The request of our times

(Human Communication)

It was and is said that we are in the Ice Age. Around us there is an ice and heavy winter, which sweeps everything. The world remains dark. The human being usually ends up in bitter discoveries, sharp like a knife. “We were caught napping. We lost the path”, we the human beings.

We feel that imperceptible humidity had drenched our existence.

We feel that everybody deserted us giving us the impression, that “everyone cares for the interest of his own small hut” (Pentzikis).

Our only care is “to stand on the rock and to stone the sun” (Vafopoulos).

It seems that, in the bustle of our times we are left thoughtful and confused. So it is justified for each one of us to wonder: “Where is my self?” (Pentzikis). Indeed! Where? So this speculation is justified:

“But, what things will you do outside, when inside,

so and so many things expect you?” (Vafopoulos)

It was said many times. We live in the galaxy of

a. interest

b. cement

c. soot

d. uproar.

Our days, are days of the souls’ devastation. Everywhere, around us, there are

a. shadows

b. delusion

c. fantasies.

The human being lingers an unstable hunter of chimeras.

The people of today – we must understand this – remain buried in the real or fictitious dead ends of the present. Around them there is collapse everywhere.

Then the human being thinks of escape. He does not realise that the escape is not a solution, but a source of discouragements, which turns him into a lonely wanderer. It makes him a fugitive of reality, a person of the margin. Everywhere there are clashing rocks. The Scylla and Charybdis are lurking. So the human being feels as if he is walking on a stretched rope in a bustling desert.

How then is he going to

a. achieve to restore the ruins?

b. find his dead soul again?

c. get over his existential dehydration?

What lights in he going to light, in order to finally get away from this polar desert, which falls upon our chest?

What is he going to do, so that the human beings will not end up desert islands?

Everywhere there are

a. conventions

b. advisabilities

c. a spiritual cremation

Thus way the human being remains with

a. the candles of the lost targets, in his hands

b. the ideals at half mast

c. the fireworks surrounding and dazzling us. We are cynically grounded, with the heart consumed by despair.

But how will the human beings

a. be asked to walk on tiptoe on the sunny peaks of Truth?

b. stand at the crossroad to show the way?

c. climb the bell-tower and trumpet ideas?

d. Climb on the ramparts and unfurl flags?

“Did you ever think of” man

“you, who seem to know many things,

that the flowers and the trees

and all the plants are always awake?

They do not sleep and they do not see dreams

But they are still beautiful!” (Zoe Karelli)

Can the contemporary man ever realize that “when he plants the firs, he plants them for the next centuries, and that when he builds lighthouses, he builds them for other captains.” (Our. Lanara)

And “the young, that wild swan”, to remember Siller, how eill they survive? Where will they turn to? We, the elders, did not wish to teach them the great truth, that “the sky will never rain roses. If we want more roses, we must plant more rosebushes”.

How will we give them the spiritual water, when we ourselves did not ever ask ourselves along with the poet:

“What am I?

“Neither as the weight of a sifting

neither as the speck of the sand” (Boletsis)

We remain shutting in the labyrinth of daily routine, dizzy but the whirl of its events.

We feel the need for a walk, last. An exit from the walls.

To go where? We already go about like misled wayfarers. Dangling friends of the instant pleasure we are turned into searchers of roads which point to contemporary paradises.

The question usually freezes our lips “Really! What did we do our life?”

May be we acknowledge the need of a revolution. Something like this means sacrifice and fight and a lot of tiredness. A revolution for the bluntness of spiritual inaction and its delection. For the return to the wakefulness of the conscience. For the facing of life’s landmarks in the right way, so that eventually the ideals would stop dying. And the hidden solid metal would shine in the sun along with the culminations of a silent spiritual dawn.

It is time for the human being to stop his alienation having enough space for the right radical changes of his life.

It is time for the human being to see that he is not benefited by remaining in the mist of an endless solitude which petrifies his sensitivity.

But life is usually turned to a long but at the same time dramatical road.

“A blow here

climbing

puffing

still wounds and usual wounds.” (Rodi Erma)

And that road despite the earthquakes, the lapses and the landfills (pollution of the noise, the morals and the environment) is kept in use.

But many from time to time situations became pointers of the way to “paradises”. The scattered traps in our way. And they stayed away without a target, but without a course crowning.

A result of all this discord is the lack of understanding. An erosive extroversion. An intense tendency of meddling. A lack of communication.

