Ah, thanks to Gavin Ortlund, I came across this sweet honey of a gem from Augustine: "This is the chief cause of this insane profanity, that the figure resembling the living person, which induces men to worship it, has more influence in the minds of these miserable persons, than the evident fact that it is not living, so that it ought to be despised by the living." Perfect anthem for this whole series. (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801115.htm)
I'm pretty sure this video -- "Orthodoxwave" -- is attempting to promote, not critique, Orthodoxy, but I think it does an excellent job of encapsulating the sense of "bombardment" I'm talking about in the essay:
Good morning, Graham. Your essay and the tidbits of comments I’ve skimmed are so nourishing. I can’t muster the patience to read through them all on a screen, and wish this community could sit in a field somewhere and explore all this.
Your reflections stirred up more than I can write here, so I’ll just share a little: For more than a decade our family tried to pray with no vessel but our own longing to be reintegrated with holy Creation. But with no collective vessel – just books, some like-minded friends and our own will – we found ourselves frustrated, wandering, often lost. I'm grateful for those years, but now we are walking into Orthodoxy, and I find the veneration of icons to be very healing, very nourishing, fostering a pattern of perception and relationship that lasts beyond the momentary prayers I make before them.
Like many people, I also think a new Way is emerging – that God is doing something new in the world – and for me praying in a temple and also praying outside is a practice in working the opposites while the new thing grows beyond anyone’s will or intentions or ideas. We're in a liminal state, and for me, praying in a church feels like praying in an egg, or praying in a womb.
Anyway, your essay was good fodder for family discussion, and my children have this to say…
My son (7): I mostly agree with him, but you should just tell him to take his icons outside.
My daughter (11): I know some people don’t understand the world is as holy as the church, but the church is also just as important as outside. They’re two different spaces for prayer, two different ways of praying. If church was outside, it would be beautiful but in a different way.
Also, I'm glad-- and not surprised, of course, since we "get" each other, and your beautiful writing also reflects this -- to hear you say: "Like many people, I also think a new Way is emerging – that God is doing something new in the world." I will be interested to see how this openness unfolds for you in Orthodoxy, if you find space and even nourishment for it. I think a large part of why I feel it's time to hit the trail again is because the mentality of "There is nothing new in Orthodoxy, and no need for anything new, either - in fact, whatever is new comes from spiritual pride, if not demonic delusion" is the dominant note I hear struck again and again. There is a reason why "Orthodoxy" is what it sounds like! -- it's correct. And complete. And always has been, according to the story told by those who wish to tell that story, the guardians of Orthodoxy: it's the faith "once and for all delivered to the saints." This is one thing that attracts people away from the ever-shifting sands of Protestantism, especially where it feels like *everything* is new *all* the time (an exhausting, perpetual shallowness, to which I will never return, God help me!) Orthodoxy is so *not* new and so complete and entire, there is not even the sense -- as in Roman Catholicism -- that there is such a thing as doctrinal development. Whatever Orthodoxy is, has been there from the beginning (says the story) -- it only needs to be articulated in new ways, during the era of the Ecumenical Councils (after that, it doesn't even need to be articulated in new ways). This is why, to justify icons -- which certainly were new, if you look at history -- the story is told that St Luke was the first iconographer, and he painted the first icon of Mary, whom he knew personally. This "proves" that icons were not an innovation, or a development, but always there from the beginning. (But for someone who knows and respects history, and knows and respects the Judaisms of the first century, would find this not only implausible, but actually disrespectful to the real Mary, who would have ripped her garments and wept in dust in ashes, had anyone even suggested painting a sacred picture of her....) Anyway -- if you do discover that there is this openness in Orthodoxy to the new thing God is doing in the world, do let us know...I have read a zillion Orthodox books, but have only been to maybe a dozen parishes, and only known a dozen priests...it could be I've just been spending time inside a very insulated part of the Orthodox world...
I'm really happy to hear that venerating icons within the encircling womb of the Church has been healing for you, and I'm sure this is one of the reasons, maybe the main one, that they're there (the usual theological apologies for icons, as usual, being beside the real point). Faces -- even images of faces, not real ones -- have their nourishing effect. The stability and childlike brightness of a picture of a face, too; they're nice. I think if my experience of church were generally like what it was like at St Ignatius in Madison (I cherish being there for a liturgy with you) and if icons were generally what Ethiopian or Coptic icons were like (not Russian, not Byzantine), I think my feelings now would probably be different. And anyway, I wouldn't wish my particular mental issues with over-stimulation from the artificial on anyone else! I love what you say about the creative, fruitful tension between praying outside and praying inside for you. I think that is where I'd really like to go, too. But there is a lot that needs to happen (again) to make "inside" much more womblike, earthlike than it is (see the next essay, coming in a couple days). I'm going to make a practice of pushing in the extreme of "outside not inside," having -- the opposite of you -- spent 13 years feeling more and more lost inside of Orthodoxy, cut off from Creation. But it won't be absolute. "Inside shall be out" to sort of misquote a very beautiful William Carlos Williams poem. That's the goal. I am willing to take an institutional "hit" for the team, to work towards moving inside back outside, and outside back in; that's how I see it.
Thank you, Graham. I printed out your comments here and my daughter read them in bed before falling asleep the other night. And that’s my first answer to where I see the openness in Orthodoxy to the new thing God is doing: In your own words, and the folks who find them resonant.
If you were writing about Orthodoxy without your longing for Creation, would it be as compelling? If you were writing about your longing for Creation without your Orthodox background, would it be as compelling? Maybe, but probably not for me. It is the loving tension that draws me in.
I suppose I’m not necessarily looking for the new thing God is doing directly within Orthodoxy – meaning I’m not looking for those conversations in church nor in Orthodox books I read. If they happen to come up, of course, I will be glad. But I’m also not sure any of us can consciously perceive very much of it anyway. We get hints, maybe, notice a pattern here or there, but mostly whatever is happening is beyond intellect, intent or will. When I do find myself in conversations about the new thing, they happen more around the fire, with friends who are Orthodox or not, or in intimate, one-on-one conversations, rather than in church spaces. And I’m fine with that. We are in a liminal time, and I think holding the tension of opposites – and there are lots of opposites to hold right now! – is a good road to walk.
In talking about creating a new metaphysics, Vine Deloria says this, which I think is relevant to all this: “We need not be radical in a disruptive sense. The transformation of the manner in which any culture interprets its heritage of remembered human experiences and knowledge cannot be radical if it is to have any effect on the respective human societies. Rather, it must relate to the various human traditions at as many points as possible so that continuity and identity of traditions can be understood. Without this natural development, any new metaphysics would appear abstract and unrelated to people.”
Anyway, it looks like you’ve given us another treasure of an essay, and I look forward to getting to that soon. Thanks for lingering back here with me. I appreciate visiting these liminal spaces with you and your circle of readers.
I love this, Joseph. I'm much less mature than you are, and so what immediately comes to mind for me is a crazy line that I think went unnoticed in "Waving Farewell" where I imagined some "collective dirtbag Prometheus stealing the holy fire of Byzantium"--very much an image in line with my deeply "scavenger" heart, but what I've always really wanted, and needed, is a "long obedience" as Nietzsche says; or, as you say, "loving tension" -- as a steadfast lifestyle. I do sense that there is a way for me, an uncomplicated one. I just get so tangled up in Orthodoxy. I'll keep this side of the tension going by walking away, holding on to enormous fistfulls of as much Orthodoxy as possible, if I can. All I really want is what I said in my poem "The Way":
To splash rainwater on the arms, the legs
The face—as cold as clouds
With the fragrance of awakening green moss
Everywhere around the rushing stream of clouds
And to chant a psalm or two
With two or three friends—meadowlarks, cypress trees
Precious human bodies born of clay—all sunlilies
Dancing in the breeze of perfect freedom
And eating wild fruits and nuts and roots
And cathartic flickering green herbs
And making prostrations on the bare Earth
And kissing the face of the Earth murmuring Lord Yeshua Messiah
Have mercy on us, your perishing creatures
—The mind shining sunlike in the depths of the heart
Beautiful, Graham. Your words are the proper ending to this dialogue for now. I receive them with gratitude. May these longings seep into the soil of the world and take root! Peace, Joseph
‘The living things of Earth, which come from God, can awaken new life within us—like a fresh breeze—in a way that artifacts of other peoples' religious imaginations can't.’
You are speaking a language my heart knows, Graham. Thank you.
I read through many of the responses to your essay, and I love the thoughtful debating as this audience works through a form of Socratic dialogue. I will not add to the argument of iconography. I was going to write “though I am not Orthodox” and share more, but caught myself at drawing a lined division. I am a follower of The Way and recognize the Orthodox as my brethren, whether they recognize me or not. I am a servant of the Most High and He has always blessed me in cathedrals of His Creation. I have always heard His voice clearer in the chatter of nature versus the chatter of man. Man is nature as well; I just prefer some nature to others.
And YET, I attend a church that now has cameras and ‘black mirror’ screens in every room. It saddens me to no end. Is nothing sacred? So unnatural! So oblivious to the signs of the time. But I push it aside (with difficulty) and meet my brethren regularly. I am learning to be quieter. I very, very much want to be someone who ‘continues about my business’ in the midst of every storm. Even the technological ones.
Just for fun:
The Lilies-of-the-Field photographed a century ago in Palestine, is Anemone coronaria. Both words come from the Greek. Anemone literally means “daughter of the wind” and coronaria means “crown”. Crowned daughter of the wind. Such holiness! As the scripture says, nothing manmade can even compare to such glory.
I am blessed by reading your journey, Graham, and I can appreciate the gumption it takes to open up sides of your mind that others may not want to see. Keep going about your business, as only you can.
"Man is nature as well; I just prefer some nature to others" are my feelings about it, also; exactly. I don't quite go as far as Nietzsche's "I found it more dangerous among men than among animals," but I'm pretty far in that direction. I certainly find it the least dangerous to be among the lilies of the field.
"Crowned daughter of the wind" is so, so lovely...
You will be intrigued to know after time spent in prayer to the Father today I had a revelation of the fellowship of the Archangel Michael and Mother Mary who as friends both helped me deal with a sudden bout of temptation and the presence of the tempter and I had an experience of the difference between veneration and the worship which belongs alone to the persons of the Trinity. For me veneration means the respect and reverence due to someone above you, better, with more authority. Unlike Jesus, Mary doesn’t have the taste and feel of humanity combined with deity, but is supremely, beautifully perfectly human. Michael is angelic naturally and is pleased to serve, help, protect me Hebrews 1:14 and I now have new unseen friends to call upon and be with. Despite their being so far above me Mary and Michael in a peculiar way were my servants and brethren, at my side not above me. The greatest in the kingdom are servants of all as it says. Strangely wonderful. It is all a gift of grace to the imperfect not gradual attainment of spiritual worthiness. I will be exploring this. By the way no icons were needed. With a bit of quick thinking and use of my reasoning mind I was able to place the experience into my Biblical framework. Whew! Laughing at myself.
