St. Basil of Caesarea:How to Live a Life of Gratitude

From his homily “On the Martyr Julitta (and on Giving Thanks) in the book On Fasting and Feasts

Is it possible to be always grateful, and “give thanks in all circumstances’’ even in the face of pain, loss and even death?

St. Basil’s answer is a resounding yes. A constant state of gratitude is in fact our path to salvation and union with God. He begins this homily with a tribute to St. Julitta.

St. Julitta, we are told, had a lawsuit against a powerful and greedy man who had robbed her of her considerable property. Because of a corrupt court that sided with her opponent, St. Julitta lost the lawsuit. Yet St. Basil declares her the real winner of this case as the spiritual battle she waged was far more important than the loss of physical property.

On the material level, St. Julitta stood her ground during the trial and refused to be intimidated by her opponent and the biased judge. She eloquently presented her case and brought tangible and undeniable evidence of the violence and injustice done to her. Yet the court ordered that the young woman would not only lose her property but also her very life because she boldly refuted the false claims and refused to renounce Christ.

Instead of despairing, however, St. Julitta embraced her legal defeat as a spiritual victory and an opportunity for salvation. Instead of cowering in fear, she eagerly and joyfully jumped into the flames of the fire that was to burn her alive.

This is why St. Basil concludes that, while she has a woman’s body, she has the courage and spirit of a man. He means that her moral strength and courage had defied any biological or cultural category and rendered hollow the decisions of legal authorities.

Why is Basil using Julitta’s story as the jumping point to a homily of gratitude?

In a life of continuous prayer, he says, you “do everything for the glory of God.” This means that everything—pleasant or unpleasant, satisfactory or painful, expected or unexpected—can be a window to the glory of God and a vehicle for experiencing it. St. Julitta discerned God’s glory in the pain of her martyrdom.

Everything contains a pointer to God’s glory and, hence, can become a source of gratitude, he tells us.

“But the Apostle says: ‘Give thanks in all circumstances.’ ”

Yet St. Basil asks the question most of us would ask: How is it possible to maintain gratitude in the face of soul-crushing circumstances, untold acts of violence, loss and deprivation?

It is a difficult task to convince a widow or mother of a dead child that even when finding themselves in such circumstances, they can dig deeper, beyond the pain, and still perceive the glory of God and believe in His purpose.

He proceeds gently but steadily.

First, there is an implicit distinction in his homily between grief and despair. In Orthodox Christianity one faces grief head-on, without sugar-coating it or suppressing it, yet without being subsumed by it. One example is the lamentations of the Virgin in the Holy Friday hymnology which, following the secular oral poetic traditions, freely express pain, disbelief and even anger toward the departed.

The Church doesn’t hurry past the passion of Christ to the Resurrection. It celebrates each day or even hour of his passion, it lingers on every wound and humiliation suffered by Christ, and allows us to experience the physicality of pain. In the same vein, the hymnology of funeral services also faces openly and directly the physical toll of death on the departed and the deep pain of the mourners.

Grief, however, does not relinquish hope, as despair does. Unlike despair, it does not explode into anger, bitterness and hatred, all of which would prevent comfort, reconciliation and even gratitude.

Secondly, the key to gratitude is acceptance of God’s will and freedom from your own set expectations. This means renunciation of control over your and others’ lives.

In today’s business terms, willingness to abandon set plans and expectations and openness to embracing a radically new direction, is called “pivoting.” The leadership of an organization, for example, recognizes that their original plan is not bringing desired results. Instead of clinging to their initial expectations and plans, they “pivot”—reframe their position and value proposition and dramatically change strategy and direction.

Acceptance is clearly not passivity. St. Julitta fought a hard fight against the injustice done to her. Yet, accepting that the result was not within her control, she transformed defeat into victory.

“Why not let ourselves yield entirely to the action of such a wise master rather than complaining when we are robbed as if it is our property, and pitying the dead as if they have suffered some great disaster” rather then being “returned” to God, St. Basil asks.

Acceptance and freedom from your own script for life bring about inner peace and the defeat of fear.

“Proceed with this principle as a guide for your soul , a guard over every thought , so that you cannot be shaken by what happens in life; instead, your mind will be like a rock in the sea, one that endures the wind and waves without moving.”

