We want to be all fighting for some sort of justice. Fighting for those who are oppressed, whether it be because of race, culture, sexual abuse, the list goes on. We want to  fight for the victim. Our passions and anger rile each other up as we see the ones without a voice get beaten and unfairly treated. We want to be that voice. We want to be that hero.

Yes, the struggle in this life is real. The pain is real. Racism is real. Sexual abuse is real. Your hurt is real. My sin is real.

In all this, what is it that we are truly fighting for? Are we fighting to release victims from their prisons, that they may live outside of the four walls that held them captive? They will also pass away like you and I, and then what?

Are we fighting for justice (earthly consequences), Justice (heavenly), salvation?

Has our fight become solely an earthly fight?  Has it become a battle that really has no victory in the Divine realm? Are we fighting for Freedom or deeper entanglement?

Our Saviour asks us to fight for the Kingdom.  To fight for the Truth.

We have turned our current social events into a fight against humanity rather than a fight against THE oppressor. The one whose name literally means divider. He, the devil, is the real enemy. The real oppressor. Each of us is his victim.

We treat the oppressor in an unjust way yet we fight for justice. Are we truly fighting for justice if we long to see the villain punished? We are all in need of healing, we are all in need of salvation and we are all certainly in need of Justice.

We throw around nice quotes and verses that we have read but don’t really understand or have any intention of living. We say that we love all people and accept all people of every race and nation. We post inspirational speeches and feel empowered about our cause. But what are we really living for? Who are we loving, and who are we fighting for  besides our own ego?

What is justice? What is God’s justice?

“…justice is for God to help us through His Grace to rectify that which truly wronged us. It is exactly at the core of our being, ontologically speaking, that we have been wronged, through the Fall…Our estrangement from our Divine nature.”

Father Maximos of Cyprus

Justice is to make things right. God’s Justice is to make all men to be made right.

God’s Justice without His Mercy is death for every one of us. Glory to God that He “desires not the death of a sinner but rather that he returns and lives.” We must not forget this, we must drop our stones that we eagerly desire to throw, and seek true healing for the hurt, the sinner, the child of God (we are each every single one.)

Justice is that every man, made in the image of God, grows into the likeness of Christ. This  is true Justice. And if this is not what we are fighting, for then we fight for nothing and no one.

This earthly world that we fight for will all pass away, none of this will remain.

To say that repentance is the solution to all our current problems is NOT  cliché and to say that it is indicates that we have not experienced true repentance. Perhaps if we recognized those who modeled the life of repentance around us (heavenly and earthly), our desire to live a life of holiness would not easily wane. Repentance is not an action or a ‘sorry’ that is said or done in a single moment. No, repentance is an act that rises above time and place. And because it’s above time, it affects everything and everyone. From one person’s repentance, all is changed. Nothing can be the same.

“Acquire the Spirit of Peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.” Fr Seraphim of Sarov

Repentance can save the world. Repentance is the beauty of this world because it leads us to the True Beauty. It allows our hearts to be channels of grace, a home for the homeless, a love for the unwanted and a hospital for the wounded. And this is Church.

St. Isaac the Syrian testifies to the power of repentance;

“He who has been able to see himself has accomplished more than one who has seen the angels.”

“One who apprehends his sin is better than one who through his prayers raises the dead.”

I pray the Lord leads us all to a life of repentance that we may heal one another.

May we seek God’s Justice for each other.

This is God’s Justice. This is Church.

Picture Credit: Nikolay Yanakiev

Yet knowing that Santa is not real, we still get excited. Why?

Because Santa is real.

Let me explain.

We as humans love a good story. There is nothing that sounds better than cuddling by the fire with a hot drink and listening to an epic story. A story that transports you, not just to a distant land, but transports you out of this world.

There is nothing better than when you walk out of the movie theater feeling like you can conquer the world as you have just watched a superhero movie ready to pull out your sword and defeat the bad guys.

We love a good story.

Why?

Because beauty speaks to our soul. And these stories are just that. Beauty.

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

Good stories awaken in us the desire to want to be part of something bigger, the longing to belong to something that is outside of ourselves.

Good stories almost speak life into us. They tell us of hope, of victory over the darkness. They tell us that the good people always win and that I just need to believe in something beyond myself. Good stories show me virtues that I deeply desire, sacrifice, walking with friends in dark places. These are stories of heroes and friends.

And these stories are true and they are real.

They are real because they point to something beyond. They are full of enchantment because we live in an enchanted world whether we recoginse it or not. Our world is full of mystery because there is a world beyond the material in which we see with our eyes. This world was made by the Divine and by default it can only be enchanted, mysterious and mythological.

Yes, I used the word mythological.

I believe myths to be true and not false.

Myths point to something that is real. They point to a world outside of us, they point to Christ. Human myths all originate from the One True Story because from the dawn of creation, humans have been made in the image of the Triune God. Therefore naturally the stories we imagine and create from the depths of our hearts come from this Divine imprint.

