Ephesians 4:1-6. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Homily On Unity
Why do we not have joy? Why do acts of hatred, apathetic neglect, and selfishness dominate our world? Why aren’t things better? Why can’t we have lasting peace, joy, and contentment? Why aren’t we all united in love for one another?
More importantly: what can I do to help fix these problems? How can I best combat evil? How I can I best bring healing to those hurt by the cruelty and indifference of this world?
These are noble and virtuous questions, and they guide all men and women of good intent. But there is so much wickedness, pain, and confusion in the world that it is hard to know where to start.
The question of “where to begin” is critical. The way we answer it sets in motion a series of decisions and actions that can genuinely make the world a better place or simply add to the world’s pain.
So where do I start?
With “them”? Shouldn’t I start with the most obvious problems? Shouldn’t I spend my energy combating the greatest evils and injustices in the world? Shouldn’t I combat all the wickedness that the various news feeds bring to my attention? No, when I start with “them”, I am just wasting my time. I may get some self-satisfaction by taking a principled stand against “them”; more so if my Facebook war against “them” garners a few likes, but how have I made the world a better place? Have my efforts helped to make “evil men good” (Anaphora of St. Basil) or protect and heal their victims? No, I haven’t. And to the extent I am being incited to hatred, judgment, and self-righteousness by my own prejudices, I have only added to world’s confusion.
With us? This is better, but it still misses the mark. Moreover, when I point out the faults in “nashi ludi” (our people), I am probably just setting myself apart from them and creating a new “them” to oppose. While it is true that, unlike most of the people I see and read about on the news, I can actually affect “our people” (after all, they may actually see and respond to my Facebook salvos!) I have still just added to the noise of the world. I cannot bring healing and peace to the world by using violence (of word or deed); I have to infect it with the healing and peace that have transformed my life. I cannot share what I myself do not have. In other words…
I have to start with myself! There is no logical alternative. First of all, I am the only thing that I can really control. I cannot fix other people; I can try to help – or even destroy – the people closest to me, but my sphere of absolute influence begins and ends somewhere around my own skin. Secondly, until I fix myself I cannot understand the world. As Christ says, I cannot discern – much less fix – the splinter in someone else’s eye until I have removed the log from my own (Matthew 7:3). The psychology of my fallen nature is clear: I cannot objectively discern (much less fix) the world’s problems until I have found a way to deal with the misleading influence of my instinctive and cultural biases. Passion and intention are no substitute for objectivity. Moreover, until I fix myself, I will just spread my own confusion.
On the limitations of instinct and deliberation
The peace and unity St. Paul writes of – and that God has promised to the world – cannot occur UNTIL OUR OWN MINDS ARE PEACEFUL AND UNITED. This lack of harmony is something that human civilization has tried to deal with from the beginning, and while it has been increasingly ignored here in America for the past couple of generations, it has been a hallmark of western civilization for over two thousand years. The Greek philosophers, now echoed by secular psychology (e.g. Daniel Kahneman), describe our minds as having two parts:
- The first is what some modern psychologists call the “fast thinking” or “system one” brain, but that the Greeks called the “reigns” or “passions”. In ordinary terms, this is the part of our minds that give us emotions, instincts, and intuitions.
- The second is what they call the “slow thinking”, deliberative, or “system two” mind. This is basically our conscious mind and the only part most people are really aware of.
While there is a long debate in the West about which one of these should be “in charge” (e.g. David Hume and Malcolb Gladwell are in favor of intuition; traditional philosophy favors deliberation), neither of these is capable of bringing peace and unity to our selves or our world no matter how we arrange or train them. Our guts are reactive and, until they have been trained by at least a lifetime of Orthopraxis, they are as likely to be affected by last night’s soup as by compassion; our conscious minds are capable of planning, but are constantly bombarded by distracting thoughts (squirrel!). Worse yet, its default setting is to justify the instinctive, reactive, and unreliable decisions that have been sent to them from our guts!
The Quiet, Still, Voice in the Christian Heart
Both of these parts of our mind have to be disciplined by Orthodox ritual and practice, and both must be submitted to the Christ-led “nous”. This “nous” is the third part of the mind, the part that is often called the “soul”, “heart”, or (much less-reliably) the conscience. If it has been turned over to Christ and is continually swept clean and maintained as a temple to Him and Him alone, then God’s peace will quietly, peacefully, and gently emanate from His presence in that temple and provide the objectivity, wisdom, and discernment necessary to guide the lower parts of our mind.
But all this takes a lot of work; it’s hard to re-order our minds and it is hard to learn to listen to the “still, silent” (1 Kings 19:12) Christ in our hearts. It’s much easier to put a Christian “bow” on whatever we have (or self-medicate). But if we are serious about helping the world, we have no other choice than to start with ourselves, and we have to get used to the idea that this is going to take a lifetime of effort.
Unfortunately, few people are willing to make this critical first step: we are not working hard enough on the “line between good and evil that runs straight through their own hearts” (paraphrasing Solzhenitsyn). And because we start off on the wrong path, we end up in the wrong place. Or, to use another metaphor, instead of giving the world medicine, we give it poison. (see also St. Matthew 7:9-11)
A Foretaste of Hell: Well-Intentioned but Disordered People, Trying Hard to Fix the World
It isn’t that people have suddenly stopped caring about what goes on in the world. I am willing to believe that most people really would prefer harmony and peace to confusion and war. But the disorder in our own minds is like a disease that we spread; and the more active we are, the more likely we are to give it to others. We are increasingly connected, but as Bill Engvall pointed out; “there is a big difference between bonding and being stuck with.” Our increased connectivity has not led to a better world because we are just forcing warring individuals and tribes of “nashi ludi” into smaller social spaces. Wherever we are joined, there is confusion, strife, and suffering. Let me give two examples:
- The terrible hell of social media (e.g. #Being13: Inside the Secret World of Teens).
- The terrible hell of bad marriages
The joining together of broken people and fallen nations brings cruelty and suffering; life in such unions is “nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes)… or the long slog of submission to tyranny (e.g. Mohammed, Lenin).
A Foretaste of Heaven: Well-Intentioned, Peaceful People, Trying Hard to Fix the World
But what if you get people who are working on themselves together?
- Ideal of marriage – two people seeking peaceful unity through forgiveness and mutual effort. Nothing more beautiful – or a better witness of the purpose and hope of God.
- Ideal of Church – the new humanity, united in love through effort!
Once we have ordered our own minds, lives, and parishes; we can bring peace, healing, and joy to a world that suffers in war, sickness, and despair.
This is the Gospel: that God saw our suffering and sent His Son Jesus Christ to heal us; this healing is brought about by the actions of His Body, the Church, the Body of which we are all members. So the dynamic is this: He heals us and brings peace to our lives, but then commands that we do the same for others. Any other way is sure to bring mixed results, at best. It is within this context that we can begin to understand St. Paul’s admonition in today’s Epistle:
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
