{"id":290,"date":"2018-08-20T14:05:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T14:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.smallpage.online\/2018\/08\/20\/6-things-you-can-learn-for-20-years-of\/"},"modified":"2019-02-14T13:32:41","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T13:32:41","slug":"6-things-you-can-learn-for-20-years-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/6-things-you-can-learn-for-20-years-of","title":{"rendered":"6 Things You Can Learn for 20 years of Being Orthodox Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today marks the 20th anniversary of my reception into the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church \u2014 the Orthodox Church. I was just 22 years old at the time and still in college (I had something of a \u201ccareer\u201d in college, accumulating one BA, most of another, and three minors, all while working to support myself).<\/div>\n
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In 1998, April 19 was Pascha, and at that Pascha 20 years ago, it was between Matins and the Divine Liturgy, when I was received into the Holy Orthodox Church. 2018 was my 21st Pascha, including 12 as a presbyter. It never gets old but instead is newer every year.\u00a0A lot has happened these past 20 years, and I can\u2019t say that I really knew what to expect. There has been both pain and joy, both loss and gain, over the past two decades.<\/div>\n
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But I will say that this faith is deeper and stronger and more pervasive in its practice than I could have imagined in 1997 when I first learned of it. It is also both more difficult and more merciful than I could have known 20 years ago. I have a long ways to go, but here are six things that I\u2019ve learned over the past couple decades, and I do hope that my old friend Chris (a cradle Catholic) will stop referring to me as a \u201crecent convert\u201d now. (Heheh.)<\/div>\n
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1. It\u2019s way less work than I could have imagined.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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My impression 20 years ago of Orthodoxy was that it was like a kind of life-long boot camp, in which one is constantly engaged in grueling effort \u2014 all that fasting (yes, we always mention the fasting first), prayer, long services, etc. \u2014 in order to repent of sin and acquire the Holy Spirit. When I was 22, the \u201chardcore\u201d feeling of Orthodox Christianity is part of what drew me to it.<\/div>\n
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But eventually I found out that it becomes part of \u201cnormal\u201d life. You don\u2019t stay in boot camp forever. Eventually you get out on the ocean and have to just mind the ship. And that\u2019s what most people do most of their time. Of course, there are periods (e.g., Lent or pilgrimages) when we kick it up a few notches, because we need to do that from time to time, but human beings can\u2019t spend all their time at full intensity.<\/div>\n
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2. It\u2019s way more work than I could have imagined.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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When they said that Orthodox Christianity was about repentance, I didn\u2019t really know what that meant. For sure, when I did my life confession before becoming Orthodox, I had a lot of sins that I confessed, many of which I was quite ashamed of. But I didn\u2019t really know how many deep-seated tendencies toward selfishness, being closed off, anger, resentment (I could go on) I actually had. And I didn\u2019t know how much practice it would take to see improvement on those things.<\/div>\n
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This is not to downplay God\u2019s grace, of course. The point here is that God\u2019s grace is freely available to those who freely reach for it. But I wasn\u2019t very good at reaching for it 20 years ago, and I didn\u2019t really even know that. I know it much better now, and I pray that, by grace, I am better at reaching for it.<\/div>\n
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3. It\u2019s much deeper than I could have imagined.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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When I became Orthodox at 22, I thought I understood Orthodox theology and practice pretty well. That\u2019s why I became Orthodox, right? But here I am, 20 years later, with an M.Div. under my belt, with seminary 11 years in the rear-view mirror, with 11 years of priestly ministry, including 9 as a pastor, and there are still a lot of things I just don\u2019t get. There are still a lot of things I\u2019m just beginning to get.<\/div>\n
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I\u2019ve had to learn to say \u201cThat just isn\u2019t my field\u201d when asked questions I\u2019m not really qualified to answer. And I\u2019ve also learned that there is still so much of this beautiful Kingdom to explore. Even with 20 years of Orthodox life behind me \u2014 nearly my entire adulthood \u2014 I feel like I\u2019m just getting started! That\u2019s a great feeling.<\/div>\n
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4. Prayer is much more than I could have imagined.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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When I really began to start paying attention to just trying to keep a daily prayer rule, I noticed something. First, I should say that it was \u201ceasy\u201d when I was 22 to say morning and evening prayers every day \u2014 no problem! But then at some point it wasn\u2019t happening every day. And then I\u2019d start again. And then I\u2019d have long periods where I just didn\u2019t actually pay much attention to it \u2014 including after ordination. What was so basic, easy and elementary at first became almost the whole of the struggle. Thank God, though, that He\u2019s sent me guides to help me in this.<\/div>\n
