“Why am I still here, in this Church,” is a good question. I’ve really had to think about it, to reflect, to tease out the elements that have supported belief, the temptations that challenged and discredited it. It’s been a good exercise. I’ve come to realize that I believe because, with God’s grace, I’ve determined that there’s no place else to go where I can be.
Review by Peter Menkin
Archpriest Daniel Rentel, photo by Orthodox Church America
These acts strengthen one for periods of aridity and in relationship to God, so he writes and instructs in a gentle and serious manner for young people and adults as well. And periods of aridity Father Daniel had in his life. He writes in the essay titled, “Because Belief Leads to Life” the following:
A desire for more schooling forced a move to Columbus, Ohio. While here initially on a fellowship, I was put on loan to the Midwest Diocese as a supply priest. I was then directed by Central Church authorities to explore the possibility of establishing a mission in Cincinnati, Ohio, about 125 miles to the southwest. This ended up a seven year commute that allowed me to come into ownership of my Faith. My family and I became for a time spiritual nomads. My wife worked and went herself to graduate school. Finally, the stress and strain on the family front, and the demands of serving a mission two hours’ drive away, while continuing to pursue my own doctoral studies, all caught up with me. One Sunday, I pulled into a rest stop, crying. For two hours at an interstate rest stop, all came into question. In those crisis moments, words offered to me by my Father Confessor surfaced: “The Fathers tell us that we all go into spiritual deserts, arid and empty. Just go on. Whenever fitting, you’ll find yourself drinking new life in an oasis God will provide.” It didn’t happen instantaneously, but it did happen.The faithful are different: They show up
Many in our own denominations find a period where wonder of–is there a God occurs, and some struggle with this issue for many years. Others live belief this way: If they don’t feel good in Church, get a warm feeling of God’s presence and some kind of special moments, they find themselves wanting of God’s love and presence. The reality is that one doesn’t go to Church for that high moment, but the regularity of worship. God is present whether we know it or not, so I learned some years ago. This is the beginning of the way of Brother Lawrence who wrote about living in the presence of God. So this writer thinks.
No doubt aridity comes to us all at some point, even for a few for years, as it did for Mother Theresa. But clearly regular worship and the real exercise of faith in religious practices brings one through.
This is what we all have as Christians, our Lord Jesus Christ. Shall we abandon him? He will not abandon us we are told. It is a similar situation to the man or woman beginning belief and nurturing their faith. That one small step is welcomed by the Lord with open arms. So it is with times of aridity. It can be a special time and later sometimes thought of a special time in the life of faith. One small step towards Christ in any situation is beneficial to the soul and living a life of faith.
The Richness of living in belief and Church
This Orthodox Archpriest, Daniel Rentel tells us more in his essay than just of aridity; a section of special meaning and another lesson in this very good essay written at the request of the publication’s editor. “It was for a national teenage college age, called Wonder. It was written for that specifically. It was a request from the editor. I believe I Baptized the editor about 30 years ago. (It is part of…) A series on why…’people remained Orthodox.’
The essay is essentially the story of Father Daniel’s life and journey in faith through a lifetime: It is the only published piece he ever wrote for a national publication and he adds, “Outside of the Bulletin, I always do a reflection. That’s the extent of my writing.”
Though aridity is contemporary subject and one of concern to many in the United States, a place in the world where secularization increases and a kind of morbid aridity has spread across the land, the good Father says in his interview on his own journey and even the nature of the congregation in Ohio where he served during his active years: “In my experience, people must come into the faith themselves. They must own it. A lot of people go through these dry zones in the desert, if you will. I had to cross the water.”
Not to run away from it. The Way of the Pilgrim (can be) read every way. There are periods when we just go on. I had a massive heart attack and died. I said my prayers…and it was there, deep, faith part of my being. If you reach a point in your life where things don’t make sense, don’t throw everything aside.
“I would say you come to a place where the Church owns you. 57 percent of the Church where I served now, the Columbus, Ohio Church (St. Gregory of Nissan), about 200 persons, were converts. What I do with all prospective converts is say, ‘Come and See.’ You can’t know Orthodoxy without worship. People come into the Church, and the liturgy is alive. You build on worship. I am not farfetched in saying, ‘Worship is profoundly beautiful.’
Man of Faith speaks hope
Let us say that this man of hope speaks hope and as a spiritual teacher can lead the way to God in Christ in his Orthodox faith. These words of promise lead any of us into a path of living a life of belief as did the good Father Daniel. This writer believes that clergy and lay people have the answers. Sometimes the failure to offer these words of honest statement and sincerity cause others to lose their way simply through silence. If this writer may say it, being a light to the world is an active matter as well as a matter of practice. Good advice for the young. And Father Daniel’s essay is in its totality good advice to the young, besides being well written.
Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, said that Church is a verb. Here we find a verb has many dimensions, even way of life. For to Father Daniel Church is a way of life. It is a place he belongs, something he discovered during his lifetime…so important a matter of living in Church, and with Church:
There were the sounds of the Church that became part of my inheritance. The old ladies would come to Church early enough so that they could almost whistle their prayers kneeling way in the back, close to the potbelly stoves that heated the women’s side of the sanctuary. The intensity of their prayers made me think that they had to go somewhere to Someone, and these babas were bound together by the common Faith they shared.It seems that in my own life this Religion Writer finds meaning in having a community that is Church and thinks it, too, is a way of saying that the Church he attends is a part of his life…a place he belongs. Can we not be thankful for this life creating and living force that is a place of Jesus Christ, and one that has the added dimension of bringing a sense of being in the world that is meaning. It is deeply inferred in Father Daniel’s good essay that we are involved in a life of relationship with God, that it is our reason to be in the world. So it comes to that, and it is something Christians learn in their life of worship. It is a matter expressed in a life of worship.
Father Daniel leaves the essay with these final words. Let us leave this review of his work in print, the faith story of his life and something of the lessons he learned along the way of his journey, with the same words end this review:
So why am I still a believer? Looking back, I can say without presumption but with total conviction that I believe that God has been with me all the days of my life. I recognize that at some level, one chooses to believe or not, but I now understand that the greater reality is the absurdity of faith. The notion of nonbelief I see has a trick of the Evil One, a trick that leads to despair and emptiness. Belief leads to life! Through belief, I belong to something greater than myself. Through belief, my life has purpose, structure and meaning—it is life itself. . Through faith, my senses and my intellect have been nourished abundantly. Through faith I have been called in the most personal way to overcome doubts along the way, and, God willing, in the future.
ADDENDUM
Because Belief Leads to Life
By Father Daniel Rentel
“Why am I still here, in this Church,” is a good question. I’ve really had to think about it, to reflect, to tease out the elements that have supported belief, the temptations that challenged and discredited it. It’s been a good exercise. I’ve come to realize that I believe because, with God’s grace, I’ve determined that there’s no place else to go where I can be.
From the beginning something about the church appealed to me and answered my innate need to believe. I was born into an ethnic family in central Pennsylvania. My family roots could be found in the mountains of Central Europe, but the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul was liturgically bound to the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North And South America, the Metropolia. We used Old Church Slavonic and heard Russian sermons, used Russian Tones, 4 part harmony – Bortniansky was in our repertoire – and there were Russian language classes. I would go to confession; the priest would recite a prayer (in Slavonic), I’d tell sins in English. It would end by his asking, “You sorry?” I’d say yes and he would then offer a departing prayer in Slavonic.
So it went, but in all honesty there was more. We fasted – Jesus would be crucified and die for us. Everybody knew that. Jesus rose from the dead! We knew that. We feasted. We ate blessed food for a week. every day at another Aunt or Uncle’s house.We celebrated two Christmases: the New Calendar Christmas exchange and food of the no fasting variety, the 7th of January being the ‘religious one’. To me, the 7th meant no presents, but a day off of school and it was always supposed to snow.
There were the sounds of the Church that became part of my inheritance. The old ladies would come to Church early enough so that they could almost whistle their prayers kneeling way in the back, close to the potbelly stoves that heated the women’s side of the sanctuary. The intensity of their prayers made me think that they had to go somewhere to Someone, and these babas were bound together by the common Faith they shared.
Another important memory was of processions, which worked their way around the Church in such a way that one just knew that the sadness of the walk with the ‘Plaschanitsa’ was different from the one where they pounded on the doorway so as to enter a Church filled with light, wondrous smells, open doors, and joy that moved itself from individual to community.
Eventually, English-speaking priests came. We opened a Sunday School that met on Wednesdays. I thrilled at the Old Testament stories that came first. I did. Not only were they heroes, but they somehow pointed to Jesus: Jonah in the belly of the whale usually comes first to mind when I think back. Or was it Abraham and Isaac, both so trusting, it actually bothered me for quite some time because I couldn’t see myself going to the limits as they did. Despite some obstacles in my early experiences, what was there was necessary but not sufficient. My senses had been stirred and my intellect challenged. I wanted more.
