; for potentially, they are the very resources for spiritual renewal and revitalization. When our passions are misdirected or distorted, the soul is divided; we are no longer whole or integrated. So passions are never either quashed or quenched by our own doing; they are fullled and transformed by God’s loving grace. In the tearful solitude of the heart – through our common temptations and all too human tensions – we become painfully aware of what is lacking. There, we are haunted by the absence of love and begin to yearn for the depth of communion. Such a discovery through solitude eventually becomes a fountain of healing. Embracing solitude in the loneliness of the soul means knowing what you think, understanding how you behave, and nally accepting others without the need to defend yourself. It is assuming responsibility without the least sense of self-justication or self-righteousness. Ultimately, the measure to which we are able to acknowledge and accept others will depend on the degree that we can understand and tolerate ourselves. This is because we are more united to each other through our weaknesses than through our strengths; I am convinced that we are more like one another through our shortcomings than through our successes. Passions are what connect us with one another; this is why passions can be fully understood only through others.
5
The God Delusion (New York: Bantam Press–Random House, 2006), 285.
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iv. obedience: learning with others One way of recognizing the spiritual unity that binds all human beings is silently embracing the reality of our passions and weak nesses; it is gradually learning to grow through and with others. That is what the desert tradition understood by the concept of “obedience”. This is precisely why, in the early desert of Egypt and Palestine, both lay Christians and ordained clergy, novices and monastics alike, would travel long distances in order to visit renowned elders for a word of advice or, as they would call it, “a word of salvation”.6 It was this self-knowledge – perhaps above all other qualications, spiritual or worldly – that rendered the abba (, spiritual father) or amma (, spiritual mother) uniquely skilled and prepared to guide the souls of others. If there is one lesson learned in the early desert, it is the conviction that, in order to achieve self-knowledge, we also need to trust at least one other person. And so the desert elders spoke of obedience and spiritual direction.7 Obedience is essentially an act of listening; it is in fact the art of listening attentively or closely ( , hypakoe). However, the goal of obedience is not to repress the will; it is in fact to stabilize the will. While the ne balance between isolation and intimacy is ultimately impossible to attain without divine grace, it is extremely difcult to sustain without sharing with or baring all before a spiritual elder or director. Through someone else’s belief in our self, we begin condently to rediscover the solid ground within. Sharing our 6
“The brethren came to the Abba Antony and said to him: ‘Speak a word; how
are we to be saved?’ ” (Saying 19). 7
“Abba Antony said: ‘If he is able to, a monk ought to tell his elders condently
how many steps he takes and how many drops of water he drinks in his cell, in case he is error about these’ ” (Saying 38).
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thoughts and temptations openly with at least one other person enables us to become familiar with the desires and conicts that drive our behaviour. Furthermore, listening to and accepting the reality of our self renders us more aware of and more caring toward others. This is why learning to “bear one another’s burdens” is the goal of obedience and spiritual direction. This is perhaps why Galatians 6.2 is the most repeated verse in the letters of the great spiritual directors, Barsanuphius and John. 8 The process of spiritual direction clearly implies a profound sense of love and solidarity with another human being; for the elder assumes the suffering of others and, therefore, “bears the cross” (Luke 14.24) of Christ Himself. This reveals the art of spiritual direction as a way of love. One reason for sharing with others is quite simply that most of us are the harshest critics of ourselves, striking the most painful blows against ourselves at just the time when we most require tolerance and compassion. Obedience clearly goes against the grain of so much in our contemporary society, which espouses such notions as individuality and independence. Nonetheless, when someone is unable to build up from even the smallest patch of solid ground, then terms like “freedom” and “will” have little resonance. Without a personal relationship, one gains nothing but a feeling of guilt from obedience. And such guilt defeats the purpose of obedience, which is spiritual liberation, albeit through the 8
These two renowned elders lived in Gaza during the sixth century and were
widely known for their balanced and insightful spiritual wisdom, which is preserved in the form of 850 extraordinary letters. For the English translation of the full correspondence in two volumes, see John Chryssavgis (ed.), Letters, in The Fathers of the Church, volumes 113‒114 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006‒2007). For a selection of letters, see John Chryssavgis (ed.), Letters from the Desert (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003).
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margins of self-renunciation, in the paradox of self-subjection to another, always in the context of love. In order to experience such love, it is necessary to allow at least one other into the deepest recesses of the heart and mind, sharing every thought, emotion, insight, wound, and joy with another person whom we trust completely. For most people, however, this is a difcult venture. It is not easy to open up to another person, revealing the vulnerable and darker aspects of our life. Our culture encourages us from an early age to be strong and assertive, to handle matters alone. Yet, for the spiritual wisdom of the early desert, such a way is false; it is, in fact, the way of the devil. 9 People need others because often the wounds themselves are too deep to admit to oneself; sometimes, the evil is too painful to confront alone. The sign, then, according to the Orthodox spiritual way, that one is on the right track is the ability to share with someone else. This is, of course, precisely the essence of the Sacrament of Confession or reconciliation. Confession is not some kind of transaction or deal; it dees mechanical denition and can never be reduced in a juridical manner merely to the – albeit signicant – act of absolution. Nor again is confession some form of narcissistic self-reection. Sin is always understood in Orthodox spirituality as a rupture in the “I–Thou” relationship of the world; otherwise metanoia () could easily lead to paranoia. Genuine confession always issues in communion; it is ultimately the ability to utter, together with at least one person, “Our Father”. It is the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the mystery of communion, lived out day by day.
9
“Abba John the Dwarf [c. 339‒c. 405] said: ‘The enemy rejoices over nothing
so much as over those who do not manifest their thoughts to their elders’ ” (Poemen, Saying 101).
