In response to my reader

Dear Gregor,

I wanted to say something regarding you comment to me the other day.

Particularly this: that we become attached to sin through our passions and our real actual needs and wants. That hence it is hard to even ‘want to be rid of sin’.

I have been reading and hearing some relevant theology around this matter recently, which I think goes a little something like this. (please forgive me my choppy use of these notions):

1. This summer I read a priest who says that the passions are not something bad that we need to uproot and be rid of. They are not as such evil energies that we need to eliminate and become flat. He says that these passions are the energies that God gave us, but they have become corrupted.

He says that God gave us infinite energies. If these energies are properly directed, towards God (that means also towards other people IN THE LOVE OF GOD) then all is great. They are infinite energies, and only the infinite Good can satisfy them. If they are turned towards God, then they are infinitely satisfied, and we are infinitely satisfied, without end.

But if these energies are directed away from their true aim – if they are directed towards creation which is finite and ‘created’ – then they are infinitely frustrated. Nothing created and limited can ever satisfy an infinite need. Nothing. 

They (your energies) will crush the creature through their force of infinite desire. And, alongside this, they will be left unsatisfied. And you will be left in pain. 

That is why we can only properly love one another through God. that is one reason why God says leave your family and friends and love me. turn everything to me. give everything to me. because it is ONLY in this manner that we can love one another, and appreciate creation. Only.

There is nothing wrong with creation. God made it. He saw it, and said that it is good.
there is nothing wrong with our energies, our wants and our desires. God made them, he saw them and was glad. he said they are good.
but you cannot direct your desires and needs towards the created.
It's not a sentimental matter, or even really plainly a moral matter. 
it is a matter of fact. 
these are the physical laws of spiritual reality.

Only the infinite can satisfy the infinite. Do not be rid of your energies, do not try to do away with them. We do not abolish the passions. We cleanse them and redirect them towards their real aim. they are our hands with which we will grab onto the Lord and have life eternal. (right now! life eternal includes the life right now also). God gave us these infinite energies so that we can be with him and share in his infinite goodness. 

We learn the truth about our selves and we seek that which is truly good and that which we actually really want.  
It's a matter of fact. 
The truth will set you free. 
Knowing the truth about yourself, and about God, will set you free. From all passionate attachment, from all sin, from every prison. 
Renew your ‘passions’, put them in the space of God where they are not crammed but they can grow and spread out like the skies. 

When we say only God is good, we mean it. we really mean it. do you see?

Realize that you are trying to eat something that could never feed you. 
And let sin go. Don’t waste your time.

2. We say ‘Accept Lord…the voice of my supplication…that I too may become a companion of the prudent virgins with the shining lamp of my soul, and may glorify you, God the Word, who are glorified with the Father and the Spirit. Amen.’

Be prudent. Yes, do seek for what you want and need. And you do need these things and more besides. Our needs and wants are in fact infinite. But don’t be an idiot. Look for life where you will actually find it.

But you don’t just want some theoretical relationship with God? You want relationships with other real people? You want people to see you and know you and communicate with you and love you and appreciate you and share with you? Of course you do. We all want that. But all that exists only in God. Without God, without the love of God, nothing can be together, the distance between persons can never be bridged. Not by anything. Not if you wear handcuffs with someone and live on top of each other. Not if you talk all day. Not even if you are inside one another all day. Nothing. Nothing can bridge the gap of isolation but the love of God. So let us not be idiots, but look for what we need there, where it actually is to be found.

3. St. seraphim of Sarov says: be prudent. Shop well. Spend your talents well. Do not be left without the light of God but go forth to the feast now while the doors are open.  Do not sell your inheritance for a bowl of soup.

4. So what I am trying to say is this: we don’t turn from sin so as to never be satisfied – sitting on a hill and meditating our way to zenland. We turn from sin because we really need to be satisfied, because we must be satisfied, because we have to. And we don’t waste time, we turn now, because we want it right now.

right here

right now.

we don’t settle for some pretend nonsense.

We don’t settle for anything. Nothing. (Don’t be an idiot)

we don’t follow a carrot we will never eat, we go to the Feast of feasts.

We know that our own will and our own wants are easily fooled and misdirected, and that – without the help of God – we are not even able of wanting that which we really want. So we say ‘May Your will be done and not mine’. Because God knows what we need and want – he made us. And he is good and loves mankind. And he came so that we may have life and have to the full. And we say ‘lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’ – because we know that we are surrounded by lies and that we have no discernment, and that if we are left to our own devices we will want the wrong things and stay hungry.

We say ‘give us this day our daily bread’ – because only God can do that. And because we need it. We turn to God because we are hungry. We are so hungry! We are starving. We want and we want and we want. Everything. We do not need to try to erase our hunger and then turn to God – pretending to be like immaterial spirits. No. We say ‘give us this day our daily bread’ oh God, you, who are the source of life and of all good things, lover of mankind, our only Savor. You, the only Source.

