How Not to Be a Saint

[Editor’s note:  As has been our custom lo, these many years, Gail and I welcome unsolicited essays from our readers.  Especially insightful ones which are timely and well written.

This one, from Theophan Davis (a recent convert to Orthodoxy), is one such essay.  We hope that you enjoy it and find it as edifying as much as we did.]

 

How Not to Be a Saint:  Lessons Learned the Hard Way

by Theophan Davis

As most of you know, I recently converted to Orthodoxy after spending the better part of ten years as a Roman Catholic. It was a humbling experience. I’ve realized that at no point have I made any real progress in the spiritual life. I’m still something less than a beginner. But I’ve fallen into quite a few traps which I (hopefully) won’t fall into again. And, as I ease gently back into blogging, I thought it might be good to start by discussing a few of those traps here. Best-case scenario, I can help someone avoid making the same mistake.

So, here we go.

1. Play to your weaknesses.

When we first began to live as a Christian in earnest, we’re always told, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” Keep a very simple prayer rule, no more than ten or fifteen minutes. Avoid high theology; read mostly from the Gospels. And so on. I’m sure you heard all of this, as I did. And you probably ignored it, as I did.

Yet, as it turns out, this is really good advice.

Firstly, beginners generally don’t have the self-discipline to spend hours in prayer every day. If I’ve have a hard time putting the kids to bed one night, and then I have to catch up on some work, and by the time I shut my laptop it’s midnight, and I’ve got an hour of prayer ahead of me before bed, and I have to be up at 6 A.M. to begin the new day with another hour of prayer… odds are, I’m not going to keep my prayer rule.

Life always gets in the way of prayer. The Enemy will always see to that. And the more I excuse myself from praying, the easier it gets. He’s always glad to help me find excuses, too.

So, being the weak and sinful creatures we are, we need to make it easy for ourselves. It has nothing to do with how much you would like to pray, or how much time you have for prayer in theory, or all the different prayers which, on paper, would benefit you spiritually. It’s strictly a question of reasonable expectations.

Besides, even if I have the self-discipline to stand in front of an icon corner for an hour reading the Psalms, I’m probably not praying. Whatever’s going on in my head, it probably isn’t prayer. I could simply be enjoying the poetic beauty of Scripture. I could be trying to apply its moral lessons to his own life. I could be musing about sundry Heavenly matters. I could be enjoying spiritual consolation. And those aren’t bad things to do! But they’re not prayer, either.

(By the way, we can also do many non-salutary things while “praying.” We can mentally pat ourselves on the back for our righteousness. We can enjoy the idea of being so spiritually refined. We can quietly judge the secular masses who don’t spend their mornings in prayer. We can enjoy a state of “mindfulness” that structured, low-tech activities induce. We can engage in prelest, whether demonic or self-induced. We can daydream. Or we can zone out completely. But again, none of these things is prayer.)

Prayer is a conversation between ourselves and God. After all, God isn’t an abstraction. He’s a Person. And we have to be engaged with that Person. Conversation is always a two-way street. So, if we’re not conversing with God, whatever we do—however pious!—it isn’t prayer.

Of course, hardly anyone can spend 100% of their time in prayer engrossed completely in the presence of God. The point is that we should spend as little time in that pseudo-prayerful state as possible. Because, before too long, we won’t be able to tell the difference between prayer and pseudo-prayer.

2. Get a hobby.

There’s a brilliant episode of King of the Hill where Bobby, the thirteen-year-old boy, gets really into Christian rock. At the end of the episode his dad, Hank, shows him a box where he keeps tokens from all the different phases he has gone through. There’s a Beanie Baby, a Tamagotchi, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle… Bobby cringes—and that’s the point. “I know you think the stuff you’re doing now is cool,” says Hank to his son, “but in a few years, you’re going to think it’s lame. And I don’t want the Lord to end up in this box.”

When we’re new to the Faith, we want to “do Christianity” all the time. The thing is, we can’t. We face the same limit here that we do with prayer: we don’t know what Christianity is yet.

So, we end up every paycheck on rosaries, prayer books, etc. Keep away from any form of “online community.” Or we become obsessed with church politics. Or we get sucked into high-level academic theology… or low-level YouTube apologetics.

These things warp our perception of what Christianity is. And it can take months, if not years, to un-learn all the consumerism, the pseudo-intellectualism, the pious gossiping, and the vain opinionizing.

So, it can be good to adopt a “minimalist” mindset. Go to church on Sunday, follow a simple prayer rule, and buy a couple of icons (Christ, the Theotokos, your patron saint—that’s enough). Read the Gospels, as well as any books your priest and/or catechist recommends you to. Chat about the Faith in person with folks from your parish.

