I have had the great fortune to have a great earthly father. But it took me a long time to get over my self-hatred to realize that God is truly my Father and that He loves me. Like truly, deeply, more than anyone else can. And he's blessed me abundantly all of my life. I basically have never had health problems, I excelled in school and work... etc. etc. And I know that its all because of Him. And that's fine by me :)
I was truly ungrateful once and it was the one time I experienced some actual physical suffering - I've thanked God ever since for everything.
Anyways, thanks for another positive message, Yoshi.
On your Father Seraphim Rose quotation, I feel like the issue is he is speaking from a monastic position for monastics. So his teachings seem less extreme if you are a part of a monastery where all you do is work and pray. No children, no career pressures, etc.
That is exactly why I do not recommend some of his writings to young Catechumens who lack discernment. A young man, who is not going to be a monk, who should be interested in sex may be harmed to be overzealous and burned out by taking his teaching to seriously.
It is not just Father Seraphim Rose, but many writings from the Saints can be taken too seriously and literally by those who are not ready. We call that prelest, or spiritual delusion.
I really like the youtube Channel “Orthodox Talks” he shows how to discern spiritual writing. For example, a lack of discernment would be reading Father Seraphim’s teaching on food and sex and trying to implement that on your own in the world. That will cause harm.
St Porphyrios, Elder Ephraim, and St Paisios are the modern Saints I read. They do not present a strictness to the public that should be reserved for monastics. They speak to the public in the world with consideration for their circumstances.
“And so I say to you, perhaps this is the self which must be crucified? The self that believes you have to earn it. The one that has no stomach for the free gifts of Grace?
Maybe that’s the self you must deny.”
I love the idea that it was ME who demanded blood sacrifice because I was too focused on having my grace come at a cost for it to be worthy. That really does make sense to me, rather than the Father needing a blood payment.
My dad watched Joel Osteen on antenna tv, and introduced me to his sermons. I will always be grateful because he reached my dad where it seemed others couldn't, even though I went through periods where I got caught up trying to fit in with the evangelicals who attack Osteen's approach.
The self-mortification arc is certainly frustrating. I like your thought on the rebirth as a recognition that we don't have to earn good things from the Father, that they're free gifts because God is good!
St. Aquinas said to love is to will the good of the other, and I think carrying our crosses means to love when it's hard, when there is conflict. I heard a preacher say that a Christian yields, and I think it's in those times that we die to self. But really, it's all the other side of the second Great Commandment - to love our neighbour as ourselves.
“You know, Christ’s passion lasted for less than 24 hours, yet it is all we focus on. The 29,000 hours before that of good health, friendship, and eating and drinking we pretend never happened, just as we pretend that John wrote “Jesus wept”, not because it was rare and noteworthy for him to do so, but because that was his default state. We make Christ out to be a man of sorrows. We never paint him happy. We never, ever, draw a smile on his face.”
Every time I point this out to a Pious Sufferer™️, I get a dazed look in response.
Priests especially love to point to the cross when you’re looking at a choice between years, even decades, worth of suffering and not.
Then why would someone spend the time put the two words there? What's interesting is that Jesus is rarely shown in anger/wroth. We usual get a side or back view. People do focus on the negative parts of the faith, but the other side is there if you go looking.
Banger. I’ve never gotten the Joel hate tbh. I think you’re probably right about the motivation behind it. And he never signs off saying dedicate all your wealth and life to Lakewood, he says “Get in a good local bible-based church”, sure sign of a grifter 🙄
And as to the plain meaning of love, when I held my first child for the first time the scriptural references to the Father all lit up in an indescribable and dazzling depth and through any hardship since has never really changed. Just what I felt in that moment holding her magnified unto infinity is too beautiful to comprehend, you can only accept it.
