When the Homily is about Immunology

More weeping, less arguing

Hey, if you've been here for enough time, or you know me well in person then I have no need to maintain pretenses of holiness, exceptionally in-depth wisdom, lots of letters behind my name, or a spritiuality that afford me the ability to add to the philokalia. I am rather fond of myself and LOVE people to think highly of me, but I'm not so stupid to think that people cannot see through the facade that I think we humans "naturally" tend to try and put up. Surely I have pruposefully and likely not without a certain amount of "look at how humble I am" self-deceit, admitted to this sort of thing before.

Sometimes I worry about my faith being more a philosophical excercise than a real meeting with the living God. Perhaps Orthodoxy is helping me to see this, because this realization is exposing roots that began growing long before I even knew what Orthodoxy was. I think if Orthodoxy is slapping you around some, your not doing it right. Sigh...be careful...even those who get themselves downtrodden and depressed with "woe is unto me a miserable sinner" need a good slapping around. We all do.

For me: How fun it is to argue, like a good sport, it is a joy to back an opponent into an intellectual corner and slay them. And while I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with such sport, for really how different is it from slaying your opponents in a marathon or on a tennis court? But what if the intellectual battle becomes nothing more than sport...inadvertantly? It's like being chased by a mountain lion and calling it the 100 meter dash, laughing and having fun are we?

Love is the difference. Love is the key component of the Christian argument, often lacking in my apologetics. What if I could weep for unrepentant sinners, as opposed to simply going off into an argumentative tirade? (For that matter, what if I could weep a bit for my own sins of which I claim to be repentant?)

We have such a wonderful faith...so different than all other faiths (despite what Huston Smith erroneously believes - oh dear am I being argumentative?) in that God joined us. He became us. And perfectly related to this is what a monk once told me about Christian holiness: It can be summed up with the simple notion that we let our "I" encompass "we".

Once in a while (O how I wish it were more often) I get a very deep sense of love and devotion for my children that overwhelms me...I get teary eyed and often find myself lamenting for my failings as a father and in due course try and muster the courage to be a better parent. But that intense love is an amazing thing...because I begin to really touch the "otherness" of my children and that sense of "otherness" fades...or perhaps it is the "I" which fades. My "I" is, in that moment, teetering on the brink of becoming "we".

I want to grab hold of that love...not to possess it, but to be possessed by it (or should I say Him?), for I believe it is THAT love that God Himself says He is. Can you imagine feeling that same love for perfect strangers? Yes, it is that love that sent Christ to Earth...and it is in the Spirit of that love that holiness ought to be upheld.

In other words, tears would come well before arguments. We Christians tend to err on the side of one of two extremes I fear: either we play up the love to such an extent that God no longer really cares what we do, or we dumb down the love to an extent that God ONLY cares what you do. Extremes...but beware their subtleties for they may be found in the details.

This is lunchtime rambling, so forgive me if it is incoherent or particularly messy in its presentation. I just feel like I have been too much interesting in winning debates about a variety of things, and not enough interested in changing myself into the image of God.