The following is an excerpt from an article by B. Kostakiotis, for the complete article-
The answer to the crisis is, I believe, one. I don't know any other. It is to change the meaning that we have given to our existence. This means:
Firstly, there is the remembrance of death; and immediately, the whole world is overturned - our entire world view collapses - and everything acquires its proper dimensions. There is one fact: the biological end. After which, everything that the aforementioned model professes, and all those things after which we struggle and agonize lose their glamour. They are futile and transient. You come to realize that this life of agony, of anxiety, is one purposeless madness. The biological end will come, so why are we spending our short life span inside that madness? My brothers, I have heard of many who committed suicide because they suffered financial ruin and lost their houses and the material wealth that they had, and this was regarded as absolutely normal by many - even by us. Madness is considered a normal thing. To commit suicide over losing money! You know, I have never heard of anyone falling apart because he hated his fellow-man, or because his neighbor died on account of his indifference. Much more so, because he lost Christ - the Eternal and the True. Absolute madness...
Anyway - to get back to the subject - when we speak of the remembrance of death, we don't mean a passive memory that brings on inertia, despair and desperation. Nor do we mean a nirvana. We mean an active state which activates every corner of the mind, the heart and the body. Realization sets in, and your existence begins to pulsate. But your passion for life now turns towards the real life; I am referring to the One Who is Life itself. And Who is that? It is the One Who is not ephemeral but eternal. The One Who does not give us cause for agony, but joy.
Let me tell you something personal. When I was a "failure" family-wise, professionally and financially, when I had nothing at all and was an absolute zero according to the criteria of this society, I acquired only one thing: the remembrance of death. And I felt fuller than I ever had before, because I had the One Who fills everything. I would leave my one-room apartment where I lived, without locking up behind me and without any anxiety whatsoever, because I had nothing. What I did have, no-one could steal from me. So I would walk the streets, encounter acquaintances - many of whom pretended they hadn't seen me - but that didn't bother me. Because the One Who is omniscient knew me. Later, I became a judge and was a recognizable individual, with fame, titles, money, material wealth... and I lost that remembrance of death. I lost everything, because I lost the Lord of all. When did I feel joy? Then, or now? When was I going through a crisis? When I possessed nothing, or now that I have possessions?
Let me return to the subject. Who is Life? Who gives meaning to my brief life?
To reply to this, one question suffices: Who is the conqueror of death? The One Who conquered death is the only One Who can show us the way to true life. No-one else. And I no longer accept substitutes.
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling death by death… So, Christ comes along and vanquishes death. And what does He say? "I am the Truth and Life". And what does Life tell us? "Whosoever wants to follow Me, let him renounce himself and follow Me..."
Hence, the first prerequisite : "Renounce one's self". The absolute "me" of our cultural system becomes a full renunciation of our self, on the path to Christ.
Then: "Let him follow me". No clarifications. He asks for our complete surrender. He asks us to trust Him. You either trust Him and follow Him, or you go your own way - the way of individualistic agony that our civilization invites you to.
And I ask myself, brothers: To what end is all that agony? We know that He feeds all the fowl of the sky, will He not take care of us? Could that agony finally denote an egotism and a lack of trust on our part? Of course you will probably ask why people are dying of hunger - is it because they didn't trust Him? Gentlemen, we don't have answers to every question. But trust: we either have it or we don't. That's it. When we were children and our father told us that something had to be done this way, we didn't know why he said it, but he knew. So we trusted him, because we knew he loved us. So, either we have a deep conviction that Christ loves us and will not abandon us, and that no matter what befalls us, He Who is Love has allowed it and therefore it is welcome, or, we follow the path of our personal self-sufficiency. Trust also means that we surrender ourselves to Him. A saint once said: "Lord, I want to be with You, even in Hell". That says it all. I deposit my existence with Him Who is Life, and may He do whatever He sees fit. Then an incredible calm overwhelms you... the agony that dominates our culture becomes a joy of encounter, because I have encountered Him and have associated with Him Who is Life.