In one of C. S. Lewis’ essays he explains the need to dress the Gospel in fairy tales in order for us to see and know Truth. Fairy tales are able to pass the watchful dragons that prevent us from seeing Reality. In a way myths are incarnational as they conceal the Truth in order to reveal the Truth to mankind in our own language and culture. God was incarnate, the Divine put on Man in order to reveal the Father. He came in the form of man in order to be relatable to mankind.

No wonder myths speak of pure greatness, of great hope and ultimate victory. They tell us we are not alone in this world and that real friends exist and are willing to know us and love us. Myths lift us up from our dark despair and they shine a light and scream at us of the great hope and joy that belongs to us. They draw us into a world that has meaning and depth, they draw us into a real Mystery.

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” G K Chesterton

Yes, I can defeat those nasty dragons in my life, I can finally defeat Thanos, I do have the power to destroy the Ring.

And all this is true. Real truth.

Because; “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Romans 8:37

The Victory is ours through the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord.

Hope is ours and it isn’t wishful thinking because Aslan is coming back and all will be made well.

The Church provides a real and true ‘mythical’ experience for us in the Liturgy. In the Liturgy Reality is Revealed to us through the enactment of symbols; symbols meaning the real presence of and not just a mere sign. The Real Heaven is here present in the Liturgy. It is presented to us in a mythic way that it may be more understood and accessible to us. The Liturgy portrays to us glimpses of the Reality of the Kingdom the same way myths do but how much more the Liturgy which was given to us by Christ Himself.

All that is good and beautiful in the world symbolises, shows the real presence of, our Lord and Saviour. When stories are told of a loyal and faithful friend, revealing the ultimate Friend. The hero who sacrifices and lays down his life for his city, revealing the Lamb Who was slain.  The marriage that withstood all its trials, revealing Love. Or just the ordinary guy struggling through life, revealing our Conqueror.

We may not experience what is true, noble, just, pure and lovely but they still remain real in this world. These stories show us what we could experience, what we could become, what we could be and ultimately what we are.

Let’s read and tell good stories and watch good movies as we all long for the Kingdom.

In the current generation each of us is encountering and experiencing the disease of this age: busyness. It has become the norm; if one is not busy then something is wrong with them … they must be lazy or intellectually deficient.

We are constantly running around from one thing to the next and when we look back on our day or week it’s all a blur. We feel less and less satisfied and fulfilled.

Since having grown up most of my life in a slow-paced country and then moving to a much faster paced lifestyle, it has been and continues to be a huge struggle for me to adjust.

I have been reading a book this Lent that has really enlightened me about this struggle.

The book talks about despondency and our relationship to time. Despondency is given the definition of the failure to care about things that matter, for example our spiritual life and the care of our neighbor.

Despondency happens as a result of our busyness. We lose our desire to grow and be, our desire to dream and wonder, and our desire for deep intimacy. We as humans choose a busy life to escape the reality of our pain and suffering. Our minds as a result abandons the pain of caring. We lose the capacity to focus, to encounter and love which in turn provokes a toxic kind of emptiness – a vacuum that attracts all manner of distraction, restlessness, rumination, anxiety, fear and lethargy.

Despondency causes us to move from living to existing.

The root of despondency is the broken relationship we have with and our perception of time. We have confined our notions of time to fleeting moments throughout our life. We despise time as we always complain we don’t have enough of it as it is constantly ‘flying by.’

Through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, Christ has sanctified time. Time is no longer a ticking bomb counting down to our final moment. Without Christ, time enslaves us whereas in Christ time is liberating and time, most importantly, is relational.

Yes we live in chronological time but through the incarnation, where the One who is out of time came in time, made time eternal. Despondency traps us in chronological time where there is only despair and it makes us constantly want to escape from the present moment. The mind prefers thinking about either the past or the future as they are both the constructs of the mind’s own doing and our mind can control them. The present moment is outside of the mind’s control and therefore is completely ignored.

We desire to be ‘anywhere but here; any moment but now.’ We have become dissatisfied with our present. In that way time has become our enemy, a prison in which we find ourselves locked up in leading to our own self-destruction.

Man now has the ability to live in the present moment, where Christ is. Christ is in the now. Eternity is now.

Only in the present moment can I meet with Christ and only the in the present moment can I dine with my fellow brethren. Christ is not in my past ruminations and He is certainly not in my future fantasies. We have given our minds so much control that we can no longer tolerate being present. Our minds have become the author of our stories of despair and as a result our negative fantasies become more attractive to us.

We become so focused on getting to the next big thing… the next holiday, the next event, next weekend, our next meal. We no longer know or want to be present and focused with the task at hand, we no long focus on the person in front of us or enjoy the magnificent experience before us.

The here and now is not about the duration of time but about my state of being. The present moment is not measured by clocks or determined by the mind but it is experienced by the heart. In the present moment we are transformed, we become more watchful, attentive and sober.

We are able to experience.

We are able to enjoy every moment that has been presented to us, no matter where we are or who we are with. Because every time we are present we meet with Christ regardless.

One of the fruits of despondency is lukewarm prayers because we lack the ability to be present. We then question why prayer seems like I am talking to a brick wall and why I haven’t experienced the joy and transformative life of prayer.

Unfortunately our society is so good at deceptively allowing despondency to creep into our lives with the bombardment of technology and work.

