Struggling Toward Death
Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be!
“For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted among them, and with them a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
“You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.’ Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off” (Romans 11:17-22).
I want to lead a religious life and I know God is working within me, so I trust in Him, lean on Him, and rely on Him.
This is The Way.
I am trying to become like Him which means accepting His love full-heartedly, trusting Him, and doing the same unto others. This is the oft-forgot key: loving others begins with loving ourselves which comes from God, seeing ourselves the Way that God sees us and looking at others the same way—agape—with the same eyes, those of God.
We are here to become holy, not to become God–to become like Him, but not Him and I could never see that when practicing magick. Magick is a technology and can best be defined as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will” (Liber ABA). I want to pause here to amplify that Crowley is a scummy, manipulative, egotistical, lying Satanist*. But man do I owe a lot to his influence on my spiritual path. What his writings inspired me to do was break open my Bible and actually read it and what his Thelemic tradition taught me was to lean into what is deep within, what yearns and begs to come out, and to not be afraid of where that “Will” is leading me.
Eventually, this offering up my own wants and desires led me to embrace what was truly lying beneath all the entanglement and need to have an identity. What that identity was at the time, was anything that had to do with whatever was not Christian: Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism; meditation, yoga, Tarot, etc.
This is sloth and consumerism. Bar none. It is taking what we please from the spiritual cafeteria that fits our worldview that day. This type of worldview fits in with a perennial philosophy where there are many ways up the mountain, but this is a dangerous, false, and schizophrenic mindset. St. Paisios says, “It is not freedom when we say to people that everything is permitted. That is slavery.” And so man endeavors to cut himself off from God and make God slave to man: This type of changing modality is the individual’s attempt to make God like them, make God out to be whatever we want Him to be, that is self-worship.
It is an inversion of the Truth path to the Father, through Christ, because it is a path paving the way back here, to the world, to the things of this world, like a bizzarro John the Baptist.
What this also does is keeps one ever unsatisfied, with the ability to change their minds from one paradigm to the next. This is not μετάνοια. This is spiritual bricolage, sampling traditions and systems of faith, constructing an amalgamation of what gives us comfort and is aesthetically pleasing.
It’s colonialism, its imperialism, and its sin.
A spiritual tradition that is cherry-picked from an assortment of philosophical systems negates their overall usefulness, repackages them as commodities, like trading cards. Most importantly, it is demonic therefore blinds the practitioner to their death, where our minds need to be always fixated.
It is death that gives way to resurrection, one cannot occur without the other, and this resurrection is a spiritual transformation where one opens their heart to God, reorients their mind to God. Their νοῦς is cleansed and sees beyond this world to an eternal one. What these traditions cannot do, especially when they are blended into a Frankenstein’s spiritual monster tradition, is acquire this transformation of the mind, body, and soul.
Regardless of what they claim they do, as a technology or spiritual transmission they cannot center us in repentance, in μετάνοια, where we must position ourselves all the days long. Where we are constantly turning from the world to Him in all ways, in every single faculty of being turning to Him with a contrite nature and knowing, acknowledging death to remain looking to, trusting, and being with God.
There is nothing else, truly, that matters above this, this is The Way, and it requires us, as a firstfruit, to get out of our own way and turn toward Him.
I love the idea of being a monk and maybe that is the plan while maybe He has a different plan altogether, but the only way to know is to swallow the cup that is pride and walk to calvary because we are each given what we are given in life to sanctify us, what is allowed will make us holy. The catch is that it necessitates us to trust in Him in order to be made holy.
In any case, wherever I go, it will require trust and acceptance of His love, so this seems like the appropriate starting place, especially if I am going to help be a conduit of that love as a God willing, priest and—most importantly—a good Orthodox Christian.
Today I am trying to cultivate trust and calmness, not trying to attach to anything or anybody, but to consider all things while not allowing them to change me. Embodying the faith of Orthodoxy; meekness, trust, love, and rejecting the world by denying the self through war with the passions.
I need to listen and speak less, really listen because what the world tells us is important, but never judging what we hear. And this is, from what I understand, how to experience God—by removing the self, layer by layer, which is a false front, to bring up the truth within. This truth is the Image of God. We’re posed to cultivate an inner stillness and peace not on the mountain top, but here throughout our life.
This life is a meditation on death.
This is the way toward everlasting rest. Back to God. Memento mori.
We may all be called to be holy, but only some will heed the call, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14).
It’s our choice to be those who are chosen, this is what sets Christianity apart from other traditions—there is no bloodline to trace showing off our pure Christian heritage, no ancestral ownership of being God’s chosen people or His children, “where there is neither Greek, nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all” (Colossians 3:11).
We stand as individuals in God’s eyes and before Him we are judged by our own faith and works. We meet God individually, because we go to the grave alone—we all find our way to death no matter what life we choose to listen to and become advocates of—whatever life we choose to embody we walk toward death.
It is only through death that “He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12), but man has until his last breath to repent and find salvation, like those farm hands hired at about the eleventh hour, “These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day” (Matthew 20:12).
Truly, I tell you, I will bear as many days and as much heat as necessary to see my brethren toil a single hour for their inheritance. And so should we all; neither boasting of our work nor resenting our kin, but remembering the root supports us all.
This is The Way.
It is great to share the good news, but greater still to live it, because for everyone that embodies the Way of Christ it makes it that much easier for his neighbor to bear the weight of their own cross. And that is an important distinction to be made, we cannot suffer for others—Christ alone has done this—but we all must suffer through this world and its temptations like Him Who came before us. People are no longer able to hear and even more refuse to listen—what we need is a demonstrative example to understand.
We are not called to simply believe; we are called to be, and this life is our only chance to live looking toward death. Acknowledging death and letting the fear of death embroil a courage to repent and live in service of God and His kingdom, as an ambassador who is sojourning here on earth.
This is not home, and it never will be, nor can it be… If we grow comfortable here then all is lost; our hope is gone and our trust crumbles, dissipating under the weight of contentment.
So, trust and struggle, as Father Seraphim Rose writes, “Only struggle a little more. Carry your cross without complaining. Don’t think you are anything special. Don’t justify your sins and weaknesses, but see yourself as you really are. And, especially, love one another.” Serve others as if they were royalty and let us not let this world to change who we are. Let us not grow attached to the things of this world lest we forget death and find ourselves cut off from the very root that supports our participation in His goodness.
Si comprehendis, non est Deus
*Satanism here is not to refer to his allegiance or religious affiliation, but his love of worldly things and being led and embracing the passions.
Witness, NM 