Definitely intrigued, BeardTree, and definitely want to hear more.
I'm all for revering those above us -- and those below us, too: bowing in humility. I yearn for a culture in which -- as the Fathers pointed out in the example of David and Jonathan -- the human thing to do is touch our foreheads to the Earth and embrace one another with the threefold kiss of peace. That is infinitely more beautiful than the American "I don't bow to anything or anyone" spirit. I long to bow to trees that are higher than I -- and also Mother Mary, "supremely, beautifully perfectly human," too. I do -- I do want a connection with her, and to humble myself before her, and ask her help -- I do. I just find the Byzantine icons of her alienating, unhelpful. I would love to see an icon of her smiling warmly, dressed like the peasant of Nazareth that she was, not as a Roman empress. An image like that might help me concentrate my mind, open my heart -- I still wouldn't want to talk to/through it, though, unless I knew for sure she wanted that, and she herself thought it helpful for us. You said "no icons were needed" for your experience...do you get the sense that icons would have been an obstacle? Or, alternatively, helpful?
IMO a difference between Mary/Michael and the Living God is that God is always present and accessible - there is a cavalcade of scriptures stating this -He is the main thing after all, while with those who have gone on before us and the angels we can always send mail but their close immediate presence isn’t a guarantee and more intermittent.
Did you know that the apologetics for Hindu pictures of deities is basically the same as that for icons? I look askance as icons if they are presented as being more than the simple illustrations of Bible stories and persons and in the case of past Christians , pictures of historical events and persons. I don’t buy the magic pictures as an aid angle. 1 Corinthians 4:18
Our inner being is designed to perceive and know the unseen especially when enlightened by the Holy Spirit. For example when I am in the presence of a human friend I have a perception/feeling inwardly of their unique, just them essence and personality triggered by seeing and hearing them. We have that same inner perception, feeling, knowing when we meet the unseen persons of the Trinity, each of them have their identifiable distinctive being, so it is also with let’s say Mary, or an angel. This all happens usually without the visual. Though I know people who have had visions of Jesus and I imagine the same happens with angels as seen in the Bible and even with humans who have passed from this world as with Moses at the Transfiguration. I know of one case of this, perhaps two of experiences of those who have passed on, most lovely stories!
YES. I feel that, too. I've read that the heart emits an electromagnetic field quiet a wide distance from the body, and when hearts are within range of each other, they communicate. We literally can feel the presence of others through the heart, this is not new age woo-woo stuff (just in case anyone else reads this; I know YOU know what I'm talking about). I've felt the presence of Yeshua within 5 or 6 feet, but that was when the priest went by with the bread and wine. I've never felt the presence of anyone standing before an icon. I've felt the presence of uncut trees, though. And other living things.
Yes, there is a locus of Christ’s manifested presence in the Eucharistic elements. I had a wonderful visionary experience of this decades ago on Transfiguration Sunday in an episcopal/Anglican church.
And as far as “concentrating the mind, opening the heart” I think the testimony of truth is enough for that - “you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” and as a still mostly Protestant - Jesus said “they word is truth” It says “unto thee I lift up my soul” and “draw near to God and he will draw near to you” Let’s be like the woman who knew all she had to do was to touch Jesus and know all we have to do is like little children place our inner attention on God and he comes near. Good enough for my grandmothers who did so and so good enough for me. Jesus came to make that easy. “Grace and truth came through Christ Jesus” “My yoke is easy and my burden light” See you soon.
“As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up, “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.” Acts 10:25
“I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel . . . But he said to me , “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” Revelation 22:8-9
In the Gospels people fell at Jesus’s feet quite a bit in worship and he never stopped them. When I met Mary and Michael I met friends and fellow servants who wanted to help me and loved me. I imagine if I fell at Mary’s feet when she was on earth she would have made me get up as Peter did to Cornelius. I met a sister.
On a related note, this idea in Orthodoxy -- a fabrication of maybe the 7th or 8th century, or 9th, I forget--of Luke as the first icon-painter, who painted Mary, while she was still living...NO: The real Mary, as the beautifully human Jewish lass she was, and is, I'm sure would have ripped her (poor) clothing and wept, had anyone wished to paint a devotional image of her...
Interesting piece, Graham. I think this is becoming a running theme of ours: me being highly sympathetic to where you're coming from and loving your view of the Earth, but just not seeing the reality of the conflicts you see. And to be fair to you, I've met many who see the same conflicts but are just on the other side. But whether it's simply me wanting to have my cake and eat it too, or a failure of imagination on your part and the part of others, I won't bother to speculate. I just don't see the need for a fight.
The whole idea that images and temples weren't part of the early Christian experience I think is a misread of the situation; they just didn't use them in the same way as the pagans. There's plenty of archeological evidence for veneration of relics and use of iconography in the earliest centuries of Christianity, and we have 1st century synagogues that are COVERED in iconography. Many of these practices Christians simply continued from the local Jewish communities.
But even if there was a hesitation of the Christians at the time of Celcus around the use of icons, temples, and alters, that probably had more to do with the fact that Christians were a persecuted sect that had already been excluded from synagogue and Temple worship by the time the Romans sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and made the Jews a diasporic people. The reason why I say this is because RIGHT AFTER THE RESURRECTION, the Scriptures say the Apostles worshipped in the Temple nearly continuously. And once social and legal acceptance of the Faith became a reality, we went BACK to the temple.
I think the truth, as long as we are the church militant, is to analgously apply St. Paul's teaching of being content in plenty or in want. The Temple, by God's condescension to our weaknesses, has been consistently sought, but as Christians we have no need of it. The forest, the farm, the home, the catacombs, and the Temples are all places we meet God because we have the Holy Spirit.
I'm not saying that YOU, Graham, HAVE to be in the Temple or find it helpful. I just hope you keep in mind the distinction between not helpful and lesser or wrong.
That said, the Church militant has NEVER been perfect as it is full of people not yet fully perfected living on an Earth not yet fully transfigured. So, there IS valid criticism to be made. Where, in fact, the mainstream HAS focused so much on the Temple that the truth that God does not dwell in a building made by human hands is lost, and iconography becomes exclusionary to the nature from which it is made, then it can and must be said that the Church, understood as its members, is on the wrong path, precisely because it is failing to be itself.
And this leads to what I see as your most potent point: that of MASS PRODUCED icons. The actions of and logic behind mass production is simply antithetical to what the Church is called to be and to our mandate to be a royal priesthood and stewards, nay shepherds, of the Creation and all its creatures. Icons really out to be handmade at a scale that our forests can handle, and really ought to stay away from toxic, synthetic materials. I really think the Ethiopian church, with their forest temples, covered with iconography by the way, has it right.
Also -- 1st century synagogues were definitely not covered in iconography. Some of them may have had some art on the walls or floor, though that's more like the 3rd century. But I 100% guarantee you no Jews were making prostrations to that art and kissing it and talking to it. It was not iconography in the Orthodox sense, or anything near it. What WAS iconography in EXACTLY the Orthodox sense were the images of the Roman emperor, that people were invited / commanded to make prostrations to and kiss, as a way of bowing to the Roman emperor. When Saint Basil the Great said "The honor given to the image passes on to the prototype that lies behind it" he was not talking about Orthodox iconography; he was talking about the (pre-Christian) iconography of the Roman empire, and drawing an analogy to how Christ (the person, not the painted image of him) is the "image" of the Father.
Hmm. We definitely have studied differently my guy! For all I know, you may be right. I've no doubt you're more studied on this than I am. All I'll say is that have an authority I trust in biblical scholar Stephen De Young, who did two GREAT three hour deep dives into the issue of idolatry and iconography on Lord of Spirits (which the hosts intended to be similar to teaching a mid-undergraduate level). He did so comparing and contrasting Pagan, Israelite, and Christian iconography and Pagan, Israelite, and Christian idolatry, including doing a great disambiguation between the two.
And he pointed out something in the Old Testament that demonstrates the difference between the two using the same object, and seems to me to contradict the belief that a faithful Jew would never do anything like prostrating in front of an image. In Numbers, as the Israelites were suffering from a plague, God commanded an image of a serpent (a Seraph) be made on a staff and anyone who looked on it would be healed. This seems of very similar logic, even if not exactly the same in detail, to a wonder-working icon. Later in the Old Testament, a prophet destroyed that same staff with the serpent because it had been used as an idol to a pagan god.
Seriously, those two episodes, and the whole podcast, is worth ANY Christian's time I think.
But that's it for me on this, brother. I've exhausted my knowledge on the subject, so I'll be bowing out, but will read and reflect on any response. Take care!
Oh, and the two L.O.S episodes are "Scarecrows among the Cucumbers" and "Images of the Invisible".
BTW, the current series is on the Torah and how Christians ought to keep it, and what it means for Christians to keep it. I think you *may* like this podcast Graham, as Fr. De Young loves bursting a lot of popular Orthodox bubbles haha!
...but an hour and 20 in, that's about all they've said so far. I don't get any sense of urgency or seriousness here. Maybe it's the college dude-bro vibe, maybe it's the attitude of being pretty clever, pretty above the last 60,000 years of human history.
Funny, Zach -- as you were writing this thorough comment -- I was working on the next essay, writing about the Ethiopian forest churches again ;) I do think if I were a Ethiopian living in Ethiopia, and had the joy of living a regular Orthodox life in close knit community centered around one of these forest churches, the problems I'm having here would not even enter my mind. Yet, I'm here, not there. And no amount of pretending that there is some kind of big enough link between here and there changes the fact that HERE, the way we relate to physical space in the heavily ex-protestant urban OCA scene, makes it an almost entirely different religion. HERE, if I pray to a tree -- that's idolatry -- but if someone cuts the tree down, laminates a dour Russian icon on it and sells it to me from the Ancient Faith online store, and I have it blessed, then I start talking to it (through it) -- then that's not idolatry. Someone who doesn't have the problems I have could argue that I'm just choosing to be cynical about it, and that someone would not be wrong. BUT...ultimately, what I really want to do is give an account for why in American Orthodoxy things went in such a virtual direction in 2020 -- at the time, I was bitter. But now I understand that the virtual direction was completely in keeping with a long, historical development. Part of that development is in the shift towards an idealized, almost inhuman saints' picture being the focal point of interactive attention. Ethiopian iconography is very earthy and very childish in the best possible way, and entirely opposite in feeling from Byzantine iconography, at least as I see it. That is part of what makes it a different religion, even if there are similarities in theology.