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v. detachment and akedia: or, discernment and action Finally, in order to appreciate this spiritual vision and worldview, we need to take a step back from conventional ways and habits. This is why the early ascetics deeply valued “detachment” (). For us, detachment is a concept that has lost any positive con notation. Nowadays, it is used in a negative sense, to mean perhaps the opposite of a healthy engagement with the world and with other people. It conveys a sense of aloofness, a studied remoteness that implies lack of concern or compassion. Yet the monastic interpretation of detachment could not be more different. In the desert, detachment meant not allowing either worldly values or self-centredness to distract us from what is most essential in our relationship with God and the world. It is, in fact, paying closer attention to details, even to the intake of food and the acquisition of possessions. Not in order to punish ourselves, but in order to discern the value of sharing, the presence of suffering, and the intrinsic dignity of things. This sort of detachment is neither passive nor remote; paradoxically, it is fully engaged with the world. It is a prayer that can absorb all manner of pain and transform it into hope. For the early desert elders, detachment from everything and everyone only underlined the value of everything and everyone. 10 No wonder, then, that detachment was the rst step of monastic renunciation or of the ight to the desert. Moreover, it was more than merely spatial or material. Detachment is not the inability to focus on things, material or other; it is precisely the spiritual capacity to focus on all things, material and other, without any depend10
See especially the Reflections of Abba Zosimas (fl. 473‒525) in John Chryssavgis,
In the Heart of the Desert (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom Books, 2008), 111‒150.
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ence or attachment. It is primarily something spiritual, an attitude of life. In this respect, detachment is ongoing, demanding continual renement over years of practice. The desert elders11 speak of stages in the way of detachment, just as there are steps in the spiritual “ladder of divine ascent”. Detachment resembles the shedding of a number of coats of skin, until our senses are sharpened, or until – as one desert father (Abba Doulas, fl. c. ad 400) put it – “our inner vision becomes keen”.12 When we learn what to let go of, we also learn what is worth holding on to. Think of it in this way: it is simply not possible to share something precious – or even to hold a lover’s hand or again to begin to pray – when our sts are clenched, holding tightly onto something. The purpose of monastic detachment is not to teach us how to live apart from the social world, but to inspire us all about how to live within the world as a responsible part of society. Detachment is an expression of love, a positive energy that must be incarnated into action. The same attitude extends beyond one’s connection with other people to one’s relationship to material things. We are to let go of our actions, of our words, and nally of our priorities in life. The aim of letting go is the learning of true prayer, the starting-point and ending-point of all action. By letting go, we learn to pray spontaneously, a gift that in many ways children seem to have innately, but which takes a lifetime for us to recover as adults. And in this kind of prayer, the way of silence and the way of service coincide. Work is never separated from prayer. Rather, prayer frees us for carefree service of others, where we are no longer conditioned by the burden of necessity but always prepared for the novelty 11
See, for example, Abba Antony, Saying 19.
12 Saying 1.
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of grace. Just as silence conditions our words, prayer too conditions our works. Detachment signies humility, and humility looks to shift the focus of oneself as the centre of the world and to place oneself in the service of others. The humble person is always satised, always shares, always gives, always gives thanks. A truly detached person cannot tolerate creating miserable poverty for the sake of accumulating exorbitant wealth. The moral crisis of our global economic injustice is integrally spiritual; it signals something terribly amiss in our relationship with God, with people, and with things. Yet, insulated as we are by privilege and by the sin of attachment, so many of us remain blind to the ecological devastation created by current global trade and investment regimes. The detached person is free, uncontrolled by attitudes that violently abuse the world, uncompelled by ways that simply use the world. In light of this, the desert elders develop the notion of akedia (), originally one of the “eight evil thoughts” of monastic spirituality, but later dropped from the medieval list of “seven deadly sins” in the Western Church. 13 However, given the historical emphasis in the world – if not obsession in the church – on “sins of the esh”, we may nd it surprising that the early monks regarded lust as a lesser temptation; attachment and akedia were considered far worse, involving lack of concern (which is in fact the root meaning of the word akedia). Often translated as “sloth”, “despondency”, or “despair”, the terms “spiritual weariness”, “purposelessness”, or “boredom” come closer to its original meaning, which actually frustrates any attempt 13 See Gabriel Bunge, Despondency: The Spiritual Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Acedia, tr. A. Gythiel (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012); and Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life (New York: Riverhead, 2010).
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at translation. It marks a weighing down of mind, heart and body, whereby one feels a helpless victim. The most comprehensive, albeit humorous description is found in Evagrius of Pontus, who recognizes that akedia often manifests as eagerness or compulsion: The demon of akedia, also called the noonday demon, is the most oppressive of all. It attacks at about 10 a.m., besieging the soul until about 2 p.m. First, it makes the sun seem to move slowly, or not at all, so that the day appears 50 hours long. . . . Then it compels the monk to look outside the window, watching the sun . . . wondering if any brothers will visit. It makes him hate the place, his life and work, to imagine that no one loves him, no one can console him. . . . It makes him desire other places, where things are easier to obtain and life is easier. . . . It employs every device to make him abandon the race.14
As for healing the “noonday demon” – and, to adapt a contemporary country song, “it’s always [noontime] somewhere!” – the traditional panacea was keeping up a regular and full routine of activities, though Thomas Aquinas more sympathetically allows for some mild relaxation, like taking a nap or indulging in a warm bath. However, the remedy does not lie in doing something or moving somewhere; while engaging and even entertaining, diversions and distractions merely postpone or prolong the condition. In the ascetic way, they are considered temptations. Abba Isaac the Syrian divulges the lurking dangers of such activism: “Excessive work leads to despondency and despondency can lead to frenzy.” 15 I prefer the tested remedy of the Philokalia, namely patience in prayer and moderation in discipline; nothing in excess and nothing in exaggeration! 14 Praktikos 12 (author’s translation). 15 Treatise 71.
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conclusion: spirituality as the way of authenticity While the end of the spiritual way may well be the vision of God or theosis, ultimately spirituality is none other than the way of selfknowledge and integrity, carved out of the ordinary experience of everyday life perceived in the extraordinary light of the eternal kingdom. It is the gradual – albeit, as a result of our resistance, the painful – process of learning to be who you are and do what you do with all the intensity of life and love. An old man was asked: “What is it necessary to do to be saved?” He was making rope; and, without looking up from the work, he replied: “You are looking at it.” In this way, the ascetic way denes in a uniquely tangible and concrete manner the theological doctrines concerning the original creation of the world, the divine incarnation of the Word and the age to come that we expect.
