As a result of the inherent differences between individuals within the Church, the fathers of the Conferences teach that individual Christians must acknowledge and seize the particular spiritual opportunities that are present to them. Abba Paphnutius notes that it would be strange if things were any other way. Your objection would be on target if every work or discipline had only a beginning and an end, with no middle between them. Yet, we know that God uses many different methods of salvation, and we, in turn, attend more or less diligently to them—these opportunities granted by the divine.49
Thus, every individual Christian must find her place within the Church, and pursue her path with zeal and strength, as Abba Nesteros teaches.
Therefore, it is useful and appropriate that a man struggle with great commitment and diligence to attain perfection in the work he has begun, in accordance with the purpose that he seeks or the grace he has received. Though he might praise and admire the virtues of others, he returns again and again to his own monastic commitment, knowing that, according to the apostle, the body of the Church is one, though its members are many [Rom 12.4-5].50
Indeed, so important is it for the individual to find her right place within the Church that Abba Daniel even argues that the state of the souls of outright pagans simply living for the world is, in fact, better than that of the Christian monk who has wrongly estimated himself, and thus improperly pursued the monastic life and fallen into a lukewarm state.
The carnal man (i.e. the worldly man and the pagan) is more readily brought to saving conversion and to the heights of perfection than one who has been professed as a monk, but has not, as his rule directs, laid hold on the way of perfection, and so has once for all drawn back from that fire of spiritual fervor. For the former is at least broken down by the sins of the flesh, and acknowledges his uncleanness, and in his compunction hastens from carnal pollution to the fountain of true cleansing, and the heights of perfection.51
In the wrong hands, the tools of the monk are even less effective for salvation than the pain of worldly sin itself!
For the fathers of the Conferences, then, the tools for seeking purity of heart and the kingdom are many, but not all are right for all people. Teachings like those of Abba Daniel, quoted immediately above, cannot but call us to consider very seriously which of these tools of salvation are those to which we are called, lest we become lukewarm in whatever pursuit we choose and find ourselves worse off than those who are not even trying to live a Christian life. There is a clear sense among the fathers that every individual Christian must know and understand his or her place within the Church, and pursue that particular Christian life whole-heartedly. For the monk, this is the life of solitude and asceticism, lived either in the desert or in a monastery.
For the lay person, however, this is a life lived not in the desert, and not within the walls of a convent, but in the world. And so we have arrived at the crux of our discussions in this chapter. What we are seeking to understand in the chapters that will follow is the nature of the tools for seeking the universal Christian goal and telos that are properly suited for implementation by those who are called to live in the world. Where the Conferences discuss the tools of the monk in great detail, we will explore the tools of the lay person instead, building on the teachings of the Conferences and grounding our discussion in them all the while. Often, we will discover that the monk and the layman find themselves in a very similar position regarding their pursuit of purity of heart, and that certain tools of the monk are similar or identical to those best employed by a person in the world.
Yet, we will also often find that what is demanded (and what is offered) by worldly life is substantially different from what is demanded (or offered) by monastic life. What is more, we will at times note that practices engaged by the monk and non-monastic alike may be similar outwardly, yet have a different purpose or meaning in each context. In discussing all this, we seek to be true to the teachings of the Conferences, which demand that we understand the specific path in front of us in order that we may walk it with vigor and find, at its end, purity of heart leading to the kingdom of God.
~Daniel G. Opperwall, A Layman in the Desert
49 Conf. 3.XII. I.
50 Conf. 14.V.I.
51 Conf. 4.XIX.4. Translation adapted from Gibson.
