Presvytera Melanie DiStefano: Welcome to Family Matters: Fully Human Edition. This is Melanie DiStefano.

Today my guest is Fr. Paul Abernathy. Fr. Paul is the pastor of St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church. He and his wife, Presvytera Christina, and their two children reside in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Fr. Paul is the founding CEO of the Neighborhood Resilience Project. Since 2011, he has labored with his community to address community trauma with trauma-informed community development, a framework that facilitates the transformation of trauma-affected communities to resilient healing and healthy communities so that people can be healthy enough to sustain opportunities and realize their potential.

He has a bachelor’s of arts in international studies from Wheeling Jesuit University, and holds a master’s degree in public and international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh. He also holds a master’s of divinity from St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. A former non-commissioned officer in the US Army, Fr. Paul is also a combat veteran of the Iraq war. Fr. Paul is the author of the book, The Prayer of the Broken Part: An Orthodox Christian Reflection on African American Spirituality.

And that book, which invites us into an intimate and insightful perspective on the faith origins of African American slaves is why I invited him to speak on the Fully Human podcast. As I was reading the book, I found many points of connection between the African American experience and the experiences of people with disabilities, at least from my own family’s perspective. And so this conversation will focus on how families experiencing disabilities can benefit and learn from the book, The Prayer of a Broken Heart. Welcome, Fr. Paul.

Fr. Paul Abernathy: Presvytera, it’s such a joy to be with you.

Presv. Melanie: Thank you. In chapter one of your book, “Faith Fashioned in Suffering,” you talk about heart-breaking stories of African family members being torn from one another, villages losing their leaders, and the trauma that this type of separation caused as it was passed down generationally. I’m just going to read from page 13.

Beyond the physical tortures inflicted on newly captured slaves, the other reality was in many ways far worse than physical punishment: a new, radical individualism introduced to them by a life of separation. Indeed, they were separated from loved ones, familiar culture, common language, and even friendly relationships.

In this section, I found a connection. Though most families with disabilities don’t suffer the type of traumatic physical separation, the violence that were inflicted on the slaves, I couldn’t help but note similarities in what my families and others that I know experience, because our circumstances consistently separate us from familiar cultural experiences, loved ones, friends, even faith experiences if there are medical issues that are extensive, extended family, immediately family. So many things contribute to isolation, and there is an extreme loneliness that comes and then a loss of hope that comes, like you talked about, which can lead to, of course, broken hearts.

I love how you quoted your seminary professor, Dr. Chris Veniamin. So he said when our heart is broken, we then learn that we have a heart and that this is our spiritual center. Later you said and African Americans rejected the world that rejected them and turned to God with all their might in their broken hearts.

I would like to suggest that sometimes when we have a loss of hope or loss of dreams and we are feeling isolation, rejection from others, we can learn from this African American slave experience. Maybe, Fr. Paul, if you could offer some wisdom on how we can offer our broken hearts to God instead of turning away from him.

Fr. Paul: Well, Presvytera, I truly appreciate this reflection, and even as I hear you describe the commonality, it resonates with me, this notion of the sense of isolation that comes in the experience of disability. What I’ve learned in my discernment in this African American experience, and really delving into the way in which prayer emerged and spirituality emerged our suffering ancestors, is that when this happens, when we experience this kind of heart-wrenching pain—there is pain indeed, certainly different kinds of pain, but what we are talking about I think is a heart-wrenching pain: your heart will be pierced, as the holy Scriptures say. This kind of heart-wrenching pain, it’s an agony. It’s a kind of anguish.

And when we realize this and we reckon this, it enables, I think, the possibility of sincere prayer. In other words, I think sometimes when we pray we pray without anguish. When we pray, we pray without desperation. When we pray, we can pray in a kind of form of vain repetition. What this kind of pain enables is the kind of prayer that we see reflected in the psalms. If we really read the psalms— And of course for us as Orthodox Christians we pray the psalms so much in our services throughout the day. Even if we look at what is the regular cycle of services that we pray on a daily basis in our monasteries or in many of our parishes have multiple services in the day: what are these services? Obviously, we have vespers or compline, midnight office, hours, orthros—throughout these services we hear the psalms prayed. And when we really look at the psalms— The psalms were described to me at one point when I was in seminary as the cry of the human heart—the cry of the human heart—that whenever we really immerse ourselves in the prayer of the psalmist, we immerse ourselves in the anguish of humanity.

