Seminary: The most difficult thing would be to change ourselves

Sydney-Gerringong

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 simpler, 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 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

From a letter to a clergyman friend

From a letter to a clergyman friend [edited]:

Sent August 11th, 2022

“I have called upon You, for You will hear me, O God; Incline Your ear to me, and hear my speech.” (Ps. 17:6)

 “There is always something left to love.” (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez)

I have been preaching to the rocks and to the beach pebbles for a long time now… some of these I hold tight to bring back home to continue where I might have left off… and also to the Pacific Ocean I will call out with its evensong in the background; and in more recent times to our beautiful dog, Mishka, I preach from the Book of Jonah, on our long walks beneath Illawarra’s (“pleasant place”) moon. A good word is never lost. There is more than one way to plant a seed. Like the designations of compassion. These days I am too old to despair, as I once did at the things taken away from me, to find myself teetering on the edge of the unthinkable. And I am also way too informed to hold out any hope for the “sublime porte”. Despite my professed brokenness, I try my best in the knowledge that I will at least leave something useful behind. Even if only for a small group of dear, dear friends and for my beloved students who have so affectionately embraced me. 

On the many different faces of loss

Source: https://blog.sleepingangel.com/?p=2932

Loss makes us feel incomplete

Loss makes us feel incomplete, for some time it can change us. How we feel about ourselves, and how we might present to others. There is a contraction to our perception. That is, how we might see and understand things. We instinctively put limits on our prospects. We don’t like the feeling of something “gone missing”. It’s like that uncomfortable feeling we get when we see a coffee table or a chair without one of its legs. Sometimes it can simply come down to symmetry and ballast.

Why do we feel the impact of loss so acutely

What is loss? “[t]he fact or process of losing something or someone”. It is etymologically related to the Old English los for ‘destruction’. This is what it can feel like at its worst, to have been broken apart. In the Old Norse los was used for the “breaking up the ranks of an army”. In divers ways we could feel ‘lessened’ or ‘inferior’. Made weaker by our loss. Consider a marriage which breaks down with one partner walking out on the other. This can cause for one of the partners to feel a loss of dignity and self-confidence. When a young person fails an examination, they might question their intelligence, again suffering a loss of self-belief. Our personalities are diminished, we believe or otherwise convince ourselves. Others might during a moment of cruelty make sure to convey to us, that we have lost some of our shine. We are made to feel humbled before our peers and friends. Nobody for instance, wants to hear these dreadful words which can stay with us a lifetime, “I have lost respect for you.” The hurt compounded immeasurably if it happens that it is undeserved. 

On the question of loss and its many faces

Every moment of our lives we are losing something. Our brain cells die in the thousands per second. As we age our hair falls out. We lose our teeth, our eyesight dims, and so too our vigour. We can feel ‘destruction’ going on about in our own body. And then to discern its evident dent on the bodies and minds of our older loved ones. We lose them too, and people comfort us, they “share in our loss”. Then the hours and days that we ourselves have left remaining on the earth, these, too, are lost. The question is then, how do we cope with loss and what are the different types of ‘loss’? Sometimes we are at a “loss for words”; or are made to “lose face”; we can “lose our peace”; we “lose our memory”; or “lose hope” and even “lose our mind”. People also “lose their self-belief” and can also “lose their faith”. We have all of us, lost things. Lost something. It can be natural or forcible. And our response to loss can reveal us to the world. It tests us. Loss can denude us. “Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.” (Haruki Murakami)

What can we give to people who have suffered loss

How do we respond to others who are experiencing loss? The first thing is not to patronize. Nobody likes to feel they are being talked down to. The best way is to begin with: “I might not know exactly what you are feeling right now, but I, too, have experienced loss.” Almost always there is common ground to be found in another’s loss. It is best to remain silent for a while, and only to listen. Oftentimes we can help replace that which has been lost, a replacement toy or a new pet for a child, or a favourite book or a pair of reading glasses. But other times the loss is heartbreaking and enduring. The loss of a loved one. This is irreplaceable. This movement of charity towards the other will require the marvellous charisms of empathy and compassion. Each situation will require a different approach for there are many different types of losses, and each of these will be felt differently. If someone is grieving allow them to grieve, do not be tempted to tell them ‘how’ to grieve. Severe psychological or mental pain is personal and some things cannot be “fixed”. It is good that you are there. Empathy and compassion, to have ‘feeling’ for and to ‘co-suffer’ with the other, will open up our hearts to the anguish of the other’s loss. So we listen, we try to walk in the other’s shoes. We do not turn away. Sometimes we might even be as the ‘good shepherd’ to go after the ‘lost sheep’ (Lk. 15:3-7). “Loss” could become a mission of seeking out the wounded. 