Read what Alexander Schmemman says in For the Life of the World. He says: you are what you eat.

Forgive me for being so presumptuous. 

The astute

of tricksters

the market place if full

they sell charades

and empty glamour

Do not be a fool. 

What father said (an essay or a poem)

In the market place of our life

- in the agora where we meet and act –

I want but one thing.

I will be shrewd

I should be smart

And being kind does not mean being soft and forever nicy

In the market place of our life

we ought not to be trampled on and robbed.

we should be keen and able traders

we should be smart

To keep our eye only on the greatest treasure

On the pearl of the greatest price

And not be run over by any cheap seller selling us crap.

I know what I want

I want it all.

I have my time 

I have my life

I have my soul

I will trade it all.

I know what I want.

I want everything.

What is the best price I can get for my time?

For the motion of my heart

and the inclinations of my mind

For my body 

For my education?

My thoughts?

My labor

My western privilege

My eastern heart

My intelligence

My beauty

My sexuality, my time, my ability, my weakness, my heart

With my past

my future

my people.

their opinion of me, and their acts?

My wealth,

my poverty, my power

my time.

How should I trade

and what can I get that will last me

and always be mine?

Glory to God, I know what I want.

(Do I need to say it?)

I will sell everything

And follow Christ.

marble tiles

Sin is like boulders and stones that lie on me.

On top of me

As I lie, flat, pressed to the ground.

Each time God lifts a sin

I feel more free

I feel more light

My heart rejoices

I am more free

I pray, that one day, I will stand up.

May I see every sin

May I know every one of my offenses

So that I can repent.

So that I can turn away, walk away from it, be rid of it

be free

be released from its grip

be cleansed from the death it brings

be released from its chains.

May I not waste a moment

Not a single moment

not a second of a second

of this life,

not seeing my sin, not rejecting it, not being freed.

As fast as I can

May I run as fast as I can

And take the shortest route

And stop for nothing.

Run like a flash.

Linger for nothing behind.

Be freed. 

a universal

Without the light of God,
no body loves.
And without love,
Every body suffers.

a novel about going to Kenya, chapter 1

I came here to die. I crossed the Mediterranean, and northern Africa, with no hope in my heart about my new life. I arrived, with very little excitement. I have come here because I reached total disappointment, and I expect nothing. I won’t seek comforts, nor friends. I will look for a useful project to devote my labor, in hope that I will forget my self. I will fear no danger, but do only charity, whilst I wait for, and long for, death.

lament

La a a a ment

Lament

A! The sorrow. The self-inflicted sorrow.

In this world,

In this crazy world

In me

But how great it is that I suffer!

How glad I am!

How happy I am, to see the other side.

To see the pain caused

To open your nose to the stench, to realize you are in shit.

How glad am I

How much more free am I, now, in my sorrow!

It is better to be sinned against

Than to sin.

a kind of kindness that is real

A happiness that crashes to the ground and breaks.

That hits cement and breaks.

That cracks open and leaks out.

That spills out and is lost.

And in its stead it leaves a sadness.

It leaves you tired

It drains you,

Reminds you that you are alone

And especially if it’s the middle of the day, you want to go and huddle in your duvet, and sleep it off.

Was ever such happiness real? Or is there more than one kind?

Is there a kind that will last and a kind that will not?

And do I need to go to different shops,

And wear different clothes

To get it?

I want the lasting sort.

about writing

Do you know why I write?

I write because words lay heavy on my soul.

I write because my soul holds tightly on to words,

And it doesn’t let them go.

It doesn’t relax, until I find the right place to put them.

I hold them in my heart, like a tiger holds her babies in her mouth, until I find a place to put them down.

I must write them to preserve them

I must write them so that they are not lost, and with them, I am not lost.

If all these words were lost, all these words of my heart, if they were not said or written, if they were not remembered, or somehow kept,

I would be lost with them.

May be the right place to put them is with people. The right place to say them is into that other heart of which they are true.

But people don’t communicate

I live in hell

Each person is alone and we do not communicate

The strain on my being is immense

And it must thus be that I write.

therefore

Because I don’t feel comfortable about expressing my displeasure.

Because I feel that the other person will reject me for complaining if I express my hurt, my disappointment, my dissatisfaction or my need.

Because I expect that the other person will push me away, or leave me, for complaining.

Therefore I leave first.

Therefore I express my dissatisfaction as my reason for leaving.

Therefore I say ‘I cannot stay here I am leaving because this situation hurts me’.

I don’t just say ‘this situation hurts me.’

