The Antifragility of Radical Unity

Open letter to anyone who uses the words "us" or "them":

Please know that I am first addressing this letter to myself. I am guilty of saying "us" and "them" as much as anyone else - and it is toxic. This sort of mentality is everything that is wrong with the world today. It doesn't have to be in an overt "we hate everyone else, we are ISIS" kind of way. It can be in a #blacklivesmatter kind of way that is intended to create awareness of the disenfranchisement of a specific group but, unfortunately, results in a backlash of misunderstanding that argues that #everylifematters. It can be in a #lovewins kind of way when you don't really mean "everyone deserves to be loved," and you actually mean "screw you, we got what we wanted." It can be in a "the church loves everyone" kind of way when you are just setting up for the "but we don't approve of what you do" judgment that follows.

Just so you don't think I am paying lip service to being a major offender of this "us" and "them" phenomenon, let me share with you the extent of my dissociation with both parties of the ugliness that has transpired over the last few weeks:
"THEM #1" To the Ultraconservative who says gay marriage is an abomination - I think gay marriage should be legal. The "sanctity of marriage" argument (a.k.a. "the Church defines marriage argument") went out the window when there was no outrage over the divorce rate or people getting "illegally" remarried outside the church, and we chose gay marriage as the time to send letters and protest and post on Facebook and overall lose our minds over something that does not affect us in any way. The "what if they make us do it in the church" fear mongering has no foundation or legal precedent. We will be required to marry gay people no sooner than we will be required to marry a Jewish couple, who has the same constitutional right to marry. Which brings me to ...
"THEM #2" To the Ultraliberal who says that gay marriage is exactly the same as the Sacramental Union between a man and a woman - I have wrestled with this question for years, and for the sake of love and inclusivity, I want to say "yeah, ok, why not? Let them get married. It's no big deal." I can't do it. I'm sorry. You can get married in a court. You can have the same legal rights in the eye of the government. I still love you the same, as a person. I still respect you the same, as a couple. Unfortunately, from a theological standpoint, and from a Christian anthropological standpoint, I cannot see any precedent in the Bible or Church Tradition that supports same sex marriage. "Things change." Yes, some things do. Biology does not. Two men and two women still can't reproduce naturally. This is not a matter of fairness, it's a matter of fact. I understand that the Episcopal Church has already accepted gay marriage and there is a request that the Roman Catholic Church do the same. I would love to hear more discussion on this, but ultimately I cannot see this being flexible.

"So where do you get off saying 'don't say us or them' when you are the worst offender?" That is why I am first asking you to please forgive me. Forgive me for judging the culturally driven homophobia we suffer from in the Coptic Church and wanting to leave and pray somewhere else. Forgive me for being so embarrassed at the posts of some people that I want to publicly apologize on their behalf (not in a really apologetic way but in a judgy "sorry my three year old is throwing a tantrum" kind of way). Forgive me for your perception that I don't love you because I am saying that you can't marry your same sex partner in my church. Forgive me that my fallen intellect keeps me from fully understanding what God intends or desires in a way that allows wisdom to shine through and be justified by all her children (Luke 7:35). Forgive me that my broken heart is not healed enough to unconditionally love those whom I disagree with as much as God loves them. Forgive me as I forgive you.

Forgiving each other is the start of unity. Saying "I don't agree with you but I love you and respect you" is a prerequisite for progress. Forgiveness is the seed. The fruitful tree is Radical Unity, which will come with many years of ongoing forgiveness and after much discomfort in being unified with "them." People prefer the "mirage of unity," which has all the comforts of general anesthesia, over the extreme initial discomfort of waking up from surgery in severe pain, but is really the start of the road to recovery towards Radical Unity. For example, people want feel "unified" with their fellow members of the Coptic Church by brushing aside major internal theological disagreements on Theosis, Original Sin, etc. rather than come to grips with the fact that we have within our ranks people that are "kind of sort of Eastern Orthodox" in full communion with people that are "kind of sort of Catholic" in full communion with people that are "kind of sort of Evangelical Protestant." Rather than enter into the uncomfortable discussion of "what do we really believe?" we dismiss everyone that disagrees with us, whether they are in or out of the church, as a heretic. This kind of approach didn't work in 451, it didn't work in 1054, and it will not work in 2015. We must embrace Radical Unity as a way of saying "I disagree with you on some things but we agree on something things that are really meaningful and '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—[let us] meditate on these things'" (Phil 4:8).

