By the Very Reverend Stelyios S. Muksuris, Ph.D
One of my favorite passages in all of Scripture is Psalm 46 (45 LXX):10, which reads: “Be still, and know that I am God.” This brief but powerful assertion, applicable to virtually any age in history, speaks to the uneasiness and distress every person or group experiences throughout life. Specifically, the Psalm addresses signs of violence in nature and the tumults that exist between nations which seek dominion over one another. Man is reminded that he does not have the final word in an age of injustice or affliction – God does. If the Psalm is studied through the prism of Christian interpretation, it appears then as a commentary on the defeat of such intimidating conditions as sickness and death by virtue of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And where God and man share each other’s company, bound by love, man finds the internal peace he requires to feel fulfilled and at peace with everyone and everything around him.
Yet, this idealistic expectation seems so out of place in today’s day and age. We are all so busy with our work, with our families, with school. Realistically it seems we only make “time for God” on Sundays or for a few minutes in the morning or evening, if we are truly pious. But what does it mean to make “time for God?” Most people are inclined to think it means to pray or to read the Bible or to sing hymns, to situate “holy activities” into a particular slot in our day. “God time” is one of our many activities … and it is precisely in this manner of thinking that, dolefully, we lose the whole meaning behind what it means to have a relationship with God. If we pray to God, attend church, incense our homes, and fast, we are called religious. These are all religious activities, and truly there is nothing wrong with doing them … so long as we do them in the hope of appreciating the time we have to spend with God.
So long as we act in the hope of being with God. I have often thought, time and time again, that we have created a culture of doing but have deprived ourselves of participating in a culture of being. Very often our religious activities are performed mechanically, without a sense of understanding what it is we are doing and, most importantly, why we are doing them. I fast. Why? Because that is what we do on Wednesdays and Fridays and Lent. Fine, but insufficient. OK, let’s try again. I fast because I learn obedience to the teachings of the Church because the Church seeks both my physical and spiritual welfare. A little better, but still lacking. I fast because I love God and want to be with Him and learn that by being with Him, it is clear that my whole existence depends on Him. Bingo! All of our activities related to God culminate – or should culminate, anyway! – in an ardent desire to be with Him. Nothing more, nothing less.
I submit to you that our furiously busy lifestyles are, to a large degree, co-responsible for this culture of doing rather than being. We are task-oriented, even in our familial relationships, almost to the extent that infants see their mothers as, well, milk factories! We have needs and so see one another in a utilitarian manner because we trust in their abilities to provide services or goods that will appease our immediate or long-term physical needs. It is true that so long as we live in the body, yes, we will have bodily needs. But there is also within each human person a mind and a soul that also need nurturing and, given the state of the world today, it seems these other two areas of human life are neglected altogether. In fact – and I truly believe this – one of the primary factors why people become physically ill today is because they are deprived of receiving and giving love to one another. When one’s morale and self-confidence cave in, the body’s defense mechanism also begins to gradually break down. In a vast majority of cases, in order to effectively “fix the body,” we really need to first fix the mind and heart of man.
~THE V. Reverend Protopresbyter Dr. Stelyios S. Muksuris, Ph.D, The Superiority of Being over Doing, “The Sounding”, Orthodox Christian Network (OCN), http://myocn.net/superiority-being-over-doing/.
Father Muksuris serves the Kimisis Tis Theotokou Greek Orthodox Church in Aliquippa, PA, and is Professor of Liturgy and Languages at SS. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. A native of Boston and a graduate of Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA, he received his postgraduate degrees and his doctorate in liturgical theology from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. He is an active member of several academic societies (AAR, SL, SOL, BSC, OTSA), a frequent conference speaker both nationally and internationally, the author of a monograph, Economia and Eschatology: Liturgical Mystagogy in the Byzantine Prothesis Rite (Boston, 2013), and the author of an introductory chapter for a textbook on Christianity, as well as numerous papers and studies in theological journals. He is a frequent consultant on liturgical matters for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh.
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