On Perception: A Reflection on Abba Poemen 106

A few years ago, I, like many Christians, was shocked and disappointed when it came out that Jean Vanier, the founder of the l’Arche communities and a great hero to many of us, had been found to have psychologically and sexually abused at least six women. It was yet another reminder that even those who do great things for God in their best moments can remain pretty awful people in their worst. This is nothing new, and is something that has confounded writers in religious traditions for millennia. Today I’d like to look at a saying from Abba Poemen that hints at one of the reasons why this is the case:

Abba Poemen said: ‘Many of our Fathers have become very courageous in asceticism, but in refinement of perception there are very few.’ (Abba Poemen 106)

As we’ve seen throughout this series, the whole point of asceticism, that is undertaking spiritual disciplines, is to train the body and soul. We don’t fast because food is bad, but in order to refine our body’s relationship to food so that we can say ‘yes’ to it when we should, but also be free to say ‘no’ to it when we should, for example when we’ve already had enough, or when we’re not hungry but are experiencing a craving or want to eat because we’re sad or lonely. Our appetites of all kinds are good and God-given, but in a world afflicted by sin, can also mislead us. So the point of asceticism is to train ourselves to have greater freedom with respect to them. Ideally, we can then apply the skills we learn in these disciplines to the rest of our lives, including our relationships with other people. (The same mind-spirit-body interactions are the point of many martial arts as well.)

The problem that Abba Poemen noticed, along with all of us who have been let down by people we respect, is that this process doesn’t always happen. Skills gained in one area of life don’t automatically transfer to the rest of it. In particular, Abba Poemen talks about ‘refinement of perception’, which is a good-enough translation of a difficult and rare Greek word, leptotes, ‘delicacy, refinement, subtlety’. This word is more commonly found in treatises on poetics and aesthetics than in spirituality but it seems like Abba Poemen is using it here to refer to a subtlety in spiritual discernment.

To take a step back, the Greek word we normally translate in English as ‘mind’ is nous, but unlike our thinking-based conceptions of ‘mind’, nous refers to perception. The nous isn’t about what we think about the world, but how we perceive what it is the senses tell us. Our normal state in this world is for the nous to be murky and distorted, like a dirty window or mirror in need of polishing. Repentance, metanoia in Greek (in which the -no– is the root for nous), is essentially the process of cleaning the nous so that we can see the world and ourselves with fresh eyes, as God sees it and us.

Asceticism is one way we can help strengthen and purify the nous. Again, the idea is that this works in all areas of life, or what Integral thought calls ‘lines of development’. But, if we aren’t careful, growth on one line of development can easily not lead to growth in other lines. So, someone can have their appetites in check with it comes to food, but not when it comes to sex, or anger, or laziness. This isn’t to say that asceticism doesn’t work, but that we have to be diligent and intentional about applying our training across lines of development.

Many may indeed may become very skilled in asceticism, but it’s only the truly wise that are able to apply that skill across the board and become truly discerning.

It was sadly true fifteen hundred years ago, and is sadly true today.

May God grant us grace and the ability to overcome this challenge. Amen.