Still too much Head, not Enough Heart

Good Evening, Gentle Readers.

After everything that has been said and done on this blog in the past few weeks, I've found that I'm still living too much in my head and not enough in my heart.

I believe this problem comes across in my writing.

I need to remember that I am just at the very beginning of this Orthodox Journey. I'm not even one full year old in the Orthodox Faith, since our Chrismation was August the 20th, 2006.

I thought I read somewhere in Orthodox blogdom that it takes around 10 - 11 years to fully shed all the pre-Orthodox baggage one accumulates before becoming Orthodox.

Yes, I still have some of that baggage. Orthodoxy is true, but the honeymoon is over. My life is still my life and I am still faced with many of the same challenges and disappointments that plagued me before my conversion.

But unlike the past, I keep "waking up" and I keep realizing that, wow! I'm now a member of The Church. I have resources to assist me that I lacked before. And I'm worshipping a God who is very patient and very kind.

There is a new, underlying optimism buried between my habitual pessimism that I developed before becoming Orthodox. The POSSIBILITY of a better life in Christ is more available than before. The barriers facing me are less, although some are still formidable. At least these barriers are not coming from The Church, but instead from this fallen world and from the Adversary.

There is this new possibility: If I want it badly enough, and if I persevere, I have the chance of becoming a REAL Saint. In the past, I already considered myself a saint simply by virtue of "being a Christian." Now I realize that there are SAINTS with a capital S and that I have such a long way to go to become one.

And God's Grace is there in a synergistic way always available to help.

I've made a lot of mistakes, even recently. But now I can practice the Orthodox adage of "you fell, now get up again."

Columba Silouan