“Be sober, watch, and pray—and the enemies will do nothing to you.”
So, the other day I was grocery shopping with my three year old boy. He was hungry, so I gave him a snack — some Thai curry popcorn — which he ate as I wheeled the cart around the store. By the time we were finished, his little hands were fully of curry powder. I wiped them as best I good with a handkerchief that I always keep in my pocket, but he really needed a hand-washing. So when we left the store, we stopped at the bathroom near the parking lot. We walked into the bathroom, I propped the child up on my knee, and he washed his hands. As he was washing a janitor (female) came into the bathroom and started wiping down thesink counter. I thought nothing of it, since we were washing up and presumably she would put a sign up after we walked out informing folks that the restroom was being cleaned. As far as I could tell, no one was in the stalls. But then she turns to me and says, “Excuse me. This is the women’s bathroom.” Just as she said this a woman came out of one of the stalls to wash her hands. You can imagine my embarrassment. I profusely apologized and could only tell them the truth: “Forgive me. I wasn’t paying attention.”
I thought about this incident for much of the rest of the day, lamenting my inattentiveness and total lack of sobriety. Indeed, sobriety in the Holy Orthodox Christian tradition is not simply a matter of not being drunk, as is the common way we think of and use the word in American English. Rather, sobriety is about being and doing something. It has a positive and not just a negative aspect to it. To be sober is to be alert to every movement of the soul, every thought, every action, and every word we speak. It is alertness and wakefulness at the highest level.
The Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church are full of references to sobriety (nepsis in Greek). For example, St. Peter, in his first epistle, writes, “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour” (5:8, RSV). Our Savior, Jesus Christ, is also clear that we will be held accountable for every word we speak. “I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Mt. 12:36-37, RSV). Oh, how often have I uttered careless and even hurtful words, simply because I did not think clearly about what I was saying and to whom I was speaking? And how often have I engaged in idle and useless conversation, rather than embracing a silence that brings one to the knowledge of God? (cf. Psalm 45:10, LXX).
We often fall prey to the devil and to sinful activity simply because we are inattentive. As the ancient Greek aphorism goes: “Know thyself!” And to know oneself is to begin to cultivate an awareness of what one is actually up to, rather than moving through the world as though half-asleep.
Sobriety is a great virtue. And like all great virtues it is acquired through ascetic labor and prayer. One ways to begin to acquire sobriety is to be alert to basic every day matters, like walking into the appropriate restroom!
Of course, the goal of becoming sober people is not just to avoid entering the wrong bathroom, or neglecting to keep the door open for someone, or offering someone a hand when they are trying to get heavy luggage into an overhead bin, but to become intensely aware of when we are being attacked by the demons. As Saint Hesychius (probably of Jerusalem, +433) writes:
Sobriety is the continual situating of the thought at the doors of the heart, so that it sees the thoughts creeping up and understands what form the demons are attempting to inscribe and establish in the mind, so as to entice it through the imagination.
Perhaps we can use this period of the fast for the Dormition and Assumption of the Holy Mother of God to begin taking small steps toward sobriety. For a sober people are also a conscientious people. And conscientious people make the world a better place in which to reside, and. more importantly, become lights in the world that can help direct others to salvation.
Let us be transfigured, my beloved brothers and sisters, in mind, and body, and soul (cf. Romans 12:2), by becoming ever more sober people.