I hear you, Graham! I think your diagnosis Byzantine iconography as inherently and historically always a type of "viritual reality" I think is at the heart of our difference here. I can definitely see how you arrived at that conclusion. I can also grant that perhaps that's how it's too commonly manifested. But recognizing a potentiality, or observing its actuality (which I'm granting you in this case for the sake of argument), is different than such actually being a thing's essence.
Love is fundamentally oriented away from coercion, which grants the beloved a type of freedom. Thus, there is a potential for abuse, a potential that is part of the nature of freedom. The actualization of such abuse is abundant. Yet, it would be a mistake to say that such abuses are the essence of love and freedom, and an even bigger issue to use such abuses as reasons to argue against them.
I simply don't see the "virtual reality" as being at the heart of the Christianity of the ecumenical councils. That's just simply where I differ from you, brother.
That said, I DO agree with you that the modern, especially modern American, Church IS moving toward virtuality. It's just that I would say that the Church is failing to be itself by allowing itself to go along with a wider phenomenon that is sweeping the world, especially the WEIRD world. A bit like how I see truth in common anti-Protestant Roman polemics that there is an inherent connection between modernity and Protestantism. It's just that I see Protestantism as itself a symptom rather than a primary cause. So too I see the virtuality in American Orthodoxy as a symptom of a deeper movement rather than a cause necessarily springing from its inner logic.
And on a much more general note, something Fr. De Young pointed out has been helpful for me whenever I see the Church going along with the wider world:
He pointed out that there is a pattern in Scripture that is seen in both humanity as a whole and with the Israelites. Humanity was made in His image, but for the most part we refused that mandate. God created from humanity a remnant to be faithful to himself, the ancient Israelites. But we know that most of them most of the time rejected this mandate, to the point that a Prophet despaired. God assured him that here to, there is a small but faithful remnant. Fr. De Young then said that we ought to expect the same pattern, and do see the same pattern, in the Church. Yes, the Church is Christ's mystical Body. Yes, the Jewish people are God's people. Yes, humanity is the image of God in His Temple, Creation. All of these are true, despite the fact that most of us most of the time are failing to be what we ought.
God bless you, brother, and I'm absolutely looking forward to the Ethiopian Church essay! 🙂
Personally, I'm a sort of Blakean, such that I see a powerful nexus between the spiritual human imagination and the Holy Ghost.
But I'm also aware of the dangers of the imagination, like you saw in the essay on my blog: specter versus presence, muddled romantic vs. lucid romantic. So I think that I have mixed feelings about your thoughts here—because while I agree with you about not building an illusory realm of unreality for ourselves, I also believe that's an abuse of the imagination, not the only thing it can do or what it is made by God to do.
I've also thought in terms of idols vs. windows. Basically, an idol is a self-enclosed specter that cuts us off from God, whereas a window allows our minds to become more translucent to the Light from Above and perceive the shining-forth of that Light through the Creation. So, I would consider icons to be windows that help to enchant the Creation, not a virtual simulation (or idol) that cuts us off from the Creation.
Overall, I believe that artistic creativity has real spiritual value. I love trees about as much as you do—but if the tree was enough, then why do we have symphonies and novels? And for that matter, why do we have your quite poetic writings? It seems to me that we have a co-creative role to play with God in the realm of the spirit, even if that role primarily consists of purifying and elevating consciousness to a point where we can fully perceive what is already there.
Finally, I've also suggested somewhere that there will be no art in the Kingdom of Heaven, because there will be no need for windows when all the walls have tumbled down. But in the meanwhile, we have art and need it, and I tend to think of icons in those terms.
I like this, Sethu. That last bit was especially helpful -- "Finally, I've also suggested somewhere that there will be no art in the Kingdom of Heaven, because there will be no need for windows when all the walls have tumbled down. But in the meanwhile, we have art and need it, and I tend to think of icons in those terms." I'm all for the imagination (as I think is clear in my writing)...it's the sacred task of artists -- in many forms -- to rearrange matter to make the energies of God more visible to ourselves and others, not less. In this essay, though, I'm raising the question of whether mass reproduced canonical Byzantine iconography is making God less visible than just leaving the trees alone. I think it does. That's been my experience, anyway -- icons make me feel God is far away, trees make him feel close. I think this has to do with the idea of an icon not just as a means of clarifying consciousness or intensifying spiritual energies, but as a (motionless, unsmiling) face through which to talk to the person depicted.
These seem to be made by artists and not mass produced, which I think might be part of the real point: the way that mass production under the Machine alienates the imagination and turns it into a specter.
Also, I'll add that I totally ignore the folk who keep insisting that an icon is something differerent from a work of art. I find that silly. Icons are art, and all good art is iconic—I take this as axiomatic.
I really like your mention of “mass reproduced“, here—I think that may have a lot to do with how an icon is turned into a fetish and a specter. Are you familiar with Walter Benjamin’s essay on this topic?
I’ll send you a link to the essay, as well as some icons I like, once I get back to my computer a little later this evening.
Ah, you're right: I was looking with a yellow tint on my screen. Between Isaiah 53:2 and the way He could disappear into crowds, it sounds like He looked like pretty much a typical Jew of the time, and so I just figured that His eyes would've been brown. But, hm, that radiant green is what I understand to be the color of the heart chakra and the Holy Ghost.
Years ago I was given a mug with Van Gogh's "Starry Night " printed on it. I used it, sure, but always felt unsettled; the marketing, the ubiquity, the aesthetic blindness. Well, over in the Orthodox "market place" one can find a mug with the Theotokos of Vladimir printed on it... to be filled with the drink of your choice.
Your quote from Ohiyesa Charles Eastman:
"He who enrobes Himself in filmy veils of cloud, there on the rim of the visible world where our Great-Grandfather Sun kindles his evening camp-fire, He who rides upon the rigorous winds of the north, or breathes forth His spirit upon aromatic southern airs, whose war-canoe is launched upon majestic rivers and inland seas—He needs no lesser cathedral!"
...or, you could just go online and buy a mug.
--------
The heart is deep. We stay in the "shallow end" - the deep is too mysterious.
In the 21st century we are programmed to be led away from our heart, though something mysterious, and natural, draws us. That which draws us (ever so gently) is wind, real wind that blows through trees. We may not recognize the wind that is calling our deep heart to the Messiah if our skin and face our skin and face have not felt a gentle breeze, or a strong, wet, gale at the edge of Mother Superior.
Forgive me Graham, and commenters here- the above relates to the image, though I don't have the words to say it (I'm a bit...simple).
You always understand, because you're as weird as I am. Weird, meaning "That which draws us (ever so gently) is wind, real wind that blows through trees. We may not recognize the wind that is calling our deep heart to the Messiah if our skin and face our skin and face have not felt a gentle breeze, or a strong, wet, gale at the edge of Mother Superior" makes good and perfect and total sense.
The wind! The real wind IS spiritual -- the force that moves the trees!
You had me at that Black Elk prayer, of course. So much in that simple.
This place hasn't been the same with you gone, Bud.
There is a theory that the Adams Event 42,000 years ago, when the magnetic poles reversed, the increase of UV rays, electric storms and other wild events caused mass extinctions and made sanctuaries of places like caves. Many of the images made in those sanctuaries, in some sense from the sky, where human embellishing of forms already present that recalled bull or bear or horse. One gets more of a sense of a forming of company than of worship.
Both the coming in to sanctuary from out, and the people-ing of the sacred topography appeals to me. I don't know how that relates to icons but the mere fact that something might be "made" from a tree or a stone, even fashioned with a tool also attracts me and feels as capable of being sacred work as it is capable of being desecration.
Maybe its the direction of the company's gaze. Peers would be in a circle, deer, serpent, human, satry all circling from equidistant points the unnamable Ein Sof of our center, maybe? While worshipers line up before the image looking down, several types of hierarchy established at once.
Then again, there is that story of the serpent held up by Moses, surely an older Hebrew way that is buried under later whittling of the animal and weird of it. And there is Yeshua tied to that ancestral animal image aloft.
Vital truth in that sense though of gathering before an iconic company of countenances that do not wish to be Here. The conflation of the World with the Earth may be the great poison of Christianity. That and the aberration of Eternal Seperation/Torture Chamber. Remove those two knives from the body of the Way and so much of the mischief of Christedom can come clean.
Of course I am remembering here your taste for Angkor Wat and suspect you of leaving more room or great feats of sanctuary making and company forming in the end.
Yesterday for the first time ever I stood at ground zero of a new beaver pond-to-be. They are taking large trees down along the creek, in a lowland. two days begun, a grand beaver sanctuary raised in the middle and the water level just beginning to rise. It was as total in its adjustment of the earth as any clearcut but somehow it was magical. The valence was different. I will take photos when the snow stops. SOmething in there 'making' , there un-treeing yet still wilding is related here.
So much to ponder here, Andrew, and so much to rejoice in.
As is our way, we seem to be heading in the same direction -- uphill -- following various streams of life we've found, back to their one source: "Maybe its the direction of the company's gaze. Peers would be in a circle, deer, serpent, human, satry all circling from equidistant points the unnamable Ein Sof of our center, maybe?" --> that's exactly where I have a mind to go next, only switching from maybe to definitely. The difference between a circle of peers and an ecclesiastical phalanx is almost everything, I'm beginning to wonder. I'll mention now also that one of the many things I didn't include for the sake of brevity is I love the ruins of the churches in Cappadocia, where the cave-sense is strong -- the feeling of a cave in living rock, as going down into the womb of the Earth. Chant strange harmonies in there resounding around the womb-walls, and I'm there. Especially if the whole thing is round, like the way the beavers build their own sacred lodges. I'm 100% all for humans making things -- imaginative things, crackling with metaphor and spiritual energy -- from wood, stone, leaf, sky. More than 100%. Eventually -- like in 15 essays -- I hope to finally get to Christopher Alexander and talk, with his help, about how to really make stuff, in a way that's coherent with this beautiful Hebrew aspiration of man as a gardener of the Earth. But the air has to be cleared of a whole lot of religious kitsch first...
Alot of talk this week about Patrick and sainthood and Yeshua in Ireland. I am struggling with it though I have no doubts about the true heart of the speakers like Martin. You know a tree by its fruits and so much misery came to that land in the cargo hold of the church. Seems like the ones I hear on the edges, also good ones and true, need more of reckoning about such things. Black Elk is a guide here certainly. And Fool's Crow and the rest. Plus the living first nations church today.
Jenkinson says Christianity never belonged here. I dunno. I trust Oyihesa was wise enough and of here enough to call it as he saw it, the common ground and welcome home of it all. Maybe it in Force and Empire that it never belonged, and having passed through that could it ever come clean? I don't know. We need a table that as it passes through to remember the murder of G-d/man it passes through in rememberence of all that has happened with enough depth of empathy and consequence that it can't abide with certain remnants and devices now integrated in the word and way.
