FOS SUMMARY - “Spirit and the City”
The Joy of the Holy Spirit
by Dorothy Poli & Daniel Padovano
June 10 & 17, 2008
FOS Summaries are recaps of discussions points, organized and presented conceptually, in a session's dialogue and Q&A among Fr. Frank and FOS participants. The Summaries' authors further elaborate on certain ideas from a theme offered by Fr. Frank. All Summaries are approved by Fr. Frank prior to e-mail distribution. Past summaries can be found on the Cathedral website at http://www.thecathedral.goarch.org/FOSSummary/.
“HOW DO WE LIVE MORE JOYFULLY?”
The Orthodox experience: “Life in the Holy Spirit of God”
Orthodox Christianity is a religion of living faith and spiritual joy. To be spiritual is to be joyous. Orthodoxy teaches us to live not from the Cross but from the joy of the Resurrection even if that means we are carrying our cross. Joy comes through the Holy Spirit. Jesus sends His Holy Spirit to help us access a joyous relationship with God, the relationship He healed through the Cross and Resurrection. That joy requires dying to our self-centered ego to make room for the Holy Spirit.
Orthodoxy has been thought of as a religion of “do’s and don’ts”, (i.e., like standing up a lot, being under the constant surveillance of God Who stands ready to punish, fasting) essentially a joyless experience. Going to church services felt like a form of penance in the absence of a relationship with God. This is largely due to a lack of teaching or understanding on the part of the laity of the meaning behind scripture, hymns and prayers.
The intention of the heart: Following rules and regulations without experiencing the meaning behind it is antithetical to freedom and joy. Too much focus on rules restricts the spirit, excludes others and promotes a sorrowful rather than joyous atmosphere around church. Such actions have little spiritual benefit. Therefore, to not risk being “pharisaical” and self-righteous, it is important to know why one does what one does in their faith and to do it freely and purposefully. In Orthodoxy, everything is connected to intention of the heart more so than the action. Certain acts can appear good but may, to a degree, be hypocritical depending on the intention. Jesus touted the ‘spirit of the law’ rather than the ‘letter of the law’ for this reason and that is why Orthodoxy is more guidelines-based rather than rules–based.
The messages in Orthodox theology as expressed in the services of the Church guide us to live in a way that accesses the joyous and abundant life that was meant for us to live with God; the life that that was lost by Adam and Eve and restored by the new Adam and new Eve, Jesus and Panagia. It is now up to us to seek the light of Christ’s Resurrection to illumine our path towards this joyous life; and with this light warm our hearts towards God and towards others.
In Orthodoxy, there is an enormous wealth of beautiful spirituality to be found for the one searching for it. According to Fr. Frank, the beginning of Orthodox spirituality is the recognition of our need for healing and to humbly rely on God for this healing.
Pentecost and the Apostles
The Holy Spirit is active at all phases of our spiritual lives when we allow it. Lent, a time of repentance, through the Grace of the Holy Spirit helps us to assess who we are and come into the recognition for healing. The Resurrection is a time of joy when Jesus brought forth this healing within every human person, in our relationship with others and with God, destroying the “sting of death” and opening
At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit transformed the apostles and inspired them to inspire others and to pass this knowledge down to the billions in the rest of world through time. The Holy Spirit continues to transform us today just as with the Apostles.
At the Crucifixion, the Apostles fled for loss of courage. After Pentecost, being infused with the Holy Spirit they displayed fortitude. On fire, it was amazing what they were able to do. Subjected to great tortures, persecutions, trials, difficulties, they not only withstood these, they kept on preaching and spreading the Word. And they did it in joy.
As many of the saints and martyrs have shown, pain and struggles are opportunities for spiritual greatness. (Not that we should bring on pain purposely based on a notion that the more pain we deliberately experience the better we are spiritually. Rather, that we should deal with circumstances that give us pain through the Resurrection of Jesus and the Grace of the Holy Spirit.) These saints, by living in commitment to and conviction for God, no matter what happened to them, experienced joy and freedom. They along with the Church Fathers and Mothers loved people and life. They were “joyous, glorious, powerful and authentic” according to Fr. Frank. Their lives serve as models and inspiration for our lives.
As
Pentecost and us
The “Prayer of Pentecost” could be the prayer of
The Holy Spirit wants us to be joyous with whatever circumstances we find ourselves in and share that joy with others. When individuals are infused with the Holy Spirit they emanate a glow of joy and others want to be around them.
Further, the Holy Spirit helps us to live in our integrity of who we are which means what we were created for individually, being happy with how God uniquely made us, fulfilling our potential and living in commitment to our word and to Him.
Our gifts/talents:
God gave every individual a unique set of gifts. The question is not whether we have a particular gift or not (in giving what we do have, we dwell less on what we don’t have) but what we do with whatever we have. To what extent do we use those gifts for other individuals and in glory to God? God cares less about our affluence in intellect, wealth, power or artistic or athletic ability. After all, these are gifts from Him anyway and He can take them away at any moment. He cares more about the affluence of our heart as manifested in humility and charity (sacrificial love, compassion, forgiveness, kindness, hospitality).
Even financial affluence is a gift from God. Orthodox theology does not agree with the notion that God grants prosperity as a condition or reward for donating money. Any type of donating (money, time, kindness) must be an act of love, given freely and unconditionally. Like everything else, it is done in response to the love of Jesus Christ Who gave us freely the gift of eternal salvation and established our brotherhood with one another. ‘Freely we receive, freely we give’.
