Catechumen  =  A Christian convert under instruction before baptism.

As a fresh Catechumen of the American Orthodox Church, I have a lot of things to think about, and to think about in new ways. The goods news is that I don’t have to think about it alone, there’s a millenia old well to draw on.

Soetsu Yanagi, a Japanese craft philosopher and lay theologian wrote extensively about a non-western standard of beauty rooted in Buddhism. Objects could be enlightened much in the same way people can be.

Enlightenment, he explained, was like a beautiful city, a city on the other side of the island from which we reside. To get there we can either trek across mountains, through swamps and unfriendly territories, alone and hungry. 

Or we could take a boat.

The boat, and the wind in it’s sails, were society he explained. Not our society, but a healthy society. Unfortunately our society is sick enough that each of us with hopes of enlightenment must hike overland. There will be blisters. 

In Yanagi’s mind, a healthy society is an immeasurably complex thing that is quite difficult to explain. I might suggest that the examples he gives of a healthy society capable of cultivating enlightenment to be pastoral inventions of a Japanese imperialist. 

But what do I know?

I believe the Church views itself as just such a boat. A resource for how to live good. Though, on consideration, perhaps less a boat than a sherpa, or a physician. It doesn’t do the work for you, it shows a way, provides tools, illustrates examples, sings parables. You still have to hike over the mountain, but the Church will show you how to apply a bandage that might make the blisters hurt a bit less.