Published by Lea Povozhaev, March 13, 2017 The term holistic means working with nature rather than against it. And faith is belief that calls one to act. When we cooperate with God, His mercy becomes more apparent to us. God’s mercy enables one to fathom the natural meaning of life: belonging to Jesus Christ. One’s will to accept God fosters more wholeness in a person’s life, and an individual becomes more well—body, mind, and soul.
Thoughts on our problems and our hearts By Michael Haldas, July 25, 2016 “There are many devotees of the idolatrous cult of technical know-how…Many tragic and deadly problems hold the world in thrall: epidemics, wars, inexcusable hunger, repression, crime, despotism, and the loss of arable land and clean water. Many of these are intractable problems that technical solutions alone cannot fix…Technology and social engineering cannot correct people who devise wickedness and scheme evil on their
I encourage you, then, to make experience, not knowledge, your aim. Knowledge often leads to arrogance, but this humble feeling never lies to you. —Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing [1] In meditation, we move beyond doctrines and dogmas to inner experience. When we move to the level of experience, we see that this self, which is primarily a “radio receiver,” is not to be taken too seriously, for it is always changing stations and is filled with
Orthodox Pharisees The Orthodox Faith is nothing without transformation of life By Abbot Tryphon, March 9, 2020 If our spiritual life is concentrated only on external practices and traditions, but does nothing to bring about real change, we have gained nothing. Too many people think as long as they keep the fasting rules, do their prayers, and attend the services, they are good Orthodox Christians. Yet if there is no love, no charity, and forgiveness
By Abbot Tryphon, October 10, 2019 If you are to win the battle, focus only on your own sins When we take our eyes off our own sins we focus only on the sins of the other. As we allow their sins get our attention, we fail to struggle with the passions that keep us from the wholeness that God intended, and we move ever closer to the abyss of our own fall. Ignoring our
As I explore transformation as a process of letting go of the ego’s needs and accomplishments, you may think I’m overemphasizing detachment. But when you look at Jesus on the cross, you see that Christianity also fosters attachment. Jesus tells us to love and to pay the price for loving. The heart and the soul are the first to attach to things and fall in love. When we attach, when we fall in love, we
The prayer then turns us to four key virtues Christians should struggle to attain. During Lent, we are to intensify our efforts to acquire them: humility, chastity, patience, and love. HUMILITY IF PRIDE IS, as all Christian teachers have believed, the ultimate spiritual sin that blinds us to our own sins and shortcomings, then humility is the virtue that sees things as they really are. Therefore, it is only when we humble ourselves that we
SOME VARIETIES OF SILENCE Not all silence is the same. There is the awkward silence of the road trip with someone we do not know quite well enough to be silent next to, the refrigerating silence of hardened anger, the reverential silence of dogwoods in winter, the vast silence of a cathedral, the focused silence of absorption in our sewing or a good book, the stunned silence of seeing the status of our pension fund.
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