Clergy and Lust Addiction

By all accounts, a large percentage of clergy defrockings is caused by sexual sins.  This is not unique (or at least it wasn't up until a number of 'denominations' dispensed with traditional morality in recent years) to the Orthodox Church.  Most of the recent religious scandals in Christianity have been sexual in nature.

Now, there are those who tisk-tisk at such events and wonder aloud how such 'hypocrites' could end up as religious leaders in the first place.  The reason is simple: clergy are made out of the same fallen humanity as everyone else.  They are exposed to the same temptations, and even more in some cases.  Every field has its own pitfalls, and internet porn has only accelerated the temptations available to clergy.


By and large, most clergy are upright and decent fellows.  We can be a bit odd, but considering the fact that most of us choose a line of work that has lots of emotional hassles and few material benefits... odd is understandable.

But, why does Lust/porneia represent such a temptation to clergy?  In my estimation, there are a number of reasons:

A typical priest is the weakest man in his parish, stuck usually between the canonical authority of the Bishop above and the emotional authority of the laity below.  Therefore, a sense of powerlessness often sets in.  

This is often aggravated by how the priest is dealt with, most often by being reminded, directly or indirectly, that he is replaceable.  This is true, but being reminded of one's uncertain relationship with others does not breed and degree of confidence.  Unless the clergyman in question is a saint, he will be tempted to worry about his situation to varying degrees, and more than likely try to manage the uncertainty.

Though many clergy have 'secondary skills' in secular work, these skills are often forsaken for his ministry, and so his options of dealing with financial uncertainty become rather limited.  Financial insecurity is a constant companion of most Orthodox clergy.  Remember, he lives off of what other people consider 'charity.'  We all know how important charitable giving is to most folks, even if they themselves are the primary recipients of the charity (i.e. a functioning parish).

Clergy often live in relative isolation, both from one another as well as society as a whole.  Facing constant scrutiny from both the bishop and the laity, clergy often get to a point that they distrust one another due to political wrangling over assignments and status.  This is typical in any human organization, and Church segments often deal with their own 'pecking orders.'  And, since clergy 'work on weekends' and are usually in demand during the free times of the rest of the community, they do not always have time to socialize 'off duty.'  When they do take time off, and this falls during everyone else's work hours, they are accused of being lazy.  I had a parishioner say, in response to my contention that the parish has my full attention for at least 40 hours a week, that he thought I was short-changing them by not offering "all of your time."  Seriously.

I know clergy who have referred to their homes as 'forts' to escape the prying eyes of dysfunctional parishioners.  So, the clergyman gets on the phone and calls another priest to break the loneliness of his solitary life, only to end up engaging in gossip, which makes him feel all the worse.

Typically, the priest has a bishop he sees only a few times a year, and these events are usually as brief as they are formalized.  Given the power of the bishop, the priest will often feel he has to 'manage' his relationship with his bishop and cannot let his guard down.

Then, let's assume the priest has a spiritual father: he's usually a monk or priest who also sees the priest on an infrequent basis.  He's willing to give lots of advice, though he can only go on what the priest tells him because they do not see each other often.  He can do nothing but respond to what the priest tells him.  

Here is the danger: can anyone be totally honest with himself?  You are tricking yourself if you assume that you are.  We all have blind spots.  This means the spiritual father only gets the information the priest, assuming he is totally honest, is willing to look at himself.  This is one reason why I get a bit uncomfortable with people who rave about a 'spiritual father' that they only have contact with for an occasional confession.  In AA, most folks will tell you to get a sponsor you go to meetings with, and in a monastery the spiritual father is a fellow monk who sees you 'in action.'  Again, the atomized condition of the Church here makes this a difficult if not impossible arrangement. 

All of this leads to a sense of isolation and powerlessness that porneia fits well with.  The priest can gain sense being desired, being powerfully confident, and being in control... all from the comforts of lustful temptations.

This condition can be aggravated when he learns that, to settle down an unruly parish, he cannot act as one meek and mild.  He must use the full force of his ego to push back other unhealthy egos.  Once he experiences the intoxicating effects of power, he can develop Lust/porneia not is the sexual sense but in the manipulative one.  He will become a jaded schemer or a dictator.  He will obsess about his authority.

