The fight.

I have gotten a number of encouraging responses to things I’ve written in the past over the past weeks, some of which asked me to continue making posts. I haven’t abandoned this blog as much as my life has just gotten in the way of it — those who know me outside of this blog know that I moved into a new house on Saturday and am getting married this coming Sunday. Needless to say, life is crazy.

That is certainly something worth considering. At the beginning of June, I was in such a deep depression that I literally felt that life could not continue. Needless to say, any kind of spiritual progress is impossible in such a state, especially when apathy sits in so deep that any desire to fight against it is effectively destroyed. I emphasize the word fight because that’s exactly what it is. But, apart from anything I did, I managed, life continued, and I’m still here posting. Amazing how that works, isn’t it?

I went to breakfast with a good friend of mine this past Saturday, as he was helping me move and we wanted to start off the long day with a big breakfast. As usual, the chatter wandered into the territory of Roman Catholicism (since I am a former Catholic and my friend works for a decidedly Catholic gift shop), and upon hearing the words “chaplet of divine mercy” leave my friend’s mouth, a man sitting behind us immediately turned around and struck up a conversation. The point? Since he heard us discussing Catholicism, we obviously couldn’t have been Christians, so we needed to get saved. Once we did that, any past, present or future sin would be absolved, regardless. Free and clear!

I bring this up because nowhere in such an idea is that fight expressed, and as I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog, it was this very idea of “once saved, always saved” that made me think I was lost. Once one hears the gospel, it is not over, and struggles with sin don’t just disappear! Far from it! Again and again, the one thing I have repeated throughout this blog, for what little it’s worth, is struggle. And it is quite clear how very bad I am at it. Is “getting saved” the answer? Not if one thinks that one is simply set for life! To the dying breath, one must call on the name of the Lord Jesus, confessing Him indeed to be Lord, and trusting in the holy mercy of the All-Holy Trinity, one God, Who Is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Who was, is, and is to come!

Even when it is completely imperceptible, or even when the struggle gives the appearance of moving starkly backward, one must stay in the fight. Can one really expect to live comfortably and still yearn for God? In my own experience, when things are easy, I forget God. Horrible, yes, but I’ve read countless other accounts attesting to the same experience. Is it possible to experience the mercy of our thrice-holy Lord when we do not even feel we need it? How can anyone claim to follow Christ without enduring the violence that the very Kingdom suffers (Matt. 11:12)? And likewise, if the Kingdom suffers violence, how will we not fight back?

As much as I, with my dark outlook on this world, hate to admit it, I am doing a lot better in some ways than I was at the beginning of June, at least on an emotional level. Depression has left me alone, for the most part. Certain dark passions have not conquered me for a number of weeks now. That’s not to say that the fight is over — now, even more subtle passions are making themselves known, and it’s harder to fight an enemy one can scarcely even see! — but the Lord has manifested Himself to me in that I am still here, and still (for the most part) sane. At times, I even think that I understand just a little bit what “Christ is in our midst!” really means. He is with us, and His Body also, the Church, comprised even of His saints who have passed on and continue the battle on our behalf before Him.

The Lord is my strength and song; He is become my salvation. Alleluia.

The glory of God vs. this blog

This was a comment someone left on one of my posts just today. It essentially sums up the reason why I haven’t made a post in a few weeks:

Somehow, I feel much bitterness from your writings. Remember, that even if you punish yourself and think that you are repenting and genuinely confessing, unless you bear sweet fruits in your heart, then there is something wrong. You may wish to revisit your frustration with others and uproot the daemon of judgment.

Bitterness and judgment… that about sums it up. I decided that posting on this blog was not helping my tendency toward despondency and despair. That last post I made simply containing Psalm 41 was part of a better strategy to combat that, which is to pray the Psalter and try to heed St. Paul’s command to “pray without ceasing.” Of course, I would have done well to remove those first few words I included before it if I was truly seeking to be edified!

At this point, I’m not sure what worth there is in posting here, except to perhaps share edifying things. Part of the reason I kept making posts was to show how much a Christian can and does struggle, but I think I’ve made my point. Besides, the way I’ve had to struggle is hardly what anybody should want, and frankly, much of the depression I’ve complained about has been of my own creation. Sloth and despair, the first two items of the prayer of St. Ephraim (”O Lord, take from me…”) — combine those two, and you have a good formula for what I’ve been fighting.

So, it has come to the point where there is no need to continue to make posts wallowing in misery. Anyone who has read this blog has seen me “hit bottom” (so to speak) with the kinds of things I was saying at the end of May — believe it or not, I held back some of what I was thinking. Such writing is not edifying for anybody to read, and it’s definitely not good for me to be writing, either. After all, this blog is called IC XC NIKA — Jesus Christ conquers — but I have truly neglected to remember the NIKA part of that bold statement!

