Lenten Reflections: St. Anthony and staying put
Someone asked Abba Anthony, “What must one do in order to please God?” The old man replied, “Pay attention to what I tell you. Whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes. Whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures. In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts, and you will be saved.”
The first two are easy to grasp. They are explicitly "spiritual." Always be conscious of God and conform how you live to scripture. The third precept takes a bit longer to begin to understand (for all my understanding is only ever at the beginning). "In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it." This, of course, does not simply imply a location only, for many of the desert fathers were wanderers and fled because of persecution.
In Orthodoxy, there is the call to stillness and temperament in conduct. To be overly sorrowful is despair. To be overly joyful is delusion. To be overly angry is bitterness. To be overly desirous of food and material possessions is gluttony and covetousness. This does not mean to be a robot, but to keep an inner stillness and focus that we may follow the first two precepts which can be worded as to always be conscious of God (ceaseless prayer) and to be holy (theosis). But I cannot do this with my day not only consisting of wandering to and fro, but also my heart and thoughts. The life of the desert is not for everyone. For this reason Abba Benjamin said to himself, "If you are not able to perform the works of the desert, live patiently in your cell, weeping for your sins, without wandering here and there. For the eye of God always see the works of a man and nothing escapes him and he knows those who do good."
The first two are easy to grasp. They are explicitly "spiritual." Always be conscious of God and conform how you live to scripture. The third precept takes a bit longer to begin to understand (for all my understanding is only ever at the beginning). "In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it." This, of course, does not simply imply a location only, for many of the desert fathers were wanderers and fled because of persecution.
In Orthodoxy, there is the call to stillness and temperament in conduct. To be overly sorrowful is despair. To be overly joyful is delusion. To be overly angry is bitterness. To be overly desirous of food and material possessions is gluttony and covetousness. This does not mean to be a robot, but to keep an inner stillness and focus that we may follow the first two precepts which can be worded as to always be conscious of God (ceaseless prayer) and to be holy (theosis). But I cannot do this with my day not only consisting of wandering to and fro, but also my heart and thoughts. The life of the desert is not for everyone. For this reason Abba Benjamin said to himself, "If you are not able to perform the works of the desert, live patiently in your cell, weeping for your sins, without wandering here and there. For the eye of God always see the works of a man and nothing escapes him and he knows those who do good."
The cell for me is my own heart, for the Church teaches that when Christ says, "Go into your room and shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret," (Matthew 6:6) he means my heart. I should never leave my heart. And thus I should stay put, ceaselessly in union with God. I've thought of traveling and road trips because I am young and "without attachment." But I'm not sure what benefit it would be to my soul to do this extensively. I must always look at my decisions through the lens of death. Experience is good and God "richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." (1 Timothy 6:17). But the fathers teach that all desire is ultimately a desire for God."All flesh is grass" (Isaiah 40:6) and my experience is only as significant as the stillness of my heart unto God in the midst of it. Awe of creation or the oldness of architecture is poisonous if it draws my heart out of stillness. Thus, I must live patiently in my cell, trusting that "our present sufferings are unworthy to be compared to the future glory that awaits us." (Romans 8:18)
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