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5. In the Garden: Healthy Humanness

Read: Genesis 2.4 – 2.25

The first chapter of the Book of Genesis shows us the wide, panoramic view of the creation of the whole universe, then focuses in on the creation of humanity. The second chapter of Genesis keeps this close-up focus on the creation of our human race.

God created the earth and then formed Adam, the first man, out of the earth, and placed him in the Garden of Paradise. In Paradise, Adam served as the priest of creation since, being body and soul, he bridged together the two dimensions of reality: the physical The first chapter of the Book of Genesis shows us the wide, panoramic view of the creation of the whole universe, then focuses in toward the end on the creation of humanity. The next chapter of a Genesis keeps this close-up focus on the creation of our human race.

God created the earth and then formed Adam, the first man, out of the earth, and placed him in the Garden of Paradise. In Paradise, Adam served as the priest of creation since, being body and soul, he bridged together the two dimensions of reality: the physical (material) dimension we encounter with our five senses and also the invisible (immaterial) spiritual dimension.

Adam gave names to the animals, but none of the animals were compatible with him as an equal partner who could could fully compliment and complete him. So, placing Adam in a deep sleep, God took part of Adam’s side, healed the wound, and crafted a woman from the portion of his body. When Adam saw her, he said, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He named her woman since she was taken out of man. Here, God established marriage as an mystical union between man and woman as one.

The man and his wife, Adam and Eve, were clothed in the radiant Light of God’s Glory. (To say they were clothed in God’s Glory means that that God Himself – His Presence – covered them. We also call God’s Presence at work within the creation the Uncreated Energy or Divine Grace.) Adam and Eve lived together in the Garden with the purity and innocence of children, still on the Path toward full maturity and perfection. They had been created according to the image of God, but they still had not become like God (so far as a creature can become like the Creator). If they stayed on the Path toward becoming more like God, they would fulfilled their potential and purpose as human beings.

In the middle of the Garden stood two great trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and also the Tree of Life. The first man, our first ancestor, took care of the Garden. Adam could eat from any tree in the Garden, except one. Only one. God warned Adam that if he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die by death.

As flight is natural for a bird and swimming for fish, every impulse and inclination of Adam and Eve was for doing what was good and healthful for their souls. They naturally followed the stream of the Divine Will. This natural obedience to God kept them safely on the heavenly Way that led toward continued maturity and progress. Still, since God endowed the human being with a free will, they possessed the ability to choose to do what would be completely unnatural and self-destructive. But, why would they do that?

The Book of Genesis reveals to us that a healthy human being is one with a pure heart who actively experiences the Life-Giving Uncreated Energy – the Grace of God. We have been created to harmoniously bridge the visible, material aspect of reality and the invisible, spiritual aspect of reality. So, we are designed to live in such a way that nurtures spiritual harmony between body and soul. This harmony is created by the experience of Grace that results from living in harmony with God. When we experience this inner harmony, the desire to live in harmony with others and the whole creation naturally grows. Then, we can attain to greater heights of spiritual health and live daily in a way more in tune with our purpose in this world.

Genesis also teaches us what God has created marriage to be. A man and woman are equal as human beings, but each is different from the other and complementary to the other. Marriage is this beautiful Grace-filled gift from God to help a man and woman progress along the Way together as they grow in spiritual unity with one another.

The relevance of these first two chapters of the Book of Genesis, properly interpreted, may be summarized like this: The description of creation in the Book of Genesis offers us a glimpse into Who God Is and what a healthy human being, full of Life, looks like. Genesis also teaches us that being human and achieving our full potential requires each of us to maintain a proper, healthy relationship to God and to other human beings.

Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees

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4. “In the Beginning”

Read: Genesis 1.1 – 2.3

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

These are the first words of the Book of Genesis, the first book of Holy Scripture. If you try to analyze the Genesis text as a scientific treatise, a mythological fairy tale, historical fiction, or just an example of world religious literature alongside the creation stories of other cultures, the inner meaning of this Book will escape you.

