To endure until the end

I remember Father Thomas Hopko once saying that if you do not believe in evil, just try to be good. I have tried to be good, and I have seen the evil one try to bring me to the ground. I have been slothful and self indulgent, and felt very little struggle. Good does not come naturally except to children and those who have the minds of children. To be good takes courage, great effort - to be good means to step into the arena, ready to fight, ready to endure, to be defeated, and then rise again.

Anne Frank writes in her diary that she believes everyone is, deep down, good at heart. This shows tremendous goodness and compassion on her part, as she tried to understand what kind of world allowed such terrible things to happen, and how human beings could treat other human beings in such horrendous ways, but I would have to disagree with her statement. Our framework is from God, is good and holy, for we are created in His image and likeness, but we choose to either build on this framework or to tear it down. We can become so bound by Satan that Christ becomes unrecognizable in us. It is a terrifying image, but it is a true image.

I often fall into an argument with my mother on this very subject. She does not believe in evil, and she finds Anne Frank's statement true and one she lives by. I commend her for this, as she often tries to explain people's behavior not from the stance of good and evil, but from her psychologist's perspective. There is a psychological reason for everything, but she would adamantly disagree with me that we are in the midst of a great warfare for each of our souls.
This is not to say we are to be the judges - only God can judge - or that we can always blame our sinful behavior on the devil, but we are to recognize evil so that we can properly combat it.

I write this today on Great and Holy Tuesday, as I have found, starting with the Bridegroom service on Sunday night, that many circumstances have made it almost impossible for me to have a good and prayerful Holy Week. I came to the service expecting a choir - not one member showed up. I tried to cut a few things in order to save my voice, and by so doing, disrupted what the priest was supposed to do, thus making him perturbed and frustrated with me. A cell phone went off during the reading of the Gospel. Sasha threw a fit. Pavel threw up during a reading from the Kathisma. Yesterday he was diagnosed with an ear infection and I couldn't get to Presanctified. My husband and I have been fighting. I have not attended to my personal prayer. In the midst of all of this - at one point I sat on the steps of the church in tears, so angry I was prepared not to attend any more services for the rest of the week - I see that the evil one is truly at work. He does not want us to be in Church. He does not want us to pray. He wants us to be at enmity with one another, and to walk away angry and in despair, to not partake of the Risen Christ. My realization of this does not excuse my behavior, but it makes me aware that if I am going to attend to the week, I must be vigilant, armed with prayer and asceticism. It is right that I suffer, for by so doing, I am partaking of Christ's passion. As I sit on the steps outside of the church angry and frustrated, I understand only a small part of how Christ must have felt going to His voluntary Passion. But what I have that the disciples did not, is the knowledge of the Resurrection, that all of this will end in victory, even if it does not feel like it at the moment. I must endure to the end as Christ did, knowing Satan will lay out temptations every step of the way. I know I will fall, grow weary. I know I will despair, but my goal is not to despair utterly. Each time I fall, I must rise, pick up my cross, and continue along the way of Christ.

On the Other Side

When the day descends
and the wind blows too strongly,
so that I lose my breath
when I step out of the car,
and the smell of fire sits
in the air like evening mosquitoes
swarming in late July,
I try to remember - Lord, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!

I try to remember that on the other side of despair is joy.

The Anticipated Light

Today, when I started my car, I accidentally mistook a selection from Mozart's Requiem on the radio for Christos Voskresi. It was strange, as I am very familiar with this piece of music, and never before had my mind confused the Latin with anything else. But there it was. Christos Voskresi sounding out through the car under the guise of Mozart.

My son Sasha doesn’t quite understand the cycle of the Church yet, so he keeps arguing with me that it is not Lent, but Pascha, and about twenty times a day I am instructed to sing Christ is Risen. It seems odd, my voice carrying throughout the house in high festal soprano on a Friday during Great Lent, but then I realize it does make sense, for the whole point of Lent is to ready ourselves to see the Risen Christ.

So often I find myself falling into the superficial aspects of the Fast, like mourning chicken korma and beef tenderloin, or trying to reason whether it is or is not appropriate to go to the Symphony. The exercise in will-power, to gain control over the desire of the flesh, is good, but I also need to remember why I am doing it. I am putting away all that is unnecessary, so that I can concentrate more fully on Christ, and with this comes great joy. On the other side of doubt, struggle and darkness there is always joy.

I wish I could have remembered this yesterday as I sat on the floor of my office munching away at a bag of Doritos, and then sipping, not so elegantly, the ever-notorious caffeinated, carbonated beverage, feeling very sorry for myself. Most of the time I am fully content. I play with my children, attend to their needs, I prepare the music for services, I write, I clean, I pray. But yesterday on the floor I wanted nothing. Sasha came up to me and asked me to read him a book and I could not even find the energy to stand up. The darkness was so heavy I could not cry, but continued to stare out into the emptiness of my own mind. After a few hours my husband came home. I sat glumly at the table, picking at my lentils and he talked about his day. Both children fell asleep just after six, and he suggested we sit in my office and read together. And there was joy. My listlessness did not completely dissipate, but there was joy. I could see beyond my own shadow on the floor.

We pray for the Lord to take away the spirit of despair, something that I pray all the more fervently for during the prayer of St. Ephraim. I know now despair and darkness will always pursue me, but I also know the despair is part of the joy I feel later, the darkness part of the light.

I understand Lent this year in a way I have not in the past. It is not about what we do and do not give up. It is not about breaking or following the rules. It is about being in a state of anticipation always. We stand, like the wise virgins, waiting for the bridegroom to appear. We eat less, we stop watching television, we stop listening to the radio, so that we can be vigilant, so that nothing distracts us from our vigil outside of the tomb of Christ. We need not wear mournful faces, because we know He is coming. We know He will rise again.