Fortunately for those in Christ and in the Church, the Church continually calls us all who are wandering back into Life, back into the present moment. One beautiful way She has done this is through the Divine Liturgy. In Liturgy we experience, if we are present, the eternal now. Christ meets us where we are as heaven and earth are united.

Liturgy has no longer become the center of our worship but the center of our inconvenience as we want to get Liturgy ‘out of the way,’ so we can socialize or get to Sunday school etc. We gaze up during Liturgy thinking about what we will eat after or where we will go.

Liturgy is the pinnacle of the present moment but we despise it, as we cannot stand the present moment.

Thank God for this season of Lent where the Church gives us things to practice living in the present moment. It’s a time to slow down, to attend liturgies, and to wait on God in prayer.

To paraphrase Kallistos Ware, the most important time you are in is now, the most important place you are is the one you are in now and the most important person there is, is the one you are with now.

Let’s be in the now to meet Christ and to meet each other where healing and transformation may abound for all.

I challenge you today to practice being present in the remaining time of Lent and hopefully beyond.

Quiet down your mind about thinking about tomorrow while you are present with the one sitting in front of you today.

Be present in whichever task you are doing now and if you have the urge to escape by pick up your phone for example, then wait a few minutes, don’t act on impulse and wait for the urge to pass. 

Let’s switch off our fantasies and ruminations and instead switch on our hearts and be attentive to the here and now.

The present is not an emptiness but a Fullness.

“God knows every person from before the foundation of the world and provides their unique life and the specific conditions of their earthly way that are literally the best possible conditions for them.”

This is a convicting statement as Fr. Hopko explains that it is pride that leads us to say things like, if only I would have been born in this time period, or into a wealthy family, or this or that way… We think we know better than God what is best for us! It is a awe-inspiring and humbling thought to know that God has placed us exactly where and when we need to be, and given us everything we need.

Another quote that touched me was:

“…’form of life’ is not necessarily a job or profession. For example, some people may be called to suffer on this earth and to bear the results of fallen humanity in the most violent manner—to be victimized by disease, affliction, or both physical and mental disability; to be the objects of other people’s cares or disdain.”

Our vocation isn’t necessarily tied to what we do in this world, but rather who we are becoming. Being a doctor, lawyer, or engineer should not be an identity but rather a means to an end. Furthermore, we are instructed to bear illnesses that come to us patiently knowing that it is God who has allowed them and is using this vocation of suffering as a means for salvation.

This pamphlet also touches on the ‘ways of  salvation’ that the Lord has given us:

“Some will sanctify their lives being married; others will be single. Some will do it in clerical orders; others as lay people. Some will be monastic; most will live in the everyday secular world.”

But it also affirms the vocation we share in common:

“In a certain sense, every person has the same vocation, which is to be a saint… We can cooperate with God. We can share His holiness. We can become, as the saints themselves teach us, all that God Himself is by His gracious action in our lives”

These last two quotes really sum up the entire matter for me:

“In the eyes of God none is better than the other. None is higher or more praiseworthy. Each must find his or her own way and glorify God through it. Ultimately this is all that matters”

“Being faithful were we are is the basic sign that we will God’s will for our lives”

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! (download by clicking this link or read below)

Finding_Ones_Calling_In_Life

photo courtesy of Nickolay Khoroshkov

“You’ve worked so hard”

“you deserve it, God will bless you ”

“do your best and God will do the rest”

So, where have I been?

I  have been here, untangling the knots. Untangling the idea that God’s love means He will carry you to every success. Shaking off  every ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’.

My disease;  these spiritual half truths that reeked of the prosperity gospel, that left me in need of the true physician.

I heard them all so often. Perhaps my failure meant the opposite; that this was my fire and brimstone.

I write to you today, seventh year, not as Dr. Boughdady, but in the knowledge that God loved me so much that He let me fail.

The struggle from bitter to better, from self depreciation to self compassion, that is leading me through a journey of acceptance, so that the image, or who I ought to be, can greet who I really am.

“by the grace of God I am what I am” 1 Corinthians 15:10

“One of the greatest dangers in the spiritual life is self-rejection” – Henri Nouwen

To acquire the mind of Christ means to learn to see myself as He sees me. Sometimes, we think that if we beat our chests hard enough, if we beat ourselves up hard enough, it will make us humble. But, the truth is the opposite. The truth is, real humility is actually recognising who we really are. It is the courage to hear a greater Voice call us His beloved, His successful sons and daughters.

Above all else, failure has been a gift; a very revealing gift. Acquiring the mind of Christ means recognising in the mirror the woman who met her suffering with bitterness and despair. I had read many spiritual books about suffering that I expected to wake up joyful the next morning. But this is no synaxarium story. I found that I was not all who I thought I was; “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind” Ephesians 41:4, and that I was literally tossed by this wind.

So failure has been a door, a door of repentance, so that He can recreate me from the ashes of this fire.

“we must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us” – C.S Lewis

Failure helps us shake off the veil of perfection, that we may stand honestly before Him. Failure allows us to grow in compassion for ourselves and for others who are struggling, because we remember how hard things have been for us.