That table will be animist or it will be nothing. It will be woman-ed or it will be nothing. From the very roots there was something ancestral, something deeply of the land and from the beginning to build up on. Stone. And there was something else present. A wish to defend and preserve and uphold and spread by force. That He called Satan. Mere minutes apart they were born. Mathew 16. Twins even. It was the latter that conquered the world and greyed it with its breath. But the messiah of the former remains with us. Bulgakov I think was onto this when he saw in John 19 that the blood and water of the murdered G-d/man pour down into the chalice that is the mother earth herself. And remain. What is that table? Round no doubt. And Here.
And Apollo-worshipping "saint" Constantine stares at the sun so long the cross of non-power becomes a weapon for slaying his enemies, and he's called "equal to the apostles." The subversion is real.
“Nurturers of the real” yesterday I told God I’ve had it, I can only know what’s really there in front of me and with me, it can’t be just ideas held in my head, I just sat there with reality in front of me and with me in my apartment and the living God was there - the past 24 hours or so - “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counselor (Comforter, Helper, pick the translation you like) to be with you forever — the Spirit of Truth. The world can not accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and is in you” John 14:16-17 “the Spirit of life” standing ready to be stirred up in you as a gift given to sinners in the name of Jesus for “power, love, and self control” The appropriate response is to dance.
But that paragraph is a string of ideas upon ideas. You prefer yours unfeathered and antler -shorn, and I bless such taste even if it is strange to me. But Ideas abound here nonetheless.
I guess I am agreeing with the Spirit and the Bride who say “Come and let the one who is thirsty come, let the one who desires take the water of life freely” Revelation
But I think the teaching and example of the church tends in this direction “Be appalled, O heavens, O heavens at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” Jeremiah Cisterns at times lined with painted boards?
Instead of this - “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said will flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive”
The prerequisite is “thirst” the thirst of the woman with the issue of blood who had come to the end of striving and went to Jesus, touched him and knew inwardly she was healed. Our Jesus is before us invisible no painted wood needed.
Yes, I prefer my Spirit straight up and unadorned like a quality sipping tequila for it simply says the “mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” and God has “shed abroad his love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit he has given us” and “to stir up the gift which is within” not ideas - but inner love, life, joy, peace, knowing of the Father and the Son, the witness you are a son of God, obedience Ezekiel 36:27. All this is clearly offered in the scripture as pure gift. So good it has to be true.
See for yourself go to https://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/ put in ‘spirit’ as the search term,from Luke through Revelation to keep results shorter, using the NIV version to avoid the Ghost instead of Spirit of the King James.
And speaking of tequila - finishing with a scripture never preached on showing the giving ness of God “and spend the money (tithe money) for whatever you choose - oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves, and you eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice” Deuteronomy 14:26
As the apostle Indigo Montoya explained in the holy synod on the Gift of one man's literalism being another man's straitjacket: "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
Said Paul in one of his midrash-ing around, stream of consciousness, dare I say, idea packed riffs where he drank Whitman under the table in the contradiction of one who is a multitude, all things to all humans as it were.
It's the old finger pointing at the moon thing, that we all have...we two-leggeds have the fingers, and we can't not have them--but we also have the moon, since the moon's sky is our sky, too, even with our fingers...
"Just quietly walk away". Amen. I am doing that rather regularly. It seems like a pretty good response to so many situations. Anyway, great to have you back. Sounds like a lot has transpired since we last heard from you... Thank you for the photo of the lilies in Palestine! I won't comment on the other photos, except for you in yourself in the forest: beautiful. I am definitely going to recommend to anxious people to HUG A TREE (maybe I won't shout;-))
Thanks for this, Shannon! Yes, a lot has happened...well, or the same internal thing has happened so many times by now, that it's time for something new to happen :) I'd love to hear more about what quietly walking away has been like on your end, if you have more to share...
Sure. For me it has to do with letting go, and a small sense of submission. It is about smaller things specific to my life that are maybe not very impactful, I guess, where it no longer serves me or anyone to argue, to protest, to want things to change. It's kind of just an acceptance of how things are, just witnessing, and then sort of saying,"This is not for me", and quietly walking away. There are lots of social situations where this applies. Or places of commerce, for example. Places where it would be useless or pointless to expend energy fighting, but I can withdraw my support and my investment of both time and energy, and direct my attention elsewhere. I know these things still exist but I do not need to feed them. These are not very original thoughts. But there is a sense of coming home to myself, and in this is the small sense of submission, of giving up a kind of struggle that feels misdirected perhaps. And with that comes a sense of peace.
In a more important area, I have been looking for a church for a while, but I just can't bring myself to it. I realize there is need for a sangha, that a community of like-minded spiritual seekers is recommended. Maybe it's early childhood wounding that gets in the way (I was brought up atheist), but it's like I lose my belief when I get around other worshipers. I like churches best when there are no people in them, though not that horrid Catholic box you posted, or when only a few are saying prayers in peace and quiet and there is no service. This is where I wrestle with submission. What or Who am I submitting to in these things? Like, I just can't submit to a church, maybe because I have no understanding or grounding in what the church is, in a positive way. I am, however, deeply touched by your poetical(!) worship, and your lovely book, "The Sunlilies".
Anyway, thank you for gently asking me if I had more to share. It's still a new phenomenon to post my thoughts publicly. I'm glad this is a safe space and you are so kind!
This is beautiful and helpful, Shannon -- thanks so much for sharing.
*Sighing deeply,* yes -- we can't do without our sangha, can we, at least a little one, and although it sometimes brings me temporary relief to think of the trees and clouds and birds and sun as my sangha -- which is literally and deeply true -- still, we need our own kind, too, the two-leggeds. Yeshua said, "Where two or three are gathered..." I don't know that he made any promises about where two or three thousand, or million, are gathered, and as there seems to be a collective mind that takes over when too many people *imagine* themselves -- with institutional props -- as a single community, when the actual reality is true community can only happen face to face in small numbers. Very small numbers. Intimate numbers. I, too, feel the simultaneous need and desire to submit -- and wariness that submission in an environment of collectivity where people, paid to be in positions of power, are saying "submit to the tradition!" really means submitting to these people, not to the One. (I'm going through a cathartic but painful time of contraction and withdrawal right now, so take everything I say with a grain of salt)...but I am deeply, deeply confident that there is a joyful way forward for all of us lovely misfits, even in the craziness of our times. Especially so!
Hey Graham, it's SO good to read your words as gift again. I hope you'll excuse my crude comparison, but I've just gotta say that your words are like a sacred alarm clock! You wake me up, brother. Thank you
Graham, this morning I walk in a huge, glorious, equinox wind under trees, blue skies, light rain, and rainbows. This evening I listen to your wonderful essay and the birds. And it's all the breathing earth, it's all the temple. It's so good that you are writing to us again.
Beautiful, Penny! Huge, glorious equinox wind, light rain and rainbows -- how immense, how wonderful all this is! I'm so glad to be writing again, and I'm so glad you're still here.
My response to the rest of your thoughtful essay. The treasure we have in our earthen vessel is the visceral presence of the Holy Spirit. I say visceral for Jesus said the Spirit would flow from the koilia a Greek word in the NT translated 11 times as belly or your gut and 12 times as womb. “Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” This treasure is to be alive and flowing tangibly in the believer as pure gift (not earned as a fruit of spiritual discipline over time) but alas as Jesus said to the disciples on the way to Emmaus “O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have written” This “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” Romans 8:2 is not conditioned on sacred man made spaces or immersion in nature but may be had in any space or place in fullness. There is a new way and ministry of the Spirit the church in unbelief hasn’t fully walked in similar to Israel in the Old Testament failing to follow consistently the Old Covenant Romans 7:6, 2 Corinthians 3:5-8, Galatians 3:2-5, Ezekiel 36:27, John 6:63, May we get to that place of thirst where a continual ongoing gift to us is our only hope and way. John 7:37-39.
BeardTree, BeardTree...you are so you. I love this. Also, my Greek is very minimal -- I didn't know that about "womb," that's beautiful. Man, it's so, so hard to just....*not*...you know? to just receive what's already right here, as a gift. It's amazing. Sometimes I think scripture is a rock wall for us bash the head of our stupid notions against, helping us along the way into that very, very, very low "place of thirst where a continual ongoing gift to us is our only hope and way," as you say so beautifully. Amen.
My spiritual heroes and models of faith are the woman with the issue of blood, the woman with the demonized daughter, Jacob who refused to let go of the Lord unless he was blessed when the Lord said “I gotta go”, blind Bartimaeus pitching a fit in public on the roadside, the leper who said to Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean” to whom Jesus replied, “ I am willing”. The heart of faith is raw need and desperation, not some holy ascent of a disciplined soul. “Blessed are the poor (Greek, beggarly) in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven”
What I wrote today is on the wings of knowing the gift of the Holy Spirit even more deeply from that place of beggarliness. The tangibility and accessibility of the Holy Spirit is a an assumed reality post Pentecost in the NT. Paul simply says “stir up the gift which is within you” and “do not get drunk on wine in which is dissipation but instead be filled with the Spirit” as Jesus said “Fear not little flock for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom” and “the kingdom of God is rightwiseness, pece and joy in the Holy Spirit” My knowledge of Greek is mostly from what is available in the Young’s Concordance. Rightwiseness is the word Wycliffe used in his medieval translation. Rant over.
Ah, thanks to Gavin Ortlund, I came across this sweet honey of a gem from Augustine: "This is the chief cause of this insane profanity, that the figure resembling the living person, which induces men to worship it, has more influence in the minds of these miserable persons, than the evident fact that it is not living, so that it ought to be despised by the living." Perfect anthem for this whole series. (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801115.htm)
I'm pretty sure this video -- "Orthodoxwave" -- is attempting to promote, not critique, Orthodoxy, but I think it does an excellent job of encapsulating the sense of "bombardment" I'm talking about in the essay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWoCkA1E3W8
Good morning, Graham. Your essay and the tidbits of comments I’ve skimmed are so nourishing. I can’t muster the patience to read through them all on a screen, and wish this community could sit in a field somewhere and explore all this.
Your reflections stirred up more than I can write here, so I’ll just share a little: For more than a decade our family tried to pray with no vessel but our own longing to be reintegrated with holy Creation. But with no collective vessel – just books, some like-minded friends and our own will – we found ourselves frustrated, wandering, often lost. I'm grateful for those years, but now we are walking into Orthodoxy, and I find the veneration of icons to be very healing, very nourishing, fostering a pattern of perception and relationship that lasts beyond the momentary prayers I make before them.
