Last weekend, a series of significant experiences happened to me, one of which led to the writing of the blog post below this one. It was as if I crossed the equivalent of a spiritual ocean and now find myself aground in another continent. Funny how one can travel a long distance and not actually move at all physically.. A new life awaits on this side of the ocean perhaps.. one a bit brighter and more hopeful, one shimmering with the gentle lights of divine love/grace (Or perhaps I will be swept back to the other side of the shore)
The account of a not so typical weekend:
On Friday, something bad by worldly standards happened to me. I botched up a piece of work at the office, got humiliated by the subsequent repercussions, and went home that late afternoon with a bad feeling in my heart and a sense of loss in my soul.
That late night, the wound in my soul stirred and I awoke with some spiritual sentiments forming within me. These sentiments, they have become more regular in recent weeks and often provide comfort and healing to my soul. Perhaps this is only possible because I have started to learn how to turn to God for solace when bad things happen. That night, as I lie on my bed with my wife beside me, my heart revealed to me that I had a lot of pride bottled up within me, and it was this pride in me that caused me to botch up the work. I finally understood experientially what pride is, and how it is different from vainglory. Pride is when you want to see yourself as better and more elevated than others and vainglory (desperate glory) is the desperate attempt to find evidence in the world that this is the case. I understood, in a non intellectual way, how I was desperately currying for evidence that I was good/better than others, and because of this, I had no room left in my heart for others, I couldn't love and thus I couldn't do the work properly. The past experiences of the week of struggling desparately/vainly and fruitlessly now came into clear view within my mind's eye, and my sins laid clearly before me. Tears flowed (I think)..
On Saturday mornings, I went to Church as there was a service and because I needed to go there to heal my wounded soul. Initially, I only planned to stay a short while, owing to the fact I promised my wife to be back by 9:30 am. But as I was about to leave, I felt something like a twitch in my heart, followed by a small searing sensation coursing through a nerve within it. It made me stop. It was as if my heart was telling me to wait. I didn’t know for what, but later something significant happened, I was asked by Noah, the priest assistant to help with administering the Eucharist. To hold the red cloth over which a communicant rests his/her chin to open his/her mouth to receive the Blood and Body of Christ.
In that position I had a clear side view of the communicant face coming near to the Golden Chalice. Something about this image, along with the fact that I could see a hidden icon tucked away in the side wall, struck an emotional chord in my heart. The sight of a slightly worn out and weathered human face opening it's mouth to receive the perfectly glistening golden spoon, it sent tears streaming down my cheeks. “This is the magnificence of Christ love for human being. See how He deigns to enters the manger of our broken soul and body”, my heart seems to tell me. Vain thoughts however immediately followed as to whether others are noticing that I'm having a spiritual experience. I try to fight them off but failed and lost my peace of heart in a cloud of self conscious thoughts.
After the Eucharist was performed, Father gave a sermon which spoke to me again. He said that we are to read the Akathist of the Most Holy Theotokos Mary whenever we needed help against spiritual attack. This was the thing I needed to ward off the magpies of self seeking thoughts which constantly picked away at the spiritual fruits that were growing within the garden of my soul. I resolved to read the Akathist regularly the following week and soon I was feeling quite well again. I felt comforted by God, and at some point during the day I gained a glimpse of what it meant when Christ said “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. All that trouble on Friday, it has resulted in me gaining so much more in return. I felt that life, here on earth now, it has this perfection already in it, everything is perfect, be it the bad things, the persecution, they are in fact the best thing, and you can know the reality of this perfection, the kingdom, if only you endured your experience with faith and humility..
During the rest of the morning after going home, I had to do some research work for an education related project that I have undertaken as a spiritual podvig. I has to also do the run-of-mill errands of fetching my son to swimming class and having breakfast and going shopping with my wife. In all these, I felt a descending of peace into my soul, I didn’t feel I am burdened by the world or that I was a burden to it. I was happy, and could treat everyone around me well, I had an excess of good will to give. At a lunch event with my parents, I felt a stirring in me. In my heart, a spirit of forgiveness manifest and extended out to my mom, and I could put my hand on her shoulder to send her a gesture of love. I sense that she feels it and I hope now I can love her in a different way now… different from the way I treated her my entire of life.
Something is healing… I was given an experiential understanding of the power of forgiving, of to be forgiven by others and by God. To forgive others, it has the power to save and redeem souls. And if we forgive, God save our souls by forgiving us. 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespasses against us', say's the Lord's Prayer. How simple life is…
In the afternoon however, I was tempted again, images of possible worldly humiliation (at work) troubled me, and in that state I lost temper at my son for causing me to be late to fetch him to his tuition class. After that I acknowledge the sin and wrote it down as something I needed to repent of. My mood improved markedly when I went to fetch my son later and apologize to him. After that I went to do some shopping with my wife, I had to purchase items for Holy Unction. Here I struggled and succeeded in giving up money for God. I bought the ‘impractically’ expensive wine, olive oil and rice. Later when I talked to my son about this 'feat', he said I shouldn't make too much out of it, as I cannot win God's favor by so cheaply a method. While he missed the point a bit of what the struggle was about, I find that he's the closest I have to a spiritual brethren. Age prove no barrier to us here and may God guide him to see clearly his faults just as much he can see mine.
