“But do they teach you who God really is?” she asked wistfully. “That’s what I wish my church would do.”

My heart leapt and I wanted to simply say yes. That is indeed the pursuit that led me to the Orthodox Church.

Just as we began looking into Orthodoxy I read an article by a prominent fundamentalist. He had a new scheme for determining which doctrines are fundamental to the Christian faith.

It could have been illustrated by a series of concentric circles, with “the gospel” at the heart. The more necessary a doctrine was in explaining the gospel, the more fundamental that doctrine was to be considered. That put the doctrine of God and Christ’s incarnation somewhere off to the side. I felt I was looking at something completely disordered, from the desk of one of the most spiritually mature men I knew.

In contrast, I had begun reading Lossky’s Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church as well as The Cloud of Unknowing, and was immediately struck by how Orthodox theology has God at the center. Not just the doctrine of God - God himself.  All the other doctrines  flowed naturally and even forcefully from the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Yet as I trundled over dark roads in my little Ford Focus, with her at my side asking her wistful question, I could not say a simple “yes, they do tell me who God really is.”

As a matter of fact, nowhere in Orthodoxy have I been told “who God really is.” Everywhere I turn I’ve been told that’s something I can’t know. But that denial, odd as it sounds, is the most deeply satisfying assurance I’ve ever been given.

“Eye has not seen” I have long known, “nor ear heard, neither has it entered into a human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

But that statement rings hollow when you believe that God has been correctly defined and you happen to know the definition. If the human heart has already exhausted the concept of God, the best thing that exists, what is there left for him to give me that’s so hard to imagine? What place could he prepare for me that I can’t conceive of, if I can so readily conceive of its builder?  

But my Bible had long been telling me that it is he, God, who has been our dwelling place in all generations. Now my church tells me that it is in God that place has been prepared for those who love him, beyond our hearts’ conceiving. Moses, who saw his glory, called God a home and a realm. In him we all have our being and when we yearn for him we long to rest within him and not beside him.

In other words, it would be harder to define God than to draw a line around the space-time fabric. Yet it is also impossible to stand outside of him and for this reason he can descend to us, enflame us with himself, and bestow the knowledge of God upon us.

So to answer her question: while they don’t exactly tell me who God really is, they do lead me to this endless River of Fire. I step in and my heart begins to thaw. The God that I cannot comprehend, by contrast comprehends me perfectly. And I begin to know him from within - a completely different position than the one which her words imply, and the exact position toward which she yearns. 

Not only that, but they hand me a broom of sorts, and every day I sweep away false idols from my mind. As I write this, I’m remembering once again that the oldest book of the Bible is a story about a man, an innocent sufferer, who has to atone for three men who said the wrong things about God. So here I am, an Orthodox Chatecumen, learning how not to say the wrong things about God.

I wish she were here with me.

If I allow my mind to flit back to the days of my youth in search of a representative scene or day, I usually come up with a composite picture that racks me with nostalgic longing. Me, huddled by a window or on a porch swing, reading a classic novel and listening to classical music. The swing swims in a weightless atmosphere of gold and green - sunlight filtering through leaves that toss like confetti, dappling the grasses and dandelions. Every breeze, sight, sound, and smell affirm what I am hearing and reading: the world is shot through with Goodness, and the goodness is the end to which the world is tending. If only I might somehow find myself with a bought-and-paid for ticket, strapped into a seat in that Train! Train of glory, train of His robes, train of interminable attributes of the Great Mystery for which I, a small mystery, wait.

Now that I have become cozier with pop culture, I note the threshold between that and my old enculturation far more distinctly. I press “play” on the CD player and enter what I now know to be an older, different world of the imagination than the one in which I have lately become accustomed to living. There’s still no doubt in my mind, however, as to which world I prefer. Or rather, which world is Better.

