Had an interesting experience this morning, one I was quite unprepared for and thus worthy of jotting down.
At work this Saturday morning (there's a long story about that adventure), one of the radios in the shop was playing a 'classic rock' song from Mötley Crüe (when did Mötley Crüe become classic rock?).
My pangs of regret were several. About 20 years ago when ebay was fresh, I sold all of my concert tickets of my youth. The tour from the album this song was featured on was one of them. It's bothered me for years. There is something about a tangible reminder rather than a shared story that is more impactful. You might say it is bragging rights and, realistically, that's probably what it is as I don't listen to them anymore.
Their songs take me back to that time, though a glossed-over version as that time was filled with a lot of pain, anger, and angst which is why I was drawn to this music in the first place. In fact, there is little of the music I listened to then and for which I had concert tickets that I listen to now. It's all memory machines.
But memory is powerful. We gloss over the bad, create some idealized version of what it was like, and pine for those days when we struggle in the present which is what initially hit me when I heard the song this morning. I can't recall the last time I heard the song and it isn't something I'd take time out to find to listen to at all.
But as I walked along with those reminisces floating around, something else happened. I realized that it was a trap and was not somewhere I wanted to remain. I felt a peace come over me as I realized that what I am truly longing for is something to move me forward, something to sustain me unfettered from the cares of the 'world,' something that we often refer to as 'eternal.' And I realized that this is, in fact, my true longing, my deepest pursuit, that never-ending quest for truth.
And I have it. I have access to it. I have found it and it carries me on deeper into the mystery. Which is what circles me back to Orthodoxy. I have learned to live in the mystery, something I was never able to fully embrace in my previous church experiences.
Father Patrick Henry Reardon encapsulated this well for me in one of his lectures:
"[In] the
Orthodox Church we never try to explain
the mystery...We try to keep the
lines on the road to keep you from going
in the ditch on one side or you keep it
from going into oncoming traffic on the
other side...
The function of
dogmatic theology is to keep the church
in the middle of the road. It is never in the Orthodox Church to explain a doctrine. Never."
And it gave me pause. I appreciate where I've been as if it were not for that I wouldn't be where I am, but it gave me full awareness for my true passion, and the pangs of regret faded. Rather than music such as this giving expression to what is inside of me, I am learning a new language that is giving me a much true expression of not only where I've been but where I'm going.
There is only forward and the path I have been traveling is exactly the path I'm supposed to be traveling and I am excited about where it is leading.
I've decided to, after multiple attempts, read through Augustine's Confessions (and, likely, City of God). My entire reading library is now 'Orthodox' or 'Catholic' in nature. In fact, the more I listen to modern preaching and teaching, the more I gravitate back toward these writings.
Modern preaching simply does not hold my interest or, it may be said, it doesn't 'thrill' me like it used to. This leads me to believe that by and large I was always looking for the 'wow' factor and as this faded I grew bored and in search of the next buzz.
What I find now is that I'm looking for a faith in which to settle into and it is this I find in these writings. It feels like home. It isn't absent the 'wow' factor but when it happens it isn't an emotional thing as much as it is a deepening of peace. As the early Fathers like to say, it is as if my soul has opened prodigiously at the faintest of light shining into it. My soul expands, it is not titillated or otherwise charged. It leads, as the Fathers, also like to say, to reverent silence.
It is this silence that charges me and once there nothing can replace it. My longing is for that place of silence where I find Him and only Him.
Faith is hard and faith is messy because faith changes us. If it doesn't change us, challenge us and cause us to look towards others, we need to question the faith to which we cling.