Like many people, I also think a new Way is emerging – that God is doing something new in the world – and for me praying in a temple and also praying outside is a practice in working the opposites while the new thing grows beyond anyone’s will or intentions or ideas. We're in a liminal state, and for me, praying in a church feels like praying in an egg, or praying in a womb.
Anyway, your essay was good fodder for family discussion, and my children have this to say…
My son (7): I mostly agree with him, but you should just tell him to take his icons outside.
My daughter (11): I know some people don’t understand the world is as holy as the church, but the church is also just as important as outside. They’re two different spaces for prayer, two different ways of praying. If church was outside, it would be beautiful but in a different way.
Peace,
Joseph
Also, I'm glad-- and not surprised, of course, since we "get" each other, and your beautiful writing also reflects this -- to hear you say: "Like many people, I also think a new Way is emerging – that God is doing something new in the world." I will be interested to see how this openness unfolds for you in Orthodoxy, if you find space and even nourishment for it. I think a large part of why I feel it's time to hit the trail again is because the mentality of "There is nothing new in Orthodoxy, and no need for anything new, either - in fact, whatever is new comes from spiritual pride, if not demonic delusion" is the dominant note I hear struck again and again. There is a reason why "Orthodoxy" is what it sounds like! -- it's correct. And complete. And always has been, according to the story told by those who wish to tell that story, the guardians of Orthodoxy: it's the faith "once and for all delivered to the saints." This is one thing that attracts people away from the ever-shifting sands of Protestantism, especially where it feels like *everything* is new *all* the time (an exhausting, perpetual shallowness, to which I will never return, God help me!) Orthodoxy is so *not* new and so complete and entire, there is not even the sense -- as in Roman Catholicism -- that there is such a thing as doctrinal development. Whatever Orthodoxy is, has been there from the beginning (says the story) -- it only needs to be articulated in new ways, during the era of the Ecumenical Councils (after that, it doesn't even need to be articulated in new ways). This is why, to justify icons -- which certainly were new, if you look at history -- the story is told that St Luke was the first iconographer, and he painted the first icon of Mary, whom he knew personally. This "proves" that icons were not an innovation, or a development, but always there from the beginning. (But for someone who knows and respects history, and knows and respects the Judaisms of the first century, would find this not only implausible, but actually disrespectful to the real Mary, who would have ripped her garments and wept in dust in ashes, had anyone even suggested painting a sacred picture of her....) Anyway -- if you do discover that there is this openness in Orthodoxy to the new thing God is doing in the world, do let us know...I have read a zillion Orthodox books, but have only been to maybe a dozen parishes, and only known a dozen priests...it could be I've just been spending time inside a very insulated part of the Orthodox world...
Joseph, this is beautiful.
And your children sound wonderful and brilliant!
I'm really happy to hear that venerating icons within the encircling womb of the Church has been healing for you, and I'm sure this is one of the reasons, maybe the main one, that they're there (the usual theological apologies for icons, as usual, being beside the real point). Faces -- even images of faces, not real ones -- have their nourishing effect. The stability and childlike brightness of a picture of a face, too; they're nice. I think if my experience of church were generally like what it was like at St Ignatius in Madison (I cherish being there for a liturgy with you) and if icons were generally what Ethiopian or Coptic icons were like (not Russian, not Byzantine), I think my feelings now would probably be different. And anyway, I wouldn't wish my particular mental issues with over-stimulation from the artificial on anyone else! I love what you say about the creative, fruitful tension between praying outside and praying inside for you. I think that is where I'd really like to go, too. But there is a lot that needs to happen (again) to make "inside" much more womblike, earthlike than it is (see the next essay, coming in a couple days). I'm going to make a practice of pushing in the extreme of "outside not inside," having -- the opposite of you -- spent 13 years feeling more and more lost inside of Orthodoxy, cut off from Creation. But it won't be absolute. "Inside shall be out" to sort of misquote a very beautiful William Carlos Williams poem. That's the goal. I am willing to take an institutional "hit" for the team, to work towards moving inside back outside, and outside back in; that's how I see it.
Thank you, Graham. I printed out your comments here and my daughter read them in bed before falling asleep the other night. And that’s my first answer to where I see the openness in Orthodoxy to the new thing God is doing: In your own words, and the folks who find them resonant.
If you were writing about Orthodoxy without your longing for Creation, would it be as compelling? If you were writing about your longing for Creation without your Orthodox background, would it be as compelling? Maybe, but probably not for me. It is the loving tension that draws me in.
I suppose I’m not necessarily looking for the new thing God is doing directly within Orthodoxy – meaning I’m not looking for those conversations in church nor in Orthodox books I read. If they happen to come up, of course, I will be glad. But I’m also not sure any of us can consciously perceive very much of it anyway. We get hints, maybe, notice a pattern here or there, but mostly whatever is happening is beyond intellect, intent or will. When I do find myself in conversations about the new thing, they happen more around the fire, with friends who are Orthodox or not, or in intimate, one-on-one conversations, rather than in church spaces. And I’m fine with that. We are in a liminal time, and I think holding the tension of opposites – and there are lots of opposites to hold right now! – is a good road to walk.
In talking about creating a new metaphysics, Vine Deloria says this, which I think is relevant to all this: “We need not be radical in a disruptive sense. The transformation of the manner in which any culture interprets its heritage of remembered human experiences and knowledge cannot be radical if it is to have any effect on the respective human societies. Rather, it must relate to the various human traditions at as many points as possible so that continuity and identity of traditions can be understood. Without this natural development, any new metaphysics would appear abstract and unrelated to people.”
Anyway, it looks like you’ve given us another treasure of an essay, and I look forward to getting to that soon. Thanks for lingering back here with me. I appreciate visiting these liminal spaces with you and your circle of readers.
Peace,
Joseph
I love this, Joseph. I'm much less mature than you are, and so what immediately comes to mind for me is a crazy line that I think went unnoticed in "Waving Farewell" where I imagined some "collective dirtbag Prometheus stealing the holy fire of Byzantium"--very much an image in line with my deeply "scavenger" heart, but what I've always really wanted, and needed, is a "long obedience" as Nietzsche says; or, as you say, "loving tension" -- as a steadfast lifestyle. I do sense that there is a way for me, an uncomplicated one. I just get so tangled up in Orthodoxy. I'll keep this side of the tension going by walking away, holding on to enormous fistfulls of as much Orthodoxy as possible, if I can. All I really want is what I said in my poem "The Way":
To splash rainwater on the arms, the legs
The face—as cold as clouds
With the fragrance of awakening green moss
Everywhere around the rushing stream of clouds
And to chant a psalm or two
With two or three friends—meadowlarks, cypress trees
Precious human bodies born of clay—all sunlilies
Dancing in the breeze of perfect freedom
And eating wild fruits and nuts and roots
And cathartic flickering green herbs
And making prostrations on the bare Earth
And kissing the face of the Earth murmuring Lord Yeshua Messiah
Have mercy on us, your perishing creatures
—The mind shining sunlike in the depths of the heart
Releasing it from prison:
How beautiful it is to follow the Way!
Beautiful, Graham. Your words are the proper ending to this dialogue for now. I receive them with gratitude. May these longings seep into the soil of the world and take root! Peace, Joseph
‘The living things of Earth, which come from God, can awaken new life within us—like a fresh breeze—in a way that artifacts of other peoples' religious imaginations can't.’
You are speaking a language my heart knows, Graham. Thank you.
I read through many of the responses to your essay, and I love the thoughtful debating as this audience works through a form of Socratic dialogue. I will not add to the argument of iconography. I was going to write “though I am not Orthodox” and share more, but caught myself at drawing a lined division. I am a follower of The Way and recognize the Orthodox as my brethren, whether they recognize me or not. I am a servant of the Most High and He has always blessed me in cathedrals of His Creation. I have always heard His voice clearer in the chatter of nature versus the chatter of man. Man is nature as well; I just prefer some nature to others.
And YET, I attend a church that now has cameras and ‘black mirror’ screens in every room. It saddens me to no end. Is nothing sacred? So unnatural! So oblivious to the signs of the time. But I push it aside (with difficulty) and meet my brethren regularly. I am learning to be quieter. I very, very much want to be someone who ‘continues about my business’ in the midst of every storm. Even the technological ones.
Just for fun:
The Lilies-of-the-Field photographed a century ago in Palestine, is Anemone coronaria. Both words come from the Greek. Anemone literally means “daughter of the wind” and coronaria means “crown”. Crowned daughter of the wind. Such holiness! As the scripture says, nothing manmade can even compare to such glory.
I am blessed by reading your journey, Graham, and I can appreciate the gumption it takes to open up sides of your mind that others may not want to see. Keep going about your business, as only you can.
I love all this, Ann -- thanks for sharing!
"Man is nature as well; I just prefer some nature to others" are my feelings about it, also; exactly. I don't quite go as far as Nietzsche's "I found it more dangerous among men than among animals," but I'm pretty far in that direction. I certainly find it the least dangerous to be among the lilies of the field.
"Crowned daughter of the wind" is so, so lovely...
You will be intrigued to know after time spent in prayer to the Father today I had a revelation of the fellowship of the Archangel Michael and Mother Mary who as friends both helped me deal with a sudden bout of temptation and the presence of the tempter and I had an experience of the difference between veneration and the worship which belongs alone to the persons of the Trinity. For me veneration means the respect and reverence due to someone above you, better, with more authority. Unlike Jesus, Mary doesn’t have the taste and feel of humanity combined with deity, but is supremely, beautifully perfectly human. Michael is angelic naturally and is pleased to serve, help, protect me Hebrews 1:14 and I now have new unseen friends to call upon and be with. Despite their being so far above me Mary and Michael in a peculiar way were my servants and brethren, at my side not above me. The greatest in the kingdom are servants of all as it says. Strangely wonderful. It is all a gift of grace to the imperfect not gradual attainment of spiritual worthiness. I will be exploring this. By the way no icons were needed. With a bit of quick thinking and use of my reasoning mind I was able to place the experience into my Biblical framework. Whew! Laughing at myself.
Definitely intrigued, BeardTree, and definitely want to hear more.
I'm all for revering those above us -- and those below us, too: bowing in humility. I yearn for a culture in which -- as the Fathers pointed out in the example of David and Jonathan -- the human thing to do is touch our foreheads to the Earth and embrace one another with the threefold kiss of peace. That is infinitely more beautiful than the American "I don't bow to anything or anyone" spirit. I long to bow to trees that are higher than I -- and also Mother Mary, "supremely, beautifully perfectly human," too. I do -- I do want a connection with her, and to humble myself before her, and ask her help -- I do. I just find the Byzantine icons of her alienating, unhelpful. I would love to see an icon of her smiling warmly, dressed like the peasant of Nazareth that she was, not as a Roman empress. An image like that might help me concentrate my mind, open my heart -- I still wouldn't want to talk to/through it, though, unless I knew for sure she wanted that, and she herself thought it helpful for us. You said "no icons were needed" for your experience...do you get the sense that icons would have been an obstacle? Or, alternatively, helpful?