At the All Night Vigil service, nothing strange or significant struck me at first, I guess generally my soul was at peace, I was calm, God’s grace abide in me, but not intensely. But mid-way, something happened, I was called up to the alter to help Noah read. For some reason, I could read much faster than I normally could, something about my mind was awake in a way in hadn’t in a long time… After the reading, I was assailed and assaulted by the spirit of pride and vainglory again, Tempting thoughts suggest to me that I’m now a parishioner of a different stature at church, a proto-saint perhaps. When I saw Matushka talked to one of the parishioners, I feared that she was asking him instead of me to read, and thus stripping me of my extra special status. Disdain for others crept in, I try to fight these instinct and am reminded how much more in this life I will have to continue to fight for my salvation against the passions.
After service, things were calm in my soul, and I drove back in a very calm mood, even though I will be a bit late for dinner with my brother and parents. At dinner, my heart was in a state of openness and it allowed the conversation around the table to flowed in a way which rarely happens when my elder brother is not around. We talked about a number of things, and soon discussion became rather spiritual. My dad, a man of small stature and hunched over, mention to me and my younger brother that his understanding of life is that it is fundamentally an act of service to others. In the past, I tend to brush off whatever he says, but in the last 2 years, I have tried to be more patient in listening to him. His saying, they so happened coincide with what Elder Thaddeus mentioned in the book “Our Thoughts Determine Our Feelings” and resonated with me. My younger brother, he opened up too, and he talked about some of his challenges growing up. In the evening, I sent two Whatsapp message to my brother and father. I told my father that I would like to thank him for his and my mom’s service to us, that I am sorry for all the rebellion and offense I caused them and that I hope we had years still to love and serve each other. To my younger brother, I confessed that my own insecurities may have harmed him while we growing up. I told him that I was essentially a person who, while smart, had very low EQ and a big EGO. I told him that subconsciously I had an urge to prove that I'm smart because I couldn’t get along with others and had to justify it with the fact I’m too good for their friendship.
All these speech from the heart, I wonder if they make me a burden to be around. But in my heart, I also feel I have crossed another milestone which I never thought I could. Even though it’s just on Whatsapp, I have told my parents that I love them, indirectly. I thought I could only express such sentiments at their eulogy. I finished my prayers that night (2 hours) and went to sleep around 1 AM.
On Sundays, I awoke early, around 5 AM and had some time till having to rouse my son for church. After my morning prayer, an inspiration took hold of me and I wrote out the confession (blog post below) which I had promised my high school friends was coming. I have severed my relationship with my high school friends for about 10 years, and we had reconciled like a month ago (?). I promised them that I will give them an account of why I did what I did and today was the day for that. I bared my soul about my shameful past and my spirit poured out of me into the keyboard and in a frenzied manner, I typed out the essence of my life’s struggle up till the present age. I finished by 8:50 am, and with tear stains streaked across my cheeks, I sent the link to my friends. Soon replies and messages started to come in. My friends, they thanked me for sharing with them and basically gave encouraging responses to me. The estrangement was hopefully brought to a close and properly buried. More importantly, I felt I have dealt with an unspeakable difficulty in my life and that my life can now begin, I can now finally step into the light of my life with my past burden no longer a hindrance, but now providing me both fuel and direction for life.
At service, tears flowed continuously, there were 2 services this morning, and by the end of service at 2 PM, my eyes were slightly blood shot and I probably look rather haggard and puffy eyed. The tears, they flowed at services because I couldn’t help but think of what I wrote and getting triggered by them. I do note however that not all the tears are of a good sorts. Yes, a part of tears are of sincere gratitude and repentance, but a part of them also are of a self-congratulatory type, prideful tears that I have become a saint and am now better than anyone. I had to struggle here and by the time the service is over, I had only little peace left, the devil and his magpies had robbed me of my spiritual fruits, the prideful part was winning. I was indulging in sentimentality as a glorification of my own saintliness.
Right after the service we had lunch at one of my estranged friend’s house. I felt now pride and disturbance in my soul. It spreaded across my field of being as a tension akin to exerting oneself against a heavy, immovable object. I felt as if I was wrestling with my friends, to submit them in order to receive some type of respectful deference that are due to me now that I did something heroic. But then I prayed, and with some wine, the tension subsided and gave way to something like a yielding humility, which settled my soul into a state of calm. I had this insight formed within me: let me not hanker for anything more, no more for myself for God will provide, let me here be of a kind presence to others, I felt I finally understood the foolishness of Pride, and how it’s completely worthless in the face of Godly peace. Soon the conversation flowed well, and we shed real tears about the past trauma in our lives.
Finally, night came, I sent a message to my elder brother about my confession, he responded encouragingly, my soul feels warm now, and during dinner time with the in-laws, we had a good surprise, my brother in law’s girl-friend joined us. We haven’t seen her in months, and I was very happy to see her, in a genuine way. I felt that all along, since I knew her about 10 years ago, I never had welcomed her into my heart. Tonight, it was different, I sincerely wanted to and could show her hospitality. After dinner, as we drove home, I felt a sense that the true riches in life do not require money, a fleeting “moment of clarity” if you will, in a world of material intoxication.
Soon the night came to an end, I had some bickering with my son about sleeping time, and lost the peace again within me. I was reminded after all the lofty hubbub within my soul through the weekend, that I had perhaps neglected my basic responsibility as a dad, to guide my son well spiritually. It reminded me that spiritual development happens in both the realm of ineffable, infinite and eternal but also in the tangible here and now, within the day-to-day task that God has given to us to dutifully execute without grumbling.
And so marked the end of this strange weekend journey of my soul across an oceanic expanse worth of spiritual experiences. I will end this writing now.
May God bless you the reader of this post...
P/S: Writing this blog post has been a painful experience for me, as it's produced a lot of vain glorious thoughts and feelings within me. Causing me to edit and overworking the sentences in desperate worry that the words are coming across as bland/convoluted/uninteresting etc. May God deliver me from this affliction..
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