People can be good to each other

Source: friendship day image hd Free Photo https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/30639071-friendship-day-image-hd

In recent months I have been travelling to Sydney from the South Coast more often than usual to spend as much time as I can with my mother. The grand old lady is increasingly becoming lost inside that terrible thick fog of dementia. It is a heartbreaking experience common to many homes. A few days ago I shared a story inspired by an unexpected encounter during one of these trips as I will often make time to visit some of my favourite places—bookstores and cafes where I will do a great deal of my drafting. I have been to visit mother twice since that little reflection to do with the seminary posted only a few days ago. I am back home wanting to share another moment with you which left an indelible mark on me. It deals with one of my favourite words and the charism found in those beautiful souls we encounter along the way—that is, compassion (to “suffer with”). I do know, I refer to this most important of charities too often. Yet, for some good reason, I am compelled to speak on it. We may not all be capable of sacrificial love, which Jesus might ask of us (1 Jn 3:16), but compassion is always within our reach.

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. (Henri J. M. Nouwen, You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living)

When we look at the world and observe many of the unspeakable horrors constantly rerun before us in various media platforms, it is not difficult to agree with Charles Bukowski that “people are not good to each other” (The Crunch). And, yes, to be truthful, he is not entirely wrong. Bukowski is one of my favourite poets, and though he is much underrated by the academe for a number of reasons, he has left behind confronting insights on the human condition. On this point, however, to do with people, I cannot agree with him without some strong qualification. There are many more good people in the world, who are “good to each other” than the other way round. If good people, those anonymous heroes, everyday saints I would call them, who go about their daily jobs to make sure we are not left without the essentials and that we are kept safe—where to begin and where to end—doctors; aid workers; nurses; hospice staff; plumbers; sanitary engineers; truck drivers; first responders; farmers; industrial workers; volunteers; and even our barbers who we trust to not cut our throats, were to suddenly stop delivering their grace, things would very quickly collapse around us. We do not often hear about these persons for we take such souls for granted until we need them. So it is the warmongers and violent criminals, for instance, which fuel our news broadcasts and fill us with our ‘daily dread’. And to be sure, they inflict untold and horrendous damage, but such saturation of evil makes it even easier to accept this darkness as normative and to sweep aside the majority, that is, the just and decent, who are, indeed, good to each other.

What brought this particular reflection into my heart these past few days? It was the deeply moving and selfless compassion of one young man quietly going about his everyday business. For the moment, lest I embarrass him, let us call him Zayan. I will do my best to explain below—and why I started on another private study on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:29-37). There is a little corner shop not far up the road from where mother lives. I find it important to support these small family businesses and not only for the reason I grew up in such a shop. The young man behind the counter who was still observing Ramadan, was very polite and helped me locate the necessary things for my mother’s dietary requirements. I  complimented him on his courtesy and efficiency and asked him if was studying or working in the business fulltime. This is when my admiration for this young man moved to an enormous respect. He was indeed studying in a Sydney tertiary institution. He told me he was in his second year of a sports physiotherapy degree and was doing well. I suggested to him his career choice given the ubiquity of sport in our lives looked very positive and that he could even open up his own practice one day. Acknowledging these opportunities, he proceeded to share with me that this was not why he had enrolled in this degree.

Zayan went on to tell me the sole purpose of enrolling in this course of studies was to offer his services to those in need—and more especially to help his beloved older brother who suffers from cerebral palsy. These are the meaningful moments in life. The hours when you come face to face with the greatness of the human spirit and our capacity for God. I walked back to my car and never ashamed to admit, I wept. I shed tears for things which I could feel in my heart but could not put rightly into words. For those who are students of the Johannine corpus or have read Blaise Pascal you will get a more proximate sense of what I am grappling with here. Indeed in both instances the appeal would be to a coherent love from the one to the other—both in its original act in the first place and then afterwards in its communication.

When people are good to each other something wonderful will always happen. The goodness received is invariably paid forward. Our old friend Charles Bukowski was not entirely wrong when he spoke on the human condition but at times he could overshoot the mark.

Seminary: The most difficult thing would be to change ourselves

Sydney-Gerringong

“All will be well, and go have a cup of tea.” (Saint Sophrony Sakharov)

In Sydney this morning I had an interesting encounter with a young person at a bookstore when the conversation for one reason turned to seminaries (from the Latin seminarium for “seed plot”). Chance meetings can prove a catalyst to go back into past stories of our lives. I hope one day that I might be able to write down my own seminary experience, the place where some of us go that we might receive an education in theology. It is only afterwards we learn those places are in reality but a training ground for spiritual survival. Even now and after almost four decades, it is not an easy thing for me to revisit this period of my life. Allow me, if you will, to share but a small reflection going back to those times.