These conditions can be found in other walks of life, but I am speaking here to members of the Church who look down their noses at fallen clergy when their addiction and/or dysfunction comes to light.  I recall once hearing the story about a young man who was offered a substantial amount of money by his family to not go to seminary.  It wasn't out of hatred for the Church, but the only thing relatives thought they could offer him to not throw himself into these circumstances.  He refused and everything worked out for the best.  It was actually done out of love, though one could question the technique.

Every walk of life has its burdens, and out of these burdens can arise the passions.  We should examine our lives to see if we are too lonely, tired, and insecure.  These conditions leave us vulnerable to porneia, either as we try to manipulate our way out of these circumstances or indulge in the fantasies of dysfunctional sexual activity.


Most of my comments here have had to do with clergy getting involved in internet pornography, a problem that is rampant in the general population as well.  My sense is that this problem goes largely unaddressed.  Clergy only really get in trouble when they go beyond internet pornography and involve another person (some jump right over the porn part and have affairs, so I'm not saying pornography is part of every clergyman's problem).


But, the flip side is that porneia/Lust can also manifest as authoritarianism.  Sex and power have long been tied together.  Some clergy 'act out' by being manipulative and dictatorial.  This is just as perverse as any sexual act, since it is equally as dehumanizing of the people who fall under such 'authority.'


All people, clergy and laity alike, must be cautious about how we treat others.

Pornography and Sexual Addiction

Sexual addictions, in my opinion, are some of the most difficult to overcome, and so those who struggle with the passion of porneia have my empathy and my respect (should the sufferer actually fight this passion rather than excuse it).  I can empathize with the common struggle we all have with the passions, though I recognize that sexual addicts have unique experiences that non-addicts, even those of us with different addictions, cannot necessarily understand.

That is not to say that non-sexual addicts cannot entirely understand the experiences of the sexual addict, but I think that the battle with Lust (as I have previously defined it), is a higher level of passion.  Pride is the hardest passion to overcome, and only a select few saints struggle through to the point where they have no self-regard.

Following the passion chart, Lust comes right after Pride.  It's only equal in power in Envy, that all too destructive and primal force of negative human emotions.  From Lust we have Gluttony (where substance abuse kicks in) and Sloth, whereby the person drops his responsibilities to let others take up the slack.

But, Lust's prideful charge is that it entitles its sufferer to use other people, to control them and abuse them without guilt.  This makes Lust in human relationships a lot of work: controlling people is very difficult.  It takes a lot of time and energy, which is why cult leaders will always work on a 'select few' and 'batch process' them into the group.  Cult leaders will also expel people in a permanent way, so that you are either in or out.  Giving another person room for deliberation only makes more work for the cult leader.  So, he asserts his authority and then totally cuts off those who would require him to work harder by resisting.


Being addicted to a substance always effects one's relationships, but Lust issues are directly about those relationships.  That's why Lust is a difficult passion to fight: it infects the very bonds we have with one another.  Lust is about how we feel about others, whereas substance abuse effects those feelings.

The lazy man's Lust is pornography.  Rather than struggling to dominate a person and use him, pornography allows a man to indulge his senses and replace living targets for his Lust with inanimate objects, such as pictures and video.  It plays on those deeper levels of the mind, where memories, desires, and anxieties come together to form the imagination.

In reality, both Christianity and the 12 Steps are all about getting out of the imagination and into reality, and so you can see that a disease that has its roots in imagination is obviously treatable through the Steps.

We have ultimate control over our imaginations, and so pornography is an ideal pursuit for someone wanting to feel in control.  Sex crimes in general are about control, and we know, for example, that rape is about power rather than physical desire.  Aristotle was one of the earliest writers to recognize this (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.7.vii.html) and the violent side of carnal activity.

In essence, once porneia takes hold, it becomes less and less about real sex and sexuality, but about control and domination.  We must not forget that this domination of others at the root of porneia eventually results in one abandoning relationships where mutuality and respect are essential, particularly within the bonds of marriage in which sexual union is a type of 'sacrament.'