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Healing a Wounded World: Peace for All Creation in the Beatitudes _______________ Edited text of the Augustana Distinguished Lecture given at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta, Camrose, Alberta, on 30 October 2014 _______________
‘ .
For the peace of the whole world. That is the petition of the deacon at the opening of every Divine Liturgy. And “the whole world” includes every corner of God’s creation, to the last speck of dust. The Beatitudes were delivered in the context of a sermon on a mountain, which could represent the widest – and farthest – possible view of the world. introduction: the book of genesis and the gospel of matthew In the rst book of the Hebrew Bible, peace is implicitly central. God made the world “very beautiful”, “very good” (Gen. 1.31). Similarly, in the rst Gospel of the Christian scriptural canon, Matthew opens his very rst verse by describing the message that he wishes to convey as “a book of genesis”. In so doing, Matthew is being faithful to Genesis as an archetype of God’s message or purpose for the world. There is an association between the words “beatitude” and “beauty”. And the Greek term kalos () used in the Septuagint to describe God’s “good” creation implies much more than mere goodness; it implies attractiveness – literally, a magnetic “attraction” 17
(the Greek word kalos [] has the same root as the Greek verb kalo [, ] meaning “I call”) toward the charisma of divine beauty, justice, and peace. In his gospel account, then, Matthew is not offering a biography of Jesus, but a way of living for the new Israel, the Christian community; he is presenting an ecclesiology, not a history. And he tells us that the beauty, justice, and peace, for which God created and intended the world, must become part of our own lifestyle and worldview.16 Matthew was addressing a community in crisis. After the resurrection, it is an apocalyptic attitude that sustained the Christians, who believed Jesus would soon return. Yet Matthew believed and proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven is already at hand; that God is already present in those who live a life of restoration and reconciliation. To appreciate how it is that Matthew could have such an alternative vision, let me offer a simple example. When we look at buildings, the untrained eye will observe bricks and mortar. But an architect will perceive beyond the surface appearance, to discern harmony and pressure points. Yet another person will observe beauty and orderliness, or ugliness and darkness. Matthew too is able to discern new – and ever deepening – perceptions of the presence of God in our lives. In the beginning, in the rst book of Genesis, God saw chaos and darkness, and God cared enough about the world to place things in order, to render things beautiful and peaceful. He created the cosmos. In Matthew’s Genesis, God once again cared for and loved the world. The phrase “in the beginning” ( ) – whether in the rst book of the Old Testament or the rst book of the New Testament – is 16 See, for example, the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, edited by Thomas Oden (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010).
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a symbol for when-ever, or always; it includes “every beginning”. Which teaches us that, whenever we see any deviation in life, any deformation in the world, we too must care enough to respond, to restore, to bring peace. Permit me, then, to offer a brief survey – a humble meditation – on the Beatitudes from the perspective of peace, the peace of the whole world, the peace of the kingdom. i. blessed are the poor in spirit: theirs is the kingdom of heaven God’s kingdom is never reduced simply to a matter of comfortable rules and regulations. It is certainly not a reinforcement of worldly positions and secular institutions. God’s kingdom is a reversal of attitudes, a reordering of values, a conversion of behaviour. It means becoming more and more a person who shares in the justice and peace of God. It implies coming under the authority of God, rather than under the authority of this world. And living the Beatitudes signies our acceptance of this new authority. And in order to do this, Matthew tells us we must become poor; to become complete, we must surrender and become incomplete. If you really want peace and change, “go sell all your possessions and give to the poor” (Matt. 19.21). There is a cost involved. Peace is intimately connected to sacrice. The question is: How much have we sold? How much have we surrendered? Are we willing to give – and to give up – everything? Are we prepared to sacrice our preconceptions, our prestige, our positions, our possessions, our power in order to nd beauty, justice, and peace? Of course, Matthew does not romanticize poverty. Sharing in the kingdom in fact depends on our effort to alleviate poverty in the world. Poverty is not good; it is not blessed; it is not a virtue. Poverty is actually the clearest indication that the kingdom of God 19
has not yet come. However, poverty can be voluntary, as with monastics. Voluntary poverty can be a way of sharing with the poor, a means of giving up whatever provides security. So long as we justify our ways and our behaviour, we will not understand that everyone has a right to enough of the earth’s resources: to sufcient water, energy, food, clothing, health, a safe environment, and peace. If God’s purpose is for us to be more and more, we must admit that to have more than enough is to be less than human. In the Beatitudes, we learn that we must choose our gods; we cannot serve two masters. Remember, “where your treasure is, there your heart is also” (Matt. 6.21). ii. blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted When we think of Jesus Christ, we imagine a healer, one who overcomes brokenness and death. There is a softness of touch, even a sense of joy, in this Beatitude. The Prophet Isaiah says: “Give them oil of gladness in place of mourning” (61.3). And, as we well know, there is an entire literature and theology of tears in early ascetic writers. Jesus brings comfort to all levels of our mourning. Yet comfort is not tantamount to relaxation; it is a challenge. All the healing miracles of Christ have to do with overcoming individualism, with breaking open our closed-ness: the deaf person is shut off; the dumb person cannot communicate; the paralytic is unable to step outside himself; the leper is isolated from the community; the demonized man is possessed, imprisoned. And Jesus heals them by saying: to the deaf man: “Effatha” (be opened); to the dumb man: “Speak”; to the paralytic: “Take up your bed, and walk”; to the leper: “Be cleaned”; to the demonized man: “Be healed, go to the rest of the community, and show yourself”. 20
