JUST FINISH

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”*

In 1982, Julie Moss, a 24 year old California college student, wanted an easy project to complete her Physical Education degree. One day she saw a broadcast of the Ironman Triathlon held in Hawaii and was drawn into the idea of trying it. Although not highly competitive in sports, Julie surfed the California coastline, felt herself to be in good shape, and figured entering the Ironman would be a straightforward pick for her project. It looked like fun.

Ironman’s Triathlon begins with 2 ½ miles of swimming in the Pacific, 112 miles of biking inland, and ends with a 26 mile marathon. Julie trained for each of these events, but did not reach the point of completing any of these distances before the actual race. How hard could it be?

Despite or perhaps because of such a breezy attitude, at the end of the biking leg Julie found herself in second place. The woman in lead, Kathleen McCartney, had slowed down after spraining her Achilles heel, and not long into the marathon, Julie pulled a mile ahead of Kathleen.

The unexpected success began a series of shifting attitudes in Julie’s mind. The competitive drive kicked in first. “I’m good at something, and somebody is trying to take something I am now attached to.”(1) Maybe she was actually going to win the women’s triathlon, to own the race.

Four hundred meters to the finish line, Julie’s body began to break down. She had not taken in sufficient nutrition and water and now came a “train wreck”, as she put it. Her paced slowed considerably, then ABC network cameras witnessed her legs buckle like a drunken sailor and her body crumple to the road. She formed a kind of tripod with her forearms and pushed herself up, hobbled a ways, trotted a few steps. She fell and dragged herself up several times. At last she collapsed onto her back, legs and arms splayed in utter exhaustion. This must be what dying felt like. Moments before, Julie’s thought was “this race is mine;” now she was of a mind to surrender to the relief of lying there. “I quit.”

Then out of her peripheral vision, she saw tennis shoes and legs go by. Kathleen McCartney, who had been 20 minutes behind her, swooshed to the finish line. Julie could see that finish line; it was just ten feet away. Julie’s whole being became still, and she heard a voice in her head say, “Get up. Just keep moving forward.”

Well, she couldn’t get up.

But…she could crawl. She later said she knew “my life was going to be different; I was changing. I made a deal with myself. I don’t care if it hurts; I don’t care if it’s messy; I don’t care how it looks. I would finish.” On hands and knees, literally one inch at a time Julie indeed moved forward amid TV cameras and cheering spectators. Finally she lay down belly up and flopped over that white line.

Enthusiasts of the event have expressed that Julie changed the nature of the Ironman forever. Competitively speaking, she did not win, but with every fiber of her being, she owned that race. It was not pretty, yet her struggle became her glory. Over the years people have told her that seeing her that day on TV inspired them to get up off the couch and challenge themselves in new ways. Through her, one of the Ironman mottos became “Just Finish.”

(1) Quotes taken from an interview with Julie on RadioLab (http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/limits-of-the-body/).

*G.K. Chesterton (British Christian apologist, humorist, and man of letters – 1874-1936)
**See Julie's race

She Was There

Of all people whom Jesus freed from demon possession, one woman stands out. She’d accumulated seven demons. Today we might disbelieve a devil had anything to do with her problems; they were rather a host of physical or psychological illnesses. Serious, indeed, but possession?

Ask several of my friends who have dabbled with the occult if there is a not-so-holy spirit world and they’d tell you. The dark powers have a mesmerizing way of taking hold. However, the reason the Son of God came to earth was “that He might destroy the works of the devil.” To Satan, those are fighting words. But he lost the battle over Mary Magdalene.

Any demon, let alone seven, would have caused Mary immense torment. The Church Fathers said that the possessed are most pitiable of all suffering people, because their ability to will is nearly stripped away. They are marionettes under another will that never wishes them well. In contrast, when Jesus cast out her malevolent puppeteers, Mary Magdalene experienced not only that he was a man of unequaled power, but unequaled love. He gave her freedom to be and to choose.

Her choice? Great fidelity and love for her deliverer. She stood at the forefront of devoted women disciples who were often with Jesus and the twelve male disciples when he went through towns to preach his Good News.

