Oxygen
The Church, like a forest, needs oxygen
Growing up in Northern Idaho, I was surrounded by
mountains and forests. I don't remember a time when forests did not tug at my
heart and fill my imagination with thoughts of adventure. As a small child my
parents took my brother Dwayne, and me, on annual camping trips to a state park
on the far northeast side of Lake Pend Oreille. There my dad would make us
small toy canoes, complete with sails, out of birch bark. This state park is
virtually unchanged since that time, and I try to visit the campground every
summer, when I go bass fishing with my brother.
As a high school student I regularly went hiking in
the mountains around Sandpoint, Idaho, together with my best friend (now a
retired professor of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland). Jim and I would
climb to the highest point of a given mountain, and pray together. We could
understand the Prophet Moses meeting God on Mt. Sinai, for we too felt the
presence of God on the mountain. To this day I feel closer to God when hiking
in a forest, and the grandeur of the mountains that surround the Puget Sound
inspire me, and lift up my soul.
When we first cleared the land to build the monastery,
we cut down as few trees as possible, desiring as we did to have the buildings
appear as though cupped like a kitten in the hands of God. We even named our
forest after Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who himself sought solitude in a forest.
Our forest not only provides that needed solitude, but like the forests
throughout the whole world, provides good air to breath, and fills our lungs
with the sweet odor that only a forest can provide.
Monks have always had a special place in their hearts
for forests. Coptic and Ethiopian monks have been known to plant trees on
desert mountains whereupon monasteries have been built, and calling these
places, "holy forests". Russian monks sought their solitude in the
Northern Thebaid, forests that became their desert.
For me, forests and mountains have always been
associated with prayer. My first chapel was at the end of a hidden trail, in a
forest that was just a short walk down the beach from our home on Lake Pend
Oreille. I'd constructed a small altar out of driftwood, and nailed a cross
made out of tree branches on a tree behind the altar. When in college, my first
encounter with an icon took place during the very summer I'd visited the
Redwood Forest of Northern California for the first time.
Our temples are like forests in many ways. When we
enter into an Orthodox temple we are encompassed in the living presence of God,
and our spiritual lungs are filled. It is oxygen for the soul that we breath
in, and the forest that surrounds us is none other than the cloud of witnesses,
the saints, who join us in worship before the Throne of God. The oxygen we
breath in is God's Grace that flows out to all who would seek the safety and
sanctuary that awaits us in God's Holy Temple. It is the breath of life that
comes in our relationship with Christ.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
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