For complicated reasons that to this day I don’t fully understand, I decided in my early teens that I wanted to be a priest. Once the beckoning implanted itself, I never completely lost what became a calling. And, it happened, not without some struggle. My first year of seminary was a disappointment in my quest for knowledge and understanding, as classes were taught in the Russian language. However, I formed sound and close relationships with my fellow seminarians. Their identical desire to respond to a calling promoted discussion, self-teaching, and camaraderie. Several of us left early in the fall of our second year to attend another seminary where classes were rendered in English.. After spending a year and a half there, several of us went back to the Seminary we had left. We were met by a new administration, a course of studies in English, and a growing premonition that Orthodox life in this country was beginning to change.
I graduated and two years later was married. Soon thereafter I was ordained at the Cathedral in New York. All was in Church Slavonic. Despite my intention to enter the priesthood, when actually faced with the reality, I was in a state of panic, praying against all odds that at least some parts of the service would be in English. It was not to be. To my amazement the one who became my champion was the grand and fearsome Russian Protodeacon of the time. He found me cowering in a far corner of the altar, discovered I had no real knowledge of the Russian language, and took pity, speaking broken English and leading me through the proceedings. To this say, I bless him. That occasion was 49 plus years ago.
Our experiences of parish life were mixed, as is often the case. I served one parish whose warden threatened to kill our dog, another that could not see its way to provide a $25.00 raise despite a paltry salary, and a mission that we loved dearly that finally couldn’t afford to go on. We left there with heavy heart. The mission collapsed but the mission experience allowed me to see as never before the catholic nature of Orthodoxy. It dawned on me that Orthodoxy could more than survive in twentieth century America. That was a revelation.
But in the process of furthering my education, I reentered the world of ethnic congregations while I serviced some small parishes in mining towns. These small places somehow reignited my faith. Despite shrinking numbers, shrinking incomes, shrinking opportunities, these believers hung on. Their kindness to me was overwhelming. The back seat of my car on Sundays became shelving for fresh eggs, wild strawberry preserves, home made bread, and even kolachi. The people in these mountain towns were convicted in their faith and revealed in their generosity and brave gentility an element of the enduring qualities of faith.
A desire for more schooling forced a move to Columbus, Ohio. While here initially on a fellowship, I was put on loan to the Midwest Diocese as a supply priest. I was then directed by Central Church authorities to explore the possibility of establishing a mission in Cincinnati, Ohio, about 125 miles to the southwest. This ended up a seven year commute that allowed me to come into ownership of my Faith. My family and I became for a time spiritual nomads. My wife worked and went herself to graduate school. Finally, the stress and strain on the family front, and the demands of serving a mission two hours’ drive away, while continuing to pursue my own doctoral studies, all caught up with me. One Sunday, I pulled into a rest stop, crying. For two hours at an interstate rest stop, all came into question. In those crisis moments, words offered to me by my Father Confessor surfaced: “The Fathers tell us that we all go into spiritual deserts, arid and empty. Just go on. Whenever fitting, you’ll find yourself drinking new life in an oasis God will provide.” It didn’t happen instantaneously, but it did happen.
When I was 54 years of age, I suffered a massive heart attack, and my life hung in the balance for several days. Even on the border of life and death, the prayers from my youth sustained me, but with a whole new depth of meaning. Area clergy anointed me. I knew them only by their countenance: kindness, love, and spiritual brightness – they brought the Lord to me in a holy Mystery.
Now I have retired from what has been ultimately a most rewarding pastoral experience at St. Gregory’s in Columbus. The challenges of a parish in an urban setting necessitated the fulfilling of Gospel injunctions that I’d not faced before. I believe that I had become a true shepherd of “rational sheep”; the notion of hierarchy and conciliarity became for me a reality. What a gift that has been!
So why am I still a believer? Looking back, I can say without presumption but with total conviction that I believe that God has been with me all the days of my life. I recognize that at some level, one chooses to believe or not, but I now understand that the greater reality is the absurdity of faith. The notion of nonbelief I see has a trick of the Evil One, a trick that leads to despair and emptiness. Belief leads to life! Through belief, I belong to something greater than myself. Through belief, my life has purpose, structure and meaning—it is life itself. . Through faith, my senses and my intellect have been nourished abundantly. Through faith I have been called in the most personal way to overcome doubts along the way, and, God willing, in the future.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Mr. Andrew Boyd, Managing Editor, at aboyd@oca.org.
http://ocawonder.com/2012/01/17/because-belief-leads-to-life/
