Open our mouth and fill it with your praise, that we may be able without distraction to sing and confess that you are God…
[St. Basil’s Prayer. For full prayer, click St. Basil’s Prayer: Lent 2024 above.]
Open our mouth and fill it with your praise, that we may be able without distraction to sing and confess that you are God…
[St. Basil’s Prayer. For full prayer, click St. Basil’s Prayer: Lent 2024 above.]
Indolence: the state of showing no real interest or effort. (Cambridge English Dictionary)
It’s more than mere laziness, it’s inattention and inaction due to lack of interest. It’s having zero motivation to do anything new because nothing seems worth the effort. Why expend any energy if I don’t give a damn about what I see around me?
How can anyone get to the point where nothing is worth the effort, when nothing sparks even the tiniest bit of interest? Once at that point, how can anyone find a way out of such a dreary, soul deadening place?
I see one way out every Tuesday morning: Story Time. Babies, toddlers, and their adults gather to sing a few songs and enjoy a couple of short stories. Simple words, simple tunes, and a place to enjoy them. Eyes light up, smiles and laughter dance among the gathered; the tots play and explore, but it’s their adults whose spirits are renewed.
Make no mistake: indolence crushes the soul. It’s a disease of the spirit that sucks the joy out of life and turns the world gray. Fortunately, all it takes is the eyes of a child to cure it.
…and a little child will lead them (Isaiah 11:6b)
Enlighten the eyes of our understanding, and raise up our minds from the heavy sleep of indolence. St. Basil’s Prayer [click St. Basil’s Prayer: Lent 2024 for full prayer]
Enlighten the eyes of our understanding and raise our minds from the heavy sleep of indolence.
Walking home at twilight, I could see someone in the distance. She or he wore a dark colored winter jacket with the hood pulled up, hands in mittens. In the failing light, I couldn’t tell whether the person was a man or woman, or whether s/he was coming toward me or walking away. I could see just enough to make out the moving figure, but my eyes couldn’t discern much beyond that.
I’m convinced that how I see this creation and all the life it holds is often much like how I see a distant figure at twilight: good enough to make out a figure, but not good enough to know much beyond that for sure. The eyes of my understanding see what is before me imperfectly. I cannot see people for the delightful children of God that they are without a longer look and a loving heart. I do not recognize or understand the preciousness and holiness of all that surrounds me.
I need more light, enlightenment.
Lord, enlighten my eyes that I may understand and love what is before me and around me – the life you created.
The Prayer of Saint Basil
We bless you, O God, most high and Lord of mercy. You are always doing great and inscrutable things with us, glorious and wonderful, and without number. You grant us sleep for rest from our infirmities, and repose from the burdens of our much toiling flesh. We thank you, for you have not destroyed us with our sins, but have continued to love us; and though we were sunk in despair, you have raised us up to glorify your power. Therefore, we implore your incomparable goodness. Enlighten the eyes of our understanding and raise up our minds from the heavy sleep of indolence. Open our mouth and fill it with your praise, that we may be able without distraction to sing and confess that you are God, glorified in all and by all, the eternal Father, with your only begotten Son, and your all holy, good, and life giving Spirit, now and forever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
[Found in Daily Prayers for Orthodox Christians(the Synekdemos); Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2010 reprint, pp.9-10.]
Goodness and Greatness are not the same things. God’s incomparable greatness isn’t usually questioned, but I’m not sure the same can be said of God’s goodness.
The older I get, the more I believe they should not be separated. The incomparable greatness of God without goodness would be terrifying, leaving me to cower in the deadly deep shadow of fear. I implore the incomparable goodness of God because it seems almost too good to be true. Almost.
Why is such a life-giving truth so hard to accept?
We thank you, for you have not destroyed us with our sins, but have continued to love us; and though we were sunk in despair, you have raised us up to glorify your power. Saint Basil’s Prayer
[For the full prayer, click St. Basil’s Prayer: Lent 2024 above.]
Perhaps only those who have come close to drowning in the muck of despair and hopelessness, those who have been lifted out of it when its weight was so heavy that they could not get up on their own two feet, know the power required to pull them up and out. Perhaps they are the only ones who truly see the glory of God in that saving act of restoration.
The rest of us would be wise to remember that compassion in action is a superpower, not a fault or waste of time and energy that could be directed elsewhere.
You are always doing great and inscrutable things with us, glorious and wonderful, and without number.
[For the full prayer, click St. Basil’s Prayer: Lent 2024 above.]
