Post by rgrove on Jun 1, 2005 17:57:37 GMT -5
The Way of a Pilgrim
I got the translation linked to above. There are other translations out there, though. This is a 19th century Russian book about a wandering Eastern Orthodox pilgrim from that time. The pilgrim is a man who has a bad arm and can't really work, his wife had passed away several years prior to the time the book would have taken place. He goes from holy place to holy place and this documents the fictional but very real people he meets along the way. His only traveling companions except for a couple short stints are his Bible and the Philokalia. The Philokalia is an anthology of Eastern Orthodox works on what is known as "interior prayer of the heart" from the 300's up to around 1000 AD (give or take). I have the four volumes in English translation and they contain a lot of this as well as a great deal of instruction for monks reading the works. A regular Christian can also read it for great profit, but of course some of the monk-specific things aren't realistic for the rest of us. The fundamentals are very relevant for all Christians in all ages, however.
This interior prayer of the heart and the key to the Apostle Paul's command to pray ceaselessly is what the pilgrim is searching for teaching on. This also leads to what the pilgrim calls "self-activiating" prayer. I'll have a little more to say on that later in the review. The pilgrim meets various people and likes their teaching, but regards much of it as exterior teaching on prayer, which is very good and necessary, but he longs for deeper teaching on interior prayer through what is known as the "Jesus prayer". Non-Eastern Orthodox Christians, such as myself, probably aren't familiar with the Jesus Prayer. It goes like this:
When you breathe in you say "Lord Jesus Christ"
When you breathe out you say "have mercy on me"
I've seen it said by some in slightly longer forms by adding "a sinner" onto the end of the second part for example, but this seems to be the variant the pilgrim was using (although I seem to remember one monk adding sinner towards the end of the book). The Jesus prayer, said in Hesychast form, is done on your knees looking at your chest and you seek to say the prayer repeatedly in communion with your breathing (as with the basic version above) as well as in synch with your heart (I believe it's one word with each beat). The claim is that train yourself to pray ceaselessly in your heart, even if you aren't praying on purpose because you are doing something else that requires concentration.
As he meets various people he reads sections of the Philokalia to people. Since I happened to already have these works it was nice to follow along where he was reading. If you do not, you will still profit from the book because he quotes much of the essential teaching. He also meets various monks, priests, and lay people who he talks to that quote other Eastern Orthodox theologians on prayer in their conversation.
Many other interesting aspects of Eastern Orthodox theology come into the book indirectly, but it's central focus in on the pilgrim's search for deeper teaching on interior prayer. It's also a very interesting insight into an age in Russian Orthodox life that was crushed by the evils of Communism. People are represented pretty accurately and transcend time in many ways. This is probably why the book is still considered so highly today by Orthodox. You have the good, the bad and everyone in between.
As I began reading this book some time ago I began to try to put some of it into action. Hopefully you might see "self-activating prayer" inside it. I felt the Biblical case for constant prayer was made very well. Whether it's appropriate to do that by repeating the same terms over and over might be a case for discussion as it was in the book. A professor grilled a monk with this and many other questions which the monk answers. I'll leave it to you and make your own conclusions if you read the book, which I do recommend. But this idea of ceaseless prayer seems to me to be scripturally compelling and I see why the early church latched onto the idea. So I began to try to implement it in my own life. I found pretty quickly that, although I didn't soar to quite the spiritual heights that the pilgrim claimed, it was good for a few things. First, it helped get prayer started. I didn't restrict myself to asking Jesus to have mercy on me, but also for my wife, my unborn child, my pets, family and gradually everyone I knew (including regulars on this list). As I did so I would break into prayer for specific things for each person that I came to. I also found that I would begin praying for almost everyone I saw along the way. For instance, while driving I'd pray for people on the sidewalks, other drivers (especially the bad ones!), the creation around me, and once I distinctly remember even praying for the colors around me (for some reason it seemed that the color was especially radiant in nature that day). I had been taught to do this in private prayer by using the Psalms if I wasn't feeling prayerfull at the time. That works beatifully. Nothing can break through spiritual aloofness of the heart like reading the Psalms in my opinion. But the Jesus prayer seems to me to have served the same purpose when I'm out and about and not in front of a Bible (no, I haven't committed the Psalms to memory! ). It was a great comfort because by the time my wife had some problems with her pregnancy I was well accustomed to doing this when I didn't need to concentrate on something. In fact, this is in no way an effort to brag on my part, but only a personal testimony to the central themes of this book, I would notice I wasn't praying almost immediately after stopping concentration on other things (like work or a book, etc) and just begin with the Jesus prayer cycling through everyone until something clicked again. I also haven't felt the guilt that you frequently feel about not praying properly on a regular basis and prayed for far more people and issues in a day than I would for weeks previously. Another thing that has helped is it has aided me in guarding my heart as the early fathers and the pilgrim stresses. If you are praying it's a fact that you'll sin in thought far less than if you let your idle thoughts go whatever direction your still fallen heart wants to lead the mind. Also, if you are praying regularly like this I found that I recognize sin and ask for forgiveness far quicker. This helps keep unconfessed sin down to a minimum.