This is what St. Julitta did and why her example prefaces a homily on living a life of perpetual gratitude.

But let us not grieve for what we do not have. Let us learn to give thanks for the present…

St. Basil of Caesarea: Meditation on the Birth of Christ

St. Basil was an early Christian cleric who served as Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia for 8 years, until his death (370-378).

He is one of the pillars of Orthodox theology, known for his support of the Nicene Creed and his battles against the heresies of the time. He was an influential theologian, renowned for his ideas, writings and preaching. Of the homilies he delivered, only about 50 survive today, including his Homily on the Holy Birth of Christ.

In addition to his work as a theologian, Basil was known for his care of the poor and powerless.

St. Basil begins this homily by yanking us out of our comfort zone—our iron-clad habits, beliefs, assumptions and patterns of thinking. Before he even mentions the birth of Christ, he warns us that we are incapable of understanding it solely based on our limited, human thinking.

Our first step toward understanding is humility–accepting that the concept of the birth of Christ is “incomprehensible” to humans. It exists beyond the confines of our human experiences, logic and verbal expressions. Christ’s birth, he tells us, is a mystery and, hence, it cannot be captured through words. Terms such as “eternal” or “ineffable birth” are woefully inadequate to capture the essence of that miracle.

In a way, we must detach from all that we take for granted, and approach the holy birth naked and child-like.

St. Basil asks us to forget all rules of cause-and-effect relationships, synthesis and antithesis.

He uses the metaphor of iron and fire to explain how limited linear oppositions are. While iron is cold and fire is hot, he tells us, iron becomes hot when put in the fire, taking on the outwards characteristics of fire.

“The iron glows in the fire, yet the fire is not blackened. The iron is set ablaze, yet it does not cool the flame.”

“Are you puzzled,” he then asks, “how the easily corruptible nature can have incorruptibility through its communion with God? Realize that it’s a mystery. God is in flesh so that he may kill the death that lurks therein.”

St. Basil continues with a catalogue of concepts that are accepted as truth by the church, even though they appear to be impossible within the laws of nature. He lists, and argues for, foundational beliefs about Christ’s birth that, at the time, were challenged by various heresies. For example, the virgin birth, Mary’s eternal virginity that continues after the birth, and the nature of the pregnancy, that is that Christ was placed in the womb fully formed—“perfect”—without undergoing the stages of development from fertilized egg to a fully formed child.

The basis of his arguments was the impossibility to understand a mystery with tools that pertain to the physical world.

St. Basil displays enormous mastery of science, theology and history. He rejects the notion that astrology explains the rising of the star as this implies that “each person’s life is caused by a particular configuration of the stars.”

St. Basil sees the birth of Christ as causing a cosmic shift in the world by freeing from the grips of pagan rules and worldview which dominated thought and culture.

Having warned us of the inadequacy of human thought and expression to grasp the mystery of the birth of Christ, St. Basil shows that spiritual understanding is not merely intellectual but experiential. One arrives at it through participation in, rather than descriptions of, the mystery. An outstanding writer, St. Basil ends the chapter with lyrical accounts of his immersion in the mystery itself:

Let us celebrate the salvation of the world, the birthday of humanity.

My heart is alive and well, and my mind is overflowing, but the tongue is deficient and words insufficient to proclaim such great glory.

For the divine power has been manifested through the human body as light through vitreous membranes, and shines upon those who have the eyes of their hearts purified. May we also be found among them , with “unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord” so that we too can be transformed “from glory to glory” by the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and his love of humanity.

On Faith, Hope and Love, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step #30

“All that remains,” the last chapter begins, “is the triad of faith, hope and love to be fully united to God.”

At the 30^th and last step of the ladder, we have finally arrived at the summit: theosis or union with God.

When I was younger, I would have expected something rare and powerful at the very top of the Ladder. Infinite wisdom, perhaps; eternal life on earth, immediate sainthood, power over others, miracle-granting authority! Extraordinarily, at the very top of the Ladder is a triad of virtues, with the highest among them being love. Instead of magic powers, we achieve a spiritual state that, though hard, is possible to be achieved by all.

