Orthodox people - or, let me say, Western Orthodox converts - talk a lot about who's right, about correctness in worship. Not everyone does, but you run into plenty who are dismissive of the "west" and who call Catholics and Protestants heretics. It's a long story that goes back to the East-West Schism of the Church, circa 1054. There are definite differences between Eastern and Western ways of thinking; I think everyone knows that. But (as the conservative Orthodox see it) has Western Christianity fallen off the mark, starting with the assertion of papal authority and devolving from there into strange additions to tradition like Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception, rebellion against that authority and then rebellion after rebellion over differing interpretations of Scripture that has left us a Church splintered into thousands of denominations? Or, as the more liberal or lenient of the Orthodox say, are the West and East like two lungs in the same body - i.e. they are different, but you need them both? Is it a matter of deciding which tradition fits us best? Or has the Orthodox Church truly guarded the fullness of the faith and it cannot be found anywhere else? If it can't be found anywhere else, there is only one answer: I want to be Orthodox. But the question is - are they overlooking something? You can be absolutely correct and still be wrong, if you don't have love. And, I'm not saying I haven't experienced love in the Orthodox Church, but there seems to be a bit of a spirit of scruple sometimes. They say it doesn't matter if your kids are lying on the floor, but then they say, just make sure they stand up for the Our Father and the Great Entrance. They say there is grace for all you don't know yet and aren't able to do yet, but your kids shouldn't be coloring in church. Do you see how there is some inconsistency here? But of course, if it's just individual people with that attitude it doesn't matter. There's only one Person we're there for.
Maybe it would be good for me to risk being a little wrong and stick with a Western tradition, just because it is so easy for me to be scrupulous myself. And my faith is in God, not in my own ability to choose the "right" tradition. I certainly have experienced a lot of love in the Western tradition, in Catholicism and in the sweet Anglican church where we've been seven years.
I don't know. I change from morning to night. This morning when I was taking the dog out, I was thinking, "Maybe it's just a thing you have to do by faith." It doesn't seem like it's going to be made clear to us by some supernatural intervention, like some things are. We have not gotten any kind of a sign one way or the other, and we very well might not get one. So I was thinking, holding Max's leash, that we probably needed to just choose to be Orthodox, in faith that they have preserved the fullness of the faith, and then walk it out, continue by faith. But it wasn't two hours later when I was reading part of the Catholic catechism (I've been getting the catechism by email, a little each day, to read it in one year; I haven't been reading it til today, day 122) and I felt compelled by it. My heart burned within me. Whatever we decide to do, the Catholic church can't be all wrong if they write things like that.
It's about living completely surrendered to God, living every moment for him, remembering him moment by moment as I walk out my days, choosing to do things that please him and giving up things that don't. It's about walking my little path, this one little path that is all my own, my own path to holiness, no one else's. And it might never get any better than this - I mean, it might never look much different than this - there might never be any superhuman saintliness involved. It might just always be me crying out to God as I do right now, extremely imperfectly. But I'm ready to be part of his church again, integrated somewhere. I am tired of being in limbo. I want to communicate every Sunday - to take communion - again. I'm tired of being in between places, and I'm a little sad, to be separated from my sweet community and not settled down anywhere. I want to settle. But I guess it's going to go on a little while longer, because clarity is not yet in sight. And in the meantime, He hasn't gone anywhere. I'm still walking this path, with Him.
It's something deep, deeper than my gut, that's saying, "Look, there's plenty here that shouldn't be here - self-righteousness, close-mindedness, fundamentalism - just like in every other branch of Christ's church, but look: holy halo ringing round, listen and feel how your heart is held up by the chant, by the incense, by all your senses. You don't have to reach, reach, reach with your mind up to God. Your whole being is held up to him. Holiness. It might just be what you have been missing."
Shep and I start the service out, standing there bedraggled from barely getting there with our entourage. Our children are rolling on the floor at our feet; we are looking at each other growly, like, "No way are we doing this." But by the end of our time there, when we leave, we are glancing behind us with awe and longing. We don't know exactly what we think but we both agree there is something there.
(2013)
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