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Evan Rosa: From the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, this is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity.

In this episode, Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets returns to share his experience, now three years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We discuss reactions to the theatrical Oval Office visit by President Zelenskyy and the state of global democracy. But perhaps most salient from this conversation was Theodore's reflections on fear and freedom, fear to hope, not being afraid of our fears.

Paradoxically, in order to live an abundant and free life, even in the midst of war. Here he is from the middle of our conversation, speaking directly to this idea. 

Fyodor Raychynets: So we are in a situation where we scared to hope. And I was preaching on the March Gospel when Jesus is walking toward disciples in the middle of the night and he scared them to death because they thought he was a ghost.

In so many ways, God visits us in an unknowing way that scares us. That brings all those fears to the surface so that then he will tell us, don't be afraid when he is saying to the disciples, don't be afraid. Is he saying, do not be afraid of anything or do not be afraid of those fears that I have caused to come to the surface because I have visited you in unknowing way to you.

What are these fears, uh, are these fears about God that, you know, we have expected him to, to work in our life in that way. And he did not, or we have envisioned him to be that kind of God. And he did not justify our expectation and our imagination of him. Then how about others? What kind of fears they provoked in us?

Those that we would love to stay with and they disappeared or those we would never like to come back to our lives and they do come back. And what about fears, you know, about ourselves, how many things we have hoped for, for ourselves to change something in my life or to achieve something in my life or to become someone in my life.

And we did not. And then what about fear of hope? You know what we were hoping for? And then because they did not come true, or because the situation developed even in a worse scenario, or let's say in worse scenario for us, as we have envisions that all this situation of uncertainty Now, not only from the front, but from the back as well, what kind of fears it just brought up to the surface that we have faced and, and was horrified about.

And, you know, in the midst of all this situation, Christ is among us. He is with us. And he's whispering, do not be afraid of your fears, do not be afraid of your fears, but cope with them, learn how to deal with them because you know, unless you deal with them, you cannot leave your life abundantly and fully.

And I know that that was a very provocative kind of thing to leave it along the war or in the midst of war abundantly. But I, you know what I learned for these three years, what if the things will not get better? I spent all these three years for just hoping for the things will get better. No, I will leave every day to the full, of course, but I will not postpone my plans when things will get better.

The only time we have is here, here now and nothing there. Yesterday is not there anymore. Tomorrow is not yet there, and we don't know, will it be there or not? So I have here and now, and I can do things that I can do. If I can help someone, I will help. If I can give something to someone, I will give. If I talk to the Evan, I will make sure that I will not end up our conversation in a bad things, because who knows?

If that is our last conversation, if I want to say someone, I love you. I say, if I want to forgive, I forgive. If I want to say something, I will, because I don't know. So that's how we are to. Leave our life to make our enemy even more angry with us because they want us to live in fear. They want us to be scared.

And there are plenty of fears within us that blocks us from living the life. So I think that when God comes to us in a form of ghost that scares us to death, what kind of fears it brings up to the surface that we are to deal with. In order to live more free life.

Evan Rosa: As of this moment, a 30 day ceasefire has been proposed, accepted by Ukraine, contingent on Russian signing. And as of now, Russia agrees in principle, but has not yet signed. President Putin, a former KGB agent, seems to be requesting a phone call to discuss things further with President Trump. 

Fyodor Raychynets: At some point, I am scared for myself that I would not, in the midst of this hell, lost that humanity.

Evan Rosa: That's Fyodor three years ago, in episode 110 of the podcast, having just visited his seminary campus to find it destroyed by Russian shelling. 

Fyodor Raychynets: So I have to remind myself on a daily basis that we are humans and we are Not just to remain, but it is so crucial in the midst of hell, not to loss our humanity, but to preserve it and to show it and to demonstrate it because that's what the people needs the most at this moment.

Evan Rosa: Back then, he was subject to the shock, alarm, and the challenge of faith in the midst of invasion. We brought him back on a year later, and the subject was weariness and anger and grief. He lost his wife just before the war started, and he lost his adult son just months after. 

