Below is an essay by our priest, Father John Moses,
from Kairos, his parish newsletter.
My Life as an Oyster
I was babbling on to a young monk about meetings, rumors, reports, and other various jurisdictional issues.
When I took a moment to catch my breath, the monk replied, "Well, the winds may blow fiercely and the waves and billows will roll mightily, but to the oyster in the mud at the bottom of the ocean, it matters little."
Well, put me in my place, why don't you!
I've thought a lot about it, and in fact the oyster image has begun to live in me. I am an oyster in the mud. Yeah, but what am I suppose to be doing down here?
Well, for one thing, I am suppose to be turning bits of sand into pearls. Oh, that's no fun. Sand is irritating stuff to deal with.
Some years ago, I ran across a book in which the author speculated on why the Orthodox fight so much over jurisdictional matters. His opinion was that on the one hand, the Orthodox have no central administrative organizing principle (i.e. like the Papacy in Catholicism). On the other hand, Protestants hold to an invisible church where denominational tags don't matter. For the Orthodox, how the Church is defined matters a great deal because the Church is the Body of Christ. So we fight over definitions with great passion.
But let's be honest! Talking, tale-bearing, discussing, rumoring, etc. about jurisdictions is great sport. It makes me feel knowledgeable, up-to-date and superior. I like the feeling of being on top of things. What fun!
I happened to notice that despite spending hours on this jurisdictional stuff, my grain of sand is no nearer to being a pearl. Hmmm..could this possibly be a waste of time?
Oysters have no time to be judgmental. When I take the time to judge someone else, I proclaim that my pearl is finished.
Sorry, I don't have time to be your judge. My grain of sand occupies all of my time. When I get it all polished up and shiny, I'll come around and straighten you out.
Don't hold your breath on this one. At my present rate of pearl production, I predict you'll have a long, long wait.
Is this naive foolishness in a sophisticated and political Orthodox world? So be it. What does it gain me if I straighten out the whole Orthodox world, and lose my soul?
- Fr. John