Vacation Mode: Activated
Spyridon Bailey's new book, monasticism, and never taking a break
Ever read Josef Pieper’s “Leisure: The Basis of Culture?” Me either, but I get the gist from the title. It’s been bandied about sophomore dorm rooms at Christian universities since at least as long as I attempted college back in what my children refer to as the “black & white age.” We 19-year-old intellectual titans got the central message long before there was even a “hustle culture:” Take some time to chill, bro.
I’m thinking about that on this, the first morning of the first day of my vacation. Or rather, the first day of my staycation, because I’m poor and can’t go anywhere or do anything. (I noticed that my boss posted, “Happy payday!” in the work group chat, perhaps forgetting that this payday falls on the first of the month, which means the our paychecks are annihilated like a plastic Barbie Doll at ground zero of an atomic test town.)
Naturally, my first impulse is to start loading up the hours with all the things I can finally get to - the making, the writing, the recording.
I’ve learned my lessons, though. I’m wearing my swim trunks as I write. I plan to take advantage of this place’s awesome pool when I’m done writing here. After that? leather work and moving some product.
Speaking of which, I had a sort of hilarious revelation a couple of weeks ago: I made an experimental bracelet engraved with the words, “Forgive me, Lord, for I am sinful and retarded,” and posted it on X, which apparently is regarded as God’s blind spot when it comes to free speech.
Instant love. I gained at least a hundred followers, got more than 600 likes, tons of bookmarks, and more importantly: orders. At least 20 at last count. The likes and comments are great and necessary for audience building, but sales are what keep the lights on.
A friend of mine who happens to be an abortion zealot took issue with my use of the word, “retard.” We’re still friends because we have an enjoyable, usually hilarious banter, but she reset to factory Woke mode and leveled her strongest argument against the word with, “Wow. Just…WOW.”
I asked her if using the word was worse than evacuating the brains of pre-born human beings, and that pretty much changed the subject.
Anyway, it was a revelation: the popularity of the bracelet tells me that all this weird stuff going on in my head isn’t necessarily all puerile BS - “Just be yourself” has some truth to it.
So, naturally, I’m going to use the next few days to “relax” the only way I know how: full tilt boogie: writing, recording, and making retard bracelets.
The Shape of Fire
I ordered this book on almost nothing more than the recommendation of a stranger whose tweets I consistently like.
Here’s the description:
For over four decades, Father Spyridon has been visiting Orthodox monks and nuns, from Mount Athos to Moscow, from Ireland to the wilds of Shropshire. Here he shares the wisdom they shared with him, giving a glimpse into the ancient Christian faith that has been preserved, undiluted by the modern world.
You might say it’s “on brand” for me, believing, as I do, that all of life’s problems would be solved with a little dash of monasticism in our lives. Or maybe more than a dash. It’s like how I cook with garlic: the basic principle is to double whatever they recommend.
I’ve come across this idea held by cradle Orthodox: They call it the “monastic capture” of the Church. Basically they’re off-put by how all these fresh-faced young converts discovering Orthodoxy for the first time become utterly captivated by the deep monastic culture in the faith, as if this is a bad thing.
I think the idea is that monasticism appeals to the noobs because for the first time they’re (very often Protestants) encountering a solid edifice of faith with boundaries, discipline, and actions that seem utterly new and therefore compelling to them. The immediate problem, of course, is that one tends to develop a Grand Inquisitor-grade fundamentalism that both turns off prospective converts and burns out the practitioners of said fundamentalism. Fair point. The legions of Dyerites do their utmost to ensure Orthodoxy looks as bad as possible. I swore it off at least six months before my conversion precisely because of them.
Nonetheless, unlike most Dyerites, I’ve lived in a monastery. I worked in the daily rhythms of the place, watching with something between horror and elation as the hairy Gordian not in my soul unwound and reformed into something else. Something good, I believe.
My time at the monastery coincided with the final collapse of everything I thought was foundational or reliable. Giant pieces cracked off of my pillar of faith. In any other place or context, I would have become a full-throated cynic, but cynicism is impossible in such an environment. There’s either love of God, however cautious or timid, or there’s hatred of Him. There is no in-between.
So, I’m interested in Bailey’s book on the subject. My monastic experience is limited to one single monastery in central Oklahoma, which, as it turns out, may not even be canonical. (On that point, I don’t care - if what I experienced there wasn’t true, day-in-day-out monasticism, then what, pray tell, is the real thing?)
One last note on leisure and vacations…
This quote from “Unseen Warfare” comes up a lot:
“If a traveler stops on his ordinary journey, he loses nothing of the way already covered; but if a traveler on the path of virtue stops in his spiritual progress, he loses much of the virtues previously acquired. … In an ordinary journey, the further the traveler proceeds, the more tired he becomes; but on the way of spiritual life the longer a man travels, reaching forth unto those things which are before, the greater the strength and power he acquires for his further progress.”
This is such a pain in the butt, and utterly true, in my experience. It’s one reason why, when I get some time off of my day job, I fill it with frenetic, allegedly productive activity - I’m trying to keep up the momentum. What kind of momentum? That’s murky territory. Hustle work, obviously, but also a sort of spiritual momentum. In the past, and to a large degree even now, the manifestation of my spiritual walk has been the care of my family (which might give you some idea of the intensity of the existential hit I took when I nearly lost all of them at the beginning of this debacle). In other words, my mission and purpose in life, which I believe was given to me by God, was to protect, provide, and guide my family.
It doesn’t take a Khan-like intellect to understand how carving leather on the side is my way of caring for my family, which is also my preferred method of prayer.
To clean up the thought a bit: there’s no rest in spiritual warfare. Not, at least, the kind of rest where you veg out and, say, binge watch The Walking Dead like some hypocrites writing this post. There is only the advance. Sure, have a sit every now and then, but when you’ve got nothing left, you say the Prayer, which is to say, The Jesus Prayer.
I need to go into this more in another post, but it’s really fundamental to understanding what we’re supposed to be doing here. When you resolve to be with God, which is not simply to say, “be saved” or “go to Heaven,” you quickly realize just how difficult that is. You might think a daily prayer time is enough, but the temptations, the irritations, the trials and tribulations are on 24/7. It’s why even in our nightly prayers, we pray for a peaceful, dreamless sleep, because you’ll find the battle even there.
Anyway, cheers. Pool time