Gratitude

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A story from the Desert Fathers starts with a group of monks finding a book of theology that has a lot of good stuff within its pages. The monks go and ask their elder what they should do with it. The elder looks at the book and sees what it is. He says that he finds no harm in keeping it but it is ultimately better to own nothing.

I think about this story every time I contemplate buying yet another icon or book of theology. I think about what another Desert Father set to a man with an extensive library, that the livelihood of the widows and orphans was upon his shelves.

Sometimes, it seems that my lust for things creeps into religious devotion and disguises itself as piety. It may be pious, though this is not what God asks of me:

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" -Micah 6:8

Is not justice to trust in Christ's passion?

Is not kindness to love my neighbor as myself?

Is not humility to ceaseless cry out, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy on me sinner?"

I do not do these things. I feel a sting when a read the prayer to my guardian angel from the prayer book, "even the dumb beasts do not have the evil inclinations which are in me. Oh holy guardian, with what eyes will you look upon me.."

I have repeatedly heard that prayer is not about thought. These words are not about what I think about myself. I pray them because they are true. Indeed, St. Paisios The New teaches to neither think good nor evil of yourself. Your view of yourself is skewed in either direction.

The conditioning of my heart should be hesychasm which means, "to keep stillness." This isn't the Buddhist principle of removing all desire, but rather bringing all desire into a single focus. We aren't building a dam or draining a lake, but creating a central canal through which all the bodies of water may flow through as one.

And this calls for an otherworldly contentment. It is the same contentment that is among the martyrs of the church. It is the same contentment that kept St. Anthony near God as he dwelt in a cave for decades. It is the same contentment that held St. Sophia as she beheld the horror of being forced to watch the torture of her young daughters because they wouldn't deny their Christian faith.

It looks different in each life, but it is of the same grace. We are given their lives to show us what contentment given by grace can help us endure. We want so much that is of no benefit to us. We naturally want that which decreases our difficulties and sufferings. 

"Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction." - Isaiah 48:10

How do we remain content? The Church has shown us the way. It has given us what we need in the prayers, the fasts, the feasts and the saints. Her life is what deeply roots a sense of gratitude in us. Even if it is but crumbs, we have tasted of the eternal goodness of God. Such crumbs, if we should draw near and taste them, are what lead to such sayings as, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18)."

Beloved, let us take heart and remain in the life set before us. For then gratitude takes root in us. Then we can say:

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8: 37-39

Then we shall have that love which endures all things (1 Cor. 13:7).