The purpose of all the battles against passions and the cultivation of virtues along our long ascent on the ladder was to finally experience love in its fullness. Since God is love, we become one with Him.

To understand the concept of love in the writings of the desert fathers, we must banish our associations with romantic love or obsessive passion. Christian love is not selective or conditional. It does not ebb and flow with circumstances or mood. Having shed our passions through our ascendance on the ladder, we are free from the blindness of personal agendas, resentments, jealousies, recrimination, desire to control and all the other passions that separate us from God. We are now able to see the image of God in others, regardless of their behavior, flaws, circumstances or mood.

Having achieved the ability to love fully we have not simply acquired a virtue, but become transformed in God’s image:

Love is by its nature resemblance of God, insofar as this is humanly possible.

Achieving theosis is a state beyond words or actions, a true “inebriation of the soul.” When your heart is filled with love, it transforms the way you see and experience the world.

Love grants prophecy, miracles. It is an abyss of illumination, a fountain of fire, bubbling up to inflame the thirsty soul. It is the condition of angels and the progress of eternity. You cannot love God and hate your neighbor because you now see God in him.

You experience love’s “distinctive character,” and thus become “a fountain of faith, an abyss of patience, a sea of humility.” Fear disappears when love consumes you.

Fear shows up when love departs. Lack of fear means that you are either filled with love or dead in spirit, John observes.

A metaphor often used to communicate the intensity of our love for God is that of a person deeply in love. Just as someone besought with erotic love can think of nothing but the object of that love, those who ascend to the top of the ladder are so consumed by divine love that they may forget to eat and are unaware of physical needs.

Yet unlike bodily passions love of God is not uncontrollable, suffocating and destructive. It does not obliterate our identity and sense of self. Christ gave up his life out of love but retained his personhood. Instead of consuming and destroying, love of God transforms.

Hope is the power behind love. When hope goes, so does love. “Hope comes from the experience of the Lord’s gifts, and someone with no such experience must be ever in doubt.” Hope is destroyed by anger.

John’s last admonition is also a glorification:

We are here at the summit,” he reminds us. “Let the ladder teach us the spiritual unity of these virtues so the “grossness of the flesh” will not hold us back. And the chapter ends with an unequivocal declaration.

Remaining now are faith, hope and love, these three. But love is the greatest of them all.” (1 Cor. 13:13)

THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT BY JOHN CLIMACUS: On Stillness (Step 27)

“We are like purchased slaves, like slaves under contract to unholy passions” John writes in the beginning of the chapter. The metaphor compares lives filled with passions to slavery. John’s mastery of the human soul shows another, more insidious dimension of this slavery—the longer we stay in it the less we desire freedom because we can neither remember nor imagine what freedom looks, feels and tastes like. Isn’t it why abused wives, addicts or abusers stay in destructive relationships, even though the right choice seems so logical and simple to those on the outside? Abuse, violence and dysfunction become the norm after a while, and they can no longer remember or envision what health looks like.

Not so long ago, I would have been dismissive of anything resembling silence. How boring! Who would actually pursue it? For most of us, living with noise and inner clutter is all we have known and defines normal. The Fathers, however, considered the practice of inner stillness an essential foundation of spiritual life. Being silent is not the same as practicing inner silence. You can be quiet on the outside but tortured by the constant noise of racing thoughts and lingering resentments on the inside.

Metropolitan Jonah defines inner stillness as “conscious communion’ with God.” He continues: “Inner stillness is not merely emptiness. It is a focus on the awareness of the presence of God in the depths of our heart. One of the essential things we have to constantly remember is that God is not out there someplace. He’s not just in the box on the altar. It may be the dwelling place of His glory. But God is everywhere. And God dwells in the depths of our hearts. When we can come to that awareness of God dwelling in the depths of our hearts, and keep our attention focused in that core, thoughts vanish.

How do we do this? In order to enter into deep stillness, we have to have a lot of our issues resolved. We have to have a lot of our anger and bitterness and resentments resolved. We have to forgive. If we don’t we’re not going to get into stillness, because the moment we try our inner turmoil is going to come vomiting out. This is good – painful, but good. Because when we try to enter into stillness and we begin to see the darkness that is lurking in our souls, we can then begin to deal with it. It distracts us from trying to be quiet, from trying to say the Jesus Prayer, but that’s just part of the process. And it takes time.”

