Generational Sacrifice

Our parents sacrificed more than just their home countries but rather even their identities by leaving Egypt and becoming less Egyptian, more American and thereby becoming really neither one. They identify most, not with Americans or Egyptians, but with fellow Egyptian-Americans who know what it means to be in a watershed of cultures that would otherwise never coexist. 

The first generation has the benefit of being more congruous with our environment but, as even pop culture seems to understand, we do not quite fit in with our moussaka into the white bread world around us. This has more than just simple effects on our social comfort but rather far reaching implications on our choice of schools, careers, spouses and other major decisions that are both consciously and subconsciously affected by our upbringing in an immigrant household. 

The real assimilation does not happen until at least the second generation of immigrants who are raised by parents who (somewhat) understand the world that their children are growing up in. Rather than simply reacting to one new "foreign demand" after another, these parents can anticipate the challenges their children will face and help them navigate them accordingly. This is a complex undertaking that requires more than a simple checklist of items like making sure to apply for scholarships for college - rather, this requires the parents to decide a priori what values they want to instill in their children, ideally picking and choosing the best traits of the two cultures that they have known as part of their own identity. 

This is where the Coptic Church being self aware becomes critically important if the Church is going to be part of that value-molding process. I think we all agree that not all Egyptian values are Christian values, but we may not necessarily agree on which ones are which. Furthermore, the more fuzzy we leave it the more room we leave for even first and second generation Coptic Christians to be confused as to what values they really need to pass along to their children. I'm not saying we need to have a papal decree or a referendum or some kind of official document that says "these are the values we have decided to actually mean something." What I am saying is that everyone from the bishops to the clergy to the servants to the parents needs to be mindful of this cultural gap and thoughtful about what it is that makes us "Us." If we know who we would want to be then we will know who to teach our children to become*. 

Footnote:

*Please note that I do understand that the simple answer is "be like Christ" but everyone seems to have a different caricature in their heads of who He is so it seems more straightforward to engage in a personal and communal discussion on actual values. 

The eye cannot see ...

"The eye cannot see what the mind does not know." This is a common adage in medical training, during which doctors see things over and over again many times so that when it comes up "in real life" it is not missed. One corollary to this comes when a clinician says "I've never seen that" and the response is "yes, but has it seen you?" In any field of expertise the first challenge is not to learn but rather to gain insight into the scope of the burden of knowledge. The dangerous doctor is not the one who says "I don't know" but rather the one who doesn't know that he doesn't know. Similarly for us in our spiritual lives the challenge is not so much that we make mistakes but rather that we don't recognize them; likewise it's not so much that we are often erroneous in our interpretation of God but rather that we are unjustifiably confident in our false understanding. 

Someone can ask "how can we be in error if we have the Church and the fathers to guide us?" My response is that St. Paul himself recognized the necessary limitation of his own understanding while in the earthly body (1 Corinthians 13:12). This does not mean that we should give up on growing or lose sight of the value of mentorship. However, why is it that we often neglect to seek counsel and even when we do it may be difficult to see the situation with the same clarity as our mentors? The answer is that learning is always preceded by a recognition of one's ignorance. When we, like the Phari
sees in John 9, overestimate our own understanding, we are in danger of hearing from Christ "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains."

This self righteous ignorance is the first stage of learning, which is called by educators the stage of unconscious incompetence. Simply seeing our limitation moves us into the second stage of conscious incompetence, during which we can start to work on closing the now recognized deficit. Eventually we can hopefully reach the fourth and final stage of unconscious competence, characterized by an effortless expertise that does not require constant attention and mental effort, such as a baseball player who can hit a 90mph fastball. Before this final stage is the third stage, conscious competence, in which the student needs constant effort to demonstrate competence, which at times can be dangerous; for example, if someone is consciously competent at doing a complex task like surgery, it is easy to make a mistake if he takes his mind off the task to think about something else. At times, the distracting thought is along the lines of "wow I'm getting really good at this" - I warn you that if this thought crosses your mind your are about to make a mistake because you are consciously competent and taking your mind off your task. 

