spirituality

Marriage Not for the Faint of Heart

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I have been thinking a lot about marriage lately. Unfortunately, the reason for my thinking is the number of broken marriages that I have witnessed over the past couple of years. I myself come from a broken family.

I do not think of these folks in a judgmental way. Rather, I am brokenhearted because I love these people- all of them. They are my brothers and sisters. Beyond that, my spiritual father has said to me on more than one occasion “many men better than yourself have fallen.”

Marriage is not to be taken lightly. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not the “love” that we see paraded about us. Marriage is a very serious endeavor.

Marriage is martyrdom. This is the view of the Church. In the Orthodox Wedding, crowns are placed upon the heads of the bride and groom. These crowns are symbols of martyrdom. The Sacrament of Marriage is the beginning of the path of martyrdom for both individuals. Marriage is dying to self for the life of the other. Marriage is the martyric Icon of Christ and His Bride. (Galatians 5:22-33)

The idea of dying to one’s self is very easy to verbalize. It is a cliche which even in our day and age is commonly spoken of. However, this dying is very real and must be done on purpose. You cannot crucify the flesh incidentally. This is true outside of marriage, but marriage makes us feel it more acutely. In the life of a bachelor or bachelorette, it is easier to live for self and not feel the consequences. You can feel them a little more when one has roommates, but even then you can dismiss other’s feelings or glide along superficially. If things get bad enough you can leave and start fresh elsewhere.

In marriage, those are not options. You are one flesh. If you dismiss others’ feelings you will feel those consequences as harmony in the home is undone. It can lead to heated arguments. Or, if those involved are non-confrontational, it can lead to cover-ups which will only lead to devastating consequences later on.

In marriage the things that can be used against us by the evil one are endless. My spiritual father has told me that it is the simple and mundane things which are wielded against us with great success. We have all heard the jokes about arguments concerning how toilet paper is put on the roll or toilet seats left up. However, don’t be fooled into thinking those are laughing matters. Those very things are the early opportunities to die to self. As Christ told us “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” And to use a secular proverb “Everyone wants to save the world but no one wants to help mom with the dishes.”

The greatest advice I have ever received, which I have been thinking about lately, comes from direction that my spiritual father has given to my wife and I. He has told us that we must give in to one another. This is simple and not so simple. This is where the little things will make or break us. When your wife wants to arrange furniture a certain way or, as in the case of my wife, your husband does not want to get rid of any of his books. Give in to your wife when she has a certain way of handling things in the kitchen or give into your husband when he has a certain schedule he likes to keep in the evening.

When I discussed this idea of giving in to each other with my wife she spoke of how we do this by giving each other space to be who we are. We die to ourselves and this allows the other to be themself. My wife gives me the space to write this even now while she is in the kitchen preparing a meal. I give her the space to work on projects after I get home from work by watching the kids. She further pointed out that when we have done this successfully we end up getting what we wanted to begin with. To illustrate this she gave the example of how she had always wanted me to be involved in homesteading projects that I am not as inclined to enjoy. Over time she has noticed that when she gave me time to do the things that I wanted to do I naturally, even unconsciously, got more involved in her projects even, at times, with enthusiasm.

When you give in to each other and give each other space you allow the other to recharge their batteries. This is a cyclical pattern because they use that energy to allow you to charge yours.

We have not always been good at this and we still have a long way to go. In fact, there is no end to this struggle. To this, I point to something my spiritual father asks me after every confession- “are you going to continue to struggle?” I answer yes and then He always says “remember Jesus loves you.” We will fail and our spouses will fail but we must continue to fight the good fight and to die daily that we might live.

Marriage is not for the faint of heart. It is full of perils. It is easy to fall. It is hard to die to self. It never allows for a respite.

At the same time, marriage is a path to salvation. It is a path of friendship. A path of love. A path of joy. It is an Icon of Christ and His Church.

Marriage is martyrdom and ends in Heavenly Crowns.

Love: 10 Uses You May Not Know

/ OrthodoxintheOzarks / 1 Comment

Love you! Love you, too!

These words are heard everywhere. Between friends at the shopping mall or school parking lot as they take leave of one another, spoken into cell phones (loud enough for all to hear) or typed in the comment section of a million facebook posts. When this “Love you!” trend first started, I was disgusted and vowed not to partake of the casual, insincere tossing about of the word “love”. It seemed to trivialize the meaning.

However, I have lately changed my mind. Maybe the addition of the word “love” to our everyday vocabulary isn’t a bad thing.  Maybe we need all the love tossed about in this world we can get. Because love is a thing. A real thing. It’s powerful and mighty and is one of the last defenses we have against despair. Why not pass it around to as many people as we can?