I’m at a crossroads of sorts in regards to this blog. I may shut it down. I may leave it be and not write anything else. I may post positive things I see. I don’t know yet. But the trend I was following those last few posts must stop. I’d be better off praying than allowing myself to write anymore of that. I can hardly lie and say that I am any better off than I was before — probably because that isn’t true — but depression and despair is not askesis. Askesis is fighting it and trusting in God in order to defeat it. St. Seraphim of Sarov, my holy patron, always looks joyfully glorious in his icons — that’s the goal. The glory of God radiates from him, as with all of the holy saints:

The glory of God. I pray anyone who has read what I’ve written below may be edified that through the prayers of St. Seraphim, I am starting to love God and fight against the adversary after all, little by little, nanometer by nanometer. God be gracious unto us and bless us, and cause His countenance to shine upon us and have mercy on us!

All that’s left.

Praying Psalm 41… I can’t take myself anymore; what’s left?

As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsted for God, the mighty, the living; when shall I come, and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread by day and by night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God? These things have I remembered, and I poured out my soul within me, for I shall go to the place of the wondrous tabernacle, even to the house of God, with a voice of rejoicing and thanksgiving, yea, of the sound of them that keep festival. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why dost thou disquiet me? Hope in God, for I will give thanks unto Him; He is the salvation of my countenance, and my God. Within me my soul hath been troubled; therefore will I remember Thee from the land of Jordan and Hermoniem, from the little mountain. Deep calleth unto deep, at the voice of Thy cataracts; all Thy billows and Thy waves have passed over me. By day the Lord will command His mercy, and by night His ode shall be with me, my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God: Thou art my helper. Why hast Thou forgotten me? And wherefore go I with downcast face whilst mine enemy afflicteth me? Whilst my bones were broken, mine enemies reproached me; whilst they said to me daily: Where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why dost thou disquiet me? Hope in God, for I will give thanks unto Him; He is the salvation of my countenance, and my God.

Rejoice in askesis

I wrote the following for another blog back in March. I’m posting it here because it bears repeating (and because I myself, above all, would do well to remember it).

“Do not be surprised if you fall every day and do not surrender. Stand your ground bravely. And you may be sure that your guardian angel will respect your endurance. A fresh, warm wound is easier to heal than those that are old, neglected, and festering, and that need extensive treatment, surgery, bandaging, and cauterization. Long neglect can render many of the incurable. However, all things are possible with God.”

– St. John of Climascus, Ladder of Divine Ascent

The Christian must not fear struggle in his or her life. Too often in mainline Christianity, struggle with the passions is looked down upon — “how could one who has accepted Christ possibly still struggle with sin? This one must not be saved!”

It is a great delusion to think that we are ever doing “just fine” in our spiritual life. In fact, the more content we are, the more we can be assured that there is something lurking underneath that we are ignoring — it is for this reason that the apostle warns us to take heed lest we fall (1 Cor. 10:12).

Christianity is not fake smiles and rejoicing in God’s blessings of material wealth. God is not interested in what’s in your wallet, what you drive, where you live, who you know, and how involved you are in your church. The world loves these things. The Truth is to be had in and of none of these things — in them is only vanity and death.

Rather, “the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Our external facade does not necessarily reveal anything of our souls. What men see us do and fail to do counts for little when compared to the heart, which, in every last one of us, is filled with despondency and is hardened against God and neighbor. We all must confess this to be true, daily, or we are lost. If we cannot admit to God that we do not love Him as He first loved us, we cannot be saved, for the love of God is beyond comprehension and beyond compare — how shall we compare ourselves to Him Who is love (1 John 4:8)?

In light of this, how is it that so many refuse to admit that they struggle? In some churches, it as seen as a sign that you have failed to seek Christ if you struggle, which is utterly ridiculous. We all must struggle to be saved. The initial encounter with Christ, contrary to what many might preach, cannot be the last. Every day is an ongoing struggle against the passions that would tear us away from Christ, and every moment that we do not set our eyes on Him is a moment given over to the demons. We are at war, and we cannot afford to let our guard down.

To the minds of some in the world today, such warfare is an unacceptable burden. These minds look at their wealth and believe they have been visited with God’s grace and blessing. Perhaps they have, but material possessions are not the way in which we are to judge the bestowing of grace; rather, when we struggle against our passions and succeed in beating back the demons, we know that God’s grace has visited us, for without Him no victory is possible. When we struggle, God is merciful and sends forth His grace to help us defeat the adversaries. If we refuse to struggle against the passions, we may very well be rejecting God’s grace!

