Дирижер

Святой и Великий Собор

Взгляните на коллаж:

- [видео] Патриарх Кирилл встречается с Папой Франциском - [фото] Патриарх Кирилл с пингвинами - [фото] Патриарх Кирилл с католическими епископами в Латинской Америке - [мнения] Патриарх Кирилл предал Православие - [видео] Президент Путин стоит в стасидии, предполагаемом византийском троне, в главном монастыре Афона - [мнения] Путина благословили на царство - [статьи] Патриарх Кирилл отказывается ехать на Святой и Великий Собор Православной Церкви - [мнения] Патриарх Кирилл – защитник Православия от ереси экуменизма -

Это - образец того, что ежедневно изливали в мир российские масс-медиа в течение в течение некоторого периода времени, непосредственно предшествующего Святому и Великому Собору Православной Церкви.

В настоящее время российские и зарубежные масс-медиа предлагают, как обычно, разнообразные, более или менее логичные, объяснения поведения Патриарха РПЦ МП, отказавшегося участвовать в Святом и Великом Соборе. Они заявляют, что:

- Патриарх Кирилл “зашел слишком далеко” с Папой и российские православные фундаменталисты вынудили его “отступить” и не поехать на Собор, организованный криптокатоликом и марионеткой НАТО, Вселенским Патриархом - Патриарх Кирилл шантажирует Константинополь из-за Украинской Церкви - Патриарх Кирилл просто никто и делает то, что указывает ему Кремль - Патриарх Кирилл только притворялся криптокатоликом, перехитрил Вселенского Патриарха, так что теперь все “поняли все” [что именно это “все”, не уточняется] и после этого отказался приехать на Собор - Патриарху Кириллу, вместе с Президентом Путиным, необходимo “мутное Православие”, а Собор, именно потому, что его цель - прояснить хотя бы что-то в Православной Церкви, угрожает этой самой мутности, незаменимой для российких мутных дел, в Православной Церкви и в мире -

Проблема со этими версиями состит в том, что все они, кроме последней, рушатся с появлением свежих новостей об очередном потрясающем фортеле “тандема” [“Путин – Кирилл”], сводящем к нулю все предыдущие попытки приписать его действиям хоть какую-то логику и сделать их более предсказуемыми. И даже последняя версия не выдерживаeт близкого рассмотрения: каким образом, например, минимальное послабление правил поста могло бы угрожать “мутности”, необходимой РПЦ МП? Другой документ, вызвавщий наибольшие споры, “Отношения Православной Церкви с остальным христианским миром”, тоже никак не смог бы уменьшить количествa мути: если бы Собор принял самое скандальное предложение, т.е. определил бы Католическую и другие Церкви как “церкви”, это только бы усилило брожение и муть в РПЦ МП, в особенности, если бы этому брожению помогли. Можно поспорить, что всегда можно добавить мутности, раздражая православных фундаменталистов и православных либералов, сталкивая их лбами и т. п.; недавние волны православного фундаментализма в России продемострировали это достаточно ясно. Нужно быть очень наивным, чтобы думать, что РПЦ МП [т.е. Кремль] не имеет средств заставить замолчать тех, кого она не жалает слышать, и поощрить к выступлению тех, чьи голоса ей удобны, в настоящий момент. Таким образом, в этой версии есть только одно верное наблюдение, а именно, что РПЦ МП и Кремлю для эффективных действий необходима мутная среда. Но этот факт давно уже был установлен разнообразными специалистами по “гибридным войнам”.

Мути или хаосу, однако, не свойственно работать над собой и самим по себе. Если мы взглянем на карту передвижений нашего тандема, Путина и Кирилла, и рассмотрим голые факты, то мы увидим, что оба, Президент Путин и Патриарх Кирилл, встречались с Папой римским. Фактически, Путин встречался с ним несколько раз. Оба, Президент Путин и Патриарх Кирилл, недавно вместе ездили на Афон. Тем не менее, все говорили о Путине на Афоне, очень немногие – о Путине и Патриархе Кирилле на Афоне, и никто – о Патриархе Кирилле на Афоне. Точно также, вряд ли кто-либо в православных кругах обсуждал встречу Путина с Папой столь же много и бурно, как встречу с тем же Папой Патриарха Кирилла.  

Принципы создания композиций

Сравнительно недавно, анализируя работы Дэвида Боуи, я высказала мысль, что его песни выстроены как детализированная библиотека 1) символов, метафор и сообщений (как правило, взаимно противоречивых), а также 2) довольно случайных, намеренно простых и прямых, предложений, которые работают как “камуфляж кажущейся простоты” для главных, более сложных и утонченных, сообщений. Как правило, его песни состоят из нескольких “подпесней”; каждая из них была разрезана на части, которые затем были скомпонованы по-новому, замутняя и пряча то, что в оригинале [если таковой возможно установить] прочитывалось достаточно ясно.

