The Casual Life and the Shame of Immaturity

Recently, I was told that wearing clergy attire was 'intimidating' to young people, and that we should drop it.  I wondered aloud why young people would be intimidated by someone formally dressed when they simply don't see anyone these days who dresses well except for an occasional 'high social function.'

Yes, that's how I was raised, too.  My first tie was clipped on for my senior picture, and I missed getting a prom tuxedo mostly because I was told by the Vice Principal not to come.  I bought a coat and real tie in college because I was told the scholarship boards still expected it.  As I sat waiting for my interview, all I could think about was how uncomfortable I felt in this wool bag.

It has gotten worse.  The Older Generation are now made up of hippie survivors from the 1960's in a permanent state of adult teenage rebellion.  It is gross.  

I did get a kick out of this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeslifestyle/2012/03/26/why-adults-should-ditch-the-shorts-wear-suits/

So, why do people these days feel uncomfortable around those who are well-dressed?  In my own case, the suit brings shame to the man who is not wearing one.  The suit-less man is automatically pushed a notch down.  People who dress well know this, and so they either dress down to make others feel less shame, or enjoy the pedestal.

Addicts often have a great deal of trouble adjusting to their true selves.  They must learn to be comfortable with who they really are.  Too often, an addict can be described as an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.

They see themselves as the perpetually out-of-place adolescent... and they often dress this way.  The Casual Life enables people to cultivate the worst part of their nature... sloppy, careless, irresponsible.

If you want to help an addict, or fix your own attitude, just start by dressing better.  Yes, that sounds rather vain, but how we dress really does effect how others treat us and how we see ourselves.  The addict must learn to feel like a grown up if he wants to experience any kind of inner peace.

The truth is that all the aged men running around in shorts in public are just as likely to be popping anti-depressants and having stress problems as the rest of us.  The 'relaxed attitude' is not a cure for the real problems of life.  You can actually deal with your emotional problems wearing something other than a Hawaiian shirt in December.

I recommend that the newly sober dress well when attending 12 Step meetings.  After all, you are recovering, right?  Things are getting better?  Then how come you still look like you rolled out of the gutter?  If you are still dressing like a kid, then you bear the shame of your immaturity.  Yes, being immature is shameful.  There is nothing dignified about a toddler or a crazy teen.

Our casual world these days is rife with misery and addiction.  There is no advantage to being a slob, but there are lots of advantages to looking like you have an ounce of self-respect.  For one thing, it will help you get to the point where you have things about yourself that you can respect.

So, getting back to the beginning: if people are intimidated by a clergyman in his proper attire, that is the least of their problems.  Those who serve the Church wear the prescribed attire of their office to help them remember who they are as well as clarifying to the public what they are doing.  If someone is intimidated by a cassock or black clothing, then they need to be introduced to the real meaning of the garb rather than being allowed to shrink away in terror.

When there is a problem, you fix it.  You don't just find ways to 'cope' with it, because the problem remains.

Can an Alcoholic Priest Serve the Liturgy?

Here is an email (slightly redacted to protect the identity of the sender) which is fairly typical of the questions I have fielded on this topic:

Thank you for your interesting blog posts that you have been writing. I am studying Orthodox Christian Theology and I have been sober for a number of years. One thing is a big question for me: Is it possible to be an Orthodox Priest and a recovering alcoholic? I know that in communion wine and bread are transformed into Blood and Body of Christ. But if priest is an alcoholic and he has to empty the chalice after the Communion: Is there any risk that he starts to drink again? What is your experience on this subject?

I’m going to go through this entire subject just so you can all see how this has worked in the past.  There are a number of Orthodox Priests that I know that are in recovery both from alcoholism and other addictions.  Yes, clergy get addicted… we are fallen humans and share the same problems with our people.

You may say, “But, isn’t that hypocritical for a priest, who is supposed to preach about belief in God and maintaining morality, to fail on both accounts and become an addict?”  That’s because you’ve missed the real point: Christianity is about repentance, not about perfect keeping of the Law.  You want law-keeping, become a Jew or a Moslem.  Christians know the Law, but repent for their violations of it.

Priests, therefore, are called to preach repentance.  Therefore, their real role is to demonstrate repentance.  If the priest can’t repent, he is a failure.

Repentance is an ongoing process, and there are plenty of people who start off on the right track, but lose sight of God along the way.  This happens to priests, and then they run the risk of becoming addicted.  After all, the job is emotionally taxing… you never really go home from the work and leave it all behind.  It is part of your every waking hour, and if you don’t have a solid spiritual life, the stress will crush the priest and his family.  I’ve seen that happen more times than I care to count.