IMO a difference between Mary/Michael and the Living God is that God is always present and accessible - there is a cavalcade of scriptures stating this -He is the main thing after all, while with those who have gone on before us and the angels we can always send mail but their close immediate presence isn’t a guarantee and more intermittent.
Did you know that the apologetics for Hindu pictures of deities is basically the same as that for icons? I look askance as icons if they are presented as being more than the simple illustrations of Bible stories and persons and in the case of past Christians , pictures of historical events and persons. I don’t buy the magic pictures as an aid angle. 1 Corinthians 4:18
Our inner being is designed to perceive and know the unseen especially when enlightened by the Holy Spirit. For example when I am in the presence of a human friend I have a perception/feeling inwardly of their unique, just them essence and personality triggered by seeing and hearing them. We have that same inner perception, feeling, knowing when we meet the unseen persons of the Trinity, each of them have their identifiable distinctive being, so it is also with let’s say Mary, or an angel. This all happens usually without the visual. Though I know people who have had visions of Jesus and I imagine the same happens with angels as seen in the Bible and even with humans who have passed from this world as with Moses at the Transfiguration. I know of one case of this, perhaps two of experiences of those who have passed on, most lovely stories!
YES. I feel that, too. I've read that the heart emits an electromagnetic field quiet a wide distance from the body, and when hearts are within range of each other, they communicate. We literally can feel the presence of others through the heart, this is not new age woo-woo stuff (just in case anyone else reads this; I know YOU know what I'm talking about). I've felt the presence of Yeshua within 5 or 6 feet, but that was when the priest went by with the bread and wine. I've never felt the presence of anyone standing before an icon. I've felt the presence of uncut trees, though. And other living things.
Yes, there is a locus of Christ’s manifested presence in the Eucharistic elements. I had a wonderful visionary experience of this decades ago on Transfiguration Sunday in an episcopal/Anglican church.
And as far as “concentrating the mind, opening the heart” I think the testimony of truth is enough for that - “you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” and as a still mostly Protestant - Jesus said “they word is truth” It says “unto thee I lift up my soul” and “draw near to God and he will draw near to you” Let’s be like the woman who knew all she had to do was to touch Jesus and know all we have to do is like little children place our inner attention on God and he comes near. Good enough for my grandmothers who did so and so good enough for me. Jesus came to make that easy. “Grace and truth came through Christ Jesus” “My yoke is easy and my burden light” See you soon.
Can’t stop myself -
“As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up, “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.” Acts 10:25
“I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel . . . But he said to me , “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” Revelation 22:8-9
In the Gospels people fell at Jesus’s feet quite a bit in worship and he never stopped them. When I met Mary and Michael I met friends and fellow servants who wanted to help me and loved me. I imagine if I fell at Mary’s feet when she was on earth she would have made me get up as Peter did to Cornelius. I met a sister.
YES.
On a related note, this idea in Orthodoxy -- a fabrication of maybe the 7th or 8th century, or 9th, I forget--of Luke as the first icon-painter, who painted Mary, while she was still living...NO: The real Mary, as the beautifully human Jewish lass she was, and is, I'm sure would have ripped her (poor) clothing and wept, had anyone wished to paint a devotional image of her...
Interesting piece, Graham. I think this is becoming a running theme of ours: me being highly sympathetic to where you're coming from and loving your view of the Earth, but just not seeing the reality of the conflicts you see. And to be fair to you, I've met many who see the same conflicts but are just on the other side. But whether it's simply me wanting to have my cake and eat it too, or a failure of imagination on your part and the part of others, I won't bother to speculate. I just don't see the need for a fight.
The whole idea that images and temples weren't part of the early Christian experience I think is a misread of the situation; they just didn't use them in the same way as the pagans. There's plenty of archeological evidence for veneration of relics and use of iconography in the earliest centuries of Christianity, and we have 1st century synagogues that are COVERED in iconography. Many of these practices Christians simply continued from the local Jewish communities.
But even if there was a hesitation of the Christians at the time of Celcus around the use of icons, temples, and alters, that probably had more to do with the fact that Christians were a persecuted sect that had already been excluded from synagogue and Temple worship by the time the Romans sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and made the Jews a diasporic people. The reason why I say this is because RIGHT AFTER THE RESURRECTION, the Scriptures say the Apostles worshipped in the Temple nearly continuously. And once social and legal acceptance of the Faith became a reality, we went BACK to the temple.
I think the truth, as long as we are the church militant, is to analgously apply St. Paul's teaching of being content in plenty or in want. The Temple, by God's condescension to our weaknesses, has been consistently sought, but as Christians we have no need of it. The forest, the farm, the home, the catacombs, and the Temples are all places we meet God because we have the Holy Spirit.
I'm not saying that YOU, Graham, HAVE to be in the Temple or find it helpful. I just hope you keep in mind the distinction between not helpful and lesser or wrong.
That said, the Church militant has NEVER been perfect as it is full of people not yet fully perfected living on an Earth not yet fully transfigured. So, there IS valid criticism to be made. Where, in fact, the mainstream HAS focused so much on the Temple that the truth that God does not dwell in a building made by human hands is lost, and iconography becomes exclusionary to the nature from which it is made, then it can and must be said that the Church, understood as its members, is on the wrong path, precisely because it is failing to be itself.
And this leads to what I see as your most potent point: that of MASS PRODUCED icons. The actions of and logic behind mass production is simply antithetical to what the Church is called to be and to our mandate to be a royal priesthood and stewards, nay shepherds, of the Creation and all its creatures. Icons really out to be handmade at a scale that our forests can handle, and really ought to stay away from toxic, synthetic materials. I really think the Ethiopian church, with their forest temples, covered with iconography by the way, has it right.
Also -- 1st century synagogues were definitely not covered in iconography. Some of them may have had some art on the walls or floor, though that's more like the 3rd century. But I 100% guarantee you no Jews were making prostrations to that art and kissing it and talking to it. It was not iconography in the Orthodox sense, or anything near it. What WAS iconography in EXACTLY the Orthodox sense were the images of the Roman emperor, that people were invited / commanded to make prostrations to and kiss, as a way of bowing to the Roman emperor. When Saint Basil the Great said "The honor given to the image passes on to the prototype that lies behind it" he was not talking about Orthodox iconography; he was talking about the (pre-Christian) iconography of the Roman empire, and drawing an analogy to how Christ (the person, not the painted image of him) is the "image" of the Father.
Hmm. We definitely have studied differently my guy! For all I know, you may be right. I've no doubt you're more studied on this than I am. All I'll say is that have an authority I trust in biblical scholar Stephen De Young, who did two GREAT three hour deep dives into the issue of idolatry and iconography on Lord of Spirits (which the hosts intended to be similar to teaching a mid-undergraduate level). He did so comparing and contrasting Pagan, Israelite, and Christian iconography and Pagan, Israelite, and Christian idolatry, including doing a great disambiguation between the two.
And he pointed out something in the Old Testament that demonstrates the difference between the two using the same object, and seems to me to contradict the belief that a faithful Jew would never do anything like prostrating in front of an image. In Numbers, as the Israelites were suffering from a plague, God commanded an image of a serpent (a Seraph) be made on a staff and anyone who looked on it would be healed. This seems of very similar logic, even if not exactly the same in detail, to a wonder-working icon. Later in the Old Testament, a prophet destroyed that same staff with the serpent because it had been used as an idol to a pagan god.
Seriously, those two episodes, and the whole podcast, is worth ANY Christian's time I think.
But that's it for me on this, brother. I've exhausted my knowledge on the subject, so I'll be bowing out, but will read and reflect on any response. Take care!
Oh, and the two L.O.S episodes are "Scarecrows among the Cucumbers" and "Images of the Invisible".
BTW, the current series is on the Torah and how Christians ought to keep it, and what it means for Christians to keep it. I think you *may* like this podcast Graham, as Fr. De Young loves bursting a lot of popular Orthodox bubbles haha!
Even though he's already flash-bombing me with demonic images as soon as I start the podcast, I'll keep listening for awhile....
45 min in: "Plato's forms are just the Greek gods, with all the human qualities stripped away" -- that was interesting!
...but an hour and 20 in, that's about all they've said so far. I don't get any sense of urgency or seriousness here. Maybe it's the college dude-bro vibe, maybe it's the attitude of being pretty clever, pretty above the last 60,000 years of human history.
Funny, Zach -- as you were writing this thorough comment -- I was working on the next essay, writing about the Ethiopian forest churches again ;) I do think if I were a Ethiopian living in Ethiopia, and had the joy of living a regular Orthodox life in close knit community centered around one of these forest churches, the problems I'm having here would not even enter my mind. Yet, I'm here, not there. And no amount of pretending that there is some kind of big enough link between here and there changes the fact that HERE, the way we relate to physical space in the heavily ex-protestant urban OCA scene, makes it an almost entirely different religion. HERE, if I pray to a tree -- that's idolatry -- but if someone cuts the tree down, laminates a dour Russian icon on it and sells it to me from the Ancient Faith online store, and I have it blessed, then I start talking to it (through it) -- then that's not idolatry. Someone who doesn't have the problems I have could argue that I'm just choosing to be cynical about it, and that someone would not be wrong. BUT...ultimately, what I really want to do is give an account for why in American Orthodoxy things went in such a virtual direction in 2020 -- at the time, I was bitter. But now I understand that the virtual direction was completely in keeping with a long, historical development. Part of that development is in the shift towards an idealized, almost inhuman saints' picture being the focal point of interactive attention. Ethiopian iconography is very earthy and very childish in the best possible way, and entirely opposite in feeling from Byzantine iconography, at least as I see it. That is part of what makes it a different religion, even if there are similarities in theology.
I hear you, Graham! I think your diagnosis Byzantine iconography as inherently and historically always a type of "viritual reality" I think is at the heart of our difference here. I can definitely see how you arrived at that conclusion. I can also grant that perhaps that's how it's too commonly manifested. But recognizing a potentiality, or observing its actuality (which I'm granting you in this case for the sake of argument), is different than such actually being a thing's essence.
Love is fundamentally oriented away from coercion, which grants the beloved a type of freedom. Thus, there is a potential for abuse, a potential that is part of the nature of freedom. The actualization of such abuse is abundant. Yet, it would be a mistake to say that such abuses are the essence of love and freedom, and an even bigger issue to use such abuses as reasons to argue against them.
