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Hubert

The Abyss




The modern man is compartmentalized. At our worst, we are in complete shambles. Somewhere, between these two pillars, where many of us reside, our lives are shattered. Many of us, in most recent generations, are rather lost, unsure of the direction of our lives.


A great deal of today’s youth and young adults are dealing with the traumas of childhood abuse or neglect. Some of us are lugging the weight of our very being through the mundane tasks of our everyday lives, as though we are on autopilot, robots stuck in a human body.


You find that generation after generation there is a stronger pattern of people becoming more angry and detached. Angry with ourselves, our peers, our partners, our friends, our parents, our children, our bosses, our teachers, and even with God. Many are lonely. Some are depressed. Some are just sinking into a pit of despair. Addiction to worldly passions has become a character trait for many. Many have taken to drug use, gossip, the abuse of alcohol, over-eating, sex, pornography, or the binge-watching of streamers and television shows to get our minds off of whatever it is that is bothering us.


We often don't even know what is bothering us, nor do we acknowledge what is bothering us. We try to distract ourselves from the issue and numb ourselves to the fact that we don't even know why we want to be distracted and numb at this point, it’s merely a habit. Even the happiest of us don’t always know how to best relate to and interact with others. Even those that are happy have some sort of brokenness deep inside their being. Our lives have become increasingly fragmented and are the direct result of the post-industrial, materialistic, atheist world our country and world have allowed developing. It’s the nature of the world in which we are now living or attempting to live.


I am guilty of this, I am a man of this world.


The various tasks that we must attend to every waking moment of our lives are accompanied by the plethora of gadgets that allegedly help us complete tasks and live more easily. They break us into pieces that seem nearly impossible to put back together once we become addicted to their assistance.


Our interactions from instant gratification and instant access, shape our relationships with everything. Our lives indirectly reflect this, it’s in our relationships with friends, family, tasks, time, and even with God. Our relationships are not real anymore in this secular world.


The modern world doesn’t want the burden of real relationships with real humans. Which are, unfortunately, at times, painful and difficult. The world wants superficial relationships instead. So we turn to unhealthy mediums that allow us to interact with others on our own terms, and simply be without depth or love.


Or so I thought. This was my prior relationship with the world as a Protestant, as a former Deist and Atheist as well. The modern world and its people are often comparable to a body of water, but its depth is that of a puddle.


“Every depth has a surface, but not every surface has a depth”, is an old Greek saying. In Luke 5, Peter discusses with Christ that after a night of fishing in the shallows they’ve caught nothing. They’ve come back empty-handed. Christ tells Peter to go further into the depths and to cast their nets once more.


(Lk 5:6-7) “When they had done this, they caught a great multitude of fish, and their net was breaking. 7 They beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats, so [much] that they began to sink.” Here in the depths, out in the deep, you will find the good, something so significant will be found, this is the Truth. This is Orthodoxy.


You will only find the fractions of the truth in the shallows.


Adventuring into depth requires trust, work, risk, and faith. Leaving the comfort of what we know to be familiar is not easy, and it can sometimes be scary. Imagine examining the darkest and most raw depths of your very being. This is what we do with our Priests, parish members, and Church when we become serious about these matters.


The most common response to this is: “No thanks, I’d rather stay here, where I'm safe in the shallows. I’m perfectly content. At least I’m safe and can’t drown here”.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. There is no humanity or faith in the shallows. Only in the deep can you find the truth, healing, and fullness of humanity. However, there is no way to traverse into the deep and not drown, unless love Himself guides you there and is there with you.


Fr. Dumitru Staniloae has a great quote to put into perspective. “The glory to which man is called is that he should grow more Godlike by growing ever more human.”

As man, and as humans, being able to probe the deepest depths of our very beings, to find the brokenness that is there, and to seek the Master Physician who can fix our ailments, can be uncomfortable. The True Physician, is the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Christ is the one who can make us fully human and able to obtain a state of Theosis, becoming Godlike.


Where do we find Love Himself and this depth in our current age of Godlessness and in an age of over 45,000 Christian denominations?


The truth and Love Himself direct us, and can only be found in one Church. The Orthodox Church.


It is only in the Holy Church and the only Church where the True and Great Physician abides that we will have our wounds, ailments, and fractures bound together. It is only in Christ and his Church, the Orthodox Church who can completely heal us. And it is only the Orthodox Church that can offer complete healing because it is only the Catholic Church that has all the necessary means for healing — fasting, prayer, a rich understanding of the Holy Scripture, the holy and divine mysteries, the Saints who show us what healed people look like and what they do with their preparation of the life to come.


This can only be accomplished with the Orthodox Church where the deepest of these depths can be found by Man. We need the Orthodox Church today, tomorrow, and every day that follows because without it we can never be fully human.


I have witnessed the bottomless void of this world, and have toed the very edge of despair, standing before it balanced. I have partaken in most of its evils, and often still do. Perfect hope and trust is achieved on the brink of despair when instead of falling over the edge, we find the Truth.


I don’t want to be partially human any longer.


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