Tag Archives: sorrow

What Athanasius knew.

death, quotes, saints, world events, , , , , , , ,

Psalm 58:8

Thou tellest my wanderings:
put thou my tears into thy bottle:
are they not in thy book?

The more one researches current events, historical accounts, and the tangled web of cultures and civilizations going back to the foundation of the world, the more likely is a fall into worry and even despair. We fear especially for children who have to grow up in a violent era, as many have done. That’s why I take courage from the life of St. Athanasius, and pray that my children, grandchildren, godchildren, and all of us, might learn deep in our souls what he knew. The following is an excerpt from a post I wrote several years ago in a time of sorrow. I have shared the quote from his treatise more recently than that, but I hope you might agree with me that it’s worth rereading:

I learned in the short account of the life of Athanasius at the beginning of his On the Incarnation, that the last and worst persecution of Christians ended in Egypt in 311 A.D., when Athanasius was about fourteen. From the age of five he had lived with the constant threat of death, and with the ever-present reality of persecution of his friends and family. The behavior of the ungodly is irrational and inhuman, and tends to cause great pain and suffering, often unto death, not only of the innocent but also of the most Christ-like. As an adult the scenes and events of his childhood seem to be fresh in his mind when he writes:

“A very strong proof of this destruction of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by the present fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Saviour, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish. But now that the Saviour has raised his body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection. But that devil who of old wickedly exulted in death, now that the pains of death are loosed, he alone it is who remains truly dead.”

Thessaloniki – Rubble at Church of the Acheiropoietos

What is it I almost remember?

beauty, poetry, quotes, , , , , , ,

What Dorothy Parker describes in her poem below reminds me of what C.S. Lewis called sehnsucht, the heart’s longing, seemingly for its home – in God. These episodes often happen at moments when we experience something very good or beautiful, and realize deep in ourselves that it doesn’t quite satisfy, but only reveals our homesickness.

In The Weight of Glory Lewis describes this aching in our heart:

 “In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence….

“We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. 

“…These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.”

Peder Monsted

TEMPS PERDU

I never may turn the loop of a road
Where sudden, ahead, the sea is lying,
But my heart drags down with an ancient load–
My heart, that a second before was flying.

I never behold the quivering rain–
And sweeter the rain than a lover to me–
But my heart is wild in my breast with pain;
My heart, that was tapping contentedly.

There’s never a rose spreads new at my door
Nor a strange bird crosses the moon at night
But I know I have known its beauty before,
And a terrible sorrow along with the sight.

The look of a laurel tree birthed for May
Or a sycamore bared for a new November
Is as old and as sad as my furtherest day–
What is it, what is it, I almost remember?

-Dorothy Parker

the poet

Be still, sad heart!

poetry, weather, , ,

THE RAINY DAY

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If you have a heavy heart, that is okay.

death, grief, humanity, love, , , , ,

Saturday being the day of Sabbath rest, we Orthodox often have memorial services this day, and pray for those who rest in death, waiting for the Resurrection. For that reason I thought to share these words spoken at a funeral earlier this year. But also, my parish has seen two of our community fall asleep in death this month, and we are feeling the sorrow right now. Read on to hear what the rabbis say:

“If you have a heavy heart and are grieving, that is OK. We weep for those we love and who have loved us. One hears from time to time: ‘Oh, you should not cry. He is in a better place.’ But Christ God Himself wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. And the rabbis say that God weeps at the death of every human being. So, don’t be afraid to weep.

“You can also hear it said among some Christian groups: ‘Oh, that is not Father Anthony. He is with the Lord! That is just a shell.’ I ask you then who is that there in our midst?! You see, to be a human being is to be a soul enfleshed, that is, a soul wrapped in a physical body. Angels do not have bodies.

“The tragedy of death is that the union of soul and body is torn asunder! That is why Christ died a real human death, and rose from the dead as a real human person, his body and spirit united again. Fr. Anthony’s body is as much Fr. Anthony as is his soul which awaits the last day when it will receive a new body.”

-Archbishop Benjamin at the funeral of Father Anthony Karbo, March 2024

Memory eternal!