The Brothers Karamazov
This was perhaps one of the greatest books I have ever read. Even as a work of fiction, it has an immense amount of truth in it. Dostoyevsky does such a phenomenal job of capturing the depth of human emotion and articulating the the muddled thoughts that make up the human psyche. Reading this book, I felt genuine disgust at Fyodor Pavlovitch’s unbridled licentiousness, affection for Father Zossima, shame at Captain Snegiryov’s humiliation. Yet one of the most powerful things I took away from this book was it’s immensely joyful undertones; somehow, amidst the dark fatalisic themes and general despair, there was inexplicable hope. This passage really strikes at the heart of this joy, echoing throughout the story even in the darkest of places:
“My friends, ask gladness from God. Be glad as children, as birds in the sky. And let man’s sin not disturb you in your efforts, do not fear that it will dampen your endeavor and keep it from being fulfilled, do not say, ‘Sin is strong, impiety is strong, the bad environment is strong, and we are lonely and powerless, the bad environment will dampen us and keep our good endeavor from being fulfilled.’ Flee from such despondency, my children!
There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all. Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan’s pride and murmuring against God.”
- Father Zossima, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (emphasis added)
I broke up the long quote into two segments to discuss them separately. The first half is so encouraging for me in my walk right now with Christ that I wish I had read this book much sooner. God has really been supporting me in the battle against sin through this and other encouragements (see my earlier post, “fresh perspectives”, and Ephesians 6 about putting on the full armor of God to douse the flaming arrows of Satan), so much so that I can actually taste a small portion of what exactly Christ’s ultimate victory over sin means. Old habits do die hard, but we should never tell ourselves that sin is inevitable. It isn’t. God doesn’t ever allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear (1 Cor. 10:13) with Him. Communication, or rather, communion is SO key that I can’t stress it enough. Only through knowing and loving God more can we ever hope to take every thought captive for Him (2 Cor. 10:5) and prevent those flaming arrows from consuming us with a deadly fire.
The second half seems rather defeatist and depressing, but was actually liberating. How so? This small context doesn’t really illustrate everything, but in the book, we read that Father Zossima was transformed from a sensualist into a Christ-like character. His realization had allowed him the freedom to love all, and genuinely! Through the main protagonist Alyosha, we see just how powerful that kind of love can be, when one no longer presumes supremacy over all, but rather, as Paul did, assume that we are the “worst of all sinners” (1 Tim. 1:16). We begin to realize that we have no grounds to judge others (which is definitely something I struggle with a lot), and that we should instead love all, unconditionally. Somehow both Alyosha and Father Zossima managed this feat well, and they serve as more great examples of how Christ calls us to love others; combined with the deep descriptions of their thought processes, we see that loving people authentically may not be as unattainable as we previously thought. This might be an idealistic view, but it’s one that gives a lot of hope.
From the moment I read Father Zossima’s entreaty, I was always uplifted whenever I opened up the book, even when I was dead tired from commuting back and forth from the lab and waking up early. I can’t promise that everyone will have the same experience reading The Brothers Karamazov, but you’d never regret it.
