The Problem we have. . .

The Problem we have. . .
I haven't thought much about writing here. But it is time. I have been thinking lately about the problems we have as people, as Christians, as Orthodox Christians. I write this and include myself in the observation. Here are the problems the way I see it and this might come as a bit of a downer, but hey, . . we need to see what the problem is first before we can fix it, right?

We are in denial. Yeah, this sounds like we are doing a family intervention for drug abuse or addiction, but really we are in denial. We are really unaware of what our problems or even what our main problem is. How can we be healed if we are so blind. And worse, we focus on every one else's problem. We talk about society's problem, we talk about our spouse's problem our children. Do we ever really hear people talk about what their own problem is. There are a few places we hear this. One place where hear honesty is in the lives of the saints. We should emulate them in this. Secondly, we hear it in confession. Well, we don't hear it, priests do. But wouldn't the world be a better place if we heard it from time to time. We also hear it from recovering addicts when doing good work in a 12 step program will talk about their own problems. And, yes, there must be some people out there that focus on what there own problems are.

But even if they do, we tend to minimize, distort, normalize, defend, explain, justify, relate to a childhood cause our problem. We don't just say boldly, "I lie" or "I am critical." We don't say "I minimize my problems" or "I am uncaring." We polish ourselves out of fear of rejection. But what are we polishing. St. Isaac the Syrian said that it is a greater miracle that a person can see their true self, than the miracle of raising someone from the dead. Could these two miracles be more similar than not. How can we be raised from the dead (spiritually) if we don't see ourselves?

Perhaps we need God's help to help us see ourselves. We are in denial about a lot of things. We deny the one thing that we can count on in this life and that is that we are going to die. We know this to be true, but no one talks about it, we don't live according to it. If we talk about it too much, "we are morbid" or "psychologically depressed." But really, how can we begin to prepare for our death without talking about it.

We live as if we have all the time in the world. We really don't know how we are going to die and we don't have any time limit imposed, but even those who are only given a certain amount of time to live, may beat the odds or might be killed on the way to their chemotherapy appointment. This is a fact that we ignore.

In the old days, there were doctors who didn't tell their patients that they were going to die. You can still see this in old movies where you the viewer knew what the doctor said to the family, but didn't tell the patient. How odd. Today, medical practice feels that patients have a right to know, to know exactly what illness they have and to be given tools and decisions so they can fight it.

We all have an illness. This is sin and its affects, which is death. We have been told the news, but we deny it. It is too painful to bear. Why not live a wonderful, "full" live with pleasure, using the material goods that this world has to offer, find a wonderful person to love, or persons. Have qualities relationships with others and if one can fit it in, do some act of kindness that affects the world positively. We call this the good life. We see this in movies. If aliens came to this planet and tried to piece together what was important to human beings from our media, they would have to conclude that the main purpose in live was to find a companion to love and to save the world from a major catastophe. Is there any movie plot that doesn't have a link to those to goals? There are some, but not many.

So we are barking up the wrong tree. How many movies deal with our disease of sin and the goal or plot is to see how a person overcomes it and heals, through hardship, perseverance, patience and love. The irony is that there is a love story to be shared and there is a hero who did come and save the world from a major catastrophe. It is just different from what we think. The major Person we need to find in this life is Jesus Christ and major catastrophe that the hero rescues us from is our corruption from sin. Well, this could wait for another blog entry.