Thanks for the response which I take to be both honest and sincere. I appreciate that.
"I still have a hard time and cannot accept the praying to departed saints or to Mary. That is just wholesale contrary to my whole understanding of Scripture and of my experience with Jesus, The Father and Holy Spirit. I cannot imagine a common ground on that in the RC or Orthodox directions."
That's fair. I rather doubt I have ever heard any Protestant, aside from some Lutherans and Anglicans say otherwise. As I mentioned some posts back, I think that sort of devotion simply isn't for you guys and it is, at least to an extent, unfair of us to think you'd take on our mindset when it comes to these matters. The same pretty much goes for veneration of icons. If you are interested, I posted a thread on icons by +Gregory Palamas (14th century) which does a good job of explaining what we are about when it comes to icons.
"It sounds like you are asserting that every Orthodox congregation is balanced and healthy and focused exclusively and wholesale on God, His will etc. I'm exceedingly skeptical that that's true."
LOL!!!!!!! You're talking to a Greek, my friend. We are the worst sinners in Christendom. Parish Councils tend to look at the parish like their Greek restaurants and treat the priest like he's the hired cook! Every Sunday at communion time we pray a prayer in which we declare ourselves to be the chief among sinners. In our mindset, The Church is a hospital for sick souls; its just where we belong and we proclaim Christ "Physician of our souls and bodies!" And so we go to the Divine Liturgy, attend the services and devotions, public and private, try to follow a prayer rule and when we fall down, we repent, get up and try some more to die to the self and focus on Christ.
"Sometimes we get in trouble doing what we do best far too much. Sometimes it's a relatively initially small pride that satan gets amplified and then all kinds of evil slid in on. It's usually human stuff that gets rationalized as justified according to this or that belief, tradition or custom of men. . . . and sometimes even true doctines are used to hide all kinds of evil."
Absolutely. Pride, which is at base what you are describing, is a very, very deadly sin. If anything takes "the eye of the soul" off Christ and focuses it fast on the self, it is pride.
LOL!!!!!!! You're talking to a Greek, my friend. We are the worst sinners in Christendom. Parish Councils tend to look at the parish like their Greek restaurants and treat the priest like he's the hired cook! Every Sunday at communion time we pray a prayer in which we declare ourselves to be the chief among sinners. In our mindset, The Church is a hospital for sick souls; its just where we belong and we proclaim Christ "Physician of our souls and bodies!" And so we go to the Divine Liturgy, attend the services and devotions, public and private, try to follow a prayer rule and when we fall down, we repent, get up and try some more to die to the self and focus on Christ.
= = = =
That above I can join in on wholesale and without reservation.
Thanks.
Also your later about pride.
Because we are human, we must honestly try even if we honestly fail. Then, we do what you so aptly say "repent, get up and try" again until the last day. There are no real saints among us.
I think something that has not been said about icons and images and statues is along the following lines.
It is, in my experience of myself and idolatry, extremely difficult
Thg object--icon, image, statue--is NOT God.
He wants direct unfettered access to our hearts, minds, spirits--dialogue 'walks' in the cool of the evening that Adam lost and Christ shed so much Priceless Blood to restore.
Yeah, tricky--He's invisible--our mind's eye doesn't focus on nothing very well.
But substitutes will NOT do. They are an insult to Him and to the direct dialogue He seeks, requires of us. He may indulge 'kindergarteners' or the truly pure of heart from time to time--occasionally because of poor teaching or they've known nothing else or there's some special situation involved or some such. But it is NOT a habit He delights in.
Actually, it's not just objects that He has such an attitude toward.
IT IS ANYTHING THAT BECOMES A HABIT, RITUAL, REPETITION--A SET OF HOOPS THAT WE JUMP THROUGH AND THEN EXPECT XYZ VENDING MACHINE RESPONSE FROM HIM--EVEN IF IT'S JUST HIS SMILE OR ANSWERED PRAYERS.
He's NOT a vending machine and He did NOT create us to be robots, either.
Imagine your only child--your most precious son. You come in from a hard day at work and rush to his room--for heart to heart touching base. He's playing video games. Without looking up or pausing his pulsing finger pushing . . . he says
Hi Dad.
You eagerly ask about his day; his classes; his sports . . .
Without pausing his finger flicking on the joystick or looking up, he mutters--yeah, fine, ok. usual. You?
You share a bit about your challenging day and ask him some more meaty questions. He says:
You, know, Dad, I'm really busy--here--trying to beat my best score--talk to this icon--err--this ball team pic from last week. I'll kind of listen.
IT'S NOT THE SAME.
It's NOT an intimate dialogue walk in the cool of the evening in the garden or across the table with coffee and deep looks into the invisible eyes of God the Father. It's NOT the same.
There's inescapable added distance--no matter how facilitative the icon/image/statue was once or even twice.
Most importantly, God said THOU SHALT NOT.
But I believe the REASON He said that is the distance. He deplores the distance between us and Christ died to erase it.
So then we go out and buy some klunky object or make one--and reinstall the distance. And we think He's pleased?