The Arena

Mentors and mentoring are all the rage in the contemporary landscape. One industry after another is seeking to develop the art and science of mentoring.  A mentor is one who is entrusted with education and counseling of another. Unfortunately, mentors are in short supply. There are many sociological reasons for our state of affairs that have led us to this scarcity. One primary cause is our method of conducting education in general.  Our society is much more focused on pumping out students that have memorized large amounts of data points, and demonstrated those points in standardized testing, than on having one on one relationships where information is transmitted, and then the use of the information put to work, pressed, and refined to an art form.  The later is what we call mentoring. Due to our lack of mentors, many of those who desire to learn, grow, and become proficient and even excellent at a task, are left to all kinds of alternative measures. 

This can be particularly tricky when it comes to our spiritual life.  Very few, if any, can simply study their way into a grown up kind of spiritual life. Historically, we Christians have relied on spiritual fathers and mothers. These are persons who have walked with Christ, and gone through the many trials and tribulations that life in this world has to offer, and yet have come out the other side of these experiences more whole and perfect than when they began.  The goal dear friends is to find these people and to draw close to them, that they might be our mentors.  For Orthodox Christians, this role falls to our priest and father confessor. It is with our priests that we find someone to educate and counsel us in the spiritual life. The life of a spiritual father is truly a daunting task, yet it is not the person alone who guides, but it is the person assisted by the Holy Spirit and the tradition of the Church, and its many writings. 

For Orthodox Christians, this spiritual life in which we are led by our spiritual guides centers around a rule of prayer, ascetic practices, and sacred reading.  This prayer rule is usually connected to a prayer book, and certain occasions for prayer contained therein. There is also a time for quiet prayer- the Jesus Prayer, normally assisted by the use of a prayer rope. Then there is sacred reading. This is mostly connected to the scriptures, patristic authors, lives the saints, and to guidance by the great ascetics.  All of this guidance however needs  temperance and refinement. Many of these writings are directly written to monastics, who live very different lives than those of us outside of a monastery. The church commends certain ascetic practices which are better suited for life outside of a monastery. The spiritual mentor is critical to our proper learning, use, and application of these resources.

I plan to write about these resources, but in this post I will focus on the genre of ascetic writings. Remember, if you choose to read and follow the guidance found in them, do so under the mentorship of your spiritual father. There  are two books in this category that I have found extremely helpful. One, “The Arena”, and the other, “Unseen Warfare”.  The Arena gets its name from historic coliseums. They were called Arenas because the floors upon which the gladiators did battle was covered with sand, for which the Latin term was “Arena”. The sand played two roles. One to conceal and soak up the blood of the injured, and two, as a disguise for the elevators containing wild beasts below the platform that would be raised up in the middle of a battle.  Moreover, those gladiators who fought in the arenas were taught and counseled by magistri/mentors. In this wonderful book written by Bishop Ignatius, he gently mentors new monastics novices, those who plan on living a life of spiritual warfare, on how to live a life according to our Lord's instructions on how to conduct spiritual battle in the arena of this world.

To be continued.