There is a spiritual lure to the pharisee - his call to rigor, separation, purity, respect for tradition, long prayers, fasting, good works, rejection of the ungodly, being part of a truly godly caste. It’s a distorted mirror image of true spirituality. Jesus warned of the infectious yeast of the Pharisee and Sadducee
Wow! As someone who was a part of the Pentecostal, holiness, Anabaptist, and even Orthodox this really resonated with me. I’ve since deconstructed from all of those groups, but I still have the mindset of struggle and denial, and so forth. Thank you so much for this enlightening article. Also, the Scriptures say that there is the beauty of holiness.
I dunno why this resonates so well but it does. That unbridled optimism in the face of certain death always wins me. If I were a Christian, I’d be an optimistic one, otherwise why even bother, right?
In the case of religion, I think the crazier it gets, the better. The goal is to short-circuit the logical/ego brain center to lower its defenses against the all-powerful love bomb of God.
My wonderful grandmother (cradle Italian Catholic, moved away from churchgoing gradually without rejecting the Church) loved Osteen, watched him most Sundays, before she started declining last year.
I admit that I, when I was going through my super-Catholic phase, inwardly sneered a bit at her devotion to him. A wealthy televangelist, honestly?
But I never heard him preach, in that time, anything wrong or harmful—indeed, despite the televangelistic affect that drives me up the wall, his message is more Christian and certainly more gospel-focused, more about good news, than many Catholic priests I knew.
And that’s where I remain re: him, while being ashamed for my youthful sneering. (God, if I could reverse my grandmother’s decline I’d watch any number of televangelists; that’d be the least I’d be willing to do.) Despite the teeth and the money, he’s preaching good news without the scammery of most televangelists. Good for him.
“He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”
Really heartwarming piece. I have always preferred to think of Christ as the smiling-eating-drinking-happy Wedding at Canae Jesus, even if my own religious severity and scrupulosity gets in the way. I guess Jesus didn't get the memo that life was supposed to be constant suffering.
I sometimes think less of myself because I didn't become a monastic, but I suppose there's a negative way of looking at it. Maybe people need asceticism because they are weak, instead of ascending towards it because they are strong.
This is bold but very good. I’m so grateful you’re speaking out about this. I literally wrote an entire novel as a parable of this. It’s so so needed. I remember reading a similar reaction from St Augustine in response to bishops encouraging marital intimacy. (Following in your audacious foot steps and coming at one of the saints.😬) The Fact is, we participate in many things that are not sinful in themselves, with sinful hearts and minds. We have been sanctified, are still being sanctified, and will be sanctified. Are all things lawful? Yes. But are all things good for us? No. It’s because we cant always take part in them without sin, but removing them doesn’t automatically remove the heart problem, so that’s where our focus should be.
That’s basically the message of the Sermon on the Mount, right? Jesus laid out examples of stringent rules the Jews were taught to follow, and then tore down their false safety nets, “But I say…” and taught them it was deeper, it was the heart. And then THANK YOU for pointing out the feasting and friendship and working alongside one another with joy that preceded his passion! I think these gifts of good food and relationships and tigers and birds are part of God’s visible and invisible attributes. They point us to the father who would not give us a stone or a snake. (So why do we insist on giving ourselves those?)
I think the difficult part is the tension of not always knowing when we are acting from a sinful heart, nor when someone else is. Rather than trust the Holy Spirit to do his job, we draw hard lines—good/bad, safe/sinful—thinking that will solve the problem. It doesn’t, as you pointed out. We can literally make an idol out of saying no.
One of the great powers of the internet is that novices in any field can access once hard to come by, if not secret knowledge before even gaining basic competency themselves. The young men you, and I and many others, are concerned about are exactly the types to not read the New Testament enough l, or at all, but skipping quickly to writings of monastics, recluses, and other outliers.
Joel is advertising, he is seeking a wider audience, and rightly so as far as evangelism goes. Seraphim Rose was living in the woods, writing books and letters, mostly for other monks and a small number of devout Orthodox. Very diy. So, the comparison, though fun as all get out, is a bit iffy ;)
I have had the great fortune to have a great earthly father. But it took me a long time to get over my self-hatred to realize that God is truly my Father and that He loves me. Like truly, deeply, more than anyone else can. And he's blessed me abundantly all of my life. I basically have never had health problems, I excelled in school and work... etc. etc. And I know that its all because of Him. And that's fine by me :)
I was truly ungrateful once and it was the one time I experienced some actual physical suffering - I've thanked God ever since for everything.
