Dirk seldom closed the auto repair shop of the gas station at the appointed time. He usually had more work than he could possibly get done in eight hours, and he was too simple and kind to turn down any repair work, unless he was absolutely swamped with cars. He had earned a local reputation for breaking his back for customers - at no extra cost -, and this increased the business considerably. Dirk’s employer, the owner of the station, knew this and was pleased - though Dirk received the same salary no matter how much work he did.
This particular autumn evening - a Saturday - was rare in that Dirk had finished his work by closing time. It was a good thing too, for Dirk’s girlfriend, Dana, having just gotten off work at a nearby department store, was waiting impatiently for him to drive her home.
What prompted their argument on that evening is unimportant. Dana was irritable after a tedious day at work, and would have found something to argue about whatever the circumstance. What was unfortunate was that she said several things to hurt Dirk and made him feel them deeply. She was considerably more intelligent than he was, and so their "arguments" were always one-sided, Dirk answering occasionally but with uncertainty, being convinced that anything he said would be turned against him.
"You’re just a big animal," she said to him, not considering the effect of the power of her words upon his ingenuous nature, though finding satisfaction for her present ill-humor in that power. "You wouldn’t have paid any attention to me if it wasn’t for your animal desires. I begin to wonder if you care for me at all, or if it isn’t all just lust. You don’t have any higher interests to stimulate your intellect - if you have an intellect - and so you just let yourself be governed by instinct - like a dog."
These last words stuck deep. Strange to say, Dirk believed every word of Dana. He actually felt like a base, mean dog.
"I’m sorry for not controlling myself better," he said, looking down and shuffling his feet. "But it’s not true that I don’t care for you. I do love you. Maybe like a dog loves - but it’s still love. Dogs feel other things besides lust."
This simple statement from his heart would have led to softer words from Dana, but their conversation was interrupted. At this moment a young man walked up to the garage. He was about their age, wearing a white shirt, slacks and polished shoes. His brown hair and beard were neatly trimmed, framing his fair-complected face.
"My car broke down a block away," he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Can you fix it?"
"Well, I’ll hafta take a look at it to see," answered Dirk.
"He’s closed!" Dana interjected. The young man turned from Dirk’s face which, although it was rather handsome, was not a pleasing sight to him because of the layers of dirt and oil on it. He could not help noticing how attractive Dana was.
"Well, it’s true that I’m closin’ up," said Dirk, "but if I don’t help you, I don’t know who will, ‘cause there’s not another station for another mile, and that one’s prob’ly closed by now."
"Let me show you where the car is," the young man said. Dirk began to follow him, but Dana grabbed him by the arm, saying, "I can’t wait around here for another hour. You always have people coming around who say they have emergencies."
"What can I do?" Dirk said, and went out. In a few minutes he and the young man came back, pushing the car into the garage.
"That’s some smell you got in that car," Dirk said. "What is it?"
"Incense," the man said.
"Air-fresh’ner?"
"No," replied the man with a patronizing smile. "For prayer. It helps me pray."
"Oh, are you a Chris’chun?"
"Yes, an Eastern Orthodox Christian," said the man, putting particular emphasis on the "t" of the last word. "Do you know what that is?"
"No."
"Have you heard of Russian Orthodox, or Greek Orthodox?"
"Oh yeah. Are you a Russian?"
"No, American. My name is Smith. Gregory Palamas Smith."
Dirk said his own name and put his big, rough, dirty hand in Gregory’s white, soft one. "I’m a Chris’chun, too."
"Dirk!" Dana struck in disparagingly.
"Well I am. I believe in God."
"What kind of Christian?" inquired Gregory.
"Just a plain old Chris’chun."
"What church do you go to?"
Dirk looked down at the hood of the car over which he was standing. "I don’t go to church - like I should," he said. If he blushed, it couldn’t be seen from behind the dirt.
"Well, you’re not Roman Catholic and you’re obviously not Orthodox. Therefore, if you are anything at all, you are a Protestant, in the interdenominational category."
Dirk looked at him wonderingly, then smiled, shook his arms to show he was ready to work, and said, "Well, let’s get cracking. Pop the hood!"
While Dirk began to work on the engine, Gregory sat in the car and read a book. After about a half an hour, Gregory went over to Dana and introduced himself, with a slight, respectable bow. Feeling obliged to start a conversation, Dana asked Gregory where he was headed.
"To my seminary," he said. "It’s a long drive from home."
