Love in Action; Love in Dreams

 FM Dostoevsky in the period of working on the novel ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. 

Painting by S.M. Skubko. Moscow, 1966 - 1984

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Love in Action; Love in Dreams

November 16, 2016

In times of uncertainty and fear, it is easy to get depressed.  It is also easy to scapegoat and blame others wholly for your stress.  It is also just as easy to beat up on yourself for not having lived up to your own stated values.  Sometimes, we find ourselves debating things again and again in our minds, listening the great committee inside our brains; or we find ourselves daydreaming, imagining how things might be if we could only fix things and be the heroes of the day.  All of these ways of coping, as understandable and common as they are, are unhealthy spiritual practices. 

Near the beginning of Dostoevsky’s great novel The Brothers Karamazov, a conversation occurs between a spiritual leader, a monk with the gift of healing, and a society woman who has come for counsel.  She complains that she has little faith in herself, unable to feel the love for others that Christ commanded us to have.  This impairs her ability to reach out to God.  The monk replies,

“It's just the same story as a doctor once told me … ‘I  love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams… I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, … and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom.  In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of [people]: one because he’s too long over his dinner; another because [s]he has a cold and keeps on blowing [her] nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest [people] individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.’”

The healer provides the following spiritual advice: 

“Must one despair? No. It is enough that you are distressed at this. Do what you can, and it will be reckoned unto you.   … Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially to yourself.… Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself.  Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love. Don't be frightened overmuch even at your evil actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all.… But active love is hard work and courage, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it—at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.”

Simply being in the moment and reaching out, simply loving the person in front of you instead of some imaginary mass of humanity, simply serving and embracing, despite the noise, the smell, and the drama of real people—this is what our Lord calls us to do. 

Grace and peace,

Fr. Tony+