As with all addiction, the shame comes out after the act.  Sex itself is not entirely 'dignified,' but pornography and the associated 'acting out' represents a new humiliation: in crude terms, the victim of this passion realizes his utter weakness in indulging in this activity without another person, which is what the desire really is about.  This realization also emphasizes the isolation of the pornic person, which both is the entry point of pornography (i.e. loneliness and feelings of weakness) and its eventual byproduct once it unites with the soul.  It is a maddening circle of desire, acting out, shame, and then more acting out to escape the shame, which in turn leads to more guilt.


This can quickly degenerate to the point where the overwhelming sense of guilt colors not only all of the pornic man's relationships, but convinces him he is a 'pervert.'  He is not really a pervert by nature, but he has been perverted by the passions.  There is hope: we must always remember that addiction does not constitutionally change our humanity, but only temporarily distorts it in a way that can be recovered from.

We must remind ourselves that our sexuality is not really what is at the core of sexual sins.  Masturbation isn't a form of sex, just as playing a racing game on your Xbox isn't driving.  Looking at a picture of a woman and imagining having her sexually is not the same as a committed, sacramental relationship.  Porneia uses sexuality to 'medicate' at our inner fears of loneliness and inadequacy.

So, what is the way out?  Obviously, for the addict, the Steps are necessary to heal one's self and the ruptured relationships of the addict so that the imaginary world is finally crushed and experiences true fellowship.

The natural sexuality of the addict must be restored, and can be restored.  A sexual addict, like a food addict, can return to natural functions in a way that an alcoholic cannot.  That's because alcohol is not part of our nature, but food and marital sex are.

The problem for the porn abuser is that he has 'downloaded' a lot of images into his mind which will take time to wear down.  he may never entirely forget those images, nor may he entirely lose the embarrassment and shame for his actions.  That's not so bad: remembering our sins keeps us humble and reminds us of the gift of forgiveness that we have received.  The trick is not to despair.

Too often, porn addicts despair because they are ashamed so deeply for what they have done.  This goes back to that notion of there being 'no God,' which begins the cycle of the passions.

God is the key.  without Him, recovery is impossible.

A Definition of Porneia

In the Church, the typical label for the activity we would call 'sex addiction' is the final stages of the passion of 'porneia' (πορνεία).  It appears in the Scriptures (c.f. http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/kjv/porneia.html), and even Jesus Christ mentions porneia as permissible grounds for divorce (c.f. Mt 5:32, 19:9) and a sin akin to murder (c.f. Mt 15:19).  That's pretty serious.


Here's an example:



But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication (πορνείας), causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. (Mt 5:32) 

Our Lord Jesus Christ differentiates πορνεία (porneia) from μοιχάω, or adultery/illicit sexual intercourse.  Porneia is usually translated as 'fornication,' but it is really a bigger concept, hence the differentiation.


Porneia is an unnatural sexual desire.  Remember, Christ does not condemn marriage, and the Church has always fought heresies that have taught such monstrosities.  However, sex has to be kept within its natural boundaries and not become porneia.

Monks struggle with this passion, particularly since they seek to not engage in proper relations.  Their own natural desires can then become unnatural if not properly addressed through asceticism.  In the image below, you can see the sin of porneia listed as one of the demonic assaults (left side, second from the top):

Porneia is listed here as one of the 'Seven Deadly Sins,' what we commonly refer to as 'Lust.'

Lust is, at its very core, the desire to use another person.  It involves all kinds of manipulations, of which sex is but a single (though powerful) component.  Lust is the dehumanization of others, which we must keep in mind as we explore porneia.  It is not merely wanting to have sex, but to use others for that purpose without any genuine care for them.

Porneia, then, is a deep plunge into selfishness and the abyss of human isolation.  Porneia seeks to make sex-

• self-oriented, focused on one's desires rather than the other.
• anonymous, in that the pornic person cares little for the feelings or identity of the other.
• irresponsible, since the pornic person seeks no other substantive contact with the other after use.
• neglectful, as the pornic person will engage in the behavior even when it brings harm to other relationships

By this definition, porneia can be applied to a number of activities: promiscuity, fornication/adultery (i.e. 'cheating'), pornography viewing, and masturbation.  The latter often gets lots of people in trouble, since masturbation is commonly seen as 'understandable.'  To some degree it is, since we nowadays often require young people to forego marriage during their most hormonally-charged years and yet require them to abstain as monks (sadly, without the monasticism, which is usually replaced with shame-obsessed parents).  This is why traditional cultures tend to marry in mid-teens, making masturbation all the more irrational or unnecessary.