"Are you going to be a priest?" she asked.
"God willing," he said self-effacingly. "My aspiration is to be a scholar-priest: bi-vocational, as it were. In fact, I have with me a clerical robe, made in preparation for my diaconate. Would you like to see it?"
With mild encouragement from Dana, he took an impeccably clean, pressed black robe out of a little box in the back seat of his car. "This," he said, "is the traditional attire of Orthodox priests."
"Wow!" exclaimed Dirk, looking up from the engine. "You’re a man o’ the cloth!"
"In time, in time," Gregory nodded. "but first I have to be married."
Gregory walked over to Dana again. She informed him that, in a course at the local college she had already seen pictures of Orthodox priests and had even learned some basic facts about the Orthodox Church. Then she asked him how he happened to be Orthodox, which was just what he wanted to hear. He entered into a lengthy soliloquy about his "journey" to Orthodox, describing and disparaging every false idea he had ever held and finally arriving at where he was now.
"Orthodoxy," he explained, "means ‘right faith’ or ‘right worship." It is True Christianity. In the Orthodox Church, my journey, my spiritual odyssey ended. I had found the true, ancient Church. The Orthodox Church is preeminently the Church of the Fathers, a patristic ecclesia, fulfilling in itself the very mysteriological and metaphysical destiny of man. It is the pleroma, or fullness of the Faith, and, in the words of one brilliant modern theologian, it partakes, in the here and now, of the very eschaton of created being. The Orthodox Church is hypostatically - if I may use that expression - a conciliar Church, and it is this conciliar ontology of the Church in the totality of her essence that constitutes the framework of Church government. In the leitourgia is the Church’s sacrament par excellence, informing the Church of her cosmical, soteriological and eschatological vocation, anticipating the epiphany of the parousia of the Kingdom. It is the ‘icon’ in corpore of the..."
"Hey Greg - can ya’ turn the key? I think ya’ got some gunk in your carburetor." It was Dirk.
Slightly flustered, Gregory went to turn his engine on while Dirk checked the carburetor. "That’s all for now," Dirk said. "Thanks."
Gregory went again to Dana and resumed in a lower tone than before. "As I was saying, the parousia..."
"I think you lost me," Dana said.
"Oh, I’m sorry. You looked so attentive."
"I was."
"Well then, let me speak a few words on the spirituality of the Church. The life of the Church is essentially mystical, and its goal is nothing short of the deification, or theosis of man. By this I don’t mean that we are absorbed into God, become God or share ontologically in His essence, but rather than we partake of His manifested energies, His grace. Do you follow?"
"I think so."
"Good. This distinction is fundamental. Now, theosis is attained through the silent life of hesychasm, or divine nipsis, which is attained through unceasing prayer of the heart, which in turn is attained by the frequent repetition of the Jesus Prayer."
"The Jesus Prayer?"
"Yes: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. One is to repeat it many times."
"Why?" interjected Dirk. He was looking up from the engine now.
"Well," said Gregory, "to bring about constant remembrance of God."
Dirk thought for a moment. "That would be good, wouldn’t it?"
"Yes," Gregory replied impatiently. He would gladly have shrugged Dirk off like a fly. "You’d best keep working on the car, hadn’t you?"
"It’s fixed," said Dirk with his ingenuous smile. "Start ‘er up an’ see how she sounds."
The car sounded like new. Gregory asked how much he would have to pay.
"Well," said Dirk, "since you’re a man o’ the cloth, an’ since I’m workin’ on my own time - don’t worry about it."
"I take that to mean that you aren’t going to charge me anything."
"That’s right!" Dirk said. Gregory was incredulous. Dirk had been working on the car for nearly an hour.
Dana began to pressure Dirk to hurry and close the shop, so that he could take her home, but he said that he had at least fifteen more minutes of cleaning up to do. Overhearing this, Gregory offered to take her home, "so that we can continue our discussion." She asked Dirk if that was all right.
"Sure. I’ll come by your place later," he said. She searched his face to see if there was any jealousy on his part, but there was not a trace of it in that simple expression.
Getting into Gregory’s impeccably clean car, Dana first noticed the array of colorful, laminated paper icons which were affixed to the dashboard and ceiling. Before starting the ignition, Gregory took out pieces of incense and charcoal from his glove-compartment, put them in his cigarette ashtray, and lit the charcoal. Then he took out a cassette tape and turned on the stereo.
