Christ's Life Was Not Fortuitous

The actual objective of the run is the disruption of inertia; more specifically spiritual inertia. Rather then blame our bodies for its imperfections  or life for its trials, collaborate with your physical nature to break the cycle of inactivity and learned helplessness. We have been plagued with a superficiality, a dismissive arrogance and have neglected our personal duty.

It may be argued that much is beyond our immediate control and that life's circumstances have the upper hand. In reality this external locus of control is a fallacy, self-limiting and feeds a defeatist ideology. It does more than give permission for inaction but actually encourages a state of paralysis and a renunciation of personal accountability.

Through a change of heart and attitude we can learn to refute the entrapment of the enemy and come to the realization about what is fundamental to our personhood; our free will and personal volition. This liberty bestowed from our Creator is the basis for the premise and principle of an internal locus of control.

Christ the true wounded-healer was a revolutionary. He taught during his three year public campaign and ministry that God lives within each of us that we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit; the Sanctuary.  He empowered each of us teaching that there is no situation, not even the circumstance of our very personhood which overtakes the will of the individual. He detailed that there was neither male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free man that could limit an individuals quest or run for the crown of glory. We are actually free to chose to overcome circumstance and adversity in our attitude. Our Lord overcame homelessness, ridicule,  false witness, imprisonment, torture and death. Christ's life was not fortuitous by our modern sensibility and yet he brought peace, joy and salvation.

We may not be free to change the world as it is but we are free to change how we understand it. It is about how we interface with the world and with God. If you spend your time convincing me or yourself of your tribulation you leave no room for anything good to enter. Even if you succeeded in convincing me of your tragic circumstance I have done nothing to assist you.

Attitudes and reactions are attracting forces. Especially once we reach the age of accountability we invite our own conditions through our frame of reference. We need to quit right now practicing negativity put off the childish things. We are called to be as children but not childish. How empowering to have the faith, innocence and trust of a child with the skill set of an adult.

Homeward Bound

The momentum of the run; the story of being homeward bound. It is a spiritual time of uncompromising honesty. There is no room for vainglory only a modest understanding of what it means to respect the mile and respect the process. It demands the time, effort and commitment to afford one the luxury of aptitude and freedom to run beyond the limits of conversation, mediocre bantering and encroaching social chatter. It very much is a use it or lose enterprise. Because it cannot be cheated or faked its membership is purely merit based. It is the road of the journeyman; the way inward, the way to the sound of silence and wordless communication.

Yesterday's run inspired this entry and this evening's run. It was cold, dark and glorious. Running through the night air is exhilarating especially when shaking off the cares of the day. With each step my feet alternating their calling to the asphalt. The anonymity of running cloaked in the winter night was liberating, vanity a useless commodity in the night. Xena my wonderful trusted, four legged pal, affords me the luxury of running securely. The tonic level or flow was abounding; the superfluity of my stride lasted miles not moments. This is the Christian runner's high which takes your breadth away while delivering oxygen rich blood to each cell. It is a cosmic renaissance a molecular meditation. In complete control the experienced practitioner relaxes between each contraction. The hitting of my feet punctuated the time spent leaping through the air. There is nothing quite like partnering up with what God provides: the sea of stars, the waves of clouds, the breezy brisk blanket if a December night. Much of the climate of the run is established by the weather God provides. What a cathedral!

In order to maximize the impact from yesterday's run I recreated the conditions during today's eight miler: night run with the dog, correct audio tracks, the same general route though augmented, even the same clothes (yes, they were laundered). The result was incredible transcendental mystical and revitalizing. It is the stuff great runs are made of. Use audio cues and descriptive language to create these conditions at other times too. There is a controlled release a san chin (hard soft) approach where you remain completely relaxed and tighten only on impact. The moments of flight and relaxation are actually far greater then the brevity of impact.

This is where prayer transcends time pulling me into the moment and all other sensations, feelings and big ideas fall away freeing me up to be present. During this prayerful time there are no 'give me' prayers, no regret, no anticipation, only a stepping up and into the sacred. The invitation presents itself as I prepare each run and and sometimes through preparation it becomes plain and I begin to understand intuitively "thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path". It is in the gladsome light of the night's darkness where free from pretention and prying eyes where I find my host "The Lord of The Dance".

Deciding, Doing, and Documenting

Calling all runners all Orthodox Christians to run the good race. I am currenly providing a nation-wide, free of charge, team-in-training program for Orthodox Christians. Its purpose is to create a presence of Orthodox Christians in the running community by networking through the internet, assisting local communities begin small running groups to address our common need for koinonia (fellowship).

As the founder and team leader I provide a four day a week beginner training schedule to anyone  interested in beginning to run. The main function of this forum will be to share Orthodoxy with fellow runners (matyria, witness) to create a real sense of community (koinonia, fellowship) and to ultimately raise awareness of religious freeedom abuses (diakonia, service).

