Shadows and Epiphanies

There's this thing I've been trying to figure out for a while now. I've been reading about saints here and there, and one thing I've found is that those seeking theosis seems to have a point usually early along their journey where they are suddenly, hugely, and joyfully aware of their own sinfulness and inadequacy. Most of you will be familiar with the scene in The Brothers Karamazov where Elder Zosima's elder brother proclaims "I am guilty of everything before everyone!" It's that. It's illogical and confusing and the joy displayed by these specially illumined at the suddenly clarity of their own "guilty" state seems to be something close to insanity.

 The kinds of things that the pious say about themselves can sound like excerpts from a dangerously depressed person's journal, but they say these things not with resignation but exuberance. One of the daily morning prayers in my prayer book is Prayer I, of St. Marcarius the Great. It begins, "O God, cleanse me a sinner, for I have never done anything good in Thy sight."

Anyone who follows this blog (first of all, God help you) will be aware of my penchant for self-loathing. In the past few months, a majority of visits to this site have come from people googling the phrase "self loathing quiz." The googlers are directed to this blog post. I kind of feel bad about it, but I assume that most of them close the tab as soon as they realize that it's not actually a quiz but a little personal introspective exercise made public. Point being, I have and continue to struggle with self-hate, self-worth, and self-loathing. How is the above prayer different from the thoughts that go through my head at 4am when I should be asleep?

I brought up the saintly self depreciation phenomena with my friend Trif, who is very smart and has been Orthodox longer than me. I could tell that there was something qualitatively different between what these saints express and the manifestation of my insomnia. But, I was having a hard time putting it into words. He said that the source of this realization was a proximity to God and not a proximity to one's sins, and then it clicked.

The saints, the blessed, and the holy fools see their sins the way we see our shadow when standing near a single, bright light source. They see them clearly, well defined, and very dark in contrast to everything else in their sight. The rejoice not in their sins, but in the contrast between their sins and the brightness of God. God's light shines with both a physical and spiritual light, it is the ultimate reality, it is the purest energy, the source of creation. This light penetrates human beings, eventually shining out the other side of us, the icon of God acting as a window into eternity. No matter how long you stand in front of this light, no matter how filled and reflective you become, you will always cast a shadow of some sort. And what joy to see that shadow. What joy to see your sins so clearly. Clear reminders that we are not God, but he is so very near. This close to the source of all things, everywhere you look you see God. It's even present in the formation of that shadow. When utterly engulfed in the divine ecstasy is the default position.

Self-loathing, on the other hand, is the result of looking for your shadow in a very dark room. A shadow is usually pretty identifiable, even in a very dark room. The difference being that in the dark room the line between the shadow and general darkness can become confused. We, simple creatures that we are, mistake the darkness all around us for a continuation of our shadow, which looks especially dark in this place. The self-loathing has no perspective with which to contrast  full darkness and mere shadow. Everything is simply, dark.  We can fall into our shadow and retreat, getting smaller and smaller, into deeper and deeper darkness, like the bus in "The Great Divorce" returning to Hell.

Self loathing says, "I have never done anything good." The sacred epiphany says, "I have never done anything good in your sight." In God's sight, in the full brightness of the light, God is all that is good, and we are so close. We are so close to the warmth, the grace, the ultimate Good. Nothing else could rightly be called "good" in God's sight. Yet, he does. "God saw that it was good." We were created to be good, as God is Good, perfect as our Father in heaven is Perfect. We're headed that direction, at least we hope we are. We're going towards the light, and our shadows are growing sharper, and somehow thinner.