I'm still reading Fr. Arseny.
He is a real man. A godly man. Much compassion and love without any trace of sentimentality. Just pure love for God and endless struggle to help others and seek salvation.
It's impossible to read about a man of such spiritual stature, established and filled by God's grace, and not feel humbled and challenged to see who I really am and where my heart really casts itself about to fill itself with something.
I am amazed by a couple of stories in particular.
1.) The man with the wet boots who comes back to the barracks at night after having stepped in a creek and realizes he might die tomorrow because his boots simply will not dry by the next day. He cannot leave them by the furnace because others will steal them while he sleeps and if he stays awake to protect his boots, he will not be able to work the next day and will be shot by the gulag guards. He chooses to lie down in his bunk with his wet boots on his feet. He begins to drift off and notices a man take off his boots, rub his feet with balm and massage them to return some circulation. He falls asleep thinking his boots might be gone. In the morning, Fr. Arseny gives him his boots and he learns that Fr. Arseny treated his feet with balm and stayed up all night by the fire watching his boots, thereby keeping them safe and keeping the young man alive.
2.) A young man, new to the gulag barracks, gambles with some of criminals and ends up gambling away all his clothes. They try to take away his clothes. The criminal beats the young man and Fr. Arseny realizes the young man will be killed. Fr. Arseny grabs the criminals arm - essentially a deathwish - and the criminal pulls out a knife and says he will kill them both. Fr. Arseny bashes the criminal on the arm, knocking the knife out of his hand and pushes the criminal over. The criminal falls down and hits his head. Fr. Arseny tells the young man he will not be hurt again. The criminals respect and protect Fr. Arseny from that time on.
3.) Fr. Arseny and a young man get sent to solitary confinement in a steel box for two days. It is -23 degrees outside and everyone thinks they will die. In fact, putting Fr. Arseny and the men in the box in such cold conditions could even get the gulag gaurds in trouble with the authorities for being too cruel and against regulations. Fr. Arseny and the young man enter the box. Fr. Arseny simply begins to pray. Eventually the room is filled with light and two figures appear with Fr. Arseny, serving him and helping him as he prays. The young man feels a warmth and no cold and finds himself being brought into deep prayer by Fr. Arseny. Fr. Arseny tells the young man to lie down while he continues praying. They survive for two days in the freezing cold cell. The gaurds who to come to find them are shocked and cannot believe the two men are still alive. The gaurds note that Fr. Arseny and other man are somehow warm to the touch.
Story after story and men and women seeing Fr. Arseny constantly muttering - i.e. praying - to God and selflessly serving others and these people finding consolation and faith in God through Fr. Arseny.
Ultimately, it is the faith of Fr. Arseny which amazes me over and over again. Nearly everyone whom he encounters he also sees as good. He sees their goodness even when they work as a prison guard in a death camp, a criminal who beats fellow prisoners. How a man or a woman can see goodness in the gravest of situations and in the darkest of people is a mystery to me and tells me I've got a long long way to go.
Goodness, contrary to my dark and hidden intuition, is not uncommon. It might be covered up but it is probably only covered up or obscured by my own dim glass through which I see.
He is a real man. A godly man. Much compassion and love without any trace of sentimentality. Just pure love for God and endless struggle to help others and seek salvation.
It's impossible to read about a man of such spiritual stature, established and filled by God's grace, and not feel humbled and challenged to see who I really am and where my heart really casts itself about to fill itself with something.
I am amazed by a couple of stories in particular.
1.) The man with the wet boots who comes back to the barracks at night after having stepped in a creek and realizes he might die tomorrow because his boots simply will not dry by the next day. He cannot leave them by the furnace because others will steal them while he sleeps and if he stays awake to protect his boots, he will not be able to work the next day and will be shot by the gulag guards. He chooses to lie down in his bunk with his wet boots on his feet. He begins to drift off and notices a man take off his boots, rub his feet with balm and massage them to return some circulation. He falls asleep thinking his boots might be gone. In the morning, Fr. Arseny gives him his boots and he learns that Fr. Arseny treated his feet with balm and stayed up all night by the fire watching his boots, thereby keeping them safe and keeping the young man alive.
