The Way of Martha and the Way of MaryGraham, Stephen
Religion
The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary
Graham, Stephen
National characteristics, Russian; Russia -- Religion
Still, the whole world and the universe is an orchestra praising God,
and, remembering that, it is impossible to say there is real confusion
or final confusion. It is as impossible to classify and show series of
like things, for the imagination tells you that every instrument in the
orchestra is diverse. Hence I am open to misconception when I write of
confusion or when I classify, as for instance when I talk of Marthas and
Marys. There is confusion and there is order. Nothing is fixed, all is
in motion, the kaleidoscope is ever moving. So it would be wrong to say
that all who were in the way of Martha were in towns working for the
poor, or that all in the way of Mary were away in the desert saving
their souls at the feet of the Master, or that the priests in their
orders and vestments with their processions and grandeur were all in the
way of Martha, or that the hermits of the desert did not upon occasion
come like Paphnutius to Alexandria to save Thaïs, the dancing-girl. The
sisters love one another; and though it is not written in the Gospels,
there were certainly occasions when Mary might have been seen cumbered
about with many things whilst Martha sat with her Lord.
XII
WITNESS UNTO THE TRUTH
The purely Eastern aspect of the Church is the way of Mary, the
spiritual, meditative, introspective, mystical way, and this is ever the
strength of the whole Church. It is even the strength of the Protestant
churches, though there the spiritual life is more private. In Orthodoxy
the voice speaks from the desert right into the ears of the everyday
mundane crowd. The people are enjoined against sloth in the name of the
fathers of the desert. They sing their hymns in praise of those who have
overcome. They are encompassed round about with “the crowd of
witnesses,” the ikon faces and frescoed saints of the church walls, the
thousands of those who have died in the Lord looking on whilst we run
with patience the race that is set before us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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