Èíîêèíÿ Ìàðãàðèòà (Õîõåâàóä) (Óîëñèíãåì, Âåëèêîáðèòàíèÿ).
Initially I looked at the definitions of the words
“Theology” and
“Reality”, which I found very revealing and inspiring.
For Theology the following definitions were given:
• Study of or System of (especially
Christian) religion
• Rational analysis of a
religious faith
• The study of the nature of
God and religious belief
And for Reality:
• Property of being real,
resemblance to original;
• Real existence; what is
real, what underlies appearances
• Existent thing
• Real nature of
• The state of things as they
actually exist, to an idealistic or
notional idea of them.
• A thing that exists in fact,
having previously only existed in one’s
mind (we want to make the dream a reality)
• The quality of being
life-like
in PHILOSOPHY:
• Existence that is absolute,
self-sufficient, or objective, and not
subject to human decisions or conventions.
This, one could say, is describing God as the Ultimate
Reality.
But I must say that the definitions of Theology were not
entirely
satisfactory. Theology, as we understand it, is far
more than
knowledge about God obtained through academic studies. It is
alo the
experience or experiencing of God: Christianity is a living
faith,
founded on revelation engendered or born of the Holy Spirit.
Metropolitan Anthony’s conversion is a very good example of
this, as
it came about by “encountering” Christ, or Christ revealing
Himself,
or by using Vladika’s own words he says that while he was
reading the
beginning of St Mark’s Gospel . . . “I suddenly became aware
that on
the other side of my desk there was a presence. And the
certainty was
so strong that it was Christ standing there that it never
left me.
This was the real turning point. Because Christ was alive …”
(the
Essence of Prayer, page xiv).
It is important not to forget about the experience or
experiencing of God.
When we look at the etymology of the word Theology it is a
combination
of two Greek words: Theos – meaning God; and Logos,
importantly and
something we, maybe, at times, forget about, can mean:
wisdom, reason,
action, as well as, word.
This, one could say, is describing God as the Ultimate
Reality.
Reading and re-reading and pondering the definitions, and
thinking
about them, made me turn this way, and that, but in the end
it made me
turn to the first book in the Bible, Genesis, and read,
attentively,
the first few Chapters, as if I was reading them for the
very first
time.
And I was overawed by the beauty and wisdom of what I read:
here is
summed up our whole story of creation and salvation, in a
VERY compact
form, and who would, when reading it, not believe that God,
the
Trinity, is the Creator of the Universe, that God exists,
that He is
Glorious? That we could sing out with the psalmist:
How magnificent are thy works, O Lord, in wisdom hast thou
made them
all! (ps. 103)
Now if I may, I would like to read to you the first five
verses of the
first chapter (of Genesis), as what is described in these
verses
stands out, I find, from everything that happens after, and
I would
like to share a little of the riches hidden in these verses.
1. In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth.
2. And the earth was without
void and form; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the
waters.
3. And God said, let there be
light: and there was light.
4. And God saw the light, that
it was good; and God divided the light
from the darkness.
5. And God called the light
Day and the darkness he called Night. And
the evening and the morning were the first day.
(Quote from the King James Version)
So: we hear of God who exists before time, and who acts and
creates
–the word in Hebrew is bara – from the root B R – from which
the word
to speak –dibar- is formed. If we vocalise the letters D B R
differently and say Devar – we have the word “word”. E.g.
Deuteronomy
is Devarim – the beginning runs like this: ele devarim asher
Moshe
dibar el ha-kal-israel – these are the words Moses spoke to
all
Israel.
It is not amiss to think of DBR-Word in connection with God
the Word
i.e. His Son, Jesus Christ – according to St. John’s gospel,
In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the
Word was
God. (the Hebrew uses DBR – divar)
We hear of the Spirit of God MOVING upon the face of the
waters. In
Hebrew the word used is: m’rachefet, which can have a
variety of
meanings: to hover, to brood, to hatch, to shake, to tremble,
to
float; and in this context, I would like to draw your
attention to: to
brood/to hatch, as it reflects the connotation that the
Spirit of God,
which is the Holy Spirit (Basil the Great and Ephraim the
Syrian), the
Giver of Life, is actively taking part in bringing out/bringing
forth
. . .
This is what St Ephraim the Syrian says:
“It was fitting for the Holy spirit to hover as a proof that
in
creative power He is equal to the Father and the Son. For
the Father
uttered, the Son created, and it was fitting for the Spirit
also to
offer His work. And this He did by hovering, thereby clearly
showing
that all was brought into being and accomplished by the
Trinity”.
