What I Like about Icons

This past Sunday was the Sunday of Orthodoxy, a day to celebrate the restoration of icons to the church after centuries of the state trying to stamp out the practice.

I've found that icons tend to be the last hangup of would-be converts to Orthodoxy. As a Protestant, I was taught to view such things as idols, and to pride myself on the fact that my kind of worship was more "spiritual."

But there's a funny thing about spirits. A professor of mine likes to point out that spirits are always looking for bodies. The truth is that none of us ever encounters something purely "spiritual." Spiritual truths are always communicated by material means. We are material beings, and we use that which is near us to connect with what is beyond us, because that which is beyond us became us.

This is the truth of orthodoxy (and not just "Orthodoxy") that the Triumph of Orthodoxy Affirms. When Emperor Leo III (and most of his successors) attempted to stamp out the practice of bowing before and kissing images, they were threatening the meaning of the Incarnation itself. Some who opposed icons claimed that the purest form of worship was "spiritual" contemplation of God. But Jesus Christ was a body. He got into the mud, where we are, not so that he might raise us out of it, but so that he might transform us in it.

Thus wood and paint can bear the divine, not because wood and paint are divine, but the one depicted by them is! In affirming that wood and paint are not an impediment to God, the Triumph of Orthodoxy ultimately affirms the truth of the Incarnation itself: the material world is not a problem God has to overcome. In Jesus Christ matter has been redeemed.

We believe the Incarnation is not over. Christ did not shed his skin when he ascended into heaven. Thus the Orthodox Church makes heavy use of matter – obviously Eucharist, but also relics and holy oil and water – as means of our salvation. (Protestants also have this sense when they treat their Bibles with reverence, or tell kids not to run in the sanctuary. The book or the room is no more inherently holy than the wood and paint of an icon. It is holy for what it communicates.) These material things are holy insofar as they bear the likeness of Christ. Thus we can say in a sense that matter itself is being saved. And because Christ became matter, he can save us material beings as well, insofar as we, by the grace of God, come to bear his likeness, too.

Take a Bow

A few years ago, while my wife's cousin, and his wife, were visiting, they decided to come to church with us for a Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. For those who don't know, this is a service in the middle of the week, during Lent, when remaining Eucharist from the previous Sunday is offered again to the faithful. Hence: Pre-Sanctified. My Godfather's advice on Presanctified liturgy for visitors is simple. "Get ready to hit the deck," he says. We Orthodox bow a lot already, but during Lent we take it up a notch to several full prostrations.

That is one of the things I like most about Orthodoxy – bowing. It reminds me that even when my heart may not be in "the right place, even when I may be distracted by my kids or thoughts of the coming day, my body can still worship. And usually, where my body goes, the spirit follows.

That's not the way things are supposed to work, I know. Pick up any pop-culture book on spirituality and it will talk about the importance of nurturing the spirit. Spirit first! Then body! I hear that. I think there may be some truth to that. But that's not been my experience. More often than not, I find that bodily disciplines are what nurture the spirit.

I'm actually a little embarrassed by this picture. My "private" spiritual moment was captured and posted on the website of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (during the Akathist to the Mother of God when the wonder-working Kursk Root icon passed through town). But it's already out there, so I decided to post it, too. Because it snowed several inches the day before the icon arrived, and the roads to our church can be precarious when that happens, we held this service in a conference room at the Embassy Suites. It was the first time my wife and I were in church with all three kids (because of sickness and weather, Connor had not even been churched yet). At the end of what felt like a very long time standing in a very hot, small, and smelly room, the last thing I was thinking about was what I should have been thinking about: the Mother of God. I was thinking about my kids, about getting my jacket off, and about the drive home. But when my turn to venerate came, I bowed, and the service changed for me. It was one of the most meaningful spiritual experiences I had to date. The songs and prayers and tears of the faithful that morning gathered together and pressed me to the floor. When I bowed, the service became about the Mother of God – what it was supposed to be about all along.

(By the way, in case you are wondering, most of the women in my church don't normally wear headscarves, but they were asked to do so on this occasion. I think it's more of a ROCA thing.)

