On Wild Oats and the Exhortations of the Elder Zossima

The reason I continue to write "musings" each week is that I get such rich, soulful feedback from you, my readers and fellow spiritual seekers.  I got a lot of thoughtful responses to my last two pieces, on "The Four Spiritual Awes" and on "The Marriage Bus".  The latter article got correctives from readers about my statement that religion was the main impediment to the legalization of same-sex marriage, and on the strength of those comments I am persuaded that while religion is a big factor, it may not be the main one.  Indeed, Jesus' example of compassion and acceptance has been an important inspiration for the movement to embrace and support same-sex unions. 

Regarding the former article, one dear reader pointed out that love was not included front-and-center as one of the "Four Spiritual Awes".  A point well-taken indeed, as there is nothing more awesome.

I was taking a hike a week ago in the wilderness park above Claremont, and at a lonesome spot on a trail on a high meadow, I stared at golden, dry wild oat stalks waving in the wind.  The oat husks were joined at the tips in pairs that pointed into the breeze.  The sight of them moved me.  They were beautiful, elegant, just as they were, and in their own right.  But the sight of them stirred a more metaphorical thought in me. 

My wife, Roberta, is the "musings" reader from whom I get the most feedback.  She and I had a conversation recently in which she confessed that after our 15 years together, she still doesn't really "get it" about progressive Christianity.  The language of the faith just doesn't make sense to her, and my best efforts to explain it have not reached her soul.  On one hand, this was upsetting to me.  The person with whom I am closest, the person with whom I am so powerfully bonded and connected, doesn't really understand the gist of my work.  But she has a good reason.  She's a "recovering Catholic".  She was so turned-off by the particular version of Catholicism in which she was raised - it never made sense to her - so the whole Christian religion seems confusing and unhelpful to her.  On the other hand, her confession was very helpful to me.  When I talk with her in secular, everyday English about matters spiritual and moral, she understands and appreciates what I'm saying.  I need to do more of that in my relationship with her - and with many others.

For some reason, contemplating wild oats caused me to realize, abruptly, that I need to be fully bilingual on matters of the soul.  I need to work harder to communicate clearly with people who cannot relate well with religious language.  At least as hard as I try to communicate with people who are steeped in the Christian tradition and want to keep the baby Jesus but toss out the bathwater of useless dogma and doctrine.  As the oat husks are joined at the tip that aims in one direction, so secular and religious seeds of spirituality each have their place in growing us toward the Awesome One.

In the midst of this rumination, I picked out a time-worn copy of Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" from my office library as bus and subway reading for this week.  I found myself re-reading, after many years, the section on "Notes on the Life of the Deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima, Taken from His Own Words by Alexey Karamazov."  It was uncanny to find powerful resonance with my own recent thoughts and conversations as I read these words from Russia in 1881.

Dostoyevsky's character, Elder Zossima, is a saintly and beloved Orthodox monk who recounts significant passages in his life.  Zossima's brother Markel, who died at age 17, was a major influence on him.  Markel rejected the church and embraced radical, socialist ideas (as did Dostoyevsky in his early years).  Markel was a bitter and sullen teenager, until about the time he contracted tuberculosis.  Then he became full of love and appreciation for life.  He received the sacraments and went to church, apparently as a kindness to his devout mother.  But he never espoused the doctrines of the faith.  As he was dying, he spoke about awe and wonder and love and compassion.  "Life is paradise," said Markel from his sickbed, "and we are all in paradise, but we refuse to see it.  If we would, we should have heaven on earth the next day.... every one is responsible to all men and for everything...  Though I can't explain it to you, I like to humble myself, for I don't know how to love enough... am I not in heaven now?" 

As his life was ending, Zossima gives his testament of divine love, in Christian terms but in a manner that made room for other ways of expressing the experience.  "If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things... Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things.... My brother asked the birds to forgive him.  That sounds senseless, but it was right for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth.... It's all like an ocean, I tell you.  Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love, in a sort of transport, you would pray that they too would forgive you your sin.  Treasure this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to men.... Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love.  Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy.... prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one..."  Zossima kisses the ground as he dies, surrounded by his fellow monks and followers.

It seems that Dostoyevsky wanted to get one message across in two languages, through the stories of Markel, the free-thinking secularist, and his brother Zossima, the devout monk.  One idea that Dostoyevsky himself saw from two different perspectives:  the modern, secular viewpoint, and the ancient, traditional Russian Orthodox viewpoint.  One message of awe in two languages, joined at the tip that points to Love....