Henceforth, then, if we wish to live by the Beatitudes, we can no longer remain deaf to the voice of suffering (Prov. 21.13), to the cry of the poor (Ps. 22.24), to the groaning of creation (Rom. 8.22). If we wish to abide by the Beatitudes, then we must breathe the air of compassion; we must weep with those who weep and speak for those who have no voice. And so we mourn because we have betrayed our call to be faithful to God’s plan and authority. We grieve over our sins – sins of envy, greed, gluttony, jealousy, and aggression – against our neighbour and against the earth. For only when we are healed can we also talk about change. It is signicant that Matthew’s Gospel shows that Christ’s disciples were given the power to heal in chapter 10. It is not until much later, in the nal chapter 28 – and in the very last verse of that chapter – that they were also given the power to teach! The message is simple: when our community or environment is broken, mere words about justice and peace will not go very far in restoring the suffering we have inicted. Indeed, Hosea tells us that even “the land mourns, and everything that dwells in it languishes [i.e., sheds tears]” (4.1). Of course, Matthew wrote of birds in the sky; today, oil slicks wash them ashore. Grass in the elds brought joy to Christ’s disciples; today, toxic chemicals and warfare leave the land barren. Jesus assumed that foxes had homes; today, we cannot predict that entire species will survive. Jesus multiplied loaves and shes; today, over 800 million people are severely undernourished. iii. blessed are the meek; they shall inherit the earth [or the land] As king of heaven and earth, Christ comes not with violence but in meekness. He will inherit the earth and all its power, all its positions, all its prestige. Matthew reassures us that God comes to assume 21
authority over creation, to reorder creation from chaos into cosmos – just as in the rst Genesis. The average Jew in the rst century (as the average Christian today) had one of two ways of responding to Jesus: either with meekness or violence. And this response was reected in the way the Hebrews treated the earth; because the earth can never become an end in itself. So Israel laid aside a weekly day of rest to remember this, to recall that worshipping creation, venerating false gods, is a form of idolatry. On the other hand, worshipping God without assuming responsibility for the land is a dangerous and misleading form of spiritualism. Our society, however, promotes a mentality that exalts the ac quisition of material possessions. Once we are in “the land”, it is difcult to “seek rst the kingdom of God” (Matt. 6.33). It is easy to forget that this earth is “inherited” – received, not appropriated. It is never ours to own, but only God’s to give. The land must be orientated to others in order to promote God’s kingdom. Meekness is the blessed way of dealing justly with the land. Otherwise, the land becomes a territory of violence, a domain of division, and a realm of mistrust. iv. blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [or justice]; they shall be filled Hunger and thirst lead to dependence on God. And God promises that there will always be enough for all. That is justice; that is fairness; that is peace. However, like Israel in the Old Testament, we always seek more than what is enough, more than our fair share, more than what is just. We lose our conviction and condence that God will “give us our daily bread”. Still, God responds to our need, asking in return that we “do not store up treasure on earth” but 22
“in heaven” (Matt. 6.19–20), that we do not live in greedy excess so that others may have the basic essentials. We are to seek to have only just enough, in order to be more and more. Now when Matthew speaks of peace, he speaks of justice (, dikaiosyne). However, the opposite of justice, for Matthew, is not injustice; it is hypocrisy. Justice creates community; hypocrisy destroys commonality. Justice creates peace; hypocrisy creates chaos. Justice means sharing; hypocrisy leads to snatching. v. blessed are the merciful; they shall receive mercy An essential aspect of justice and righteousness is mercy. Mercy is the personal experience and practical expression of God’s love. “Lord, have mercy” (K ; Kyrie, eleison) is what we chant in so many tones and diverse tunes during the liturgy. To be blessed by God is to show compassion, to care for every living person and every living thing. Think of how Abba Isaac the Syrian describes “the merciful heart that burns out of compassion for birds, beasts, human beings, even demons – unable to bear or hear of the slightest pain suffered anywhere in creation”.17 Blessedness means showing mercy. In fact, peace is synonymous with the quality of mercy. A Christian cannot win God’s mercy; it’s not ours to own. But a Christian can lose God’s mercy by not extending it to others and to creation. There are no excuses for our un-involvement. We must choose to care. Otherwise, we are not being fair; otherwise, we are not being merciful; otherwise, we are not working for peace. We shall never give people enough to eat. But we must give them 17 Homily 48, in St Isaac the Syrian, The Ascetical Homilies, translated by the Holy Transguration Monastery (Boston, MA: 1984).