And the question becomes, then: What do we do with that anguish? What kind of energy does that anguish give us? Where do we direct, rather, even anguish? And someone very recently was reflecting on the difference between grieving and lamenting, this notion that in the Church we have a lamentation, that this sorrow inspires this prayer. Like the Prophet Jeremiah, we call him the weeping prophet. How is it that a prophet weeps? But in the weeping of the prophet, we receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the cry of the prophet, we receive the healing mercy of our Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the anguish of the penitent, we receive the forgiveness and hope of God. And so when we talk about the spiritual life, if we don’t really have this experience quite often, it can be difficult to begin cultivating a spiritual life.

A monk told me once— He in his own life had suffered significantly before he had become a monk, and he had a series of tragedies. And some of them were relational; some of them were physical. There was a great deal of pain even in separation even in his own life. He said one day; very curiously, one day he said to me, “I look at people who don’t have this kind of experience, and I feel very sorry for them.” This notion— He was sorry for the people who lacked this kind of experience because this experience for him was the beginning of his spiritual life; it was the beginning of the divine life.

Now the thing that I would say beyond that is that’s a message that we’re only going to hear in the Church. As the Apostle Paul says, the cross—the mystery of the cross—the cross is going to be foolishness to Greeks and a stumbling-block to the Jews. So whenever we say this notion of this kind of anguish, this isolation that we experience being the origin of our relationship with God, the beginning of our experience of the divine life, the world thinks us maybe fools, and the world doesn’t communicate this kind of message.

The final thing I think I would say is that this is the reason why it’s so important to remain close to the saints of God. The lives of the saints who in their lives— We see saint after saint, in different ways and different forms, but really saint after saint experiencing the grace of God in their worldly anguish.

Presv. Melanie: I like that example, of the monk as well, how he felt sorry for people who didn’t have the loss and the suffering. That’s powerful.

You recall in the book a man that you met in a grocery store sharing with you his loss of many family members who suffered violence, and a wise, elderly woman was in the store, could sense the pain and came around and was praying, “Father God, come by here.” I’ll just quote from that section. You said:

Many in the Pittsburgh Strip District regularly seek counsel from clergy and encourage one another to pray and turn to the Lord in times of crisis. After all, God alone has never abandoned them.

That’s something we can see, and it’s something we can be blind to, because sometimes when tragedy strikes, human beings, we don’t always believe God alone has not abandoned us. In fact, the abandonment and abuse by human beings often feels like God is abandoning us. So in your experience, how do we, in our sufferings with the experience of people who go through such traumatic situations, trust that God is with them? What makes that switch?

Fr. Paul: This is a powerful question. The moment in which it happens for people, when people really— In our community, it goes beyond telling yourself that God has us to be an experience that God alone is there for us. There’s a moment between when we believe that that’s possible, that we experience the presence of God, that we believe that God has us: between that, when we believe it’s possible, to actually really experiencing God in that way. The question is: When we really hear this message, that God alone has us in these times—we don’t feel it, but we hear the message and we embrace it, that’s just the beginning. Between the point when we embrace this hope to when we actually experience the presence of God, when he has us, when he has us lifted, it is very important to be in relationship with spiritual elders who have really this experience of being carried and lifted by God.

One of the things that I really appreciate about the story that you just shared from the book is that the gentleman who was weeping profusely when he called on me, sharing the loss that he’d recently suffered, this old woman came that was walking by, the woman who said, “Father God, come by here,” the woman, it was very clear to me, had herself suffered in her life. And yet, even in her suffering, she had found God’s grace. She had been carried by God; she had been lifted by God. I’ve heard story after story from people who have had this experience of really being lifted by God, and I will tell you that what I’ve come to value is their presence and their counsel when a person’s faith is weak, because sometimes if we don’t have it in us to pray, sometimes if we don’t have a sense that God has us, we need to surround ourselves with the Church. We need to surround ourselves with people who indeed know that God has them.

