Today I finished my first paper after three years away from scholarly activity. It feels good to create something, stretch my mental muscles, string together a narrative and once again encounter the world outside what is totally familiar.
I also walked around campus - and to the Caisse Populaire to get money - while practising a breathing exercise I learned in Fr. Simeon Roger's book. It was odd. At first I noticed, "Hey, I'm walking like an Asian person right now!" and then "Hey, I feel more peaceful than usual" and then I started to pray.
Let me explain the breathing exercise a bit. Normally, North Americans breath shallowly from the chest rather than from the gut. The exercise teaches you to 1.) have correct posture 2.) to breathe from the below the belly button in such a way that your whole abdominal area and kidney area feel like their expanding like a balloon. It's strange; it takes me out my head and makes me more aware of my body while at same time helping me be more clear in my head. There's a bit more to it than that but it really seems to make a difference.
Throughout the day I felt more at ease, more aware and most importantly, more able to pray. Then tonight when Cheryl and I prayed together, I felt as though I was consciously presenting more of myself before the Almighty. It's strange.
I really do live most of my life in my cranium and forget my body. Even this small reminder of my corporial being seemed to aid in prayer. I don't think Orthodox Christians merely pray "with" the body. Too often what I have implicitly meant when saying we "pray with the body" is that we pray with our body in an instrumental sense as though the body simply follows or gives way to the thinking mind. What we as Orthodox Christians really do, is teach our whole being, body and all, to pray through spiritual discipline, the sacramental life and the remembrance of God. When the nous takes up residence in the heart, the body actually prays with the nous. The Holy Relics plainly show show it to be true. The incorrupt body of St. John Maximovich clearly shows it to be true. If the body can be holy, the body can pray. It all seems plain and self evident when I read about things like this but I don't yet truly comprehend it - I do not yet comprehend the psychosomatic unity of our created composition. I barely see the salvific magnitude of Christ's coming flesh, suffering in the flesh, dying in the flesh, glorious rising in the flesh and ascending to the Father in the flesh.
I also walked around campus - and to the Caisse Populaire to get money - while practising a breathing exercise I learned in Fr. Simeon Roger's book. It was odd. At first I noticed, "Hey, I'm walking like an Asian person right now!" and then "Hey, I feel more peaceful than usual" and then I started to pray.
Let me explain the breathing exercise a bit. Normally, North Americans breath shallowly from the chest rather than from the gut. The exercise teaches you to 1.) have correct posture 2.) to breathe from the below the belly button in such a way that your whole abdominal area and kidney area feel like their expanding like a balloon. It's strange; it takes me out my head and makes me more aware of my body while at same time helping me be more clear in my head. There's a bit more to it than that but it really seems to make a difference.
Throughout the day I felt more at ease, more aware and most importantly, more able to pray. Then tonight when Cheryl and I prayed together, I felt as though I was consciously presenting more of myself before the Almighty. It's strange.
I really do live most of my life in my cranium and forget my body. Even this small reminder of my corporial being seemed to aid in prayer. I don't think Orthodox Christians merely pray "with" the body. Too often what I have implicitly meant when saying we "pray with the body" is that we pray with our body in an instrumental sense as though the body simply follows or gives way to the thinking mind. What we as Orthodox Christians really do, is teach our whole being, body and all, to pray through spiritual discipline, the sacramental life and the remembrance of God. When the nous takes up residence in the heart, the body actually prays with the nous. The Holy Relics plainly show show it to be true. The incorrupt body of St. John Maximovich clearly shows it to be true. If the body can be holy, the body can pray. It all seems plain and self evident when I read about things like this but I don't yet truly comprehend it - I do not yet comprehend the psychosomatic unity of our created composition. I barely see the salvific magnitude of Christ's coming flesh, suffering in the flesh, dying in the flesh, glorious rising in the flesh and ascending to the Father in the flesh.
posted by Enthymemosis at 12:17 a.m.
5 Comments:
We sure miss you guys!
an honour to be exposed to your mind!
You know, what is also interesting....the other side of the economy... just as post-Incarnation Christ's divinity is still realized, so now in His "sitting at the right hand," he does so as 100% a HUMAN BEING! In, of course, to use that beautiful 19th century Russian word (I can't spell it properly but I suspect that Fr. John J. would know all about this... 'bogocholovestvo' or something like that)so meagrely translated by Karl Barth as Christ's "divine-humanity." He has returned humanity, and human flesh, to paradise.
Of course this all has ecclesiological meaning too... to have life we must be somehow "IN" that Body, the resurrected and ascended Body that He has united again to God... and of course the Liturgy is way there.
Yes. Exactly.
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