I simply don't see the "virtual reality" as being at the heart of the Christianity of the ecumenical councils. That's just simply where I differ from you, brother.
That said, I DO agree with you that the modern, especially modern American, Church IS moving toward virtuality. It's just that I would say that the Church is failing to be itself by allowing itself to go along with a wider phenomenon that is sweeping the world, especially the WEIRD world. A bit like how I see truth in common anti-Protestant Roman polemics that there is an inherent connection between modernity and Protestantism. It's just that I see Protestantism as itself a symptom rather than a primary cause. So too I see the virtuality in American Orthodoxy as a symptom of a deeper movement rather than a cause necessarily springing from its inner logic.
And on a much more general note, something Fr. De Young pointed out has been helpful for me whenever I see the Church going along with the wider world:
He pointed out that there is a pattern in Scripture that is seen in both humanity as a whole and with the Israelites. Humanity was made in His image, but for the most part we refused that mandate. God created from humanity a remnant to be faithful to himself, the ancient Israelites. But we know that most of them most of the time rejected this mandate, to the point that a Prophet despaired. God assured him that here to, there is a small but faithful remnant. Fr. De Young then said that we ought to expect the same pattern, and do see the same pattern, in the Church. Yes, the Church is Christ's mystical Body. Yes, the Jewish people are God's people. Yes, humanity is the image of God in His Temple, Creation. All of these are true, despite the fact that most of us most of the time are failing to be what we ought.
God bless you, brother, and I'm absolutely looking forward to the Ethiopian Church essay! 🙂
Personally, I'm a sort of Blakean, such that I see a powerful nexus between the spiritual human imagination and the Holy Ghost.
But I'm also aware of the dangers of the imagination, like you saw in the essay on my blog: specter versus presence, muddled romantic vs. lucid romantic. So I think that I have mixed feelings about your thoughts here—because while I agree with you about not building an illusory realm of unreality for ourselves, I also believe that's an abuse of the imagination, not the only thing it can do or what it is made by God to do.
I've also thought in terms of idols vs. windows. Basically, an idol is a self-enclosed specter that cuts us off from God, whereas a window allows our minds to become more translucent to the Light from Above and perceive the shining-forth of that Light through the Creation. So, I would consider icons to be windows that help to enchant the Creation, not a virtual simulation (or idol) that cuts us off from the Creation.
Overall, I believe that artistic creativity has real spiritual value. I love trees about as much as you do—but if the tree was enough, then why do we have symphonies and novels? And for that matter, why do we have your quite poetic writings? It seems to me that we have a co-creative role to play with God in the realm of the spirit, even if that role primarily consists of purifying and elevating consciousness to a point where we can fully perceive what is already there.
Finally, I've also suggested somewhere that there will be no art in the Kingdom of Heaven, because there will be no need for windows when all the walls have tumbled down. But in the meanwhile, we have art and need it, and I tend to think of icons in those terms.
I like this, Sethu. That last bit was especially helpful -- "Finally, I've also suggested somewhere that there will be no art in the Kingdom of Heaven, because there will be no need for windows when all the walls have tumbled down. But in the meanwhile, we have art and need it, and I tend to think of icons in those terms." I'm all for the imagination (as I think is clear in my writing)...it's the sacred task of artists -- in many forms -- to rearrange matter to make the energies of God more visible to ourselves and others, not less. In this essay, though, I'm raising the question of whether mass reproduced canonical Byzantine iconography is making God less visible than just leaving the trees alone. I think it does. That's been my experience, anyway -- icons make me feel God is far away, trees make him feel close. I think this has to do with the idea of an icon not just as a means of clarifying consciousness or intensifying spiritual energies, but as a (motionless, unsmiling) face through which to talk to the person depicted.
Benjamin's essay: https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
And now some stuff I've bought from Etsy. This is an icon of Magdalene from an artist in Cyprus: https://www.etsy.com/listing/843511247/mary-of-magdala-saint-mary-magdalene?ref=yr_purchases
A Coptic icon of Moses before the Burning Bush: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1067947065/the-burning-bush?ref=yr_purchases
And a rather unorthodox painting of the Resurrection by an Eastern Catholic woman in Ukraine: https://www.etsy.com/listing/563745406/resurrection-original-print-on-natural?ref=yr_purchases
These seem to be made by artists and not mass produced, which I think might be part of the real point: the way that mass production under the Machine alienates the imagination and turns it into a specter.
Also, I'll add that I totally ignore the folk who keep insisting that an icon is something differerent from a work of art. I find that silly. Icons are art, and all good art is iconic—I take this as axiomatic.
Ah, and thanks for the Benjamin essay -- yes, I have read that one. But if anybody here hasn't -- think about it!
I really like your mention of “mass reproduced“, here—I think that may have a lot to do with how an icon is turned into a fetish and a specter. Are you familiar with Walter Benjamin’s essay on this topic?
I’ll send you a link to the essay, as well as some icons I like, once I get back to my computer a little later this evening.
This painting, though, is on another level: https://akiane.com/product/prince-of-peace/
This one works. Probably because Jesus himself was involved in its creation.
Blue eyes, though? I doubt it. . . .
They're green. And I've heard from NDE accounts people saying they were surprised, too, to see his eyes were green...
Ah, you're right: I was looking with a yellow tint on my screen. Between Isaiah 53:2 and the way He could disappear into crowds, it sounds like He looked like pretty much a typical Jew of the time, and so I just figured that His eyes would've been brown. But, hm, that radiant green is what I understand to be the color of the heart chakra and the Holy Ghost.
Yeah, that's what I thought, too -- definitely a reasonable assumption!
But check out this dude's story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmY-Oa1kOHU
Years ago I was given a mug with Van Gogh's "Starry Night " printed on it. I used it, sure, but always felt unsettled; the marketing, the ubiquity, the aesthetic blindness. Well, over in the Orthodox "market place" one can find a mug with the Theotokos of Vladimir printed on it... to be filled with the drink of your choice.
Your quote from Ohiyesa Charles Eastman:
"He who enrobes Himself in filmy veils of cloud, there on the rim of the visible world where our Great-Grandfather Sun kindles his evening camp-fire, He who rides upon the rigorous winds of the north, or breathes forth His spirit upon aromatic southern airs, whose war-canoe is launched upon majestic rivers and inland seas—He needs no lesser cathedral!"
...or, you could just go online and buy a mug.
--------
The heart is deep. We stay in the "shallow end" - the deep is too mysterious.
In the 21st century we are programmed to be led away from our heart, though something mysterious, and natural, draws us. That which draws us (ever so gently) is wind, real wind that blows through trees. We may not recognize the wind that is calling our deep heart to the Messiah if our skin and face our skin and face have not felt a gentle breeze, or a strong, wet, gale at the edge of Mother Superior.
Forgive me Graham, and commenters here- the above relates to the image, though I don't have the words to say it (I'm a bit...simple).
I miss you Graham,
bk
Graham,
Ah, Brad -- soulbrother.
You always understand, because you're as weird as I am. Weird, meaning "That which draws us (ever so gently) is wind, real wind that blows through trees. We may not recognize the wind that is calling our deep heart to the Messiah if our skin and face our skin and face have not felt a gentle breeze, or a strong, wet, gale at the edge of Mother Superior" makes good and perfect and total sense.
The wind! The real wind IS spiritual -- the force that moves the trees!
"Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human".
How dare you quote Catholics on this site!
Just kidding, Brad, that's so beautiful and I love it -- thanks for sharing.
My copy of Sunlilies arrived yesterday from Cista Mystica, and I sat up reading it last night. Lovely piece of work.
Thank you sir!
You had me at that Black Elk prayer, of course. So much in that simple.
This place hasn't been the same with you gone, Bud.
There is a theory that the Adams Event 42,000 years ago, when the magnetic poles reversed, the increase of UV rays, electric storms and other wild events caused mass extinctions and made sanctuaries of places like caves. Many of the images made in those sanctuaries, in some sense from the sky, where human embellishing of forms already present that recalled bull or bear or horse. One gets more of a sense of a forming of company than of worship.
Both the coming in to sanctuary from out, and the people-ing of the sacred topography appeals to me. I don't know how that relates to icons but the mere fact that something might be "made" from a tree or a stone, even fashioned with a tool also attracts me and feels as capable of being sacred work as it is capable of being desecration.
Maybe its the direction of the company's gaze. Peers would be in a circle, deer, serpent, human, satry all circling from equidistant points the unnamable Ein Sof of our center, maybe? While worshipers line up before the image looking down, several types of hierarchy established at once.
Then again, there is that story of the serpent held up by Moses, surely an older Hebrew way that is buried under later whittling of the animal and weird of it. And there is Yeshua tied to that ancestral animal image aloft.
Vital truth in that sense though of gathering before an iconic company of countenances that do not wish to be Here. The conflation of the World with the Earth may be the great poison of Christianity. That and the aberration of Eternal Seperation/Torture Chamber. Remove those two knives from the body of the Way and so much of the mischief of Christedom can come clean.
Of course I am remembering here your taste for Angkor Wat and suspect you of leaving more room or great feats of sanctuary making and company forming in the end.
Yesterday for the first time ever I stood at ground zero of a new beaver pond-to-be. They are taking large trees down along the creek, in a lowland. two days begun, a grand beaver sanctuary raised in the middle and the water level just beginning to rise. It was as total in its adjustment of the earth as any clearcut but somehow it was magical. The valence was different. I will take photos when the snow stops. SOmething in there 'making' , there un-treeing yet still wilding is related here.
So much to ponder here, Andrew, and so much to rejoice in.
As is our way, we seem to be heading in the same direction -- uphill -- following various streams of life we've found, back to their one source: "Maybe its the direction of the company's gaze. Peers would be in a circle, deer, serpent, human, satry all circling from equidistant points the unnamable Ein Sof of our center, maybe?" --> that's exactly where I have a mind to go next, only switching from maybe to definitely. The difference between a circle of peers and an ecclesiastical phalanx is almost everything, I'm beginning to wonder. I'll mention now also that one of the many things I didn't include for the sake of brevity is I love the ruins of the churches in Cappadocia, where the cave-sense is strong -- the feeling of a cave in living rock, as going down into the womb of the Earth. Chant strange harmonies in there resounding around the womb-walls, and I'm there. Especially if the whole thing is round, like the way the beavers build their own sacred lodges. I'm 100% all for humans making things -- imaginative things, crackling with metaphor and spiritual energy -- from wood, stone, leaf, sky. More than 100%. Eventually -- like in 15 essays -- I hope to finally get to Christopher Alexander and talk, with his help, about how to really make stuff, in a way that's coherent with this beautiful Hebrew aspiration of man as a gardener of the Earth. But the air has to be cleared of a whole lot of religious kitsch first...