“Joseph was with God and He was successful” has never rang so true, because often we focus on the gift and not the gift-Giver. In the story of the wedding of Canaan we rejoice at the new wine, but we completely miss that in providing the wine Christ was declaring Himself to be the Bridegroom, full-filling the messianic prophesies in Hosea, Songs of Solomon and Isaiah.

If I have the courage to see myself, I will learn to recognise Him in me.

If I have the courage to relentlessly stay with Him, to not run from Him, that makes me successful.

Rewind to a year ago as 2016 gave way to 2017 and 2017 gave way to 2018; I was confronted by a what felt like an endless string of gut wrenching tragedies, dashed hopes and unkindness from the least expected of places. Sadness I hadn’t felt in years gripped my heart, threatening to freeze me to the bone, squeezing forcefully from it all traces of peace and courage.

I’m still raw from it all. I’m still prone to tears in the middle of the night. I’m still tired.

Sometimes shadow days turn to shadow months which snowball and avalanche into a relentless shadow year. I’m still waiting for winter to end and the snow to melt. My heart is left wondering why must this earthly life be riddled with so so so much loss and grief? How long Lord…Left with no solutions, no answer and in the absence of any feelings of warmth and bravery I have come to hardly recognise myself. Suffering has a way of stripping us naked as we confront the silence.

It is there in that silence that I have been wrestling with the question:

Who will I become after the coldest winter in a thousand freezing years?

I have spent a year flitting back and forth between answers, with no escape and no clue in the world what to do or where to go. Looking at this question and then looking at my distress and crippling disappointment of how different things should have been. “Lord, had you been here…” 

We’re told to expect trials in life when we’ve done something wrong, when something is not quite right in our relationship with God – but what happens when we feel we really did try to do what we were supposed to do, yet we are consumed by the shadow of our troubling sorrow. This is sorrow compounded by sorrow. Not only is there pain and loss but there is the crushing sense of God’s absence.

Silence and solitude can be the place of great transformation where we “struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self” but it can also be the most terrifying place when it feels like death and evil, are breathing down your neck, obliterating any sense of safety and comfort, and heightening the sense of inescapable frailty. Sometimes I have wrestled, other times I have taken one look at those questions, slammed the door of my heart when anger flared and smouldered and shut out the morning, all the while feeding the darkness. I don’t know what has brought me back but between grace and faithful friends that refuse to give up or go away, I find myself home again in silence and solitude, with my pain and my God.

So this season I am standing at the brink of the abyss of despair knowing all I have left is naked trust and naked hope that God is still God despite all of the evidence to the contrary, despite the agony and confusion and injustice of it all.

Can I say with Job, “Even if He slay me, yet will I trust in Him”? 

Do I turn to Christ or deny Christ (perhaps not so much with my words, but by my actions)?

Do I continue to love others or begin to blame, accuse and condemn others?

Do I become lost in self pity and never-ending reflection?

Do I thank God for all things, or do I grumble in my heart, demanding an explanation and another life?

Every difficult and painful circumstance in our life is a source of temptation. Because we are faced with a choice to say “You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You”(Job 42:2)…or to doubt Him. But with every temptation there is an opportunity.  An opportunity to grow in humility and patience.

Do I see myself as much more broken, much poorer, much more sinful and confused and clueless than I had expected?

Do I use my pain to at least strive to choose, to commit my self to God and trust in Him despite everything?

Do I see the silence and solitude as a gift to embrace, to turn death into resurrection, the gift to turn earth into heaven?

Do I remain obedient to Christs’ commands even when I feel abandoned like all this pain has somehow happened behind his back?

I am learning that who I will become after the coldest winter, begins and ends in how I answer these questions. But answering ‘yes’ boldly to those questions isn’t a given, not for me anyway. These are outright miracles – the working of grace in my life. I am humiliated and embarrassed to admit how far I’ve fallen from answering ‘yes.’ This is how, I suppose, I must learn to depend completely on the grace of God. In reality the most of what I can do is to lie down and wait. He wills my obedience despite my disappointment but if it does not always come as easily as I would like, then I remain waiting, knocking, seeking, asking – with the assurance that if I do such things I will in the end receive what I have sought. There is humility in this.

It was said that Saint Anthony had a vision of the world full of snares and traps. In a loud voice he cried out, “Lord, who can overcome these snares and traps?” A gentle voice was heard saying, “The humble.”

Rather than ask for humility, I ask God for mercy acknowledging that I am not humble, that I am not “patient in evils for His love’s sake.” If “humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all” what does this mean in overcoming the traps of suffering? I offer up my pain like I offer up myself as a living sacrifice through “ardent pursuit of prayer and the outpouring of tears” knowing I am too spiritually dull to know what to do about my pain—except to beg for His help.

Humility is using our present circumstances, no matter how powerless and paralysed we feel, as an opportunity to grow in faith, hope, and love and to better serve Him and our neighbours. Perhaps this is why resting our aching spirit outside the gates of repentance when the world beckons to give us relief from our pain is the hardest part of the silence and solitude.