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from our table. So the question is: How many people sit at our table? What kind of people do we invite to sit with us at our table? How many issues do we ignore at the table of our life? How signicant – or just how subtle – is our prejudice? vi. blessed are the pure in heart; they shall see god Purity of heart is achieved through asceticism, which actually means learning what really matters, not being controlled by the cares of this world, not remaining on a supercial level. Asceticism is learning what to care for, when to be involved, and when not to interfere. Then our heart becomes pure; then we become better disposed to “see” God. So purity of heart implies stripping the surface. It is an invitation to greater depth. It is making choices about things, people, and God. Indeed, peace too is more than just an resignation of power or absence of struggle. Peace is never a soft option; it is freedom of choice, freedom from compulsion, freedom from obligation. It involves wholeness and healing, safety and salvation. Think of the prayer of Symeon the Prophet: “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation” (see Luke 2). When we have purity and peace, then we value and desire not what we want, but what we need – gradually coming to value and desire what the world needs and what God wants. It is learning to see the world with new eyes. And because we live – or at least strive, desire to live – in purity of heart, we can actually see God. Seeing God, however, implies commitment to peace and justice. It involves doing peace and justice, speaking peace and justice, and insisting on peace and judgement. Seeing God means seeing beyond boundaries and denominations, beyond politics and nationalism, 24
beyond institutions and self-interests. It entails being unconstricted by parochialism and chauvinism, prejudice and pride. vii. blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called children [that is to say, “sons” and “daughters”] of god To understand how it is that we can work for peace in a way that God will call us His children, it may be helpful to remember what it means for Christ to be called God’s Son. In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ is called “Son” () twice, and the voice comes from heaven: the rst time at the River Jordan; the second on Mount Tabor. On both occasions, we hear: “This is my beloved Son; in him I am well pleased” (3.17 and 17.5). Christ is the Son of God because He is in full communion with the nature of God, fully committed to the will of God. Full communion means sharing all God’s resources. And full commitment to the Beatitudes signies reection of God’s peace and justice. Even though Christ’s communion and commitment led to death on the cross; and even though this meant standing in direct contrast, indeed in candid contradiction to the way society understood peace and justice, yet He remained surrendered to God’s purpose and will. Perhaps, then, it is important to stop measuring progress or success in the way society regards them. The criterion for success cannot be dened in quantitative terms: for Christ, the end was the cross; for John the Baptist, the end was beheading. However, “becoming children” also implies something else. Peacemaking means building community; and community begins by recognizing the dignity of every person, who is precious in the eyes of God. This is why, when asked about greatness, Christ pointed to a child and said: “Unless you change [lit., turn around, and thus repent] and become like this child, you will not enter the 25
kingdom” (18.2–3). This was a radical gesture at a time when children were denied human rights and had no access to fundamental resources. When I hear of child trafcking today, I wonder how far we have actually come. Of course, “making peace” is hard work. Yet it is our only hope for restoring a broken world. By working for peace or by working to heal the environment, just as by removing obstacles for peace or by avoiding what harms the world, we may – at least, this is what we are assured – hear a voice in our heart that says: “This is my beloved. In my beloved – and in him, in her, in you – I am well pleased.” viii. blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice; theirs is the kingdom of heaven. blessed are you for great is your reward in heaven Matthew wished to reassure his community about two things: rst, if they lived by the Beatitudes, then they should expect rejection; and second, if they were persecuted, this would be a sign that they were truly faithful. Seeking peace and justice innately and inevitably means being consigned to a state of openness and vulnerability. Because peace and justice are like two sides of the same coin; reconciliation and truth are inseparable; “righteousness and peace shall kiss”, says the Prophet Isaiah. Christ did not come to spread peace, but the sword (10.34). Persecution is expected. Some people will not understand the language about peace and justice. Society will not consent, much less will it “convert”. Even the Church may not comply. What Christ calls “blessing” is for others “scandal”. Living the Beatitudes means resisting, even reversing the ways of the world. Society will reject the message and the messenger, our theology and our actions. People have too much at stake, whether it is oil in the Middle East 26
or national pride on the Russia–Ukraine border. Isaiah says: “They look, but choose not to see; they listen, but choose not to hear” (Matt. 13.13; Is. 6.9–10). Yet Matthew ends with this Beatitude in order to indicate something else. This Beatitude is more than a completion or culmination. It is a commission, a command for the disciples to assume the problems of their time and bring God’s compassion to the world – no matter what the cost, risk, or pain. So the Beatitude becomes a direct invitation, a personal promise. Much like the conclusion to the early Christian liturgy – “Let us go forth in peace” – this is not a conclusion but a command. And the command is to “love one another”, to “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6.2). We must persist in responding to the poor, strive to share the resources of the world, heal our broken community and environment. As she gave her life in place of a Jewish mother condemned to the gas chamber in Ravensbrück in 1945, Mother Maria Skobtsova afrmed: “The way to God lies through other people; and there is no other way.” 18 Then we shall hear Christ’s voice: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world” (Matt. 25.34). conclusion: the innate goodness of the world In this way, Matthew’s new Genesis returns to an echo of the creation story, closing with a reminder about the rst Genesis when God created the world; “and behold it was good”; and indeed “it was very good”. This is precisely why the deacon repeatedly exclaims: “Let us pray . . . again and again . . . for the peace of the whole world.” 18
See Sergei Hackel, The Pearl of Great Price: The Life of Mother Maria Skobtsova
(Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981).
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Healing a Wounded Planet: Transforming Perspectives and Practices _______________ Edited text of the Augustana Distinguished Lecture given at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta, Camrose, Alberta, on 30 October, and at The King’s University, Edmonton, Alberta, on 31 October 2014
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introduction: the sixth day of creation Permit me to take you on a journey . . . back to what theologians call “the beginning”. This is surely the starting point for speaking about the environment. Yet, whenever we think of the Genesis story, we focus on our creation by a loving God but forget our connection to our environment. Whether this is a natural reaction or a sign of arrogance, we tend to overemphasize our creation “in the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1.26) and overlook our creation from “the dust of the ground” (2.7). Nevertheless, our “heavenliness” does not overshadow our “earthliness”. Most people are unaware that we human beings did not get a day to ourselves in the creation account. In fact, we shared that “sixth day” with the creeping and crawling things of the world (1.24–26). We enjoy a binding unity with God’s world. It is helpful – and humble – to recall this truth. In recent years, of course, we have been painfully reminded of this truth with the cruel ora and fauna extinction, with the irresponsible soil and forest clearance, and with the unacceptable noise,
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air, and water pollution. Still, our concern for the environment cannot be reduced to supercial or sentimental love. It is a way of honouring our creation by God, of hearing the “groaning of creation” (Rom. 8.22). It should be an afrmation the truth of that sixth day of creation. Anything less than the full story – the full truth – is dangerous heresy. Speaking of “heresy” in assessing the ecological crisis is not farfetched. For whenever we speak of heavenly or earthly things, we are invariably drawing upon established values of ourselves and our world. The technical language we adopt or the particular “species” we preserve, all depend on values and images that we promote, even presume. We tend to call our predicament an “ecological crisis”. I propose that the cause of the problem is rooted in the paradigms that impel us to pursue a particular lifestyle. The crisis concerns the way we imagine our world. It is – essentially, ultimately – a battle over icons. In classical traditions, human beings regarded themselves as descendant from God (or the gods). They looked on the world as soul-ful, not soul-less; as sacred (like them), not subjected (to them). In their experience and memory, every ower, every bird, every star was holy. The sap of trees was identied with their lifeblood. Nature was not an object for experimentation or exploitation; trade was never at the expense of nature. So when we consider the experience and memory of the Church, we should emphasize its distinct symbols and values, which include: icons (, as the way we view and perceive creation); liturgy (, as the way we celebrate and respond to creation); and ascesis (, as the way we respect and treat creation). Early mystics recognized that “everything that breathes praises God” (Ps. 150.6); the entire world is a “burning bush of God’s
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energies”.19 When, as Isaac the Syrian says, “our eyes are opened to the beauty of things”, then we can also discern the “divine sparks scattered everywhere”.20 i. the iconic vision of nature With regard to “speaking about the environment”, seeing clearly is precisely what icons teach us to do. The world of the icon reveals the eternal dimension in all that we see and experience. Our generation, it may be said, is characterized by a sense of self-centredness toward the natural cosmos, by a lack of awareness of the beyond. We have broken the sacred covenant between our selves and our world. Well, it is the icon that restores, that reconciles. The icon reminds us of another world. The icon provides a corrective to our culture, which gives value only to the here and now. It aspires to the inner vision of all, the world as created and as intended by God. Traditionally, the rst image attempted by an iconographer is the Transguration of Christ on Mount Tabor. For the iconographer strives to hold together this world and the next. 21 By disconnecting this world from heaven, we have in fact desacralized both earth and heaven. So the icon speaks in this world the language of the age to come. And it is here that the doctrine of the divine incarnation, at the heart of iconography, emerges. In the icon of Jesus Christ, the 19 Gregory Palamas, The Triads, translated by Nicholas Gendle (New York, Ramsey; Toronto: Paulist Press, 1983) explores this theme as central to his argument in favour of the hesychastic tradition. 20 St Isaac the Syrian, Ascetic Treatises 65. 21 L. Ouspensky and V. Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989), and A. Ugolnik, The Illuminating Icon (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989).
