Taking a calm survey of the soul

  • Our self-knowledge is amaz­ingly super­fi­cial. By self-knowledge, I do not, of course, mean a gnaw­ing self-analysis, nor a mor­bid self-flagellation, nor that con­cen­tra­tion on our­selves which has its source in pride. I mean an atten­tive, calm sur­vey of the soul, a gaze turned inward, a delib­er­ate effort to build up our lives con­sciously, so that we are not car­ried away by every pass­ing emo­tion and idea. We are not in the slight­est degree our own mas­ters. We need prac­tice, the dis­ci­pline of atten­tive and deter­mined work upon ourselves.

    FR. ALEXANDER ELCHANINOV
    The Diary of a Russ­ian Priest

    Isn’t it the truth? I love read­ing these more con­tem­po­rary Ortho­dox writ­ers, because there are some of the sick­nesses of the world that older Ortho­dox writ­ers don’t address. Who would’ve fore­seen that the world would become so obsessed with the idea of self–analy­sis, self-assessment, with­out any of the tools that the Ortho­dox Church has had in place for cen­turies? Self-help books are their own sec­tion in the book­store, and all of them depend on exactly the kind of excess that Fr. Alexan­der men­tions, result­ing in pompous, self-absorbed beings who are no bet­ter for all their efforts.

    Where in all those books is the con­cept of humil­ity? The more time that goes on, the more I real­ize how utterly lack­ing I am in that sin­gle qual­ity, and I can usu­ally tell because of my lack of inner peace. I am often tempted into exactly the kind of “gnaw­ing self-analysis” that he men­tions, but apart from a truly Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive, and apart from a proper sense of how lit­tle I actu­ally know myself, my best efforts are always short rides that land me in absurd posturings.

    Lord, have mercy.


    Related posts:

    1. About med­i­ta­tion
    2. A brief his­tory of an Ortho­dox re-creator
    3. The destruc­tion of hearths
    4. Tak­ing shots at Cheney
    5. Tak­ing a teacup on a stroll in Chicago

    January 20th, 2012 | Grace | 1 Comment |

One Response and Counting...

  • Gretchen­Joanna 01.20.2012

    I have just been think­ing these same things today, this week.…it seems in Ortho­doxy I am con­stantly pushed for­ward to God, as in “Go on child, go up to Him, it’s o.k., He won’t bite. Go and talk to Him! He’s what you need, He will help you fig­ure it out.” No one is let­ting me get side­tracked into the cir­cu­lar and self-centered kind of know­ing one­self, no one pre­tends that I can get any­where if I am avoid­ing Reality.

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