It is for that reason that we must not fear to struggle. Our struggles, our askesis, are more invaluable to us than any worldly treasure we may ever come to possess, for those worldly treasures will one day pass away, as fleeting as a puff of wind in an open field, and we will be laid bare before the Creator. Through askesis, however, we come to know God by His divine Spirit through Jesus Christ, and on that day when we meet our Lord, He will know and remember us and have mercy on us. Thus we share in Christ’s victory over death, and just as He struggled through His own life and suffered on the Cross and rose from the dead, so shall we. We mustn’t fear it, because after all, He Himself warned us of the struggles (for example, John 15:19). We cannot ignore His call to pick up our crosses and follow Him as He instructed.

Through the prayers of the Theotokos and all the saints, may God grant us the strength to carry our cross.

“Rejoice and be of good cheer” — trying…

It’s a sad state of affairs when I come to believe that “miserable failure” doesn’t even begin to describe my spiritual life.

What can I say? My passions rage more wildly than they ever did before my illumination — and I have failed to fight them off a number of times. I am horrified by the thoughts I have had. My tendency toward depression seems to be getting worse as time passes. I’ve been listening to some of my old Christian metal again, something of which I’m not sure my spiritual father approves. The only hope I can find for the world anymore is in the prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” What else is there? I don’t know. And that sounds like my old nihilistic tendencies coming back out of the woodwork again.

I have little consolation left, apart from the rare moments when I actually do feel any shred of love for Jesus. Apart from those times, my life consists of despondency, idleness, and yielding to the passions. Every time I think that I’ve grown tired of living in such bondage and want to return to Jesus, I find myself seemingly just moments later turning my back on Him again. Everything about it is abhorrent. To seriously meditate on the fact that Christ has watched me in my most wretched moments is enough to make me shudder — or at least it should be.

I’ve heard it said in a number of places that once one has lost everything, he is free to do anything. Another similar one is something to the effect of, one must hit bottom before one can know what it is to rise back up. Is that true? Maybe, and I hope so. It sure feels like I’ve hit bottom. I’m not sure that there is much of anything worse than falling into such despondency and fits of the passions so closely following one’s entrance into the Church. I know I said that I was going to have to suffer and fight, but this is ridiculous. St. Isaac the Syrian said that we ought not say that God is just, since He would have destroyed us all already if He were. When I consider my life, I realize how true that is.

I can say this much, though: I don’t feel sorry for myself. What cuts me is that I am really starting to understand how much my most personal and innermost sins affect everyone around me. I am closed-off. I am reserved to a fault. My presence is intimidating. I am distant. I seem always to be in a foul mood. I am negative. I am bitter. What disturbs me is that this is what others have either told me directly or very strongly implied in conversation — even one of my professors today told me that I intimidate her. Holy people are not intimidating in the way people say that I am. How am I of any help to the Kingdom when I am such a horrible example of an Orthodox Christian?

I just don’t know anymore. All the things that the world expects me to do seem utterly futile and useless, and it depresses me to no end. Add to that the ever-growing list of sins I have committed since my chrismation, and you have one miserable human being. My only explanation is that for all my head-smarts concerning the Orthodox faith, I’ve taken exactly none of it to heart for me to still be this way. Fr. Seraphim Rose always talked about “Orthodoxy of the heart” — that God would only grant me this!

This is a rant that I perhaps should not be making, but I’d be a liar to try to write anything inspiring. If I want inspiration, all I can do is look to the Psalter or the gospels, because it’s not in me anymore to find inspiration within myself. “Rejoice and be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world!”

O sweetest Jesus, teach me how to do that…

Chrismation is only the beginning

I have been Orthodox now for just over a week. I was chrismated Holy Saturday morning during the liturgy which began at 10:00am, and a number of interesting things happened that have spoken a lot to me. First of all, the morning of the chrismation began with my fiancee’s toilet overflowing — yes, I spent the morning before my chrismation on my hands and knees cleaning up rather disgusting water, using the same hands that would be very shortly anointed with oil blessed by his eminence, +Patriarch IGNATIUS IV of Antioch.

During the chrismation itself, I opened my eyes at a rather inopportune time, apparently, and I managed to get holy chrism in my right eye. It burned horribly and I could not very well rub it off, so I stood there with my eyes closed with tears streaming down. My godfather and a few of my friends mistook this for the gift of tears — hardly. Instead of rejoicing as my fiancee and a few others were chrismated alongside me, I had other thoughts, which I will get to shortly.

My family came to my chrismation, but my father did not stay for all of it. As soon as the actual chrismation was over, he left. He did not like the service or the Church or the choice I had made, which he decided to express by leaving in the middle of the service and refusing to speak to me until the next day, in the middle of my birthday party no less (which nobody attended except for immediate family and my fiancee, after I had invited all my close friends).

When I received the Holy Mysteries for the first time during the Holy Saturday morning liturgy, contrary to other stories of people feeling immense grace outpoured on them, I felt not a thing. I was happy, to be sure, but I would not attribute that to any kind of miracle — just happy that I was finally Orthodox.