Do not feel harried or be too quick to replace what is lost 

Sometimes we might panic and hurry to replace what is lost without too much thought or proper consideration for the outcomes. This rush to replace what has been lost, that is, to quickly fill the vacuum, can introduce other more hurting and lasting losses. It can lead from one mistake to another. Like an amateur painter who in trying to remove one smudge will inadvertently create a dozen more. If something is taken from us which, for example, we reckon to be rightly ours, we  could be tempted to retaliate without thinking through the consequences. A more discerning response could yield the better result. Bad choices can only lead to further experiences of loss and disappointment. The rush to find a new partner, for instance, which is not uncommon, can lead to further loss of self-esteem and heartache. I like very much how Ann Voskamp has put it, “[i]n our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives.” So wait, let us pull back for a season, re-organize ourselves to ‘count our losses’. Then we can during our quiet time make those new plans in moving forward. For those who belong to believing communities, it is prayer which will inspire the next movement.

How loss can oftentimes be good for us 

We are too often conditioned even from our earliest times to the reckoning that ‘loss’ is unavoidably bad for us. “Loss of playtime” let’s say, and later to be upgraded to “loss of privileges”. It then becomes a conditioning exercise, behave and things will be restored, with the result being, reflection time or alternatives can be overtly discouraged. This in itself could be the bigger loss. When I have experienced loss, whether that could be status or health, that is, loss on a personal level, I accept the early days will be hard. Then I tell myself, this has been for the good, because I have acquired new knowledge to do with resilience and a deeper faith in those things, I hold to be true. I am still alive and new words and definitions have been gifted to me. I can now grow further into my potential. It can soften my heart. It can break it. This makes it easier for revelation to enter deeper into its folds. Loss, too, could be good for us in this way, upon realizing that something is “missing” we might be as the woman who having ten silver coins loses one, to then “light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it” (Lk. 15:8-10). 

A telling Old Testament story

Joseph’s “long coat of many colours” (Gen. 37:3) brought him into conflict with his older brothers for it reinforced to them that he was their father’s, Jacob, favourite son. On account of their envy they conspired to sell him into slavery after having initially planned to kill him! The story is one of the most well-known from the Old Testament. Joseph owing to his prophetic gift ultimately rose to a high position in the land of Egypt, indeed to the highest most official position next to the Pharaoh. There came a time of reconciliation which shocked his brothers, but Joseph cognisant to the divine providence of God understood that ‘evil’ [and in this case a terrible loss of homeland, trust, and family] is not always what we might assume it to be: “But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen. 50:18-21).

When the loss seems to us too unbearable

There are those losses which will seem too unbearable to us. Here, too, there is a way through this aching. We know this, for not few have been to such fiery places after even the most dreadful of losses, have been scorched, and returned to share their testimony. But we will have to ultimately work through this labyrinth and come to terms with it, for ourselves. This is the hardest truth, “[w]hat is to give light must endure burning” (Viktor Frankl). Bitterness and anger are normal human reactions. Yet we should be especially weary that these emotions do not keep too long in the heart which is our ‘spiritual organ’ and functions in an analogous way to the eye, filtering darkness and light. Change following loss can, and does hurt, and it will often hurt a lot, but it can make all the difference. It is temperature shock which hardens steel. It is intense heat which changes molecular structure. Franz Kafka who was fascinated with ‘transformation’ considered “patience” very high on the list of virtues. So endurance, once more, becomes the big key. It took Christ an eternity to reveal his blinding glory to his creation, “where his face shone like the sun” at his Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1f.). Allow for time and grace to make the necessary changes, similarly to hitherto unknown colours, created with the passing of the years on natural landscapes. “When all else is lost,” wrote the epigrammatic Christian N. Bovee, “the future still remains.” I know, too well, sometimes it can be like breaking your knuckles on steel. Some pain will not go away, but with time it will be lessened. But keep steadfast, day by day. Ultimately, that is the greatest secret. And we, all of us, know this to be true. 

