Psalm 120
I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, whence comes my help.
My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to stumble: He that guards you will not slumber.
Behold, He that protects Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your protector: the Lord is your shade upon your right hand.
The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve you from all evil: he shall preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve your comings and your goings from this time forth, and for evermore.
This is one of the Psalms that we sing at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, and I love it. When Fr. John Peck made “feet” the subject of today’s “40 Days of Blogging Challenge”, it was the first thing that came to mind. Not just the part about God keeping our “foot” from stumbling, but the especially the last line: we need Him to preserve our comings and our goings. We are looking for His protection, and this Psalm celebrates the fact that it is ours to enjoy.
Voting with your feet: not always a good thing.
But not all comings and going can be blessed and preserved. One of the things that Christians sometimes struggle with is finding the “right” parish… and whether this is the right approach to the problem at all. After all, Christianity challenges us to clean the contamination of our ego-driven, consumer approach to life. Consumers look for the perfect parish – or at least the closest one within reasonable commuting distance – the same way they look for the perfect place to live. They shop around, and are no more reluctant to change parishes than they are to find a new favorite restaurant. Loyalty just isn’t part of the calculation.
The challenge is especially great for converts (and I am one): they ended up in Orthodoxy precisely because they were willing to shop around when they became dissatisfied with their old church.
There is no doubt that “you got to know when to hold ’em, you got to know when to fold ’em, you got to know when to walk away… you got to know when to run,” but loyalty really should be part of the calculation of figuring that out. I know many people who err on both sides of this: people who refuse to leave parishes that are poisoning their spiritual lives because and people who check out as soon as the priest isn’t able to serve their needs. As with marriages (this is always my favorite comparison; and one of St. Paul’s, too), the best practice is in the middle. You don’t jump ship without serious discernment (to include talking with your spiritual father… and the priest of the parish you are thinking of leaving!), but you don’t stay in a place that is killing the most important part of you (your soul).
As for the convert – and believers of every background who are in the regrettable position of being without a parish – I suggest approaching finding one like marriage, too First, give up on the idea that there is a “perfect parish” for you. Second, visit parishes in your area, and look for the best in them (as well as anything that you cannot live with), then third, commit and stay. Moreover, don’t take your time about it. I know people who have left themselves in spiritual limbo for years waiting for things at their old parish to improve or for the perfect parish to open up next door. Don’t let that happen to you. Mary of Egypt survived decades without a parish, but you and I NEED a parish to be saved. It is the fullness of the Church, the Body of Christ, the Ark of our Salvation.
Healthy parish life is not about you, it’s about finding perfection in a Eucharistic community. Part of that is learning to love people who are not like us, learning to love people we do not like, even learning to love people who do not like us. The only times our feelings matter with regard to leaving a parish are:
- When we are being immature, consumerist, and narcissistic. This is not good. When this happens we need to grow up and learn to serve.
- When we are being abused. This is terrible. When this happens, we need to seek healing and direction.
And please note that the Evil One wants confuse us into thinking one thing is the other (both ways; i.e. getting immature people to think they are being hurt and bail out and getting people who are being hurt to stay).
Should I Stay of Should I Go Now?
It isn’t just laity who struggle with this; priests are tempted to want to vote with their feet, too. In fact there is a wonderful bit of Tradition that has a priest continually asking his bishop for reassignment to a different parish, then eventually being told; “I don’t think the problem is with the parish!” The diagnosis is the same for both clergy and laity: it’s almost always a problem with our own immaturity.
We all have to be active members of our specific parishes. We cannot check out when things don’t go our way. Unless you are a monk (or Saint Mary of Egypt) the parish is the vehicle/mechanism of your salvation. If we treat church the way we treat going out to eat, God cannot bless our comings and our goings… and we will trip over our own feet.
