As You Wish

It is well known that obedience is the chief among the initiatory virtues, for first it displaces presumption and then it engenders humility within us. Thus it becomes, for those who willingly embrace it, a door leading to the love of God. 

    - St. Diadochos of Photiki, "On Spiritual knowledge" 41 in Philokalia vo.l 1 p. 265

My wife's family has a collection of canonical family films.  That is, there are certain movies, that if you wish to really be a part of the family you will not only watch but grow to love over time as you begin to share in the family's rehearsal of certain lines from these movies at appropriate times.  Sleepless in Seattle, Joe Versus the Volcano, and While You Were Sleeping, to name a few. The one that has, at least for my wife and me, become the most often quoted is The Princess Bride.  If you have not seen this movie, stop reading now and go find it on Netflix, Amazon, or your local library and watch it. Then come back and read the rest of this post.

Done?  Good, now we can continue.

One of the recurring lines in this movie, spoken by our daring hero, Wesley the farm boy, to the somewhat entitled Buttercup is the simple reply, "As you wish."  Never a question as to the wisdom or necessity of some task he has been commanded to do, just a gentle, loving response, "As you wish."  It is the phrase that so marked his character that it is by this phrase Buttercup recognizes him later in the film when Wesley, now the masked Dread Pirate Roberts, has "kidnapped" her in order to save her from an unhappy marriage and certain death.

Perhaps a more sublime example of what I am driving at in this post comes from Mary, the Theotokos, Mother of God. When the angel visited her to announce that she would bear the Savior of the world and explained that she would be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and bear a Son, her simple reply was "let it be to me according to your word." Perhaps she could have just said, "As you wish."

Simple obedience, as St. Diadochos says, if embraced willingly is "a door leading to the love of God."  But what does obedience entail?  How do we cultivate a willingness to be obedient and to whom should we be obedient? Consider with me three spheres of obedience;  Three opportunities to say, "As you wish."

Obedience to the commands of Christ
I don't think many of us would balk at the idea of obedience to Christ.  Certainly the scriptures leave no doubt as to the necessity and benefit of following Christ's commands if we are to progress on the spiritual path.  In fact, returning again to the Theotokos and her place of honor among the saints, we should be struck by this statement of Christ in the 11th chapter of the Gospel of Luke,

27 And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!”
28 But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

More than that?! How shall we be more blessed than to bear the savior of the world?  Hear the Word of God and say, "As you wish."

Obedience to rules of the Church
The weekly and seasonal fasts, the weekly cycle of services, and daily prayer rules given to us by the Church are there also for our benefit.  It is not that we gain any special favor or merit with God by doing these things. Rather it is that these are the gym exercises for obedience to Christ.  Because as much as we may think we want to be a "doer of the word," as St. James exhorts us, we find all to often that our desires and will betray us.  If we cannot control our stomach then it will betray us when we are commanded to give bread to the hungry.  If we cannot control our greed then it also betrays us when we are commanded to give clothes to the naked. So we exercise our will in fasting, prostrations, prayer, tithes, whether we *feel* like it or not, so as to put the unruly desires of our passions to flight.  The marathon runner has freedom to run 26.2 miles because she painstakingly disciplined herself to run shorter distances everyday for months on end. Without the practice, no matter how much a person may think they want to run a marathon, they are not free to do so because their bodies have not been given the proper training. They will be betrayed by their body's weakness. So obedience to these things, like daily laps around the track, are of great help to us as we seek to be obedient also to the commands of Christ. Like Paul, we must be willing to discipline our bodies so that we are free to respond, "As you wish."

Obedience in everyday life
Once again I find Tito Colliander's words on this topic in Way of the Ascetics to be quite insightful. Allow me to quote at length.

Besides fasting we have other teachers to whom we can show obedience. They meet us at every step in our daily life, if only we recognize their voices. Your wife wants you to take your raincoat with you: do as she wishes, to practice obedience. Your fellow-worker asks you to walk with her a little way: go with her to practice obedience. Wordlessly the infant asks for care and companionship: do as it wishes as far as you can, and thus practice obedience. A novice in a cloister could not find more opportunity for obedience than you in your own home. And likewise at your job and in your dealings with your neighbor.  (p.44) 

If we pay attention we will have a hundred opportunities a day to deny our own self-will in order to serve another.  With each request of our time, resources and attention if we can learn to respond simply with, "As you wish," then we will begin slowly to be set free.  And in that freedom we will be transformed and be filled with the love of God.

O Lord, who humbled Yourself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross, grant us grace that we might be able to respond, "As you wish," at every opportunity so that we may learn to love as you have loved us.