This college is unique—and it belongs to all of us. It could be said that it has an Australian body, a Greek mind, a bilingual tongue, and a heart that is distinctively Orthodox. (Dimitri Kepreotes, SAGOTC Students Yearbook, 1988)

Following the final address of our Archbishop Stylianos, His Eminence Metropolitan Maximos read a warm message from His Holiness Patriarch Demetrios. This concluded the official opening and dedication of our new College; the dream was over and the reality of it all was just about to begin. (Spiros Haralambous, SAGOTC Students Yearbook, 1986)

Around fourteen young men of different dispositions and backgrounds started out in our first year of seminary in 1986 as the inaugural class of this new theological school in Australia (being an Eastern Orthodox institution and an accredited member of the Sydney College of Divinity SCD it was the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere). Some of us believed we were going to change the world. No more than a few weeks had passed and then there were nine. The “Messiah Complex” which afflicts a large number of seminarians did not last long. We were enthusiastic but hugely foolhardy in our aspirations. Those of us left after that initial loss of numbers were compelled to lower our original enthusiasm and expectations. Now it was a far more simpler thing, or so we thought, how are we going to change the already compressing atmosphere of our new place of learning. Surely, we could at least do this—could we not? No, not even this. It is true I also discovered, what a discerning soul once said about seminaries, that they will (as a rule) “relegate Jesus to the background.” Not too many more weeks would pass and then we were down to seven.

Finally, let it be said that nothing good comes easy: should you be sincere in studying a “faithful theology” be prepared to carry thy cross. (M. G. Michael (Ed.), SAGOTC Students Yearbook, 1986)

We have triumphed in that we have grown and learnt to accept not only our responsibilities, but our limitations as well, to be more sensitive to our brother’s needs, to realize the importance of study—more importantly, to kneel in prayer. We have failed in that we could have been less assertive, less demanding, slower to anger and reprove, more humble. (Fr. Jeremiah Michael (Ed.), SAGOTC Students Yearbook 1988)

At the start of the second year two more of the younger seminarians would leave. We were now officially down to the “pioneering five”, as our little group would come to be known. As time progressed and each one of us would do battle with their own particular demons and personal disappointments, we arrived at the hardest and most difficult realization of them all—the most difficult thing would be to change ourselves. Metanoia does not play games. I should have known better. I was one of the older seminarians, a former police officer and already a graduate of another academic institution. I was twenty-five years old. Yet, even I would fall into these deep traps. Now, almost forty years later, I continue to fight with the last of these admissions—that indeed, the road to the restoration of the self is not only arduous but also long-lasting. Which, I must confess, has not become any easier and not for any lack of belief. Unless we learn to forgive but more importantly ask to be forgiven, we will not make spiritual progress. Human nature is terribly complex and we can be deceived even by the noblest of our ideals and intentions. So, please, give each other the room and space to grow and to evolve. Who among us has not been broken? The Japanese art of kintsugi has a great deal to teach us. We cannot ever fully know the background story of another soul’s journey or how our actions might adversely hurt them. These things, as well, you learn in a seminary. To teach the Divine Word, and to preach the Gospel, the “Good News”, is not to be taken lightly:

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (Jm. 3:1)

Outside some of the basics which we were able to collect over the four years of study (alas to afterwards even mangle many of those lessons), there remain two enduringly meaningful compensations from that time. First, we have the spirit within us to endure through almost anything so long as we have a reason, that is, a “meaningfulness” to persevere. Second, the most beautiful gift we can offer the other is compassion, that is, to “suffer with the other”—and that any pastoral theology however impressive in its exposition bereft of this charism is entirely, and absolutely without meaning. Lest, I have discouraged any soul from attending seminary (and this is certainly not my intention) there will be great days of spiritual delight, too, when you will believe with all of your heart and mind that here in this place—the sometimes “furnace”—is precisely where you had to come. You will learn to pray if indeed this is the desire of your heart and you will fall to your knees in earnest supplication. Studying theology is good. Practising the content of theology is even better. My only purpose here to forewarn you it is an arena where you must be well prepared to engage in spiritual warfare, at times brutal, with the self and the “bad” side of the ego. Pressures will arrive from every side. You will in all likelihood lose friends. You will be betrayed by some in whom you have placed your trust and perhaps had even loved. Your passions will surely be magnified. We come to seminaries wanting to be a Bonhoeffer or a Spurgeon or a Saint Maximus the Confessor, and then reality hits home hard. Above all let us work diligently on our own piece of clay and where we can help the other to do the same. For this is our lifelong task. Along the lines of what Carl Jung termed, “individuation” (the process of self-realization). We are made in the “image” but we forever work towards the “likeness”. I have thought of Christ’s “forty days and forty nights” (Matt. 4:1-11) in the desert as an analogy in some ways to the seminarian’s own testing—and especially if it leads to the priesthood.

