The Man Who Stops Running

On the End of False Frenzies and the Beginning of Hope in the Name

“Blessed is the man whose hope is in the Name of the Lord, and who has not looked to vanities and false frenzies.”

Psalm 39:5 (LXX)

There is a restlessness inside a man that does not come from life.

It comes from fear.

He does not notice it at first because it feels like movement. It feels like thinking. It feels like responsibility. It feels like vigilance. But underneath it there is something else. There is the terror of disappearing.

He cannot remain still because stillness reveals too much.

Stillness reveals that he does not hold himself together.

Stillness reveals that his strength is thinner than he thought.

Stillness reveals that beneath all the activity, beneath all the thoughts, beneath all the effort to construct himself, there is nothing that he can point to and say this will sustain me.

And so he runs.

He runs into thought. He runs into planning. He runs into analysis. He runs into memory. He runs into regret. He runs into hope for a future where he will finally become solid.

The fathers called this frenzy.

Not because it looks like madness.

Because it is madness.

It is the mind trying to escape the truth of its own poverty.

Abba Arsenius, who had stood in the courts of emperors and knew the weight of power and intellect, fled into the desert for this reason alone. He saw that everything the world offered was vapor. Reputation could not sustain him. Intelligence could not sustain him. Even virtue, if held onto as his own possession, could not sustain him.

He prayed only this

O God, lead me in the way of salvation.

And then he fell silent.

Because he understood that salvation does not come from movement toward oneself.

It comes from surrender into God.

The psalm says blessed is the man who has not looked to vanities and false frenzies.

Because the man who looks into them becomes scattered.

His mind fragments.

His heart divides.

He begins to live on the surface of himself.

He becomes incapable of resting because he is trying to preserve what cannot be preserved.

St. Isaac the Syrian says that the man who trusts in himself is like someone leaning on a reed. It appears firm until he places his weight on it. Then it pierces his hand.

So it is with everything outside of God.

The man places his hope in his strength. His strength fails.

He places his hope in his clarity. His clarity fails.

He places his hope in his devotion. His devotion fails.

He places his hope in his endurance. His endurance fails.

And when these things fail, he runs faster.

Because he believes movement will save him.

But movement cannot save him.

Because he is running from the truth that only God can sustain him.

The false frenzy is not the movement of the body.

It is the refusal of the heart to stand naked before God.

It is the refusal to accept that apart from Him, there is nothing.

St. Silouan the Athonite came to the end of this frenzy when he was thrown into darkness so deep that he believed himself lost. His mind could not escape. His thoughts could not save him. His strength could not restore him.

Everything he had relied upon was stripped away.

And there, at the bottom, Christ spoke to him

Keep your mind in hell, and despair not.

This is the end of frenzy.

The man stops trying to escape.

He stops trying to preserve himself.

He stops trying to save himself.

He stands where he is, in his poverty, in his weakness, in his nothingness.

And he calls upon the Name.

Not because he feels worthy.

Because he has nowhere else to go.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

This is the turning point of existence.

Because the Name is not a sound.

The Name is a Presence.

The man who calls upon the Name places himself before the One who alone exists.

And slowly, imperceptibly, the scattered fragments of his heart begin to gather.

Not because he has achieved anything.

Because God has drawn near.

Archimandrite Sophrony says that when a man calls upon the Name from the depths, he enters into eternity even while standing in time.

He ceases to be sustained by himself.

He is sustained by God.

The frenzy loses its power.

The thoughts lose their authority.

The need to preserve himself begins to dissolve.

He discovers that he does not need to hold himself together.

He is being held.

This is why the psalm calls this man blessed.

Not because he has escaped suffering.

Not because he has escaped weakness.

But because he has escaped the illusion that he must save himself.

He has stopped looking into vanities.

He has stopped trusting the movements of his own mind.

He has stopped building himself on what cannot endure.

His hope rests in the Name.

And the Name does not fail.

The world continues to move around him.

His body continues to weaken.

His thoughts continue to rise and fall.

But he no longer looks to them for life.

He has found life elsewhere.

Hidden.

Unseen.

Unshakable.

He has found it in the One who says

I AM.

And the man who has placed his hope there no longer runs.

He stands.

And he lives.