Put down that book and pray

The Orthodox priest Fr. Stephen Freeman's blog really is a wonder. If you want to get an idea of the blog's spirit, consider this recent excerpt:

Thus, most of my writing is aimed towards the goal of our salvation in the Truth. I do not mind if Protestants, Catholics, Buddhists or Animists (or Atheists) are saved. In accordance with the will of God, I would that all men be saved, thus I do not begrudge anyone any amount of the truth they may perceive. But I believe that the fullness of Truth and the fullness of our existence are made known to us only in the incarnate God-Man, Christ Jesus, and that the fullness of His teaching and Life are found ultimately only in the historic and living Orthodox faith.

But that itself is only the means or a description of what I believe God has done for us - the goal is union with God in Christ - to be drawn away from the abyss of self-destruction and to be united to the Good God and become ourselves the lovers of mankind.

Thus much of my writing is pointed towards prayer, towards forgiveness, towards a greater understanding of our culture and how we are drawn away from the Good God. Those who read this blog or listen to my podcasts (which are generally taken from this blog), will know that I hold in the highest regard my deceased father-in-law, who was a Baptist deacon, and whom I number among the most faithful and extraordinary Christians I have had the good pleasure to know. This is not a question of ecumenism, but simply of knowing a friend of God when I meet him. Those who refuse to recognize such friends are in serious delusion and are not perceiving the world in the manner vouchsafed us in the lives of the Saints.

I've had the privilege of meeting Fr. Stephen once, and I would be surprised if anybody of good will met him and failed to walk away a friend of his. Anyway, I was pleased to see in his recent "Ten Books of Influence" post that he included Archimandrite Sophrony's biography of St. Silouan the Athonite I just began reading. But in a later post, Fr. Stephen spoke directly to something I've struggled with for many years in my spiritual life: the idea that if I just read more, and think harder, I'll become a better Christian. It never has worked, but that doesn't stop me from continuing on that path without even realizing how futile are my efforts. Here's Father Stephen:

Somewhere in the mid-80's, I met a woman who had been an Anglican nun, but had converted to Orthodoxy. Where I met her is a long story and not of real concern. But I was very interested to hear her story and find out about someone who had actually done what, at the time, was little more than a fantasy for me.

She told me her story - which itself was quite a spiritual journey. Then she asked me about myself and my interest in Orthodoxy. I have no remembrance of what I said to her. Doubtless I rambled on a bit about this and that.

When I finished she said to me, "Stephen, you think a lot. Someday, you'll think with your heart and when you do, you'll be Orthodox."

I was struck dumb at the statement, but it stayed with me - for years. Indeed, I pondered it even after I became Orthodox.

In a book by the mother of Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev (Pilgrimage to Dzhivari), the abbot of a monastery says to the main character (a woman who has largely found her way into Orthodoxy by an intellectual path): "You should read no more hours in a day than you pray." I was struck by the statement when I first read it and thought that there was more than a little truth in it.

If, before becoming Orthodox, I had spent 100 hours in reading about the Orthodox faith (I have no way of guessing what the real amount of time was), it is certainly true that it had far less impact on my life than the first 100 hours of worship as an Orthodox Christian.

Books should never be disparaged (least of all by someone who tends to write as much as I do). However, by their very nature, books will not bring us into the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the intellectual life can often be a poor substitute, even a delusion, when it comes to the truth of our life in Christ.

One hour of prayer, or one hour of Church, is worth far more than one hour of reading in the same way that one hour of walking is of more value than one hour of reading about the benefits of walking. But this very fact is frequently stated in one form or another in the books one reads on Orthodoxy. Thus we have the strange phenomenon of reading books telling us to do something other than reading books. We agree intellectually and then keep on reading.

Why is it so much easier to read about being holy than actually to do the things that help make one holy?