What I also have learned is that, in these seasons when we cannot—we’re unable to pray for ourselves, let’s say—that these people pray for us and that we are carried by prayers. I’ve learned in my ministry, I would say in the Orthodox Church we ask for the intercessions—“Through the intercessions of the Theotokos, through the intercessions of St. Anthony, through the intercessions of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and save us”—and I’ve learned to understand the intercessions of the broken-hearted. There are many people whose hearts have been broken who have found God in the depth of their suffering, whom the Lord is very powerful with. And the intercessions of the broken-hearted, they are a shield, a protection for us in these times of doubt. They are a bridge to us, I would say, of the presence of God. They introduce to us the possibility of otherworldly hope in the face of worldly suffering.

So to find somebody who has suffered and has found the peace of Christ in the midst of their suffering, it is very important to bring that person into our life. This is why for us in the Church it’s very important to understand truly— And it’s a mystery; the Church is a mystery beyond our comprehension, but at least to understand that in the Church we mustn’t be alone. God gives us spiritual fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters who will be that presence. Even asking God to bring us those ones who would minister to us, like we say in the Church, “The righteous ones of God who in every generation”—in every generation, they speak by the Holy Spirit; in every generation, they bring the healing grace of God; in every generation, they offer us God’s mercy and forgiveness—to find these people and bring these people, be in relationship with these people while we are waiting on the Lord is a very important thing.

Presv. Melanie: Because it’s not going to be constant transcendence. [Laughter] It’s not going to be— We’re not going to always be in this heightened prayer state. There are times when the pain really just weighs us down. Relying on these elders we have in the Church—what wisdom our Church has, to have spiritual fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, as you said, to carry us when our faith is being tested. But there are mystical encounters, and thank God, there are moments where he does fill the broken heart, and that kind of leads to the next point I wanted to talk about.

You shared some really powerful accounts of slaves who had experienced visions of Christ, encounters with Christ: Sojourner Truth gives a personal account with the risen Christ when she was tempted to go back to slavery; how God visited people when they were at their breaking point. Instead of just letting them cope, he gave them courage; he helped them transcend their situation and gave them supernatural gifts. People who weren’t even literate because they were slaves and not exposed to being able to be taught to read knew the Scriptures written on their hearts and became preachers in their communities. So this miraculous kind of experiences are so inspiring to read about.

As a parent to a child who has many disabilities—cognitive, non-verbal—over the years I’ve not worried, just wondered. I wish I could know the inner workings of his heart. Is Christ speaking to him? Is he speaking to Christ? He also suffered a lot of medical trauma that is manifesting in different ways, so I pray for his healing, but sometimes it feels like that healing’s not coming. But just reading those accounts of people who are so afflicted, just gave me a peace that, no, God will not leave any person alone in their suffering; he will visit them and make a way for them. So I really appreciated those, and I’m wondering if there’s any particular ones you’d like to revisit that you think might be helpful for our listeners.

Fr. Paul: Well, I think this is just such an important point because, you know, in the Orthodox Church, prayer that we pray that actually I think is lost on many of us much of the time, and that’s when we pray for the visitation. If we listen to the prayers of the Church and the petitions of the Church, we actually pray for the visitation of God: “health, salvation, visitation, and furtherance in all good things.” What does this mean? We’re actually praying for the visitation of the Lord. For me what’s so important about when I was reflecting, doing the research of the experience of religion among these enslaved people here in America is that they—when they were embracing Christ, there was this notion that we must now wait for the visitation of the Lord. This is just what we do. Or indeed there was this sense that you weren’t fully a Christian until you were visited by God.

They were so confident. They were so confident that the Lord was coming to visit them, in his own way, in his own time, that they were content to wait on that. In fact, there was a bench that they would have in their church called the mourner’s bench, which was people who were waiting for this kind of visitation; they were waiting for the grace of God, because they knew that God was near to them. There was this sense that God is with us, as the Scriptures say, and, more importantly, there were many around them who were telling them that God is going to visit you! The Lord Jesus is going to visit you.