So what is the solution? First we need to recognize that every one of us has a bias and our personal experience affects our interpretation of any situation. On the most basic sensory level what we "see" is not just a function of what light pattern hits our retina but rather how our it is perceived by our visual cortex, which is really more of an interpretation and not just a reception of a stimulus. If you doubt this look at this optical illusion that should prove to you that you and your brain are an active participant in what you think you are passively seeing. "So what? Maybe my eyes can be fooled but I know I am not biased when it comes to important things." How can you be so sure? What are the odds that a simple stimulus like vision can be subject to bias but a complex stimulus like "do I like this idea" is immune?  Indeed, there is a tremendous amount of social science research that supports the idea that how we perceive and react to a situation is highly dependent on our previous experience. 

If you come away with nothing else from reading this I hope you at least stop to question yourself and ask: 1) do I really know as much as I think I know?; and 2) am I sure that I am formulating an unbiased opinion? If the answer to either of these questions is potentially "no" then you need someone to give you another perspective. Ideally this is not just someone with more experience but also someone with a different enough background that there is at least a chance that this person will have a dissenting opinion. If all we do is discuss ideas with peers who have a homogenous background then we can't be surprised if it seems like we are "always right" and never hear correction. 

You either know exactly what I'm talking about because you have made enough mistakes to know your own limitations or you think I need to speak for myself because this does not apply to you. Let us pray for God to help us find ourselves in the first category. Let us see that when we are facing trials and tribulations it may be God teaching us that we are always going to be limited and we need to rely on our mentors and the guidance of the Holy Spirit rather than on our own understanding. May God help us to see our blindness so that we may begin to see. 

Why so many rules?

I have written previously on finding a balance in the personal application of rules in our spiritual lives. The question I have today is - why are the rules there in the first place? Rather than taking a passive role in simply accepting the idea that "of course there are rules, that's the way that it is," can we instead engage in actively thinking and asking "why did God's Wisdom dictate that there must be rules?" If we look back at the Old Testament we find reasons and explanations there that are surprisingly modern and applicable to our current situation.

First let's start with a time where there were no rules - a time in which there was only a relationship between one man and his God. Abraham became the father of many nations because he believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness (Genesis 17; Romans 4; Galatians 3; James 2). We have heard it explained elsewhere that it is natural that if we choose to be away from God then this will naturally create death in us because God is the source of all life (sermon link here). Here we see Abraham actually does the opposite of what Adam did - he chooses God, he chooses life, and it is accounted to him as righteousness. This is not complicated - it is a simple relationship based on trust and mutual affection.

Fast forward five hundred years or so and now God approaches Moses. It is quite evident that the intimate, fatherly relationship that Abraham shared with God was also experienced by his physical and spiritual descendant Moses. When Aaron and Miriam rebelled against Moses, God rebuked them and reminded them that Moses was the only one who at that time spoke to God face to face (Numbers 12). So what was the nature of that relationship that the rest of the Israelites had with God? Clearly it wasn't the same face to face, intimate relationship that Moses enjoyed. However, it is clear that God wanted them to be his people and wanted them to know Him.

What we see is that rather than approach each person individually, He approached Moses as a leader and used him as a mediator to the rest of the people. Doesn't this make more sense than each individual person getting his own individual message and essentially his own separate religion? We can maybe imagine what that could have looked like in a parallel universe where there were hundreds of thousands of burning bush-like stories. Would that make sense? To me, this would defy the scientific principle of Occam's Razor and unnecessarily complicate the situation. It certainly would not make sense to run a modern organization this way, and you see in any company there are layers of organization and delegation. You can say "yes, but God is infinite and omnipresent so He, unlike a human CEO, could effectively communicate and interact with each individual person." My response to that would be that yes of course He does, but he doesn't need a different set of rules for each person in order to be able do so.

What was the first rule? We may mistakenly think that the first rule was "do not eat of this tree," but the first rule God gave Adam and Eve was to eat of any tree in the garden (sermon link here). Yes, of course, in order to be human and not robots we must have one forbidden tree to allow for free will, but why dwell on that one tree when there were hundreds if not thousands of trees that were permissible? Even this one simple rule, we as a human race were not able to follow. 

