My roommate asked me what I was reading. I told him. I added that the first time I read this book it changed my life. He asked me to read a passage. I read: (p. 21) Dionysius the Areopagite, Divine Names, IV, 7 (PG3,701)
This Beauty is the source of all friendship and all mutual understanding. It is this Beauty … which moves all living things and preserves them whilst filling them with love and desire for their own particular sort of beauty. For each one, therefore, Beauty is both its limit and the object of its love, since it is its goal … and its model (for it is by its likeness to this Beauty that everything is defined).
and following.
However, he asked me to re-read this section three times. He was raised in a very strict fundamentalist family where the threat of the Devil was rigorously called to quell the desires, actions and acts of children. He told me that even at age 17 he was afraid to close his eyes in the shower for fear that the Devil would get him when he wasn’t looking.
I spoke of a Christianity that is based on love/Love. Later in the day he asked me to read the passage one more time. He said, “That is it!”
Then he told me that perhaps my calling was to spread the friendship and Love that is evident and manifests at Saint Gregory’s.
Ah! As I have said to Huw many times, Why not become Holy Fire?
Tags: Beauty and Goodness, Dionysius the Areopagite, friendship, Holy Fire
September 23, 2008 at 11:11 pm |
I’m wrestling: am I supposed to be a priest, or just supposed to start a community where that happens? Can I do it on my own? Do I need a Denomination behind me? Will we even have a denomination in 3 or 4 years?
Wholey Holy Fire
September 23, 2008 at 11:19 pm |
Sorry. “where that happens” refers to “spread the friendship and Love that is evident and manifests at Saint Gregory’s.”
September 23, 2008 at 11:43 pm |
I’m thinking more along monkish lines myself. Urban monastery. In the suburbs? Of one? But then, how to be in communion if only one?
October 1, 2008 at 12:23 am |
ECUSA is filled with monastic companions, third orders, etc. And there are Franciscan orders out there that are ecumenical rather than ECUSAn as well. You get in communion by being accountable to someone… and by agreeing to pray with them (even if not physically present with them).
I think you might do well looking into
http://www.orderofjulian.org/affiliates.html
And, you know? I love you a lot.
October 1, 2008 at 1:23 am |
Huw,
)
Thank you. Especially for the last words. This is an investigation I will pursue after I return from my trip. (Tracking down that wise and kindly Arian bishop.
October 1, 2008 at 2:02 am |
but…ever since you (Huw) sent this to me I have been attempting to follow this discipline.
Fr Alexander’s Journal
Tuesday, January 20, 1981
More and more often it seems to me that reviving the monasticism that everybody so ecstatically talks about—or at least trying to revive it—can be done only by liquidating first of all the monastic institution itself, i.e., the whole vaudeville of klobuks, cowls, stylization, etc. If I were a starets—an elder—I would tell a candidate for monasticism roughly the following:
• get a job, if possible the simplest, without creativity (for example as a cashier in a bank);
• while working, pray and seek inner peace; do not get angry; do not think of yourself (rights, fairness, etc.). Accept everyone (coworkers, clients) as someone sent to you; pray for them.
• after paying for a modest apartment and groceries, give your money to the poor; to individuals rather than foundations;
• always go to the same church and there try to be a real helper, not by lecturing about spiritual life or icons, not by teaching but with a “dust rag” (cf. St Seraphim of Sarov). Keep at that kind of service and be—in church matters—totally obedient to the parish priest;
• do not thrust yourself and your service on anyone; do not be sad that your talents are not being used; be helpful; serve where needed and not where you think you are needed;
• read and learn as much as you can; do not read only monastic literature, but broadly (this point needs more precise definition);
• if friends and acquaintances invite you because they are close to you—go; but not too often, and within reason. Never stay more than one and a half or two hours. After that the friendliest atmosphere becomes harmful;
• dress like everybody else, but modestly, and without visible signs of a special spiritual life;
• be always simple, light, joyous. Do not teach. Avoid like the plague any “spiritual” conversations and any religious or churchly idle talk. If you act that way, everything will be to your benefit;
• do not seek a spiritual elder or guide. If he is needed, God will send him, and will send him when needed;
• having worked and served this way for ten years—no less—ask God whether you should continue to live this way, or whether change is needed. And wait for an answer: it will come; the signs will be “joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.”
This is excerpted from The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann 1973-1983, published by St. Vladimir Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY.
I’m well into year seven and just as fence-sitting and clueless as ever.
October 1, 2008 at 2:36 am |
And I’d forgotten it. Thank yoU!
October 1, 2008 at 2:37 am |
I just posted on my blog also about Dionysius, but the quote that had to do with eros. That hit me as hard as the beauty quote seems to have hit you.