Humility is continuing to love Him and not forsake what He loves when we are broken, despite how unsatisfying obedience and holiness may feel, which in turn creates a place in us for peace to dwell. There is no peace when we lash out in bitterness and despondency.

Humility is trusting Christ’s tender compassion to provide not what I want but what I need, because He is a good Father. It is doing the next right thing. So putting one foot in front of the other, I find snippets of contentment and calm, I show up for the sacraments and for prayer and I show up in the every day lives of my neighbours to be a salt and a light and to share in their joys and sorrows.

Faithfulness in the midst of dying to ourselves is even more precious than joy after Christ’s Resurrection and the relief of despair. Joy and thanksgiving in tribulation, rooted in the knowledge that I am radically loved by a God who is perfecting me, may be the most precious of all, though this joy and gratitude often eludes me. I am certain in the Resurrection we will see with spiritual eyes and we will weep with understanding, remorse, relief, and immeasurable gratitude. Our shadow days will be over. Winter will end.

“Complete trust in God – that’s what holy humility is. Complete obedience to God, without protest, without reaction, even when some things seem difficult and unreasonable. Abandonment to the hands of God.” Elder Porphyrios

“For in proportion to your humility you are given patience in your woes; and in proportion to your patience, the burden of your afflictions is made lighter and you will find consolation; in proportion to your consolation, your love of God increases; and in proportion to your love, your joy in the Holy Spirit is magnified.” St Isaac the Syrian

“Instinctively we cry, “Make haste unto me.” But He does not always respond at once. Like fruit on a tree , our soul is left to scorch in the sun, to endure the cold wind, the scorching wind, to die of thirst or be drowned in the rain. But if we do not let go of the hem of His garment, all will end well.” Elder Sophrony

God saves the humble who cannot save themselves.

Rewind to this time last year, I had entered a new season in my spiritual life that I simply could not get accustomed to. The best way I can describe it is “The Still Waters”. Bear with me here and we’ll paint a picture together.

My spiritual journey first began in the summer of 2012 on my first missionary trip to Kenya; a time in my life that I frequently reminisce on – the first couple of days I met my First Love, my Jesus. A chapter of great emotion; The Beginning. Bucketfuls of joyful tears from being introduced to the One who stole my heart and learning that I am a consecrated temple for Him (1 Kings 9:3). A season where I began to discover the difference between the Truth and my many ever-changing truths. I’m sure many of you can relate to a similar period in your life; when you first actively decided to make the shift from a “Sunday church-goer” to an “I want a real relationship with God” Christian.

That chapter lasted all of two pages, before the next, twenty paged, chapter – one that did not seem to ever want to end – came and really tested me; The Storm. A season of many questions and many tears (this time, not so joyful). A time that I begged the Lord to take away from me, nonetheless a time that showed me the real, practical side of God. The loving Father, the supporting Son and the comforting Holy Spirit. The Storm taught me the power of Hope; what it means to hope in Him and trust that I will not be put to shame (Psalm 25:3) even when darkness seems to prevail. God didn’t just use The Storm to open my eyes to His real, practical love for me, but also utilised it to convict me to serve others in the same way that He was ministering to me.

As quickly as it had come, The Storm had passed with the grace of God. I had grown accustomed to dreaming about what “could be” during that period of my life, that when I reached the other side, I couldn’t quite believe it.

The Still Waters; a season in your life where external circumstances are very comfortable, so that no intense emotions are evoked in your everyday living.

I had been liberated from what felt like the harshest storm, now finally making it into the still waters of a vast ocean. Freedom! Joy! Thankfulness! Gratitude! Relief! Excitement! I could do whatever I pleased and go wherever I wanted.

Except that I couldn’t…

I wandered in The Still Waters for an entire year, literally. I got lost; I circled around myself month after month finding myself right at the same spot where The Lord had originally delivered me to, after The Storm. The plethora of emotions I had experienced once delivered, faded away as fast as daylight on a cold November’s day. What was interesting was though I was completely lost at sea, I felt a comfort in knowing that “at least I was no longer in The Storm”.

And this is where it all went south…

Lesson 1: Still Waters Do Not Stir Emotion

What I hadn’t realised as I sailed into The Still Waters, was that up until this point in my life, my spirituality was entirely based on emotions (even though I genuinely didn’t think it was).

You see, Kenya to me was almost like the “honeymoon” stage of a relationship for The Lord and I; He outpoured His grace onto me and I gladly soaked it in. My relationship with Him at that time was heavily based on the stirring of my emotions – oh how the Spirit would move me in all circumstances! I began to know His heart but had placed Him in this nice ‘airy-fairy’ Christian bubble in my mind. And though The Lord impacted my everyday life choices, it almost felt like a daze – far away from reality.

I believe that is why He permitted The Storm to hit when it did – to wake me up! So I could be overwhelmed by “real life” and choose to integrate Him into it. So I could encounter His love and despite the pain of the world, would learn to take heart, for He has overcome the world (John 16:33).
What I hadn’t accounted for, was though I was growing in faith because of the trial, I was still completely dependent on emotions. Negative ones albeit, but emotions nonetheless. Despair would have completely overtaken me had I not run to Him, but it was that same despair that drove me to His arms in the first place.