Because we require young people to bypass marriage, but give them few tools to deal with their urges, porneia is a common problem from adolescence.  Add to that the sexual elements of modern advertising, and we are almost machine-replicating severe pornic problems in all of our young adults.  For many of them, only a major incident or sheer 'burn-out' is enough to get them to reexamine their morals.

We are bombarded by images: advertising and the internet (often the same thing) hammer us with pictures (many of them altered to enhance their attributes) that stir our desires.  The demands of a real relationship, where wants and needs are negotiated with another free-will person, appears to be a burden.

Pornic activity is quick and easy.  But, as I previously mentioned, it is neither dignified nor enhancing.  It does not make us better people, only 'relieved' for a moment until the desire builds up again.


Those of you who watched my videos from St. Herman's Seminary saw how Lust fits into the Passions:

Lust/porneia is built upon the passion of Pride, which says that because I have 'needs' (really 'fears'), I have to take care of myself, even if that means using others or things.  Lust is the objectification of others so that we can use them without guilt.  In a crude way, you can use them for sex and not have to care about them because the reality of the other is not as important as your own. 


From there, Lust blossoms forth into manipulation and lying.  First, it lies about the harm you do to others, but then it it permits all kinds of abuse.  This passion turns you into schemer, manipulating people to go along with your plans to use them.  I see this often when working with young people who exhibit porneia, whose parents are often highly-controlling and exhibit manipulative behavior.


Make no mistake, a big part of what makes Lust so attractive is that it allows us to control another person, even if only partially and momentarily.  That is a big part of what makes it stimulating and attractive.  This is also why power and sex go hand-in-hand: Lust is found both in the desire to dominate and the desire to have sex.


Eventually, Lust can become entirely asexual when it becomes totally about control.  Extreme fetishes can arise from this condition, where people become aroused by non-sexual behavior or even objects.  Here, the object is desirable because it is controllable.


Pornography (πορνογραφία) exhibits objectification and control elements, making it a powerfully addictive subject when the passion of Lust/porneia takes hold.  I'll talk more about that in my next post.

  

Sex Addiction: an Introduction

Sex has always been a rather embarrassing and clumsy business, even in the best of circumstances.  There is much about it that is embarrassing and undignified, and it leaves in its wake complex emotional situations that are often impossible to accurately describe or discern.

In our present circumstances, sex has become all the more problematic.  Traditional boundaries have been blown through like the walls of Constantinople in 1453.  Marriage, the world-wide human experience, is being shunned in favor of all kinds of bizarre arrangements that are both temporary and unstable.  Now, you can sit in front of your computer and download quantities of pornography that three decades ago would have been impossible to acquire, or you can trundle over to a college dorm and quite easily find volunteers to make your own (and then testify on Capital Hill about it!).  We keep trying to deny the shame of it, all the while feeling it all the more acutely.  Sex toys are sold like hotcakes and erectile dysfunction pills are advertised on daytime TV, yet we blush when caught with either.

Humans continue to yearn for companionship, acceptance, compassion, and someone to care for.  Humans will often fawn over inanimate objects when they have difficulty with human relationships (for poignant examples, watch TV shows like 'Hoarders' to see how bad this can get).

Sex is part of that: it is a form of physical communion with another.  It is so powerful that it unleashes forces which, human experience has told us up until now, only a healthy marriage can contain.

Its desires are, at the deepest level, insatiable.  We can have an infinite capacity to desire more and more, and once we are done it is only a pause.  Of course this is true of all other human desires.  Once you eat, you will only feel full for a short time, then you will desire food again.  We never tire of compliments.  Humans rarely are satisfied for very long.  What is necessary for us is an unending stream of the desired.

Now, these desires are ultimately a desire from God, but our particular desires are the 'consolations' we have until we are united with Him.  They can never be utterly eradicated because they are not entirely unnatural.  They are part of who we are.

