Fearing your free-will
SS has some interesting quotes on "children". This one struck me in particular because I think it has application to the lengthy commenting going on regarding the dancing procession.
The simplest means for confining the will within its proper bounds lies in disposing children to do nothing without permission. Let them be eager to run to their parents and ask: May I do this or that? They should be persuaded by their own experience and that of others that to fulfill their own desires without asking is dangerous; they should be put in such a frame of mind that they even fear their own will.
-St Theophan the Recluse, "The Path to Salvation" p 58
Does this change with adulthood? I think not, it changes with purification, illumination, and deification...but not with biological adulthood. Experience has taught me to AT LEAST be weary of my own will.
Comments
My problem with such ideas is that I have lived under such regimes in a Buddhist environment. Basically, such regimes lead to massive amounts of lying and in the worst case insanity on the part of the leaders. Likewise, I with my one visit to a rather well known Orthodox Monastery rather than experiencing sanity on the part of the monks, I experienced quite the opposite. It took my faith a couple years to recover the shock of finding out that books are books and practice is practice.
We all want to make things easy for ourselves. It would be nice to have simple rules. Simple rules make our ego feel like accomplishing something when in fact something quite the opposite is occuring. My favorite example is the story of the disaster of a one priest. The priest was quite fierce about not eating meat during Lent. Unfortunately, that same priest ended up having an adulterous affair that became public and destroyed both his own family and his own priesthood. It would have probably been better to eat some meat during Lent. Who knows, it actually might have saved him from worse.
-Rick
Surrendering our will to someone else's potentially fallible will seems out of bounds as Rick notes. But surrendering to the Church is something different, I hope.
That being said, I am certainly not advocating congregational style governance of the Church.
Having NO trust in your will is probably pathological...but I think the greater eternal danger is putting too much trust in your will.
Now, how to teach THAT to our kids? Well one way is probably to let them make some bad choices.
Example....covered in LOVE!