Ah, yes, there was strong love between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. So the old tales resurrected by Dan Brown and others claimed she married him and had his children whose descendents became royalty in France. The postmodern world ridicules the idea that there can or even should be intense love between adults without it being sexual. Yet Christ was passionate for all people at a level most of us don’t understand. He prayed for us “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us.”

Mary was there when the Pharisees put pressure on Jesus, likely there when Pilate turned him over for execution. The Gospels reported she witnessed his crucifixion, but she must have first seen him drag his cross up the Jerusalem road Latin Christians later named Via Delarosa, “Road of Suffering.”  She saw him fall from pain, blood loss, exhaustion, the weight of the wooden beam. She felt a small gladness when soldiers forced Simon to help carry that beam. She supported Jesus’ mother on that Via until they reached the Place of the Skull, where executions took place.

From a distance Mary Magdalene watched the soldiers nail and bind Jesus to the cross, winch it up, and drop it into the hole. She moved close when it was feasible, saw Jesus struggle for every breath, and heard every word he gasped. She stayed through the darkness at noon and felt the earth quake. She joined the deep mourning of creation over the death of its Maker as he gave up his spirit.

While the twelve disciples of the Savior, with the exception of John, had betrayed, denied, or abandoned Him, Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene and other women remained by his side. How could they bear to witness all this horror and injustice and not totally collapse with grief & rage?

For Mary Magdalene, somehow the strength of demons had been transformed into the strength of faith. She was faithful to him not only in days of fame, but in extreme humiliation and insult to the bitter end—and beyond.

Mary stayed at the cross while Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took the body down, and accompanied them to the cemetery so she knew where to return to finish anointing the body. She watched as they covered over the cave with a large stone. Only then did she reluctantly leave because of Passover and Sabbath curfew laws.

Barely after the Sabbath was over Mary hurried to the tomb. She was the first person there. Is it any surprise then that she was the first person to see her dear Rabbi, alive, and speaking her name in that tone she knew so well? She was the first to go back to where the Disciples were hiding out and to tell them, “The Lord is Risen.”

St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, the first in the world to preach the Resurrection.

The Disciples judged Mary’s report as hysterical woman talk, and Jesus had to appear to them several times before they comprehended. Obviously their slowness did not mean they lost out. Yet somehow they missed out on the unadulterated delight of the one disciple who never left.

I am far away from that time. I am one of billions who have not seen nor heard Christ, whose hands have never touched him. But I can be one of those whom Jesus praises, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.” After all, I know something of the love of the risen Lord repairing broken areas in my life. I can emulate Mary Magdalene, my Apostle in faithfulness and devotion. Perhaps I might catch a spark of her relief and joy in that Easter Sunday garden — he’s not dead, he is risen!

Among Us Women

Recently, my mother-in-law, Irene, a devout Roman Catholic, passed away. At her viewing, I participated in my first Rosary service. The word rosary comes from the Latin “rosarium,” rose garden, and truly one is led from one fragrant moment to the next during this devotion.

The Rosary is made up of several sections, including the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria Patri, and meditations on Scripture from Christ’s life (the Mysteries). Honor and appeal to the Holy Virgin Mary winds throughout:

“Hail Mary, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

As I sat before Irene’s casket in its rose garden of bouquets, two phrases of the devotion wafted fresh meaning to me.

St. Luke records that Elizabeth was the first person to say, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” After Mary accepted the call to bear the Son of God, she hurried to the best source of support and celebration she knew, her also-pregnant cousin. Elizabeth’s first glimpse of this young lady enveloped her with joy. So much did the Holy Spirit of God fill her that her own baby leaped inside her. She knew instantly that Mary was carrying the Messiah and burst out with praise for her and the new little life growing within.

Elizabeth’s praise declared for all generations the position Mary holds among humanity.

Above every one, God chose this woman in which to dwell in the fullness of his incarnation. She was ordinary in many ways. But unlike most of us, Mary was willing to receive devastatingly Holy Mystery unto herself although only God knew what would become of her in the process.