“St. Diadochos of Photiki says that the Introductory Joy is one thing and the Perfecting Joy is another. The first one, being strongly emotional, is mixed with fantasy, “is not devoid of fantasy”, while Perfecting Joy is associated with humility. Between Emotional Joy and Perfecting Joy there is “god-loving sorrow and painless tears”. Emotional Joy, which is called Introductory, is not entirely rejected, yet we must be led to the Perfecting Joy. This perfection and cure is achieved through the cross.”

Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

When you’re smooth sailing in life though, there are absolutely no intense emotions being evoked. You’re neither ecstatic nor are you devastated, so coming to the Lord becomes an active choice. Your external circumstances do not push or force you to hold onto Him – it all becomes a choice. A true freedom bestowed on us from The Father; the freedom to completely abandon Him when life is neither healing nor hurting. A freedom I am not accustomed to and still figuring out how to handle.
Becoming dependant on your emotions in your walk with God can only lead to darkness. Emotions are fickle, ever-changing and temporal. They’re a great side dish to a main course, but they can never satisfy your innermost hunger.

What I have only come to realise now, is that emotions can only take us so far because of their nature; being passive. A relationship with our Creator, and consequently with our fellow men, has to be based on Love to succeed, and Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

Love is an action; an action that we deliberately perform. We have a Saviour who initiated that Love towards us, and that is how we are able to live Love, speak Love and think Love (1 John 4:19). While Love is an active decision to do, emotions are a passive result of receiving. Because you can Love with no emotions, but you cannot feel emotions without Love (or lack thereof).

We must train our spiritual muscles to rest on Truth in our relationships with the Lord, not on emotions; for the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:6), and knowing these things, blessed are we if we do them (John 13:17). We are new creations; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17); therefore we have the power to not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).

Lesson 2: Still Waters Can Lead To Death

I have a pet bunny called Joel (cutest little guy) who lives in my room (don’t worry, before you start saying ‘eww’; – I’m very clean and my room is usually very tidy), and I often think about what little visual stimulation he receives on an average day compared to me. As I walk the streets of London daily, my eyes are exposed to colours and shapes, while he stays loafing around in my room eagerly awaiting the moment when dad comes home so he can eat and play (mostly eat).

Sailing the Still Waters – as tranquil and peaceful as it is, does the same to us as Joel staying in my room all day; we are not stimulated – whether by sight, sound, smell or touch. Before long, the sight of the blue ocean and blue sky becomes repetitive, and we can develop a numbness to the season we’re in.

If we do not choose to involve God in our everyday lives during that season, Idleness can creep in; an ungodly lifestyle that the Lord condemns.

“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.” Proverbs 6:6-11

In my case, it crawled ever so sneakily, reintroducing me to an old abusive friend; Lust, and Lust as is her nature, suffocated me (James 1:15).

For some of us, shame is not enough to help gear us back into the arms of the Father when we have succumbed to an ungodly life, numbing us from the neck down. We choose to believe the enemy’s guilt over the Holy Spirit’s conviction. It took a moment of complete helplessness, realising that though I had given myself to the world, the world would never be loyal to me, for me to comprehend what Jimmy Needham is saying in the clip below;

“Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.“

1 Timothy 2:22

“I have seen impure souls crazed for physical love; but when these same souls have made this grounds for repentance, as a result of their experience of sexual love they have transferred the same eros to the Lord, They have immediately gone beyond all fear and been spurred to insatiable love for God. This is why the Lord said to the chaste harlot not that she had feared, but that she had loved much, and was readily able to repel eros through eros…

Let them take courage who are humbled by their passions. For even if they fall into every pit and are caught in every snare, when they attain health they will become healers, luminaries, beacons and guides to all, teaching about the forms of every sickness and through their own experience saving those who are about to fall.”

St. John Climacus

Lesson 3: Still Waters Lead To New Rivers

When you give the Lord authority to lead the way, to set sail, you feel immense peace and assurance in His will, even if you have not yet reached your destination.

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.” Isaiah 26:3-4

It’s the casting of the net, when there is surely no fish in the sea. (Luke 5:4)
It’s purposely going into battle with 300 men, instead of 32,000. (Judges 7:7)
It’s the sacrificing of your only son, because God told you so. (Genesis 22:10)

Only now am I beginning to understand lyrics of a song I had heard so often; “‘Cause learning how to love, is learning how to lose”. How true it is, the mystery of losing oneself in Christ, to find oneself.

Chris August sings “I gotta find You, if I wanna find me”… the same melody the Psalmist had long spoken of when he wrote “I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love forever and ever ” Psalm 52:8, finding himself in His Saviour and Creator.

The beauty of submission, is though I do not know what is beyond The Still Waters, I remain hopeful and unshaken as I am rooted in Him.

The Still Waters are a blessing; a season to enjoy a pure, undefiled, real Love with my King. A chance to grow and to practice putting on the armour of God in preparation for my next trial; whether it be another storm, an earthquake or a fire. A season of open dialogue with The Word, to be corrected and refined.

It is the recognition that I can grow in love with Jesus on the journey, not just at the destination.

May you see The Lord in your Still Waters.