How can that be possible and how does that make any sense?! How can we be in communion with another faith with which we disagree on major dogmatic issues?! Like I said, we disagree more internally than we do externally. To say it differently, one individual member of the church (laity or clergy, novice or theologian, take your pick) is equally likely to agree with someone outside of the church, as with someone inside the church. Should we stop all liturgies until this is sorted out? Maybe we should, if you think dogma is more important than unity. I suggest that we keep praying liturgies, we keep taking communion, and we keep working toward Radical Unity. Ultimately, I do not think we will unify with the other apostolic churches based on unification of theology or dogma. We will unify based on our commitment to unity for its own sake and work out the details later. The theological and dogmatic disagreements will continue to exist in the Unified Church in the same way they do in the current Coptic Church, and the Holy Spirit will continue to guide the Mind of the Church as it has for two thousand years.

Ok so that means we just let everyone in off the street and anyone can take communion?! No, I didn't say that. Why would someone even want to take communion if they don't really believe it is the Body and Blood of Christ the same way we do? Unity with Protestant Churches is not off the table, but our understanding of the Eucharist must be unified in order for us to be technically "In Communion" with each other. How is that still Radical Unity? Because we are unified in the Creed. We do not need to be in full Communion with each other to love and respect each other in the spirit of Radical Unity. The crucial element is that we focus on where we agree while we maintain healthy boundaries in the places where we disagree. 

What about non-Christians? What about atheists? What about Satan worshippers? We need to find a common ground. We need to start with love and respect. We need to say "we are all human and whether you love Him or not, I believe that God loves you." This brings me back to our initial discussion of gay marriage - it just doesn't matter. The crusade for it is a reaction to feeling unloved, and the crusade against it is a spiritual warfare that is intended to create disunity. Let us rise above the disunity in faith and be convinced that for all mankind "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 8:38-39) - that is, of course, unless you believe the heresy that God only loves Christians or that He loves us more.

Antifragility is a concept developed and popularized by Nassim Taleb and, briefly, is an idea that as the opposite of "positive" is not "zero," the opposite of "fragile" is not "sturdy/robust." We don't have a word in any language that expresses the property that something gets stronger the more that you beat it up. He makes a very convincing argument that in medicine, business and life in general we need to design systems to be "antifragile" so that they don't just withstand the natural entropy and uncertainty of the universe but are strengthened by it.

Radical Unity is Antifragile. I stated earlier that I feel that I am stuck in the middle between two warring parties, empathizing with both but agreeing with neither. How do I reconcile that? By choosing unity over disagreement. By saying I love you even though I disagree with you, and I love you enough to say "I am you, and you are me, and we are one, even though we disagree." Note the difference between this and the formation of factions that happens with the "we disagree with them" mentality that we see everywhere these days. That "us" and "them" mentality is very fragile and is, in fact, actively destructive. In contrast, Radical Unity is antifragile in that I can say "you can say whatever you want, but I can still love you, and I am committed to finding a common ground." Isn't this what Christ did? Did He not find any excuse to find any common ground? Did He not break down every social, political, and religious barrier between Himself and the Samaritan woman? Why are we afraid to be like Him?

Forgive me for offending you if I have. If this is nonsense to you, please suffer me as the fool that I am, praying for my weakness and lack of understanding. If this does happen to make sense to you, then please pray with me for Radical Unity. May God guide us all to be united in His Love.

