Another View 2-2

“Keep your mind in hell, and despair not.” Forever what must this mean? Here is yet another of those choleric statements out of our tradition (desert tradition) that in isolation sends us reeling. It is said, out of this tradition, the struggle against pride is the final stage in the battle with the passions.

“Passion” is derived from the verb ‘pascho,’ to suffer -- and indicates an inner sickness. It is an “appetite” or impulse such as anger, desire or jealously, that violently dominates the soul. Passion’s, per se, do not go away. According to the early mothers and fathers, they are to be “educated,” not eradicated; so, they are to be transfigured, not suppressed. It is a movement that takes place in the soul, and lurks there through repetition.

It is said, as well, that each being must wrestle with the greater passions of the flesh, then with irritability, and finally -- with pride. This last battle is undoubtedly the most painful of all. It is this passion that leads to a “loss of grace” (see Another View #6). It is with this loss that the person descends to the place of loss of a sense of self, of separation from God. It becomes the place of absence from God, the place of “hell.”

Most of us despair when we approach this place, and we give in. The story goes that St. Anthony of the Desert prayed the Lord to show him to what measure he had attained. The answer was that he had not reached the standard of a certain shoemaker in Alexandria. St. Anthony made his way to the man and asked him how he lived. The latter replied that he gave a third of his earnings to the church, a third to the poor, and kept the rest for his own needs.

Anthony, who had himself given up all he possessed and lived in the desert in greater poverty than the shoemaker, found nothing extraordinary in this. It was not here that he excelled. Anthony said to him, ‘The Lord sent me to you to see how you live.’ Then the humble workingman, who looked up to St. Anthony and was dismayed by his words, answered, ‘I don’t do anything special. Only when I am working I look at passers-by and think, “They’ll all be saved, only I shall perish”.’

Anthony, sent by God to learn of the shoemaker; Anthony, prepared by long and extraordinarily arduous ascetic struggle (that had amazed all of Egypt) to grasp the real meaning of what the shoemaker said, sensed the force of his words and realized that he had not attained to the stature of the man.

Returning to the desert, he applied himself to the matter and taught it to others. Since then, other Desert Fathers and Mothers have passed it down through the centuries, a priceless heritage. Each of them, it is true, expressed it in their own way.

Blessed holy man Silouan said that many when they approach this state, fall into despair and are unable to continue. But the one who knows ‘how greatly the Lord loves us’ escapes the pernicious effect of total despair and knows how to stand prudently on the verge so that the fire of God burns away their every passion, and they do not fall victim to despair.

Here is the discipline, don’t you think? It is not a question as to whether the passions will be present, but only how we will be present to them. Doesn’t it seem at times that you stand at that presence and it feels present to consume you. The reality is, you have entered the place of instruction, of teaching, the border of a great humility and self-emptying. Here you are alive to attend to the mercy that is at the threshold of the very thing that feels it will consume, even devour. Grace has been withdrawn in order that holiness will emerge with renewed energy, and that life in God will be cherished and welcomed as never before. That, in fact, I must be there and not despair -- there at this “holy place” that is anguish beyond my understanding of any sense.

Here is the place of self-examination, where the self-distortions are exposed, and the instruction of mercy helps one to recognize the spiritual poverty that longs for God. Here is the place of our tribulation over the loss of grace, so that realization comes “that without the love of God, nothing else can make sense. Ironic is the moment that the mercy of God, while seeming distant, is in that moment, ever near.

Could this be? Do all know this experience? Perhaps not, for pride's expression as the destructive expressed in the aberrant ego, keeps many from approaching this place of gracelessness. It is the oft unapproachable, and yet always a part of our sacred tradition, forgotten as Another View.