When did the rules start to expand? When the Israelites left Egypt, Moses was left with the task of leading hundreds of thousands of people through the desert to the promised land. This would have been an unmanageable task if it weren't for the rules given to him by God. Many of the rules related to sanitation and interpersonal relations are common sense to us today, but some of them seem completely arbitrary for any time period. Why wear tassels? Why not trim your beard? Why the Sabbath? The key to all of the law - the rules that make sense as well as the ones that don't - is it gives people the choice to follow God ... or not. God made a covenant with the people of Israel that was contingent on their willingness to accept Him as their God and their genuine desire to be His people. Time after time God told Moses to tell the people to do something, simply because the following of the rule was a confirmation of this covenant. If we squint just the right way, we can see through the Levitical rules and see the relationship behind the rules that God wanted to establish with Israel.

Why do we still have so many rules if we have Christ? There is an argument based on Romans 6-8 and the entire book of Galatians that supports that we should not be subject to the law if we live a life in Christ. This argument holds water if what we mean is to echo the words of St. Augustine that we are to "Love God and do whatever we want." We have the freedom in Christ to dwell on the relationship with Him rather than on the rules, but this does not make the rules of no value. We can imagine a situation where God is a CEO who tells everyone in the company that they all have to wear bowties on Thursdays; clearly, it would be understood that the point is not so much the bowties but the unity of the company that He is trying to promote. 

The rules put us all on the same page. When we throw the rules away we are creating unnecessary disorder. If all at once we abolish the traffic laws, it may be fun for about 10 minutes to drive 100mph on the highway, but very soon it will be impossible to get anywhere without getting into an accident. I am not going to rehash the utility of each of us following every rule (previous entry), but I need to call attention to the difference between saying "I do not think it is beneficial for me to follow this particular rule right now," versus saying, "this rule is stupid and we need to get rid of it." One example is fasting with abstention and the effect it has on the length of the Great Lent - whether you follow the rule or not is between you and your father of confession but whether the rule exists or not is entirely the prerogative of the Church. 

Whether or not we want to submit our will to God's will becomes then the central issue. Will we bow down? Will we follow? Will we allow him to tell us what to do? Once again, (broken record) I'm not advocating for a blind following of the rules! I am simply saying that in order for God to have a relationship with more than one person at one time in a meaningful way that is not entirely haphazard, the two (or more) people need to agree in the Spirit to follow the same rules so that they may be one in the Spirit (Ephesians 4). The important thing is that in distinguishing the tradition from the Tradition we follow the latter with all of our hearts and recognize that at least some of the former is necessary simply to keep the unity of the congregation. For example, we cannot legitimately argue that our Faith will fall apart if the deacons do or don't wear tunics - clearly lower case "t" tradition; however, does that mean we get rid of the tunics because they don't matter? No, of course not. There is no reason to - this is something that can continue to be done simply because "that's the way we've always done it" without a real downside. 

The final layer of rules is the category in which some may argue and say there is a real downside that affects the unity of the congregation. Without getting into much detail and diatribe we can all quickly come up with a short list in our heads. Perhaps some of us have a long, laminated list with cogent theological arguments. My hope and dream is that the leaders of the Church are taking these arguments into consideration and will make a decision that preserves the sanctity of the Tradition without losing the forest in the trees of tradition. That being said it is their decision and not mine. I do agree that we as the laity have not the right but the responsibility to ask "why this rule?" and maybe even "is this really necessary?" That doesn't mean, however, that we necessarily need to personally dwell on these issues and make them a stumbling block. There are so many positive rules in the Tradition and even some nice traditional ones. Rather, "whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things." Philippians 4:8

So hopefully we can agree that we need rules. Hopefully we can agree that some of these rules are central to our salvation and we consider those the Church Tradition. Hopefully we can agree that at least some of the rules that we consider non-essential lower case "t" tradition are valuable simply as a glue that holds together the organization that in its heart is dedicated to the Tradition. Hopefully we can agree that we can at least to try to find a balance in our questioning and accepting of the controversial rules. May God give us the grace to submit to the rules of his Church that He has established for us as the vehicle of our salvation and the place of meeting Him in the Spirit and in the Flesh.

