A Flourishing Life? The tension of life lived between the 3rd and 4th dimensions and the paradoxical pathway through, Part I

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"You´re not gonna die.

You´re gonna have to die, but you’re not gonna die--that´s the whole point. 

And this kind of dying is gonna make you come alive because you’ve got to die to the delusional false self that isn´t really you, that you may not even know is there because it´s so covered with repression, suppression, delusion, false images, lies that people put upon you...

For the crucifixion is a perpetual event and as the Holy Fathers teach, if we do not learn to die every moment of every day, we will never learn to die when the real end comes.

We must practice dying.  

Every moment of every day is a practice in dying, in letting go, letting go of our life, giving it to God, letting it go all the time and living in the present moment. And the only way that each present moment can be transformed into paradise is if it dies and is offered to God and then resurrected again from His hand—and that’s why the whole dynamic of the Christian life is crucifixion, resurrection.  

We are constantly dying and constantly being raised; constantly letting go and constantly being reconstituted; constantly being offered and constantly being consecrated. 

This is how life works. 

That is what taking up the cross is."

-Fr. Thomas Hopko

The Word of the Cross

Introduction: From the 3rd into the 4th dimension

With these opening words, we frame our Christian understanding of the question,

How do we live a flourishing life?

And as we have found so often, when truth comes down to us from the 4th dimensional structures of eternity, breaking into our present, 3rd dimensional reality, they are expressed in terms of paradox. That is to say, what is happening here and now in the present is working into us a far deeper, eternal reality.

This passage along this paradoxical continuum works to progressively transform and transfigure the structures of our person in accordance with (κατά) these eternal realities so that they—not our present Fallen Age—effectively shape us.

In the words of the Apostle,

Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working in us to produce (katergázomai) a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen.

For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (II Cor 4:16-18).

Or to draw this together in a single phrase which we have used before: “All orthodoxy is paradoxy.

And in the paradoxes of the Gospel, as above,

our outward man is perishing; and at the very same time, our inward man is being renewed;

our affliction (thlîpsis), which in the scheme of eternity is but for a moment (parautíka) and thus light (elaphrós [as the yoke of Christ, Mt 11:30])this affliction holds within it a grand paradoxical capacity to work in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

And through the witness of Christ and the Apostles together with all the Saints, we are shown that this glory is worked into us—not in spite of our affliction—but precisely through it.

By becoming low, we are exalted.

By becoming last, we become first.

By becoming a slave, we become free.

By denying ourselves, we enter into fullness of life.

By becoming weak, we are made strong.

By becoming poor, we are made rich.

By being a fool, we become wise.

By emptying ourselves, we are filled.

By losing our life, we gain it.

And integrating all of these paradoxes together into one,

By dying, we truly live.

This is the pathway of flourishing in the Christian life.

None other is possible.

And though many pathways seem to constantly emerge before us, there is only one whose “narrow and suffering path” is specifically designed to transform the structures of our personalities that we may more fully experience the eternal weight of glory that marks true flourishing.

Our experience of paradox from above…and from below

These paradoxes of the Gospel open our understanding to the nature of 4th dimensional flourishing from above, so to speak. And yet, in many ways our own experiences here and now in the 3rd dimension also confirm their truth, as it were, from below.

Returning to Part III of Ian McGilchrist’s The Matter With Things, we again quote a lengthy section from the chapter titled, The coincidentia oppositorum (“The coincidence of opposites”):

We pursue happiness and become measurably less happy over time.

We privilege autonomy and end up bound by rules to which we never assented and more spied on than any people since the beginning of time.

We pursue leisure through technology and discover that the average working day is longer than ever and that we have less time than we had before.

The means to our ends are ever more available, while we have less sense of what our ends are or whether there is purpose in anything at all.

Economists carefully model and monitor the financial markets in order to avoid any future crash—They promptly crash.

We're so eager that all scientific research results in positive findings that it has become progressively less adventurous and more predictable, and therefore discovers less and less that is a truly significant advance in scientific thinking.

We grossly misconceive the nature of study in the humanities as utilitarian in order to get value for money and thus render it pointless and in this form certainly a waste of resources.

We improve education by dictating curricula and focusing on exam results to the point where free thinking—arguably an overarching goal of true education—is discouraged in our universities. Many students are, in any case, so frightened that the truth might turn out not to conform to their theoretical model that they demand to be protected from discussions that threaten to examine the model critically. And their teachers, who should know better, in a serious dereliction of duty, collude.

We over sanitize and cause vulnerability to infection.

We overuse antibiotics leading to super-bacteria that no antibiotic can kill.

We make drugs illegal to protect society and while failing comprehensively to control the use of drugs, we create a fertile field for crime.

