More Important Than Learning How To Live

Memes float around the internet with pithy sayings that feel like they are Christian in nature. I am not talking about those joke memes that function like modern day comic strips. Rather I am speaking of those that usually come in one of three variations: sweet, angry, or ironic. Be it a kitten “hanging in there,” or chunky red text framing an angry animal, or Kermit drinking tea at sunset, these images flood inboxes, news feeds, and text messages. Most of these are harmless little notes of conventional wisdom passed from one person to another.

What binds these memes and sayings together is an understanding that “common sense is not so common.” These often are little notes passed from one person to another to remind or teach us how to live. Like self-help shots of wheatgrass for our minds that will help us in understanding how to live. Learning how to live It is one of the key virtues of self-help. It does not make self-help bad, but it does make self-help limited in what it can do because there is something more important to learning how to live.

That is where religion stand in contrast to self-help. Christianity, at its best, teaches us how to die more than it teaches us how to live. Christianity teaches us how to die, before we die. We cannot experience or have resurrection, new life, regeneration or new life, until we first die. Perhaps it is not a shock that self-help is more popular to pass around.

The irony of course is that only in learning how to die do we learn how to live abundantly, faithfully and eternally.

Before we go off thinking about how to live, perhaps take some time (years perhaps) to learn that which is more important.

One Seeking Perfection Must...

John Cassian has a collection of writings he called The Institutes. Within these writings lay a number of precious gems for the reader. I wanted to highlight one of those gems - what might the disciple of Christ expect to go through on the path of being of the charter of Christ? Another way to think about this might be to consider Jesus when he says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” How are we to move toward being made perfect in love?

Cassian suggests a series of actions that you can take that reveal the next step to take. As you walk, being able to see only one step at a time, you will come to the Kingdom of Heaven. I have not found a more concise description of what Cassian describes than from Philip Turner’s book Christian Ethics and the Church: Ecclesial Foundations for Moral Thought and Practice. Consider what Turner writes:

The process begins with the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom. Fear drives one to conversion and the search for perfection. The search requires that one, through renunciation, develop contempt for worldly things including family and possessions. Renunciation leads in turn to the virtue of humility from which is generated the dying of desire, and when desire has died the vices are uprooted and wither away. With the expulsion of the vices, virtue begins to grow and bear fruit. When virtue is abundant, purity of heart is acquired and, with purity of heart, the kingdom of heaven.

We start with a fear of the Lord. When we compare ourselves to the Lord we are brought to our knees and we desire conversion. The desire for conversion admits that the current course we are on is not sufficient to the standard of God’s heart, so we renounce our current way of living. But renouncing our current way of living we become a novice to life again and we are humbled. And when we are humbled to this new way of living that we know little about, our past desires atrophy. If we are able to arrive to this point where we renounce our past lives and desires then the vices of our past also die. In this way we are born again, made new. The death of desires and vices is the very fertile ground God uses to plant virtue. When lives around the world are full for good fruit (Matthew 7:17) we discover we all live in a new garden called the Kingdom of God.

And so, take the first step and see what is revealed. Ask yourself, “Do I feel like I am God’s equal?”

Rungs of Fiery Prayer

Sometimes people will say, “I don’t know how to pray.” To which others try to encourage them by saying, “Just talk to God.” I find this advice less than helpful as I feel like a crazy. Not because I feel like I am talking to no one, but because if I can talk to God about anything, then what should I start with? Even improv comics have some raw material to work with. They could just “do anything” but it would be so scattered that it would not make sense, and it I would be hesitant to go see that comedy troupe again.

So yes, you can “just talk to God” in prayer, however if you are like me, and you need some raw material to work with, consider John Cassian’s different forms.

Cassian says the first form of prayer is confession of sin and petition for pardon. Often we when we pray we tend to say things we are thankful for. Thanksgiving is a great form of prayer, but do not overlook some of the more fundamental forms of prayer as well. Confession of sin and asking forgiveness is the practice of humility, and if we are not humble then our prayers are like a noisy gong.

Cassian suggests a form of prayer that seems overlooked in contemporary prayer - offering. This is the vow we make to God that completes the repentance we just made. It is stating in prayer what you are offering or vowing to God in response to the pardon and forgiveness given. I wonder how it might change us if we included an offering or vow to God in our prayers?

In his writings, Cassian says, “Third come pleas. We usually make them for others when we ourselves are deeply moved in spirit.” We offer them for those dear to us or when we beg for peace in the world…” These pleas are sometimes call prayers of intercession, but this form or prayer is common that Cassian does not spend a lot of time talking about it in his Conference on prayer.

“Forth are thanksgivings. Unspeakably moved by the memory of God’s past kindness…” Again this is a very common prayer form. It is so common that many times public prayers are a string of statements of thanksgiving. As Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, that would suffice.” While sufficient, prayer can be enriched with Cassian’s forms.

Cassian suggests that it takes all four prayer forms to encounter “fiery prayer”. Fiery prayer is when all four prayer types are simultaneously engaged. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit that one receives the gift of fiery prayer. It is also prayer that comes more easily to those rooted in purity of heart (what I call orthocardia).

Perhaps it is fiery prayer that Abba Joseph was speaking about when Abba Lot came to him and said, Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and, according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do? Abba Joseph rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not become fire?