"Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become a poet."
+ St. Pophyrios Kavsokalyvia
"Poetry is Theology par-excellence"
+ Prof. R. S., An Orthodox Professor in Toronto
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"The magnetism of Orthodoxy consisted, at least in part, in the effect that participating in the liturgical life of the Church had on me. While I often found the services very long, I noticed that I found myself praying during them. Prayer had never come easily to me. The recipe I had been given growing up was that it took place primarily in "quite times," when one would lock oneself away in a private space with a Bible. That had never worked for me. I found huge stretches of the Scriptures absolutely baffling. And left to my own devices, I'd sooner fall asleep than pray. But somehow being in the space of an Orthodox Church and participating in the liturgy enabled me to pray. Not only was I able to pray, I found the prayers and hymns of the liturgy reaching me at a level of my being that none other had. They spoke to me.
I do not know how to explain this. The best I can say is that I was slowly experiencing something like a gestalt switch. The comparison that comes to mind is that of a person who, throughout most of his adult life, has been fed a literary diet that almost exclusively consists in such things as novels, newspaper articles, and academic essays. Then, at some point, he is introduced to very good poetry. At first, the nuances and even the meanings expressed by this poetry tend to escape him. With increased exposure, however, he latches on. He finds that the poetry speaks to him in ways rather different than prose; there is something about the poetic use of images that has an entirely different effect on him. The images themselves, he has to admit, are in many ways elusive; they often resist any sort of systematic unpacking or formulation, as the tensions and ambiguities they introduce remain unresolved. And were he not to exercise care, this person would attribute to the poets sill and incompatible views, blurring over important distinctions such as what the poets are saying and what they are showing him. Eventually, however, he finds that not only does the poetry have a different effect on him than prose, but also that the poetry speaks to him - and allows him to speak - in ways that prose cannot. The two are not, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable. He has a new window to the world.
Something like the transition I have just described is how it has felt to enter into the liturgical life o the Church. The experience has been that of being presented with a new set of images - images tumbling over one another in ways that were sometimes baffling, resisting in many cases any sort of systematic unpacking - that speak to me in ways that are difficult to articulate. Most importantly, I have often sensed that the icons, bodily movements, and hymnody were showing to me things about God and the world that are not easily said. The task has been to look where they are pointing.
Anyone who has studied poetry knows that it is often very hard work to interpret it well. One of the most startling discoveries upon immersing myself in Orthodox life was learning that the Christian life is similar, inasmuch as it too is a difficult road. In his book Great Lent, Alexander Schmemann writes that "Christianity is above everything else expectation and preparation." My earlier exposure to Christianity had taught me virtually nothing about preparation. I knew nothing about the role of such things as fasting and confession, for example, in the Christian life. I soon learned, however, these two things: first, that for the Orthodox all these broadly preparatory activities are oriented towards Pascha. Pascha is both the highlight and center of the entire liturgical calendar; everything done during the Church year revolves around it. How different this was from the Christianity I knew according to which Easter was more or less an afterthought! And, second, I learned that Pascha is itself as much about preparation as it is about celebration. Repentance, confession, and fasting are the entryways into the feast. Moreover, they are, for different reasons, activities that are demanding and difficult. The athletic images that St Paul employs in his letters to the early Christians are not idle!
Appreciating this dimension of Orthodox life has taken time. There are days in which I do not feel up to the challenge. And, frankly I often struggle to immerse myself into the flow of Orthodox life. I find it helpful to bring to mind, however, that while the Orthodox emphasize that we work out our own redemption and that of the world, the model is that of a divine-human cooperative endeavor. God and human beings together work for the redemption of human beings and the world together. Although Orthodox spiritual life requires that we learn to discipline ourselves by doing such things as engaging in regular prayer and fasting, these activities are not particularly self-concerned. The idea is not that each of us is to undertake certain disciplines to achieve enlightenment or personal holiness. Rather, the idea is that, by engaging in the disciplines, we become types of agents that can, to use Schmemann's imagery, play the part of the priest: offering back to God in thanksgiving and gratitude that which God has given to us. The goal is not self-realization but being in right relation with God, each other, oneself, and the rest of creation."
+ Dr Terence Cuneo [Cuneo, Terence. "Entering through Death, Living and Doubt" in "Turning East: Contemporary Philosophers and the Ancient Christian Faith" Edited by Rico Vitz (Yonkers: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2012) 167-169.]