The same is true of sexuality.  It is part of the human person, though we all know that human desires come to us in varying proportions.  Some people will desire food less than others, while others still will desire companionship more than others.

What is more problematic, however, is that human desires can easily becomes captivated by the passions.  In our inner suffering, we can develop the habit of dressing our inner wounds with something other than God's love.  This does not heal the would, but gives a moment of relief that eventually aggravates the wound and worsens it.  However, that moment of relief leads to a craving for what is 'unnatural,' in the sense that we are using what is a natural desire but in an unnatural way.

So, we now have the foundation of sexual abuse and addiction.  As with other addictions, the line between abuse and addiction is blurry until one tries to stop.

Over the next few posts, I would like to step into this arena and go through the various aspects of this addiction.  It is a major problem, even in the Church:  the majority of clergy disciplinary situations I have witnessed in my time as a priest have involved sexual misconduct.  It is a tragedy that plays out over and over again.


What is more difficult about this activity is that abuse of sexuality breeds a type of shame which is exceedingly difficult to bear.  The sheer weight of one's shame can often drive one immediately into acting out again.  Although shame is part of all addictions, sexuality abuse is by far one of the most shameful.  Even when sexual perversion is 'permitted' (I live in Los Angeles and grew up as one raised in Sodom!), it still continues to impose an unhappy burden on those who have been 'freed' from moral constraints.


Our modern environment has led to extreme positions in regards to sex: one is Augustinian, relegating all sexual desire to the 'sin bin' and calling humans to live in utter asexual conditions in order to avoid sin (often misrepresented as 'purity' or the 'Angelic Life' as if to say we should act as if we don't have bodies), while the other sanctions every impulse as valid and natural, even going so far as to say that humans have no ability to govern their impulses and must act out.  These are two sides of the same coin: puritanism is not a cure for the passions, but merely a masking of their symptoms.  Them again, hedonism forces you to do everything, even when it is killing you.  Neither of these stands offers healing from the passions that aggravate unnatural sexual desires.


St. Paul has an interesting take on the matter: if you can avoid the drives of sexuality, don't feel like you have to get married to fulfill social expectations.  Then again, don't push yourself into celibacy if you can't handle the temptations-

Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me:

It is good for a man not to touch a woman.  Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.  Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.  The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.  

Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment.  For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.

But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am;  but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1Cor 7:1-9)

Marriage is a lot of work, and sexual acting-out is relatively easy in its selfish orientation.  To St. Paul, asexuality is a gift, and it appears not to be universal.  The rest of us must find a way to deal with our desires in a healthy way.


I may draw some disapproval from certain quarters of both the addictions community (particularly 13th Steppers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous#Other_criticisms], those outside of Sexaholics Anonymous who don't apply the Steps to their sex lives) and even some clergy, where certain segments have been influenced by Augustinianism and seek to encourage Christians to renounce their sexuality.  You can usually tell who these people are because they actually love to talk about sex in graphic and indignant terms.  What I am advocating for here is that we draw a healthy line as described by St. Paul and avoid the extremes advocated by a minority on the fringes.


In future posts, we will examine this topic and the loneliness of porneia.  If you want to email me confidential questions or observations (that's been part of having this blog), I will not divulge your identity.

The Tragedy of an Untreated Alcoholic Monk

I'm sure quite a few of you are familiar with John Sanidopoulos' excellent blog, Mystagogy.  It is an indispensable site for English-speakers to get into many of the untranslated bits of Greek Orthodoxy.

One of our readers tipped me that John had posted this translation:

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2012/03/elder-paisios-and-alcoholic-monk.html

Anyone who has dealt with alcoholics knows what happened here.  Basically, the monk was left as many are in the modern Church to 'fend for himself' when it came to his alcoholism.  You can hardly imagine in the Desert Fathers a monk being permitted to continue drinking with only his prayers to rely on.  

Just for clarification, I want to make a few points:

• Elder Paisios does not condemn the alcoholic monk.

• He reports that the monk's suffering in life, with no one really helping him, was met at death by God's own army coming to bring him to heaven.  This type of 'psychopomp' is generally reserved for saints and ascetics, since they have repented.  In this case, the monk received the help he did not receive from men.

