Obedience

[karcy]

Elder Porphyrios on obedience:

I can't give you an example of what real obedience is. It's not that we have a discussion about the virtue of obedience and then I say to you, 'go and do a somersault' and then you obey. That's not obedience. You need to be entirely carefree and not thinking at all about the matter of obedience, and then suddenly you

Comments

[karcy]

Hmm. One of the things I am concerned about when I post stuff like these is that many people can misinterpret the ascetic life.

In your case, you've had continual problems with imagining God as a very harsh, judgmental, cruel individual who will condemn yourself or your loved ones to eternal torture and pain. And I don't want to encourage that image of God in you, either. When an Orthodox becomes a monastic, this is not what they believe.

To understand what the monks are doing, think of it less as 'obedience to an angry God' and more as 'self-discipline'.

For an example, do you get up at a certain time every morning? Do you try to get to some place on time? Do you brush your teeth?

Do you pray in the morning, at night, and before meals?

All of these things are things we do by discipline. The monks have simply taken a harsher path of self-discipline than us. Their desire is to simply remove the passions and find inner peace.

So for an example, some of us may be disciplined enough to wake up at 8 a.m. every day, but there are some of us who want to wake up at 5 a.m. every day. They are not waking up early to appease an angry God. They are doing it because the self-discipline is good.

It does not mean that God will punish Christians who do not follow the monastic path. There are many Eastern Orthodox who are not monastic, such as myself! We are all called to live our own personal 'ascetic struggles', meaning we learn to grow closer and closer to Jesus in our own way, every day.

And if, somehow, we do not become perfectly pure in this life, Orthodox believe that we can still become pure in the afterlife. Our salvation is a journey.

So for me, being Orthodox, I think that being a nun is very good. But if I don't become a nun, I am not worried. God will not punish me for not being a nun.

[mysterious_joy]

Ok, Catalina, it's just a form of christianity that I couldn't take up myself. I'm just trying to get by and believe in God and be acceptable. Asceticism doesn't fit in there for me. I think after 3 days at Athos or some similar place would make me really upset at the faith life. I guess I rather want to write poetry and do my stuff.

I'm not even sure I buy this idea of purity through discipline. It's like learning a 10 page poem by rote ... is that really purity or am I making myself into a trained monkey? Purity is for all, not just for monks, and it's given by the Holy Spirit. In Barclay's Commentary it says that perfection and purity is just about being fit for a task. IE, a screwdriver is called perfect in greek when it's fit for the job. Doesn't have to be the most expensive model or the most modern one or a screwdriver with internet access.

[karcy]

I definitely agree that not everyone is called to the ascetic life. What I was hoping to achieve with this is to help us re-evaluate some things we night be doing as non-ascetics though: for example, whether we are working or doing our duties with a lot of personal grousing, and think that we are being 'okay' just because we did them when in our hearts we are being discontent.

Of course, this is the writing of a monk -- don't confuse it with being on par with the Gospels or anything. I find it useful for me, but if it hinders your walk instead of help, just dismiss it :).