2.) A young man, new to the gulag barracks, gambles with some of criminals and ends up gambling away all his clothes. They try to take away his clothes. The criminal beats the young man and Fr. Arseny realizes the young man will be killed. Fr. Arseny grabs the criminals arm - essentially a deathwish - and the criminal pulls out a knife and says he will kill them both. Fr. Arseny bashes the criminal on the arm, knocking the knife out of his hand and pushes the criminal over. The criminal falls down and hits his head. Fr. Arseny tells the young man he will not be hurt again. The criminals respect and protect Fr. Arseny from that time on.
3.) Fr. Arseny and a young man get sent to solitary confinement in a steel box for two days. It is -23 degrees outside and everyone thinks they will die. In fact, putting Fr. Arseny and the men in the box in such cold conditions could even get the gulag gaurds in trouble with the authorities for being too cruel and against regulations. Fr. Arseny and the young man enter the box. Fr. Arseny simply begins to pray. Eventually the room is filled with light and two figures appear with Fr. Arseny, serving him and helping him as he prays. The young man feels a warmth and no cold and finds himself being brought into deep prayer by Fr. Arseny. Fr. Arseny tells the young man to lie down while he continues praying. They survive for two days in the freezing cold cell. The gaurds who to come to find them are shocked and cannot believe the two men are still alive. The gaurds note that Fr. Arseny and other man are somehow warm to the touch.
Story after story and men and women seeing Fr. Arseny constantly muttering - i.e. praying - to God and selflessly serving others and these people finding consolation and faith in God through Fr. Arseny.
Ultimately, it is the faith of Fr. Arseny which amazes me over and over again. Nearly everyone whom he encounters he also sees as good. He sees their goodness even when they work as a prison guard in a death camp, a criminal who beats fellow prisoners. How a man or a woman can see goodness in the gravest of situations and in the darkest of people is a mystery to me and tells me I've got a long long way to go.
Goodness, contrary to my dark and hidden intuition, is not uncommon. It might be covered up but it is probably only covered up or obscured by my own dim glass through which I see.
--------------
Our move to Ottawa has been a struggle and it has been tempting to compare my old experience with my new one - to find mastery over my situation by comparative nostalgia. The desire for sameness, which is the essence of my present nostalgia, is powerful and a horrible diabolical lie because the sameness I desire is born out of a will to control and find my present in the past. All of that is an illusion. The past does not exist in the past but only exists in so far as it is now alive. The only place I can be is "now" and now is filled with much more good than I can possibly bare. And to compare what I once experienced with what is now my reality does not do justice to either the present or the past because it divides the past from the present when, in reality, what is true and good in the past must necessarily still live even now - not simply as a memory - but as something spiritually powerful and light bearing. I do no justice to those who shared goodness with me at St. Herman's, at TWU, in Morden and everywhere if I allow myself to feel caught or pulled between them in a comparative fashion. By doing so I do not allow these faces be who they really are because in my heart I have pulled them apart and pushed them away from each other and by pushing and pulling them assunder I commit a great violence.
Forgive me my brothers and sisters. You have all done so much for me.
May God and his most pure Mother help me to treasure in my heart all your faces and the Presence they show forth.
Forgive me my brothers and sisters. You have all done so much for me.
May God and his most pure Mother help me to treasure in my heart all your faces and the Presence they show forth.
posted by Enthymemosis at 11:30 p.m.
6 Comments:
Nostalgia on the one hand and utopian dreaming on the other are the two extremes of a sort of spiritual romanticism that I too, often have to struggle to avoid.
But you are definitely going to the right source. Fr. Arseny's example is a good one to deal with both extremes.
The second book is also excellent.
mmmmmm, thank you for these thoughts. nostalgia and romanticism is often something I live in...
I love that we sing such hymns as "Christ is risen from the dead" and "Today is the beginning of our salvation"---all in the present. We commemorate past historical events, but in the present tense, celebrating the fact that they are presently significant.
Biss, yes.
And all things are alive in the present in so far as they participate in that resurrected reality.
All of those past saving events illuminate the present in which the saving events that happen in our life time also show forth the resurrected reality.
I love it also that we remember the FUTURE, for even it has been brought into the eternal present in Christ.
I am thinking of the beauty of those prayers from the anaphora... "You brought us into being out of nothing, and when we fell, You raised us up again. You did not cease doing everything until You led us to heaven and granted us Your kingdom to come..." and "Remembering, therefore, this command of the Savior, and all that came to pass for our sake, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious coming..."
As Fr. Alexander Schmemann used to say "to love is to remember."
A great man
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