Elizabeth’s praise declared for all generations the position Mary holds among women.

I saw in my mind’s eye the Blessed Virgin standing vanguard at the front of ranks of women stretching for eons into God’s presence. Women two thousand years old walked with my grandmothers, mother, and now my mother-in-law. Behind these emerged millions more from all places and conditions, my living female relatives, friends, and yes, even myself.

Mary then moved among us, hugging this one, smiling at another, talking some sense into that one. She did not demand attention; she always pointed us to Jesus. Yet in doing so, she assumed a major role to bear us up, to strengthen our resolve to live, and die, in as full of the Holy Spirit’s grace as we could hold.

And we will die. There’s nothing like the funeral of a loved one to illuminate the fading blooms that we are. Death cannot hide itself behind flowers, satin, and lace.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.”

Now is to celebrate Irene’s blessed life, however imperfect. Now is to grieve her earthly loss. Now is to glimpse our own imperfect but blessed lives. Now is to face our mortality.

At the hour of our death, there is no doing it over. We sinners being made into saints need all the appeals such a vanguard can bring to the Throne to help us be faithful to the end.

Mary is a woman like me, but a far stronger, wiser one, and sometimes I find myself shy to request her prayers. I am right there with Elizabeth when she followed up her ecstatic greeting with, “But why am I so favored, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Yet apparently this great Lady, the God-bearer, wants to come among us women. As our principal spiritual mother, she enfolds us in the wide reach of her supplications. Above all, she wishes us to be receptive to her example and make it our business to say to her Son, 

“O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in. Be born in us today.”

Like the Thief

Of thy mystical supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant…Not like Judas will I give thee a kiss, but like the thief, will I confess thee, “Remember me, O Lord, in thy Kingdom.”

From the Orthodox communion hymn, “Mystical Supper”

Barabbas the Bandit received a lucky break that day. Two of Barabbas’ henchman, Lestes* and his partner in crime, plus an itinerant teacher were not so fortunate. All four men were popular with the peasantry, so it took the chief priests and Pharisees some forceful rhetoric and crowd manipulation to help the governor decide which pairs of wrists to nail up. In the end, Pilate released the rebel leader in return for two minor insurrectionists and a non-violent rabbi.

Lestes suspected they traded the rabbi purely on trumped up charges, and while waiting sentencing in the Praetorium, he had heard Pilate say he found Jesus innocent of crimes against both Jewish and Roman governments. But the Jewish leadership eventually broke Pilate down with politically loaded words—“tax evasion,” “subversion,” “opposing Caesar.”

Sounded a lot like his own charges, thought Lestes, as he dragged his cross behind Jesus through the city. Everyone knew he and his partner deserved what any “robin hood” had coming. It was clear to Jewish aristocracy and the Roman tyrants anyway. Palestinian peasants themselves tended to appreciate seeing bandit groups lighten the pockets of the rich to pass some wealth along to them.

Jewish bandits were religious, too; they believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As a child, Lestes had embraced his parents’ hope that a messiah-king would rise to fix their broken civil and economic world. Somewhere in his youth, the unending oppression and poverty set his cynicism ablaze. It had become time to take things into his own hands. He grimaced: Now others would take his hands and close them forever.

Death by crucifixion took hours because the soldiers attached a foot piece to the cross so that he would keep pressing up with his toes to ease the tearing of his lungs, heart, and gut. The idea was to keep the criminal from dangling and thus cut off his air supply before he has had enough time to suffer.

Torturous as it was, slow dying gave Lestes time to think. Although he wasted most of his effort on the instinct to stay alive, he still knew he could choose how to take his death. He could either rail against the injustice of Rome or acknowledge some kind of punishment was justified.

He had justified most of his actions as a robin hood, even in the Name of God. For the greater good, he could deceive, terrify, kidnap, muzzle, bind, beat, and cut. Long ago he had lost the inner nudge to ask permission for anything. The lines between yours and mine had blurred under nights spent in alleys and hidden spots along the roads. In that robber’s dark he could avoid the stare between him and his victims that exposed their common and futile grasp for gold.