As you embrace Christianity, then, you should also pick up a hobby or two. Take up bird-watching. Read a good fast-paced adventure novel, something by Conan Doyle or Rider Haggard. Learn to cook good vegan food for your family on fast days. Go hunting. Draw, paint, or whittle. Play an instrument. Take a hike. Get really into Ethiopian history or Japanese literature. Join a bowling league. Whatever!

One might save you from the self-destructive, pseudo-pious navel-gazing to which we beginners are so addicted.

3. Don’t argue with anyone, about anything.

The first reason not to argue with people: you don’t necessarily know what you’re talking about. Being a student—even a good student!—doesn’t make you a good teacher. When a little girl graduates from second grade, we don’t invite her back the next year to teach a new batch of seven-year-olds. A basic grasp of the material isn’t enough. Not even close. It takes a whole lot of wisdom, experience, and specialized training to be an effective evangelist, catechist, apologist, theologian, or what have you.

The second reason is that theological and apologetical arguments really don’t work on anyone. Okay, maybe they work on some people. But it’s an extremely small pool of people. Every priest I’ve ever spoken to—liberal, conservative, whatever—has been unanimous on this point. Never try to argue someone into Faith.

Yes, human beings are rational by nature. But that rationality was wounded by the Fall. So, in practice, we’re more likely to respond to criticism with petty, stubborn defensiveness than with calm, detached logic. That’s just the way it is. Again, we have to play to our weaknesses.

Here’s something else to consider. When we’re in the early stages of spiritual development, we can’t necessarily trust our own motives. All too often, we argue with other people—whether it’s strangers on the internet or our friends and family—for ignoble reasons. Oftentimes, we just want to show off our meager learning, dominate those around us, and/or boost our egos by making others feel inferior.

Again, developing the self-knowledge necessary to be an effective apologist requires a huge amount of humility. Indeed, humility is the most important tool for any religious teacher. And we can only grow in humility through prayer, fasting, and lovingkindness.

4. Don’t judge anyone, for any reason.

In defending democracy, C.S. Lewis wrote the following: “Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.” We may say the same thing about judging or “correcting” others’ sins and errors. Do modern men need some clear moral and theological witness? Absolutely! Am I the right man for the job? Absolutely not!

Consider what the Fathers have to say.

St. Isaiah the Solitary: “The one whose heart is flawless deems everyone to be flawless; the one whose heart is defiled by sins deems no one to be flawless but finds everyone similar to him.”

St. Dorotheos of Gaza, “Nothing angers God so much or strips a man so bare or carries him so effectively to his ruin as calumniating, condemning, or despising his neighbor. . . . Nothing is more serious, nothing more difficult to deal with, than judging and despising our neighbor. Why do we not rather judge ourselves and our own wickedness which we know so accurately and about which we have to render an account to God?”

St. Macarius of Egypt, “Our pure thoughts can help us see everyone as pious and good. If we see them as wicked, this proceeds from our own disposition.”

St. John of Kronstadt, “People offend you, irritate you, breathe contempt and malice against you—do not repay them in the same way. Rather, be gentle, meek, and kind, respectful, and loving towards those very persons who behave unworthily to you.”

Elder Sampson the Confessor, “The drunkard, the fornicator, the proud—he will receive God’s mercy. But he who does not want to forgive, to excuse, to justify consciously, intentionally . . . that person closes himself to eternal life before God, and even more so in the present life. He is turned away and not heard.”

Of course, they’re just restating Christ’s own words: “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

This is our safest course—particularly as newcomers. Deem everyone flawless. See everyone as pious and good. Forgive, excuse, and justify consciously. Disregard the specks; zero in on that plank. If that strikes me as far-out… well, maybe I need to spend more time with the Gospel.

5. Find a spiritual father (or mother).

The above are merely by an ignorant hypocrite. I hope they might be useful to you. The only way to know for sure, however, is to ask someone much older than you—a man or a woman far more advanced in the way of repentance. This person is known as your spiritual father or mother.

When we’re in our spiritual infancy, as I am, we need a spiritual parent to guide and protect us… most often from ourselves.

The tradition is that laymen should meet with a spiritual father once a month for confession and spiritual direction. (In the Orthodox tradition, the two are not distinguished. Confession is spiritual direction; spiritual direction is confession.) If you need a prayer rule, or if you feel the need to confront a friend about a certain sin, or if you’re concerned that a friend in your parish is slipping into a dangerous theological error—just ask your spiritual father.

He will know what’s best for you. He’ll know what you’re truly capable of. He may tell you that you’re too lazy in your spiritual life and you need to adopt a more intense rule of prayer. Or he may tell you—as mine did—that, in your pride, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, and that you should adopt a much simpler prayer rule.

Your spiritual father will hold you back when you’re overzealous. He’ll urge you forward when you’re feeling timid. He is someone you must trust implicitly. (For this reason, you must be extremely discerning in choosing your spiritual father.)

If you don’t have a spiritual father or mother, finding one should be your top priority. Then again, what do I know? Maybe you should run it by your spiritual father just to be sure.