To bend the body is to bend the spirit. That is what I like about it. In the midst of all that distracts us, this little gesture says to me, at least, "Quit your belly-aching, drop to your knees, and look at the floor! Something important is happening here!"

Last night I attended the Canon of St Andrew of Crete. It is a service during "Clean Week" (the first week of Lent) that reminds us of the need to repent and to take what we are doing seriously. The constant refrain is, "Have mercy upon me, O God! Have mercy upon me!" And when we say it, we cross ourselves and bow. It's a very physical way of worshiping.

I think that is what I liked about being Nazarene. I remember my very first service, I witnessed a little old lady "running the aisles." Of course, she was quite old. So it was more like shuffling the aisles, but there was something about the simplicity of that gesture that appealed to me.

I look back on that memory with fondness because it reminds me that we are bodies. Worship is not simply a "spiritual" thing. When it comes right down to it, I don't actually think I "have" a spirit inside of me the way a child captures a firefly in a jar. I think (to paraphrase an old teacher) that I, as body, am spirit. This is why we Orthodox "naively" think we can commune with saints by kissing their icons. This is why we think God heals through a relic. And it is why when draw close to the sacred, our first instinct is to hit the deck.

Forgiveness Vespers

Stephanie has taken the kids out of town so that I can work on my dissertation over the long weekend. Being alone in the house with nothing but my thoughts and an incomplete chapter is disorienting. My "writer's haze" was on full display tonight. I actually wandered into Forgiveness Vespers rather late. I thought it started an hour after it actually did, and I've been so distracted that it never occurred to me to call someone and check.

Nevertheless, I made it. I was the second-to-last person in line, but I was able to ask forgiveness from those present, thank God.

I hope all Lent won't be like this. I don't remember the last time my life was this nuts. My surprise son, Connor, surprised us further by coming into the world two weeks prior to the date Stephanie was to be induced. I was grading papers while Stephanie was in labor, if that gives you any idea of how the past few months have been. Plus I have this looming dissertation I am trying to finish, curriculum I have to write, and poor job prospects after I defend (welcome to academe).

Lent is supposed to be a time to slow down, to hedge back the world and reflect on the journey to Golgotha and the Resurrection, but to be honest all I can really think about at the moment is what is on my plate.

The only thing in my favor is the way Lent works on a person, often in spite of herself. Back in my protestant days (I'm a Nazbeen, for those who don't know), I was taught that "just going through the motions" was a sign of spiritual weakness. But sometimes life sucks all the strength out of us, and the motions are the best we can muster. And that's not a bad thing. Feelings don't always come first.

Any married person knows this. I don't always "feel" love for me wife. We're too busy to be feeling that all the time (I apologize to tween fans of Twighlight for bursting your bubbles). Like most things, love is a deed. It's a motion.

Parents know this too. I don't always "feel" like playing with my son. Sometimes I'm too busy. But when I stop and take just a few minutes to crash a few trucks into some blocks, I am reminded of how much I love the way George gives me an excuse to act like a kid again.

Lent can be like that too. It can be a motion that leads to a feeling. At least, that's my hope. So this Lent I have one goal. Just one! I am going to try to go through as many motions as I can. I am going to trust that, like parenting and marriage and most other things we grownups have to deal with, what I do on the outside will work on my insides. I am going to hope and pray that as I stumble through this journey, Lent will work on me in spite of myself.

Great Lent 2010

Yesterday was the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Judgment Sunday for short), also called "Meatfare Sunday," because we say "farewell Meat!" Great Lent is about to begin.

To be frank, I am not ready. I don't want to do this.

Which means that I should do it all the more! Like a workout we are tempted to skip or a project we are dreading to complete, sometimes the best thing to do – the only thing to do – is put your head down and barrel through all the hesitation, frustration, doubt, and temptation to procrastinate.

That's the way the liturgy works sometimes, I think. We don't understand the richness of what the church offers us, but we do it anyways in the hope that understanding, and often even the desire, will come later.