Fyodor Raychynets: We just have to be a people of dignity, and with the dignity, we should face the trial that have happened on our lifetime.

And we just have to be these kind of people that, uh, will not, will not turn in something else rather than human, but rather will become a better human afterwards. 

Evan Rosa: If you listen to Fyodor long enough, it's not difficult to see that two things are consistently held very dear to him. It's holding on to the presence of God even when it's unfelt, when you're in the midst of trial, when you're in the midst of war.

And it's holding on to our humanity and everything that implies. Even when so many forces are pushing us toward dehumanization. And just days ago he agreed to join us again. Three years into this war, Shock has numbed to weariness and has sunken into a very dark unknowing, he says. As he puts it, a fear to hope.

Whatever was happening in the theatrical propaganda or childish tantrum or ill placed fashion advice or just some weird political game that was happening in the Oval Office on February 28th, it stoked fear. Ukrainian fear, American fear, European fear, global fear. And well, Theodore knows something about fear by now.

So in this conversation, we get into the question, what is our relationship to our own fear? Have we nervously, anxiously cast it out just in the name of love, only to find that we're hiding it, denying it, storing it somewhere deeper in our minds or in our bodies? The Cowardly And the reckless and the courageous all share something in common, and that is a state of fear.

Courage is just holding our fears close and not being overcome. So Theodore's suggestion, reading Mark's gospel where Jesus is walking on the water and scares the disciples, letting fear come to the surface to be felt and understood beyond words. Cultivating a practice of seeking out our fear, maybe even invite it in for a cup of coffee, not to allow it to infiltrate and control us, but actually quite the opposite.

To come so close to it that we can know it, smell it, see the color of it, fully experience it, and then take a better course of action, an action inspired by love. So, yes. The perfect love does cast out fear, but perhaps not first before inviting it in for a more intimate understanding of it. Throughout the conversation, I sensed a fatigue in Theodore's voice, but amazingly, in the wake of terrible grief, the threat to his personal freedom and safety, and the very question of democracy around the world, he describes a depth of emotional and spiritual wisdom.

Opening up about his fears, his questioning faith in the mystery of God's presence in the midst of war. The hard work of emotional experience and the resilience to embrace every day, every moment as the fleeting gift that it really is. Thanks for listening.

Fyodor, it's good to see you. I'm so grateful that you've joined me again on For the Life of the World. It's good to be back with you. Over the past few years, we've checked in at the outset of war and then at times on its anniversary to. Hear about your perspective to hear about what your life has been like.

And since that time, now we're three years in and we're facing at this three year mark, an apparent change in American foreign policy. And I'm just wanting very much to hear your perspectives on how things have been to this point. What has your life been like for the past year? 

Fyodor Raychynets: You know, it's, uh, It's a life that you are trying to adjust the things you don't want to adjust, and you hope that they will somehow change, but they are not changing.

So it's a life when you even start to think that you are scared to hope, you know, because all the things you have hopes for, uh, are getting worse. So that was the, the kind of a year we were hoping for, you know, it's, it's like we were hoping that with the, um, the government change in, in us. Things will, uh, develop and yes, we were back then, you know, not sure in what exactly trajectory it will go.

Yeah. But we could not even anticipate that it will go this way because fighting the enemy for three years and the enemies are much stronger than you are. There was a sense that your back is covered by the allies. And of course, the U. S. would be one of the strongest allies we could rely on. But since, since February 28th, there is a sense that we are very vulnerable, not just.

Yeah. In the strong, but our bag is, is, is not covered up. There is nothing to rely upon. And there is this sense of hopelessness, you know, we hope that things will move faster in terms of negotiation and that we illusionary hopes that. Things will be admitted as they were, that we are the victim in this war and there is an aggressor.

But when the victim is tending to be named aggressor and aggressor is victimized. So you have this sense that everything turned upside down and I think we are now in a situation worse than we were in the beginning of the war, because back then we were hoping that it cannot last that long because the world should do something that is obvious brutal aggression.