In Christ,

A Christian of the Orthodox Church

Anamnesis

"He broke it and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.'" 1 Corinthians 11:24

The word St. Paul used for "remembrance" in this verse is anamnesis, which is the Greek word made up by mnesis, meaning "pertaining to memory", with the prefix ana- meaning both "back" and "anew." Therefore, we are not just remembering the Last Supper as something in the past but living it anew every time we celebrate the Eucharist. From an Orthodox perspective, communion is not just a symbol (consubstantiation) or even a miraculous change in substance (transubstantiation) but rather our being present at the Last Supper by partaking of bread and wine that the Holy Spirit changes in a mystery to become the Body and Blood of Christ. The disciples themselves, in the presence of Christ in the flesh, were partaking of the same Body and Blood, which doesn't make any sense and will not make any sense in human logic because their participation was the same mystery that we participate in through anamnesis.

This concept of anamnesis is not restricted to just the Eucharist but extends to all liturgical services - on Palm Sunday we enter Jerusalem with Christ, on Good Friday we are witnessing His Crucifixion, on Easter Sunday we are present for His resurrection from the dead, and so forth. In addition, if whatever we do is done for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31) then anamnesis is a summary of everything we do as Orthodox Christians - not just liturgically and Sacramentally, but even in the every day humdrum of our lives. In His incarnation, Christ blessed our whole existence. When we eat, we can eat in remembrance of Him who ate; when we run, we can run in remembrance of Him who ran; when we sing, we can sing in remembrance of Him who sang. In this way, everything becomes a sacrament.

This begs the question, then, “if everything is a sacrament then what difference does it make if I go out for brunch instead of going to the Good Friday service to celebrate Christ’s life giving death on the cross?” If we see our participation in the life of Christ as a relationship, then the weightiness of the events in which we share with Him will have an effect on the depth of that relationship. Just as with our human relationships, going through a difficult time together makes you feel closer to each other. If all we expect to see with Christ is happy times, then we are like Judas who was willing to go with Him to the throne, but not to the cross. Maybe we can’t really fool ourselves into thinking that going to brunch is the same as going to church, but are we not “bringing the brunch to church” when we ask for the liturgy to conform to what we want it to be rather than submitting to it in whatever form it may come?

This is an excerpt from To Believe in Jesus by Sister Ruth Burrows:

"I have often heard it said that young people, and no doubt others who have not tried to understand its inner meaning, find mass boring, even distasteful. It is essentially the mystery of faith and nothing can substitute for faith. It cannot be interesting on the purely natural level but only when faith lights up the action from within. Undoubtedly everything must be done to ensure that the liturgy is carried out as perfectly and as beautifully as possible but everything must be at the service of faith. The ceremonial, the singing, everything must aim at illuminating the inner meaning of the mass and our share in it. Anything extraneous has no place in the celebration. To turn mass time into a sacred concert, or a prayer meeting, to make it too lively and interesting, with things to do and rollicking songs, is a disservice. It is substituting for the effort of faith. It is mere entertainment loosely connected with the mass, aimed at arousing emotion and keeping attention. One would want proper emotions to be aroused but only in the context of faith. At the same time, we must not be dependent on emotion and must be prepared to enter deeply into the mass whatever our feelings. Here too is the occasion for 'fast'.

"If we really know what the mass is, we won't be too disturbed when things are not to our liking. Tastes differ and it will be impossible to please everyone. After , all, we are celebrating sacrifice and it would be rather odd if, in the name of offering sacrifice, we insisted on having things our way and showed annoyance and resentment when our wishes were not considered. It is of the essence of our surrender to God that we surrender to our neighbour too ; it is largely, almost entirely in surrendering to our neighbour that we surrender to God."

This passage helps to frame for me the ongoing discussion we are having in the Coptic Church about how to make Orthodoxy accessible for an American congregation. We are trying to find a balance between the “needs of the people” and our liturgical Tradition, but the needs of each person will be different, so chasing this vision of a “relevant church” will always be a moving target. Rather than asking how we can conform the Church to fit the desire of the people, perhaps we can ask how we can increase the understanding of the congregation to have it conform to the Church and the richness of its Tradition. The practicalities will still be challenging, in that we still need answer some questions related to the role of 1) culture, 2) language and 3) hymnology. In answering these questions, however, the end goal cannot be “how do we get more people to come?” but rather “how do we get more people to participate in the anamnesis of the life of Christ?” One element in that anamnesis is the Christ-like sacrifice of going to a service even when we do not feel that it is fun, or interesting, or directly relevant to us personally, but we see how it may benefit our fellow parishioner.
 