Музыка и видеоклипы, особенно поздних песней, дают их автору возможность “вытянуть на поверхность” из мути, хаоса или коллажа смыслов желаемое сообщение. Говоря упрощенно, он “нажимает на клавиши” слушателя, используя его как инструмент – может быть, синтезатор. Выгода подобного “непрямолинейного” подхода (т.е., написания песен с намеренно неясными смыслами) состоит в том, что слушателю гораздо легче отвергнуть неприятно царапающее душу предложение в том случае, если оно ясно выражено и гораздо труднее – если оно замутнено. Кроме того, предлагающему намного проще отрицать факт предложения, указывая на другие предложения рядом, которые совершенно противоречат обсуждаемому или изменяют его смысл.

The Conductor

The Holy and Great Orthodox Council

Consider the collage:

- [video] Patriarch Kirill meeting Pope Francis – [photo] Patriarch Kirill with penguins - [photo] Patriarch Kirill with the Catholic bishops in Latin America – [opinions] Patriarch Kirill betrayed Orthodoxy – [video] President Putin standing in the stacidia, the supposed Byzantine throne, in the major monastery on Athos – [opinions] “Putin was enthroned as the new emperor - [articles] Patriarch Kirill refuses to go to the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church - [opinions] Patriarch Kirill is the defender of Orthodoxy against the heresy of ecumenism -

This is a sample of what is being poured out of the Russian mass-media into the world on a daily basis over the time period preceding the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church.

Currently the mass-media in Russia and abroad are proposing, as usual, various more or less logical explanations of the behaviour of the Patriarch of the ROC MP who refused to come to the Great Orthodox Council. They say that:

- Patriarch Kirill went too far with the Pope and hence was pressed, by the Russian Orthodox fundamentalists, “to pull back” and not to go to the Council organized by the crypto-Catholic and NATO puppet, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople - Patriarch Kirill is blackmailing Constantinople re his recognising the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Patriarch Kirill is nothing and simply does what Kremlin tells him - Patriarch Kirill only pretended to be crypto-Catholic, fooled the Ecumenical Patriarch so now everyone “sees it all” [what all is not clarified] – and then refused to go to Council - Patriarch Kirill, together with President Putin, simply needs the very murkiness of Orthodoxy and the Council, by its very purpose to clarify at least something in the Orthodox Church, threatens that murkiness, indispensable for the Russian’s murky deeds, in the Orthodox Church and in the secular world -

The problems with those versions are that all of them, apart from the last one, do not withstand the news about yet another astounding move of “the tandem” (Putin-Kirill) which blows off all the previous attempts to attribute to them at least some logic and propose some predictability. And even the latest version does not withstand a close examination: how would the “murkiness” needed by the ROC MP be threatened by the proposed extremely mild relaxation of the fasting rules for example? Another pre-conciliar document which caused most arguments, ‘Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian world’ also could not reduce the murkiness because, if the Council accepted “the most scandalous proposition”, to call the Catholic and other Churches “churches”, it would cause plenty of stirring and murkiness in the ROC MP, especially if such a stirring was aided. One may argue that it is always possible to add the murkiness, stirring Orthodox fundamentalists and liberals, clashing them and so on: the recent waves of the Orthodox fundamentalist uprising in Russia demonstrated it quite well. One must be very naïve to think that the ROC MP [read: Kremlin] has no means to shut up those whom they want to shut up and to encourage those whose voices they find profitable for the moment. Hence, there is only one real insight in this version, namely the statement that the ROC MP and Kremlin need murkiness to work effectively. But this has been well-established long ago, by the various analysts of the principals of “hybrid war”.

The murkiness or chaos does not work well in/by itself though. If we consider the map of moves by our tandem, Putin and Kirill, and look at the naked facts, we will see that both President Putin and Patriarch Kirill have met with the Pope. In fact, Putin has done it several times. Both President Putin and Patriarch Kirill went to Athos recently, together. However, everyone spoke about Putin on Athos, very few about – “Putin and Patriarch Kirill on Athos”, and no one about – “Patriarch Kirill on Athos”.  Just the same, hardly anyone in Orthodox circles spoke of Putin meeting Pope Francis as much as about Patriarch Kirill meeting Pope Francis.

The principles of composing

Relatively recently, analysing the work of David Bowie, I proposed that his songs are built up from a highly detailed chaotic library of various symbols, metaphors and messages (as a rule, mutually contradictory) and also of quite random, “simple and straightforward”, statements which work as “camouflage of seeming simplicity” for the major, more sophisticated, messages. Typically, his songs consist of several “sub-songs” in them; each of them was cut and then reassembled in a new way, fogging and hiding what originally [if one can identify that original] was quite clear.