We protect children in such a way that they cannot cope, let alone relish in uncertainty or risk, and are rendered vulnerable.

McGlichrist well articulates what many of us have and are experiencing in our current cultural landscape. Driven by the illusion of a permanently-immediate happiness that somehow offers security and continual flourishing, we travel down paths that lead to precisely the opposite.

Where then do we begin?

Desire: opening us through faith into the healing of the 4th dimension as we come “behind” Jesus

This pathway of flourishing begins, in the words of Christ, with desire.

What kind of desire?

A desire that will lead us by the operations of faith from the 3rd into the 4th dimension, where flourishing extends beyond the confines of time and circumstances.

How can we desire a 4th dimensional desire?

Jesus makes it very clear to His disciples:

“If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself…”

This process begins with the denial of our 3rd dimensional desires. But this can only happen as we literally follow directly “behind” Jesus [opísō; from ópisthen].

And this particular root word is used two other times in Matthew’s Gospel in a way that aids us in understanding what exactly this coming behind means.

We must follow after Jesus just like the woman with an “issue of blood [b] for twelve years” who “came from behind and touched the hem of His garment…” (Mt 9:20), desperately seeking healing…as she had already “suffered many things from many doctors” and “was no better, but rather grew worse…” (Mk 5:26).

For in the process of her ever worsening condition that rendered her ritually unclean and spiritually isolated, she had given over her entire well-being to the realm of medicine. And in the continual hope of “the cure,” she had “spent (dapanáō) all that she had” (Mk 5:26), even, in the words of Luke, “her whole life” (hólon tón bíon Lk 8:43).

Much could be said here, especially for those of us in medicine…

Now suffering and impoverished, plagued by disappointment in the “healing arts” of man, she comes to the end of herself…which, by the working of Grace, draws her to seek after the true Healer, then literally come “behind” Him, where she learns:

It is not medicine that cures her; it is Christ Jesus Who heals her, delivers her and makes her whole (Mt 9:22, Mk 5:34, Lk 8:48).

The Canaanite woman: 4th dimensional desire shaped by faith

Or there is the “Canaanite woman” with a “severely demon-possessed daughter” (Mt 15:21-22), who, like the women with the issue of blood, had come to know how absolutely powerless medicine was to heal her loved one.

Thus seeking out Jesus and coming behind Him and His disciples, she “cries out” for healing with such a vigor of intensity that the disciples, embarrassed by her desperation, seek to have Jesus “send her away” (15:23). Refusing, however, to be turned back by His disciples…then by Christ’s own silence…then by His words of near merciless testing (15:24-27), she keeps crying out until Christ, utterly astonished, finally replies,

“O woman, great is your faith!

Let it be to you as you desire” (15:28a).

Faith shaped her desire in accordance with Christ’s.

“And her daughter was healed from that very hour” (15:28b).

How our desire operationalizes faith: self-denial

Yet…lest we become overly confident in our charismatic ability to bring down this healing from the 4th dimension into this realm through our desire, Jesus continues

“If anyone desires to come behind me, let him deny himself…”

The only desire that can lead us into 4th dimensional flourishing must begin with a denial of our 3rd dimensional desires.

This Jesus has already made absolutely plain:

“Therefore do not worry, saying,

‘What shall we eat?’ or

‘What shall we drink?’ or

‘What shall we wear?’

These are all necessary, but temporal desires, passing away with each passing day. Christ’s disciples, on the contrary, are called to operate, not on the basis of such transient desires:

For after all these things do the Gentiles [who are trapped in the 3rd dimension] seek.

But rather, operate on the foundation of faith that is grounded in the eternal Kingdom of Heaven:

For your heavenly Father [in the 4th dimension] knows that you need all these things.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness [4th dimensional desire], and all these things [in the 3rd dimension] shall be added to you (Mt 6:31-33).

Our desire must be ordered in such a way as to lead us beyond the passing desires of This Age into His eternal Kingdom. And, paradoxically enough, our experience will actually teach us that when this deeper desire is operating, then our transient desires will be continually met.

And with our rightly-ordered desire bringing us behindJesus, Who meets our present needs and, at the very same time, opens to us the Kingdom pathway of 4th dimensional flourishing, we, as we will find in our next writing, enter into it through the “shock” of a 3rd dimensional cross…

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A Flourishing Life? The tension of life lived between the 3rd and 4th dimensions and the paradoxical pathway through, Part II

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Suffering Mindsets: “Constant and perpetual gratitude in and for everyone and everything, in all circumstances, particularly in afflictions and in sufferings.” An address by Fr. Thomas Hopko (Audio)