Now under The Skull’s** noonday sun there was no hiding that futility. The notice fastened over his head was concise and true: Bandit. When his soul would finally land in Hades, this truth would forever seal his condemnation before God.

The only falseness to the day was that an innocent man groaned next to him. Bandits, highwaymen, rebels, and thieves Lestes knew plenty. From what he had heard about Jesus over the last several years it was clear that he was no insurrectionist; at least, nothing resembling one.

Yet here were Jewish leaders and soldiers laughing and scoffing, as if triumphant they had succeeded in killing the greatest criminal of all. “He saved others; let him save himself if he is really God’s Chosen One, the Messiah. If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

Then Jesus said something more shocking than the insults. “Father, forgive these people, because they don’t know what they are doing.”

Sweat and blood mingled in rivulets down Lestes’ body. If Jesus wanted and was able to garner God’s forgiveness for this crime against himself, even while dying, he might really have the power of a messiah. The notice above the man’s head, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” could be true. Lestes seemed to hear two hearts throb in his ears.

The criminal on the other side of Jesus broke into Lestes’ thoughts. Rage at their fate spat out of him. “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!” Lestes’ chest heaved for air. “Don’t you fear God even when you are dying?” he asked. He choked on the bile rising from his belly. “We deserve to die for our evil deeds, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Lestes’ throat was parched, for the effort to keep from suffocating had wrung the moisture from his body. Yet tears baptized his eyes as he twisted his head toward Jesus. For the first time in his life, he asked pardon and permission. “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

In answer, the King said, “I assure you, today you will be with me.” Before nightfall, Jesus threw open his palace doors, while angels craned their necks to see the first of many of us weeping thieves invited in to plunder paradise.

*Lēstēs is Greek for a robber, bandit, insurrectionist.

**The Skull is English for Golgotha.

Go out with Joy

Lethargy mocks your attempts to work. Loathing nit-picks like a research tech. Anxiety bites off its muzzle. Depression bangs its tin cup on your cell bars.

Gaze out against the skyline. Can you see it? The edges of winter-bleached trees have taken on a haze of green.

Now look near you. One of those giant skeletons is beckoning. Go ahead, grasp a low-hanging branch, and the distant lime smudge will come into focus. New individual buds break out from their bony props in search of energy.

Clasp a twig of buds in your palm. How like a infant’s fingers they are, small and vulnerable still to cold and frost. Yet every digit extends fully to the elements in reach for the sun. Not long now the fingers will unroll their banners and wave you into Spring.

For as the rain comes down,

and the snow from heaven,

and do not return there,

but water the earth,

and make it bring forth and bud,

that it may give seed to the sower

and bread to the eater,

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;

It shall not return to Me void,

but it shall accomplish what I please,

and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out with joy,

and be led out with peace;

the mountains and the hills

shall break forth into singing before you,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

(Isa. 55:10-12)

Seeing while Blind

The Kingdom of heaven is like a woman who owned a show horse.

She raised him to be a “dressage” horse, specially trained in obedience and precision of movement. Soon after he began to learn the art, the horse contracted a severe infection that nearly killed him and left him completely blind. The doctors told the woman her only options were to let him out to a treeless pasture or put him down. She did neither. Instead she determined to train him to the highest level of dressage possible.

“How was this going to work practically?” the woman wondered. The horse could not tell what she wanted or where she wanted him to go. He was terrified to leave his familiar stall. She thought to herself, “There is only one way I am able to communicate with my horse. I will be still inside myself and watch his body language. I will understand what makes him tick and attend to his fears, needs, comforts, and personal quirks.”

Thus, from within her quietness and patience, she led him, one stumbling step at a time, out of his stall.

Once she had taught the horse to walk around the arena without panicking or falling down on his front legs, she determined to ride him. Although after a few steps forward he could not maintain his equilibrium and went to his knees, the woman stayed on the horse and calmly leaned back until he again got up. Then they continued at a painstakingly slow pace, building the foundation for a life-long team effort.