Exodus 16:3

The Greek word ‘peirasmos’ means both a trial and a tempation. The fathers of the church used them interchangeably and I am beginning to understand why.

When everything turns out to be nothing like you expected, its is much easier to despair, to fall into self pity, and to ignore God, in favour of getting lost in a never ending introspection.

When it feels like I’m stumbling around in the dark wilderness and the thistles are scratching at my feet, when even walking becomes difficult and the narrow road just seems too hard. Like Gomer, who cried out for the old oil and drink she once had, and the Israelites who cried out for the meat of Egypt.

I was tempted to take a sip of the soothing ointment of the world, that I know to be poison.

‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’

Hosea 2:5

Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Exodus 14:12

For the first time, I am realising why in the midst of Job and his friends talking about suffering and God Job stands and promises to make a covenant with his eyes not to look upon a woman. For as many times I had read Job, I had never noticed how misplaced that seemed… until it was too familiar to ignore.

Maybe I was never listening when they said in times of tribulation, you must be even more vigilant for temptation.

Distracted by the walls of my city crumbling, my own house has been left unguarded.

‘Your own vineyard you have not kept’.

Songs of Solomon 1:6

Oh heart you have forgotten that the only real danger in this world is sin.

“For I have not stopped saying and I will not stop saying that there is only one thing truly distressing, and that is sin. Everything else is dust and smoke.”

St John Chrysostom

Maybe it’s one of the devils favourite games to keep us wrapped up in our own problems that we forget to ask… When I am squeezed, what is coming out? When I am squeezed… I am no longer deceived. Sweet lemonade or bitter lemon?

I am realising that for years I was saying words, words that were so easy to say. But now I am being called to live. To put into practice the endless preaching. In time, perhaps I will learn to say with Moses that these words are ‘not just idle for you, they are life’ (Deuteronomy 32:47) and by them I will cross over into the Jordan. I will cross over to new heights I know He wants to take me.

In the mean time, I am struggling through the labour pains, I am so anxious to give birth to something beautiful, but I must learn to wait patiently and know that in an INSTANT, God is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than I could pray and ask for.

“stop beseeching this or that person for help, and running after shadows – for this is what human assistance amounts to – instead ceaselessly beseech God whom you serve simply to give a nod and in a moment of time everything is brought into proper order” St John Chrysostom

Now if, while a man is walking in the path of righteousness, and is making his way toward God… he encounters in this path some afflictions of this sort, he must not turn aside from his way. Rather, he should accept whatever it is joyously, without scrutiny, and give thanks to God, because God has sent him this gift. That is to say, because he has been deemed worthy to fall into temptation for His sake, and to become a partaker of the sufferings of the prophets and the apostles, and of the rest of the saints who endured tribulations for the sake of God’s path, whether from men, from demons, or from the body. For without the bidding of God it is impossible that tribulations should be permitted to arise; but they occur so as to be for a man the cause of righteousness -St Isaac the Syrian

for it is not God’s good pleasures that those whom He loves should live in ease while they are in the flesh -St Isaac the Syrian

“For because you did not do it the first time,  the Lord our God broke out against us, because we did not consult Him about the proper order.” 1 Chronicles 15:13

“Moreover Jehoiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the Old Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors, with its bolts and bars.” Nehemiah 3:6

“Thus says the Lord : ‘Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the anceint paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls.'”Jeremiah 6:16

What do these seemingly dissimilar Bible verses have in common?

They all point in one way or another to Holy Tradition 

So what is Tradition?

The word tradition in Greek is paradosis – mentioned 13 times in the New Testament. The precise meaning is to hand down, along side.

Said another way, the word ‘tradition’ in Scriptures, ‘paradosis’; does not mean imitation of the past but rather delivering a deposit and receiving it. Take a look at these next couple of verses to see the word paradosis in context:

“Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand…” 1 Corinthians 15:1

“For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.” 1 Thessalonians 2:13

What does this mean?

It means we live the life of Christ in the liturgy as we actively participate!

It means we can be transformed and renewed through God’s active work in us today!

It means we can unite to God who meets us in the present moment, giving us Himself freely. We can exchange our life for His own.

How is this possible? It is because

“Paradosis is the very life of the Holy Trinity as it has been revealed by Christ Himself and testified by the Holy Spirit”
-G. Debis

This is why, while the Bible is incredibly important, it is not the foundation of our faith as Orthodox believers. Look at what some early church writers note:

“By tradition, I knew the four gospels, and that they are the true ones.” -Origen (3rd Century)

“Learn also diligently, and from the Church what are the books of the Old Testament, and what are those of the New. -Cyril of Jerusalem (4th Century)

What then is our foundation of faith?

Tradition is because it is our One Source of Revelation; the Church is “built on [this] foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20).

That is why Met Kallistos Ware defines Tradition as the following:

It means the books of the Bible; it means the Creed; it means the decrees of the ecumenical councils and the writings of the Fathers; it means the Canons, the service books,  the Holy icons – in fact he whole system of the doctrine.

Heresies occur when someone takes a verse in the Bible and interprets it himself outside of the Tradition of the Church: decrees of the Councils and the understanding of the whole Church.