Anyways, thanks for another positive message, Yoshi.
On your Father Seraphim Rose quotation, I feel like the issue is he is speaking from a monastic position for monastics. So his teachings seem less extreme if you are a part of a monastery where all you do is work and pray. No children, no career pressures, etc.
That is exactly why I do not recommend some of his writings to young Catechumens who lack discernment. A young man, who is not going to be a monk, who should be interested in sex may be harmed to be overzealous and burned out by taking his teaching to seriously.
It is not just Father Seraphim Rose, but many writings from the Saints can be taken too seriously and literally by those who are not ready. We call that prelest, or spiritual delusion.
I really like the youtube Channel “Orthodox Talks” he shows how to discern spiritual writing. For example, a lack of discernment would be reading Father Seraphim’s teaching on food and sex and trying to implement that on your own in the world. That will cause harm.
St Porphyrios, Elder Ephraim, and St Paisios are the modern Saints I read. They do not present a strictness to the public that should be reserved for monastics. They speak to the public in the world with consideration for their circumstances.
“And so I say to you, perhaps this is the self which must be crucified? The self that believes you have to earn it. The one that has no stomach for the free gifts of Grace?
Maybe that’s the self you must deny.”
I love the idea that it was ME who demanded blood sacrifice because I was too focused on having my grace come at a cost for it to be worthy. That really does make sense to me, rather than the Father needing a blood payment.
Thanks again Yoshi.
Yoshi, sometimes you really frustrate me. And then other times, you make me cry at my desk on the 6th floor of my corporate office.
* 🖐️ Hand Heart ❤️ *
My dad watched Joel Osteen on antenna tv, and introduced me to his sermons. I will always be grateful because he reached my dad where it seemed others couldn't, even though I went through periods where I got caught up trying to fit in with the evangelicals who attack Osteen's approach.
The self-mortification arc is certainly frustrating. I like your thought on the rebirth as a recognition that we don't have to earn good things from the Father, that they're free gifts because God is good!
St. Aquinas said to love is to will the good of the other, and I think carrying our crosses means to love when it's hard, when there is conflict. I heard a preacher say that a Christian yields, and I think it's in those times that we die to self. But really, it's all the other side of the second Great Commandment - to love our neighbour as ourselves.
“You know, Christ’s passion lasted for less than 24 hours, yet it is all we focus on. The 29,000 hours before that of good health, friendship, and eating and drinking we pretend never happened, just as we pretend that John wrote “Jesus wept”, not because it was rare and noteworthy for him to do so, but because that was his default state. We make Christ out to be a man of sorrows. We never paint him happy. We never, ever, draw a smile on his face.”
Every time I point this out to a Pious Sufferer™️, I get a dazed look in response.
Priests especially love to point to the cross when you’re looking at a choice between years, even decades, worth of suffering and not.
People do draw smiles on the face of Christ, though.
I don’t read the “never, ever” portion there literally.
Then why would someone spend the time put the two words there? What's interesting is that Jesus is rarely shown in anger/wroth. We usual get a side or back view. People do focus on the negative parts of the faith, but the other side is there if you go looking.
Banger. I’ve never gotten the Joel hate tbh. I think you’re probably right about the motivation behind it. And he never signs off saying dedicate all your wealth and life to Lakewood, he says “Get in a good local bible-based church”, sure sign of a grifter 🙄
And as to the plain meaning of love, when I held my first child for the first time the scriptural references to the Father all lit up in an indescribable and dazzling depth and through any hardship since has never really changed. Just what I felt in that moment holding her magnified unto infinity is too beautiful to comprehend, you can only accept it.