There is obvious transgression of all possible international agreements and that people in Russia will walk up. and say something and the international community will stand up and say something, but yeah, in my, my nightmares, I would not dream to be in a situation like this when, when we, you end up in a, in a situation like this one.

I would call it an, uh, an apocalyptical situation. Then you realize that there is someone to hope for, but you don't know what he has in mind. Yeah. Yeah. So we are, yeah, it's, it's, it's good that we did not record it earlier as we planned because the situation would be different because we plan to have it prior to the 28th of February.

And I think we would have a, you would have somewhat perspective that would not be. Yeah. Relatives. It would not be kind of applicable to the current situation anymore. So that's good. That's good that we are talking today. Not, not before the third anniversary. 

Evan Rosa: Yeah. Yes. That's right. I'm just curious about the Ukrainian experience of watching the seven or 10 minutes of seeing president Zelensky.

President Trump and vice president Vance in that room, because the American experience has been split. Um, but there's a kind of. Moment of shock. And I think deep concern around the state of international security following that meeting. Well, 

Fyodor Raychynets: I was on the way back with my students in the car. I just finished lecturing the whole week of leadership and, uh, we were traveling from leave the Western part of Ukraine towards Kiev.

We didn't have the full hope of what has taken place and all these questions from the journalists and things like that. I was called by some of my American friends. They were curious to know how this whole situation. Has been shown in Ukraine because we have bombed so much with the all kinds of information.

So actually I should say that on Friday evening, we were kind of disoriented. We were kind of lost because you know, how Trump breathe him. And then how this question about his dress up was addressed in the beginning and then how they just in the very. I would say, I would not afraid to use this word, humility, a way, a start to.

teach him what he should do and how he should behave. And then some of my friends are Ukrainian friends from us. They said, you have to write something on, on a Facebook about it. I said, no, I don't want to write anything on it because I don't, I, I had, I just had pieces and parcels of, of the situation. But then on Saturday, As I was trying to, to put this puzzle together and then I was, I was kind of, um, shocked and, and yeah, and then I wrote a post about hospitality and, and nutrition values that some people still hope that this government is pursuing by political means.

Yes. And I had several conversation with some of my pastors, friends from Washington, D. C. and Virginia, that whole things in the Oval Office, uh, just reaffirmed my fears about the current government that is in the U. S., because I I don't know. I don't know where all these things are heading because, you know, some of my friends, they were trying to say, maybe this is a kind of political game that you, you know, we, we cannot figure out what's going on.

And maybe, you know, like he used the term playing cards and things like that, but yeah, but what for. You know, what are they pursuing by doing this kind of thing? So yes, I've lectured political theology for the last 10 years. I never had an optimistic view of political powers. That's how I would a priori.

Think critically. And I, I don't think that we are too loud politicians. We are to control them. We are to tell them accountable for their promises, which they are giving not to be fulfilled, but to be liked, you know, and yes, in Ukraine overall. impression was very negative. And I think the only positive thing that Trump did to Zelensky, that he raised his, his ratings, I think almost to the 60 percent of support of Ukrainians.

So it was back to the beginning of the war. And then there was another thing when he called him a dictator, that was another push to increase Zelensky's rating. 

Evan Rosa: And I want to camp out on the Oval Office just for a little longer, because I think you make good points in your Facebook post. You say two obvious questions from that Facebook post.

Do you mind reading them? 

Fyodor Raychynets: Yeah, that was about hospitality and it is about dressing and, and, uh, you know, demanding to be grateful. You know, that was a kind of a weird thing. And, and then CNN counted how many times Zelensky said, thank you. So it was like 94 times or something. So, I mean, we are thankful and we will be thankful.

And I don't think that's an issue. It was just a trap for him. And why they did this. That's a good question. And I, I don't know, I don't know the answer because it may be behind the curtain where this real politics is played and who knows what, that, that was my experience of American people is the exactly the opposite.