Yeah.
Alot of talk this week about Patrick and sainthood and Yeshua in Ireland. I am struggling with it though I have no doubts about the true heart of the speakers like Martin. You know a tree by its fruits and so much misery came to that land in the cargo hold of the church. Seems like the ones I hear on the edges, also good ones and true, need more of reckoning about such things. Black Elk is a guide here certainly. And Fool's Crow and the rest. Plus the living first nations church today.
Jenkinson says Christianity never belonged here. I dunno. I trust Oyihesa was wise enough and of here enough to call it as he saw it, the common ground and welcome home of it all. Maybe it in Force and Empire that it never belonged, and having passed through that could it ever come clean? I don't know. We need a table that as it passes through to remember the murder of G-d/man it passes through in rememberence of all that has happened with enough depth of empathy and consequence that it can't abide with certain remnants and devices now integrated in the word and way.
That table will be animist or it will be nothing. It will be woman-ed or it will be nothing. From the very roots there was something ancestral, something deeply of the land and from the beginning to build up on. Stone. And there was something else present. A wish to defend and preserve and uphold and spread by force. That He called Satan. Mere minutes apart they were born. Mathew 16. Twins even. It was the latter that conquered the world and greyed it with its breath. But the messiah of the former remains with us. Bulgakov I think was onto this when he saw in John 19 that the blood and water of the murdered G-d/man pour down into the chalice that is the mother earth herself. And remain. What is that table? Round no doubt. And Here.
Amen, amen, amen, amen.
Amen.
And Apollo-worshipping "saint" Constantine stares at the sun so long the cross of non-power becomes a weapon for slaying his enemies, and he's called "equal to the apostles." The subversion is real.
I think that guy is one of the worst things that ever happened to the faith, and I do not care who calls him a saint.
Hi Graham, lots of thoughts come to mind thanks for the conversation.
Thank *you*, Kathryn!
“Nurturers of the real” yesterday I told God I’ve had it, I can only know what’s really there in front of me and with me, it can’t be just ideas held in my head, I just sat there with reality in front of me and with me in my apartment and the living God was there - the past 24 hours or so - “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counselor (Comforter, Helper, pick the translation you like) to be with you forever — the Spirit of Truth. The world can not accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and is in you” John 14:16-17 “the Spirit of life” standing ready to be stirred up in you as a gift given to sinners in the name of Jesus for “power, love, and self control” The appropriate response is to dance.
But that paragraph is a string of ideas upon ideas. You prefer yours unfeathered and antler -shorn, and I bless such taste even if it is strange to me. But Ideas abound here nonetheless.
I guess I am agreeing with the Spirit and the Bride who say “Come and let the one who is thirsty come, let the one who desires take the water of life freely” Revelation
But I think the teaching and example of the church tends in this direction “Be appalled, O heavens, O heavens at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” Jeremiah Cisterns at times lined with painted boards?
Instead of this - “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said will flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive”
The prerequisite is “thirst” the thirst of the woman with the issue of blood who had come to the end of striving and went to Jesus, touched him and knew inwardly she was healed. Our Jesus is before us invisible no painted wood needed.
Yes, I prefer my Spirit straight up and unadorned like a quality sipping tequila for it simply says the “mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” and God has “shed abroad his love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit he has given us” and “to stir up the gift which is within” not ideas - but inner love, life, joy, peace, knowing of the Father and the Son, the witness you are a son of God, obedience Ezekiel 36:27. All this is clearly offered in the scripture as pure gift. So good it has to be true.
See for yourself go to https://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/ put in ‘spirit’ as the search term,from Luke through Revelation to keep results shorter, using the NIV version to avoid the Ghost instead of Spirit of the King James.
And speaking of tequila - finishing with a scripture never preached on showing the giving ness of God “and spend the money (tithe money) for whatever you choose - oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves, and you eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice” Deuteronomy 14:26
As the apostle Indigo Montoya explained in the holy synod on the Gift of one man's literalism being another man's straitjacket: "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
OK, also: That's gotta be the epigraph of our next thing. You had me rolling on the floor with that, bro...
Well, Jesus’s current MO is being “ a life giving spirit” 1 Corinthians 15:45
Said Paul in one of his midrash-ing around, stream of consciousness, dare I say, idea packed riffs where he drank Whitman under the table in the contradiction of one who is a multitude, all things to all humans as it were.
Take a drink, you might like it.
It's the old finger pointing at the moon thing, that we all have...we two-leggeds have the fingers, and we can't not have them--but we also have the moon, since the moon's sky is our sky, too, even with our fingers...
"Just quietly walk away". Amen. I am doing that rather regularly. It seems like a pretty good response to so many situations. Anyway, great to have you back. Sounds like a lot has transpired since we last heard from you... Thank you for the photo of the lilies in Palestine! I won't comment on the other photos, except for you in yourself in the forest: beautiful. I am definitely going to recommend to anxious people to HUG A TREE (maybe I won't shout;-))
Thanks for this, Shannon! Yes, a lot has happened...well, or the same internal thing has happened so many times by now, that it's time for something new to happen :) I'd love to hear more about what quietly walking away has been like on your end, if you have more to share...
Sure. For me it has to do with letting go, and a small sense of submission. It is about smaller things specific to my life that are maybe not very impactful, I guess, where it no longer serves me or anyone to argue, to protest, to want things to change. It's kind of just an acceptance of how things are, just witnessing, and then sort of saying,"This is not for me", and quietly walking away. There are lots of social situations where this applies. Or places of commerce, for example. Places where it would be useless or pointless to expend energy fighting, but I can withdraw my support and my investment of both time and energy, and direct my attention elsewhere. I know these things still exist but I do not need to feed them. These are not very original thoughts. But there is a sense of coming home to myself, and in this is the small sense of submission, of giving up a kind of struggle that feels misdirected perhaps. And with that comes a sense of peace.
In a more important area, I have been looking for a church for a while, but I just can't bring myself to it. I realize there is need for a sangha, that a community of like-minded spiritual seekers is recommended. Maybe it's early childhood wounding that gets in the way (I was brought up atheist), but it's like I lose my belief when I get around other worshipers. I like churches best when there are no people in them, though not that horrid Catholic box you posted, or when only a few are saying prayers in peace and quiet and there is no service. This is where I wrestle with submission. What or Who am I submitting to in these things? Like, I just can't submit to a church, maybe because I have no understanding or grounding in what the church is, in a positive way. I am, however, deeply touched by your poetical(!) worship, and your lovely book, "The Sunlilies".
Anyway, thank you for gently asking me if I had more to share. It's still a new phenomenon to post my thoughts publicly. I'm glad this is a safe space and you are so kind!
This is beautiful and helpful, Shannon -- thanks so much for sharing.
*Sighing deeply,* yes -- we can't do without our sangha, can we, at least a little one, and although it sometimes brings me temporary relief to think of the trees and clouds and birds and sun as my sangha -- which is literally and deeply true -- still, we need our own kind, too, the two-leggeds. Yeshua said, "Where two or three are gathered..." I don't know that he made any promises about where two or three thousand, or million, are gathered, and as there seems to be a collective mind that takes over when too many people *imagine* themselves -- with institutional props -- as a single community, when the actual reality is true community can only happen face to face in small numbers. Very small numbers. Intimate numbers. I, too, feel the simultaneous need and desire to submit -- and wariness that submission in an environment of collectivity where people, paid to be in positions of power, are saying "submit to the tradition!" really means submitting to these people, not to the One. (I'm going through a cathartic but painful time of contraction and withdrawal right now, so take everything I say with a grain of salt)...but I am deeply, deeply confident that there is a joyful way forward for all of us lovely misfits, even in the craziness of our times. Especially so!
Hey Graham, it's SO good to read your words as gift again. I hope you'll excuse my crude comparison, but I've just gotta say that your words are like a sacred alarm clock! You wake me up, brother. Thank you
Amen, amen, brother! So glad to hear it!
Graham, this morning I walk in a huge, glorious, equinox wind under trees, blue skies, light rain, and rainbows. This evening I listen to your wonderful essay and the birds. And it's all the breathing earth, it's all the temple. It's so good that you are writing to us again.
Beautiful, Penny! Huge, glorious equinox wind, light rain and rainbows -- how immense, how wonderful all this is! I'm so glad to be writing again, and I'm so glad you're still here.
My response to the rest of your thoughtful essay. The treasure we have in our earthen vessel is the visceral presence of the Holy Spirit. I say visceral for Jesus said the Spirit would flow from the koilia a Greek word in the NT translated 11 times as belly or your gut and 12 times as womb. “Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” This treasure is to be alive and flowing tangibly in the believer as pure gift (not earned as a fruit of spiritual discipline over time) but alas as Jesus said to the disciples on the way to Emmaus “O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have written” This “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” Romans 8:2 is not conditioned on sacred man made spaces or immersion in nature but may be had in any space or place in fullness. There is a new way and ministry of the Spirit the church in unbelief hasn’t fully walked in similar to Israel in the Old Testament failing to follow consistently the Old Covenant Romans 7:6, 2 Corinthians 3:5-8, Galatians 3:2-5, Ezekiel 36:27, John 6:63, May we get to that place of thirst where a continual ongoing gift to us is our only hope and way. John 7:37-39.
BeardTree, BeardTree...you are so you. I love this. Also, my Greek is very minimal -- I didn't know that about "womb," that's beautiful. Man, it's so, so hard to just....*not*...you know? to just receive what's already right here, as a gift. It's amazing. Sometimes I think scripture is a rock wall for us bash the head of our stupid notions against, helping us along the way into that very, very, very low "place of thirst where a continual ongoing gift to us is our only hope and way," as you say so beautifully. Amen.
My spiritual heroes and models of faith are the woman with the issue of blood, the woman with the demonized daughter, Jacob who refused to let go of the Lord unless he was blessed when the Lord said “I gotta go”, blind Bartimaeus pitching a fit in public on the roadside, the leper who said to Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean” to whom Jesus replied, “ I am willing”. The heart of faith is raw need and desperation, not some holy ascent of a disciplined soul. “Blessed are the poor (Greek, beggarly) in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven”
What I wrote today is on the wings of knowing the gift of the Holy Spirit even more deeply from that place of beggarliness. The tangibility and accessibility of the Holy Spirit is a an assumed reality post Pentecost in the NT. Paul simply says “stir up the gift which is within you” and “do not get drunk on wine in which is dissipation but instead be filled with the Spirit” as Jesus said “Fear not little flock for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom” and “the kingdom of God is rightwiseness, pece and joy in the Holy Spirit” My knowledge of Greek is mostly from what is available in the Young’s Concordance. Rightwiseness is the word Wycliffe used in his medieval translation. Rant over.