There is a spiritual lure to the pharisee - his call to rigor, separation, purity, respect for tradition, long prayers, fasting, good works, rejection of the ungodly, being part of a truly godly caste. It’s a distorted mirror image of true spirituality. Jesus warned of the infectious yeast of the Pharisee and Sadducee
Wow! As someone who was a part of the Pentecostal, holiness, Anabaptist, and even Orthodox this really resonated with me. I’ve since deconstructed from all of those groups, but I still have the mindset of struggle and denial, and so forth. Thank you so much for this enlightening article. Also, the Scriptures say that there is the beauty of holiness.
I dunno why this resonates so well but it does. That unbridled optimism in the face of certain death always wins me. If I were a Christian, I’d be an optimistic one, otherwise why even bother, right?
In the case of religion, I think the crazier it gets, the better. The goal is to short-circuit the logical/ego brain center to lower its defenses against the all-powerful love bomb of God.
Today Yoshi's take is good. Channeling Byung chul-Han here.
My wonderful grandmother (cradle Italian Catholic, moved away from churchgoing gradually without rejecting the Church) loved Osteen, watched him most Sundays, before she started declining last year.
I admit that I, when I was going through my super-Catholic phase, inwardly sneered a bit at her devotion to him. A wealthy televangelist, honestly?
But I never heard him preach, in that time, anything wrong or harmful—indeed, despite the televangelistic affect that drives me up the wall, his message is more Christian and certainly more gospel-focused, more about good news, than many Catholic priests I knew.
And that’s where I remain re: him, while being ashamed for my youthful sneering. (God, if I could reverse my grandmother’s decline I’d watch any number of televangelists; that’d be the least I’d be willing to do.) Despite the teeth and the money, he’s preaching good news without the scammery of most televangelists. Good for him.
From the end of Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy”:
“He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”
Really heartwarming piece. I have always preferred to think of Christ as the smiling-eating-drinking-happy Wedding at Canae Jesus, even if my own religious severity and scrupulosity gets in the way. I guess Jesus didn't get the memo that life was supposed to be constant suffering.
I sometimes think less of myself because I didn't become a monastic, but I suppose there's a negative way of looking at it. Maybe people need asceticism because they are weak, instead of ascending towards it because they are strong.
This is bold but very good. I’m so grateful you’re speaking out about this. I literally wrote an entire novel as a parable of this. It’s so so needed. I remember reading a similar reaction from St Augustine in response to bishops encouraging marital intimacy. (Following in your audacious foot steps and coming at one of the saints.😬) The Fact is, we participate in many things that are not sinful in themselves, with sinful hearts and minds. We have been sanctified, are still being sanctified, and will be sanctified. Are all things lawful? Yes. But are all things good for us? No. It’s because we cant always take part in them without sin, but removing them doesn’t automatically remove the heart problem, so that’s where our focus should be.
That’s basically the message of the Sermon on the Mount, right? Jesus laid out examples of stringent rules the Jews were taught to follow, and then tore down their false safety nets, “But I say…” and taught them it was deeper, it was the heart. And then THANK YOU for pointing out the feasting and friendship and working alongside one another with joy that preceded his passion! I think these gifts of good food and relationships and tigers and birds are part of God’s visible and invisible attributes. They point us to the father who would not give us a stone or a snake. (So why do we insist on giving ourselves those?)
I think the difficult part is the tension of not always knowing when we are acting from a sinful heart, nor when someone else is. Rather than trust the Holy Spirit to do his job, we draw hard lines—good/bad, safe/sinful—thinking that will solve the problem. It doesn’t, as you pointed out. We can literally make an idol out of saying no.
Anyways. All that to say, great post!
Thank you!
One of the great powers of the internet is that novices in any field can access once hard to come by, if not secret knowledge before even gaining basic competency themselves. The young men you, and I and many others, are concerned about are exactly the types to not read the New Testament enough l, or at all, but skipping quickly to writings of monastics, recluses, and other outliers.
Joel is advertising, he is seeking a wider audience, and rightly so as far as evangelism goes. Seraphim Rose was living in the woods, writing books and letters, mostly for other monks and a small number of devout Orthodox. Very diy. So, the comparison, though fun as all get out, is a bit iffy ;)