And elsewhere he says –commentary on the activity of the
Spirit on the
first day-:
“The Holy Spirit warms the waters and made them fertile and
capable of
birth, like a bird when it sits with its outstretched wings
on its
eggs and by its warmth gives them warmth and produces
fertility in
them. This same Holy Spirit represented for us then an image
of Holy
Baptism, in which by His moving over the waters He gives
birth to the
children of God”.
I also would like to say something about the Waters. One
wonders how
can the Spirit move over the Waters? When were they created?
And how
can He, after creating the firmament, divide the waters into
waters
under and waters above the firmament? (In vs. 6 and 7 on the
second
day). In the Hebrew text the word employed for Heaven in
verse 1, is
hashamayim, which is a contraction of the word for fire –esh-
and
water –mayim-.
It was dark (there was darkness upon the face of the deep)
and God
said (ve’imer – not related to bara; according to Saint
Athanasius the
Great God spoke to his only begotten Son): let there be
light, and
there was light. And God saw that the light was GOOD – in
Hebrew tov –
which has a sense of being pleased/taking pleasure in. If
you read the
remainder of the first chapter you will see that God says
this every
time about the things He has made. And at the end when He
saw EVERY
thing he had made, he says: behold, it was VERY GOOD (Gen.
1:31).
And then God divides the light from darkness – the light He
calls DAY
and the darkness NIGHT. And there was evening and there was
morning,
day one or one day. (yom echad).
This verse is rather mysterious or full of mystery and
wonder:
Light has come, and darkness has been dispelled. But all the
same
boundaries are placed between the darkness and the light,
the light is
called Day and the darkness Night. It was evening, it was
morning, day
One. So the Light comes, the Light goes. And please take
note, it is
before the Sun and the Moon are created!
All that happens on Day One is so awesome and there is a
quality, by
lack of a better word, to it, which is not repeated in what
follows.
And so the story of creation unfolds in a most beautiful and
orderly
manner. Then as a “crowning”, last act, God says: “Let us
make man
(chelovek; in Hebrew Adam) in Our image, according to Our
likeness.
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the
birds of
heaven, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every
creeping thing that moves on the earth. So God made man (chelovek,
adam); in the image of God He made him; male and female He
made them.
(Gen.1: 26-27)
It is worthwhile to note that God initially says Let us make
man in
Our image and according to Our likeness (verse 26) and
subsequently we
read (verse 27): in the image of God he made him; male and
female He
made them.
So the word “likeness” has disappeared, however, it remains
something
for Man to become / to attain to (theosis).
God blesses them and says: Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish
the earth, and subdue it, and gives them every seed-bearing
herb, and
every tree, whose fruit yields seeds, as food to eat. And to
the
animals he gives all the green vegetation. So everybody (Man
and
animals) was a vegan (herbivore). (Gen 1:28-3-).
God planted a garden especially, for Man to live in.
And not only the
garden. God created everything (the whole universe) not only
for our
use (ie. for Men), but also that we, seeing the great wealth
of
creation, might be astonished at the might of the creator
and might
understand that all this was created with wisdom and
unutterable
goodness for the honour of Man. (St. John Chrysostom)
In the middle of the garden God plants two special trees: 1.
The tree
of life; 2. The tree of learning of the knowledge of good
and evil.
Adam can eat the fruit from all the trees, but is commanded
not to eat
from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for whatever
day he eats
from it he shall surely die by death (moth tamoth).
So Adam and Eve live in paradise, literally in a blissful
state.
We all know what happens Adam and Eve did eat, and with
profound
consequences, not only for mankind, but also for all of
creation.
Firstly they saw they were naked. The unique unity that
existed
between Adam and Eve is broken, they do not see each other
any longer
as the same being, but as another being, or not as the
other-myself,
but as the other-other, so opposed to one another (paraphrase
of
Metr.Anthony); and they need to hide from one another: they
cover
themselves with figleaves and then, when they hear God
walking in the
garden, they hide from Him. And God, not seeing them, calls
out: Adam
where art thou?
Adam answers that they had to hide since they were naked.
Then God starts questioning Adam first, who mentions Eve;
then Eve,
who mentions the Serpent; and then God makes a pronouncement
on each
one of them:
. He curses the Serpent and
circumscribes him: his head shall be
bruised; so we know the serpent will not have the last word,
so to
speak.
We might ask ourselves, his head shall be bruised, but how?
According
to the Fathers by the Cross.
. To the woman he says:
(Gen.3:16) I will greatly multiply thy sorrow
and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children: and thy
desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;
. To Adam he says, vs. 17:
Because they have eaten God cursed the
ground, and tells them what their lives will be like from
now on. “In
sorrow shalt thou eat of it (the ground) all the days of thy
life.
Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou
shalt eat
the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread,
till thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou
taken: for
dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”. (Gen 3:
19);
. And then before banning
them from the garden of Eden, God made them
coats of skin and clothed them. Eden he protects at the east
by
Cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way to
keep the way
of the tree of life.