Genesis is Holy Scripture, through which the God Who created everything that exists out of nothing, Who fills all things, and Who, being present everywhere at once, moves all things, reveals something about Himself and us in simple human language. Genesis gives us a peak into the depth of reality that our rational minds cannot reach. It is a window into the Mystery. Genesis first shows us our universe in a far different condition than the one we know, which we can’t even comprehend because it’s so foreign to our experience. Then, the book moves on to describe the universe as we know it now with both beauty and ugliness, life and death. As a sacred painting (an icon) portrays an event in the past symbolically, not as a photograph, the story of creation in the Book of Genesis is an icon in words rather than paint.

Genesis begins by introducing us to our Creator. Before God created, nothing existed, but the Uncreated One Himself – the One God, Who is without beginning or end. He created everything in existence – time, space, matter, energy – everything – from the tiniest subatomic particle to the vast array of galaxies, both already know and yet to be discovered, as well as the invisible spiritual dimension of reality inhabited by angels and demons.

God created by his Word, that is, by His Tao. Another way of putting it is that God the Father created through His Son. The One God is Father and Son together. The Father has always been the Father because His Son has always co-existed with Him.

In the beginning, the Holy Spirit of God hovered over the waters at creation. This Holy Spirit, who is also Uncreated with the Father and the Son, cooperated with the Father and Son in the work of creation. These Three are One God. However the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit equally is God. The Three are distinct from one another since the Father is not the Son nor is the Son the Father, yet the Three cannot be divided from their indescribably united as One. As you can tell if you try to wrap your rational mind around it, God is a Mystery. We know nothing about God, except what He reveals to us.

With these first simple words, In the beginning, the Story of all existence unfolds. The Creator gives existence to everything that exists and life to everything that lives. The contours of the planet’s surface and living beings to inhabit it, from simplicity to complexity, emerge at the command of the Creator. The grandness of creation inspires us to stand in awe and wonder of the beauty of the Earth and vastness of the universe.

Your own story as an individual human being doesn’t just begin with your birth, but here in the beginning. The Uncreated One said, “Let us make the human being according to our image and our likeness.” Notice here that (1) the One God referred to Himself as us and also (2) that the human being is special among all the creature of the universe. God made our first ancestors after His Image and granted them the potential to become like God, as far as it is possible for a creature to be like the Creator.

We see that God made humanity male and female. In their humanness, the man and woman are equal. However a man a human being, a woman a human being equally. They are equal in their humanness, but not the same. They are different and distinct from each other so that in their difference one might compliment and complete the other.

The man and woman were commanded to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, and to oversee it. God appointed them as benevolent caretakers and priests over creation on the Way of spiritual progress toward perfection, becoming more and more like God.

Through this first chapter of Genesis, you can begin to learn Who God Is and who we really are. We learn also about our relationship to God, our relationship to each other, and our relationship to the creation around us.

In this first part of the Story, we see a distant panoramic view of the whole creation, but the second part of the Genesis story takes us in for a close-up, focused view on our human origins and the life of our first ancestors in the Garden of Paradise.

Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees

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3. On the Road to Emmaus

Duccio_di_Buoninsegna_Emaus

If you are considering the Tao of Holy Orthodoxy, the original, ancient a Christian Path, a good question at first is, “Why should you listen to Jesus?” Who is this 1st century Jewish teacher from Palestine, that we, who live in the 21st century, should recognise His authority and follow Him?

One of my favourite stories is an 2,000-year-old account of two travellers walking on a road.

Both these men had been disciples of Jesus before his death. As they walked toward the town of Emmaus from Jerusalem, where their Master had been publicly executed a few days earlier, they talked about what had happened.

A third man, whom they didn’t recognise, approached them and asked what they were talking about with such heavy sadness. One of the two, Cleopas was his name, answered, “Are you just a visitor in Jerusalem? Don’t you know what has happened these past few days?”

“What things,” this stranger asked.

The disciples explained that they were talking about this Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, Who said and did amazing things. God was with Him. They had hoped that their teacher would free the people from Roman oppression, but the religious authorities, accusing him of blasphemy and treason, turned him in to the Roman occupiers. Jesus was condemned to death as crucified. Then, a few of the women among the disciples went to his tomb and found the tomb open, but His Body was gone. These women came back from the tomb and reported to the gathered disciples that they had seen a vision of angels, who announced that Jesus was alive! After hearing this, a couple others disciples ran to the tomb and found it as the women had described.

