Burnout

For whatever reason, I heard a bunch of converts in Blogoslavia talking about burnout - whether anybody ever felt it, how to avoid it, whatever. I, of course, have my own extremely opinionated ideas about it because I've heard whiny converts wondering about it for a while. I am not qualified to ever give advice, but here is some advice. Caveat lector and all that jazz.

1. Stop taking yourself so seriously.
2. Start slowly and do less.
3. Spend more time at divine services and in actual prayer than reading stuff.
4. It might be a good idea to start with only one divine service per week and a short rule of prayer, too, by the way.
5. Don't read more than one book per month, if that. It's better to read the same book three times than three books, too, if it's a good book.
6. Don't read web-logs - normal, well-balanced people don't read web-logs.
7. Don't listen to AFR.
8. Don't even look up what xerophagy is.
9. If you find yourself wondering about "world Orthodoxy", stop immediately.
10. Ditto for the panheresy of ecumenism.
11. Ditto wondering about the claims of Orthodoxy about being "unchanged". Hint: Orthodoxy doesn't claim to be "unchanged" - you listen to too much AFR.

If you spend more time reading web-logs, pop-lit, and listening to schmaltz on AFR than actually being Orthodox (eg, liturgy, prayer), you're filling up on popcorn, not even milk, and nothing even close to meat. I realize it's tempting to buy a dozen books, start reading forums all day, and pipe in AFR 24-7 once you've discovered this great Orthodox thing, and maybe even to volunteer for a dozen different duties in the church and think about discerning the phronema with your nous. Resist the temptation and force yourself to do less. These are activities that are peripheral to Orthodoxy, they're "about Orthodoxy", not performing Orthodoxy itself.

These bits of advice aren't for everybody, not even all new converts, and for some people, they will even be detrimental, but most people on the internet are crazy and Orthodoxy is not about indulging your neuroses. It's about the Gospel. So if the Orthodox-brand stuff you're doing is getting in the way of going to church on Sunday, reading the Gospel every day, and saying a few prayers, something is amiss. If you're tempted to fill up your time by reading the latest Conciliar Press title or listening to yet another pod-cast about how we're not Protestant, I suggest that your time is better spent praying the Psalms until you get bored. It takes about 6 hours to get all the way through and you will start wondering about Og, King of Bashan - what is the deal with him?

I don't mean to be too hard on AFR in particular, I'm sure there is a large amount of valuable, thoughtful content on there. However, it has to be carefully listened to and thoughtfully engaged with, you can't just play it in the background or listen to hours and hours on end. Before the advent of mass distribution of Orthodox recordings, you might be fortunate to hear Fr Tom Hopko lecture a couple times at a retreat, and you'd think about it all year (if not the lecture, at least the way he pronounces "mandorla") until the next time you go to some Orthodox thing where there's a distinguished (or not) speaker, which would probably be at least a full year, right? Other than that, all you have to listen to are your priest's sermons. But now there's 50 hours of his lectures and sermons on the internet, plus several hundred hours of other distinguished (or not) priests and scholars, so you can just listen to whatever you want at any time of the day or night. That can be dangerous, you don't have to do anything, so you're not aware of how much it takes out of you.

Now I'm rambling. HTH. HAND.

EDIT: Something I said on some silly forum: One thing I want to reiterate (because it is important) is not to let your reading/intellection/etc get too far ahead of your actual praxis. I think you should spend more time in the sum of your morning/evening prayers and weekly church attendance than in your spiritual reading/etc. So if you've got 20 minutes of prayers per day and 1.5 hours of church on Sunday, don't spend more than 30 minutes per day on "other" spiritual activities. That includes listening to any sort of church music, wasting time on the "spiritual" internet, anything at all like that. And, no, don't increase your morning/evening prayer rule to make more room.