“One of the best known of the Desert Fathers of
fourth-century Egypt, St Sarapion the Sindonite,
travelled once on pilgrimage to Rome. Here he was
told of a celebrated recluse, a woman who lived
always in one small room, never going out. Sceptical
about her way of life – for he was himself a
great wanderer – Sarapion called on her and
asked: ‘Why are you sitting here?’ To this she
replied: ‘I am not sitting. I am on a journey.’“
– The Orthodox Way, Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, 1986
Prologue (beware it is very long)
This page is an Ode to the One, the True Way, The Water that quenches the thirst of the weary, oppressed and distraught. Jesus of Nazareth, Christ Son of God.
This is a small corner of this website, as the Lord made Himself small amongst the poor and the injured, it is dedicated to understanding and learning from His Divine Love. I am a humble sinner and I hold no authority, I am neither right nor more faithful than any, and this page is for any that are seeking comfort. Anybody is on a journey and everybody looks for the Truth in some way. This is the Way I know and believe in and I would like to testify to it as best as I can.
It is akin to a shrine, though nothing digital will ever come to something holy, much less a spiritual experience, I seek to write with an open heart. This is an independent fragment broken off of the manifesto, a small but yet fiery jewel that illuminates the rest if one can look at it. Just like the manifesto, this page has no strict theological value, also it will probably never be finished. It is made for meditations, reflections, prayers, repositories of comments, exegesis, analysis, adoration and veneration of things such as the Holy Bible or the Lives of Saints, anything that is part of The Way. It is my personal experience, with full freedom and its faults, again, with authenticity, openness and engaged towards the world. Anything written here is for you.
Could one be too zealous as to spread the Gospel on a shoddy blog ? I am humble sinner, and whence I was baptized, I embraced struggle with the Grace of the Lord. There are countless things to testify about the One True Way, that one could even suffer of prelest, of pride and vanity to hold in himself the Way. The Way is only and will only be begotten in the Son of Man, Son of God, in complete presence through the Holy Trinity. Now out of the way, let us just meditate on that and take notes of our journey. The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. Acts 13:49
I will not touch on subjects foreseen previously in the manifesto (probably they will be in articles, where debate can ensue), namely about the potential dialectical synthesis of both the Christian Way and scientific socialism. For it is the purpose of other parts of my life, and what interests me is to share my experience of my faith. This part of the website “The One and the Many” can contain some type of philosophical apologetics in regards to materialism, but it is not the centre of it. It is only to shine light on how an individual undergoes faith and spirituality from both a subjective and objective viewpoint (as dialectics are allowed to go for such a peculiar endavour). Now, after making a unnecessary meta-analysis, let us talk about the method.
The Content and what the h*** this is about
(Yes.. more prefacing…) I would like, in this section, to list the ‘stuff’ I would like to talk about. It is probably a useful thing to preface that I aspire to be (maybe at the time you are reading this, I will be one) an orthodox christian. There are many reasons why, but they do not trump the reason why I am a Christian in the first place. Though one could certainly say there are no reasons why one is a christian. There are only superfluous explanations that cannot even come to the reasons why the Holy Spirit converts men in the first place. Yet, there are reasons. The same way the scholastics and pre-scholastics(as outperformed as they can be in some ways) wrote countless essays on apologetics and reasons for the pagans to convert. But I am not a scholastic nor I see some value in listing these reasons. Maybe I will later, but not now. Nor am I a (I suppose) a deluded mystic who supports the idea that God’s being and his Wonders are a mystery. God is not a mystery and nothing He does is (fully)and will never be simply because God revealed Himself in the Flesh, and underwent, through his Only Begotten Son, the Wonderful and Most-Holy Cosmic paradigm shift that is the Birth, Suffering on the Cross, Death and Resurrection as announced by the hebrew prophets. End of story (for now..)
Nor do I say that the Church (though I have much to learn from it) solely holds the Truth and that it knows God’s mysteries. One could say that is even feeding into the potential prelest of said Church. But I digress. I’d prefer to let Father George Florovsky summarize that issue for me :
“The Church gives us not a system, but a key; not a
plan of God’s City, but the means of entering it.
Perhaps someone will lose his way because he has no
plan. But all that he will see, he will see without a
mediator, he will see it directly, it will be real for him;
while he who has studied only the plan risks remaining
outside and not really finding anything.“
In fact, firstly, I will probably use a lot of quotes and sayings besides Bible verses in order to illustrate my points. Because it is well acquainted in the Orthodox tradition to do so (Tradition) and that simply it will help me understand things better when others have said it best. Finally, I find it incredibely useful and satisfactory to be able to compile all quotes and sayings that have been useful to me, and maybe to you – in one place.
Maybe you could say I aspire to be a theologian, you could bear this in mind, but it is besides the point of this section. So I will write theology essays in the form of blog posts, but they hold no authority, for I have not studied theology formally and (to this day) hold no blessing from any elder.
Secondly, I will most probably pour out my heart into structured personal prayers (those are not canonical but just words that help me pray, you could say) to any that is Holy and to God Himself. Also, I will definitely write comments on Bible verses, as I have done before. And finally, anything that I deem wise (in my perspective) and that assisted in my journey through The Way. Oh, also Christian art and icons.
You could also say I am very annoying to always diminish the value of my words, to seem humble and to put my view in question. It’s probably pretentious. I’ll try my best. Like anyone, I am tormented by past traumas (whence they happened during early childhood) and mental belief-systems that induce self sabotage. I believe I am someone that has a tiring and overzealous desire to achieve validation from others, to protect myself from judgment and mockery. If I could become a saint, I would give up on the world and only care on how God views me. Which sounds simply impossible (though it is through God that anything is possible). It is precisely in this section that I am more comfortable talking about these faults, because psychological introspection and curing of neurosis is deeply intertwined (though in two different dimensions) with the struggle against sin. Man is a slave to his passions and I look to the Redeemer for relief. For “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.”.
You could also say that I talk a lot about sin, and my own sins. That it is moping and that might be disgusting to you. I would respond : Sin is disgusting but fighting it is how Grace is attained. Sin is not guilt, it is slavery to passions. It is for us to choose our Master and to aid our neighbours in freeing themselves of slavery.
It is complex, even in my mind, as someone who studied philosophy, I always overcomplicate things, or probably I cannot do it any other way than to look at issues from multiple angles that overwhelm me. So I will just summarize this way, as it is True : God is love.
- The One
- The Many