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uncreated God assumes a creaturely face, a “beauty that can save the world”, as Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) puts it.22 And in Orthodox icons, faces are always frontal, depicting two eyes that gaze back at the beholder. The conviction is that Christ is in our midst, Emmanuel (Matt. 1.23). Prole signies sin; it implies rupture. Faces are “all eyes”, profoundly receptive, eternally susceptive of divine grace. “I see” means that “I am seen”, which in turn means that I am in communion. Thus, the icon converts the beholder from a restricted worldview to a fuller vision. The light of icons is the light of reconciliation. It is not the waning light of this world; it “knows no evening”, to quote an Orthodox hymn.23 And so icons depicting events that occurred in daytime are no brighter than icons de picting events that occurred at nighttime. For example, the icon of the sorrowful descent from the Cross is no darker than the icon of Ascension; the icon of the Nativity no brighter than that of the Crucixion; the light of the Last Supper very similar to that in the Transguration. This is because the icon presupposes another way of seeing things; a “different way of life”, as we sing on Easter Sunday. 24 The language of the icon is the language of silence and mystery, although it is a language that has so much to offer to a world like ours, which has been inundated with information and idols. 22 Prince Myskin in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Vintage Classics–Random House, 2003). 23 From Orthodox Matins, Ode 5. The Orthodox Vesper Service includes the ancient hymn, “O gladsome light”, which identies this radiance with the light of Christ. 24 The Divine Liturgy for Easter/Pascha of St John Chrysostom chanted in Orthodox Churches includes this phrase.
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So the entire world is a ladder, an icon; “everything is a sign of God”, as Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130?–c. 202) once said.25 This is why, in icons, rivers assume a human form, as do the sun and the moon and the stars and the waters. They all assume human faces; they all acquire a personal dimension – just like us; just like God. And if the world is an icon, then nothing whatsoever lacks sacredness. Indeed, if God is not visible in creation, then neither can God be worshipped as invisible in heaven. ii. the liturgy of nature What icons achieve in space, liturgy accomplishes in song: the same ministry of reconciliation between heaven on earth. If we are guilty of relentless waste, it may be because we have lost the spirit of worship. We are no longer respectful pilgrims on this earth; we have become . . . mere tourists. At a time when we have polluted the air that we breathe and the water that we drink, we must restore a sense of awe and delight in our relationship to the world. Now by liturgical I do not imply ceremonial. I mean relational. Or, to develop the earlier concept of icons, we are to think of the world as a picture, an image: one requires every part of a picture in order for it to be complete. If we remove one part of the picture – whether a tree, or an animal, or a human being – then the entire picture is distorted. The truth is that we respond to nature with the same delicacy, the very same sensitivity and tenderness, with which we respond to any human person in a relationship. We have learned that we cannot treat people like things; let me suggest to you today that we must learn not to treat even things like mere things. Because all of 25 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies IV, 21, translated by Irenaeus Steenberg (New York: Paulist Press, 2012).
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our spiritual activities are measured by their impact on the world, on people, especially the poor. So liturgy is precisely the language that commemorates the innate and intimate connection between God, people, and things, between everyone and everything – what in the seventh century St Maximus the Confessor called a “cosmic liturgy”; 26 what in the same century St Isaac the Syrian described as acquiring: A merciful heart, which burns with love for the whole of creation – for humans, for birds, for the beasts, for demons – for all God’s creatures.27
And in the late nineteenth century, Dostoevsky conveyed the same idea in The Brothers Karamazov: Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! . . . If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.28
So there is a dimension of art, music, and beauty in the world. This means that whenever we narrow life (even religious life) to ourselves and our own interests, we neglect our vocation to reconcile and transform all of creation. Let me propose to you that our relationship with this world determines our relationship with heaven. The way we treat the earth is reected in the way that we pray to God. 26
Mystagogia 2 in J. P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca 91 (1865), 669. See Hans
Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003). 27 See Homily 48 in St Isaac the Syrian, The Ascetical Homilies. 28 In The Brothers Karamazov, translated by David Magarshack (New York: Penguin, 1982), 375.