What was I thinking as my eye burned with holy chrism, as I mentioned above? I was thinking that this pain, even at the very point of my entry into the Church, is indicative of how much I’m surely going to struggle and suffer in the future, and I should not fall into any delusions of things being easy from now on just because I’m Orthodox. Everything else going wrong that day spoke to this. Clearly, the adversary was not happy about my entrance to the Church.

Strangely, I’m at peace with it, and maybe that’s where the grace of the Holy Mysteries is coming into play. I struggle as much as ever with depression when I’m in the academic setting. I stand in church and struggle not to judge everyone around me, and I leave church and struggle not to give in to other passions that I have fought for years and years. Yet, I have a battle I am waging, and I know there is victory in sight if I just refuse to throw in the towel. That is why Christ gave us the Church.

The only peace I’ve had since my entrance into the Church, then, is that I know I am going to have to fight. I do not feel peace with the world or myself, but only in that I must struggle, and through it all, God is merciful. I fully believe that outside of the Holy Trinity, there is simply nothing else. And I fully believe that without the suffering of this life, there is no salvation. At times I despair because of this — but again, God has given me the good grace to fight against despondency, too. I am a slave that shall be freed from his passions by the Lord God Most High.

Chrismation is only the beginning, and by no means the end.

Meaning of IC XC NIKA

I seem to get a lot of searches trying to figure out what “IC XC NIKA” means, so briefly…

IC XC is an ancient Greek Christogram. This comes from the Greek spelling of Jesus Christ, Ιησους Χριστος, and IC XC is simply the first and last letter of each individual word. Often a bar is depicted over each to signify that it is an abbreviation and to signify Christ’s divinity. NIKA is a Greek word meaning “conquers” (and is not an abbreviation!), referring to Christ’s conquest of Hades and His victory over death and sin. Usually IC XC NIKA can be seen in the cross formation shown above.

Notable also is that IC XC will appear next to Christ’s head in Orthodox iconography, and He almost always has His right hand in the configuration shown below in blessing:

As the illustration shows, the letters IC XC are formed by the fingers (and thumb). During the Divine Liturgy, clergy of priestly rank or higher also bless the congregation using this same hand configuration.

There you have it. IC XC NIKA! +

Christ is risen!

I died April 26, 2008 at the divine liturgy of Great and Holy Saturday. Expect far more frequent updates. And pictures.

Desert Calling

Desert Calling is an Orthodox web forum started by Isaak (Dust and Ashes) not long ago devoted to building a community of Orthodox Christians based in askesis, the struggle against and death to the world in order that we might obtain the Holy Spirit of Peace. Its membership has boomed in a way we never could have dreamed — if you’re actually reading this blog, you’d enjoy the forum, guaranteed.

A blog has been started in conjunction with the forum, fittingly also called none other than Desert Calling. Isaak has invited me to write for this blog (which also will serve as material for a newsletter — stay tuned for that). So, I invite and encourage any readers of this blog to check those places out if you haven’t already done so… the more, the merrier. Isaak and I hope to reach a lot of people with our writing, so even if you don’t care to join the forum, please do remember us in your prayers.

On the power of prayer

Words of wisdom from my holy patron saint, Seraphim of Sarov… let us all remember this:

“Of course, every good deed done for Christ’s sake gives us the grace of the Holy Spirit, but prayer gives us this grace most of all, for it is always at hand, as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit. For instance, you would like to go to church, but there is no church or the service is over; you would like to give alms to a beggar, but there isn’t one, or you have nothing to give; you would like to preserve your virginity, but you have not the strength to do so because of your temperament, or because of the violence of the wiles of the enemy which because of your human weakness you cannot withstand; you would like to do some other good deed for Christ’s sake, but either you have not the strength or the opportunity is lacking. This certainly does not apply to prayer. Prayer is always possible for everyone, rich and poor, noble and humble, strong and weak, healthy and sick, righteous and sinful.

“You may judge how great the power of prayer is even in a sinful person, when it is offered whole-heartedly, by the’ following example from Holy Tradition. When at the request of a desperate mother who had been deprived by death of her only son, a harlot whom she chanced to meet, still unclean from her last sin, and who was touched by the mother’s deep sorrow, cried to the Lord: “Not for the sake of a wretched sinner like me, but for the sake of the tears of a mother grieving for her son and firmly trusting in Thy loving kindness and Thy almighty power, Christ God, raise up her son, O Lord!” And the Lord raised him up.

“You see, your Godliness! Great is the power of prayer, and it brings most of all the Spirit of God, and is most easily practiced by everyone. We shall be happy indeed if the Lord God finds us watchful and filled with the gifts of His Holy Spirit. Then we may boldly hope “to be caught up . . . in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17) Who is coming “with great power and glory” (Mk. 13:26) “to judge the living and the dead” (1 Peter 4:5) and “to reward every man according to his works” (Matt. 16:27).