It was many years ago when my husband and I were in the midst of parenting our young children. Back then, it seemed that as a society, we tried to shelter children from too much adult information or ideas which would confuse them during the tender stages of becoming people. I held to thisbutterfly_flower_02_hd_pictures belief and still think that parents should be the filter through which young children learn important life lessons. That being said, communication is tricky, even with one’s own children. During this fledgling stage of our family, we were friends with several couples who were in the same boat. We always shared the happy news of expected babies and celebrated recent births with our children. Things got a little complicated when an unmarried friend got pregnant, the kids were curious how this worked since she wasn’t married like the other parents in our lives. It was too early for “the birds and the bees” or any other weighty  discussions, so I told them that she and her boyfriend loved each other…therefore, a baby. My youngest son apparently latched onto this theory, because he applied it later when trying to understand another new situation. We had a friend who miscarried when she was 6 months along in her pregnancy. My son knew she had been pregnant and when we told him the grievous news, he immediately questioned, “why would the baby die?”. As my mind worked to choose the right words, I saw the look of sad realization dawn in his eyes. He thought he had the answer. “The mommy and daddy stopped loving each other?”

 

 In his mind, it was love between the parents that created that new baby and without the love, the baby couldn’t live.

 

It was actually sound logic. After all, I told him that babies were brought into the world as a result of the parents’ love. So it would only follow that without the love…the baby couldn’t survive. I assured him that the parents did indeed still love one another and that there were reasons couples sometimes lost beloved children, but I’ve thought about his theory often throughout the years. How many other things have trouble surviving without love? Families? Relationships? Peace? Compassion? It is evident all around us. Love is so powerful, that the lack of it is making a mess of our world. What makes love so powerful? Simply put:

Love is God. And God is All Powerful

Anything is possible with Love. So I say, let’s hear more voices proclaiming love! Love everywhere, love in all things. Let’s rack our brains to come up with new uses for love…

as a lifeboat,

as a shield,

as a cocoon,

as a butterfly net,

as a remedy,

as a beacon,

as an answer.

Let’s hold one another up with love and send it shooting through throngs of strangers!

Let’s remind our children that they were created by love and that love from God will never, ever stop.

God is Love.

Love is real.

For Those in a Coma

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cafe paradisio

At first glance it’s not always easy to see how those in our Christian family resemble us. The likeness is there, though, and looking again, we can usually find it. When Steven Berger arrived at Unexpected Joy, I didn’t need a second look. Just minutes into our first lively conversation, I recognized this converted Jewish hippie from Long Island as a brother. Steven is what I like to call a “paradise peddler”, a lay missionary with a penchant for the mystical. He works as head chef at Cafe Paradisio, the Redding, California restaurant he owns with his wife, Barbara.  But Steven’s real job is selling heaven to everyone he meets.

My guess is Cafe Paradisio wasn’t named on a whim. The teaching that we can become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) and be restored to the paradisaical state is a favorite theme of Steven’s.  The truth of this doctrine of “theosis”, so central to the Orthodox Christian faith, is exemplified in the miracles that naturally occur around fully sanctified, or “deified”, people—those holy humans we call saints.

The beauty of theosis, though, is that it isn’t limited to saints. Or, to put it a better way, we are all called to be saints (Romans 1:7). Anyone who has set forth on the path to salvation is already being transformed, renewed, restored.

When Peter dropped his fishing nets and followed Christ, he began in that moment the process of theosis. He started to be deified, began to become like God. It was this process taking place that allowed the future great apostle to walk on water as Christ did,  though he was not yet a saint. We know from the scriptures that it didn’t take Peter long to become afraid, succumb to gravity, and fall back to earth. But for that brief suspended moment, walking on the waves, Peter was allowed, by the One “through whom all things are made”, a glimpse into his full human potential.

peter and christ

Recently, Steven shared a story with Orthodox in the Ozarks that he believes illustrates theosis at work, though in an unlikely place and through an unlikely person: a  priest whose great-grandparents were slaves, serving Divine Liturgy at Unexpected Joy Orthodox Christian Church in his tiny hometown of Ash Grove, Missouri.

Here’s the story in Steven Berger’s own words:
“I owned a pizza place in Greenfield Missouri called Aloha Pizza. One Saturday evening, a couple came in for pizza who lived there in town. They started telling me this terrible story about how they had been in a car accident the night before and how their daughter was in a coma and would I please pray for her… So, ‘of course! I say, of course I’ll pray for her. In fact, I’ll tell my Pastor about it tomorrow at Church and the whole congregation will pray for her!’
So, like the dummy I am, by next morning, I forget all about it and don’t say anything to anybody about it. Then comes the part in the service where Fr. Moses comes out with the Holy gifts to pray for the living and the dead. He prays for the usual people and any other special needs he knows of and then turns to go back into the Altar. Suddenly, he stops, comes back out and prays: ‘And for all those in a coma’ and goes back into the Altar.
Then I remember! I rush into the Altar myself and ask Fr. Moses, ‘Why did you say that about those in a coma?’ ‘I don’t know’ he says. Then I tell him about the couple who talked to me last night and how I was supposed to tell him about it and all. ‘I guess that must be why!’ he says.”

I think what Steven’s story illustrates best is that while theosis is an exalted final state, it begins in a very humble way: with obedience. Most of us will not become miracle working saints, but we might, by obedience, be given gifts we hadn’t thought were ours to receive.

Christ says, “come,” and Peter obeys, stepping into the sea as if onto dry land. A priest is prompted to pray for “those in a coma” and so he does, only to learn later that there was a reason for his prayer he himself had not known. And with such strong evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work in others, we get the chance to believe that He is also at work in us.

Just another moment in paradise.