Impressions overwhelmed Dana as they pulled out of the garage. The music coming from the stereo speakers was ancient Byzantine chant, unearthly, mysterious, elevated - unlike anything she had heard before. The fragrance of the incense in the cigarette ashtray, which was gently wafted throughout the car by the refreshing air-conditioner, was also beautiful and evocative. As Gregory looked at her, smiled and breathed deeply, Dana could see that he took a sensual enjoyment in all this, which was heightened by the fact the she obviously liked it.
"It’s a whole different world from the world outside," Gregory said.
"Yes, it is. The music is as if from heaven."
"Indeed, and the incense is from Mount Athos, a monastic republic in Greece, in existence since the eighth century - where hesychasm is in the very air you breathe."
Gregory somehow found an opportunity to discuss Trinitarian theology. By this time, Dana was asking him to stop when he became unnecessarily abstruse, and making him explain things more plainly. She told him that he could say the same things in a much simpler way. This disturbed him somewhat, but did not slow down his discourse. He was too full of himself to be bothered at this moment by anything. Here was a girl - an exceedingly attractive one at that - who showed obvious interest in his Orthodoxy. Since she was young and fresh, he would have no trouble in forming her mind. And then - who knows what he could hop to expect?
When they arrived at Dana’s apartment, Gregory asked to come in to show her some of the books he had in the back seat. She agreed. Once inside, he explained the contents of each of the books and gave her one of them, The Way of a Pilgrim. This book, he said, described one man’s experience of the Jesus Prayer. Along with it he gave her a prayer rope so that she could say the prayer also.
A knock was heart at the door, and Dirk entered. Gregory’s face dropped, but Dirk didn’t notice. He smiled to see that Gregory was still around. Again Dana checked his face for signs of jealousy, and again she found none.
As Dirk walked up to Gregory and Dana sitting on the couch, Gregory stood up and said he had to leave: "It’ getting late and I’m too tired to drive all night. I’ll look for a hotel." He was contemplating how he could ask for Dana’s telephone number.
"Why don’t you stay at my place?" Dirk offered. "I got plenty o’ room."
"Perfect!" said Gregory, so exuberantly that he immediately checked himself. "I’ll follow you in my car," he added, making for the door.
Dirk kissed Dana on the cheek. "I’ll come by tomorrow," he said. In a way he was glad to leave, thinking that she was still angry with him and would hopefully be calmed down by the next day. In fact, however, she was not angry at all and wanted to tell him something, but he left too quickly.
At Dirk’s place, Gregory found - much to his chagrin - that Dirk had been waiting to talk with him. Dirk asked a number of questions, not noticing the drudging tone in which he was answered. "I didn’t catch all what you and Dana were talkin’ about," he said, "but it sounded like you said that the Orthodox Church is the oldest Church there is."
"Ye-es," Gregory muttered condescendingly. "In a matter of speaking... The Orthodox Church alone has retained the continuity of tradition with the ancient Church, all other ecclesial bodies having added new and heterodox doctrines."
"I like that," said Dirk. "Even in my own work, I find that the older the car, the more sturdy the build. What you’re saying is that Churches are like cars - they don’t make ‘em like they used to!"
"Ye-es," Gregory repeated abstractedly, but with an air of his own profundity. He could hardly stomach Dirk’s analogy, but, in order to terminate the conversation the sooner, he said, "... I suppose one could put it that way."
"Tell me how to say the Jesus Prayer again," asked Dirk eagerly. Gregory said it as quickly as possible. "Not so fast," Dirk begged, and Gregory forced himself to repeat it slowly.
"To be in constant remembrance of God," thought Dirk out loud. "I like that."
Gregory said nothing in response, but asked to see a telephone directory. He spent the next few minutes looking through the yellow pages under "churches," and then asked Dirk for Dana’s phone number. He was about to venture an explanation for his request, but Dirk did not seem to require one, and immediately told him the number.
With Dana on the line, Gregory asked her if she wanted to attend an Orthodox Church service with him on the following day - a Sunday. Dana agreed, but asked if Dirk would like to go, too.
"I don’t know," Gregory said, "I’ll ask him." Having paused for a moment, he put his hand on the telephone receiver and said quickly, "Dirk, do you want to go to an Orthodox Church service tomorrow - even though you won’t be able to understand a word of the language and the service is long and tedious - about two hours - and you’ll have to stand most of the time?"
"Sure!" exclaimed Dirk without hesitation.
Swallowing hard, Gregory lifted his hand from the receiver. "Dirk said yes. We’ll pick you up a little after eight o’clock."