Now, at first this stranger didn’t seem to know anything about what the two disciples were talking about, which is why the disciples told the story, but after the disciples finished with their story, this same stranger began educating the disciples. Drawing together the various writings of ancient Scripture, He explained how everything Jesus experienced in the last several days had been part of the grand Divine Heavenly Plan, which had been unfolding throughout human history until finding its fulfilment in that particular time and place.

As the three men neared the village of Emmaus, the two disciples tried to convince their new friend to stay with them since it was already late in the day. He had seemed intent on going further, but agreed.

Later, as they all sat at a table together, the one who had seemed like a stranger to them earlier took bread in his hands, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the two disciples. Then, suddenly, there eyes were opened so that they recognised Him. The man who had been with them all along was their Master, who had kept the eyes of the disciples from recognising Him. But, as soon as they saw that it was Jesus, He disappeared.

The disciples then said to each other, “When he talked with us on the road and opened to us the meaning of the Scriptures, didn’t we sense the warming fire in our hearts?” They quickly ran back to Jerusalem and found the other disciples together, saying “It’s true! The Lord is Risen and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two disciples told the others what they had experienced on the road and how Christ revealed Himself through the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:13-35)

All these happened after Jesus had been publicly executed and was raised from the dead after three days in the tomb. Before his death, Jesus miraculously healed the sick and, not long before His bodily resurrection to immortality, restored His friend Lazarus back to mortal life after Lazarus has been dead. Whoever wants to experience freedom from death and the fullness of Life should take Christ and His Way, the Orthodox Way, very seriously.

Understand this: Jesus Christ is not just a teacher who brought His life into harmony with the Tao, attained enlightenment, and learned to harness the Power of Life itself. I mean Jesus is not a Palestinian Buddha, a Jewish Jedi, or a character in a comic superhero cinematic universe. These accounts recorded in Scripture are not reworked mythologies. They are eyewitness accounts anchored in history. This story of the encounter of Christ’s disciples with their Resurrected Lord on the road to Emmaus points is deeper to the reality Christ is and how we can benefit from the Orthodox Way.

If you begin reading a book or start watching a movie toward the end instead of at the beginning, you may misunderstand the central point of the story and miss the the beautiful tapestry of overlapping and intertwining meaning. To learn about Jesus Christ and why the Orthodox Way matter, and how it changes lives, we need to know our shared human story from way back as far as we can go, back to the beginning –- In the beginning.

 

Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees

 

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2. Look Back to Progress Forward

Businesswoman standing on a ladder looking through binoculars

We have witnessed impressive leaps in scientific discovery and technological innovation in our society. Compare the processing power of computers in the 1950s with small hand-held devices we use today. Consider advancements in the field of health care over the past century. Think about improvements in communication that allow us to learn about events, share ideas, and hold conversations with people all over the world.

If society is evolving and advancing forward, why should we look in the past? In other words, if our generation knows more now about the universe today and possesses greater technological abilities than the generations before us, why should we care about history? To be progressive, shouldn’t we throw off the chains of the past and keep our eyes on the future?

As we’ve tried to be forward-thinking, we’ve too easily assumed that because our scientific knowledge and technological abilities are advancing forward that our spiritual knowledge is progressing along in the same direction. We are mistaken to think that we, as a society, know so much more about being human, about relating to one another and our environment, and about doing what is right, than those who lived before us. Of course, just because an idea is old does not mean that it is true or worth keeping. Human history isn’t short on examples of beliefs that have been held for decades or centuries that are outright false and sometimes dangerous. And, also, just because an idea is popular and appears fresh, new, and radically forward-looking when we look through those ideological lenses our society tells us to use, doesn’t mean that the idea is really a good idea.

Despite all the positive political, social, and scientific improvements we enjoy as a society, we have overestimated our overall progress. We have gained knowledge of the material world, but we have lost knowledge of the spiritual realm. We have learned more about the function of the physical body, while we have drifted into ignorance regarding the nature and health of the human soul. As our technological abilities show progressive evolution, the decline in our understanding of ourselves on the deepest level shows regressive devolution. Our blind spot to the knowledge we have lost has caused us to neglect and forget the most central aspects of our shared human history.

