Vainglory by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

Author:Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung [DeYoung, Rebecca Konyndyk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Published: 2014-12-02T15:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Practices of Resistance,

Places of Encouragement

Until we enter quietness, the world still lays hold of us.

Dallas Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

When we cut the onion of vainglory and confront its multiple layers, many of us might be unable to stop ourselves from crying — or at least despairing over making real progress against this vice. How can we break vainglory’s hold when our lives are broadcast from a continuous feed of fathomless pride and fear?

Evagrius, Cassian, Gregory, and Aquinas addressed an audience that was not celebrity-crazed, image-obsessed, marketing-saturated contemporary America. They designed their analyses of vainglory for a small community of Christians seriously devoted to a life of imitating Christ. These monks and friars dedicated their lives to spiritual disciplines, empowered by the Spirit, which directed their progress in sanctity. So the goods getting glory in this context were sanctity and spiritual gifts — not, as is often the case for us, youthfulness, beauty, status, or the size of our paychecks. Cassian, for example, was not too concerned with fakery and deftly manipulated audiences. Rather, he focused almost entirely on cases where glory for real virtue or genuinely honorable achievement went wrong. He knew that even people who did not seek glory could become more attached to that attention than they should. The purpose of their analyses of this vice was not self-flagellation, but freedom and flourishing. Cassian likened his work as a spiritual director to that of a doctor who not only healed those who were diseased, but also promoted practices for healthy living.1

Avoiding Attention

The Sayings of the Fathers records several humorous stories about monks craftily avoiding attention paid to their sanctity. Here is my favorite:

Once a . . . judge heard of Abba Moses and went to Scete to see him. They told the old man that [the judge] was on his way, and he rose up to flee. . . . The judge and his train met him and asked: “Tell me, old man, where is the cell of Abba Moses?” And the old man said: “Why do you want to see him? He is a fool and a heretic.” The judge came to the church and said to the clergy, “I heard of Abba Moses and came to see him. But an old man on his way to Egypt met me, and I asked him where was the cell of Abba Moses. And he said: ‘Why are you looking for him? He is a fool and a heretic.’ ” And the clergy were distressed and said: “What sort of person was your old man who told you this about the holy man?” And he said: “He was an old man, tall and dark, wearing the oldest possible clothes.” And the clergy said: “That was Abba Moses. And he told you this about himself because he did not want you to see him.

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