So, what about the priest who becomes an alcoholic, or the man who is considering the priesthood and is an addict.  Is being an alcoholic an impediment?

I’ve posted elsewhere that my views of addiction have changed in recent years.  I’ve come to believe that the reason that the Fathers don’t discuss addiction as we do is because they see what we call ‘addiction’ as part of a whole spectrum of disorders they call the passions.  Addiction is the ‘final stage’ of the Passions, when the human will is utterly compromised.

Sin compromises our will, and the temptation of sin has varying degrees of attractiveness which can compromise our resistance.  Think of magnets: some are stronger than others.  When you think of addiction, think of metals: some are more prone to being magnetized than others.

The priest who is addicted ‘dies’ as a priest when his God shifts from the Trinity to the bottle.  That’s it.  A drinking priest is a dead priest.  However, when he repents and makes those first steps out of the pig-pen of addiction towards God and recovery, his priesthood is restored like the son-ship of the Prodigal Son.  He becomes alive.  This does happen, and most recovering priests actually come away as better servants: they are more empathetic and can relate better to the suffering of others.

The seminarian in recovery is in much the same boat.  He knows the struggles of his people because he himself has had to struggle with the worst.  He has been humiliated and shamed by his disease.  If he is honest, then this experience with strengthen and enliven his ministry.

There are a few practical matters:

1) The Bishop must know

A seminarian and an addicted priest must be forthright with the Bishop about the disease and what he is doing to maintain his sobriety.  This will help one be on one’s best behavior… because we always act better when someone else is watching.  If there is a relapse, the Bishop will understand.

Some may say, “But, my Bishop is close-minded and won’t understand.”  My advice: get another Bishop.  Here in the US, that’s easy.  The thing is that if you relapse and he does not know about your disease, then you have defrauded him into ordaining you and you don’t deserve to be a priest.  Don’t live in fear, and never let fear dictate your decisions.

Besides, do you really want to work for a Bishop who looks at his people with addictions as being so ‘horrible’ that they cannot serve God?  Canonical impediments are about the things one has actually done, whereas addiction is about disposition.  If the Bishop has an allergic reaction to the topic, go elsewhere.  There are plenty of Bishops who will gladly bring on board a sober man who can help him with the many addicts that are part of diocesan communities.

2) Communion wine isn’t the problem, spirituality is

There are alcoholic priests who abuse communion wine.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes: I watched a senior priest down two glasses of strong red wine before liturgy and perfectly serve without any indication he was even buzzed.

There are also lay people who are afraid of even the tiny amount of alcohol in the communion spoon.  The allergy to alcohol in alcoholism is not like going into anaphylactic shock from peanuts.  One drop is not going to send you over the edge.  Otherwise, you’d never be able to drink a glass of orange juice (it has alcohol because it is made from spoiled oranges that have begun to ferment).

The allergy of alcoholism really requires enough alcohol to register on the central nervous system.  This means that consuming a large chalice full of the typical communion wine is problematic.

The solution: who says you need to pour 500mL of wine into the chalice every liturgy?  If you know how many people will take communion, then pour just enough.  By the time you add water and distribute communion (not to mention leaving it out during that time for some of the alcohol to evaporate), most of the alcohol will be gone.

If you cannot avoid pouring a great deal, then get the Bishop’s blessing to have a pious lay person who can drink off the wine.  I’ve used that solution, and I can finish consuming without any worries.

Do NOT make the mistake of thinking that the Anaphora somehow mystically whisks away the alcohol from the wine.  It does not.

3) Alcoholism as a disease is not a canonical impediment

Being a sober alcoholic is not a canonical impediment, but drinking and refusing treatment is.  I have even visited dioceses where the Bishop admitted that almost a quarter of his priests are chronic problemed drinkers, yet he cannot remove them until he has enough canonical evidence that the priest is no longer functional.

A sober alcoholic Priest is not obligated to tell everyone in his parish that he is an alcoholic.  Most people would not even know how to react, unless they themselves are struggling with addiction, in which case such a revelation would be a relief and a hope.  But, being an addict is not something to put on your business card or publish in the bulletin.

So long as the disease is being treated and relapses are not an ongoing event, a Bishop will likely not remove a talented (and recovering) alcoholic priest.  To be honest, I have seen Bishops excuse priests who not only had public and private alcohol episodes, but even cheated on their wives, stole money, violated confessions, divorced… Yes, Bishops do let priests ‘get away’ with these kinds of sins, but so long as the priest can continue to be an effective tool of the Church.

If he repents, and can continue to serve, then very often a Bishop will keep a good priest who fails. 