John emphasizes the role of despondency in preventing us from union with God. To achieve stillness, we must be driven by love for God and the desire to experience the joy and sweetness of his presence. This spiritual state requires that any trace of despondency be shed from our soul. “For to link despondency to the loving of God,” John writes, “is rather like committing adultery.”

John talks about the clarity we achieve through inner stillness and silence: ‘Stillness of the soul is the accurate knowledge of one’s thoughts and is an unassailable mind.” He writes:

“The start of stillness is the rejection of all noisiness as something that will trouble the depths of the soul….Close the door of your cell to your body, the door of your tongue to talk, and the gate within to evil spirits.” Yet being quiet or away from noise in nature does not necessarily imply stillness. Inner stillness is practiced “in the deep spaces of the heart.”

When you have arrived at the” final point,” however, fear and rejection of noisiness are no longer concerns because you are immune to them and cannot even detect them.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent by John Climacus: ON DISCERNMENT (Step 26)

Acquiring virtues, rung by rung in the Ladder, is not a simple, linear act. In this chapter, John explores the complexity of virtues; the thin and changeable boundaries that sometimes barely distinguish them from passions. We have reached a higher level of spiritual growth at this stage that requires more than fighting passions—the understanding of the nuances of truth and the ability to clarify even the subtlest shades of ambiguity. This is why discernment, in addition to hard labor, is necessary at this rung of the Ladder. John highlights some of ambiguities and nuances of situations we should be aware of.

For one thing, the struggle for spiritual ascent is not uniform. John recognizes that virtues like silence, humility and temperance may come easily to some personalities while others have to struggle against their own natures to achieve them. Because the latter clearly have to work harder, John (somewhat reluctantly) considers their achievement to be a little higher than the others’.

Another complexity is that virtue is often mingled with malice and requires discernment and alertness to detect the dividing line between them. Love may conceal lust; hospitality, gluttony; discernment, cunning manipulation of a situation; hope, laziness; tranquility, despondency. To make this message clearer, John likens it to drawing water from a well and accidentally bringing up a frog with it.

Over-achievement of virtues or pursuing them to earn praise is a grave danger that is no different from the soul-destroying addictions of our own times–obsession with achievement and professional status; addictions to ambitions that turn us into workaholics; and lives spinning out of control by stretching our budgets, habits or expectations beyond what we can afford or deliver, plunging us into constant anxiety, fear and, eventually, despair.

John probes even more deeply into the risks of delusion and calls for extraordinary and finely hewn ability for discernment. “Monks should spare no effort in becoming a shining example in all things,” he states. Yet even when reaching for heaven we may be in danger of spreading ourselves too thinly, and “have our wretched souls be pulled in all directions, to take on, alone, a fight against a thousand upon thousands and ten thousands upon ten thousands of enemies, since the understanding of their evil workings, indeed even the listing of them, is beyond our capacities.” I can’t imagine a more accurate description of men and women in our time–the modern professional, driven executive or ambitious soccer mom with a management agenda for her children’s lives. The alternative is to discern God’s will for the right balance. “Instead, let us marshal the Holy Trinity to help us” John advises. Yet it takes humility to give us the discernment to acknowledge the reality of our limitation and need for God’s help. And it takes patience to discern God’s will:

Discernment will also help us make a crucially important distinction—that between God’s will and timing and delusion and false timing, forced by our own will. “If God, who made dry land out of the sea for the Israelites to cross, dwells within us, then the Israel within us, the mind that looks to God, will surely make a safe crossing of this sea…” And John adds: if God “has not yet arrived in us, who will understand the roaring of the waves, that is, of our bodies? Let’s pray for God to dwell in us and for humility to discern his will.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent by John Climacus:ON HUMILITY (Step 25)

“Do you imagine that plain words can precisely or truly or appropriately or clearly or sincerely describe the Love of the Lord, humility, blessed purity, divine enlightenment, fear of God and assurance of the Heart?” John asks at the beginning of this chapter. “If you think so,” he continues, “then you will be like a man who, with words and examples, tries to convey the sweetness of honey to those who never tasted it.” And this is how John introduces us to a virtue that is the foundation of all others and the antidote to all passions.