Evan Rosa: I'll just speak for myself for the moment, rather than try to represent others. While watching that, I felt a deep fear for democracy and not just Ukraine's democracy, but for democracy, the world over, because the nature of freedom so heavily depends on, on the freedom from government authoritarianism and tyranny.

And this sounds like blaming the victim of aggression, holding over some kind of obligation of gratitude. Pointing out a weak position, you don't have the cards using that metaphor, like as if this is a poker game and then just trying to undermine self defense by calling it a dictatorship. That's, um, that's just my own opinions about things.

Fyodor Raychynets: I fully, fully agree with you that, uh, and, and that is the sense on these sites that the democracy is. You know, at risk and I still hope and believe in American people and not just in American people, but I believe in the American political system of check and balances that, you know, that even if a person wants to do some things, uh, are dangerous.

To democracy, to the freedom of the people, that there is this system that, that will block aggressive steps. So once it, and things like that, I still hope for that. But the second thing that is, there is this very bitter taste or aftertaste is that those values that we were taught by so called free world or democratic sort of world, uh, seems to Be either not valuable anymore to that world.

And then there is the big question on our side, what we are fighting for. And is that something to be worth fighting for and dying for? Yeah. So these two things, you know, there is this hope still, there is hope that. System may correct it. And then there is, uh, does this in this real politic world, all those declared values are still values or, you know, we would rather make business.

We would rather make deals and, you know, deals that economically, uh, makes us better off, but. Not in terms of values, in terms of principles, in terms of something that our forefathers stand for. So are these principles endangered? Are these values endangered? That's, that's the question that is now haunting us on this side.

And what are we trying to fight for dying on a daily basis? So that's on our side. We are observing it with, with a sense of, uh, You know, scary that why all these things will go further. So let's hope that the system will work. 

Evan Rosa: I want to come back to something you said toward the beginning, which is a kind of fear of hope and, and now the Ukrainian experience of enduring war at this moment with the perception and the feeling that things are turning for the worse.

Tell me about this fear of hope and how you were responding to that personally, what your, what your personal thoughts are in your community, in your church, in what are you turning to for a kind of solace or grief? 

Fyodor Raychynets: Yeah, two things, you know, the first thing is that I'm, I'm today sad from the morning because, uh, They, my father would turn nineties and he's not with me for the last 14 years.

And he was a very, very good father, a very good friend of mine. And that's the first thing. So I am a kind of in, in, not in a very optimistic mood anyway. What was his name? But his name was the same as my father and I was named after him. But then, uh, just going back to the fear of hope, I was preaching yesterday in a, in a church and, and you know, all this situation forces us to see something in the biblical passages we would not see otherwise.

And I was preaching on, on the Mark's gospel when Jesus is walking toward. Disciples in the middle of the night and he scared them to death because they thought he was a ghost. Oh yeah. You know, I never thought of that ghost, that appropriation of him as a ghost in so many ways. God visits us in a knowing way that scares us, that brings all those scares that we are fearful in our lives to the surface so that then he will tell us, don't be afraid.

So I was thinking when he is saying to the disciples, don't be afraid, is he saying do not be afraid of anything or do not be afraid of those fears that I have caused to come to the surface because I have visited you in unknowing way to you. Yeah. And, and then I was exploring what are these fears. Are these fears about God that we have expected him to, to work in our life in that way?

And he did not, or we have envisioned him to be that kind of God. And he did not justify our expectation and our imagination of him. And how about others people, what kind of fears they provoked in us, those that we would love to stay with and they disappeared or those we would never like to come back to our lives and they do come back and there are certain fears and what about fears, you know, about ourselves, how many things we have hoped for, for ourselves to change something in my life or to achieve something in my life or to become someone in my life and we did not.

And then what about fear of hope, what we were hoping for, and these hopes have never come true. And then because they did not come true, or because the situation developed even in a worse scenario, or let's say in the worst scenario for us, as we have envisioned. So we are in a situation where we. Scared to hope.