Sometimes, too, we just need to lose things

Sometimes, too, we just need to lose things. ‘Stuff’ which is weighing us down, or causing us harm. Toxic relationships, for example. Addictions. Bad habits. Phobias. Things which are possible to overcome. These types of losses should never frighten us, but on the contrary, they should fill us with the most wonderful of all the expectations, lit., “an awaiting”. Like the very eager, but controlled trombones, in Shostakovich’s 9th Symphony. Or the terminal buds of lotus roots in pools which will bud when the temperature is just right. 

Random Thoughts (2)

It hurts too much to truly love, more deeply than the greatest betrayal, so we define love in the most absurd and mundane terms, forever failing to understand its ‘terrifying’ and unyielding power.

Do not put off the giving of your charity or the forgiving of your enemy for the day after tomorrow. With the blink of an eye your universe could go dark. And an opportunity forever lost to carry some small piece of light over to the other side.

You will be robbed of many things, childhood dreams and secret labors. The goal however was not the result of these things, but the response to these losses. This was the real purpose which deep down you always knew.

It is all too normal to oftentimes confuse romantic love with fleshly desire. There is common ground between the two, the longing and the lust. More truthfully it is the fear of dying alone in those depressing places which we dread too much to ponder on.

Hunger and thirst are the primary movers [and then afterwards the Creator if we should find some spare moments to reflect upon the divine], all else are choices with which we seek to define ourselves to the world for its crowns of dust.

We are by our nature both political and religious beings, it is how we are ‘wired’ and as much we might try to wash these innate inclinations away, it is not possible so we scrub and scour and still the ‘stains’ will remain.

Every time we silence our true voice we die a little more, like a beautiful song drawing quickly to its end.

If you have two friends rejoice daily. If you have three weep and fall to your knees. Blessed, blessed that you are.

Next to war there is no greater destructive consequence than our idolizing of other human beings, the ‘personality cult’. The elevating of another person to ‘star’ or ‘celebrity’ status is not only the beginning of the destruction of that person, but also reduces the giver of that status themselves. And is not the cause of all war the personality cult in the first place?

I will see light to the extent that I walk in the Light; I will walk in the darkness to the degree that what I do contradicts the truth which has been revealed to me. And it is the accumulation of these contradictions which can ultimately become our greatest ‘stumbling block’.

We are to be judged with how we have responded to the Light with our conscience “bearing witness” to the integrity of our thoughts and actions (Rom. 2:15). So be delighted enough to allow for each heart to discover its own path and its own way home. But you must remain faithful to that which was set aside only for you from the beginning.

The most beautiful things will remain hidden, the flower with the heavenly aroma hidden in the rocky cleft of the highest alp, the greatest poem forever lost in the draw of a demolished bedroom, the profoundest music not put down on paper, the most incomprehensible sacrifices seen only by guardian angels.

Your brother and sister, your next door neighbor, despite the violence and the suffering which we witness each evening on our television sets, they are by their very nature good people. There are far more ‘righteous’ people in the world than there are ‘unrighteous’. Have you asked a stranger for a cup of water and have been given a cup of stones?

Enlightenment is not a mysterious process available only to an elect group of people. We have without need complicated it with the passing of time. The first and perhaps most challenging step towards enlightenment, is to desire it in the first place. That is, to find ‘meaningfulness’ in that very moment.

I know how deeply you are suffering, but hold on a little more. This, too, it will pass. You have travelled far to reach this place and measured many distances upon this earth. For the present, for now, this is where you must be.

Nothing is insignificant, all acts and all things, touch upon the eternal.

I am neither more decent nor any more devout than you. And so I must all the time remind myself of this apocalypse by committing it to words.

MGM