People can be good to each other

Source: friendship day image hd Free Photo https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/30639071-friendship-day-image-hd

In recent months I have been travelling to Sydney from the South Coast more often than usual to spend as much time as I can with my mother. The grand old lady is increasingly becoming lost inside that terrible thick fog of dementia. It is a heartbreaking experience common to many homes. A few days ago I shared a story inspired by an unexpected encounter during one of these trips as I will often make time to visit some of my favourite places—bookstores and cafes where I will do a great deal of my drafting. I have been to visit mother twice since that little reflection to do with the seminary posted only a few days ago. I am back home wanting to share another moment with you which left an indelible mark on me. It deals with one of my favourite words and the charism found in those beautiful souls we encounter along the way—that is, compassion (to “suffer with”). I do know, I refer to this most important of charities too often. Yet, for some good reason, I am compelled to speak on it. We may not all be capable of sacrificial love, which Jesus might ask of us (1 Jn 3:16), but compassion is always within our reach.

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. (Henri J. M. Nouwen, You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living)

When we look at the world and observe many of the unspeakable horrors constantly rerun before us in various media platforms, it is not difficult to agree with Charles Bukowski that “people are not good to each other” (The Crunch). And, yes, to be truthful, he is not entirely wrong. Bukowski is one of my favourite poets, and though he is much underrated by the academe for a number of reasons, he has left behind confronting insights on the human condition. On this point, however, to do with people, I cannot agree with him without some strong qualification. There are many more good people in the world, who are “good to each other” than the other way round. If good people, those anonymous heroes, everyday saints I would call them, who go about their daily jobs to make sure we are not left without the essentials and that we are kept safe—where to begin and where to end—doctors; aid workers; nurses; hospice staff; plumbers; sanitary engineers; truck drivers; first responders; farmers; industrial workers; teachers; volunteers; and even our barbers who we trust to not cut our throats, were to suddenly stop delivering their grace, things would very quickly collapse around us. We do not often hear about these persons for we take such souls for granted until we need them. So it is the warmongers and the violence, for instance, which fuels our news broadcasts to fill us with our ‘daily dread’. And to be sure, they inflict untold and horrendous damage, but such saturation of evil makes it even easier to accept this darkness as normative and to sweep aside the majority, that is, the just and decent, who are, indeed, good to each other.

What brought this particular reflection into my heart these past few days? It was the deeply moving and selfless compassion of one young man quietly going about his everyday business. For the moment, lest I embarrass him, let us call him Zayan. I will do my best to explain below—and why I started on another private study on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:29-37). There is a little corner shop not far up the road from where mother lives. I find it important to support these small family businesses and not only for the reason I grew up in such a shop. The young man behind the counter who was still observing Ramadan, was very polite and helped me locate the necessary things for my mother’s dietary requirements. I  complimented him on his courtesy and efficiency and asked him if was studying or working in the business fulltime. This is when my admiration for this young man moved to an enormous respect. He was indeed studying in a Sydney tertiary institution. He told me he was in his second year of a sports physiotherapy degree and was doing well. I suggested to him his career choice given the ubiquity of sport in our lives looked very positive and that he could even open up his own practice one day. Acknowledging these opportunities, he proceeded to share with me that this was not why he had enrolled in this degree.

Zayan went on to tell me the sole purpose of enrolling in this course of studies was to offer his services to those in need—and more especially to help his beloved older brother who suffers from cerebral palsy. These are the meaningful moments in life. The hours when you come face to face with the greatness of the human spirit and our capacity for God. I walked back to my car and never ashamed to admit, I wept. I shed tears for things which I could feel in my heart but could not put rightly into words. For those who are students of the Johannine corpus or have read Blaise Pascal you will get a more proximate sense of what I am grappling with here. Indeed in both instances the appeal would be to a coherent love from the one to the other—both in its original act in the first place and then afterwards in its communication.

When people are good to each other something wonderful will always happen. The goodness received is invariably paid forward. An Athonite monk I once knew called this paying forward a “communicable disease”.  It was hard to forget this striking analogy. Our old friend Charles Bukowski was not entirely wrong when he spoke on the human condition but at times he could overshoot the mark.