Meaning ‘I don’t want to leave I want to stay but to fix it’

Because I want to make it easier on the other.

Because I expect them to not want to deal with me.

To leave.

Therefore I leave.

Therefore.

But I hope they will stop me.

And I am even more hurt that they don’t.

More disappointed.

More unloved.

Do I hurt myself, or do you hurt me by letting me go?

Did I not try first in very many ways, and clearly, to say to you what I feel?

Before it became a complaint,

Whilst it was still a concern?

Didn’t I say it?

Didn’t you hear?

Didn’t you reject me already,

Each and every time,

When I tried, and you heard, but ignored?

Didn’t you make me a moaner when you overlooked the need for communication in every relationship

And about how that takes two?

I don’t want to be a moaner and so I will let you go.

Am I being unloving in letting you go?

Am I being unkind?

Should I understand your difficulty with communication?

With intimacy?

With closeness?

Should I stay here and care for you instead of reacting?

Am I not seeking your respect when I leave?

When I say I cant be treated like this am I not doing it for the sake of both of us, for is it not as hurtful for you to treat me so as it is for me to be treated so?

No? Some would say no. Perhaps Christianity would say no

Perhaps it would say have unconditional love

Seek to love and do not seek to be loved.

Perhaps it would say ‘seek not respect for yourself but the wellbeing of the other’.

It would would it not?

But would Christianity allow me to walk away?

To say, ‘we don’t communicate well enough. Let me leave so that you will be more happy and I will be more happy, and any future kids either of us might have will be more happy’.

Is that not love?

But am I just playing with words?

Just complicating what is simple,

With words?

Do I know, do I not know?

I do.

But look.

I was hurt,

And I acted this way.

I felt eager to reach you, but you were not there and I was made ashamed.

And call it pride

And say that love cannot happen with pride

And say that I was wrong

And that I ran away

And that it is unreasonable for me to want you to run after me too.

But there it is, I do.

And I have left you.

a question i want answered

what are the ethics of making an art piece out of your life - of creating a photograph or capturing a picture with words?

on the one hand, you are sharing your love for the aesthetic. it is a voice. you are speaking and sharing an experience.
you open a moment of the world, to others.

on the other hand, you open up a moment of privacy to the public. you interfere with your personal relationship to the world and to reality. you expose what you shared. you interrupt your direct communion with the other, and you make it 'all about the what you will show later'. you destroy the personal, the private, and generally that calmness that allows for beauty to be.

if i meet a cow in the street. and it looks at me and i look at it, and we see one another. it is me and it. anything can be said. but what if i always say, 'oh cool what an object', and i photograph it because i want to take this moment and bring it into my other arena of being, the facebook one, the one where i draw out an identity.
don't i then kill the essence of my relationship to that cow?
don't i make our meeting about 'that other facebook world i have in my mind'
don't i sacrifice this new immediate spontaneous relationship i have with the cow to the 'facebook kingdom'?
don't i silence that cow?
isnt it right that that cow no longer stops to engage with me but turns away in disdain, disappointment, hurt, dislike?
wasn't it i that denigrated our relationship? our moment? our opportunity and possibility?

ok at least the cow can tell. it can turn its back from me. my rich and beautiful world will be ruined and made plain for the sake of this 'facebook common space that i hold dear to my heart despite despite'. perhaps it will. I hurt my self, i insult the cow, i hurt also the cow by leaving it with one less person to speak to.

but do i dare to do this to a child? to another person? How can i make myself so poor? how can i render myself so useless to others? what is worth this? what filth and what addiction makes me think nothing of it? of this slaughter? of this denouncing of beauty?

So what do you think? Am I wrong in the way that I see this? in the way that I feel it?
Should I just go on, until I become numb, until I feel it no more, until I forget?

so let me hear your answer.

the golden city

i'm standing at the top of a hill
i see the golden city.
i am going to walk right in

Every love wants to be complete

Every man I have loved I have loved him truly.

Love does not end and it is an open wound in my heart.

What you open with love can become a well from which you draw water always.

But if you leave it and you don’t use it is a hole in the ground;

It is an open wound;

It is a pool of blood.

That is why you cannot open so many wounds

You are covered in wounds.

Don’t open more holes than you can tend to.

Don’t approach a man whom you cannot care for.

Do not love a man if you are not going to love him through and through.

Every half-assed love, every failed love,

Is a wound;

And a chain around your neck.

I want to answer you, but every time I try, I stop and I cry.

Vid,

I have sinned against love

I have been unfaithful to a true kind heart

I can never repent enough.

How can I ever deserve the peace of being sorry?

How can I dare to apologize to you lover, whilst I still sin?

Vid,

What can I say?

I am lost in my shame

In my fakeness.

My heart is cold and dead

My life is a pile of dirt.

