It’s been too long since I have written on this platform. With my right hand not back to normal from last year’s surgery, teaching with the St. Athanasius Academy, and struggling to establish some sort of Orthodox mission in inner city Richmond, I’ve ignored my once heavily written All Saints of West Point blog. I was intending to write something today from my recent reading of St. Symeon the New Theologian concerning purity of heart or repentance. Shockingly, I am moved to write about the importance of sobriety in our society which promotes escape through substances. My inspiration does not come from some crack head on N. 25th or the corner store. My hometown has the same problems despite our cleaner sidewalks, larger paychecks and mortgages.
Egyptian and Syrian Deserts attracted many men and women to form communities centered around pursuing disciplined prayer. The forest of Russia and the British Isles also had monks and nuns who wanted a similar spiritual life. Even ancient Constantinople and 1940’s Paris had men and women who counted giving their lives to God a greater prize than life in this world. Orthodox monks and nuns are not perfect people. But their relentless and watchful seeking of Christ points the way to how the rest of us should adjust our actions, words, and thoughts to God. The light shone through John the Baptizer who rejoiced in Christ as early as a babe in his mother’s womb. This light guided Arsenius the Roman to be advised in the Gospel by short statured peasants. A married priest in Kronstadt shared the same spiritual wisdom that was found in the Northern Thebaid.
Unfortunately, there is a darkness that would rather choke and wash us away in insobriety. Not so much drunkenness or intoxication to a point that we are unable to function. But an insobriety that leads us to take the Christian faith for granted. Complacency becomes the liquor that keeps our hearts from prayer. Apathy clouds our minds from the Truth. Even without actual alcohol or tobacco, these substances addict us with great convenience as we can easily point to people who are worse than ourselves. As the addiction grows, we rely on catch phrases and memes mort than contemplation and study. The place of worship takes second place to sleeping in for Sunday brunch. Even when we make it to church, we seek to feel better about ourselves rather than where and how to change ourselves within.
Our Lord teaches us to “Ask, Seek, and Knock” (Matthew 7:7-11). But how are we doing these things? Do we ask with humble sincerity, or with preconceived notions? Are we as diligent as the widow demanding justice from the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8), or do we carelessly surrender to the tides of popular opinion? Indeed, are we knocking on the right door? When we are drunk and high, we cannot ask the right questions or find the right answers.
Avoid apathy and complacency as a Christian. Ours is a faith of self-denial, carrying our cross and following Jesus. The intoxicants call us to self-indulgence, convenience, and following ourselves.
All Saints West Point 