Yours In Christ,
Ron
I got the translation linked to above. There are other translations out there, though. This is a 19th century Russian book about a wandering Eastern Orthodox pilgrim from that time. The pilgrim is a man who has a bad arm and can't really work, his wife had passed away several years prior to the time the book would have taken place. He goes from holy place to holy place and this documents the fictional but very real people he meets along the way. His only traveling companions except for a couple short stints are his Bible and the Philokalia. The Philokalia is an anthology of Eastern Orthodox works on what is known as "interior prayer of the heart" from the 300's up to around 1000 AD (give or take). I have the four volumes in English translation and they contain a lot of this as well as a great deal of instruction for monks reading the works. A regular Christian can also read it for great profit, but of course some of the monk-specific things aren't realistic for the rest of us. The fundamentals are very relevant for all Christians in all ages, however.
This interior prayer of the heart and the key to the Apostle Paul's command to pray ceaselessly is what the pilgrim is searching for teaching on. This also leads to what the pilgrim calls "self-activiating" prayer. I'll have a little more to say on that later in the review. The pilgrim meets various people and likes their teaching, but regards much of it as exterior teaching on prayer, which is very good and necessary, but he longs for deeper teaching on interior prayer through what is known as the "Jesus prayer". Non-Eastern Orthodox Christians, such as myself, probably aren't familiar with the Jesus Prayer. It goes like this:
When you breathe in you say "Lord Jesus Christ"
When you breathe out you say "have mercy on me"
I've seen it said by some in slightly longer forms by adding "a sinner" onto the end of the second part for example, but this seems to be the variant the pilgrim was using (although I seem to remember one monk adding sinner towards the end of the book). The Jesus prayer, said in Hesychast form, is done on your knees looking at your chest and you seek to say the prayer repeatedly in communion with your breathing (as with the basic version above) as well as in synch with your heart (I believe it's one word with each beat). The claim is that train yourself to pray ceaselessly in your heart, even if you aren't praying on purpose because you are doing something else that requires concentration.
As he meets various people he reads sections of the Philokalia to people. Since I happened to already have these works it was nice to follow along where he was reading. If you do not, you will still profit from the book because he quotes much of the essential teaching. He also meets various monks, priests, and lay people who he talks to that quote other Eastern Orthodox theologians on prayer in their conversation.
Many other interesting aspects of Eastern Orthodox theology come into the book indirectly, but it's central focus in on the pilgrim's search for deeper teaching on interior prayer. It's also a very interesting insight into an age in Russian Orthodox life that was crushed by the evils of Communism. People are represented pretty accurately and transcend time in many ways. This is probably why the book is still considered so highly today by Orthodox. You have the good, the bad and everyone in between.
As I began reading this book some time ago I began to try to put some of it into action. Hopefully you might see "self-activating prayer" inside it. I felt the Biblical case for constant prayer was made very well. Whether it's appropriate to do that by repeating the same terms over and over might be a case for discussion as it was in the book. A professor grilled a monk with this and many other questions which the monk answers. I'll leave it to you and make your own conclusions if you read the book, which I do recommend. But this idea of ceaseless prayer seems to me to be scripturally compelling and I see why the early church latched onto the idea. So I began to try to implement it in my own life. I found pretty quickly that, although I didn't soar to quite the spiritual heights that the pilgrim claimed, it was good for a few things. First, it helped get prayer started. I didn't restrict myself to asking Jesus to have mercy on me, but also for my wife, my unborn child, my pets, family and gradually everyone I knew (including regulars on this list). As I did so I would break into prayer for specific things for each person that I came to. I also found that I would begin praying for almost everyone I saw along the way. For instance, while driving I'd pray for people on the sidewalks, other drivers (especially the bad ones!), the creation around me, and once I distinctly remember even praying for the colors around me (for some reason it seemed that the color was especially radiant in nature that day). I had been taught to do this in private prayer by using the Psalms if I wasn't feeling prayerfull at the time. That works beatifully. Nothing can break through spiritual aloofness of the heart like reading the Psalms in my opinion. But the Jesus prayer seems to me to have served the same purpose when I'm out and about and not in front of a Bible (no, I haven't committed the Psalms to memory! ). It was a great comfort because by the time my wife had some problems with her pregnancy I was well accustomed to doing this when I didn't need to concentrate on something. In fact, this is in no way an effort to brag on my part, but only a personal testimony to the central themes of this book, I would notice I wasn't praying almost immediately after stopping concentration on other things (like work or a book, etc) and just begin with the Jesus prayer cycling through everyone until something clicked again. I also haven't felt the guilt that you frequently feel about not praying properly on a regular basis and prayed for far more people and issues in a day than I would for weeks previously. Another thing that has helped is it has aided me in guarding my heart as the early fathers and the pilgrim stresses. If you are praying it's a fact that you'll sin in thought far less than if you let your idle thoughts go whatever direction your still fallen heart wants to lead the mind. Also, if you are praying regularly like this I found that I recognize sin and ask for forgiveness far quicker. This helps keep unconfessed sin down to a minimum.
Yours In Christ,
Ron