The Church does not condone the immorality of anyone, but let’s look at it this way: if the Bishop determines that this priest will never transgress that way again, then why should he not do as the Lord did to the woman caught in adultery: go and sin no more!  Was Christ being cruel, or did He expect the woman to not sin anymore?

This is not a ticket to hedonism, but a tool: the Church preaches forgiveness, and sometimes even exercises it with clergy.  So long as the priest’s continued service is not a disruptive source of scandal, it does no good to throw out an experienced clergyman for the sake of keeping the Law.

How this is done is best left to the Bishops.

But, do not think that alcoholism or addiction is a blockage to ministry in the Church.  It can be, in fact, a powerful tool in helping others, so long and there is honesty and openness.

Beer Like Water in Bohemia

I found this article a while back, but forgot to post it.  I think there are some interesting themes in it:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/26/in-country-where-water-is-pricier-than-beer-czech-official-seeks-change/?test=latestnews

One of my favorite quotes:

Dr. Heger, a 64-year-old radiologist who likes to toss back a few himself, attributes such resistance to a general Czech dislike of government regulation, a legacy of the country's decades under repressive communist rule.

"It's important to speak against social engineering," Dr. Heger said. "We don't want to suppress smoking and drinking among adults. It's their right." He added: "I'm not against alcohol consumption. It just has to be reasonable."

Social engineering?

Yup, that's what most regulations are all about these days, from cigarette taxes to the infamous food regulations in New York City.

The truth is that smoking does decrease when tobacco taxes increase.  Same thing with alcohol.  I was shocked during my last trip to Romania to see how cheap liquor is there.  Aside from the general lower cost of living, alcohol there does not bear the phenomenal levels of taxation that we have in the US.  Moonshining and bootlegging are not crimes in the US because of public health, but because of 'revenues.'

The scary thing is when the government does take up the task of social engineering.  After all, what if the government gets it wrong?  Remember the failure of Prohibition and the crime it fueled?

If you want to effect change, it must not be done by force, but by gradual social change that happens within communities when they decide for themselves to change.

I've seen this for myself in Romania, where an energetic priest named Fr. Liviu Borsa decided to help the villagers he served to get sober.  The town was wall-to-wall drunks from what I heard.  In fact, several people told me that residents of Cluj knew that a drive through this village meant seeing passed-out drunks at all times of the day.  But, by working with families and the local alcoholics, Fr. Liviu had not only gotten a number of people sober by starting an AA group in the village, but even those who were still drinking were doing less of it and the 'phenomenon' of public drunkenness had almost completely vanished.

By ending the social pressure to drink, Fr. Liviu made it acceptable to be sober and even abstinent.  No coercion... just love and patience.

States don't run on love and patience.  That's a people thing.  So, I agree with the Czech doctor.  The Czech Republic has suffered enough from social engineering.  If they want to change society, then the Czechs have to agree to it first.

Anonymous God Abuse

I received this email from an anonymous reader.  This brings up some points I think are well worth addressing:

Thank you for the link to these Russian articles. Do you have link to the Pages of Sobriety book? It did not turn up in Google. Perhaps it is only in Russian, but that can be fixed. Second, the problem of “God as you understand Him” is causing problems in American AA today. The Russian article is correct about this. If it is taken as a statement that the wet-brained alcoholic addict cannot form a viable concept of anything, let alone God, and should proceed through the steps of repentance and amends, then it is valid. (Theoria after Praxis) About 20 years ago, “God as you understand Him” had stipulations – it required a loving, forgiving and personal God. Most people were Christian-religious on some level. The other “gods” such as door knobs, tea cups (heard that once), light bulbs, etc were called goofy gods and not tolerated by sponsors. This is no long always the case. I have seen members and sponsors opening discussing occult practices during meetings, and self professed wiccans running local meetings and treatment center program. I hate to say bad things about a program that has saved so many and has a good foundation but we need to be aware of this. AA works because it does have Christian roots. Some were stripped or hidden with the idea of reaching more people. Now, AA is saying that fewer people in the program are staying sober than in the early days. Wonder why... For me, the infusion of Orthodoxy into AA in Russia and elsewhere would be great.

Good observations.  The problem of AA is that once it spread, the old ways of running a ‘tight ship’ went by the wayside.  In the early days, the group heard a new member go through the first three steps on the spot, in front of them all, and then they voted whether the person was ready to stay in the group or needed to be expelled for further denigration and ‘experience.’  They were much more willing push people out.

Now, AA has gone in the opposite direction.  Since it is also ‘leaderless,’ AA can fall into localized problems such as getting into religious practices.  That’s a big no-no, but hard to cure with an organization of this nature.  What usually happens is that the American ‘tradition’ of moving down the street and starting another group usually happens.  That means the whacko pagans have their group and the others have another group.

