On Prayer

I was asked to pray for a miracle for someone, for healing. Now, the whole reason we call them miracles is that they don't happen very often. So most of the time, most people who ask for miracles don't get them, otherwise they wouldn't be miracles, they would be what usually happens. So while I can ask God for a miracle, if it is not part of His will, then it won't happen.

So then I wondered what to pray? Should I pray for relief from pain? What if that means she dies? She is a Christian, so would that be a terrible thing? Maybe I should pray for her family to be loved and supported through her illness? But what if God's plan is to teach them something through this time of suffering?

So, in the end I prayed - God, your will be done in her life, in their lives and in my life. I asked for the miracle, if it be God's will, and returned to the thought that God's plan is the best plan - only He sees all, knows all and understands what is for the best.

Isn't this the essence of every prayer? Lord, this is what I want, but only if You want it too. Maybe every prayer should begin and end with "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" and "not as I will, but as You will".

Once again, themes of submission to God and waiting on Him are becoming paramount in my life. Seeking His will for me and for others, asking for His guidance and direction, looking for the direction of the Holy Spirit. I do not think it is coincidence that at this time my desire for God seems to be increasing also. I can't remember being this excited about the presence of God since I first became a Christian - then too, I wanted to read all and only about God, to learn and to talk about God, to find out what God wanted me to do and to do it, whatever the cost. It is strange, but wonderful, to be returning to my first love for God, after all these years!

Confession

In my eagerness to try new spiritual disciplines, I asked Father Geoff of the local Orthodox parish, if I could come to confession. He asked me to think in advance of what I would like to confess - sounded reasonable enough.

At first I couldn't think of anything. I said something not exactly 100% true the other day, but it avoided a long explanation - is that a sin worth confessing? I ate more chocolate over Christmas than was strictly good for me - is that a sin? I let myself get annoyed the other day, I went to work late... Actually there were quite a few things, once I started thinking about it.

Then I thought about the old Catholic "Seven Deadly Sins": Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Sloth, Lust, Anger, Pride. Then I realized that I was a victim of all of them. Not even a victim, it is worse than that. I willingly and knowingly indulge in most of them, most days! Once again I am convicted of what a sinful person I really am, and Jesus Prayer seems most appropriate: Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner!

And yet, what next? I know I can never do enough penance to "earn" forgiveness, and while I don't mind making restitution or even doing discipline, I have no desire to punish myself for its own sake. I'm not a masochist. Besides, penance isn't the point. I don't want to agonize over the past, I want to truly repent of it - to turn and be different in the future.

It is only now that I realize how helpless I am to "make myself good". I do not have free will in the one thing that really matters - I cannot free myself from sin. I am reassured that even Paul felt the same:

Romans 7:19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

So tonight I will go to confession, and pray for God to flow through me and help me to "be perfect, like your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matt 5:48). At least until next confession...

A Prayer Rule

I have been thinking about starting a Prayer Rule, which is a regular discipline of prayer encouraged by the Orthodox Church. I don't know why I still feel attracted to so much of the Orthodox church, even though there is so much about it I don't understand or positively dislike. Still, the discipline seems very worthwhile in terms of spiritual growth.

So this morning while I was jogging around the oval, I realized that this would be the perfect time to combine spiritual and physical discipline. I have often prayed over the dishes, but jogging occupies the body and frees the mind even more.

Then I realized the use of the silly Orthodox chanting! Sparrow tried to explain it to me, but like so much of the spiritual disciplines, I didn't realize how it worked until I tried it. Of course, it is so obvious once it gets going! The tune aids memory and slows down the prayers - like having a song stuck in your head. It has to go at a particular speed and with a certain cadence, which means that I have time to really stop and think about it.

I still struggle with the Jesus prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Not that it's not true, just that it seems a rather self-centred prayer to build a whole prayer rule around. I had to think a bit to come up with something which expresses in a single sentence, what I want to ask God for.

I considered the prayer of Julian of Norwich: "All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well." This is a statement of trust in God which I really like, and I think trust is something I lack.

But then I decided that what I really want is something which expresses my desire to be used by God, and I remembered an old song (complete with tune) which I love:

Take me, guide me, use me, walk beside me. I give myself to the Father's hand.

This expresses what I want for my life - for God to take me, all of me, as His. For God to lead me to the place He wants me to be, to live, to work, to speak and to do His will. For God to use me for whatever purposes suit His plan, like a tool shaped and fitted to do His bidding. For God to be there with me as I work out my salvation in fear and trembling - for I don't imagine that it will be easy. I want to give myself to the Father's hand, like your favourite knife which fits exactly into the palm of your hand and cuts straight and true.

Lord, let it be so.

An Aquinas moment...

I have been involved in an excessively long discussion on the LiveJournal Orthodoxy board about the eternal virginity of Mary and whether married couples should have sex or not. Interesting, confusing and at times mutually conflicting points have been made.

Conclusions?