Kathleen Battle, my favorite soprano, is coming to my town this month. I have a ticket. People who are not citizens of that older world of the mind I’ve spoken of like to class all classical vocalists as “opera singers.” Kathleen Battle is my favorite among them because she lacks that most irritating characteristic of true opera singers - what I call the “frog in the throat” syndrome. Her voice is clear as a bell. What’s more she posseses a disciplined version of that innate musicality that separates all true musicians from mere performers. It’s an ability to enter into the creative process of the music you are singing, shared by the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, Pavarotti, and all the others whose popularity transcends their own genre.

An up-and-coming favorite is Anna Netrebko, a Russian soprano with a Cinderella discovery story. Her “Russian Album” is among my top ten musical recordings. It was pressing the play button on that album and feeling myself cross that threshhold that started this train of reflection.

It makes me recall my theory about the “Trail of Delight” that leads from each good thing to each greater good thing. Sometimes I think faith is simply the willingness to recognize that Good is good. That all Goods posess one another - that the better is the stronger is the more beautiful is the truer is the more permanant… It is in this frame of mind that you can see the good parts of the world and the bad parts, and understand that you’re better off listening to the good parts than to the bad, about the significance of it all.

As soon as I was reasonably sure I wanted to become Orthodox in my Christianity, one of the first feelings or sentiments I experienced was a new distate for religious debate. It felt distinctly impious for me to throw my new-found allegiance toward historic Christian faith into the roiling ring of present-day theological dialogue. I don’t know if that’s because I was aware of my infantile grasp on this faith or if that is the way I would have felt had I gotten a PhD in Orthodox Studies before converting.

Since then, however, everything I’ve seen has confirmed that sentiment. I’ve seen two kinds of internet debate in which Orthodox thinking has been involved.

1) The Orthodox discussion boards; Inter-Orthodox debates.

2) The blog world of protestant seminarians and theologues; Orthodoxy debating with other forms of Christianity.

Each of these types distress me in different ways.

In the first you have Orthodox Christians forgetting themselves and their duties to one another all over the place. I’ve seen sentence after sentence beginning in “Forgive me, but…” and ending in some form of condemnation, criticism, or tongue-lashing in the name of True Orthodoxy. Frequently the bullies win because they won’t back down, while people trying to be good Orthodox Christians choose to put themselves in the wrong rather than keep squabbling. In the process they unfortunately put their beliefs in the wrong, as well. Friendships, at least of the internet sort, break up in public. And the cause of it all is that people were setting their religious beliefs at one another like attack dogs.

I’ve only set my heart on Orthodoxy since last summer, but already I’ve come to associate Orthodox discussion forums with a sort of American Orthodox Fundamentalism. You know, the type that judges the genuineness of your Orthodoxy against a calendar, a head covering, an ethnic custom, a favorite author, lipstick, spanking, a certain political cause, or some other non-essential. (This is a classic hallmark of all kinds of fundamentalism, by the way, as I have very good reason to know, having been raised in a fundamentalist church.) I don’t believe that Orthodoxy is normally a very fundamentalist type of religion. So I don’t care to see the most fundamental thinking among us being the most prominent. 

 The second forum is that of debating with protestants. When I was a protestant I enjoyed getting into a religious brawl as much as anyone out there. Oh, to find someone on my level and have it out in a good clean fight - my intution, learning, grammar, ettiquete, scriptural knowledge, and theological bent against someone else’s. In the process I came to understand the world of protestant theologues rather well. I’m going to share a few hints about their arena:

a) In any given debate, the fight is won by the person with the best debate skills and the steadiest stomach, not the person with the superior theological position.

b) the discussion is almost always purely rational, which means that theology like that of the Orthodox, which cannot survive once divided from its Living context of the Church, has little chance to come out on top compared to theology that was born and bred in a seminary classroom or study.

c) ridicule is the most commonly employed means of making one’s point - in other words, any doctrine you take into the arena you expose to ridicule.

d) over the internet, at least, the beliefs under debate inevitably become an extension of the believer - you attack one, you attack the other - which must inevitably degrade the honor of a belief that in reality is attached to Christ’s whole body, rather than to a single individual.

e) No one ever changes his or her mind.