Fulfillment
When faith is just about “God and me” (or the “divine in me”) it can become narcissistic and self-centered. This can be another form of self-gratification that compels us to chase after things, material and otherwise, in order to fill a need that can never be filled. Wanting and getting more for oneself is a never-ending cycle that breeds more unfulfilled wants. It is never-ending because it is not outside of oneself. The cycle stops when the spirit of getting is transformed by a spirit of giving.
Fulfillment occurs in the context of relationship. That is, sharing oneself with another is the source of true gratification. This is the one of the principles behind Jesus saying that “when two or more are gathered there am I, in their midst” indicating and emphasizing community. One generally is not happy in isolation. There is a yearning for harmonious interdependency. Life has more purpose when one is giving of oneself for the benefit of another.
Money has little to do with true happiness and joy. Rich or poor can be slaves when the spirit is held in bondage by its attachment or obsession to something or someone. Studies have shown that only people in abject poverty can find joy from more wealth. The billionaires of
Consequences of Human Free Will
God made us in His image and likeness. As He is free, we are free. However, the freedom expressed by Adam and Eve resulted in sin, i.e. separation from God. Their sin had consequences for us their progeny. When we also choose to separate from God as the source of Joy and Life, that separation is experienced as pain and suffering in this earthly existence. Had God created us without free will, we would have lived in harmony with Him but robotically without the privilege of choice and, therefore, outside of His image and likeness.
Freedom of choice is an essential quality of God’s love. Out of this love, God gave free will to His children. “If you love someone set them free" is a line from one of Sting’s songs. When one lets go of an individual and that individual comes back out of his/her choice, joy is greater. As the Source of Joy, God also wants us to choose Him freely and not out of force.
Control is not a characteristic of God. If God does not control, then neither must we as individuals nor as parents or a Church control others. Further, control stifles us spiritually and deters our ascension to God.
Relationship with God and others
Jesus says “Seek the
The relationship with God also gives us the spirit to have the right relationship with others. The wrong relationship is fraught with ego and criticism. Ego in the form of superiority or pride tempts one to focus on another’s rather than one’s own flaws and sins. This defensiveness of the ego is the “cancer of one’s spirituality” according to Father Frank because in judgment there is no humility. Spiritual descent occurs and joy is negated. Separation and disconnect results because with the presence of ego there is room for only one person in a relationship and, therefore, there is really no relationship. True relationship allows for spiritual support of one another in our weakness so that we all become stronger. When we have enough humility to recognize the weaknesses and flaws that we individually as humans have (“those without sin cast the first stone” was the lesson Jesus conveyed), we judge less and reach for something higher or deeper within ourselves and find God. Our relationship with God will determine our relationship with other people. In addition, our relationship with other people further opens the possibility of a deeper relationship with God.
How does one access this relationship with the Triune God?
First, we must humbly realize our position in the universe. God is the Creator and we are the created. As the highest order of the created, we were given dominion over the rest of creation to enjoy with God. Therefore, praise for God is appropriate based both on gratitude and awareness of our dependence on God for even our breath.
When we realize the consequences of a broken relationship with God and our misuse of the Creator’s universe, we understand our position as sinners and supplicants. Truly realizing our sinfulness manifested in separation from God and as a result from others as well compels us to change our attitude and behavior (“metanoia” in Greek). That is, to seek to be holy through a humble and charitable spirit expressed as love towards others.
Also, realizing our sinfulness is a stance of humility. It is not waiting for a punishing God to strike because we broke rules that we have not even bought into or accepted as our own. Neither is it a reason to beat oneself up or compare oneself with others for that is a sign of the ego present as well. Rather, that we embrace these rules or guidelines, challenging as they are, and recognize that these are based on God’s divine law which is intended to lead us to live a joyous abundant and life of freedom with Him. The rules are a path to the Law which culminates in the call given by Jesus: “Love God and Love your neighbor”. And loving others is an expression of loving oneself.
Also, we must truly desire this relationship with God. Jesus says “seek and you shall find”. Zacchaeus, a tax collector and sinner, did not allow his short stature to prevent him from seeking Jesus and climbed a tree to get His attention. Because of Zacchaeus’ repentance, Jesus responds to him and offers him salvation.
As with any relationship, communication and conversation is important for deepening intimacy. Prayer is communication and conversation with God. We quiet the overactive mind and senses and distractions of the world in order to go deep inside ourselves into contemplation of God; allowing ourselves to hear the voice of God which subtly speaks within us.
In addition to going deep inside ourselves to find God, we go outside ourselves to truly love and connect with others. We do this when we are Christ-like. This means humbly sharing Jesus’ Cross and Death by dying to our self-centeredness, pretentiousness, judgment, hypocrisy, ingratitude, impulsiveness (symptoms of fallen humanity) in order to diminish the self-centered, prideful, arrogant ego and make room in our souls for others. In so doing, we also allow the Holy Spirit space to enter and to be affected by Him as well as for Him to impact our relationships with others. In those types of relationships, love and joy are present.
St. Gregory Palamas preached that to know God, we must move from the intellect into the heart, from thought to experience. As with individuals, we don’t rationalize God, we experience Him.
Finally, as with the saints, our own personal struggles are opportunities to break ourselves open to God. This means softening our hearts, humbling ourselves and surrendering to God to make His Power manifest so that He empowers us to get through the struggle.