I think it’s important for us to really understand that, and for us really to even really renew the energy of that prayer when we pray in the Church for health, salvation, visitation, and furtherance in all good things, what really we are praying for. I think that even just to pray for the visitation of God for one another, our hearts should have this deep and profound joy in them, because when I think of the mourner’s bench, when this was happening you had people who were waiting for the visitation of the Lord, people who had this experience of the Lord around them, who were praying joyfully for the visitation of God for these people.

I get the sense that these prayers, when they were praying for the visitation of God—as we pray for the visitation of God—that it wasn’t a prayer like, “Lord, I hope you’re going to visit them. We’re all waiting to see if you’re going to visit them.” [Laughter] But rather there was a confidence in this: “Yes! We’re praying for the visitation of the Lord, and the Lord who has revealed himself to be good and loving and merciful and near to us, the Lord, the same Lord who came chasing after me will absolutely not neglect them,” this joyful confidence in praying for the visitation of God. What I would say is that let us in the Church renew the energy of that prayer and pray with joy for the visitation of the Lord.

Presv. Melanie: Wow. I’ve heard that petition all my life. I never thought of it in that way, so thank you! That is so beautiful and such a good reminder, and even such a good reminder of how these petitions in our worship are so filled with power and meaning, to just look at them again with new eyes. I’m also thinking I need a mourner’s bench! [Laughter]

Fr. Paul: Thank God!

Presv. Melanie: I mean, that’s our prayer corner maybe? I don’t know. The visitation.

The next point that is also a really difficult one is unforgiveness of persecutors. I was very touched by a story you shared in the chapter on racism, an experience you had when you were a teenager, working as a volunteer fireman and the only Black person, and how when there was an alarm that went off about a fire in the projects, that everybody stood still and you were the only one running. When they saw you, they said, “Why are you rushing? It’s in the projects.” And then the terrible comments about: “Just let it burn down.” Anyway. [Catching breath] To be a young person in that situation. And then what was more powerful was your reaction. I just was struck by how you could forgive so easily. I was very touched by that.

My experience as a parent when I see my child hurt or made fun of, or if any way somebody is going to hurt him, physically, I’m petrified of that because he can’t protect himself—there’s so many demeaning things that happen to people with disabilities, because they’re a marginalized group of people as well. And it’s not easy to forgive. So I am just wondering what informed your reaction.

Fr. Paul: It is indeed a tragedy when we consider how so much pain we experience is actually caused by other human beings. Certainly we have the pain of the illness, pain of the disability, but now we’re talking about a pain that is inflicted by others. This is a very challenging thing. What I would say that becomes very important to remember is that God is patient. And we also must be patient. We might not always have the grace or ability to forgive somebody, in the moment especially. And it’s important to understand that when we don’t have the capacity to forgive, that still—still, and maybe even especially—we are loved by God. “I’m not able, Lord, to forgive right now. Lord, help me. I’m not able to forgive; Lord, love me. Lord, help me to help heal this wound.” Because I think it’s also important to remember that forgiveness is really tied with healing.

In fact, if we really look at the mystery of holy unction— In many of our Orthodox churches we have the holy unction service, we serve it in Holy Week. We hear in the Scriptures that there is this remarkable connection between repentance, forgiveness, and healing. There’s a connection. Even the epistle [of] St. James: “Confess your sins to one another and call an elder of the priests that you be anointed and be healthy.” So there’s this connection between repentance and healing. And forgiveness is in this context. That means that there’s going to be a process, and we need to allow ourselves the time to receive that healing of God, that we might receive the mercy of God, and that when we receive the healing and mercy of God, we then are enabled to share the healing and mercy of God with those who have wounded us so deeply.