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iii. the body of the world; or, the world of ascesis Of course, unless you live in Maine as I do, this world does not always look or feel like heaven. And in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster three years ago or BP’s oil disaster a year before that, it was admittedly somewhat difcult to perceive what Dostoevsky called “the divine mystery in things”. This is why, in his letter to the Colossians, St Paul writes: Through [Christ], God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, through the blood of his cross (1.20).
Reference here to “the blood of the cross” is an indication of the cost involved. It reminds us of the reality of human failure and the need for cosmic repentance. What is required is nothing less than a radical reversal of our perspectives and practices. There is a price to pay for our wasting. The balance of the world has been shattered; and the ecological crisis will not be solved with sentimental slogans or even recycling programs. The “tree of the cross” reveals a way out of our ecological impasse by proposing self-denial as a solution to self-centredness. In the Orthodox tradition, this translates into (ascesis): the way of liberation from egocentrism, the way of assuming responsibility for one’s actions and one’s world. It is sometimes helpful to look in the mirror and to ask: Is what we have what we need? Did I travel here on a plane to deliver my address to you? How do I reect the world’s thirst for oil or greed that is destroying the planet? It is compelling that the earth reminds us of our denial. Yet we still stubbornly refuse to accept that our comfortable lives, dependent as they are on cheap energy, are in any way responsible for the
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Gulf of Mexico being polluted by millions of gallons of oil. How can we, as intelligent human beings, believe that a century of pumping oil-red pollution into the atmosphere has no ramication? means learning to be free, uncompelled by ways that use the world; characterized by self-control and the ability to say “no” or “enough”. aims not at detachment or destruction, but at renement and restoration. Take a familiar example of : fasting. Learning to fast is actually learning to share; it is learning to give and not simply give up. It is recognizing in other people faces – icons, we might say – and recognizing in the earth the very face of God. And here, I think, lies the heart of the problem. For we are unwilling – in fact, violently resist any call – to adopt simpler lives. Before “speaking about the environment” to others, we must consider how we ignore this call as Christians. We have misplaced the spirituality of simplicity and frugality. The challenge is this: How do I live in such a way that promotes harmony, and not division? How can I acknowledge – daily – that “the earth is the Lord’s” (Ps. 23.1)? Returning now to the practice of fasting, we may conclude that to fast is to see more clearly the original beauty of the world. It is moving away from what I want to what the world needs. Fasting means valuing everything for itself, not simply for myself. It involves regaining a sense of wonder and being lled with a sense of Godliness. It is seeing all things in God, and God in all things. iv. the sign of jonah There is a profound iconographic depiction of this perception in an eighteenth-century icon at the Monastery of Toplou in Crete. The iconographer is Ioannis Kornaros (1745–1796). It is literally
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a theological statement in colour.29 The icon derives its title from the Great Blessing of the Waters at the Feast of Epiphany on January 6th and repeated during the Baptism of every Orthodox Christian: Great are you, O Lord, and wondrous are your works; no words sufce to hymn your wonders!
At the far left of this image, nature is portrayed as a woman, reflecting “mother earth” that indigenous peoples throughout the world (like Indians of North America and Aborigines of Australia) have respected for centuries. Nature extends her arms in a gesture of openness and embrace toward all people and all things (Ps. 85.1). The icon depicts urban life (the cities of Samaria and Nineveh are in the background) and agricultural life (with farmers tilling the slopes). We can see people and rivers and vegetation, while a vast rainbow reects the eternal covenant between the Creator and creation. While the icon is abundantly rich in symbolism, let me draw your attention to two particular scenes. The rst depicts Jonah being cast from the mouth of a large sea beast, as in the biblical story. This is a powerful and profound image of resurrection and the renewal of all things. One of the early symbols of Christ, whereby Christians recognized one another, was the sh – the Greek word being an acronym for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour” ( ). The sh, then, is a statement of our faith and salvation. Christ has been integrally 29 This icon can be viewed online, for example at or , with helpful commentaries (both last accessed December 2014).
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and inseparably identied with sh. Any abuse of shing or overshing relates in a personal and profound way to Christ Himself. The second scene depicts the slaying of Abel by Cain, a violent representation of the destructive impact of our current policies and practices on future generations. We cannot remain passive observers (or, worse, active contributors) to the merciless violation of the earth. Until we perceive in the pollution of our planet the portrait of our brother and sister, we cannot resolve the injustice and inequality of our world. Until we discern in the pollution of our planet the face of our children, we will not comprehend the irreversible consequences of our actions. conclusion: the way forward Not long ago, my elder son and I paid a routine visit to the optometrist. Alex isn’t as meticulous as he should be with his eye care. So as he received his new prescription, I overheard his reaction: “Wow! That’s what I’m supposed to see?” When we look at our world, what do we see? Because the way we view our planet reects how we relate to it. We treat our planet in a god-forsaken manner precisely because we see it in this way. In his classic article entitled “The Roots of our Ecological Crisis”, medieval historian Lynn White Jr (1907‒1987) already suspected this truth, noting that: The Greek saint contemplates; the Western saint acts. The Latins felt that sin was moral evil, that salvation lay in right conduct. The implications of Christianity for the conquest of nature would emerge more easily in the Western atmosphere.30 30 In a controversial speech delivered in 1966 and published in Science, vol. 155, no. 3767 (March 10, 1967).
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Far too often, we are convinced that solving the ecological crisis is a matter of acting differently – more effectively or more sustainably perhaps. Paradoxically, ecological correction may in fact begin with environmental in-action or mere awareness. It is a matter of contemplation, of seeing things differently. First, we must stop what we are doing. Then we might gain new “in-sight” into our world. Peering through this lens, even foreign policy and the economy actually look different, whereby we can abandon the urge for unbridled expansion and instead focus on the sustainability we so desperately need. Some years ago, a prominent presidential advisor and World Bank economist arrogantly declared: “America cannot and will not accept any ‘speed limit’ on economic growth.” 31 Have we become so addicted to fantasies about riches without risk and prot without price? Do we honestly believe that our endless and mindless manipulation of the earth’s resources comes without cost or consequence? Our economy and technology are toxic when divorced from our vocation to see the world as God would. And if God saw the world as “very good” ( ) on that sixth day of creation, then we too can begin to sense in our world the promise of beauty and to see the world in its unfathomable interrelatedness. So the question that I leave you with is this: How do we live in such a way that reects spiritual values, that communicates generosity and gratitude, not arrogance and greed? Because if we don’t, then a signicant patch of the Gulf Coast will have been lost in vain; and the Fukushima nuclear disaster precipitated by the tsunami will 31
This comment was made by the Treasury Undersecretary Lawrence Summers
and is quoted in Robert M. Collins, More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America (Oxford University Press, 2000), 227.