If we believe that God is with us, we must believe that he is guiding all things towards the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). He will do so for each of us, individually, in both the mundane and the sublime. He will do so for His Church, as whole, in both the short term and in the long term. May He help me never to forget that He is present in all things and at all times.

The Salt and Pepper

Today, His Grace Bishop Youssef announced the opening of the first of eight churches to be opened in the Southern Diocese to address the needs of the English speaking community, starting with "All English services for the week of Holy Week." This is in response to a feeling that many of us have had that there has to be a primacy of spirituality over culture in the practice of our Faith. My hope is that people don't take this as an excuse to throw the baby out with the bath water by prematurely and unnecessarily getting rid of all of our Coptic Hymnology.

The risk of not changing is real. The arguments that are put forth to say "we can't just be a transplant of the cultural Egyptian Coptic Church" are valid and are summarized briefly here:
1) The Russian Orthodox Church has taught us that culture is entirely negotiable, as evidenced by their creation of the OCA.
2) The Greek Orthodox Church has also reformed over the years in response to having "lost a significant number of her members, actual as well as potential, since the immigration period." Incidentally, the author (Fr. George Nicozisin) advocates integration rather than assimilation as a solution.
3) We should follow the example of our Holy Fathers the Apostles who became all things to all men that they by some means save some (1 Cor 9:22). This happened everywhere, including Egypt, where St. Mark worked with the existing Egyptian culture to create a uniquely Coptic Church that is distinct from its sister churches in the rest of the apostolic world.

While I agree that we do need to move on and "incarnate" the Coptic Church into our American culture, I do think that there is value to a balanced approach that places spirituality and not language at the center of the discussion. Language should take a back seat to theology, patristics, liturgical Tradition, and other central issues that should be formally discussed and agreed upon as the priorities for the Coptic Church in America. When all this is said and done, the language issue will still need to be addressed, and the cultural identity of these new churches will have to be defined. Even if this doesn't happen now in this generation, it will inevitably happen over time in subsequent generations. The argument being made by some people is that since this transformation will eventually be towards an "entirely American culture" then we may as well do away completely with "anything Egyptian" right at the outset. I disagree. 

I want to start by asking "what does it mean to be entirely American?" Does that mean we have to have a McDonald's in the entry way of the church? Does it mean we have to report the latest celebrity gossip in the sermon? Clearly, there are parts of the popular American culture that are unnecessary and even undesirable. Similarly, there are parts of our Coptic heritage that we should preserve and include in our evolving identity as Coptic Americans. This integration of two ways of life is really the American Way. This is the melting pot of the United States and the cultural mosaic of Canada that allows people to retain their heritage to varying degrees. There is no such thing as a purely American culture. If we are to incarnate the Coptic Orthodox Church into a truly American tradition then this should not exclude but rather embrace the right amount of "salt and pepper" that gives our Church its own unique flavor. 

Some people find no value in the hymnology of the Church. They think it is a waste of time and a burden on the people. This is a fair criticism in certain cases, but not as a blanket statement. This happens simply as a function of having too much salt or too much pepper, which we all agree makes for an unpalatable dish. The response should not be "we should never use salt and pepper again," but rather "we should use them in moderation." Just because some deacons have made liturgy run late by taking an inordinate amount of time singing  a long hymn that had no translation and seemingly no point, doesn't mean that we can't in the future move towards:
1) translating as many hymns into English as possible;
2) always providing the congregation with the words to the long hymns and potentially a short contemplation explaining its spiritual benefit;
3) writing original English hymns in the same tradition of the Coptic Church;
4) preserving some Coptic in some of the hymns to retain some of the identity of the church in a way that does not compete with spirituality and understanding;
and 5) respecting people's time by always starting and finishing services on time. 

