This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Why Orthodoxy? Final Part of IX

Conclusion: What Remains; or, Why I Haven't Yet Been Chrismated (Part IX of IX)

[Note: The entire series can be found here, with the first entry at the bottom, and this last entry at the top.]

I have tried to describe, as summarily as possible, those aspects of Orthodoxy which have drawn me to seek the Orthodox Church. Being the sort of person that I am, the original force of my inquiry was largely historical and doctrinal. (I have described this aspect of the journey elsewhere.) But once I'd been intellectually satisfied--and for me, an important quest must have intellectual validity--it soon became clear that the journey had only just begun. For it is now incumbent upon me to turn that intellectual gain to lived experience.

This aspect of my journey became more clear to me during the Nativity Fast last year (precipitated by news of Anna's pregnancy with Sofie), but really came to the fore during Great Lent of this year. Heeding the counsel of my priest, I attempted to keep the fast of the first week of Lent, and I read daily from Unseen Warfare. In the combination of success and failure of my struggle with the askesis of the start of Lenten fasting, and with that my contemplation of the texts of Unseen Warfare, I made the slow beginnings of the transition from mere thinking about the life of Faith, to more thoughtful living of the Faith.

Back in July 2000, when I first began to seriously inquire about Orthodoxy, I had been attracted to the idea of the Orthodox Church. But I was still too plugged into my own preferrences. By this same time last year I knew Orthodoxy to be what it claimed. And in the ensuring year I have in small ways experienced the most scintillant of glimpses into the reality of that Truth.

However, before I can be fully illumined, I have had to put my own house in order.

My spiritual pilgrimage from my heritage churches to the Episcopal Church was not handled very well in terms of my relationship with my wife. I was chasing the "big idea" I saw with regard to historical connectedness to the Church, and the power of the sacraments and liturgical worship. My wife wanted me to put on the brakes. I refused, albeit as politely as I could. And in that refusal I incurred a huge deficit in terms of my spiritual headship in the home. After a few years, Anna was more willing to allow me my continued journey in the Episcopal Church, so much so that she acquiesced to my attending seminary. Throughout it all, however, she steadfastly refused to become a member of the Episcopal Church. Then, with our experience at an Episcopal seminary, her willingness to allow me my opportunity to journey the Anglican way was more severely tested than either of us could ever have imagined. That she did not abandon our marriage--though seminary put the most desparate of strains on our relationship--is a testimony to her love and faithfulness. Since it was during all this that I began to turn from Anglicanism as a dead end in my search to the Orthodox Church as something of a last gasp, it is little wonder that Anna was sceptical about it. I had forfeited her trust in my spiritual leadership when I failed to give serious considerations to her objections to the Episcopal Church. That legitimacy of that forfeiture, for her, was hammered home again and again as we confronted each and every problem the Episcopal Church presented.

So, in July 2002, after two years of inquiry into Orthodoxy, and some six months after having left the Episcopal Church, it was hardly any surprise that Anna's reaction to my seriousness about the Orthodox Chuch was warmly opposed. In the ensuing year and a half, it has been my task to rebuild the trust in my headship of the home, and, more specifically, in matters spiritual.

While on retreat at an Episcopal Benedictine monastery in October last fall, I began to pray quite specifically about the common journey of our household into the Orthodox Church (my prayers had been much more generic to that point), as well as to take on a new devotion to the Mother of God. It was during that autumn weekend that I first prayed the Akathist to the Theotokos, and sought her intercessions specifically for my wife. About a month and a half later we discovered that Anna was pregnant.

It was then that I was more fully aware than I'd ever been before, that the sort of changes I needed to make in myself involved much more than making sure my family and I prayed at mealtimes, read Scripture together and went to church. I'm still a long ways from being the husband I need to be, but Sofie's advent, by God's grace and the intercessions of the Mother of God, has helped me to be the sort of husband Anna needs.

And it is just here that I have come to see how pervasively the Orthodox Faith transforms all of our existence. It's not just about ideas. It's not merely about political activism. It's not about mere good deeds. It's a change of heart, soul, mind and body. Even during sleep, the Orthodox pray for protection from impure thoughts and from the wiles of the Enemy. It is an absolute life change.

I think once Anna began to see the ever so slight changes in me, she began to consider that the search I was on with regard to the Orthodox Church was much more legitimate than she might previously have thought. Then, too, she was encountering the frustration of her own expectations about the Church being continually disappointed by the churches here with which we've had contact. She acquiesced on Mother's Day to go with me to All Saints. As it happened, the sermon was on the Orthodox view of women. That could not but win over my wife, since Orthodoxy avoids the denigration of women in some fundamentalist sects, and the heresy of personhood in some of the liberal sects. She returned again on my birthday. And each time the love and attention of the parishioners broke through. Here, she saw, were those who really lived what they believed.

We are now at the point that All Saints is our common place of worship. This is a most major step. We have not had a common church home since our move to Chicago (since Anna refused to take part in what she saw going on in the Episcopal churches here). That was nearly four years ago.

Is Anna on her own journey to Orthodoxy? I cannot tell. Nor is it a matter of urgency at the moment. We have made significant steps in the last four months. These things have only happened through patience and persistent prayer.

I am more hopeful than ever, however, that by God's grace and our personal repentance and transformation, we will eventually find ourselves chrismated in the Orthodox Church. We will have finally found the home we have sought each in our own way, and our daughter will be the first cradle Orthodox in either of our families.

But there is much to do between now and then. Much patience and love to exercise. Much prayer to undertake.

Still and all, our God is good and loves mankind. That we have come this far is a testimony to his particular care and attention. On this day the Lord has acted, let us rejoice and give thanks.

Posted by Clifton at December 7, 2003 03:12 PM | TrackBack