The people around remind us the trains of the desert. Those trains, which, in the winter and heavy night, meet. They whistle. And … they are lost in the depths of the horizon. Or still, like the ships in the vast ocean go on in an opposite course.

Their only communication is a fleeting greeting. For a moment. And they leave.

No one is willing to converse today. To open some windows in a different light. Or to cause an internal convulsion.

The people are groups inconceivable, they linger among the others, like-minded people with them.

Far away voices may be heard. May be we guess a dangling light. A flame of comfort.

The people, like some others misled wayfarers, go on their marching in this dead end road. They repeat what someone characteristically wrote:

“My life is insane, inconceivable. Whatever I do, has no meaning” (Melvin Seman, Professor of Sociology in Los Angeles).

It makes one wonder: Does life exist, in order to become a cemetary of failed pursuits? Are we in front of the phenomenon

of the tragic realization of that, which a top Greek journalist noted? “Modern Greece”, he wrote, “completed the circle of its destination and it is decomposing”. And Greece means wherever there is Hellenism in the whole world.

So what should be done? How are we going to manage to reach that mountain top from which we will see the light complete?

The enormous powers might come on us all the time. They may want to prescribe us in the end. How are we going to face them? Each person secluded like Robinson in his own island?

Are we going to yield under the burden of the whatever masses? Or are we going to look for the Spring when “each one of us can cash the coin of the anemone?” (Elytis). Are we going to remember that

“the flags which are missing today

from the earth

are inside us?” (Nikiphoros Vrettakos)

So we must understand it. We usually feel, that everything around is deserting us. We feel that all the ways around us are blocked. There is only one way left. One – but so lonely – voice is heard. It is the one, which like a scalding arrow, shows the sky. It incites, but challenges, too, for a rising. A difficult, rough rising. Filled with blood and tears. A rising that will bring resumption. A climbing which is a hoisting and an abjuration at the same time. A climbing which gives to grandeur the potential to write with faint lines the sight of a cross. Not to show the way. But to mark the miracle that happened, but which could happen, too.

All this procedure invites the human being to a fight in a special place. There, where no one will come to tell him that

what he achieved is good. It will not face him with a glance, of at least some, participation. He will know only one thing: that, through the agony of the pursuit, a new glisten will always come. A glisten that would help the human being in the surpassing of his self leaving behind the ruins of his previous life.

The others might call him “a crusader of the dream”. But from the “thick cloudiness” – it is obvious – someone figures out some fair countries. A fair weather. He obeys some secret voices, for today, and maybe for ever, but which are the most real, the richest.

His aim is not the conquest of the temporary mundane affairs, but the search of the human being. So he escapes from the polar circle of the sterile self-look. He faces the sight of the other more catholically, but more fully, too.

He stands at this threshold of life and he anticipates. And while he anticipates, he prays and fights at the same time.

He considers, that he must guard the embrasures of our times awake.

His basic target: To plant right on his chest the charming lily of his love and faith for a better tomorrow. And this should happen in the cobwebbed depths of now.

His only satisfaction: the certainty that he is doing his duty.

His every day toil and agony is to loving the dew of the Kingdom of Heaven, with consistency, on the feverish face of our earth.

The searching and harvesting of this effort is the close approaching of eternity.

Let us speculate timely and intensely by being apprenticed to these views. We will stop feeling that “the brave people of the whole would have died.” Our descendants will face the alienation, which has taken nearly, unreal sizes, and which we see its traces in the moments of our life, as a natural situation. And they will pass on.

They will fight with their own way. They will water the land they step on with their own sweat. And they will fight. And they will love. And they will worry.

For many people the way they walk is unlike, different. Its characteristics, are kinds which are so rare these days:

“toil and sweat and opening of ways

and course

on untrodden summits

……………………………………….

A way, indeed, far

how will you call it differently,

how will you call it?

for only an instant Eternity” (Rodis Erma)

This is the way they believe that the battle of continuity is to be won. They face the transient under the glow of the eternal. And they fight. And they labour. And they go on. And their course is ceaseless and unbreakable and continuous.

Their effort and fight is nothing more beyond what Soldgenitsin said: “What I wanted, is to contribute for the shaky flame of our soul… to reach another martyr.”

And our times need the martyrs so much.

And this truth burning in time’s furnace, scatters spiritual iridescences around lavishly.

Please beg so that this truth would give opulent fruit.

And when this happens, bridges among people will be set up again. They will be able to communicate among them again, like then, before Babel.

And all these will be so beautiful and pure.