We have especially disregarded that stream of ancient history that reveals who we are as human beings, our present purpose in the world, and our future potential. Our ancestors knew very powerful truths that have been mostly neglectfully forgotten in our time. By entering into the Tao of Holy Orthodoxy, you begin to learn those truths and to clearly see the trajectory of an authentically progressive path for your soul. If you follow that Path, your life will be changed and you will be far more capable of knowing the significance of your place in the world, of expressing love to others, of building healthy relationships, and doing meaningful, purposeful work in your daily life.

 

Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees

 

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1. Why Do We Need the Way, Anyway? (5 Challenges)

pexels-photo-333998 decay

With so many different options available to you, why is Holy Orthodoxy the right Path for you? It is the right Path because because you, like me, face five challenges that affect out lives:

1. You are a mortal human being, afflicted by the reality of sickness and death in both your body and soul.

Even if your body could be altered with technology so that it regenerates itself over and over, allowing you to stay young and active for year after year with old age always seeming a far destination way into the future, you would still be mortal, still afflicted by sickness and death. Immortality is a different way of being altogether.

2. You live in an imperfect world, infected by brokenness, conflict, and chaos, and you share in that imperfection.

You can see the defects everywhere, especially in relationships – from the politics of international relations to the inter-personal relationships of people we know. We tend to notice the imperfection in other people, whether we know them or not, much more clearly than we see our own problems, the darkness in our own hearts, the defects in our thought processes, and our own unhealthful behaviours. If you’re honest with yourself, you will have to admit that while your friends aren’t perfect, neither are you. On a scale from less perfect to more perfect, which of us can’t use some improvement? The road to perfection is long one, and most of us still have a long way to go to reach our potential.

3. You don’t know everything, and you may not realize how much you don’t know. 

As human beings with imperfect knowledge, our ignorance of ourselves, each other, and the universe as a whole is huge.  Some facts we accept as correct may actually be wrong and some opinions we hold may be based on inaccurate assumptions.  When we begin learning about a topic, we can easily assume we understand that particular topic far more than we actually do.  You may not recognize all of your own problems, but you probably don’t realize the height of your potential either or what’s standing in the way of you reaching it.

4. You need to discern the difference between truth and lies, what is real and fake, and what is good for you and bad for you, to be healthy and reach your potential.

We live in a society with different groups that have opposing interests trying to draw us into a particular ideology with its own constructed model of reality. If you accept this model, then you see the world with a particular filter that makes everything fit that model of reality.

When we watch videos, encounter political messages, read the news, scan social media, listen to music and podcasts, take classes in school, and talk to friends who themselves have been influenced by an ideology, our opinions, ways of thinking, and behaviors can be changed and shaped to fit what others believe or want us to believe.

As you know, there’s often a difference between the pictures people put up of themselves online and their true selves. Someone can appear always happy in images, but really feel depressed and anxious inside her true self. She can publicly present herself as being in happy, stable relationships, while really feeling terribly isolated and unloved. As we can use a digital filter to create an inaccurate image of ourselves that doesn’t correspond to reality, we can adopt a worldview-filter that skews reality.

5. You cannot solve these problems alone.

You can’t become immortal or cure those deeply-rooted illnesses in your own soul on your own. Sure, you can change your negative thoughts to positive thoughts and change your lifestyle choices from harmful to healthful. For these psychological and behavioral changes, you may just need a good therapist. What we all need, though, is the kind of knowledge and discernment that guides us toward the deepest healing and keeps us from the fraudulent paths of dysfunction and damage. To really overcome these challenges on the deepest level so that you reach the fullness of your individual potential and take hold of your purpose in life, consider where the Tao of Holy Orthodoxy can take you and who it can teach you to become.

Carefully listen to the instruction, learn the Way in your heart, and put these life-changing teachings into practice step by step as you go through your day. Then, you will see for yourself the benefit of the Holy Orthodox Way.

Text copyright © 2017-2021 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees