Today's maxim is:
"Be an ordinary person. Be one of the human race. Don't ever say: 'I thank you God, I'm not like other people.' Try to be like others as much as you can. Be ordinary. As the Russian writer Chekov said: 'Everything outside the ordinary is from the Devil.'"This powerful maxim can be applied to the spiritual life in so many ways. The first thing I thought of when reading this maxim was the similarly-themed quote from CS Lewis' Mere Christianity:
"One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons -- marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning."Not only does this quote scream "DON'T JUDGE OTHERS!!", it also gives a powerful argument as to why the world is not divided into "good people" and "bad people," "good things" and "bad things." The music or movies that I see as a temptation may not pose the slightest threat to another's spiritual life. My fellow Christian's greatest worldly struggle may seem to me a fool's trick. Lots of people choose not to drink for religious reasons, but my idol, CS Lewis, loved beer and often said so in his writings.
Something I have discovered is that, unless we are in a position of taking care of someone else, like a father of confession or a parent or older sibling, these are things we should not worry about except in our own lives.
I recently found myself in a situation where I erroneously judged someone very dear to me for just such a reason. My initial reaction was to defend myself, build up the usual wall of excuses of "step 1 studying" and "school" and "stress," and then I realized - no one wants to hear it. Like my fellow med student was saying the other day, we chose this path. No one forced us into it. We knew how difficult and stressful it would be. We took the plunge, and now we must build our wings on the way down. Should our relationships with others suffer because of a voluntary choice we made? Do we let our interactions with others slide downhill without making a conscious effort to become better at all times even in the midst of running through med school?
This life as a Coptic Christian and as a medical student is only going to get harder, more stressful, more demanding. And yet I never want it to become an excuse for myself to "let myself go," so to speak. With this post, I urge all my friends and those know me and care about me, and those of you out there who know medical students, to constantly encourage them to better themselves all the time (while please kindly being sympathetic to their perhaps marathon of sleepless nights!). Don't let us slide. Please. Keep watch for our souls when we are too tired to keep watch for ourselves.
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Update: Fr. Thomas Hopko passed away yesterday, March 18, 2015. The world lost a great man, but heaven gained a great saint. I will not post anything about his life or works; what can I say that would do him justice? You can google him and find all his podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio. Pray for us, Father.