After they had eaten some sandwiches which Dirk had made, Dirk insisted that Gregory sleep in his bed, while he himself would sleep on the couch.
Lying awake in bed, Gregory began to think about Dana. Dana, he reflected, was not an Orthodox name, but a similar name could easily be found for her. It was true that she did not adequately appreciate the more refined theological terminology, but that would come in time: she had only begun to learn about Orthodoxy that day. To think that she would be there at his seminary graduation, and all the other seminarians would see her! They would wonder where he had gotten such a pretty and shapely creature. Where would he take her on their honeymoon, what would they do then?... One thought led to another, and another hour passed before he fell asleep.
Gregory and Dirk (not in a shirt and tie) picked up Dana at the appointed time. With Dana in the front seat and Dirk in the back, Gregory repeated his ritual of lighting incense in the ashtray and playing Byzantine music. Dirk was awestruck. "Greg," he said, "this I great!... ‘Constant remembrance of God," right?" He reached his hand over the seat and laid it on the shoulder of Gregory, who could not prevent himself from wincing.
The church was found easily, with the help of Dirk’s mental map of the city. Dirk walked to the front of the nave while the service was beginning. As Dana followed, Gregory, who would have preferred to stand further back, reluctantly went along.
Their rides in Gregory’s car had not prepared Dirk and Dana for the full effect of an Orthodox service. They felt as if they were in heaven. And - what was most strange - it all seemed somehow familiar to them.
Gregory smiled to see the expression of wonder on Dana’s face. Casting a sidelong glance at Dirk, he saw that he, on the contrary, looked sad. Gregory inwardly rejoiced at this. It was an indication to him that Dirk and Dana were indeed incompatible, Dana being capable of grasping higher truths and Dirk being just a... garage worker, destined to remain hopelessly ensnared in the blind "secularism" of the "masses." He thanked God that he was not like those masses, not like Dirk. He was standing before the very Sacramental Reality of the ecclesia, among that unique society, ontologically partaking of the epiphany and icon of the very parousia of the Kingdom...
Dirk, on the other hand, was not sad for the reasons which Gregory had suspected. He was just as moved as Dana was. But the holiness of the service, his feeling of unworthiness before it, caused his mind to turn back to what Dana had said to him the day before. She was right, he thought - he had been lustful.
After a while he tapped Gregory on the arm. "Tell me that prayer again?" he asked.
Gregory was indignant. He was about to tell him to be quiet, but then saw the expectation in Dirk’s face and knew that he would not get out of it so easily. As softly as he could, so as to avoid being heard, he recited the prayer in Dirk’s ear.
A few moments later Dirk uttered slowly, with evident feeling, and quite audibly, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!"
Gregory flushed. "Can’t that dolt keep his mouth shut?" he thought. Worst of all was the thought that he was seen standing right next to Dirk.
Dana looked over at Dirk and saw tears streaming down his cheeks. Proud of him, she smiled.
As the service drew to a close, Gregory stepped forward to receive Holy Communion. He had not had confession before this, for he believed that the practice of requiring confession before Communion was a "cultural accretion" that had crept into the Church, distorting its purity of tradition. With such rationalizations he approached with no qualms, though he would have done well, before receiving the Eucharist, to confess the shameful thoughts he had had about Dana before falling asleep on the previous night.
After the service, some of the members of the church approached their new guests. Gregory introduced himself as "an Orthodox scholar, with traditionalist orientations." When one bright-eyed old lady asked Dirk if he was Orthodox, he said, "Not yet!" - eliciting surprised looks from both Dana and Gregory.
Dana stayed awhile to pray, and the two young men went out. She looked around at the church once more, and then looked back in her mind at the church and Sunday school which she had attended while growing up. Her previous experience of "organized religion" seemed to her as little more than tedious pedagogy, interspersed with religious "highs" which she temporarily underwent at various church camps. It seemed, she thought, to have left no permanent impression. Or had it? When she took that college course on "World Religions," had not Christianity stood out before her as being on an infinitely higher plane than all the other religions, even though the instructor himself showed an obvious preference for American Indian shamanism? Yes, in spite of the fact that she had not been to church in years, her heart had always been Christian, and she could never go back. It was true that only a few years ago she had, like many young women her age, thought she had found "the Answer" in the religious books of Khalil Gibran, but it had not taken her long to grow out of that. Now she considered those books only one step above the romantic novels she had read in high school: they could only awaken certain feelings, not satisfy the hunger of the soul.
