Anniversary

Today marks our eleventh liturgical year being Orthodox.  We were received into the Antiochian Archdiocese with a group of friends from the Episcopal Church on Lazarus Saturday.  It was a glorious beginning, full of hope, good intentions, love and faith.

I knew I was coming to the Church of the New Testament.  I knew I was putting my feet on the clear road to spiritual discipline, to humility, to love of God and neighbor.  It was not a different road really, I had just been walking a well trodden but unmarked path in the wilderness toward the same place.  What I didn't know was... I was coming to the Church of the New Testament and I was on the road to spiritual discipline, humility and love of God and neighbor.  And even on a clearly marked road one can still take off ramps, park, back up, fall asleep at the wheel and hit other cars when you change lanes without looking in the mirror.

I soon found out that the Church is still the Church.  2000 years later, we still have Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians.  We still have Pharisees, wranglers over words, slackers, posers and all manner of sinners.  We still have living saints. We still have Diotrephes (the presbyter who loved authority and the praise of men), Tychicus (of good report), Lydia (who gave alms), Barnabbas (the encourager), Demas (who went back to the world), Priscilla and Aquila (whose house was a Church... I figured I'd save you the time looking them up).  We still have those who are "of Philip, of Jonah, of Bartholomew, of Kyrill". 

And I am still me.  For eleven years I have not looked in the mirror often enough and have caused wrecks, I've taken the off-ramps that looked like short cuts, I've looked too far ahead on the road instead of where I am and hit the people right in front of me. I have a lot of zeal to be forgiven for. I had a lot of agendas and visions and ideas that overshadowed people and the Cross and my own salvation.

I've learned that humility is not gotten any way but the hard way.  It is not learned quickly.  Even the hard lessons can be forgotten in a heartbeat. There are a lot of glittering and close substitutes for anything Orthodox that are cheap, look like the real things and are a lot easier to attain.  In the end they are fueled by vainglory and pride and are hard to maintain in the long run. I've learned that the real thing is always just plain hard work, unglorious, costly, unpredictable, death on the ego and always Cross-ways to an agenda or a dream or a vision.  As my friend Joe used to say,  "Why is it that when God works in mysterious ways I always get kicked in the ass?"  The real mystery is, why don't I get it yet?

Even though nothing I imagined or dreamed or hoped has come to pass, more than I ever dreamed or imagined or hoped has come to pass.  Though I doubt that I might have done it if I knew what was coming, I plan on sticking around even though I know that in the next eleven years God will continue to work in mysterious ways.  And I will continue to bow low even though I know God is probably behind me and not in front of me....