NOTES for Ti2 2:11-19
"Remind them of this, charging them before the Lord not to quarrel about words, which does no good but only ruins the hearers." This is, perhaps, the most important rule of church health, the health of people inclined toward active life within the church, or simply people active in relation to their spirituality. Let us turn to the spiritual diaries of one of the major theologians of the twentieth century, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann. "...what confusion, even darkness, there is in these young heads; how deadened the immediate moral reaction is; what chaos has been created in the world, in the soul, in culture by every kind of 'intelligentsia.' The endless pride of all this. Pride and vulgarity. Artificial agitation over pseudo-problems, pride in pseudo-consciousness, the importance of emptiness. And now this unfortunate 'academicism,' 'problematics,' the possibility for everyone to imagine himself to be something. And faith in 'discussions,' 'clarifications,' 'communications.' Not one person in the world has been enriched by discussions. Only by encounter with reality, with truth, goodness, beauty. <...> Therefore, as one approaches 'reality,' fewer and fewer words are needed. In eternity there is only: 'Holy, holy, holy...' Only words of praise and thanksgiving, prayer, the whiteness of fullness and joy. Therefore only those words are genuine and needed that are not about reality ('discussion'), but are themselves reality: its symbol, presence, manifestation, mystery. The Word of God. Prayer. Art" ("Journals," Moscow, 2005, pp. 21, 22). In the same book, much later, he recalls a conversation between two women that he overheard in passing. They were arguing about how long the dead remain with us: forty days or not forty. "After all, the Church teaches..." "Why is this necessary?" Father Alexander simply asks. And this is the most terrible thing, when we spend time on "disputes about faith." All this is only a pitiful parody of warfare about the Spirit. So why give ourselves over to it? Let us seek among people those who are close to us not by convictions, but in the way shown to us by the Lord in the parable of the merciful Samaritan.