On Mentorship

We all have mentors. This is either through deliberate effort (article link) or unintentional osmosis, but we as humans naturally look up to other human beings for guidance. We see people that we regard as successful people and, even potentially subconsciously, say "I want to be successful, too, so I will do what they do." If we have direct access to these people the relationship is stronger, but even if this person has no idea who we are they may have an influence on us simply through their public persona. This happens both in a positive way (Warren Buffet pledge) and, unfortunately more commonly, in a negative way (any entertainment news website - link, mercifully, not provided). 

Before we talk about mentorship, I first need to ask: what are your priorities? If we have a vision of where we want to go, we can then see where we need guidance. Then and only then can we find a mentor for each aspect of our life that we have consciously decided to value - if we don't seek this mentorship, how do we expect to find our way? Yes we can try to bumble along and try to figure out the way on our own, but it is much easier to identify someone who has demonstrated that they know the way and say to ourself - "yes, I want to be like that person because they have already been there and can show me how to get there." 

The next point is maybe a little obvious but, unfortunately, often missed: make sure the guidance you are getting from your mentor is in his or her area of expertise. If we want to grow spiritually we need a spiritual mentor. If we want to grow professionally we need a work mentor. Some people may be multi-talented and serve as mentors in multiple facets of your life, but if someone has no experience with something why would you take their advice about it? You wouldn't go to a mechanic for legal advice any more than you would you go to a lawyer for an oil change. We can very easily get caught up idolizing our mentors and just assuming that because we hold them in such high regard that they must be infallible. We may look at work mentors as role models for life, failing to recognize their personal shortcomings as red flags to warn us against doing everything in our lives just like them. Similarly, our spiritual mentors should be guiding us spiritually, not telling us what pair of shoes to buy and what hat makes our head look too big. If you get bad advice or you go astray following a mirage, this may be a result of having a good mentor but for the wrong problem.

So what if we do have the right mentor for the right problem, but we still get steered in the wrong direction? This happens all the time and is simply a function of the fallibility of all human beings. Just as in the previous point we see that no individual can be perfect in every facet of life, we also know that even in our areas of strength we will often encounter weakness; the only exception to this rule is Christ. He is the only one without blemish because He is the Son of God Himself, showing us an image of perfected mentorship when He says in John 5:19 - "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner." In addition, we can look to mentors who are better reflections of Christ than ourselves, who we can imitate as they imitate Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). 

Ultimately, I think our imitation of Christ and our mentors is a reflection of our love for them. With Grace, our love for God and for each other grows with time but will not be perfected until we are perfected at the last trumpet and are able to see God face to face in His Glory (1 Corinthians 13:12). Until then I pray that we first prioritize our life in a way that reflects God's will for us - then and only then can we see how great is the expectation that is set before us and the dire need we have for our mentors. May God give them the patience and wisdom to guide us, and may God give us the commitment and humility to follow them.

Cultural Orthodoxy

Culture (Wikipedia) is a somewhat vaguely defined term that describes an integrated system of behavior between people that share a similar experience. For a sense of culture to be personal it cannot, as a rule, be someone else's culture. For example, parents often try to tell kids what their culture is, but it is impossible for people separated by a generation to truly share the same exact culture. Times change and, even if they share the same place of birth, genes, and social structure, two people will have a different cultural experience that is unique to the time they live in. A father who grew up in the 60's would be quite different from his (even if otherwise identical) son who grows up in the 90's. 

I think it is safe to say that while culture is shared by a group, the perception of that culture is both individualized and multifactorial. Each person is affected by many different cultural factors, some of which they share with some people but not others. To me the best description of culture is this Venn diagram of all the different cultural influences on a given individual:

In this very simplified example, this individual is influenced significantly by his race, somewhat by his family values, and to a certain extent by his religion. There is even some room left for entirely idiosyncratic individualism, whose perceived extent is in and of itself quite cultural; a Western minded person with a more independent spirit would be much more likely to make this space in the Venn diagram much larger than someone from an Eastern culture that is more collectivist by nature. It might be a beneficial exercise for all of us to sit down and think about what cultural influences we have and to what extent we are influenced by them. If we did so, each of our Venn diagrams may not be completely different, but they also will never be identical. Like a snowflake, our Venn diagram will be as unique as we are.