The Early Church seems to have been of the united opinion that Mary was the eternal virgin. I'm prepared to accept their view on that.

The whole thing about whether or not married couples should have sex, and whether monkhood is a better way to get close to God or not, opinion is divided. Once again, this seems to be an area in which Aquinas was right:

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Choices, changes...

So for next year I am committed to working one day a week at the Angliss hospital. I'm finally a paediatrician - yay!

I also have three months' worth of work later in the year, and that's it...

I could study more. I could do locum work. I could do volunteer work. I should do house work. I could get fit. I could join a gym. I could run. I could take up cross-stitch again.

It is sort of wonderful and sort of scary to have a wide open diary with nothing in it (including the possibility of no money) and a whole year ahead.

I wonder what 2007 will be like?

What does God like?

I have been thinking over the Christmas period of how easily we sometimes say "Oh, God will understand" or "God will forgive me" for this or that. I agree that it is probably true - God's mercy is able to forgive a great many things. But is that really the point?

God has given us guidelines, principles, laws, commandments, ideals and one living example. We know what is best for us, what God has ordained for us, what God requires of us and even why:

Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

He has graced us with not only instructions, but the reason why these instructions were given. If we choose not to do what is good, does it matter that God will understand, or that God will forgive us? He will, but we will still have to live with the consequences of our choices. If we knowingly choose what is not good for us, how can we then complain that we don't have what is good? Perhaps we should rather say:

Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on,
however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have
been trained by it.

Smoke...

Smoke. Thick, white, choking smoke hangs over the whole city, probably over most of the state. The bushfires in this exceptionally hot drought year are storming out of control across eastern Victoria. Firefighters are doing their best, but the weather predictors are saying there will not be a heavy rain to put out the fires for another five months. One person has already been killed, several injured. Millions of dollars worth of property has been destroyed. The news is full of nothing else, and if we could forget what was going on, even for a moment, just looking out the window would remind us. The smoke is still here, hundreds of kilometres away.

In the meantime, shopping for Christmas continues.

It seems odd, perhaps even obscene, that despite the ruination and death taking place at the other end of the state, that here we are ignoring the smoke and doing Christmas shopping. We can go to bars, have coffee, window-shop and try on shoes just as if it were a normal day. Why not?

Besides, what else is there to do? I am not a firefighter, not an environmental planner, not a bush or fire expert. People are not yet in need of doctors, of emergency relief or accommodation. The reality is that there is nothing for me to do for them.

So I continue my Christmas shopping. And every time I look at the sky, at the obscured and dulled sun, I pray for rain. Lord, you send your sun and your rain on the just and the unjust. Send us now the rain...

Update on progress on Clomid (or lack thereof...)

Well, my sensitivity to alcohol, caffeine and other substances seems to be holding true for Clomid as well. Peter started me on the lowest dose, which is only half of the usual recommended starting dose. I told him straight away that I want to have children, but not twins!

So on only 25mg I appear to be ovulating fine. This means that on the mornings I take the tablets I have to crack each one in half, which usually results in a whole lot of white powder all over the kitchen bench. I have started doing it on a plate, because that makes it a whole lot easier to lick up the spilled powder...

But despite two successful ovulatory cycles, we don't appear to be getting any forwarder. Maybe I was unrealistically optimistic, thinking that as soon as we started getting treatment we would start seeing results. I guess life doesn't work that way.

To look on the bright side though, it means that I can eat and drink whatever I like over the Christmas period. It is only those suffering pregnancy who have to be careful and conscientious. Alcohol, seafood, soft cheeses and pate are all allowed for us footloose and fancy-free childless types!

Exploring Orthodoxy 2

As part of my "Orthodox journey" I have started corresponding with some Orthodox people from a bulletin board about Orthodoxy I found on the web. This has been both interesting and off-putting.

It is definitely interesting to see how many Orthodox seem to be converts from other denominations. Some have clearly thought deeply and hard about their spiritual journey and have (as I see it) given up many of the freedoms of the modern church to align themselves with the traditional church. More of these are men than women, of the ones I have met so far. I don't think this is coincidence. It is good to see so many people of great spiritual insight and depth, who have really thought about their faith are a part of Orthodoxy. To tell the truth, I was a little surprised. I guess I have been hanging around too many "nominal Orthodox" who take a cultural view of the whole thing, rather than seeing Orthodoxy as a genuine spiritual way of life. Who view "being orthodox" as part of "being Greek" and something to be clung to and defended as part of a cultural heritage, rather than as something with value in its own right.

The off-putting part is the attitude of the orthodox (in general) towards the rest of us (called the "heterodox"). This attitude is condescending, dismissive and uninterested. The answer to nearly my questions so far has been, in essence "because the Fathers say so" or "because it has always been done that way" and especially "you don't understand because you are not Orthodox" and "if you don't like it you don't have to join".