The world at this moment is looking towards Europe with a broken heart

But Jesus said to him, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Matt. 26:52)

“Hullo, my relatives.” (Native American greeting)

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” (Letter to Everett “Swede” Hazlett, July 22,1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower)

“All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.” (Once There Was A War, 1958, John Steinbeck)

“The cocks don’t crow to wake the morning, [t]here’s not as yet a sound of man, [t]he owls in glades call out their warnings, [a]nd ash trees creak and creak again." (Taras Shevchenko)

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Banksys-Armoured-Dove-of-Peace-on-the-side-of-a-Palestinian-house-near-to-the_fig1_319293800

The world at this moment is looking towards Europe with a broken heart, and those among us, that are compelled to prayer, send supplications to the Creator that a benevolent intercession may quickly put an end to this war which has broken out in the Ukraine. May it be the brave Ukrainian people survive and endure best they can and that the Russian political leaders come swiftly to their right senses. Howard Zinn, the American World War II veteran, philosopher and historian, expressed the awfulness of war with powerful comprehension as to its ultimate cost: “[t]here is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” We are all members of humanity, “consideration of others” and  “philanthropy”,[1] the defining characteristic of this universal body of ‘blood-beat’. And unpalatable as this might sometimes seem to us, that we are ‘tied to the hip’ regardless of our nationalistic or eschatological predispositions, this world is all we have. Our one and only opportunity to live out the meaningfulness of “compassion”, that is, to suffer together with our neighbour. To make our life, and the lives of those around us, the best they could possibly be. All else, however spectacular or mesmerizing it might very well be, like flying rockets to Mars and the like, is at best but a welcome bonus. At worst little more than a distraction, a bug about the ears, to the plaintive cries of all those who are needlessly maimed and killed in theatres of ruinous conflict across the world. The only real winner is the military-industrial complex and the defence industries which drive it. As Metropolitan Anthony Bloom has said: “[t]here is no idol that doesn’t claim blood.” [2] The sad truth that throughout the history of the human race, it has been much easier to find the devil in ourselves, and even easier still to point him out in others, than to genuinely seek after the Creator, or the ‘Form of the Good’, in our own hearts. And, yet, I must confess, there are hours when it could be hard to know the difference, like discerning what stands behind the shadow of a shape caught between the rays of light and the cold ground.

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/humanity

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2OtD5OkHHo

On trying to become fully human

Tempe, Arizona

Photo by Shahan Khan on Unsplash

Something ‘powerful’ is holding us back. It keeps us from flight. At times it might feel like a dam holding back a great torrent of water. What is more, we feed this hold over us to the extent that years could pass and we remain grounded to its biggest lie. Whatever this obstacle might be, this ‘big lie’, it is known to our hearts alone. Often it is guilt over something we have done, or should not have done. Other times it is regret at an opportunity not taken to express our love, or to ask for forgiveness. This lie invariably tells us we are “not good” and that we do not deserve the “good fortune” incumbent upon others. Many of these instances which stop us from moving forward have to do with our despondency to set things ‘right’. Then the dreadful moment when suddenly confronted with the reality that it is too late. That is, the best of our intentions can no longer be realized. What then? Do we spend the remainder of our lives weltering in self-recrimination? Perhaps a higher providence has seen best for things to fall precisely as they have. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:9). This was the only way. It was the only way for ‘self-recrimination’ to turn out to be self-revelation. To become fully human, that is, to the extent which such a thing is possible [the ‘unity between head and heart’ Jean Vanier], means to engage with these hard experiences and to live through them. The final destination is what matters. What is done is done. There is the next hour to be lived to its fullest.

Such unbridled joy it does bring to the heart when we happen to come across someone who we sense to be fully human, or at least striving for this end goal. This aspiration towards a human teleology is our spirit’s greatest work. We might discover such people in our everyday encounters “by the well”: our teacher, coach, doctor, grocer, pharmacist, gardener, postal clerk, or cashier worker. If we might borrow from Sufism these are men and women with divinity written on their hearts. Occupation and social status have nothing to do with this luminous heart which is set before us. It is a true humility which recognizes the potential in the other and which possesses a love which moves and breathes outside the margins. Such a human presence is not easily given to cynicism and is slow to judge.

