Friday, May 07, 2004
Sunday Night Joy (Part 2)
Like I said, after On the Incarnation, we started working through St. John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent. This was a tough book. It wasn’t tough to read per se, but tough sometimes to assimilate. Sometimes, because the concepts were foreign, we’d have to wrestle with what was being said. But more often we wrestled because these were hard teachings.
This wasn’t your average self-help book you’d find in your local Christian bookstore. This wasn’t of the same vein of thought as the sermons from one of my old churches, where we were more likely to hear about “the four biblical principles of money management” or “three easy steps to spiritual renewal”. This had chapters titled On Remembrance of Death, and On Continual Mourning. St. John not only had the heart for the salvation of those under his tutelage, he understood the means to accomplish it.
Looking back, I can’t really isolate one single thing in this book that changed me. I don’t really learn that way. I absorb the big scope of things, and as the larger picture becomes clearer, I begin to understand the importance of the small strokes that comprise it. But this is the kind of grand vision this book presents.
And because this book speaks to everyone on any point on the spiritual path, we began to see things that had only occurred in sporadic moments with our previous books. Real discussion. We began to open ourselves to each other. Where previously we talked about concepts and their meaning, we now exposed our weaknesses to each other. Our discussion became characteristically and qualitatively different. St. John was interested in the salvation of the whole man, and his teachings began to sink into places in us that quite frankly, many of us didn’t know needed to be saved.
There was a humbling that happened in our group, as the truth of the lifelong process of our salvation began to sink in. As we began to understand that we are saved in community, we began to chip away at our individuation. As we began to understand mourning, we began to bear the burden of each others sin. As we began to comprehend to darkness of our hearts, we became pinpricks of light for each other. To the level that we could comprehend the remembrance of death, we began to be sources of life and resurrection. Life became Eucharistic in our group.
Last week we finished St. Gregory Palamas’ Treatise on the Spiritual Life. This was a laborious book. It literally has more footnotes that text, and going through it was an arduous task. But I think I speak for all of us in stating that the last chapter made the whole book worth it. Just like a movie that seems mediocre until the surprise ending that puts it all together, the import of this book was made for many of us by the last chapter. But also like that movie, it would have no context for the ending without having first gone through the beginning and middle.
But in all, this group has become what I’d always hoped a group of men could be. Sure, we’re still rough on the edges, really rough for some of us, but somehow through all of this, we’ve acquired a vision for salvation, both personally and corporately, for the two are the same. We’ve become but one trickle in the stream of life that is the Church, but sometimes that trickle is life-giving hydration in the desert of our souls. I love these men, and I am thankful that God has taken our misguided attempts at growth and baptized/transfigured it into something beautiful and valuable.
Like I said, after On the Incarnation, we started working through St. John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent. This was a tough book. It wasn’t tough to read per se, but tough sometimes to assimilate. Sometimes, because the concepts were foreign, we’d have to wrestle with what was being said. But more often we wrestled because these were hard teachings.
This wasn’t your average self-help book you’d find in your local Christian bookstore. This wasn’t of the same vein of thought as the sermons from one of my old churches, where we were more likely to hear about “the four biblical principles of money management” or “three easy steps to spiritual renewal”. This had chapters titled On Remembrance of Death, and On Continual Mourning. St. John not only had the heart for the salvation of those under his tutelage, he understood the means to accomplish it.
Looking back, I can’t really isolate one single thing in this book that changed me. I don’t really learn that way. I absorb the big scope of things, and as the larger picture becomes clearer, I begin to understand the importance of the small strokes that comprise it. But this is the kind of grand vision this book presents.
And because this book speaks to everyone on any point on the spiritual path, we began to see things that had only occurred in sporadic moments with our previous books. Real discussion. We began to open ourselves to each other. Where previously we talked about concepts and their meaning, we now exposed our weaknesses to each other. Our discussion became characteristically and qualitatively different. St. John was interested in the salvation of the whole man, and his teachings began to sink into places in us that quite frankly, many of us didn’t know needed to be saved.
There was a humbling that happened in our group, as the truth of the lifelong process of our salvation began to sink in. As we began to understand that we are saved in community, we began to chip away at our individuation. As we began to understand mourning, we began to bear the burden of each others sin. As we began to comprehend to darkness of our hearts, we became pinpricks of light for each other. To the level that we could comprehend the remembrance of death, we began to be sources of life and resurrection. Life became Eucharistic in our group.
Last week we finished St. Gregory Palamas’ Treatise on the Spiritual Life. This was a laborious book. It literally has more footnotes that text, and going through it was an arduous task. But I think I speak for all of us in stating that the last chapter made the whole book worth it. Just like a movie that seems mediocre until the surprise ending that puts it all together, the import of this book was made for many of us by the last chapter. But also like that movie, it would have no context for the ending without having first gone through the beginning and middle.
But in all, this group has become what I’d always hoped a group of men could be. Sure, we’re still rough on the edges, really rough for some of us, but somehow through all of this, we’ve acquired a vision for salvation, both personally and corporately, for the two are the same. We’ve become but one trickle in the stream of life that is the Church, but sometimes that trickle is life-giving hydration in the desert of our souls. I love these men, and I am thankful that God has taken our misguided attempts at growth and baptized/transfigured it into something beautiful and valuable.
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