For I have sinned against love

My sorrow is endless, my vileness is evident, my prison is small.

The cryings of a baby (or maybe a love letter)

Let us speak about this again

about what he said

about what I said.

about that morning sunlight in Greece, in the summer.

that tint that makes love and tears sweet,

that air, that day

Let us speak of that again.

of those moments of love, of purity

where the sky is open and the world is whole.

that space, that peace and life,

when I stood across from you and saw you.

that moment

that open space

that moment wrapped in time,

hidden behind other moments,

standing out of sight, behind trees and lampposts.

I have not told you anything in this poem

I am not giving you anything from my private world.

But look:

If you stop, if you listen,

If you come forward,

If you listen with your stomach,

And feel with your heart, then it is clear.

I have opened for you a window and you can look in.

You can smell, and you can know.

All of my love.

In the deepest part of me: I am peaceful and I am humbled.

Because I stand in awe: of a love and of a light of which I know not how to speak to you.

Stillness, in the deepest part of me, is the only way I know how to be,

How to say: I love you.

So let us say something more about this again.

All of this passion, all of this urge,

This cloud that takes over our minds and our senses,

Like a wave, like a tide;

It is nothing.

It is not love, it is nothing.

And may it always be taken away from me,

Always. Until I know how, and until I am capable,

of letting it go myself.

This noise, it is not love.

I know, because in my deepest heart I have the God of Joy,

And the light, that morning summer light of love.

My words say nothing!

My words say nothing but I keep trying to write to you.

I keep trying to say:

Reader, know me.

Stop and love, stand in awe in the light of God and hear me past my words.

I know nothing, I just swim in an ocean.

I will never stop writing to you.

I will keep trying.

Hear the sound.

Feel the light!

It is such ecstasy and utter joy.

I have never been known by a human being, but I'll keep trying.

Make your hearts pure for you will hear the music.

You will see the universe as it is.

My reader, read past my words.

There is a music in all the rocks

The sound of beauty

You can hear it too, I know.   

flying on the wings (a difficult poem)

The aroma comes in first, first through the open window

In awe, in fear I welcome you

In fear, in case you leave

In awe, and in stillness, because there is nothing I can say.

There is no way to describe, there are no words,

When you visit me, we sit in peace, in stillness.

I write your story in silence,

I tell your tale in peace,

For there is no other way.

There is no symbol that will meet your being, 
there are no words that I could use.

I cannot tell the story through me - through what you make me feel,

For that is of no matter.

And I cannot tell the world, of who you are, if they haven’t looked and seen you.

I want to tell your story, I want to speak of our love.

But what I can say is this:

I am so very glad for the stillness;

that the noises are gone;

all that noise, and all that activity are lost now.

And I feel as if this noise was a distraction,

a repulsive disgusting distraction

that had kept us apart.

What I am doing is a difficult thing

It is a dangerous thing:

I feel I must be silent, to hear you

I must be at peace, to see.

But I want to speak of our love,

I want to tell it.

Joy of joys

Joy of joys

Beauty of every beauty

Scent of all truth,

Friend of my heart,

Fresh air,

Clarity of my mind.

Light of lights

Beauty of all things.

I gaze upon you.

My Dear Reader,

My Dear Reader,

I write for those of you who will understand me.

You, across the world, who will know me.

I overcome shame,

insecurity,

embarrassment,

and I tell you the truth.

For you, who will know me.

(and I have to do that – to avoid blasphemy. Because others before have done so for me.)

I break my personal space.

I smash my cool persona.

For You,

and for Art.

It is April.

Dance, and music,

and art.

They are in my heart.

In every vain.

Like blood.

And when they are honest they are strong.

I feel the ecstasy of the sun,

The strong light,

Ha!

I’ll break the ice,

I’ll come through,

I’ll open my heart,

I’ll clean it for you.

I have stood on the shoulders of the virtuous.

Those giants!

I will be virtuous,

For you.

You, who know me,

if you wonder, then know this:

I have stood in daylight

I have tried in every stride.

I clean my heart, to the detail, for you.

I stand in the sun.

Be happy.

Every man who has been honest,

who has loved,

every each one,

they shined.

I have seen them.

I can feel them.

You have seen them too.

Those who have

ears will hear and

those who have eyes will see.

Clean you heart!

Clear your mind.

Be free.

Walk among men, like a man too.

And let your hearts be on high.

  

(when i left that one)

I am hungry,

what should I learn?

'That I could feed people'

I am lonely, 

what can I give?

'To know that all people need love'

I leave, I leave. this land is barren,

this door is locked, this head is made of stone.

This carcass is dead and

I cannot eat it.

I leave because I am hungry.

I am hungry.

God, give me the courage to love

with my whole heart.

Give me the strength to live

with an open hand.

January 2012