And now her soul seemed to tell her: "This is where you can begin to satisfy that hunger." What was it that made her feel this way, that made her want to remain before the large icons in the now darkened church? it was more than just the aesthetics: the beautiful music, the refined, ancient art. There was an air of permanence about it all which not only reminded one of heaven, but also made it very down-to-earth. Her heart was touched by the presence of God in what she had experienced.
Still, having passed through these reflections, she did not fully trust herself. She would have to wait, give it time, to see how real her initial impressions were. But this did not both her, for she now felt that God was watching over her and would guide her. He seemed more real to her now that he had for along time. She began to pray, but felt awkward, as if she were trying to engage parts of a machine which had grown rusty and tight from lack of use. Soon, however, her full heart began to pour itself out more freely as she looked up at the stern yet loving face of Christ in the icon. "I’m sorry," she prayed, "for having forgotten You..." Her prayer changed from one of repentance to one of thanksgiving. Her eyes became wet, and she was glad that she was able to share in Dirk’s tears.
When Dana found Dirk and Gregory, they were waiting by the car. She was suddenly struck by the fact that Dirk, whom she had called a "lustful animal," was now looking at her with a clear smile, with such a pristine, childlike expression and kind, guileless eyes; while Gregory - that epitome of "spirituality" - looked somehow dark. Although he was only looking at her face, his eyes seemed to wander all over her.
She took Dirk aside. "I want to apologize for what I said yesterday," she whispered. "it wasn’t true what I said."
"Well, maybe some..." Dirk began.
"Dirk," she said firmly. "I was feeling empty inside - through no fault but my own - and I took it out on you. It was selfish of me. I have something to learn from you, not you from me."
Smiling gently, Dirk shrugged his shoulders as if to say that what she said was silly. She could not help but kiss him - while Gregory furtively glanced at the couple with a frown.
They got into the car. More incense in the ashtray and chants on the stereo. Dana was lost in reflection. "Thanks for taking us, Greg," Dirk bent over to say. "God, it was great!"
"What did you think, Dana?" asked Gregory.
"Wonderful," she replied, rousing herself.
"The chant was excellent," said Gregory, "although there were several cultural accretions which I noticed."
"What?" she asked. Gregory turned down the volume of the stereo.
"Cultural accretions - pseudo-traditions which enter the Church through popular piety - the piety of the masses. The modern liturgical movements are endeavoring to eradicate this lower form of piety, to restore the liturgical ordo to its original purity."
Dana listened, but made no comment.
"Furthermore," Gregory continued, "the church we attended was not of the jurisdiction that one might have preferred ideally, though it did prove suitable for the occasion."
"Jurisdiction?"
"That is, the proper segment of the Church. One must choose a jurisdiction that is irreproachably traditional and, at the same time, recognized as being properly canonical. One’s choice must be both prudent and mature."
"It sounds like you want a jurisdiction that is worthy of your membership," Dana commented.
Trying to hide his discomposure at this, Gregory replied gravely, "None of us are truly worthy of Holy Orthodoxy... But I grieve, I truly grieve that some jurisdictions are not... what they should be, let us say. And I only say this in the spirit of kenotic love."
When they arrived at Dirk’s house, Dirk expressed his gratitude. "I thank God we met you," he said, shaking Gregory’s hand. "You taught us how to be "in constant remembrance of God.’"
"I’m glad you’re such a quick learner," said Gregory caustically. Taking this as a compliment, Dirk enthusiastically waved goodbye.
Relieved to get Dirk out of the picture, Gregory began to talk about himself. "You know," he said, "when I was baptized, I chose as my patron St. Gregory Palamas. He was a hesychast Father par excellence, a proponent of theosis, of Uncreated Light and other unspeakable mysteries of the Being of God and - if I may be so bold as to say so without denigrating the transcendence of Divine essence - the very being of man. St. Gregory Palamas is quite the rage now - to borrow an expression from the secular masses - and there may even be said to be, among theologians, a veritable "Palamite Revival!’"
He glanced at Dana to see the effect of his words upon her. Her expression was inscrutable. "Well, such is my patron saint," he said. "You do not have one... but you could select the similar name of Dionysia, after the great mystic theologian St. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Although his identity is disputed by patristic scholars, he was the actual father of apophatic theology, this being the..."
Becoming more aware of Dana’s silence, Gregory paused. "What are you thinking of?" he asked.