Something struck me about modern "seekers" who are dissatisfied with mainstream atheistic materialism, and want something not just better, but a real answer to the questions of life and reality.
Often this search is self-sabotaged or hijacked by assumed constraints that make it impossible ever to find an answer; and one of these wrecking assumptions is that The Answer will be found in a "tradition": that is, a large group of many prestigious persons, an ancient group (believed to extend back centuries, perhaps millennia).
What too often seems to happen is that some seeker comes across an individual person, one Man, who interests them strongly, evokes a sympathy or empathic identification, "speaks to them" - but this one Man describes himself as speaking on-behalf-of and from a tradition.
And then the seeker finds that he is supposed to believe and affirm not just the particular person whose work, and perhaps life, has so inspired him; but a whole bunch of other people - perhaps in many times and places - and to say that the whole bunch of them are good, true, coherent, and worthy of obedience.
An example might clarify what I mean.
I became interested in and attracted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity via the specific and (to me) inspiring personage of the US monk Seraphim Rose 1934-1982. I read a good deal of Rose's work, thought about it, tried to understand it and tease out the implications...
Of course, as always (for me) I disagreed with much, thought much of it was wrong - nonetheless I was deeply impressed and attracted by aspects of the spirituality he described and lived.
But the next step is the killer, which is that Rose regarded himself as an ordinary and "orthodox" member of the Russian Orthodox church (overseas branch - he lived during the USSR era, and he knew mostly exiled Russians and their descendants), and a representative of Eastern Orthodoxy generally.
The Man Seraphim Rose affirmed a world-view that regarded The Man as of little significance, and The Group as primary.
So I was pretty much compelled to read and experience more widely, more generally - I was pushed into reading Seraphim Rose - not as A Man but as a representative of a domination/ church/ tradition - and it was that group (across many centuries, in many places) which mattered most.
I began with a fascination and sympathy for one Man, and I soon ended-up pushed towards pledging belief and obedience to a vast group of many people, of many nations, with several warring factions and schismatic groups.
My attention was diffused to many writers, many nations, many times, many disputes and schisms, many policies and actions...
In one sense I was supposed to join with a vast, ancient and extremely heterogeneous church - all of which I was supposed to approve in a general way (even bizarre perversions such as "stylites")...
But in another sense the almost-constant reality of internal disputes, (even warring schisms) meant that the actuality of what I "ought to do" was inevitably something much smaller, more local, and more modern.
In the end of the process, when rigorously pursued (so far as I could tell) most of Eastern Orthodoxy was too modernized, lax and corrupted to satisfy those who took Seraphim Rose seriously. So that there was just one specific monastic church, 300 miles away, in schism with the Moscow Patriarchate; that it was right and necessary for me to join, support, attend and obey.
In microcosm, I think this is pretty typical of a serious, rigorous, Christian seeker in the West of 2024.
We might be attracted to Christianity by the work or life of a particular person, alive or dead - and then there is that horrible realization that we are supposed to set aside what attracted us, and instead subordinate to a vast nebulous group...
A group that (to all appearances) includes all kinds of apparently unappealing and seemingly evil people, doing apparently stupid and terrible things, in all kinds of times and places, and with all sorts of (what look like) contradictions - and we are supposed (with solemn oaths) to pledge to all this...
Yet, the facts of 2024 in The West also mean that this big, messy, vision of a "universal church" will - if taken seriously - ultimately lead to some very small, very recently formed, very localized and minority (even within The Church) grouping of a handful of Christians.
What I draw from such experiences (of myself, and what I have observed in others) is that in our time and place, and when we are really serious about things: we ought to deal with individuals, not with groups - and stick with individuals.
Even though this contradicts what these same individuals advise and argue!
Thus, the engagement must be critical. The ideal relationship is not that of an apprentice to his Master, nor even a student to his teacher - but more like getting to know an older, more experienced and able friend.
It would (for instance) be better to stay-with Seraphim Rose - a specific individual that I benefited from reading - or whoever it might be; stay as long as there is benefit, and work to develop an intense and sustained relationship - in which you do not merely absorb the ideas, but engage creatively with the ideas...
Not in a submissive, obedience-orientated fashion; but kind of dialogue pursued in a free, positive and personal way, as between two mutually-respecting persons.
2 comments:
this describes my own experience so well (down to the specific person that started it, in the case of orthodoxy, Fr. Seraphim Rose - i think he is anyway the main gateway for it in the West, the patron saint of disaffected western men, as i heard him called once). i don't consider it necessarily wasted time, because no effort and no study is ever wasted, but i do sometimes wish i had gotten out of the mindset of trying to fit into a group sooner.
it struck me while reading it, too, that it's not even a single case for me - i can think of many other individuals that spoke to me personally, and that then, like a disease of the mind, i thought should be jumping points to whatever groups. i think deep down my intuition (and what i was really, in the end, doing) was to focus on the individuals and trying to shape the group-doctrine or whatever to them, but then i was weak and wated to embrace the groups/traditions/etc. and it never, never worked for me (in fact, most times it worked against me).
i am very glad that by the time i encountered your blog on mormonism i had given up on joining any group (which is what accords to my nature anyway), and i could just take the ideas on their own and integrate them into myself without feeling the need to belong to a group (and sometimes guilt for not being able to belong).
@Laeth - I didn't know (or hadn't noticed) that you knew Seraphim Rose's work. He wasn't by any means the first Christian influence on me - but he dominated through much of 2010-2011 especially, including when I was writing Thought Prison.
BTW the comment about the one church in the UK is literally true. I was strongly advised from a couple of sources that it was The Place and I ought to go there as often as possible for as long as possible (which was, in practice, never).
I attended an Orthodox Church about 20 miles way a few times, and officially became a catechumen - but this kind of irregular attendance at (multilingual) services was utterly ineffectual at building a group spiritual life. I felt as if I was acting in a foreign play, I didn't know anybody, the church members were mostly recent immigrants from several places, the Western people were upper class professionals of the same type and spirituality as encountered at any other church, and the priests did not strike me as any more holy than anybody else.
It was an exercise in self-delusion and pretence, presumably because (as all the strict Orthodox writers affirm) this church only Works in an Orthodox society with an anointed monarch - and there are no such places in the world - so I gave it up with some regret but considerable relief.
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