” Don’t distress yourself about my opinion of you,” said the elder. “I quite believe in the sincerity of your suffering.”
“Oh how thankful I am to you! You see, I shut my eyes and ask myself if everyone has faith, where did it come from? And then they do say it all comes from terror at the menacing phenomena of nature and that none of it is real.” And I say to myself. “What if I’ve been believing all my life, and I come to die there’s nothing but burdocks growing on my grave?’ as I read in some author. It’s awful! How-how can I get back my faith? But I only believed when I was a little child, mechanically, without thinking of anything. How,how is one to prove it? I have come now to lay my soul before you and to ask you about it…..
“No doubt. But there is no proving it, though you can be convinced of it.”
“How?”
“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbors………”
My current page turner is The Brothers Karamazov. Written by Fydor Dostoevsky and published in 1880. The preceding excerpts are from pages 71 and 72 of my copy. I have read that Dostoevsky novels highlight complexities of the human condition. My first read, Crime and Punishment, certainly triggered morality issues and the nature of suffering. Here, one of the brothers the youngest, Alyosha is a novice in a local Russian Orthodox monastery. The excerpt above is from a scene at that monastery. The Elder quoted is Father Zosima. Allyosha is witnessing this local woman (and others) who have traveled to be counseled and inspired by the Elder. As stated on the back cover of my copy, a FingerPrint Classic containing Constance Garnett’s translation into English,… the Karamazovs, where family dynamics change everyday and philosophies collide. Follow the Karamazov brothers on a journey of love, betrayal, and redemption, as they navigate the harsh Russian society.
This month I am focused on one word, one concept that is questioned in the above excerpt, faith. For forty five plus years of my life I lived during the cold war between my country and the Soviet Union. I was a young teen when I helped my father build and stock our bomb shelter. Insecurity and fear was a constant companion as I struggled with the normal tremors of becoming a teenager. My visuals were of mushroom clouds, Nikita’s shoe pounding the table, tense presidential updates. Their missiles being so close, situated on Cuba, became an apparent threat for me, my brother and my new born sister living up here in New England. Air raid drills at school, like diving under a desk was a viable life saving option? The memory of visiting a classmate friend’s back yard and George showing me what appeared to be the best bomb shelter money could buy. Money spent that was really no better than our basement with ten cans of beans on a shelf waiting for me. I am being somewhat dramatic here, but the fact that we were brainwashed by our leaders and media that the Soviet Union asked their citizens to pledge allegiance to the Communist State first and foremost. Heck, we did that too every school morning but at least our allegiance was under God! When Reagan demanded “tear down that wall!” and to my surprise, Gorbachev did, I felt a weighted tension personally lighten. I was a middle aged adult and still naive!
This is an aside here, a rabbit hole I probably should avoid, just call me Alice. Look up the definition of neocon. We, the good old U.S.A., are populated by neocons. Politicians, oligarchs and many business leaders constantly push our country into wars! The military industrial complex is yelling feed me and our so called leaders do. I wonder if all of these neocons are named Seymour like the character in Little Shop of Horrors. Seriously, does Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I & II, Afghanistan, proxies wars with Russia, the Hamas and Iran ring a bell? Another aside here, (oh what a rabbit hole I tumbled in), Cuba, 1960, missiles 90 miles away, Finland, Sweden, and other countries being brought into NATO. Potential for missiles to be closer to Moscow. All that said there is no excuse for Putin’s terror reigning down on the Ukrainian civilian population. And no excuse for him sending a million young Russians to their death either.
So you might ask, Mark what is your point of all this and how does it pertain to Dostoevsky’s novel you are reading? Well my education continues and this book is helping me see that Russia, since approximately c.1000, had and still does have a fervent Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. Living so long during the Cold War I had taken it for granted that communism had sterilized their populations of all religious dogmas. I consider myself somewhat educated but in this regard the word somewhat carries more weight than educated when those two words are aligned to me.
After all that, I finally reach my metaphorical lighthouse to reflect on faith. One simple example here. I know the tide is coming in as I sit here. I can not see why the water is moving, or what is causing the tide to flow in, only to ebb out a few hours later. But I have read and been told it is the moon and it’s gravitational pull on the waters of the oceans. Even though I personally can’t prove that, I believe it to be true. I have faith in that factoid.
Now, of course, the characters in The Brothers Karamazov are discussing faith as it refers to God and Jesus Christ, and the possibility of life after death. That faith is a wholehearted trust in the things that are not seen. For me that faith is strengthened when I can feel love for someone who I do not respect nor like. Am I there completely? No, but I thank the Donald for testing me daily. My path to having complete faith in God and Jesus is too convoluted to share here. But I will summarize it with this. I personally had to rise above religions. A few I am close to are Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. I had the wonderful opportunity to live and love people of those religions at different times of my life. I learned about those religions while those close to me showed me the strength of their faith. But having said that, I felt that man’s rules and dogmas in religion clouded my clarity and confused my path. Taking clues and cues from different callings; Shambala’s peaceful meditations, the mystical interpretations of the Jewish Bible, the Kabbalah, and finally, revisiting the gospels of the Bible, starting with the Essenes and written summaries from fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls I bumped into my faith! All this and more, over the course of my life, showed me I will never empirically know everything about life, but my growing faith in what I can not see or feel with my touch, will be seen and felt someday. My spiritual path of openness helps me understand that there is always a tomorrow, always!
Thank you for reading.
Be at Peace and joy!
Mark
So well expressed, Mark!