On the Sunday of Forgiveness, on which we commemorate The
Casting Out
of Adam from Paradise, the Church sings:
Adam was cast out of Paradise through eating from the tree.
Seated
before the gates he wept, and lamented with a pitiful voice
and
saying: “Woe is me, what have I suffered in my misery! I
transgressed
one commandment of the Master, and now I am deprived of
every
blessing. O most holy Paradise, planted for my sake and shut
because
of Eve, pray to Him that made thee and fashioned me, that
once more I
may take pleasure in thy flowers”. Then the Saviour said to
him: “I
desire not the loss of the creature which I fashioned, but
that he
should be saved and come to knowledge of the truth; and when
he comes
to me I will not cast him out.
Let us take note: The mission/task of Man, be fruitful etc.
and to
grow into God’s likeness (i.e. theosis), does NOT change and
neither
does God abandon the world on the contrary. He will continue
to send
His messengers in the form of prophets, and finally His Own
Son.
BUT the gap between God and Man, and Man and Man, has
widened ever
since. I think that is how we experience it. Even when we
know that in
Christ the gap has been bridged.
First we have the sin of Cain who kills his brother Abel out
of jealousy.
Then the earth, because it is so full of sin, is drowned
with all that
is in it, except Noah and his family, and the animals in the
ark. To
which someone added: And the fish, of course, they did not
drown!
After the Flood, God blesses Noah and his kin with the same
words as
he did Adam at the beginning of creation: Be fruitful, and
multiply
and replenish the earth. Originally He gave “greens/vegetables”
as
food, NOW God adds something else: and the fear of you and
the dread
of you shall be upon every beast of the earth . . . . Every
moving
thing that liveth shall be meat for you (Gen.9: 1-3).
Man can kill, not to say murder, an animal for food. So Man
commences
to live with ‘killing’, which is a far cry from the
beginnings in
paradise.
And when we look at today’s world, with all the horrific
things goingon, apart from killing animals, for a basic necessity, we
kill it for
luxury. E.g. let us say 200 grs of meat in a week is enough
to
maintain a healthy diet. But what do we do? We maybe eat 3x
as much!
And not only with meat, we do it with every thing, we
exploit the
earth’s resources not only for necessities, but for luxuries
(pleasure), and for personal gain (wealth) at the cost and
deprivation, and exploitation of others, resulting in wars
and killing
of each other.
The Fall –falling away from God- is like a wound that runs
through all
creation and through our own heart and has made us weak, but
when we
allow ourselves to be weak, in the sense that we are aware
that we are
weak, the grace of God can be strong. (2Cor.12:9-11).
Also, I have been pondering about the existence of the two
trees in
the Garden of Eden, especially the tree of the learning of
the
knowledge of good and evil. My impression is, that the
commandment not
to eat from its fruit was given by God out of Love for Man.
You see, God in fact acknowledges what the serpent had
suggested to
Eve, that they will be like gods, knowing good and evil.
(Gen.3: vs.5
and vs.22).
The same as the sending forth from the garden, I also am
tended to
think it was an act of love.
I do apologize that I can’t say more about this now, as this
would be
a subject of another paper.
Recently I was at a Youth Conference of about 800 youths,
where the
following question was posed:
Who of you has got more than one pair of trainers?
Most of the hands went up, and there were those youngsters
who were
very proud/happy/keen to share that they had at least TEN
pairs!
And there were some who only had one pair, and some who had
no pair at all.
And here is another story:
A Goddaughter rang her Godfather to ask him what he would
get her for
her birthday.
He said he did not know, what did she need, did she have any
suggestions. She was not so sure, maybe a new designer dress?
The
Godfather knowing that her father was a rather successful
businessman,
and that she had cupboards full of clothes, said to her: Oh
I see,
hum, hum, I am not so sure, why don’t you think about it and
give me a
ring when you know what you NEED?
You see the reality is that there is a BIG difference
between what you
WANT and what you NEED.
To be fair to the goddaughter she rang her Godfather again
to say
there was not anything she actually needed.
0-0-0-0-0-
To several people I posed the question: Do you think we face
up to reality?
None of them thought we actually did, and that it was rather
difficult
to do, but some interesting conversations followed.
One of the persons said:
The World is full of temptations and encourages you to use
your
imagination that will lead you to fantasy.
The Church encourages you to use your imagination to lead
you to Reality; Truth.
And to clarify, the person used the word ‘imagination’ in
the following sense:
“Well, when I set out to do something, I can imagine what
effect it
might have on somebody else”.
As it appears to be rather difficult to face up to Reality,
how do we
avoid it, what do we do instead?
And there was a conversation that really made me think and
reflect,
which I would like to share with you.