• The deterioration in the monk's condition, whereby at the end he was getting drunk with only two or three drinks, is common with end-stage alcoholism.  Over time, as the alcoholic's body gives out, his tolerance diminishes.  He clearly drank himself to death.

• The monk's elder apparently had no idea what to do with him, and so simply put him in his icon corner and waited for a miracle.

• Elder Paisios describes the physical allergy aspect of alcoholism in describing his exposure at a young age.

• Give the time frame of the story (referencing the massacres of Greeks in Turkey in the 1920s), this monk's experience of Mount Athos was during the 'idiorrhythmic' period ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Athos#Ottoman_era) when the monks lived separate lives and the common life of monasteries had not yet been reestablished.  This lasted until the 1970's, when the renewal efforts began and the monasteries reestablished communal life.  From the Wikipedia article: "After reaching a low point of just 1,145 mainly elderly monks in 1971, the monasteries have been undergoing a steady and sustained renewal. By the year 2000, the monastic population had reached 1,610, with all 20 monasteries and their associated sketes receiving an infusion of mainly young well-educated monks. In 2009, the population stood at nearly 2000.^[3]"

This tragic story ends on a positive note: even the alcoholic who received no help with his disease can count on God's mercy in the end if he desires it.  However, it also portrays how many in the Church have handled the disease of alcoholism: judgment without help.  To be fair, most 'normies' either inside or outside the Church have no idea how to help addicts.  Yet, the Church has always had the tools necessary to treat addiction through ascetic struggle, like what we see in the 12 Steps.

Yes, the Steps are an ascetic struggle.  Don't be fooled.  Most people are more willing to go on a diet rather than do the Steps.  Food is easy to give up when it comes up against being honest with one's self.  Shallow and careless people can diet, but they certainly won't take the actions the Steps demand.

If the Holy Mountain had been a healthier place (as it is now), undoubtedly this monk would not have been permitted to go so long without any help.  Mind you, there are still plenty of Orthodox who do not understand the Tradition well enough stop themselves from demanding the alcoholic 'try harder' to quit.

But, in my experience of talking to Orthodox monastics, when we discuss the matter of addiction and how the Steps work, they enthusiastically agree that what they do in their monasteries is essentially the same process.  The rejuvenation of monasticism is actually happening throughout the Church in recent years, and with this renewal (Mt. Athos is now harder to get into than Harvard) will come more opportunities for people to have the benefit of proper assistance in battling addiction.

Nowhere (other than the US and Canada) in the Orthodox world have we seen monasticism embrace the 12 Steps more enthusiastically than in Romania.  Patriarch Daniel has led the Holy Synod of Romania to embrace the 12 Steps (c.f. http://www.ortodoxantidrog.ro/en/start.html) and work towards integrating the program into seminary education curricula.  Floyd Frantz (http://www.ocmc.org/missionaries/missionary_profile.aspx?MissionaryId=4&PageTitle=Recent+Articles&SearchBy=2011) has reported that the monasteries are especially excited about the Steps and getting AA into the villages.

Hopefully, fewer alcoholics in the Church will be left to struggle without help from the rest of us.

The 'First Movement' of the Mind

Long before the invention of psychology, the monks of Christianity have studied the human mind.  They have many interesting things to say to us in the modern world if we can overcome the terminological barriers.

One interesting concept is what was called 'First Movements' of the mind, from the Latin primi motis.  In Greek, the term protopatheia is used, literally 'first suffering.'  These terms are used to describe the initial image that enters the mind.  These images are not in and of themselves sinful, but it is what we do with them that is the problem.  

The Greek notion of pathos is to 'suffer,' and this suffering is not merely pain inflicted as a wound, but also the pain caused by lack.  The thought that enters the mind, if it encounters a desire within the person, will stir up that desire and cause suffering.

So, the thoughts that torment us are causing us harm not because of what they are, but rather what we are.  The problem is within us.  We are tempted because of our condition, and we cannot blame the thought or image itself.

For example, it is not that you have sinned if you stand in line at the supermarket and happen to glance over and see the cover of one of 'those magazines,' but it is quite another thing to stare and begin to fantasize about the person on the cover.  The 'First Movement' is the initial image, which then triggers a response.