Over the course of many years the two developed a very close relationship, and one day the woman realized her horse was ready for more challenge. It was time to prepare him to reach her dream that he be a dressage horse. At the beginning, his moves were not at all beautiful. As would always be the case, the horse’s two main challenges were to keep his balance and accept the woman’s assurance.

Finally, the horse was ready to go to the equestrian festival. His relationship to the woman was so secure that although the noise of horses, riders, and shouting trainers swirled around them, he kept his composure and listened only to her. Once the competition began, horse and rider continued to focus completely on one another’s signals, a habit that continued through one competition after another. By the end of the season, he had developed his skill to such a degree that he won one of his classes.

It all came down to trust, the woman said.¹

¹ Story source is from Jeanette Sassoon at http://www.valianttrust.org/. See also http://blindhorses.org/ and http://blog.rollingdogranch.org/.

Come, Thou Long-expected Jesus

On my mantle I have arranged the couple dozen figurines of my Fontanini nativity set, each character frozen in a perpetual gaze. The young pan piper seems lost in his melody, and another youth leans against a fence, musing toward my hearth. The shepherds and most of the sheep lift their faces to my ceiling. The goose girl and the old garlic farmer, too, pause to watch. An ox and donkey rest in the stable, ready to chew their cud, while a token angel hovers in the background. Joseph and Mary kneel near them, hands raised in anticipated adoration. The two look down at an empty manger, because high church tradition and common sense ask me to leave it so until the Day comes to celebrate Jesus’ actual birth. Each creature in my crèche holds its breath in a resin-bound chest. Waiting for God.

I, too, wait. But what kind of God do I expect?

I wait for an accessible God, a Holy Infant, who in his vulnerable innocency softens our fearful and resistant hearts and makes a manger his crib. How gentle is a God who thinks it best to slip unobtrusively into the human race amid only a couple dozen witnesses. Such action St. Isaac of Syria calls “exalted humility.”

The Word who became human clothed himself with humility, and thus spoke with us in our human body…Creation could not behold him unless he took part of it to himself and thus conversed with it: only thus was creation able to hear the words of his mouth face to face.*

I wait for a restoring God, a Saving Victim, because life’s experiences deny us the naiveté of “children nestled all snug in their beds.” When the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Child matures, his creatures behold him but cannot bear to hear his words. His humility descends even lower, for far from respecting him at least as a decent human being, his own ravage the very body designed to embrace them. How merciful is a God who thinks that his bloodied hands give best the healing touch a broken creation needs. He willingly makes a manger his coffin.

I wait for an intervening God, a Warrior King, as thousands of African women protest unrestrained mass rapes in Congo, and Port-au-Prince residents hope in vain for homes. I plead for his sovereign power to rescue the oppressed and destroy evil once and for all. How just is a God who thinks that truth and righteousness must prevail. Yet, as in the Bethlehem grotto, he seems to have hidden himself.

I finally catch a glimpse of the Warrior King in the hazy cosmic distance of the last book of Holy Scripture. St. John’s apocalyptic vision reveals he is not at all what I would expect: a Lamb looking as though it had been slain. But this humble, sacrificial Lamb standing in the midst of the throne of heaven is more like a royal lion. He takes command of all judgment of the world and ushers in an everlasting kingdom of peace. Infinitely outnumbering my token figurine, angels encircle the throne and sing; this time every creature in heaven, on earth and sea, joins in**:

 Worthy is the Lamb,

who was slain,

to receive power

and wealth

and wisdom

and strength

and honor

and glory

and praise!

Returning to my Fontanini crèche, I defy tradition and common sense to place my tiny lamb figurine in the empty manger. Someday, God will make it his throne.

Come again, long-expected Jesus.

 

*Daily Readings with St. Isaac of Syria, p. 66

**Revelation 5:6-13

BACK ON THE WAGON

Recently I fell off the wagon; or rather, my wagon hit several big potholes and bounced me out onto the trail. Talk about ruts. They remind me of a long-ago trip to Guernsey, Wyoming, to see a ridge on the North Platte River named The Wagon Ruts. So many pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail with their wagons and draft animals used the same sandstone track, they wore it down as much as five feet. (See video of ruts.)