Writing and receiving letters was one of the delights of the ‘bygone age’. Outside the pure enjoyment of the physical processes of pressing out the paper, writing the date on the top left hand corner, putting down the name of the receiver My dear or My dearest…, thinking carefully [‘playfulness’ not excluded] on what you write, and then the final endearments… truly I am yours. And all of it in your own unmistakable scrawl. The letter will often enough, too, carry the unique scent of the sender. What is more the joy of receiving a reply, or a surprise from someone who went to the trouble of looking up your address to then leave his or her ‘biometric’ on the top right hand corner of the envelope. Emails [together with their lifeless emojis] possess little or nothing of such special wonder. Haruki Murakami says it so simply in one of his novels: “How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter!”

Little can compare to giving a fellow human being renewed hope, to encourage them through trials, or to inspire in the pursuit of new goals. It is as restorative as saying “I love you”. For love itself, if it be true, takes its first step in the movement of compassion. How can we do this? That is to offer renewed hope to a hurting heart? There are as many ways as there are expressions of love itself. First, the benevolent act of forgiveness. To forgive someone is perhaps the most liberating act for both the giver and the receiver. There are also secret acts of charity where they might most be needed. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). A simple letter sent with kindness and genuine concern in a world where self-centeredness is becoming increasingly the norm can make all the difference. To begin with to offer someone hope means to accept them. And there is besides the constraining of the ego in allowing another in greater need to ‘appropriate’ some of our spotlight. Where there is selfishness, hope cannot deliver.

“It all goes too quick” we will from time to time say to ourselves. In the Old Testament in the Book of Job it is described thus: “For we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow” (Job 8:9). The English writer Jenny Diski who endured much as a young person would afterward as an adult add her own addendum to this reality: “Everything passes, but nothing entirely goes away.” We are caught somewhere in the middle. We all know too well it will go quick, but in the meantime we experience profound emotions and our actions leave behind a legacy. The desert dwellers approach this mystery head-on by holding onto “the memory of death”. This contemplation on our brevity upon the earth is neither macabre nor defeatist. It is an act of true anarchism. They joyfully accept our transience looking beyond and live each day with such actual ‘meaningfulness’ as if it was their last hour like leaves of an olive tree which rotate to capture every tiny bit of moisture. So let us hasten to do some good while we can. It is later than we think, it has also been said.

In what ways might I make a difference in my day-to-day encounters with the ‘other’? There are many ways. There are an untold number of opportunities in our everyday exchanges with our neighbor that might not only bring a smile to a needful heart but could also save a life. Are you holding back from sending a message to a friend who might be in need of a word of encouragement? Can you anonymously send a gift to a charity? Delete an email sent to you by someone during a moment of their vulnerability? On your way to work is there a homeless person you might stop to say hello and buy a coffee for? Might you send a card to an ‘enemy’ wishing them a bright day? Could you surprise a loved one with a gift letting them know how precious they are to you? Is it too difficult to nod the head at the stranger who has cut you off at the traffic lights? Make an impromptu visit to a hospital and ask if there is anyone in need of a visitor?  It all goes too quick and yet there is much we can do. In Japanese the word for charity is jizen. The characters of the word beautifully illustrate that at the heart of charity is mercy and compassion. It is amazing too, is it not? That in helping others we are at the same time helping ourselves. And it is no mere coincidence then, that in the New Testament, Jesus Christ would connect the love of God with the love of our neighbor “like unto it” (Matt. 22:36-40).

Many of the world’s problems stem from ‘egoism’. This is the condition where “self-interest” is at the center of one’s morality. One nation considers itself better than the next and robs the other of its rights and resources. And one person thinks he or she is superior to their neighbor so diminishing and blunting their potential. The first can lead to wars and to the spread of famine. The second will lead to despair and to the lessening of our brother’s or our sister’s personality which are the qualities of their character. Both are cruel and will only ever result in suffering, if not to catastrophe, whether on a universal or personal scale.