Apart from trust, what else are we told?
No possessions. Acquire nothing. Because the desire for personal property differentiates us ontologically from Him, Who keeps nothing for Himself.
What else has He told us?
That whoever has two garments should give away the one. Our culture tells us that whoever has 2 ships should acquire 1000. Who agonizes, and who, really, is happy? Have you ever seen any extremely wealthy people - who comprise the social model - appear peaceful and calm? Or do you perhaps see them permanently sullen, bent over numbers? Then the antipodes: Can you ever imagine Elders Paisios or Porphyrios (and other monks of the same calibre) agonizing because they possess only one, frayed cassock? And yet, we who have so many things, agonize so much over acquiring even more... plus, we also lose the joy of offering.
What else does the Conqueror of death tell us?
"Give us this day our daily bread..."
Who of us, my brothers, doesn't have that bread? Is that what we are agonizing for? Let's be honest... We don't care about the bread, even though we thunder out the Lord's Prayer every Sunday... We care about anything material that the social model dishes out. But if we did follow Christ, would we have any agony?
He Who conquered death tells us many more things, which of course can't fit into a brief introduction. But, everything that He does say is summarized - I believe - in one and only statement: "Love your neighbour". But what is far more compelling is: "Love your enemy". Brothers, the stories that we're taught in school write about a whole lot of revolutions, and yet there is not a single mention of the most earth-shaking revolution: Love your enemy. Honestly, can you imagine a world that would simply listen to what the One Who is Joy and Life told us? Can you imagine a world where all people would love one another? Would any of the things that we described as "crises" exist? Or would we be talking about another world altogether?
Brothers, our cultural model does not stand up to repair. Its problem is ontological. As I mentioned earlier, all the problems that are born of the system we live in are not attributed to a pathology; they are its very physiology. Another manner of co-existence is imperative. And that path has been pointed out, by the Victor of death: it is the manner of His existence - the Trinitarian, loving manner of existence. This means that Man, who was fashioned according to the image of God, can also become God by Grace, in order to conquer death (not the biological death, but death per se), and that he should attempt to experience in all these agonies - as much as humanly possible - a loving, Trinitarian communion. In other words, attempt to co-exist lovingly with all his fellow-men, both friends and enemies. Absolute fullness.
Even in this other manner of existence, all of us are invited: the worthy and the unworthy. Because God is Love. God doesn't choose. Man chooses, freely: either he attempts this, and actually lives, or he chooses to be dead, even though he survives biologically. Of course, given that man chose to be fallen - both as a person and as a member of an established collective group - he is unable to attain that way of existence perfectly.
But, even if that isn't entirely feasible, the way of life of the Saints surely is - when we refer to a personal level, and the life of the Church is, when referring to a collective level. There can be no excuses here. The Saints were the same as us. So, if they were capable of living a different life, so can we. So let us follow their example and the example of the Church.
And in the end, why don't we just resort to the greatest potential that He granted us in order to associate with Him and our fellow-man? Prayer.
During the most solemn point of the Divine Liturgy and man's life, we hear the following words:
"Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all, and for all..."
That is the whole meaning. Lord, everything is Yours. Nothing is ours. And it is You Who has granted everything to us. Just as You granted Your Self to us. Without anything in exchange and without discriminations. To the poor, as well as to the rich; to the beautiful and to the ugly; to the young and to the old. And we now offer what is Yours, to You: that is, our existence. Do what You want with it, because it is Yours. Because You are Love, Life and Joy, and we want to partake of Love, Life and Joy.
For further information go to the following link to watch a remarkable presentation from Dr. Christos Yannaras http://petrakosfilmsblog.com/2012/professor-christos-yannaras-in-san-francisco-filmed-by-kostas-petrakos/
No comments:
Post a Comment