I think that the biggest barrier is whenever we try to depend on our own capacity to forgive. If we can just accept that sometimes we have limited capacity to forgive, and then throw ourselves into the love of the Lord, what happens, I think, is that we become so healed by God’s love that we are able then to forgive not as an act that we’re going to intentionally forgive, but forgiveness is an expression of mercy that almost flows from our heart; that act of forgiveness is an extension of grace that we exude, having thrown ourselves into the love of the Lord.

The final thing I think I would say on this, that is very important to remember, is that the Lord sees our pain. When I think of that incident that you describe, which I described in the book, a very challenging incident, a very difficult incident—and yet the Lord saw it all. And it’s not only my heart that breaks, but we know that the Lord looks on these situations with great mercy, that the Lord looks on these situations with great love, that the Lord looks on these situations with great understanding. We who have been wounded by others, in that moment we become the least of these; we become the little ones [to] whom the Lord says, “Come to me.” We become the wounded ones [to] whom the Lord says, “Let me heal you.” We become the ones whom the Lord—in the gospel of Luke he opened the Old Testament, the Scripture, the prophecy of Isaiah, and said, “I have come to heal the broken-hearted.” We remember that, that we are the ones that Jesus has come for.

That really, I think, is the context that our journey towards forgiveness really begins, that we understand that we in that moment are the very ones Jesus has come for and to really rest in his love when we’ve experienced no love, rest in his mercy when we’ve experienced no mercy. Look to him when we have really been hurt by others. And in time, with his love, with his mercy, with his grace, then forgiveness follows.

Presv. Melanie: When we know to whom we belong.

Fr. Paul: Yes.

Presv. Melanie: Moving forward. At the end of the book, it talked about the only way to move forward was in humility. I’m just going to read a couple quotes. This one talks about St. Athanasius’ teaching regarding human beings being grace-filled, having a special grace, the impress of God’s own image.

It relays a powerful truth that warrants deep reflection when confronting the reality of racism and other forms of human degradation. One can only conclude that upholding the dignity and value of all human life must be a fundamental Christian work.

And then further along in the book you said, “To overcome pride, we are not advised to replace it with national pride or personal pride; we see the path forward in humility.”

And so I think also there’s a temptation to become prideful when we champion our causes as people with disabilities or caregivers, loved ones who are advocating for our loved ones with disabilities. There’s this temptation to become prideful in that as well. Maybe you could elaborate a little bit on that point and help us understand how we maintain human dignity, our sense of all human dignity, and advocate on behalf of the oppressed people whom we love but to keep our egos in check.

Fr. Paul: This is a wonderful question because what I will say is that I’ve often found that a tremendous inspiration towards humility [is] some of the people who— they really have suffered in very extreme ways. I even think in some of the conversations I’ve had with people with disability, there’s many of them—of course, everybody’s different, but many that you would maybe—some of us might expect them to have such a bitter attitude about life or to be filled with some kind of anger or hatred or carry a chip because of all they have had to endure, but in the end there are those who just, even with all they have had to endure, have such a beauteous peace, joy about them, the love they exude, patience with others!

I think it’s always important to really look to those, our brothers and sisters with disabilities, our brothers and sisters who are oppressed. Different groups who they themselves, even if they’ve been through something very significant, still have this spirit of peace and joy and love and hopefulness about what is possible: invite them into our lives as teachers. It’s very important to invite them into our lives as teachers. I think a lot of times, whenever we champion causes, we want to be the teacher, but some of my most extraordinary professors have been simple people who have suffered in extraordinary ways, who in their suffering maintained such a sweet disposition of life that that in and of itself is humbling for me and inspiring certainly at the same time, to know that if they have been able to acquire this very sweet disposition that I certainly am called to much more. And they, to me, in their examples, have called me regularly to humility.

Presv. Melanie: Thank you, Father. In the end, what does it mean to be fully human?

Fr. Paul: Well, to be fully human is to be like God. What this means in how we live our lives, I would say to be fully human is to live a life of unceasing prayer; to be fully human is to be filled with compassion when in the presence of suffering; to be fully human is to receive the love of God regularly, to rest on it, depend on it, and then share it with others; to be fully human is to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and songs of praise; to be fully human is to be one with God.