If the trail deteriorated so badly, why did people keep using it? Because steep cliffs surround the river everywhere else. “The geography of the area dictated that practically every wagon that went west crossed the ridge in exactly the same place, with impressive results.” 

Over the years, in reaction to this and that event, my brain formed a geography that has seemed to dictate the direction of some of my thoughts. Often when I face a particularly challenging problem, or simply a perceived problem, down into anxiety’s grooves I fall. Cutting a new trail, a new attitude, on which to travel seems as unrealistic as hoisting a wagon and its ox team up a Platte River cliff.

I have been told it can be done, however. Enough desperation to want out of the mind’s potholes, good tools, and straightforward prayer can help pull the brain up to higher ground.

Long before self-help gurus touted positive thinking techniques, Desert Fathers worked on the thought life and passed along their tools. One such tool comes from St. Climacus. “Stand up against bad thoughts. [This situation] is exemplified by the one who said, “I will speak a word of contradiction to those who reproach me.” (The Ladder of Divine Ascent) Today we would call Climacus’ device to resist the gravity of self-defeating thoughts, “affirmations.”

After I fell off the wagon, I complained to my counselor, “I pray a lot during my times of stress, but I’m just as anxious as ever.” “Ah, but what kind of praying is it?” she asked with a sly grin. Red-faced, I realized what I was calling prayer was merely worrying out loud. The Saints have a way out of this rut, too.

They asked Abba Macarius (a Desert Father): How should we pray? The old man answered: A long speech is not necessary, but instead stretch out your hands and say, Lord, as you wish and as you know, have mercy. Yet if you feel a conflict is breaking out, you have to say, Lord, help! He knows what is good for us and treats us mercifully. (Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers)

I have collected some affirmations and prayers from a few of these spiritual pioneers. Every couple of days, I write an affirmation and a prayer on a sticky note and repeat them to cut new trails of trust and peace. When I slip back into the old ruts, they are there to help lift me. Higher ground. New trail. Back on the wagon.

AFFIRMATIONS

Today,

1. I am learning to be content. 
2. I am farming good thoughts. 
3. I walk before God in simplicity and not in speculation of the mind.
4. The Father is my hope, the Son is my refuge, the Holy Spirit is my shelter. 
5. To keep spiritual peace, I chase dejection away. 
6. I am a miracle of God’s goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence.
7. There is no moment when God’s mercy leaves me.

PRAYERS

Lord,

1. I trust you. 
2. Your will be done.
3. I am grateful. 
4. Send the vitality of your Spirit. 
5. Shine in my heart the sparkle of your gifts.
6. Expand and free my heart. 
7. Grant me unshakable peace.

CONCENTRATING THE HEART

I enjoy riding the mountain trails of Colorado although it bangs my body around and occasionally scares me. The grandeur in the high country is nothing less than a display of lavish beauty and stark ruggedness. Mt. Antero, at 14,269 feet, is one such extravagant example that my husband, Dennis, and I recently explored by his KTM motorcycle and my Polaris quad. Once we had arrived near that gusty, barren peak, we felt ourselves on another planet.

After bumping over a few miles of boulders and then a talus slope to the tree line, the way climbed over switchbacks sometimes reaching a 30-degree angle. I had to work deliberately not to panic. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught glimpses of what a riding buddy, Kent, calls a “cat walk.” This is trail slashed across the side of a mountain with a drop off for a shoulder. I did not dare look off the trail before me or I could center, that is, fixate, on the plunging edge and head straight for it.

Within a few hundred yards of the very top of Mt. Antero Dennis helped turn my quad around when it became obvious I was on the verge of overreaching my skill level. In the struggle to dodge large rocks amid slippery, chalky shale and dirt, I was making small mistakes and could not accelerate enough to keep the quad from dying or sliding backward. On an increasingly narrow, steep trail with a huge drop off…well, one cannot make too many mistakes.