A small note on Mount Athos

Mount Athos or the Holy Mountain as it is often referred to, is the centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism.[1] Occupying the greater part of the Athos Peninsula in Halkidiki it is an autonomous polity in the north of Greece comprising of twenty imposing monasteries and a number of other smaller monastic settlements. There is evidence of Christian monastic life on the mount since at least the fourth century, and if not earlier.[2] Mount Athos [Athos the name of one of the Gigantes from Greek mythology] is dedicated to the All Holy Theotokos, the Mother of God, though paradoxically no woman is permitted to set foot on its grounds. This rule is strictly followed and is referred to as the ‘avaton’.[3] Young men come here to grow old mastering the art of unseen warfare to then die in anonymity and solitude. In so doing they dedicate their lives to God and pray for the salvation of the world.

“The Lord loves all people, but he loves those that seek Him even more. To His chosen ones the Lord gives such great grace that for love they forsake the whole earth, the whole world, and their souls burn with desire that all people might be saved and see the glory of the Lord.” (Saint Silouan the Athonite)

A large number of these religious are of high intellect and not few have left behind successful professional careers. They are doctors, engineers, musicians, teachers, philosophers, theologians, lawyers, scientists, artists, former police and army officers, and whatever else we might imagine. Some, it is true, are daydreamers and romantics. Others were criminals who have served their time or men who have lost everything to addiction except for hope. The monks here spend most of their day and night attending to the divine services or fulfilling their diaconate or alone in their cells with long prayer ropes made of knotted beads of wool practising the Jesus Prayer otherwise known as the prayer of the heart.[4] The day for the Athonite monk begins at sunset. To attempt to evaluate their vocation through the eyes of logic alone is to miss almost everything and to understand little. One of Aristotle’s truest revelations is that happiness is not just a feeling or sensation, but is the quality of the whole life.[5] The dumbfounding thing is the great majority of these men, for admittedly there are some sad and tragic exceptions, are profoundly joyful and possess an inner peace, a tranquillity of spirit which does radiate visibly from their presence. They are like ghosts from another world with obscure clues and tip-offs for those who journey to visit them in their spiritual ‘hide-out’. But be prepared for these angelomorphic presences are well versed in the game of ‘hide n’ seek’ and it is they who will find you. They are black clad rebels against the established order of decay and corruption who embrace the reality of death together with its promise of transfiguration…of whom the world was not worthy –wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (Heb. 11:38)

I would visit Athos twice and both times with the dreadful feeling that I was one of those ill-fated seeds from the parable of the sower. Sown on rocky ground and scorched. (Mat. 3:8) On the first of these occasions I was still a layperson and student at the Aristotelian, and then a few years later I would return as an ordained clergyman. We go on pilgrimages and visit monasteries for different reasons. Some of us go looking for spiritual counsel; for redemption and for a fresh start; to confess our sins; to escape from our past; to re-new old promises or to make new ones; to learn the fundamentals of prayer. In the end it is simple enough, the ongoing quest for “meaningfulness”.

But do not go anywhere looking specifically for God, or for that once in a life-time ‘religious experience’. It is one of the great mistakes and most of us will make it, just like when we routinely connect beauty to goodness. The psalmist’s counsel is not without its good reason, “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Ps. 46:10) However, it is the doctrine of Creation that we cannot escape from. Depending on how we understand this teaching and respond to its far-reaching implications, it will largely determine what we learn of the Creator and ourselves when we set out on the journey which might very well lead to Athos or to other places where prayer fills the night skies as if pieces of flickering diamond.

…as I go walkabout the invigorating salt air mixed with the aroma of wild unpicked flowers refreshes my body and spirit. To my right a mythical landscape of undulating peaks and steep ravines which threaten at any moment to spill into the brooding Aegean Sea below. An hour earlier in a distant skete… “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love” (Ps.51:1)… I was awash in the scents of exotic Arabian incense and burning beeswax…

Good Lord, how desperately I have missed these wonderful worlds.

[1] Timothy (Kallistos) Ware, The Orthodox Church, (Penguin Books: England), 1993, pp. 129-132.

[2] Graham Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise, (Yale University Press: New Haven), 2002.

[3] https://orthodoxwiki.org/Mount_Athos

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Prayer-Bishop-Kallistos-Ware/dp/1860828930/and+jesus+prayer

[5] http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/aristotle/