In our daily lives, we are bombarded by these 'First Movements.'  We live in an age where we are constantly hammered with information that all demands a response.  What is worse, the human mind is plastic enough to be molded and shaped by these images.  Cultures do this to humans by consistently telling us what is good and bad.  We develop our tastes as a result, and are often stunned when we encounter the odd beliefs and preferences of peoples from other cultures.

It is impossible to prevent these 'First Movements' without utterly cloistering ourselves, which is why monks ran off into the desert.  But, if a First Century man needed to flee into the desert to find peace and examine his passions, how much more do we?

What's more, can we really go from hours of being bombarded to a few minutes of silence and expect our minds to stop the dizzying pace we have set for ourselves?  A few people are discovering that knowing everything and doing everything might not be the best answer to the problem of happiness.  Modern thought has told us that knowledge leads to happiness.  That's wrong: knowledge usually leads to more unhappiness because you begin to see how much things are screwed up.

I will readily admit that I do not spend as much time in silence as I need to for my own health.  It takes ma great deal of work to slow my mind down to the point to where I can examine each thought.  We cannot even discern what thoughts come from the devil and which one's are our own if we do not cultivate the clarity and stillness necessary to carry out such tedious work.  That's why we repent of them all.

So, how do we deal with these 'First Movements'?  The answer from the Fathers: cut them off.  If you find your mind wandering into a bad place, then walk it to a better place.  You cannot stop thinking, but you can choose to think about something else.  You can develop a strategy by working out what you will think about when a particular thought enters your mind and starts to pluck the heart-strings of your passions.

If you fight the thought, you will think about it all the more.  Let is go and move to the better one.

This is a difficult practice, but it can help you cope with these 'First Movements' until God has healed your passions enough to remove the temptation.  Then the thought can enter, but will not trigger sinful contemplation.

The 15%

I've looked around on the internet for studies of drug diversion programs that work reliably.  In short, I have only found one study that claimed success: 15% of its participants ended up quitting their (self-reported) drug use-

http://www.sph.uq.edu.au/report-reveals-drug-diversion-success

What's fascinating is that this number is also statistically meaningless when it comes to 'success.'  Let me show you why I say this.

The Russian Orthodox Church has around 150,000,00 members.  It is comprised of a little under 30,300 parishes.  That's just under 5,000 people per parish.  15% of that is about 750 people, which is about average as far as the number of people who are served by a typical parish if you count the rolls.


The number is slightly higher for the US, according to the Krindatch report:


http://www.assemblyofbishops.org/files/news/FiveFacts.pdf


The American numbers are going to be higher because we are in a minority status here in the US with lots of alternatives to Orthodoxy, and so adherents are going to be more active and maintaining their faith, as opposed to other places where it can be largely neglected without losing the 'identity.'


What do the two numbers have in common?  As a whole, less that a quarter of the average population is really interested in spiritual matters.  The number usually falls in around 15%.  The rest vary from casual interest to none whatsoever.


Unless you have a program that can successfully weed out people who are not part of the 15%, then you are never really going to get a better success statistic. If you fall below that, then you have to take into account who you are drawing in and what you are doing with them.  But, then again, recovery programs that boast better numbers (like AA did in its inception) also go to great lengths to choose only people who are 15%-ish.  They are usually referred to as the 'willing.'


The problem of addiction is a spiritual one, and so being disinterested in spiritual matters is a real stumbling block to recovery.  Now, the same can be true of lots of other problems: disinterest in diet and fitness will hamper your ability to get your diabetes under control.  However, being disinterested in diet and fitness does not mean they are not still critical for your health.  It is that you have made a choice to be sick rather than take an interest in your well-being.


People make this decision all the time when it comes to religion and spirituality.  They simply don't care enough to explore the matter, even when it is making them miserable.  Like the obese diabetic with severe arterial sclerosis, they would rather die than change.  We bury people all the time who eat themselves to death.  We also see plenty of social problems that would be cured by spirituality, but few people willing to seek out God.


Since we never really know who the 15% are or when they will 'awaken' (or even whether they will stay awake or not over the long haul), we must share the Message with all people and serve everyone equally and without prejudice.


Even seemingly hopeless cases wake up and see the Light...