Riding the Rockies by ATV has a way of clearing the head. All concerns but the immediate become peripheral. My job at hand is to keep the rubber side down. When my mind starts to wander, the trail rises to meet me in rather unpleasant ways. And I must look just far enough ahead to avoid upcoming obstacles, but not so far ahead that I lose sight of what I need to handle at the moment.

The holy Church Fathers had a theory about what clears the head, or as they put it, concentrates the heart. One of them, Isaac, a Syrian saint of the fifth century wrote,

Blessed is the person who knows his own weakness, because awareness of this becomes for him the foundation and beginning of all that is good and beautiful.

For whenever someone realizes…that he is truly…weak, then he draws in his soul from the diffuseness which dissipates knowledge, and he becomes all the more watchful of his soul…

But no one can perceive his weakness unless he has been remiss a little, has neglected some small thing, has been surrounded by trials…Only then, by comparing his own weakness, will he realize how great is the assistance that comes from God. When someone is aware that he is in need of divine help, he makes many prayers. And once he has made much supplication, his heart is humbled…

As long as the heart is not humbled, it cannot cease from wandering; for humility concentrates the heart.

Whether maneuvering high mountain trails over boulders, slippery shale and cliffs, or making a speech, interviewing for a job, encountering marriage or parenting problems, starting a new business, or admitting an addiction, all unsettling challenges have this in common. We need to concentrate our hearts in order to stay the course. And nothing clears the head like a good dose of humility.

Upcoming Book Signing Events

I will be selling and signing my book, Voyage, at the following places in September:

1. Sept. 12: Following the 6:00 pm Evensong - St. Mark's Church, Denver, CO
2. Sept. 25: 8:00 am to Noon - St. Luke Orthodox Church, Erie, CO, Open house & 5K charity run.
3. Sept. 26: 2:30 - 5:00 pm - Fr. Les and Sue Bundy Residence, east Boulder, CO (email me for directions)

Events: free
Book: $14.00 (checks and cash accepted)

“Today I Quit Being a Christian” – Conclusion

In Parts 1 and 2 of this post, I wrote that I felt aversion, empathy, shame, and frustration reading Anne Rice’s choice to “quit being a Christian.” As my heart pitched back and forth between these emotions, I came at last, thank God, to a feeling of hope.

In today’s world, the words “Christian” and “Christianity” may have negative connotations, deservedly or not. However, the Church at its core is not a set of rules, an ideology, or a political position. It is a bunch of sinners who are struggling toward their theosis, or complete communion with Jesus Christ in all that he is.

One of the beauties of the Church is that it has resisted pulling out any sacramental scissors to excise those portions of Scripture that might damage its “holy” reputation. Instead, the Church’s shortcomings are there for anyone to read. I can still find the passage where St. Paul instructs the believers,

Be renewed in the spirit of your mind…put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.

Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:23-32)

That Paul needed to mention any of this to people he addressed as “saints and faithful in Christ Jesus” reveals the fact that the Church never stops requiring constant repentance and conversion to truly follow her Lord. It keeps me honest, if not humble, to choose to live in tension between these two realities.

In this world the Church will always contend with scandals, quarrels, skunks, and quacks. Furthermore, those of us who want to adhere to Christ are only in the process of becoming like him, and often we fall far short of his glory. No one is yet a Christian in the full meaning of the word.

Mercifully, Christ is devoted to purifying this ragtag group he audaciously insists on calling his Body and his Bride. Jesus’ all-consuming love for his Church gives me the hope that he will transform my life within the context of that messy yet glorious Body.

The final analysis of who is a genuine follower of Christ’s Way does not come from me, Anne Rice, the Conservative Christian Right, the Democratic Party, the Pope in Rome, or the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople. God has given ultimate judgment solely to the One who laid his life down for the sins of the whole world.

In the face of both the mercy and judgment of Christ, an ancient prayer said on bended knee is most appropriate:

“We believe that thou shall come to be our Judge; we therefore pray thee, help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood. Make us to be numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting.” (from the Te Deum)