We have one source of authority; the Word of God, actualized and revealed in the Person, life and works of Jesus Christ:

“And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.” John 21:25

This shows that Christ didn’t come to give us a book or a written document. He came to give us Life, He came to give us Himself. In the same way parents don’t give their children a set of instructions of how to live but they lead by example.

It is by the action of the Holy Spirit that ‘the tradition of Christ’ is preserved in the Church life through the successive generation, as He always lives and acts in the Church – inspires her life and makes it a continuity of life:

However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you (John 16:13-14)

This ‘you’ in the above Bible verse is the collective you of the Church and should not to be interpreted in an individual sense.

It is important to remember that the Church received the ‘word of God’ before it was written on paper therefore when the evangelists and apostles wrote Scripture by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Church accepted it, venerated and understood it as a life she has previously practiced.

Therefore, Tradition is that which Christ Himself bestowed, the apostles proclaimed, and the Fathers safeguarded. It is “what is believed always, everywhere, by everyone” (St. Vincent of Lerins) for the first 1000 years after Christ came. It is the One Source of Revelation and the living stream of the One Life of the Church. Tradition is the Gospel of Jesus Christ interpreted, guarded and passed down through apostolic succession.

Why are there so many ‘different’ meanings of Tradition? What does any of this mean? Why does it matter?

It matters because if we don’t understand these things we will not be able to experience them – we will not be able to enjoy a life in and with the Holy Trinity. It matters because if I don’t understand my faith, how will I witness to others and lead them to the joy of being in the fullness of Christ. It matters because I want to see Him as He is and not as I imagine Him.

I pray we are able to run the race in a manner pleasing to His goodness and learn, live, and pass on the true faith to the next generation!

When I am in safety and strength, when I can look around me and breathe out with joy that “life is good,” does that heighten my belief that I am loved and protected by a God who is Almighty? Does that make me believe that He is infinitely good?

When I am in chaos, in the midst of fire and in storm, am I prone to believe that He is less merciful, less loving, less of Who I always thought He is?

I’d like to concede the latter to be false, but the evidence of my thoughts and actions beg to plead a different case.

Because a vulnerable 20-year old never deserved the abuse he endured.

A 7-year old girl should never know how it feels to be sexually abused.

No one should be burned alive in the place they call home.

A father, a brother, an uncle in Cleveland, should have sold his car peacefully without a gunshot wound leading to his death.

The news headlines should never need to report 13 deaths and 100 injuries in Barcelona.

And at 2am no one should ever hear that there is a foreign mass growing uninvited in their sister’s brain.

Yet these events and ones of even greater calamity continue on, and here we are, humanity in all our helplessness, left to fend for ourselves, left wounded and crying out to end all the earth shattering pain that surrounds us. And there are those of us who have sang every single hallelujah, who have been pushed further than our knees, face to the ground, wondering ‘how dare you God’ allow any of this to happen.

How dare you,

God.

Amidst the thousands of unanswered why’s, there is a man who is sick named Lazarus, the brother of a servant woman, Mary. Upon hearing of his deathly sickness, Christ should have ran to heal his ailing body, to wipe away his physical suffering and the emotional turbulence Mary and Martha were experiencing. But He didn’t.

“So, when He (Jesus) heard that he (Lazarus) was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.”

John 11:6

He stayed a long and dragged out 4 days, allowing deaths grip to take hold of Lazarus’ weak body, and grief to sweep through his family like a storm.

Why didn’t He stop this?

Why didn’t He care?

Did the sacrifice of the weeping woman at his feet deserve such grief?

How dare you,

God.

The corpse was left rotting for 48hrs in the tomb, then “Jesus said to them (his disciples) plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.” John 11:14-15

What about Lazarus and Martha?

What about all their family and friends?

Was their suffering worth the belief of the 12 followers?

“Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.””

John 11:32

What about Mary’s sake?

“Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, “Where have you laid him?”

They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”

Jesus wept.”

John 11:33-35

Jesus wept.

Had he come earlier, would he not have spared himself and all of us the tears and the grief?

Jesus wept.

When I realise that too many questions will always remain unaccounted for, maybe those two words are enough to let all the questions remain unanswered. Maybe those two words are the only words that can really soften our hearts to a God who not only allows calamity, but weeps and grieves over it too. Because our alternative is resentment and anger; which I have found to be the heaviest loads to carry, too great for our fragile human hearts.

Maybe deeper than all our questions and pain, the soul cannot rid itself of a truth it bears; the presence and goodness of God. Maybe this is the real problem: the collision between the world’s realities and the Truth give birth to a frustration. A frustration of struggling to live in the the tension of the Truth that God is so good, yet so much calamity surrounds us.

In the tension, sometimes all there is to do, is to raise our hands in surrender, pleading with the Psalmist,

“Restore us, O God;
Cause Your face to shine,
And we shall be saved!”

Psalm 80:3

There are questions unanswered, there will be a million more.

Here’s to our fragile, questioning, human hearts, that are fighting to hope and believe in the glory (“This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” John 11:4)

No one can ever minimise your suffering.

God is good. Life can be hard.

Yet His wounds are not the end of anything..