Change and the Church

  • Another New Year’s Day. I feel a lit­tle wist­ful about this one. I always tend towards New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions, but this year I don’t know if I’m going into it quite as opti­misti­cally as I some­times do.

    I’ve found that my mind is on a house­hold that we saw. Through cir­cum­stances that would take too long to relate, we ended up see­ing for a brief time the very trou­bled house­hold of some peo­ple we didn’t know. It’s a lit­tle hard to describe, but I don’t think word ‘squalid’ would be too out of place. And I don’t mean the con­di­tion wrought by poor finances — shame on me if I were to be so amazed that poverty affects people’s lives — but by a poverty of the human spirit, the sick­ness and accu­mu­la­tion of bad habits, poor judg­ment, an inabil­ity to care enough to do bet­ter. It was so acci­den­tal and sud­den that there was no way to pre­pare for the shock.
    And there was this great sense of recog­ni­tion. This is what I had read just hours before:

    Let us try to live in such a way that all our actions, our whole life may be, not a sleepy veg­e­ta­tion, but a devel­op­ment — as strong and deep as pos­si­ble — of all our poten­tial­i­ties; and that this may take place not some time in the future but now, imme­di­ately, at every moment. Oth­er­wise, irres­olute and slovenly liv­ing will inevitably give birth to an impo­tence and flab­bi­ness of soul, an inca­pac­ity for faith or any intense feel­ing; life will be squan­dered in vain, and we shall scarcely be able to rid our­selves of the cold scum which cov­ers us — the fire of gen­uine hero­ism alone will be all that can con­sume it in that case.

    – Fr Alexan­der Elchani­nov, The Diary of a Russ­ian Priest

    The cold scum that cov­ers us. I wish I could say that I don’t know what he means by that. But I too have bad habits, I too have made bad deci­sions. Their attri­tion hangs around some­times so much that I feel that every word, every ges­ture bears the extra weight. This is what it means to be sinful.Thinking of the house I saw, a cer­tain prayer comes to mind:

    O Lord, the house of my soul is nar­row; enlarge it that You may enter in.

    It is ruinous; O repair it!

    It dis­pleases your sight; I con­fess it, I know.

    But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to You?

    Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord, and spare Your ser­vant from strange sins.

    – St. Augustine

    I don’t mean that I don’t feel hope. I believe what Fr. Elchani­nov is say­ing: we can change. Through Christ, through the min­is­tra­tions of the Church, we can really change for the better.

    Many peo­ple don’t. They may strug­gle with the suf­fo­ca­tion of unre­lieved guilt, oppres­sive self-centeredness, the chok­ing ashes of old hatred and old lust. They may be in the deep mis­ery of their sin and yet lash out like trapped animals.

    Can I look past my own offended pride and see that they are floun­der­ing? Can I see that I am the same as they are, but that Christ loved me and so I must pass that love along if I love Him?


    Related posts:

    1. Sea­sons change — in church, at home
    2. Are hur­ri­canes racist?
    3. A Vic­to­rian take on the Ortho­dox Church
    4. Thoughts about the Ortho­dox Church and cap­i­tal punishment
    5. “Lord, have mercy”, cont.

    January 1st, 2007 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Molly Sabourin 01.01.2007

    Hi Grace,

    Car­rie for­warded your web­site to me and I finally had a chance to read through it. Your reflec­tion on res­o­lu­tions and spir­tual poverty really hit home. Thank you for your clar­ity and hon­esty, the quotes you chose are already busy wreak­ing havoc on my soul as I write this. What a great site you have!
    It was a plea­sure to meet you and Greg! Thank you again for your kind­ness and generosity.

    Sin­cerely,

    Molly Sabourin

  • Grace

    Thanks so much for those nice thoughts! And at the risk of sound­ing like the Mutual Admi­ra­tion Soci­ety, I really liked your blog as well and I’ll add the link to my blogroll. There was one post a while back that really stirred up rip­ples of thought, but my work­load inter­fered before I could post some­thing about it. But hur­rah for more Ortho­dox blog­gers — I think it’s a very inter­est­ing lit­tle vir­tual community.

  • Mimi

    It is indeed an inter­est­ing vir­tual com­mu­nity, and one I am greatly enriched by know­ing. I’m off to look at Molly’s blog.

    Happy New Year to you, Grace.

  • This Side of Glory » Blog Archive » … and other nonsense

    […] Finally thought of a New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion, and it’s a real cliche, but what the heck. So there are boxes of NutriSys­tem food that I start in on tomor­row. My food choices have been so bad for so long that I’m just going to be relieved not to be mak­ing many. I’ve been on so many diets that I know exactly what stages you go through: Begin­ning — this is new, it’s inter­est­ing, I’m tak­ing con­trol, I’m a good per­son Anti-beginning — this isn’t new any­more, I want a fig new­ton, I’m not that good a per­son Recov­ery — hey, I made it through the fig new­ton cri­sis. Let me start read­ing inspi­ra­tional pam­phlets. I should tell other peo­ple about this nifty diet. Anti-recovery — hm, I’m kind of bored. It sure is great to find out that I’m doing so good on my diet that I can have half a candy bar. I think I’ll cal­cu­late how long I’ll be on this diet and put up a cal­en­dar Eupho­ria – Omigosh! I have now lost SO much weight and I am SUCH a good per­son. I’m going to be a spokes­woman for this diet in com­mer­cials. I am not hav­ing ANY prob­lems los­ing weight and I feel GREAT. I’m going to start rehears­ing my com­mer­cial right now. I am not wor­ried in any way over the upcom­ing din­ner out. I have cal­cu­lated exactly what I’m going to eat and writ­ten it down on color-coded post-its. I am in total con­trol and I’m a diet god­dess! Coma — [two months gone for­ever from your life] Hang­over — Where am I? Why am I wear­ing a bean­bag chair around my waist? Wasn’t I on a diet or some­thing? Who ate all the Magic Shell? Boy, I suck. […]

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