 So what is the point, my friends? For what good do we hang the historic faith of the apostles, fathers, saints, and martyrs upon the hook of our own debating skills? For what do we engage our tradition in an arena in which it cannot win? Is it right to hand over our holy faith to those who will hold it up to the ridicule of outsiders? Is it right to put it in the position of being our personal defender, and our unworthy selves its personal defender? Is it good that we seek to make it a tool of destruction, humiliation and victory over our fellow believers in Christ Jesus? And when we have done all this, even if we’ve managed to prove our point to some seminarian, making him look like a fool in the process, have we saved a single sinner? Have we even established respectful connections with separated brethren? I fear not.

What’s more, another evil has then been accomplished.

The Protestant mindset is not a coherent tradition anymore. Underneath a broad body of allegiance to the Bible swing a billion tentacles of divided belief. Some tentacles are engorged by the adherence of millions; some maintain a connection to traditional Christian belief that gives them a certain soundness; others are the slender hair of a purely individual interpretation. But the grounds by which they defend their beliefs with such apparent confidence are not entirely the same grounds by which we defend ours. Our confidence flows largely from being part of a Living Body, with an age-long self-memory. Theirs depends largely upon their individual ability to interpret scriptures and church history: the arena of these very debates. Therefore when we enter into debate with such defenders we are making our faith as if it had no more grounds than theirs (I mean, in points at which they differ from us - for we must not forget to thank God for all points of unity which remain to Christian people in our time) thus undermining our own efforts. We are putting the faith beneath us instead of above us and in us and around us, and subjecting it to the criteria of those who do not know anything about it. And the more confidently we defend it, the more arrogant we seem and the less they understand it.

I do understand that there have been great defenders and debaters among the Christians. If there is ever a time again when a blow needs to be struck for Orthodox Christianity, I hope and believe that the saints among us will know how to do it. But when it comes to witnessing for our true Christian faith, I believe it is to such as us that Christ and the apostles speak when they tell us that it is our love, our Christian obedience, our steadfast faith, and our readiness to answer inquirers who have witnessed our hope, that is required of us.

I whipped this up last night as an entry for Evil Editor’s latest writing excercise. Thought I might as well post it here as I have nothing else at the moment.

The theme is “300-word scene from end of evil overlord novel involving someone gloating over his own brilliance only to look like an idiot moments later.” Yeah, we have lots of fun over at E. E.’s place.

Henry had never believed until now. As Shortcake drew him into his garage, locked the doors, and unbound him, he realized that she really was the Strawberry Fairy.

How else could his garage have been transformed into a spotless white room filled with a mountain of the most gorgeous berries he’d ever seen? Oh, the fragrance! Although Henry had been told he was about to die, he wanted a bite. A mere bite. A mere juicy brimming mouthful.

Shortcake was glinting at him.

“Doesn’t the poet say, ‘Beware the Love of the Strawberry?” she mocked.

Henry quoted reverently:

“I walked the aisle of the grocery store
And suffered desire for luscious gore,
For scarlet gloss and spurting glory -
The sacred Berry.”

“And would you like to guess how you are going to die? No, really. Take a guess.”

“My stomach won’t be able to hold another Strawberry?” Hopefully.

“You will feed them to me one at a time. Frustrate Desire will overcome, punish, slay you, long before I’m through!” Shortcake giggled, bounced up and down and asked, “Any questions?”

“Only this: Why, Shortcake? Why?”

“Ah, my favourite question.” She bent over, whispering. “You love them more than I do. I won’t be surpassed.” Then she was giggling again. Her firm, impossibly red lips. Her slightly hairy face. And were those…seeds embedded in her skin?

“What are those?” he asked, pointing at the seeds.

“My children. Why?”

Then it was that Henry knew: he would never want another Strawberry.

Shortcake giggled between every bite of the first 500 berries. However she looked pale during the next 300, and at last seeds began popping from her face and thin red-brown sweat trickled after them.

“Die” she gasped, then ate her Last Strawberry.

Henry was only fifteen minutes late for dinner.