Now the next layer of complexity comes when these unique Venn diagrams start interacting with each other - except we don't exactly wear buttons that identify our biases and cultural influences. It would be nice if we did, but we don't; we leave each other to figure it out for ourselves, and quite frankly we may not even understand the true nature of our own inner selves. What you find is that these complex beings with varying degrees of self-awareness end up having to interact with each other and needing to find a way to sort out their differences. We may see two people with a nearly identical Venn diagram in that they grow up in the same geographic region, with a similar cultural environment, family structure, etc. that are unable to coexist peacefully simply because of a difference in religion (the Middle East presents us ample examples). In contrast, you may see two people who may otherwise seem completely different from each other that are able to manage to get along very well, simply because they go to the same undergraduate university and have learned to tolerate and maybe even celebrate cultural differences.

So why have I not yet mentioned Christ in a spiritual blog? Because this, unfortunately, is what may happen in a culturally oriented church. There is a clarity that the parishioners are Christian, but nobody in life wants to be "just another ..." anything really. Would you want to be just another "lawyer" or would you rather tell people you are a "corporate attorney, specializing in tax law, with a subspecialty in executive compensation?" It may not sound exciting, but it sure does sound more impressive. Christians acknowledge other Christian sects by their profession of the creed, but we have a tendency to say or at least think "yes, I am a Christian, but our sect is special because we have [fill in the blank]." Rather than do what CS Lewis does in Mere Christianity and focus on the core foundation that we all agree on, we have a tendency to rather focus on the window dressing that, forgive me, to a great extent doesn't matter.

When does this become a problem? Well, first, we know that in the medical field there is such a thing as an asymptomatic problem. High blood pressure and high cholesterol are two well known examples of medical conditions that people have without knowing. In time these problems may result in symptoms, but at that point the treatment is more difficult and potentially irrelevant in the face of larger problems created by these previously treatable issues. Similarly, the cultural undertones of an Orthodox Church are not necessarily bad - my father of confession calls them the "salt and pepper" that add flavor to the Church. However, when these cultural undertones begin to take a primacy in the identity of the Church, it becomes difficult to figure out what elements of the perceived dogma are Christian and which are cultural. Once again, these may not even be noticed and may remain asymptomatic as long as the group is homogenous and everyone involved accepts and even embraces these cultural elements of the Church. The problem comes when there is a culture shift that challenges the status quo - this can be a change in the cultural mileu that the Church resides in, such as the so called Arab Spring; this can be a change in the location of the parishioners who bring their religion to their respective land of immigration; and this can be challenge for an individual who does not personally identify himself as the same culture as the majority of the people with whom he shares Communion.

The question I am (finally) building up to asking is: what matters more? The Church or the church? Is it the Bride of Christ that is our vehicle to heaven, or is it the physical building where the people go to pray? You may say they are equally important but to me that is like saying that an engineering firm's building is as important as the engineers. What about the rules of the church, are they important? Again I need to question whether these rules are related to our relationship with God or our relationship to our cultural heritage. For example, the use of a certain language may have a cultural significance but is of no intrinsic theological or spiritual value. Does that mean we should get rid of everything that is cultural in favor of focusing only on the spiritual? No, I don't think so. There is no reason to say "I love chicken so much that every time someone cooks chicken it needs to be made the same way." Yes, there are certain tenets that most chefs follow when making chicken, like the temperature of doneness, but these general rules allow for a great deal of flexibility that allows for us to appreciate the genius of each individual chef. The Christian Church has many churches, each of which has a special flavor and nuance that adds to the complexity and character of the Church as a whole. Trying to sweep away and remove all the cultural elements is not progress but rather oversimplification; in the other extreme, when we dwell on the cultural and miss the spiritual we have then turned the church into a country club or special interest group.

For those of us that are in a cultural Church I pray that we understand the difference between our Church and our church. I pray that we try to focus on the Church and our relationship with Christ, and try not to fall into the trap of letting the cultural cart lead the spiritual horse.  For the people visiting or joining a cultural Orthodox church I ask for your forgiveness - we really do want to welcome you, we really do want to share in an Ecumenical Spirit of Christianity, and we really want to focus ourselves on Christ - but we are also humans with very complex Venn diagrams and multiple influences that we do not always understand about ourselves. May God help us all to increase our self awareness and even more importantly help us to lose ourselves in Him so that we may find each other.