Me Write Pretty

I am much more of a writer than a talker. When I write, words for the most part, flow effortlessly onto the page; in stark contrast to the way I often times find my words swirling and crashing into each other like bumber cars when I am trying to express myself verbally. Don't get me wrong, I love to talk, "I could talk and not talk about anything" forever (Best in Show reference) but, when it comes to answering theological questions about Orthodoxy my answers leave much to be desired.

I have been challenged a lot recently to answer some particularly meaty questions about Orthodoxy from two of my friends that I have known for years from my days as summer camp counselor at a Presbyterian summer camp. I have often found myself in the past few days struggling to find the "perfect words" to illustrate the Church's beliefs in the most honest, simplistic, and informative ways without the so much as a hint of judgement about other kinds of Christian beliefs in my tone of voice. This is no easy task. I have been so fearful that I am going say something that is a) wrong or b) right but say it in the wrong way and misrepresent Orthodoxy. Now I know that this wouldn't be the end of the world and I am careful to preface anything that I say about Orthodoxy with something like "I have only been Orthodox for a year, I don't have all the answers but can probably help you find someone or a book that does" but I still feel like there is a heavy and important burden on my shoulders to say what I believe is the "right" or "orthodox" way (ha ha).

Spending the past two days with my friend Joel has been really good for me in the sense that I have been forced to go through this process of answering questions verbally on the spot. Each time we talk I find myself swimming in the recesses of my memory full of countless particles of information, phrases from psalms, words of memorized prayers, scripture loosley quoted, paraphrased quotes from Saints, and bits and pieces of Father's homilies on various topics. I start to tread water, frantically trying to scoop all of the pieces together and form a coherent answer. This process reminds me of all the time I have spent fiddling around with word magnets that people have on their refridgerators. I love those things, but no matter how long you stand at the fridge forming sentences you are always missing the necessary words like "and," "if," and "was" or endings like "ing." However, with Orthodoxy, the missing words are something like "Apostolic Succession," "uncreated light of God" or "sacrament."

Joel had some really tough but basic questions for me that I spent a lot of time mid-sentence wishing that I could just have him write the questions all down and give them to me so I could go home and; like a good student, consult my books and write the most eloquent, intelligent answers, complete with references to scripture and quotes from the Fathers. (o: Instead, I answered them the best I could and hoped that more would be filled in for him later. I was glad that he was able to go to Young Adults and find more answers there. First challenge completed.

Today's task was a bit more complicated. Enter camp friend #2 who is older and actually going to seminary of all things! He was raised Lutheran, currently attends a Four Square Church with his wife, goes to a Baptist Seminary, and just finished a class on the beliefs of the Catholic Church so he had ALL kinds of questions for me. I have been waiting to get together with this friend for quite sometime now, almost a year actually. He is truly seeking a deeper understanding of his faith right now and has found himself drawn to me since he found out that I converted to a church that he had never heard of before.

I have seen friend #2 at social gatherings with camp people maybe four times over the past year and we inevitably end up in the corner somewhere talking for hours about religion. I have given him lots of things to read and invited him and his wife to church several times but nothing has happened until recently we finally set a time and a place to meet. This time and day was today at 7pm after I have spent much of the past days feeling pretty insufficient in my answers about faith. Today was really important to me because it has been such a long time coming and I was uneasy about our meeting for most of the day.

Then, something happened. After work I was lying in my bed saying the prayer to the Theotokos:

"Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos. Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, for thou hast bourne the Savior of our souls"

and suddenly and overwhelming sense of peace washed over me. I finally began to realize that it is not up to me to make Orthodoxy sound perfect to people by coming up with the "right" words to say. Nothing is up to me, it is all in God's hands. The only thing I have to do, is the best I can, and leave the rest up to God. Much of my stress about answering these questions was coming from pride, pride in a sense that I like to think that I really know a lot about my faith, I mean, I have a whole bookshelf full of Orthodox books that I have read, some of them twice! I have spent countless hours attending services, inquiry classes, young adults, and made trips to holy places, I SHOULD be able to express all of my knowledge intelligently right? But then I was reminded that these things are for my salvation not for others. The time I spend learning is so that I can grow in my relationship with God not so that I can share my experiences with others in a way that is going to "sell" the Church to them.

It has been easy for me to feel burdened by discussing Orthodoxy because I care a lot about the people around me, and it is hard to see them seeking and struggling when I know where they can find peace. . I look around me at my family and my close friends and see them suffering I want so much just to wrap Orthodoxy up in a perfect box and label it "TRUTH" and give it to them. I wish that they could open it and embrace it with ease and we could fight the war with the same weapons (the tools of the Church.)

But the truth is that this is not reality for most people, it certainly wasn't for me, I spent almost two years recognizing Orthodoxy as Truth and saying "No thank you." It was humbling for me to realize today that outside of prayer and living by example I am powerless in terms of whether or not people will become Orthodox. It was also comforting to realize that God's got everything under control, talking pretty isn't up to me, and in all honesty, might not seem as real to people than an honest "It is really hard for me to explain somethings about my faith because a lot of it is understanding through doing"

So I went to coffee with friend number 2 and his wife and spent two hours answersing his questions as simply, honestly, and (this time,) prayerfully as I could. It was interesting answering his questions because they were all about the differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Churchs. I am more used to answering questions about Protestantism. I was mostly struck by the similarities that I found between what he had been taught in his class about what the Catholic Church believes and what the Orthodox Church believes.

Everything sounded similar, phrases like, "Christ is the 'new Adam' and Mary the 'new Eve,'" "The ever-virginity of Mary" or "Apostolic Succession" but then they were each twisted in ways that were very much NOT Orthodox like there's that whole Immaculate Conception of Mary dogma and Peter as the first Pope with the keys to the kingdom which I was glad to have my Orthodox Study Bible with me to draw from the commentary on specific passages in the Bible.

Overall, the conversation went really well, I was thoughtful in my answers gathering all the answers from my shallow wading pool of knowlege. Unlike my conversations with Joel, this one felt incredibly peaceful and seems to be a good start to many conversations to come with this set of friends. Hopefully, with God's grace, my small role will help both my family and friends journeys bear much fruit. Lord have mercy...