Comments on: PTSD

By: mr g z thompson

mr g z thompson — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:39:59 +0000

I am quoting this in a web-log entry because I found it profound.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:47:11 +0000

Interesting questions. I always wonder how I should react when I see something not “just right” in the spiritual environments I swim in. About the best advice I ever got was from a spiritual advisor who once told me when I was offended by something that if wasn’t being offended on a regular basis, I probably was’nt doing enough fellowship! In other words, it is about the journey, not the bumps in the road. On the other hand, I try to guard against my thoughts drifting away from chairitable things and need frequent breaks from people. I keep several different fellowship relationships alive at the same time, so that I don’t short-change my own need to worship and just be with other like-minded people. Thanks for everyones comments, it is giving me an opportunity to think through these fellowship relationships and why they are important to me.

By: Huw

Huw — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:27:04 +0000

Ian - Thank you for your recent comment (on “PTSD”). It helps me to know the same sort of thing happens outside of the US.

You hit on an interesting point, every other parish was wrong and we were the ’shining light’. So easy to buy into…and yet so destructive.

This prompts me to do something that we used to call at work n the rehab clinic, “Owning my 50%”

Given my own attraction to certain sorts of Saints and writings w/in Orthodoxy, I guess I was kind of blinded to that problem. Blessed Fr Seraphim was that sort of writer where everyone else was doing Orthodoxy wrong. And many of the more conservative sorts, that I liked to read, feel that way about Orthodoxy to the exclusion of everyone else who are clearly all doing Christianity wrong.

That attitude is not only “So easy to buy into” it’s something I *wanted* to buy into. Yes it leads to “manipulation and deception” and destruction, but it’s can be like a candle to a moth: deadly light into which one willingly flies.

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:38:09 +0000

Huw: my heart broke while reading this. I am so sorry for what happened. I do pray you can find a place free from such obvious manipulation and deception.

We had similar issues with a priest: every other parish was wrong and we were the ’shining light’. So easy to buy into…and yet so destructive.

Unfortunately the church is made up of fallible human beings: and rather than being a spiritual hospital I at times think it is a lunatic asylum. Lord, have mercy!

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:07:26 +0000

I have begun fleshing out an article about Elijah and the ravens that God sent to feed him. After over thirty years studying and trying to live Carmelite spirituality, I find (like the medieval hermits/friars) much food for thought in that story from I Kings. Part of my reflection at the moment is that God sent the prophet food by way of unclean birds, scavengers. Elijah could have said, “No, thanks! I want that bread delivered by snow white doves and that meat to come by way of birds of paradise. Don’t send me no ravens!”

I know how hard it is to see the ravens that bring me the message. And since life is not just a “spiritual meaning” projected onto a story, the messengers are indeed part of the message the church offers. I can’t ignore the reality that those who claim that this way of life is transformative and deifying don’t seem to be transformed or deified. They gossip, they lie, they are greedy.(But maybe that is because I don’t know what they were like before. They may not be perfect, but maybe they are making progress.)

As a former raven (well, I’m still a raven, but not an officially ministering one) I appreciated the advice to see what your experience is when you go to a new place to worship. But realize that the folks there are folks like us: sometimes happy but not always; sometimes welcoming but with limits (though HaShem, Blessed Be He, has none) and so on. I am not arriving at their doors perfect; it is not reasonable to expect only the perfect to greet me within.

Since I myself still have not found a spiritual community to call home, I visit around and ask myself some questions afterwards: Did I enjoy it? Did I come out a bit better, happier, challenged to grow in my thinking and my living? Did I like how God was spoken about and to? Did I like how people were spoken about and to? Did I want to have that kind of experience regularly? Did I want to pursue the journey with these feeble people as my companions?

My Taoist reading reminds me that the journey is the reward. Perhaps some of us are practicing the old Russian way of a pilgrim. Maybe we are not meant to settle down but to keep searching.

Maybe I should stop rambling and start journeying…

By: Michael King

Michael King — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:16:33 +0000

I felt the same bad vibes at an Orthodox parish I attended in Portland, one which was descended from Christ the Saviour Brotherhood.

I’ve been treated poorly by other Orthodox clergy, but that was the only truly cultlike environment.

I think this happens (for a variety of reasons) with converts a lot.