I am willing to help each of you with whatever your personal training needs are.  The move of the run is flowing and therapeutic, the work of the run will subside. It is still labor, but not work, not tedious or arduous. By employing basic principles of conditioning you will get conditioned. Operant and Classical Conditioning, Continuity and Tokens approaches to behavior modification can help move you through your training. Working for tokens for example setting goals and short term objectives, gives payoffs and increases motivation. The Continuity or Ritual Type is a set-up which increases the likelihood that once you begin the process the domino effect takes place. Operant conditioning is simply reinforcing positive behavior with reward and extinguishing negative. As for classical conditioning you pair pleasure with sensory input.

By taking serious note of what you feel and experience you tag your own currency or payoffs. For me sweat is as trigger a payoff a tonic level of exerersion. I realize I'm making a differenceas evidenced by a lowered resting hear rate, a smaller pant size, an internal locus of control. This is my fountain of youth where wisdom replaces the aches of aging. Increase your measure of success by deciding, doing, and documenting.

training needs are. 

Reshaping Cultural Identity

Greatest determining factor for successful Marathon racing, to use the term loosely, is how well you have managed your mental variables. Have you adequately analyzed your self concept, honestly took a personal  inventory and trained to do something about them? This is where most come up short and remain feeble minded they fail to improve deficits and clear the killing field of emotional impediments.

Reshaping your cultural identity (the folklore of can't),  controlling arousal levels (mood swings), practiced mental imagery (renewed self-concept) and prayer relief (connecting with the supernatural) is the stuff of stamina which is what gets you over the finish line. This is why even seemingly most unlikely participant with inadequate training will themselves over the finish line. 

Suffice it to say the Marathon is rigged to be a spiritual experience and Odyssey not a physical challenge. The body merely takes you through the labyrinth on race day with the road the cathedral. More then acclimating your body to heat or cold, you are acclimating your spirit to get real and to look inward and dig deep. It is totally mystical and paradoxical because you go inside to have this out of body experience As the body is kept busy (very busy),  the mind is yielding and bending to what is now amounting to surrender as logic has taken a back seat to volition, and the spirit can finally soar unencumbered and free of self conscious inhibitions.

Reckless Endangerment

I spent the better part of my life believing strongly in a religion. Defiled  repeatedly  by self loathing and a reckless disregard for fellow man; I cleaved to my religiosity as a child clings to a baby blanket (transitional object) for comfort. I affirmed my loyalty and devotion to "the church" rebuking my sinfulness ever attempting to distance myself from my personal disgust and failings. This fervor was simply a way of strong arming my passions (vices) and imposing my rigid worldview concerning morality on others.

Religiosity is the very construct that the mind imposes on faith, on belief and on others. It is imposing ourselves on God by our limited understanding through the minds eye. The fall concerned itself more with giving the mind independence from the heart wisdom forsaken for linear knowledge. The abandonment of wisdom which is a function of the heart or nous which was in constant communion koinonia with God and which now is exiled by the mind. The mind is self serving, narcissistic and fearful while the heart is communal, endearing and not defensive.

I have spent my life pursuing knowledge and acting in defense of my ego and sense of individuality which has left my existential self in the place of nothingness. If I go into my heart my nous and live in the moment which is not relegated to the past or the future but in true existence and being or becoming then I (WE) can commune with God the person; not the impersonal force or 'act of nature'.

I don't have to  impose my worldview on anyone else of any persuasion because I don't have to be right. We don't have to wage war on the world religions, sects, denominations, peoples, cultures, genders, orientations or vocations. I only have to bring myself to the now and listen and commune. I'm sorry that I have so poorly instructed and conveyed Orthodoxy, the Great Faith, to my friends, family and the community at large. I practice a structured belief system who accepts, even welcomes, the Mystery of God and who has established a venue to meet Him in our hearts the place of the publican. Humility in private devotion. Wholly personal and sublime.

Physician Heal Thyself

When pastoring or counseling there is no need for a diagnosis but there is a real need to be aware of the various conditions and subset of conditions. In fact diagnosis is dehumanizing and obstructs the process. Fortunately when engaging in Christian counseling and pastoring there is no clinical barrier there is only the journey. Depression seems to be a pandemic in the states but in fact it is endemic in our society (Abbot Meletios Webber). It functions as a disease and a bi product of affluent living. There is a luxury associated with the condition.

We are all plagued with such introspective waste. Depression is expected to cover an enormous range is it acute or chronic? Is it a normal malaise or is it more conditional? There is a normal reaction to certain events like death and transitional periods of grief resolve over time. If there is no disruption in the course of the life of the person then its more organic or more likely a learned condition a learned helplessness. 