These five points are offered here not as a final solution, but rather as an example of a way for Coptic Hymnology to coexist with American Culture. I hope you are convinced that the two are not mutually exclusive. Ultimately I believe in my heart that God will guide His Church to look however He wants it to look. This may mean that in the short term we completely get rid of Coptic Hymnology only to have a "revival" in 50 years that brings us back to a happy medium that we could potentially achieve now. All I ask is that, rather than rush to assimilate and eliminate everything that carries a Coptic label, we should consider what elements of our heritage are worth preserving for the grandchildren of our grandchildren. 

The Bread of Life is Our Lord

Contemplation on Fai Etaf-enf

www.hazzat.com

    If you love Coptic hymnology, then this is not for you. If you know this hymn, and love it, then this is not for you. Your own meditation and reflection is more than anyone else can offer you. But if you have ignored hymns, avoided them or (let’s be honest) flat out disliked them, then maybe today will be a first. Submit yourself for the next seven minutes to reading along and hearing (maybe for the first time) what lies underneath the surface of a Coptic hymn.
    The most basic appreciation that we can have for the hymns is the meaning of the words themselves. We can meditate solely on the simple words of Fai Etafenf and appreciate the weight of the Love of Christ in offering Himself on our behalf on the cross. One point that we can meditate on is that the hymn does not say “He who was offered up against His will” but rather “He who offered Himself up.” Christ prayed in Gesthemane for the cup to pass for Him, but in the end submitted Himself to the will of the Father for the good of mankind. If that is enough to chew on for now, then stop reading now and meditate on this while you listen to the hymn.
    If your attention is still wandering, then let us dig a little deeper into the actual hymnology. First let us define a term, “melisma,” that is common to many coptic hymns, meaning “a group of notes sung to one syllable of text.” This is a musical tool used often by classical composers like Handel (remember “Messiah” with the Hallelujah Chorus?) and has been popularized in modern gospel music by artists like Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Why melisma? It emphasizes a certain word or words to allow them to take a position of prominence in a song or hymn. It also allows the composer to create a mood or a feeling using the music; for example, we can listen to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and say “this is happy music” without really knowing what the funny German people are saying.
    In Fai Etafenf we hear the notes ascend, then descend, then ascend, then ascend some more and stay high. I know what you’re thinking “yeah, pretty much like every coptic hymn - it goes up, it goes down, it keeps going, and going - so what?” Well these ups and downs begin to take on some meaning when we pay attention to what is being said for these ups and downs. For example, when we say the word “epshoi” which literally means “up” we actually go up then down and then up again. Why? The author of this hymn is not around to tell us for sure but one contemplation is that Christ offered himself up by first leaving heaven (up), coming down to earth through the incarnation (down) and then offering himself up. We can hear that the lowest point of the hymn is actually during this word “up,” perhaps because of how low Christ had to go in order for him to offer himself up for us.
    When Christ was on the cross He gave up the spirit with the words “it is finished,” which we can connect to the the singing of the word “pistavros” (the cross). First of all, this is the musical climax of the whole hymn, in that it ascends without descending. It is the pinnacle of the hymn, just as it is the pinnacle of His Love for us. It is the end of the intensely melismatic portion of the hymn (the subsequent words are said rather quickly), which musically conveys that in the cross Christ completes the work of "becoming human" through sacrifice.
    To conclude, let us point out a simpler but still connected hymnological point - why do we sing to Christ 10 times a day “Thine is the power, glory and blessing” on a week where we know He will be crucified? The answer is in the paradox of the cross, that the ultimate perfection comes through weakness. We do not always see what God sees, and it may take us a lifetime to begin to truly understand. He sees the beauty of the flower in a completely different way, that maybe a botanist may partially understand more than we do. May we pray for God to increase our understanding so that we may have more of an appreciation for all the beautiful things He has created for us.