Now that is a Catch-22!
- you don't understand because you don't have the "mind" of the Orthodox
- you don't like it because you don't understand it
- if you don't like it, don't join
- unless you join, you can't have the mind of the Orthodox...

This seems to justify an attitude of complacency toward evangelism and of self-satisfaction with the status quo. The Orthodox church sees no need to make itself open, available or relevant to those in the society around it, because "if they are called by the Holy Spirit, they will come" - this despite the self-evident barriers against any such calling!

I also find it interesting to notice how many who converted to Orthodoxy saying that they "just knew" as soon as they walked into their first Orthodox church that they were among those "called". I guess that must mean that I am not...

Visiting the Orthodox in their own habitat... (pt 2)

So I went to the Antiochian Orthodox service. It was strange. The music and chanting which sets my teeth on edge in the Greek churches is exactly the same in English, only weirder because the syllables have to be stretched to fit the chants. The music is horrible and apparently hasn't changed for over a thousand years. It could do with a change, in my opinion.

Some of the prayers were great, though. Really well-thought and sincerely written. I think I like John Chrysostom. Some of it was very familiar from the Anglican service as well, presumably the good old C of E "lifted" quite a bit of it from the Orthodox, I assume. It doesn't matter - it is all good stuff.

I was a bit shocked by the whole communion thing. I didn't take it of course, not being Orthodox, but the bread is crumbled into the wine and then the whole shebang given to parishoners on a spoon. The same spoon which goes into everyone else's mouth! I saw a mother rushing up with her baby to be first in line, and I don't blame her at all. I bet people with colds don't wait until last either! I don't think I would have wanted communion, even if I were eligible.

After the service, the priest recognized me immediately (probably the only visitor) and introduced me to a few people. Of course, the first thing they all asked me was "Why are you here?". Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet any women at all. I felt a little uncomfortable just talking to some of the men.

So overall, pretty much what I had expected from attending Easter services over the last ten or so years. Will I visit again? Probably. Will I become Orthodox? Unlikely.

Visiting the Orthodox in their own habitat...

After many very annoying phone calls to the Greek Orthodox community, diocese and other organizations I have given up on them. It is impossible to find anyone who speaks English (or even thinks that this could be a desirable skill) or who is interested in talking to anyone. The first question my every enquiry was met with "Why are you interested?" that is, the ones who didn't assume that I was enquiring about Greek language lessons.

When I finally made the connection with someone who spoke English and who knew what I was on about, he finally admitted that there are two English-speaking service-conducting priests in the whole of Melbourne, and no English-speaking parish at all. He seemed to feel that an English service is a necessary evil which was ordered by the church authorities and therefore must be carried out, even if the whole thing is a pointless exercise...

So, I visited the local Antiochian Orthodox community instead. The Antiochian church has the rather encouraging official position that services should be conducted in the vernacular of the place they are held! Amazing! The priest was very encouraging, and invited me to come whenever I wanted. It is also very convenient that the first weekend I am free to go, they are relocating to the chapel at Monash University - I could practically walk there, if I wasn't always so late on a Sunday morning. So, it should be interesting to finally work out what everyone has been saying!

Exploring Orthodoxy 1

Since the Greece trip, I have had a bit of an interest in exploring Greek Orthodoxy. There is something attractive about joining the tradition which goes right back to Jesus, the historical church which is the "ground and pillar of our faith" as they say. There is something reassuring and stable about the traditions which go back thousands of years, about a faith and a creed which have not changed.

I do have some hesitations though, about the elevation of what seems to be "tradition" over what seems to be the guidance of the inspired Holy Spirit? I can't help wondering if some of the man-made "rules" (which is what the tradition amounts to) are actually hinderances rather than helpful? And I wonder a lot about a church which claims to have "not changed" in two thousand years, but which obviously has acquired the accretions and trappings of a patriarchal culture along the way?

Apart from those hesitations, the major one I have is the relative authority given to tradition, even when it seems (to me) to be in opposition with either the Bible or with current culture. I know this is a totally Protestant way of looking at the whole issue, but I can't help that. If I had "the Mind of the Orthodox Church" then I would be able to just accept it all on authority, but since I obviously don't, then I can't.

The final problem of "tradition" as I see it, is that if it serves no particular function and if it gets in the way - why keep it? Apparently some of the vestments of the Orthodox priest haven't changed in nearly a thousand years. So? I don't see a current need to dress like that, and I think it alienates people for priests to look weird. I am told repeatedly that it is not "Orthodox" to think and speak like that - that Orthodoxy will not change to accommodate current ideas.

I think that is a major problem. Any church which will not even consider current social ideas and norms, which allows itself to become so estranged from mainstream society that it can't even talk to people - this is a problem. This is what I see in the modern Greek Orthodox church - a church which is so far removed from the current generation that it has nothing but rebukes for them for not being what it wants. A generation which is so estranged from the church that it feels the church has nothing to offer. A dialogue which is in two different languages and never the twain shall meet! A huge opportunity being lost...