So I was yesterday exploring in the church and, and one lady came to me after the sermon and she said, your sermon is like a good session with a psychologist or a therapist, psychotherapist. And, and I, I said, I hope that, you know, that those fears, that all this situation of uncertainty. Vulnerability now, not only from the front, but from the back as well, what kind of fears it just brought up to the surface that we have faced and was horrified about.

And you know, in the midst of all this situation, Christ is among us. He is with us. And he's whispering, do not be afraid of your fears, do not be afraid of your fears, but cope with them, learn how to deal with them because you know, unless you deal with them, you cannot leave your life abundantly and fully.

And I know that that was a very provocative kind of thing to leave it along the war or in the midst of war abundantly. But I, you know what I learned for these three years, what if the things will not get better? I spent all these three years for just hoping for the things will get better. No, I will leave.

Every day to the full, of course, but I will not postpone my plans when things will get better. And as I was talking with my daughter, just Uh, just a few days ago. And I said, well, you know, we will do it then. And she said, father, then is when, yeah. So today, I mean, these three years have forcibly taught me the things that I have taught my students over the 10 years that the only time we have is here, here and now, and nothing there.

Yesterday is not there anymore. Tomorrow is not yet there, and we don't know, will it be there or not? So I have here and now, and I can do things that I can do. If I can help someone, I will help. If I can give something to someone, I will give. If I can, if I talk to the Evan, I will make sure that I will not end up our conversation in a bad things.

Because who knows? If that is our last conversation, if I want to say someone, I love you. I say, if I want to forgive, I forgive. If I want to say something, I will, because I don't know. So that's, that's how we are to live our life, to make our enemy even more angry with us because they want us to live in fear.

They want us to be scared. And there are plenty of fears within us. That blocks us from living the life. So I think that when God. comes to us in a form of ghost that scares us to death. What kind of fears it brings up to the surface that we are to deal with in order to live more free life? Because, you know, I can let the war Limit me in all possible ways.

So I will not plan. I will not do anything important. I will not build, I will not plan something. I will not do anything because there is a war. So what can I do? No, I will do everything I can. Yeah, it can, it can be, I can, it can literally paralyze you and we just decided to do, we should leave. When the COVID came, we thought that that's the worst thing that happened back then.

We did not know what was ahead of us, that there will be more horrible things ahead of us. And I, that's what I mean, even when I say I'm, I'm dear of, of OB because all the things I have hoped for up to this point, unfortunately, or fortunately, I don't know, but they did not develop the way I hoped for. So I don't want to extrapolate it to the, everyone else, because I don't know how other Ukrainians and, and again, sitting in Kiev, that's one thing, sitting in Lviv, it's another thing sitting in Kharkiv, it's a third thing.

And we all come through this war in a very different way. Yeah. Someone have lost someone. Someone have experienced something horrible. Other people have not, apart that they have heard these bad things. And when you compare these two people, of course they have a different experience of war.

Evan Rosa: There seems to be so much wisdom in this. Not being afraid of your fears, but it's very different from the message of like, you know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, mid century president who led the U S through world war II. Like he he's quoted as saying, and he was popularizing Thoreau and others that the only thing to fear is fear itself.

And that's. And I think that is a very bold kind of bombastic way of thinking, but the courage it takes to allow your fears to emerge and to be visited by those ghosts and to be visited by the ghost of Christ and to be scared in that way, it shows. A deepening of, of life that even, yeah, far from hiding those fears and far from being afraid of fear to, to really follow God into do not be afraid is to not even fear fear itself.

I mean, to, but to allow those to surface. 

Fyodor Raychynets: Yeah. You see, I, I, I did not quote Roosevelt. I called Carl Gustav Jung yesterday, who used to say two things about these, these things. He used to say that the theory is our greatest enemy. And then he used to say that where our fears lies, that's where the change is the most needed.

Yeah. And so I was pointing in this. Yeah. That if we are scared of our enemies and now in a situation where our back is not covered up anymore. So it just reminded me of, of the Balkan experience when the intensive fighting was ended and people and that silence. Suddenly silence that came, people were scared even more than during the intense fighting because suddenly they did not know where the enemy is.

