Are you afraid? Think of God. Go to church and sit quietly in a corner. God can redeem you from your fears. Forgive me for not being more explicit but I do not believe it is necessary. You must understand that your relationship with God is a personal matter. Even though it is very difficult, one must seek a good spiritual father to serve as a guide. It is not easy to open your soul to anyone. The soul of a man is an unfathomable mystery. One wil be most fortunate to find a spiritual guide to respect, love, and trust – whose guidance can be followed with joy. The sooner this happens the better.
The first place in our heart is, of course, reserved for God. Those who lead us to Him serve as mediators. They act with boldness, experience, knowledge – with the discernment they have of the ways which lead to God and with the light shed upon those who cal upon God.
“But Father, who is this God?” you may ask. “We have not seen Him. We have not heard Him. We do not feel the need for Him. He seems so far away. Does He real y care about us? Can't our life go on without Him, as do the lives of mil ions who ignore Him?” These are human questions customarily asked by young people.
In the Roman Catholic tradition the existence of God is demonstrated using natural reason. Because of this doctrine alone I could never be a Roman Catholic. If God were someone like me, but outside of me, and simply a far superior individual, I would be obliged to forget Him. If God acted like a prison guard, a tax collector, a vengeful old man of wealth, – as He is presented to us by relatives, teachers and clergymen – I would consider it my duty to disregard Him completely. But God is not like that. Is it not true that while many do not real y want to be with the Living God, neither can they live without Him?
Two young men came to Mt. Athos not long ago with unusual hair cuts and clothing. Finding themselves out of place among a group of pilgrims who were being offered hospitality, the two you men stood aside and waited discreetly to talk to us at the end. These are exactly the first remarks of our dialogue.
“May we ask you something?”
“Of course!”
“If someone said that there is no God, what you do to him?”
“What would I do to him?”
“Yes”
“Is this your own question, perhaps?”
“And if we say that it is our own question?”
“And what if I say that it is also my own question?”
“Your question? A monk?”
“Yes. I do not believe in a God who has not appeared to us – a God who is a mere statue, a stranger, distant, inaccessible. .”
We remained and talked for hours. When the two young men left the next day, they said: “And we had always imagined otherwise. .”
It is true. Many people imagine things to be other than what they are. It is dishonorable to speak about something one does not know, to condemn the light, the life, the truth, to live in darkness and deception. It is narrow-mindedness. But this narrow-mindedness can be healed the moment you recognize it as such.
However, as long as you consider it to be intel igence, freedom and glory, it wil continue to torment you.
It is true that others have distanced us from God, often those who are cal ed to gather us close to Him.
These are deplorable, dishonorable hypocrites who do not believe what they say, nor live by what they teach.
But responsibility rests on many heads, and is not far from our own. Each of us wil have to render an accounting for our personal actions.
What has happened in the past can be corrected today. Everyone talks about air pollution hanging over our cities but no one seems to be doing anything about it. Is it ignorance? Cowardice? Fear? What is indeed happening?
THE CHALLENGE OF THE ORTHODOX SPIRITUAL TRADITION
The Orthodox spiritual tradition has a legacy of holiness and, when followed authentical y, exhibits a way of life that is dangerous. It does not promote the endless discussions of the scholastics, the definitions of the rationalists, and the pompous teachings of the moralists. The Orthodox spiritual tradition provides cool, refreshing water for the fields of our hearts, quenching our real thirst. The asceticism and profound humility of Orthodoxy lead us to the firing range, the launching pad. Orthodoxy is not the faithful observation of obligatory rules and regulations, nor is it exemplified by a liturgical guide to be scrupulously memorized.
Rather, we are advised to keep silent and remain motionless. We should not speak for the sake of speaking, not even about God. Rather, we should seek to acquire a different way of life and let our new life speak for itself.
Accepting and understanding others is one of the ways we restore the image of God in our nature and abolish loneliness. I know that everyone desires this even if it is not expressed.
We must put aside generalities and uncertainties. Alexander Papadiamnatis has noted that “every generality is rendered ridiculous by a particular reality.” Another contemporary thinker wisely noted that “If you attempt to see everything, you wil probably see nothing” (L. Wittgenstein). Let us be more concrete, more concentrated, more attentive, simpler. Let us understand the importance of simplicity. Let us discipline our self and be satisfied with a disciplined self. According to St. Paul, we are die on a daily basis. This real y means that each of us must discipline our self to do what we want our self to do, not what our self wants of us.
This is the true freedom. This is the solution to the impasse.
This issue is a very significant one. Think of it. Daily death means that my disciplined self is to be pleasing to God. I am not to seek being marveled at by other people.
It is not necessary to understand everything al at once. When we do not understand something, let us place our reliance on Sacred Scripture and on the honorable struggle of holy men and women, and let us be satisfied to leave it incomprehensible. It wil not be long before we wil be il umined and wil understand. But to distort or pervert meanings to make them correspond with our won ideas is egotistical pride – the beginning of error and heresy.
No one joins the army to have a good time. Similarly, spiritual life – the life in Christ – is a constant struggle, agonizing effort. It is “man to man” combat, where you may be wounded or even kil ed, in order to be resurrected. And this can happen slowly or quickly, according to the loving wil of God. God is constantly chal enging man to give himself time, to calm down, to think, to stop living in a whirlwind. For God it wil suffice if a person recognizes and accepts his own difficult character, if a husband dedicates himself to his ailing spouse, if a teacher loves and tries to help students who appear incapable of improving, if a son understands his demanding and peculiar mother.
It is difficult to be satisfied with little. Most people think that only great and unusual events give us prestige and recognition. They imagine that only the scientist or the missionary to Africa is a benefactor to society. They cannot see that Christ leaves the ninety-nine sheep and goes out to the precipices to find the lost one. They imagine that God demands a great deal from us. In fact, He only demands that which we can do –
but do not. He wil not seek to harvest where He has not planted. God wil not ask the stammerer why he did not become a preacher, the lame person why he did not become a long-distance runner. We wil be held responsible for exactly what we could do but, for whatever reason, failed to do. In our ongoing efforts we wil make mistakes, we wil stumble, we wil fal – but we must always get up again. Our holy Orthodox Church has such room, such spaciousness. In the warmth of here embrace there is a place for everyone. To stumble and fal is human – not to get up is demonic. There is no sin that cannot be forgiven, no wound that cannot be healed. Al that is need is desire – to truly want it to happen.