All five who remained were ordained. Of these five, one would later ask to be relieved of their Holy Orders. This fellow was me. A decision, I must also confess, one cannot ever rightly find peace with. Particularly, if you belong to a believing community with entrenched religio-cultural values which are parts of each other. Yet, there is no escaping the fact that I took my hand off the plough and I will one day have to give an account to my Lord. Though I have referred to myself as a theologian, I do not wish to be known as one. The word alone, theologos (“one who speaks of God”), terrifies me for its implications and for the truth that I have every day fallen short of the mark. I am, indeed, the very least of the brethren. It is more than enough to ponder on the grace and mercies of our Creator. To be occasionally filled with an overwhelming awe—and to find opportunities to share this awe of the “tremendous mystery” with our neighbour. During our long walks down by the edge of the Pacific, that I might keep in practice, our beautiful husky, Mishka, will listen patiently as I ‘sermonize’ to her on the vitalness of endurance. Other times I will preach to the fish and the rocks and the trees, for all things are moving towards their transfiguration. This has now been my ‘captive’ congregation since the time of my exile. The photo which I have posted here after much toing and froing, I had not been able to hold for a long time. It is fine now. I have come to be grateful for that hour. I have understood a lot more of that journey in the ensuing years. And why it was necessary for me to cross this path. In spite of that, good things are never too far away for as the Scriptures say: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

MG Michael Family Archives

The annual Greek Australian Literary Journal, ANTIPODES

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The annual Greek Australian Literary Journal, ANTIPODES is one of the most aesthetically pleasing periodicals as you can find anywhere in the world. It is not only a delight to the eye with its fabulous covers and art, but it also does not let you down with its literary content which, of course, is its first priority. Poetry, short stories, essays, translations, book reviews, and more, in both Greek and English grace its pages. The editorial team led by the indefatigable Cathy Alexopoulos (OAM) has managed to tread that fine line of encouraging young and emerging writers whilst at the same time holding strong to its tradition of publishing some of the nation’s finest writers. In recent years this has included notable international authors. This award winning magazine the child of the Greek-Australian Cultural League was first published in 1974. It is the “longest published, bi-lingual periodical circulating in Australia.” It has been rightly described as an “important archival and reference depository.” I have personally over the course of a number of years been very pleased to have seen a selection of my own work appear in its volumes.

There is Prayer and there is Music

There are bottomless horrors in the world. This is a reality we cannot turn our eyes away from. No just theodicy, as it has been posited by our great spiritual thinkers, can ignore the “problem of evil.” It is not beauty which will save the world for sometimes there is no beauty to speak of (and it is only rarely I would dare disagree with Dostoevsky). But here I do. If the world is to be saved, it is not even through love in the first instance, for self-sacrificial love as history has indicated to us, is beyond the capacity of most human beings. If the world is to be saved at all, it will be as a result of compassion. That is, to suffer with the other. And this in itself is oftentimes hard enough, yet it is not an impossible grace. Dig deep enough, you will find it there, in the hearts of most people. Then there are those days when words alone cannot describe the overwhelming suffering and utter devastation we might witness during the course of our lives. Great writers and painters such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or Primo Levi, and Francisco Goya, or Theodore Gericault, can come close to capturing and describing this anti-spirit of ruination. In simple terms, Nihilism. Things can be so enormously terrifying, particularly during times of war and violence, that the definition of humanity itself might take us into another anguish. During such hours it could seem we are awake to an unending nightmare or have been thrown into another reality of apocalyptic dimensions. During such times of great mourning and moral questioning, there is common prayer which belongs to every compassionate heart impossible to silence and there is music that can reach deep into the soul to remind us of our humanness:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.” (Ps. 122:6-7)

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956) 

“Angel’s Glance” (2002) Another Two Poems

Thank you for enjoying the previous poems and for your kind words which lifted my spirits. With this in mind I am happy to share with you another two poems, “A Simple Metaphor” and “Of Flowers and Candles” also published in Southerly, in this instance by Noel Rowe.[1] Noel left us far too early having passed away at the age of 56 (1951-2007). He was held in such high esteem by his peers and colleagues that amongst other things in 2015 Vagabond Press set up the “Noel Rowe Poetry Award”. He was co-editor of Southerly with David Brooks from 1999 to 2007.[2] Les Murray respected Noel deeply and even though Rowe had left his priestly orders years earlier, in our correspondence Les would still refer to him as Fr. Noel. It meant a lot to me that Noel would write and ask that I contribute to “Angel’s Glance” (62/3, 2002). Needless to say, I was humbled and delighted in equal measure. The great Australian poets I have found, and I am surely blessed to be able to call a small number of these dear friends, have a giant and compassionate heart. Not every poet is gifted with this charisma. So we should treasure those which have come to a deeper understanding of their time-honoured craft, poiesis [“to make”]. The great ones bring to us vital posts as did the ancient messengers along the Royal Road. From the foreword to this special volume:

“I had intended to call this issue “Holy Smoke” as a way of gesturing towards issues of humour and negativity. That was before I read Angela Rockel’s “Meeting the Angel” (thanks to Elizabeth McMahon for helping obtain the piece). Now I am going to call it “Angel’s Glance” and hope it catches you.” (Noel Rowe, 2002)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Rowe

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southerly_(journal)