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have gone unnoticed. But if we do, believe me, we shall hear the ocean groan, and notice the grass grow, and feel the seal’s heart beat.
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Further Reading Ascherson, Neal, and Sarah Hobson, editors. Danube: River of Life. Athens: Religion, Science, and Environment, 2002. Bartholomew (Ecumenical Patriarch). Conversations with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. [With Olivier Clément.] Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997. ______. On Earth as in Heaven: Ecological Vision and Initiative of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Edited by John Chryssavgis. New York: Fordham University Press, 2012. Chryssavgis, John. Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer: The Ecological Vision of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003; new edition, revised and updated, 2009. ______. In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom Books, 2003, second revised edition, 2008. ______, editor. Letters from the Desert: A Selection of the Spiritual Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2003. ______. The Way of Tears: A Spirituality of Imperfection [in Greek]. Athens: Akritas Publications, 2003. ______, with G. Ferguson. The Desert Is Alive: Dimensions of Australian Spirituality. Melbourne: Joint Board of Christian Education, 1990. ______ and Bruce V. Foltz. Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. The Environment and Religious Education: Proceedings of the Summer 1994 Seminar on Halki. Istanbul: Melitos Editions, 1996. The Environment and Ethics: Proceedings of the Summer 1995 Seminar on Halki. Istanbul: Melitos Editions, 1996. 40
Foltz, Bruce V. The Noetics of Nature: Environmental Philosophy and the Holy Beauty of Epiphany. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. Gregorios, Paulos (Metropolitan) (Paul Varghese). The Human Presence: An Orthodox View of Nature. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1978; New York: Amity House, 1987. Guroian, Vigen. Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999. Isaiah of Scetis (Abba). The Ascetic Discourses. Translated, with an introduction and notes, by John Chryssavgis and Pachomios (Robert) Penkett. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2002. Orthodoxy and Ecology: Resource Book. Edited by Alexander Belopopsky and Dimitri Oikonomou. Bialystok, Poland: Syndesmos, 1996. Theokritoff, Elizabeth. Living in God’s Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009.
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Biographical Note
Born in Australia, Fr John Chryssaugis matriculated from the Scots College in Sydney in 1975. He moved to Athens for higher education, obtaining a degree in theology from the University of Athens in 1980 and a diploma in Byzantine music from the Greek Conservatory of Music in 1979. In 1982 he was awarded a research scholarship to St Vladimir’s Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York; he was also a research student in patristics at Pembroke College, Oxford, receiving his D.Phil. degree from the University of Oxford in 1983. After some months of silent retreat on Mount Athos, he returned to Australia as personal assistant to the Greek Orthodox Primate ot Australia. He co-founded St Andrew’s Theological College at Sydney and taught there and at the University of Sydney. In 1995 he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to teach at Holy Cross School of Theology and Hellenic College. He has also taught as professor of patristics at Balamand University in Lebanon.
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His numerous publications on the early Fathers of the Church include In the Footsteps of Christ: Abba Isaiah of Scetis (SLG Press Oxford, 2001), Letters from the Desert: A Selection from Barsanuphius and John (St Vladimir’s Press, 2003), John Climacus: From the Egyptian Desert to the Sinaite Mountain (Ashgate, 2004), The Reflections of Abba Zosimas (SLG Press Oxford, 2006), In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (World Wisdom Books, second revised edition 2008), and two volumes containng the full correspondence of Barsanuphius and John which appeared in 2006–2007 in the “Fathers of the Church” series of the Catholic University Press in Washington, DC. Having a strong interest in environmental issues which he shares with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, he has also published Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer: The Ecological Vision of the Green Patriarch (Eerdmans, second edition 2009) and has subsequently edited three volumes of select writings of the Patriarch (Fordham University Press, 2010–2012). He has served for a number of years as adviser to the Patriarch on environmental subjects. In January 2012, he received the title of Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Throne. Hone continues to live in the United States, in Maine. Photo: Rebecca Warren-Van Arragon
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The Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life University of Alberta, Augustana Campus 4901 - 46 th Avenue Camrose, AB, Canada t4v 2r3 Director: David J. Goa Telephone 1 780 679 1104 E-mail
7 Chester Alvin Ronning, OC, CC (1894–1984) in whose memory the Centre is named Principal of Camrose Lutheran College, 1927–42 subsequently served Canada as one of her most eminent diplomats He and his family made their home in Camrose
THE FRIE NDS OF THE CHE STE R RON NING CE NTRE
An Invitation The Friends of the Chester Ronning Centre provides an opportunity for interested and concerned men and women, whether or not they are in any way religious, to join us in a hospitable context as we explore the compelling issues and themes that must engage our attention wherever religion, faith, and public life intersect. In this way it becomes possible for a wide and diverse group of people to contribute to, and benet from, a better understanding of religious perspectives on public life and public perspectives on religious beliefs, practices, and organizations. We invite you to become a Friend of the Chester Ronning Centre. Friends of the Centre will receive • invitations to our conferences, seminars, lectures, forums, cafés, study circles, and symposiums; • our regular newsletter; • notications of our publications and research projects; • invitations to conversations with public intellectuals and scholars, going beyond the mere news stories of the day; and • opportunities to inuence and support fruitful conversation and research on the most compelling religious and public issues of our time. For more information please call us at 1 780 679 1558, or write to The Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life Augustana Campus, University of Alberta 4901 - 46 th Avenue Camrose, AB t4v 2r3
