You Can't Escape Being A Teacher!!!

We are told to take the Eucharist with others, as a body. We sing together, we pray together, we line up together. Still, one must eat with the mouth given them, think with their own mind, and love with their own soul. It is true, we aspire to think and love as a body. In fact we are told to "love one another that with one mind we may confess..." But this should not blind us to the struggle implicit in this. It is easy to sing love songs, not so easy to love and be loved.

It should worry us that we don't have any heated disputes about the interpretation of scripture. Not that we should get political about it and start hurling anathemas. Let's face it: the time of great warring schools of thought is past. We are all heretics because we are all individualists. Lets each of us start where we are by looking at scripture through the lens of our own particular soul, with all its questions and distortions. We might be surprised how little we actually agree. Then we might be able to more fruitfully approach the unanimity of the fathers or the wordless teachings of the icons.

Could you imagine someone asking you, "how did it taste?", as you turned from the chalice? No, this would be unthinkable. Does this not prove how very personal and intimate is a man's relationship with the Truth? Despite all that we Orthodox share and proclaim together we still have to acknowledge this intimacy. It is one thing, a very passive thing, to believe that the fullness of truth can be found through living with the scriptures, teachings and rites of the church. It is another, higher endeavor to think correctly and honestly about these things. It is still a higher thing to actually taste the truth and know that we are tasting it: to no longer just believe, but to actually know the fullness of truth. Given all of that: how could it not be nearly the highest thing imaginable, the most excruciating, painstaking, yet joyously spontaneous fountain of expression, to turn to your fellow Christian and share, knowingly, what the fullness of truth tastes like to you personally? One might as well try to paint a walking, talking portrait of a man. And yet some of us are perhaps not excused from this task. Somehow, we must keep this as our goal. Though we may spend our whole life merely cleaning our brushes and correcting our sketch, we must nevertheless nurture a hope that God is painting along with us.

But what of those who do not feel this impulse to turn and teach? Good for them, if they are truly this way. My concern is with those of us who might want to be teaching or learning more, but make excuses.