In this chapter we are ascending the top rungs of the ladder. We have battled destructive passions and are now concentrating on acquiring virtues. We are entering a deeper level of communion with God that cannot be easily captured in words or images. True humility can only be experienced. It is a treasure that “eludes adequate description,” we are told. “Humility is a grace of the soul and with a name known only to those who have had experience of it.” It cannot be acquired through persuasion. Neither, as John tells us, can it be learned from books, men or angels but only from Christ who dwells inside of us.

The path to humility is long and achieved through the same stages all spiritual travelers pass through on their journey: Purification, Illumination and Theosis. While it different for each of us, the destination is the same. “The appearance of this sacred vine is one thing in the winter of passions, another in the springtime of flowering and still another in the harvest time of all the virtues.” Yet all stages have one thing in common: joy and signs of the harvest to come.

A Parent of young children among us asked whether the path to humility posed a dilemma to parents today. Do we guide our children toward humility and detachment or toward aggressiveness and competitiveness, she wanted to know. Aren’t these two necessary for career success? We decided that there was no contradiction there. Ascending the Ladder is not a path to weakness but to inner strength.

The struggle, perseverance and discipline it takes to go against our very nature and seize control from destructive passions nurtures true inner strength. Conversely being controlled by passions and disguising pride, envy or fear under superficial aggressiveness sap our strength and soul. Living in Christ and guided by virtues rather than torn by passions is the strong foundation on which everything else, including academic or professional achievements, can be built and sustained.

THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT BY JOHN CLIMACUS: The Things that Deaden our Soul

The conventional understanding of “sin” is that of transgression of very concrete rules and laws.

This is how Wikipedia defines it:

Among some scholars, sin is understood mostly as legal infraction or contract violation of non-binding philosophical frameworks and perspectives of Christian ethics, and so salvation tends to be viewed in legal terms.

It continues with the relational definition of sin:

Other Christian scholars understand sin to be fundamentally relational—a loss of love for the Christian God and an elevation of self-love…

Hesychasts built on the relational definition of sin but delved to an unprecedented depth into the effects of the loss of love of God. In this sense, their profound understanding of the intricacies of the human soul, and the difference between healthy and unhealthy spiritual states, predates psychology and the steps to mental health that behavioral psychology espouses.

In step 18, St. Johns talks about insensibility “that is, deadening of the soul and the death of the mind before the death of the body.”

Have you had moments when the horrors shown on TV stir up indignation but do not touch your heart or bring tears to your eyes? Or when you are shocked to realize that at a particular moment, while you know you love your family, your heart is closed, and your feelings are frozen? The Ladder recognizes these moments of spiritual paralysis and their consequences on our salvation:

Insensibility both in the body and in the spirit is a deadened feeling, which from long sickness and negligence lapses into loss of feeling.

The word for insensitivity in the original Greek is anaesthisia—the same root as in “unaesthetic;” – loss of sensation, deadening of the senses.

Αναισθησία και στα σώματα και στις ψυχές είναι απονεκρωμένη αίσθησις, η οποία από χρονία ασθένεια και αμέλεια κατέληξε να αναισθητοποιηθή.

St. John forces us to face the consequences of insensitivity. Occasional insensitivity will become a habit causing “benumbed thought; the birth of presumption; a snare for zeal; the noose of courage; ignorance of compunction; a door to despair; the mother of forgetfulness, which gives birth to loss of the fear of God. And then she becomes the daughter of her own daughter.”

Insensitivity, constant sleepiness or dullness often hides a deeper attempt to escape into fantasy, apathy and sloth so we will have to face and engage with reality. Alertness, on the other hand, gives us a fighting chance to resist evil and withstand misfortune. It gives us clarity of mind and full presence in the moment to discern the glory of God all around us.

A state of alertness, John tells us, “is a quenching of lust, deliverance from fantasies in dreams, a tearful eye, a heart made soft and gentle, thoughts restrained food digested , passions tamed spirits subdued, tongue controlled, idle imaginings banished.”

Without alertness, our life slips through our fingers like a dream, and we are unable to be in the presence of God.

How many times are we absent from our own lives in mental and emotional “sleepiness?” Maybe we are too tired to engage with our family, opting to lay half- asleep in front of the TV with a bottle of beer. Or our minds are so cluttered with lists of chores to be done, worries about our next day’s presentation at a meeting, anger about perceived insults, that we barely take note of the beautiful spring day outside. Our senses and feelings have been so dulled that while we register others’ pains and sufferings and sympathize in our minds, our hearts cannot be engaged no matter how much we try to push our feelings.

Indulging in sleep or, as John calls it, a state of somnolence is “stealing half our life time or more.”

Alertness is focus; sharpness; full presence in the moment; a kind of spiritual transparency that allows God to enter unencumbered.

Fear (step 21) is another thief of souls. St. John, calls it “unmanly… a childish disposition in an old, vainglorious soul.”

Fear of course stems from focusing on what might happen in the future and prevents us from living life in the present. St. John goes further, however, to link fear with pride and vainglory.

If we didn’t think we deserved more than we had, we would not be afraid of loss. If we did not live to gain others’ acceptance and impress them with our wealth, position, looks and other material things, we would not spend our days in fear of rejection, disrespect or humiliation. If we think that we, alone, can battle to save ourselves, fear can grow into despair.

Cowardice is a falling away from faith that comes of expecting the unexpected. Fear is a rehearsing of danger beforehand; or again, fear is a trembling sensation of the heart, alarmed and troubled by unknown misfortunes. Fear is a loss of conviction. A proud soul is a slave of cowardice; it vainly trusts in itself and is afraid of any sound or shadow of creatures.

THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT BY JOHN CLIMACUS: STEP 10, SLANDER

We are leaving Philokalia for a while to re-read the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus. With the exception of the Bible, writes Bishop Kallistos Ware in the introduction of this book, there is no other book as influential and foundational for Orthodox spirituality as the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus. While addressed to monastics, it embodies the transformational journey that all Christians are capable of, and have a right to, from the tumult of passions and fragmentation to wholeness, inner stillness and unity with God.

On Slander: Step 10

At first glance, it is easy to assume that we already know the topic of this chapter. “What’s there to say? Slander is bad. We get it!” Yet, as always, we are humbled by the twists and brand-new insights that St. John brings to the topic, making it new.

Curiously, John doesn’t address the propriety of the act or its effect on others. He concentrates on its root causes of slander—hatred, self- love, hypocrisy, brooding over past injuries, contempt for others, and desire for self-promotion– and emphasizes their destructive effect on our souls.

What is insidious about slander is the ease with which it can masquerade its intentions as innocent or even noble, hiding their dark underside: “I am only criticizing you out of love.” “It doesn’t bother me at all that you are fat. I strongly believe that all sizes are beautiful. I am just so concerned for your health.” John calls it: “a leech in hiding and escaping notice.”

Being tempted by slander should serve as a warning sign for us; an opportunity to examine our own soul rather than compile lists of others’ flaws.

Think of the first thoughts that come to mind before you resort to slander —focusing on someone’s flaws, remembering offenses against you, reliving a moment of humiliation over and over again until you are livid with “justifiable” anger,” honing and practicing smart and revengeful responses against “offenders.” You can hardly contain yourself. You are bursting with the desire to share your anger with others and get their support for the condemnation of the offender.

While by slandering others we may achieve a few seconds of relief and a sense of superiority, we are left wallowing in self- justification, seething at perceived offenses and stuck in isolation from others.

John calls for restraint at the first impulse to focus on others’ flaws and offenses against us. We should, instead, redirect our attention to ourselves. What do these thoughts of slander say about our own state of mind and the passions simmering in our heart? Are we lashing out at someone to avoid the pain of facing the reality of our sins?

“Those who pass speedy and harsh judgments on the sins of their neighbors,” John tells us, “fall into this passion because they, themselves, have failed to achieve a complete and unceasing memory of and concern for their sins. Anyone untrammeled by self- love and able to see his own faults for what they are would worry about no one else in this life.”

What are our lives like when we have rid ourself of the need to slander and removed the underlying causes? We are told that our hearts would then be open to love, effortlessly and immediately by looking for the good in others rather than judging and probing to identify the bad.

The temptation to slander stems from the temptation to look for, and focus on, flaws rather than virtues. It implies a spiritual state of inner turmoil, discontent and ingratitude that makes it difficult to achieve the humility to repent.

You cannot “mix judgement of others with the desire to repent.”

If we are prone to slander, we have put ourselves in automatic judgment mode, maintaining a sense of control but keeping love at bay.

As St. John tells us, “a charitable and grateful mind takes careful notes of the virtues it observes in another while the fool goes looking for faults and defects.”

He gives the example of the grape picker.

“A good grape picker chooses to eat ripe grapes and does not pluck what is unripe. A charitable and sensible mind takes careful note of the virtues it observes in another, while the fool goes looking for faults and defects…Do not condemn. Not even if your very eyes are seeing something, for they may be deceived.”

The tendency to slander implies a mind constantly holding itself above others and ensconced in anger and ingratitude.

Again, John focuses on the offender rather than the offended showing that the path of judgment and slander of others leads to spiritual death.

They searched out iniquity and died in the search ( ps. 63:7

THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT BY JOHN CLIMACUS: STEP 8

We are leaving Philokalia for a while to re-read the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus. With the exception of the Bible, writes Bishop Kallistos Ware in the introduction of this book, there is no other book as influential and foundational for Orthodox spirituality as the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus. While addressed to monastics, it embodies the transformational journey that all Christians are capable of, and have a right to, from the tumult of passions and fragmentation to wholeness, inner stillness and unity with God.

On Placidity and Meekness (step 8)

“As the gradual pouring of water on a fire puts out the flame completely so the tears of genuine mourning can extinguish every flame of anger and irascibility.” This is how step 8 begins as the natural continuation of the previous step on mourning.

Meekness for me used to imply failure! People who let others step on them! Starting with my early teens, I scorned anything that resembled meekness, moderation, timidity, quietness. I defined myself through rebellion and excess. Unlike the faceless “meek” that stay in their little boxes, I was going to change the world and defy categories. Little did I know then that the appearance of strength does not signify true, inner strength! Quite the contrary! Keeping up the trappings of strength and power and avoiding quietude through noise—outrage, anger, talkativeness—are often indications of fear and emptiness.

Meekness for St. John and other ascetics most certainly does not imply weakness. On the contrary, while anger is “an easily changed movement of one’s disposition” and the “disfigurement of the soul,” meekness is a “permanent condition;” unaffected by either praise or insult. It is, in fact, “a triumph of one’s nature.” This is the most profound and insightful differentiation I have seen. Anger, however noble or justifiable we want to believe it is, is “movable;” something you can neither rely on nor control. It is a flash in time; a reaction rather than action, lacking permanence and substance. Meekness, on the other hand, is a hard-won spiritual state that deliberately, rather than reactively, cultivates virtues and resists temptations that threaten the inner stillness it has created. The difference between anger and meekness that John conjures up is one between a spoiled baby and a highly trained Olympic athlete. Clearly he does not use the term to signify weakness.

There is a practical, “how to” dimension in John’s Ladder that is rooted in deep understanding of human psychology and the depths of the soul. He knows that, even as we desire the inner stillness of meekness, it will go against engrained habits and we will resist it. This is why he reminds us continuously that virtues are achieved in stages in a lifelong spiritual warfare and walks us through the steps. First he advise us to learn how to keep “the lips silent when the heart is stirred” – go through the motions even if your heart is not yet open to it. Once you achieve this, the next step is to also “keep your thoughts silent when the soul is upset.” Reaching the next and final step is when you are so unaffected by anger that your soul isn’t even stirred by insult or injustice against you.

Vainglory, conceit, remembrance of past wrongs, self-justification, hate are among the passions that stir anger. Yet, “just as darkness retreats before light, so all anger and bitterness disappear before the fragrance of humility,” John writes. Meekness is the foundation on which we can anchor the virtue of humility. We will know that we have fully ascended the step of meekness when, instead of anger at someone who caused us harm, we feel compassion and love. Unless we root out anger and replace it with meekness and humility, there will simply be no space for the Holy Spirit to enter.

THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT BY JOHN CLIMACUS

STEP 4B

Since Lent has started, we are pausing our studies in Philokalia for a while to re-read the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus. With the exception of the Bible, writes Bishop Kallistos Ware in the introduction of this book, there is no other book as influential and foundational for Orthodox spirituality as the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus. It embodies the transformational journey that all Christians are capable of, and have a right to, from the tumult of passions and fragmentation to wholeness, inner stillness and unity with God. We use the edition, translated by Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell. Note, however, that my quotes are from a different, online translation. You can order the book from Amazon.

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In step #4, St. John brings up examples of obedience that are jarring to the modern sensibility.

On a visit to a monastery, for example, St. John notices a monk, called Abbacyrus, who is ill-treated and humiliated by all other monks. He has lived in the monastery for 17 years under this obedience. When asked about his apparent sufferings, the monk responds joyfully that he is thankful to God and the other monks for his humiliation and is certain that the goal was to benefit his soul. He explains that during these 17 years, he has never had to battle the demons. The benefit of such state of peace is worth the pain.

John mentions yet another example of extreme obedience. A monk named Macedonius, falsely confesses sins that he had not committed so he can gain humility through his subsequent punishment. When John asks him why he is pursuing such a humiliating course of life, he responds:

Never’, he assured me, ‘have I felt in myself such relief from every conflict and such sweetness of divine light as now. It is the property of angels,’ he continued, ‘not to fall, and even, as some say, it is quite impossible for them to fall. It is the property of men to fall, and to rise again as often as this may happen. But it is the property of devils, and devils alone, not to rise once they have fallen.’

“Blessed is the monk who regards himself as hourly deserving every dishonour and disparagement,” St. John concludes… “He who will not accept a reproof, just or unjust, renounces his own salvation.”

Nothing could be more diametrically opposite to the secular point of view that equates “winning” with success in imposing our will. Our delusion stems from our belief that we make the world (our children, home or workplace) right when we impose on them our sense of order. This belief burdens us with self-imposed responsibility. Instead of experiencing inner stillness we are constantly “on call” – judging, criticizing, maneuvering, controlling and, often conflicting with, others.

John asks us to compare the perceived extremity of total obedience with the extremity of anxiety in lives driven by our will and passions.

This anxiety has become such an intrinsic part of our daily lives that we are barely aware of it. Think about the latent unrest we experience at most moments of our lives, which we have come to perceive as “normal.”

In conversations we can hardly wait for someone of a different view to finish so we can insert our own opinion and set everyone straight. We can’t relax in the act of truly listening because we are silently constructing brilliant responses. We are constantly scanning our environment to ascertain that we and our family are well perceived by others. We are quick to identify and respond to any possible sign of disapproval, disrespect, slander, or injustice against us. We are drowning in activities—kids’ sports, conferences, meetings, social events where we can meet people of influence, opportunities for being visible and influential. Not that any of these things are inherently bad of course. Yet driven by our will and desire to control, such impulses dominate. We can never experience inner peace.

To achieve the goal of stillness of the soul, St. John advises meditation and restraint.

Control your wandering mind in your distracted body. Amidst the actions and movements of your limbs, practise mental quiet (hesychia). And, most paradoxical of all, in the midst of commotion be unmoved in soul. Curb your tongue which rages to leap into arguments. Seventy times seven in the day wrestle with this tyrant… Gag your mind, overbusy with its private concerns, and thoughtlessly prone to criticize and condemn your brother, by the practical means of showing your neighbour all love and sympathy.

Obedience means that you relinquish your role as the ruler of the word, the need to always manipulate, impress, control, come into conflict with others or talk over them to assert yourself or your universe will collapse.

Fix your mind to your soul as to the wood of a cross to be struck like an anvil with blow upon blow of the hammers, to be mocked, abused, ridiculed and wronged, without being in the least crushed or broken, but continuing to be quite calm and immovable. Shed your own will as a garment of shame, and thus stripped of it enter the practice ground. Array yourself in the rarely acquired breastplate of faith, not crushed or wounded by distrust towards your spiritual trainer.