Inscrutable – impossible to understand or interpret; impenetrable; incapable of being analyzed or investigated.
I don’t think this means that God is doing things in a devious way, or with the intention of keeping us ignorant of divine actions. I think it’s more a matter of scale and depth. I can no more comprehend the great things that God is doing with us than I can view the entire state of Vermont from my living room window. I can only see a part of it because my life is held in its geographical embrace. What I see is real and true, but the view is limited and my understanding equally limited. I’m in no position and in no shape to claim anything I experience as universal or all-encompassing.
I hope I remember this when I am tempted to discount the ideas and vantage points of others.
I hope I remember this when I am tempted to limit God’s great doings with us to God’s great doings with me.
Lent begins early this year. Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day are coming in less than a week. It’s time to pare down and choose a focus – in daily life and in writing. In my blue and gold copy of Daily Prayers for Orthodox Christians I found a guiding prayer for this year’s walk to the tragedy of the cross and the joy of Easter:
We bless you, O God, most high and Lord of mercy. You are always doing great and inscrutable things with us, glorious and wonderful, and without number. You grant us sleep for rest from our infirmities, and repose from the burdens of our much toiling flesh. We thank you, for you have not destroyed us with our sins, but have continued to love us; and though we were sunk in despair, you have raised us up to glorify your power. Therefore, we implore your incomparable goodness. Enlighten the eyes of our understanding and raise up our minds from the heavy sleep of indolence. Open our mouth and fill it with your praise, that we may be able without distraction to sing and confess that you are God, glorified in all and by all, the eternal Father, with your only begotten Son, and your all holy, good, and life giving Spirit, now and forever, to the ages of ages. Amen.
I hope you will pray with me on this Lenten journey.
[Saint Basil, Bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, was born in 330AD, and died at age 49 in 379AD. He is remembered as a powerful theologian and orator, who helped define and defend what became Orthodox theology from Arianism. He worked for the uplifting of the poor and needy, and is remembered for his pastoral work. His feast day is January 1st or 2nd, depending on the tradition.]
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.
Psalm 131, NRSV. A Song of Ascents. Of David? [Some scholars believe this psalm was written by a woman, regardless of its being attributed to David. I don’t think it matters much, but the imagery is definitely feminine – God as mother, human soul as child.]
I hadn’t really given much thought to the image of the soul as a weaned child, one already moving toward adulthood and able to survive without a mother’s milk. It isn’t hunger for food that moves this child to seek its mother; it’s the desire to return to the source of life, and the recognition that life begins and is sustained by the loving presence of another. None of us are self-created. That simple truth can be accepted and celebrated, or it can be denied as a weakness. If denied, the truth of our very existence is lost, and we will seek in vain to replace it with all manner of complex knowledge and difficult tasks – all of which will have no foundation or ability to ground us in what is true and real.
There’s no shame in being still in the presence of the one who brought us into life. It’s the one place in the universe that offers a glimpse of who we are, and how very much we are loved. This and no other is the starting place of wisdom.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Ps. 130:1
The children lit the vigil candles. The cantor sang a wordless song simple enough for even those of us unfamiliar with the melody to join in.
Lamentations biblical and spontaneous were lifted to God. Prayers of hope and safety chanted in Hebrew joined them. People stood and named friends and family members in Israel; some accounted for, some lost, some who died violently.
My husband and I added our prayers and presence, part of the gathering at the synagogue last night. For our neighbors, Alison and Michael, for their family, and for all whose lives will be forever changed because of hatred and the desperation of the soul that generates it.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice!
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. [Psalm 121:8, NRSV]
There were no streetlights near my home when I was in my teen years. On cloudy nights, or ones when there was no moon to light the way, darkness covered everything. One such night, I was walking back from a friend’s house after neighbors were in bed, lights off. About a third of the way home, before I made the turn and could see my house, my friend shut off her porch light. In that moment, a thousand yards from home, everything disappeared. After a moment or two of standing still, I continued on my way. Instead of seeing, I listened to the sound of my feet on the road; when the sound of my steps changed, I knew I had strayed off the road. I tapped my toes against the ground until I found pavement again, then kept on walking. Eventually, I rounded the corner and could see the porch light of my own home.
It’s this lost in the dark experience that I think of when I read this psalm. When I find myself in a dark place – in the existential, spiritual, emotional sense – I remember that night. Finding my way didn’t require sight, just enough trust to put one foot in front of the other until I rounded a corner and the light reappeared. My life is kept by God, coming in or going out; I may lose my way in the dark, but I’m never lost to God.