Yeah. Because when the front, there is a front line, you know, that here is your people on this side of the front, on the other side of the enemies. But once that frontline disappears, where is your enemy? So I was thinking, well, Booster Jung probably meant something else or had something else in mind, but that kind of experience helped me to understand what he meant by that.

The fear is our greatest enemy. But then. Yeah. He says that where our fears lies, that's where the, our life needed to be changed. And I said to the congregation, I said, when the last time you have. Talk to, to, to the priest or to the pastor in your conviction, convictions, not about your sins, but about your fears.

When you have prayed to God openly, not confessing your sins, but confessing your fears, because when he says, do not be afraid of your fears, I hope he meant, you know, share it with me because when you bring these fears from the. From the secret to the, to the visible things, they, they lose that grip of you.

You know, they are still there, but that the, the power of that grip, I think is loosened. 

Evan Rosa: Yeah. I think naming the fear and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Naming it coming closer to it or facing it. Pacing it. You know, there's a Buddhist tradition of inviting your fear or anger or all sorts of negative emotions, inviting it in for tea 

Fyodor Raychynets: and 

Evan Rosa: talk 

Fyodor Raychynets: to it , 

Evan Rosa: talk to it rather than, rather than fight it in the moment and ine with it.

Yes. Sign with it. Like really look at it because exactly For this reason that it's not, it's not maybe an end in and of itself that we would befriend our fear, but for the purpose of, of, as you say to for the purpose of change. Yeah. And, and not just change in the long run. I mean, it seems to me that it's a very moment to moment experience.

Fyodor Raychynets: Things I hate the most, we are getting used to it. And if nowadays, if the night is completely. Silent and there is no air, a siren, we think what's wrong, you know? And that's the problem. We get used to not normal things or abnormal things instead of saying that's, that's not normal. Yeah. These are the things we should never get used to.

Evan Rosa: What other sources are you turning to? Like, I mean, whether respect with respect to fear, grief, or I'm sure others in Ukraine are faced with. 

Fyodor Raychynets: You know what? My daughter forced me to go through the, the therapy, the counseling, and she was so proud that I did it, you know, she wants her father to do it, what she was doing, and I was sharing it with, with my students openly and frankly.

And I said, you know what? I I'm so glad I did it. I'm so glad I listened to my daughter and I, I did it because I've learned so much from my. And she helped me to not just verbalize my emotions and fears, but she said, if you want to get rid of something, you have to live through it. You have to experience it to the full.

You have to not just verbalize it. You have to localize it. You have to learn to smell it. And even named the color of it. I was kind of, she was telling me these kinds of things. I, Evan, I was brought up by a father whom I love and dearly, and it doesn't change my respect to him, but he would tell me that emotions are immaturity.

You cannot show your emotions because that's not, you are not immature. You cannot let your emotions to be seen by others people. So I, I was brought up as emotionless. First, I would not cry. I would not, I would just, but these emotions stuck in my body and make a physical pain. When I went to a body therapist and she helped me to localize some of unexperienced emotions that turned into physical pain, that there was no cure to it unless you let it.

Let it out. Now, the question is how you will let it out. What are the ways to letting these emotions out? Uh, yeah, so that I've, I've been through all kinds of things to deal with grief, to deal with fears, to deal with these kinds of things. And I don't know how it is in us among Americans because Ukrainians are tough people.

You know, they, you know, they don't deal with emotions. Uh, so when you talk to these people, they think you are crazy. They think something is wrong with you, but I, I've experienced that and, and I can, I can tell you that, uh, one thing is to, because that's what my counselor told me. She said, you are so good in verbalizing your emotions, but how about experiencing your emotions?

Yeah. How about trying to leave them out? Right. And when you are a pastor, when you are in a church, when there is so much of things that make you anger, that make you address, but you can not show it there, so it stucks in you. But is there a way, is there a safe space? Well, you can let it out, not in your family, not to your children because they have nothing to do with it.

Evan Rosa: Yeah. 

Fyodor Raychynets: Right. You see? And so these are the things you have to learn and yeah, don't, don't think I've learned. I'm learning. I'm in the process. Yeah. 

