One of the secrets of...

many martial arts is learning to use an opponent's weight and force against them. Since a number of these arts were developed, as best I remember, to allow unarmed people a defense against the armed this was a crucial skill.

I've been pondering that in relationship to combat with sin. We're often advised to wrestle against the darkness within and this is true but many have never learned the skills of combat while our adversary is old and seasoned. If I were to rushed, today, into a professional ring what chance would I have against even a small but skilled combatant? But I've been thinking.

Now the truth is this is not original thinking but more like an "aha" from a lifetime of struggling, messing up, and trying to recover. If you hit yourself in the head with a board enough times you either knock yourself out or discover that the pain goes away when you stop and my thoughts in this matter are more like the latter.

It certainly matters that people, that I, recognize sin in my life. It's really the first step to getting better and the sad truth is that many people, myself included, have a deep capacity for just being unaware of the force and energy of sin in our lives. But presuming that you have some awareness, and by the way you can ask God for it but understand you won't like what you see, the question becomes how to not simply cope with it but move through and beyond.

Many Orthodox Christians will come to confession with a list of sins, sometimes its an actual written list. Often the list varies little over time. Its the same for me. Our confession is faithful but at best we're simply holding the ground and not advancing. In a certain sense this is okay, God knows us, loves us, cares for us, and accepts our feebleness. His mercy is great and a penitent heart is never rejected.

Yet how good it would be to be able to not fail at the same point time after time? In my career as a sinner I may have stumbled on something, something not new, not original, something that took years to discover because of the sheer density of my intellect and soul, but something that still could make a difference.

It starts with a question. Why do we sin? I'm not talking about the big picture stuff with the fall and inherited mortality because while that's true my thoughts are most focused on why we commit this or that particular sin, sometimes over and over again. And it was at that point that I had the "aha" moment.

The thought is simple. We can listen to and learn from our sins. I'm not talking about cherishing them in our soul and finding new ways to practice sin but rather our particular sins say something about us that, if we listen, we can use to engage them in effective combat.

Let me explain. I can't remember for a second ever being tempted to commit a bank robbery but anger and murder in my heart, that's not unusual especially in city traffic. So what is it about anger in my heart that holds such an attraction to me? As I answer that I realize the anger is about my desire for control, for my sense of wanting the world, including others, to be the way I want them to be, and my frustration when this primal selfishness is not assuaged. The flash of anger is a symptom, a warped sense of who I am is the disease. Address the disease and the symptoms go away.

Now of course putting that principle into practice can be very difficult. Sin is a cagey opponent and just when we think we've got a hold on it it reaches out and gets us from a place we weren't looking. Yet by learning from our sins, what they can teach us about ourselves, we can, like a skilled martial artist use the force of our adversary for our own defense. The attack, whether we know it or not, has within it the knowledge of how to defend against it.

It should be noted as well that this not merely a psychological exercise, but rather a skill that has liturgical and contemplative aspects that must be incorporated into it for it to work. Steeping our lives in holy things is essential to discernment and gives us the strength to draw on, the dynamis necessary to do effective battle. It also requires a commitment of our will. Simply being aware of something without taking steps to engage it is meaningless.

Anyway, I'm not finished with my ponderings yet, so some of what you are getting here is incomplete, developing thought. I posted it for your comments and I hope it helps even in a small way. That I'm ten years into Orthodoxy and just working through this shows you how far I still have to go. But I'm not planning on giving up either.