Or, Monkicism Tangibilated

Monk Cosmas

        & nbsp;   It’s a paradox.  Those who progress in the spiritual life attain a great maturity on the one hand while on the other hand they retain a childlike quality.  I have encountered this phenomenon enough times among people I have met that I can no longer doubt it, even though I do not fully understand it.  Let’s see if we can sort it out.

        & nbsp;   The first thing we notice is that in their maturity and their childlike quality they do not resemble the adults or children we happen to meet in everyday life.  It’s a sad fact that many adults are not very mature, while many children believe they are entitled to all the rights and privileges of adults.  Over the course of the twentieth century—and particularly in the last half of that tumultuous era—we have seen the concept of adulthood erode.  Maturity and a sense of responsibility have come to be considered less important than before, while at the same time people began to regard adulthood as primarily an opportunity to do what they want, when they want, and as they want.  What were once taken for granted as marks of adulthood and maturity—virtues such as honor, trustworthiness, and emotional stability—gave way to spontaneity and absence of inhibition.  We see this not merely in role models of popular culture such as athletes, entertainers, politicians, and the men and women of the business world, but also in real life.  We don’t admire the person who does the right thing when no one is looking, but the one who does the wrong thing in front of everyone and gets away with it.  Think about it—don’t you have friends, co-workers, or even managers at work (no matter what their age may be) whose behavior seems much more typical of teenagers than full-grown adults?  And as younger people have emulated this behavior and these attitudes, we have seen the model of the rebellious teenager extend downward in years to the so-called “tween” years (that is, the period between childhood and the teenage years, conventionally regarded as extending from eight to twelve years of age).  As a the result, those who are still too young to know life already think they know everything there is to know, especially the seamier aspect of the world, and are as bad as the adults they copy.

        & nbsp;   This is not what we mean when we say that men and women who have progressed in the spiritual life demonstrate both maturity and a childlike quality.

        & nbsp;   I have come across a handy summary of the characteristics of maturity on a little card (undated, with no indication of place of publication) which reprints a list from a publication “Moral and Spiritual Values in Education” used by the Los Angeles City Schools.  These suggested characteristics are as follows:

• He accepts criticism gratefully, being honestly glad for an opportunity to improve.
• He does not indulge in self-pity.  He has begun to feel the laws of compensation operating in all life.
• He does not expect special consideration from anyone.
• He controls his temper.
• He meets emergencies with poise.
• His feelings are not easily hurt.
• He accepts the responsibility of his own acts without trying to “alibi.”
• He has outgrown the “all or nothing” stage.  He recognizes that no person or situation is wholly good or wholly bad, and he begins to appreciate the Golden Mean.
• He is not impatient at reasonable delays.  He has learned that he is not the arbiter of the universe and that he must often adjust himself to other people and their convenience.
• He is a good loser.  He can endure defeat and disappointment without whining or complaining.
• He does not worry unduly about things he cannot help.
• He is not given to boasting or “showing off” in socially unacceptable ways.
• He is honestly glad when others enjoy success or good fortune.  He has outgrown envy or jealousy.
• He is open-minded enough to listen thoughtfully to the opinions of others.
• He is not a chronic “fault-finder.”
• He plans things in advance rather than trusting to the inspiration of the moment.

        & nbsp;   This list represents a “classic” view of maturity, a view which may seem very distant from our contemporary secular outlook.  In fact, if we compare this list with what we see in popular culture—movies, for example—what immediately strikes us is that immaturity has become today’s ideal rather than maturity.

        & nbsp;   The “classic” view of childhood also differs from today’s conventional ideals for children, tweens, or teens.  No, the standards of this world will not provide us any clues as to what Jesus meant when He said that “…unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3-4).  On the contrary, this passage mentions humility as the main point.  We could probably add joy, acceptance of others, playfulness, and other such elements of childhood as it used to be.       These childlike qualities are perfectly in keeping with maturity.  When St. Paul said that we should “put away childish ways” (1 Corinthians 13:11) he did not mean the childlike humility that would allow us to enter the kingdom of heaven, but the immature behavior and thinking which today’s world endorses with such gusto.

        & nbsp;   These, then, seem to be characteristics of those who have progressed in the spiritual life—maturity and childlike humility, not in a worldly sense, but the real thing.

        & nbsp;   Genuine spirituality does not constitute a separate category of life.  On the contrary, all of life is spiritual when we live in communion with God and with one another.  The way we treat one another, our expectations of ourselves and others, our ability to remain calm in the face of difficulties, our emotional stability—these factors constitute a major part of our spiritual life.

        & nbsp;   What this really means, then, is that spiritual maturity is not something esoteric or out-of-reach.  It is something we can attain through God’s help on the one hand and our own patient efforts on the other.  It just means growing up and becoming adult men and women as God intended us to be while keeping a childlike humility.

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Cosmas (formerly Cyril) was born at the mid-point of the twentieth century, in 1950.  He was raised Methodist and was the son of a minister.  Soon after entering college he drifted away from Christianity, seduced by the allurements of secularism and decadence, and spent many years in the spiritual far country of depravity, degeneracy, defiance, and bad attitudinality.  He entered the Greek Orthodox Church in 1996 the old-fashioned way as a repentant sinner.  Anything that might be construed as a journey to Orthodoxy was confided to his spiritual father in life confession and sealed with the prayers for absolution.  He is a tonsured reader / chanter.  In 1997 he joined the translation team to complete the Orthodox Study Bible by producing a version of the Old Testament with commentary which conformed to the Septuagint Greek text and was made chairman of the translation committee.  His work on that project continued until 2004, when he joined the brotherhood of the Monastery of St. John.  He was tonsured to the small schema on March 20, 2008 with the name Cosmas.  His patron saint is Cosmas of Aetolia.  Among the obediences and other activities at the monastery of Fr. Cosmas are copy editing, proofreading, translating, and some writing for Divine Ascent Press, hauling trash to the dump, dipping and chopping candles, and making coffee.