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One of the things that I\u2019ve seen clearly \u2014 some of it only just within the past few years \u2014 is that prayer actually does do something. It may not \u201cdo\u201d the thing that I\u2019m wanting, hoping or asking, but it really is an opening up of the person to the grace of God. One experiment that I did (at the behest of my confessor) was to notice how I felt at my worst times of day and then to see if there were any correlation between that experience and whether I prayed that morning. And you know what? There was!<\/div>\n
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Probably the biggest reason that I have been so inconsistent with daily prayer at times in my life is that I generally didn\u2019t think it did anything. I had no problem being consistent with brushing my teeth, getting coffee, eating breakfast, etc., because I could see and measure the effects of doing those things. But I had never actually checked whether daily prayer did anything. Well, it does. In praying in the morning, I receive God\u2019s protection from many temptations. I\u2019m not perfect \u2014 far from it \u2014 but when I do that prayer, the day is observably different.<\/div>\n
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5. Parishes are much more different from each other than I could have imagined.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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When I became Orthodox, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d even visited more than a couple other parishes than the one I was joining. I didn\u2019t know how different the customs, the music and even the commitment levels could be from one parish to another.<\/div>\n
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I remember one of my first conscious moments of knowing that there were differences was when I was asked by a fellow seminarian why I was Antiochian (some 6.5 years after I became Orthodox). The answer was that it had been the parish closest to my house. His question presumed, however, that I had made some kind of conscious choice between different parishes and picked the tradition that suited me best.<\/div>\n
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I\u2019ve now been an active member of 5 different parishes all within the same tradition, and wow! are they different from each other. Even the two \u201cconverty\u201d parishes I\u2019ve been part of are quite different from each other.<\/div>\n
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And now especially with getting a chance to do speaking engagements all over the country, I\u2019ve seen a lot of different traditions and ways of doing things. The thing I\u2019ve learned is that every parish is on a journey. None will remain exactly as they are. So when I become part of a parish\u2019s life, even if it\u2019s just for a day, I\u2019m joining them on that
\njourney. I\u2019ve also learned that experiencing other traditions and even other ways of brokenness is an enriching experience.<\/div>\n
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6. The only way to be an Orthodox Christian is to focus on Jesus Christ.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This might seem like a no-brainer, but honestly, 20 years ago, I don\u2019t think I really knew that. I sort of assumed it, but focus isn\u2019t made of assumptions. We have to keep returning to Jesus, exploring Who Jesus is, exploring how Who He is shapes everything in spiritual life. He is the One Who opens the door for us, the One Who is the Way, the One Who accompanies us on the journey, and the One Who is the destination. Everything is about Jesus Christ.<\/div>\n
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Possibly the most important thing to note about #1 and #2 above is that in both cases, what I had to learn was that spiritual life isn\u2019t about making me a better person (however defined). It is about learning how to invite Christ more deeply into every part of myself.<\/div>\n
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And one of the most important lessons I\u2019ve learned in this regard is that I can\u2019t let myself become focused on the brokenness of either myself or other people within the Church. I recently watched a video of someone who visited an Orthodox church one time and decided not to be Orthodox because he experienced a particular kind of brokenness in that parish. He then extrapolated outward that brokenness is what the whole Orthodox Church is about. This man was looking at us from the outside, so it\u2019s perhaps understandable how he could walk away with such a false sense, but those of us on the inside do it, too. We make our spiritual lives about the brokenness, and sometimes we walk away or just check out because of it \u2014 either because I can\u2019t do it well enough myself or because those around me aren\u2019t doing it well enough.<\/div>\n
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But it\u2019s about Jesus. It always has been and always will be.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my reception into the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church \u2014 the Orthodox Church. I was just 22…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[18,7],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-orthodox-wisdom","tag-personal-stories","tag-personal-thoughts-on-orthodoxy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/0049-1.jpg","views":{"total":110,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1768404679},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-4G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19908,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/19908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}