Tails of the snake: some thoughts on the mechanics of centering prayer

St Ignatius Loyola, in his discourses on discernment, addresses the difficult problem of the evil force meddling with the grace of God, via introducing something evil into the immediate aftermath of the experience of the divine (or of the inspiration, or of anything good, coming from God), the evil seed which subtly diverts a person from God, that is a very sophisticated kind of a desolation. He makes two important points:

1 – However well the evil tried to imitate God’s action in the soul he cannot do this perfectly; something inevitably will “stick out” and can be identified;

2 – When one realises that he is experiencing such a kind of desolation it is very useful to track the train of the events (thoughts, actions) back and find the oddity, the insertion of the evil which he calls the “tail of a snake”. It is also useful to tell someone else about what happened.

The “tail of a snake” in my experience usually manifests itself as something felt as “being not exactly right”, not exactly in the right place, something alien to the whole situation, absurd. It is impossible of course to make “the list of oddities” (or even their constellations) and watch out for them; what in one situation is normal in another is outrageous; how something is said or done often matters more than the words and actions themselves. An example: the statement “I do not have a personal relationship with Jesus” is perfectly OK in case of an unbeliever (in fact it is a bit odd because a non-believer is not expected to have such a relationship) and in the case of a Christian – but a practising Christian most likely would say those words with regret, knowing that it is desirable and even necessary to have one. The same words sound entirely different coming from the mouth of a member of a Christian contemplative Order the charism of which is to strive after the most intimate union (that is, the pinnacle of personal relationship) with Jesus Christ. And, if a person says those words indifferently and adds that it is all fine, for him and for others, to be Christian and contemplative and to ignore Christ at the same time it is an example of oddity, the “tail of the snake” of Loyola.

This “something”, especially if it is “too subtle” or “too odd to believe”, the intellect tends to explain rationally.  In the example above, of a “contemplative”, a listener may be oppressed by the very absurdity of his words or may think he does not understand something, perhaps a contemplative means something else – and, the higher the authority of the contemplative the more likely is a listener to rationalize his words and not to raise their voice in protest. Besides, the words “contemplative” or “contemplative order” tend to induce, in many, a sense of awe; they hint at a spiritual elitism and a promise to share it with the listener – of course as long as the listener does not argue with the statements of the contemplative.

This rationalistic approach often does not explain anything but, by the very familiarity of the act of explanation (any explanation, in this case pseudo-explanation which works as a dummy) to the psyche helps one to dismiss and eventually to forget the oddities. Later, when a person finds himself in a state of desolation, he recalls them and they begin making sense – providing, that he will manage to establish the connection between the two. One does not necessarily have to actively walk a Christian path to know this experientially. The process described above is present in human relationships as well. An example: the stories of the victims of rape who, looking back, are cursing themselves for their dismissal of the warning signs and gut feelings that “something was very wrong”.

The gnostic roots of centering prayer

A method of a prayer with the curious name “centering prayer” is currently being promoted (has been for decades) in the Catholic Church, especially in the circles close to the contemplative Orders, especially Carmelites. It is routinely taught as a part of workshops or seminars and presented as “an entirely Christian method of prayer” and even as derived from the teaching of St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila, great Carmelite mystics, saints, and doctors of the Catholic Church. There are some who disagree with the wholesomeness of this practice and with how its proponents present it, for example tracing it roots to “ancient Christian mysticism” (even of the times of St Benedict) but they are in minority. In this paper I will mainly consider the method of “centering prayer” through the lens of the personhood, of the human being and of God. There are a few solid, well-researched works on the real historical origins of centering prayer available online[1] and those who are interested should refer to them; my primary interest is very practical, namely what is this method really, how does it relate to the “method” of St John and St Teresa, and what is really taking place in each case (of St John, of St Teresa and of the practitioners of centering prayer) – if they are different of course.

I became interested in centering prayer as a result of finding myself in the extremely absurd and ironical situation. The situation is worthy of relating to the reader because it is so absurd and yet so common these days but to appreciate its absurdity and gloomy irony the reader should know my take on centering prayer first. Hence I reserve the story for the very end – after all its absurdity became clear to me only after I fully formed my own opinion about this practice so I invite the reader not to skip forwards but to read all.

What is “centering prayer”

Here is a description taken from the booklet on the ‘Contemplative Outreach” website, with my underlining of the crucial discussion points.

“Centering Prayer is a receptive method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God's presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself. This method of prayer is both a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship. [sounds “esoteric” but any prayer, any activity done for God is the relationship and a discipline to foster it]

Centering Prayer is not meant to replace other kinds of prayer. Rather, it adds depth of meaning to all prayer and facilitates the movement from more active modes of prayer - verbal, mental or affective prayer - into a receptive prayer of resting in God. Centering Prayer emphasizes prayer as a personal relationship with God and as a movement beyond conversation with Christ to communion with Christ.

The source of Centering Prayer, as in all methods leading to contemplative prayer, is the Indwelling Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The focus of Centering Prayer is the deepening of our relationship with the living Christ.”