Evan Rosa: But I mean, the conversation in America, I mean, it changes about emotions all the time. There is more attention on this, but the fact is for many men, especially in the last 40 to 50 years post war, emotions were also.

Look down upon to, to be an emotional young man was something to grow out of. Yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not a feature just of Ukrainian experience. You talk about the way that the, the experience of localizing it in a controlled way, like exerting the proper amount of control over the emotion. And I mean, I I've, I'm not an expert on this.

I don't, I have no idea, but it seems to me that it's that consistent bottling up suppression, maybe repression that. That then leads to violence in certain cases that can lead in fact, to exactly the kind of war that we're currently experiencing, or the, it can lead to the kind of leadership that we see in authoritarian regimes and true dictatorships is it can ultimately be traced back to certain emotional realities and not only emotional realities, certainly there's moral realities that have to do with it and political realities and yet to think of.

Yeah. The sort of, I mean, you brought up Jung and like the collective unconscious of, of the world emotionally. As a kind of spirit of the, of, of human culture and the way that it, that we find ways to channel these negative emotions into violence against each other is profound. 

Fyodor Raychynets: That's exactly I, when I teach a leadership and I, I wrote a big article on, on, on why those who can do not want, and why those who want cannot leaders.

And, but when I wrote it, I didn't know back then that there is a whole theory on this. And the theory is called the theory of negative selection. I don't know. Have you heard about it? But it's the, the, the, the, the father of this theory is, uh, it's a dream. Sorokin, Peter Sorokin, he was a Russian, but he, most of his life, he left, uh, lived in the U.

S. and he became a famous sociologist. And he was questioned, he was asking a question, how in the world we can explain why people with no principles, with no moral orienteers happen to be in the most high leadership position. And then there is, you know, there is an explanation to that theory by Freud, by Jung, by from, and others.

And that's exactly what you have said that sometimes the desire of power. Is that you have compensated something for a long period of time, or you have suppressed or repressed or whatever. And then the power gives you this opportunity to let it go. And it may have a massive effect. I mean, when, when you have hundreds of thousands of people killed.

And things like that, these are the serious issues that we, we seems to not learn from the history. Yeah. History teaches us that it teaches us nothing was wise. People used to say, yeah.

Evan Rosa: I think I'm coming back to this to live each moment. To live each day as if it was the last interaction that you and I would have, as if it was the last time that we would walk outside, as if it was the last time that we drew a deep breath. There's something to appreciate about this. And I feel like it's fitting to contrast it to the obligation of gratitude, but rather the freedom of gratitude for the moment that we're in.

Um, since the moment there is this 

Fyodor Raychynets: Latin phrase, yes, sure. Carpe diem. I think it's in Latin. Yeah. Since the moment. Yeah. That's, that's the, what eternity is all about. It has no beginning. It has no end. Where it's, where it's. But it's, it's, it's here and now, and to experience that kind of thing. That's why the Jones gospel doesn't have eschatological discourse because everything happens here and now.

So, yeah, I think that's, that's what the Christianity is, is, is, is to learn. Because I think if we would. If that would be our perception of time, it would change our lives drastically. Uh, we would leave the quality of life, I think would be changed the way we would leave. The way we would say goodbyes, the way we would greet people, the way we would treat people, I think would, would, would change.

Um, yeah, yeah. So that's, that's probably, that's probably one of the closing thoughts is, is to leave a moment. Uh, And not expect that things will change for better. So then I will plan my life. Then I will do important things. So do important things in the midst of, you know, uncertainty, uh, because that's, that's probably the only time you have.

Uh, the other closing thoughts would be, we have our own collection of fears because we are in the midst of war and war kind of brought so many. Uh, fears to the surface, but that does not mean that the Americans do not have their fears. Uh, they might be different fears, especially now with the current government about the future of your country, about the, the democracy, where it goes about the freedoms, about the things, uh, what scares us here and, and you don't have that experience.