One can escape from Reality in different ways: for example
alcohol,
drugs, occupying oneself with many (good) things, like
Martha, to name
but a few.
Another way is trying to be someone one is not. For example,
one gets
caught up in the world, making money or wanting to have a
higher
social status.
One has the idea to earn a living, and a very good living at
that, in
becoming a lawyer in the City (of London). A good stable job,
good
prospects, long hours, and a very good renumeration (salary).
Firstly, when one has got a job interview one wants to look
the part
i.e. “professional”, and one would like to maintain that
image when
one has got the job.
One dresses to express something one hopes to be or become
and one
wants other people to think one IS like that.
Secondly, there are not many people who are well suited for
being a
lawyer in the City, because that way of life does not allow
much time
for reflection. If one needs time to reflect, one can’t do
it, and
can’t live that kind of life and you simply will not be
happy. You
will be forcing yourself into a situation that you, so to
speak, have
not been made for. Your gifts might lie elsewhere. We all
have been
given different talents to work with.
When one stays “closer to oneself”, i.e. when one is with
God and
accepts who one is, then one doesn’t lose time and does not
become
distracted by pursuing an idealized vision of oneself, which
one can’t
possibly attain, because one is not made that way.
When one gives first place to God and turns to Him, one can
become who
one is or is meant to be, and if one does not pre-occupy
oneself with
whom one thinks one wants to be, one finds one has TIME to
turn and to
listen to God.
One thinks: “O God has a plan for me” and one tries to think
out what
this plan is. One thinks it is a ready-made plan, and it
might be very
difficult for someone set in this mode to grasp that that is
not quite
the case.
God has such respect for Man, and for Man’s free will, that
He leaves him free!
God has created us, Mankind, so that we could participate in
His
divine life (1Peter1:4) or to put it differently, His “plan”
is to be
present with each one of us in our every day life, using
circumstances, examples, words or thoughts to restrain us
from sinning
and to draw us to real good.
When one starts following this plan of making God, the Holy
Trinity,
the centre of one’s life, turning to and listening to Him,
one should
become happy with oneself, and then one will be doing the
things one
should be doing.
One must give up/surrender all one’s worries and all one
thinks one
should be, and accept what God has made one to be.
Or in other words, it is the way of the Cross, of continual
repentance, and a way of “joyful mourning”.
(Luke 10:38-42 and Luke 14:27-33).
That can be easier said, than done! Of course!
Facing Reality requires Openess and Courage, also Humility,
Acceptance
and Dieing.
But where do we start? How to acquire these characteristics?
Christ, before performing his miracles, often asks: do you
believe I
can do it? It is active faith in Him, even when it is
very, very
small like a mustard seed ... it can move mountains. (St.
Matthew
17:20).
Our faith often is small, not to say tiny, and has not
“blossomed out”
as yet, though we imagine it has . . . and when we
discover this, the
enemy whispers to us that it is not worth it, there is no
point. It
sounds very logical, and we think we have lost all faith and
get
discouraged.
But Christ says, that the little we have suffices, over and
over again.
There are the two stories of the multiplication of the
loaves and fishes:
(St. John; St. Mark & St. Matthew).
The disciples thought: what is a few loaves and fishes
against
thousands of people? Nothing! It simply won’t do, it is not
going to
be enough and it is not worth it, even to try to give a few
to eat.
And yet! With Christ these loaves and fishes feed
multitudes; so much
so, that when they gather up the crumbs, they fill many
baskets!
So let us not grow weary and lose heart, but let us fix our
eyes on
Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith! (Hebrews
12:2,3).
Vladika once said: don’t lose heart, for there is hope,
HOPE, HOPE!!!
In Christ and in His Most Pure Mother.
So, Let us turn to our help, our hope and sure protection,
our Most
Holy Lady, the Mother of God.
Let us turn to her, through whom we have been made godlike.
(Vespers
of the Dormition)
Let us learn from her, who is so full of grace, what it
means to face Reality.
Let us learn from her Openess and Courage, Humility,
Acceptance and Dieing.
She who said: Let it be to me according to thy word and gave
birth to
the Saviour of our souls! (St. Luke 1:38; tropar Hail,
Mother of God).
Let us turn to her who is the Mother of Life and has passed
over into
life! (Tropar of the Dormition; tone 1).
Thy birth, O Mother of God, has brought joy to all the
inhabited
earth: for from thee has shone forth the Sun of
Righteousness, Christ
our God. He has loosed us from the curse and given the
blessing; He
has made death of no effect, and bestowed on us eternal
life.
(Tropar of the Nativity of the Mother of God; tone 4).
Eve of the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God.
27/14 August 2015
Eve of the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God.
20/7 September 2015
Sr. Margarita,
Little Walsingham
England’s Nazareth