AA does definitely have Christian origins:

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Book-Big-s-Builders/dp/1885803168/ref=la_B000APHVXY_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361978535&sr=1-1

Dick B. has done a lot of research in that area.  Pagans have to do a lot of ‘theological yoga’ to fit the usual pagan definition of ‘god’ with the God described in the literature of AA.

However, we must look at the reason there are so many pagans to begin with: there are plenty of people in AA who reject Christianity because of the awful, heretical versions of it that are floating around.  I’ve met more than a few people who drank in large part because of religious abuse ‘in the name of Christ.’

These people were abused by ‘Christians,’ and I think it is a little much to demand that they automatically accept Christ ‘as we understand Him’ in order to stop drinking.  The Anonymous God allows those who have been harmed by the misunderstanding of God to return afresh to the topic of the Divine without the baggage of their pasts hanging them up.

To be honest, Orthodox Christians who drink also need an Anonymous God, because their own understanding of God is flawed, otherwise they would not drink.  That’s not to say that all of alcoholism or addiction is a thought problem, but thought problems are a big chunk of the disease.  They need to humble themselves and admit, much as Igumen Jonah seems to be hinting at, that they know little about God and aren’t really capable of thinking reasonably at all.

While I would like to reserve judgment of Fr. Jonah until I have had more of a chance to read his works (anyone interested in translating some Russian is welcome to contact me), I can’t say that I disagree with anything he said as quoted.  The Steps are going to look different in Orthodox countries because the theology is different.

AA had to develop a definition of God because the Protestantism of early 20^th century America was largely Puritan and eschatological: you stayed morally pure by effort, and the rewards were received after death.

Orthodoxy takes the exact opposite approach: morality is the manifestation of the growing presence of God, who begins to transform the believer in this life on into eternity.  Death is a crown, not a radical change.

This is why, when the Steps are presented at Orthodox theological seminaries, the faculty usually have no issues with it beyond the problem of ‘God as we understand Him.’  Once they understand that this is a necessary step for a Christian to reappraise his theological understanding of God without relying on flawed personal definitions, then the professors soften on this.  After all, if you really look at what AA teaches, the Orthodox Faith is the only one that really fits.  The next closest would be Roman Catholics, and we see from history how quickly they jumped on board and helped shape the early days of the program.

Пожалуйста, помогите!

Мои дорогие русские друзья!

Мне нужна ваша помощь. Я ищет несколько книг в России, я не могу найти в Интернете.

Во-первых, это Страницы трезвости по игумен Иона.

Другие изображен здесь:

Пожалуйста, свяжитесь со мной, если вы сможете получить любую из этих книг.

Спасибо за вашу помощь!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Translation:

My dear Russian friends!

I need your help.  I am look for several books in Russia that I cannot find online. 

The first is “Pages of Sobriety” by Igumen Jonah.

The other is pictured here:

http://www.studiolum.com/wang/russian/pyanstvo/02k.jpg

Please contact me if you are able to get either of these books.

Thank you for your assistance!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Update: it looks like a friend has found it online, but they are out of stock:

http://www.labirint.ru/books/313709/

Russian Article on the Inexhaustible Cup

While you have probably noticed the icon on this blog, I don't think I have really explained its significance.  Here's an article from last year that explains it a little bit:

http://www.pravmir.com/the-inexhaustible-cup-on-getting-help-for-alcohol-and-drug-abuse/

However, what I do want to draw attention to is the attitude of the previous Patriarch and the Russian Orthodox Church in general towards 12 Step programs.  You can see how open they are to using the Steps within their own context.

I know some priests here in the US are afraid of AA and other groups because they are 'not Orthodox.'  They would do well to read this article and see how the other local churches of the Orthodox Church are handling addictions.

Here's an interesting article which would seem to advocate, based on the information presented, that Prohibition would be the best way to cure alcoholism and the associated problems:

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/02/07/sharp-drop-in-drink-deaths-follows-alcohol-price-rise/

The truth is that alcoholism does appear to decrease when alcohol is harder to get.  That should be obvious.  

But, the lesson of American Prohibition was that eliminated the alcohol did not solve any real societal diseases, but just changed the symptoms.  Prohibition became an open joke and people made their own booze and partied it up.  

Addiction is more than the substance.  Addiction is the profound wounding of the soul that drives men to self-destructive behavior, which can manifest in alcohol, but also lots of other substances and behaviors.

We ought to be cautious about falling for the easy way of regulating the symptom but not treating the disease.