What happens when the oligarchs are controlling the government? And that's what I see now taking place in us and, and that is dangerous things when people like must are whispering or saying or dictating to the leadership or scare those who do not want to bow before the, that kind of leadership. That is a scary development that might be scared about the economy.

Yeah. Trump is, is promising to make America great again, but what that greatness will be and who will be great in that, in that kind of country. So there are all sorts of fears. And I would like to invite people not to be afraid of fears, but as you have said, invite them for dinner, for tea, for coffee. If that is what you drink or what you prefer to drink, talk to them and, uh, you know, make them less controllable of you and leave your life more freely from, from those fears that depends to.

Limits you and controls you in all, on all possible ways. And then if these fears are, are over us, then what, what, what our hopes for God, for his visitation, his presence in life, in our lives is all about. So I, I kind of tend to experience these unknowing, uh, previously of visiting me through bad circumstances, through bad news, through bad events, uh, that are taking place around me and, and yeah, they have this capacity and bringing fears to the surface.

Yeah. So when Jesus scared his disciples, that was for their good. And I hope it will be for our good too when we are scared of something, if we know how to deal with it. Yeah. When we ask God to help us, we have our own imagination of how he could do that. But when these things are coming into our own way to me.

That, that in itself may be scary 

Evan Rosa: to me, scary, but also as I think this is one of the points of you commenting on Jesus intentionally scaring his disciples for the good is that Sometimes our knowingness or our assumptions or our expectations, they inhibit us and, and to have a posture of unknowing and unfamiliarity or strangeness actually can help and the openness to that and the openness to feeling the fear as well, like is it, it compounds and really, I 

Fyodor Raychynets: think we 

Evan Rosa: are 

Fyodor Raychynets: now having the sounds too mystical to, to your audience.

Evan Rosa: Okay, fine. But like, 

Fyodor Raychynets: I think it's true for me because some, as you said, some, all these knowing things, they are limiting us because that's how we know things. That's how it functions. That's how we get used to it. Is there something beyond this knowing there is, but if there is something beyond my knowing, what that knowing is.

And can it come to me in a way that scares me? I think of course it can. I've said yesterday in a, in a sermon, why he did not appear. So that to his disciples in the form of angel, that instead of bringing fears to the surface, he would quench their fear. Because that's how, when I am in a nervous situation, when I am in a scary situation, I would like God to come and calm me down, not instead bring these fears to the surface.

That's what I, that is what, what I would not prefer. I don't want that. But I said, does that, what did happen? No, he comes and instead of calming it, well, I think there are situations when he comes and calms us down. But if we are to grow, if we are too mature, yeah. That's like, uh, children are walking that that's like a children, uh, you know, discovering this world that there is so much unknown.

Yeah. Learn. Yes. Yet in life. Yeah. I was just bringing this, uh, this situation to show you how the way we experience life in the midst of war, put a different lenses on a knowing text, which you get used to know in a different way. And because of this all new experience, places and new lenses, and suddenly you see in a knowing stories or the stories you thought at different angles that brought lives to a certain things you have never saw before, because you were in a different situation of life.

So who reads the Bible? We read the Bible or the Bible reads us? It's a good question. What's that? Yeah. And if he treats us, then he treats us in, in, in a different situation. Therefore, Our take on the text may be different. 

Evan Rosa: And reading the Bible in the midst of war, I think is a, it must be. I can only imagine this.

Fyodor Raychynets: It is, it is, it is a different thing. Yeah, it is a different thing. 

Evan Rosa: Fyodor, I'm really grateful that you gave me some time this evening. And it's really good to hear from you, to listen to what you've been going through. Yeah. Thank you. The

Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Fyodor Raychynets, production assistants by Emily Brookfield, Alexa Rollow, Kacie Barrett, Zoë Halaban, and Macie Bridge. I'm Evan Rosa, and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu or lifeworthliving.yale.edu. There you can find all sorts of educational resources that help people envision and pursue lives worthy of our humanity. If you're new to the show and this is your first episode, remember to hit subscribe in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss the next one.

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