In the social sciences, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel drives the methodology of the diagnosis and therefore drives treatment. There is the debate over the actual conditions sited. For example, if the conditions are so pervasive that the larger population has it then you are not describing illness but sociological conditions or states or characteristics. Lethargic heaviness or slothfulness, laziness is the dominant factor of depression. (Think the Prayer of Saint Ephrem to find spiritual warfare). When you fail to recognize the need for intervention then you are out of your mind. 

Clinical or therapeutic approaches take it for granted that it is organic but that is a huge 'leap of faith'. It is maintained that medications can manipulate the problem. Medication or even self medicating is a natural result of this thinking. Psychotropics do not cure the condition but rid the person of the symptoms. The symptom however can be helpful to the person because it forced there hand to deal with the condition. Removing the emotional pain is not the cure or answer. Think and heal the cause of the pain root out the cause. Get the message and then do something about it. "Physician heal thyself". 

The chasm between the mind and the heart is to pray.  The isolation and fractured existence of individuals removed from a community creates existential anxiety. Communal life and even parish life is a way of controlling the existential anxiety: isolation from others opens the individual to many malformities which include, meaningless, alienation, purposelessness, pain as an inevitability. We are broken but we are glorious.

Pastoral Inoculations

God doesn't fit neatly into our flimsy notions about what is proper or distinguished. I don't think he cares if we belch at the table. I don't think he is concerned about the length of our skirt any more then the designer label. I don't believe that all world religions lead to the same destination; though they utilize similar imagery or have altars or religious text and prophets. I don't believe that all religious thought is on equal footing. Not all is beneficial to the person or to the race of man or for creation. I do believe most often it is true that false world religions take us from our destination, God.

 

However He (God) is not locked within the limits of the Bible or Holy Tradition. He cannot be contained by any fashioning of His own hand. No creature has a box large enough or collar fitted for God. He is ever expansive and has power and dominion. As a race of people we have sought to confine God to His creatures to race, culture, civilization, institution, gender, to species, to space. Interestingly, Christians as a very general demographic group however are willing to throw the God-bearer under the proverbial bus, unwilling to accept her Majesty containing within her womb undefiled (as God defiles nothing as there is no corruption in Him) the Creator of all that is or ever was or ever will be. Of course that impossibility is made real by God's will. When we think of God's sacrifice we think of the crucifixion but I believe that taking on flesh must have been difficult, more then painful, seemingly impossible.

 

Christianity is triumphant in the paradoxes and not contained, not even in reason which will not be enumerated now. So as we sit in our dwelling places we pronounce the excellence of our manners and the print on our diplomas; we have failed to recuse ourselves from adjudicating cases against fellow man and against the Holy Orthodox Church, the Ecumenical Throne, The God-bearer (Theotokos) and God himself. I have come to understand through interactions with learned men of God how we are called to love; to censor ourselves not others. 

 

Through a return, u-turn (metonia) we can be refashioned. The Holy Orthodox Church contains within her Sacred Traditions and paid for with the blood of the martyrs the way back to God;  the path markers, the light for our journey and the Life Giving Font and Manna. All that is necessary for our journey is contained and open for all to receive no matter how dull our intellect or how immature our spirit. It doesn't rely on the sanctity of the man holding the chalice but on the Chalice. Although all is set before us for our journey, it is not all that is, only what is necessary for us. 

 

The desire to limit God to our limited understanding and need is insane. To borrow an analogy from Chesterton a circle is infinite yes but it is also finite; limited as is our understanding. But the cross is infinite and ever expanding extending its four arms to include not only the four corners of the globe but all of creation. For years I have been trying to put distance between who I am becoming and how I behaved decades ago. I believed I was misled by popular psychology (as I was) into thinking that the past is somehow behind us and has little bearing on our present. That forgiveness means forgetting or that the devil won't use it to get his tail into today. The reality is closer to the truth that God is with us when we are at our worst our most vulnerable most grotesque. It is a testament that even a wretch though we may be He has not abandon us, he did not forsake us, but loved us before we loved Him.

 

Though we may leave a sizable wake of destruction, pain, betrayal, perversion and sorrow in our path like Mary of Egypt there is the road home. There is our prayer not for ourselves but for those we have wounded. There is the current responsibility that we share to bring people to the truth to God's mercy and love. We are commanded to 'love one another as I have loved you'. God loved the murders, the perverse, the harlots and the drunkards. He was there in the midst of their despair and defilement. He made them clean he didn't tell them to get right, get clean and then come forth. He told them after their cleansing, their epiphany 'go and sin no more'. Their sin their disease was part of their testimony to the curative nature of Christ of the church. Their fallen nature or immorality has not been left out of the story for it is the contrast by which we understand their rebirth. I have always tried to hide my sin remove myself from my behavior but I should embrace it because it affirms the greatness of God the remembrance of God for all His creatures the lost, the blind and deaf.