It was not long after I was chrismated, becoming Byzantine Catholic, that I was in the classical section of a local music store and discovered John Tavener. This was long before he before he became famous due to his involvement Princess Diana’s funeral. I bought my first Tavener CD, and quickly found myself becoming a fan of his work. This is not to say I connected with all the music he made, as I have not, but I have found much of his oeuvre to be great, with one of my favorite works of his being his rendition of the Akathist of Thanksgiving.
The Akathist of Thanksgiving has a very interesting history associated to it: it appears to have been written by Archpriest Gregory Petrov when he was in a Soviet Gulag, though some think it was only mediated and used by him in the Gulag while it was originally written by Metropolitan Tryphon. In either case, the Akathist, which is a kind of hymn in the Byzantine tradition, was written to explore and engage the dying words of St. John Chrysostom, “Glory to God for everything.” The words were said by Chrysostom in the midst of his own trials and tribulations, and later used by Petrov in the Gulag to deal with his own, allowing him, and those who sung the hymn with him, to see beyond their sufferings, and to look to the good which can be found in all things, the good which is given to all by God. That is, by offering God thanksgiving, by showing gratitude, he not only was able to contemplate the good he had received in his life, but to look to God in hope, if not for a change in temporal circumstances, then in the eschaton, in which it is believed God will deal with all of the injustices of history.
Tavener used Mother Thekla’s translation of the Akathist to help serve as the foundation for his work, adding to them his own musical direction, making his rendition of the Akathist a very haunting and emotional work, one which is help the listener join in and feel the spirit of the words for themselves, words which direct us to discern the good in our lives so we can find the way God is at work, providing for and taking care of us, while giving us our own freedom so that we are not mere puppets doing only what God wills:
Ikos 1
A weak and helpless infant I was born into the world,
But Your Angel spread out his wings my cradle to guard;
Since then Your love has shone on all my ways,
Marvellously steering me to the light of eternity.
From the very first day till now
Gloriously are manifest the generous gifts
of Your providence.
I give thanks and cry out with all who confess you:Chorus
Glory to You, who called me to life,
Glory to You, revealing for me the beauty of the universe.
Glory to You, spreading out before me,
As a book of eternal wisdom, the sky and the earth,
Glory to Your eternity in the midst of a temporal world,
Glory to You for secret and evident mercies,
Glory to You for each sigh of my grief,
Glory to You for each step of my life, each instant of joy….
It has been years since I have listened to the Akathist of Thanksgiving in full, but its themes and spirit continues with me to this day. I was amazed at how Petrov, in the midst of great sorrow, could experience some kind of joy and hope, and his example, and the words he left behind, have helped me during difficult times of my life. It highlights the way to find hope in the world is to embrace the spirit of thanksgiving, for, if we cannot find some good in our lives, some good around us, something to take joy in, despair easily takes over. The Akathist reminds us to look for that good, to be grateful for it for wherever it is found, to realize all that good is itself a gift to us from God, because God is the source and foundation of all that is good. We should look for it, embrace and engage it when we find it, so that, we find reason to hope and with that hope, we will be able to take on and develop that good, making it greater. This will also make it easier for us to discern the way God is at work in our lives; indeed, we will be able to see God is especially at work with us in the midst of our suffering, as God is found in solidarity with all those who suffer injustice.
No matter how much that good is hindered or undermined, God continues to preserve and promote it, making sure the goodness given to creation is not entirely snuffed out. Every place where some good is found, God will also be found working with it, seeking to bring it into union with every other good, a union which will be established in the eschaton, where all the defilements of sin will be overcome. Then, good will truly be victorious and, as Julian of Norwich said, all will be well.
The more we can embrace the world with a spirit of thanksgiving, the more we can find the good which remains, giving us more and more reasons to hope, despite all temptations we have to think such hopeless is senseless and give into despair. It is this hope, I suspect, we will need, as the world around us changes, and authoritarian regimes, thanks to the help of would-be oligarchs, seem to be ascendant. It would be easy to give in to despair, to give up and say there is nothing we can do, and so do nothing; if we follow through with such despair, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and even the good which we have can be taken from us as we will have done nothing to stop its destruction. We need to embrace hope, we need to be thankful for the good we have, so we do not become complacent as it is threatened. The eschatological hope of Christianity (and Judaism, and Islam) certainly helps us with this because it shows us how and why, even if we lose some transitory goods, why, if we experience grief in the world, why, if we suffer under great brutality and the evil ideologies which inspire it, we, and all the good in us, will not be completely destroyed; justice will prevail and the harm which the world has suffered will be healed, as the Akathist of Thanksgiving relates:
Kontakion 7
Chorus
What is shattered to dust
may not be restored,
But You renew them in whom conscience
has corrupted,
But You restore their pristine beauty
To souls who,
hopelessly have lost it.
With You there is nothing irreparable.
You are all love. You, Creator, Restorer,
We praise You in the song: Alleluia.
Thus, listening to Tavener, especially the Akathist of Thanksgiving, I learned to appreciate the value of gratitude. Moreover, I learned, through those who praised and glorified God in the midst of great suffering and death, that the Christian hope, the hope of Christ’s victory over death, can and should be experienced in part even now. Our hope is that the suffering and death which lies before us is not the end, but rather, it is at most, a disruption of God’s intended end for creation. What has been corrupted and defiled can be and will be healed in the eschaton. Giving God praise, rendering God thanksgiving, is not for the sake of God, but for our sake, as it helps us open up to God, to view things in light of the eschatological hope, so that we can find the good in all things, seeing how, in all things, God’s presence can be found, and we can experience that presence now, even as we will do so in a greater way in the eschaton.
* This Is Part XXVIII In The Personal Reflections And Speculations Series
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