It seems that the time has come when we should shed whatever evil arrogance, whatever idol of the human power we enclose in us. It is time to reorganize our powers. To requisition our sensitivity along with our bitter experiences from the miracles of technology, in order to shake off the strain and boredom from us, unbearable remnants of sin. To let our life.

“sing bitter, (to) sing isolation

to sing the wish of Love” (T. Agras)

Let us also remember that “Cyprus is a place where the miracle still works” (Seferis).

We will start seeing light behind darkness. A strange, bright, Easter light, which offers us a compass of sailing. A sweet expectation. A faith which will cause an unshakeable bond with the Saviour. Yes, and let us not forget, that the magic key, which opens closed forgotten doors, is faith. A simple faith, which comes so silently to bring peace to the turbulent consciences and to erect the fallen will of the human being, despite the so many shocks of the every day routine.

So we need to be apprenticed to the marginal situations of this reality. These are our visions in the usually gloomy hours of the daily routine. Let us work aiming at the blooming of creation with the strong power of the One, who moves the threads of the ultimate detail of our existence, of our course. Let us aim at a life with light. With our life to declare and talk about the civilization of the light. The Christian, but the Greek civilization, too.

Let us fight so that God’s love would shake our actions and by fighting against the whatever doubts to long for the lost Homeland. To know.

What God asks from us and to rejoice because we are called His children. So let us deny inaction by placing our selves in the service of the Church and let us move on by creating beams, by eternally longing for the Kingdom of Heavens, every day in our pursuits for the “future city”.

So let us give ourselves to the absolute, with the wings of our sail united.

Christ is waiting for us.

ANSWERS?

“Once in Scete a brother fell into an error, and there was a meeting (of the others to judge him). Abbot Moses was invited to the meeting. But he did not want to go. The presbyter invited him again, saying to him, “Come, because all the others are waiting for you”.

So he got up, took a worn-out straw-bag, filled it with sand, loaded it on his back and came.

The fathers, coming out to meet him and seeing him having the straw-bag on his shoulders (from which sand was coming out of its holes) asked him:

“What is this, father?”

“It is my sins”, the old man answered to them “sliding behind me and I don’t see them. But today, I came to judge the sins of the others”.

As soon as the fathers heard these, did not say anything to the brother (they wanted to judge), and forgave him”.

What is the truth that impresses here?

Of course the attitude of abbot Moses.

Let us take one thing at a time.

A brother in Scete made a mistake. It seems that it was not only a matter of his own personal life, but something he made and

a. had an impact on the others

b. had effects (moral and others) on the others

c. had problemised the others

d. may be had scandalized the others.

So the others

a. are problematized

b. react

c. judge that the offence must not go by unnoticed

d. decide to condemn him in order to punish him

e. invite abbot Moses.

But abbot Moses

a. keeps silent

b. does not accept

c. refuses to come

d. judges that he must not go

e. but finally submits.

How did the others see him? They saw him

a. acting like a mad-man

b. coming calm

c. approaching peaceful

d. dragging the worn-out straw-bag behind him, in

which there was sand coming out of the hotels of the

basket.

Their first thought? They supposed that

a. he has a problem

b. something is wrong with him

c. he is not well

d. he wants to tell them something

e. he wants to give them a message.

So they asked him. And he

a. answered

b. talked about his sins

c. stressed his own unworthiness

d. identified his own weakness

e. considered himself worse.

Thus way he showed that he

a. is down-to-earth

b. identifies

c. realizes

d. admits

e. confesses

his own sinfulness.

At the same time, abbot Moses

a. is conscious

b. knew that he made mistakes and maybe some

punishable ones

c. knew that he was not perfect

d. knew that he was not better than the others.

Parallelly, though, he was

a. humble

b. down-to-earth

c. not selfish

d. a human being, who knew his powers, but his

weaknesses, too.

But there is something else too. Abbot Moses avoids to position himself

a. stand his ground

b. judge

c. condemn

d. criticize

e. turn to and preoccupy himself with the other people’s

sins, seeing his own.

The existence of his own sins does not allow to

a. see

b. judge

c. punish the other’s sins.

His own sins bring him down to earth.

His attitude, admittedly, problematizes the others, but

each one of us, too. Truly how do we

a. face the whole subject?

b. act and react to similar situations?

c. handle similar themes?

d. take a position?

Are we easy to

a. judge?

b. criticize?

c. breathe fire against the others?

d. condemn the others?

e. behave with severity?

Or

a. are we lenient?

b. do we behave down-to-earth?

c. do we show love in action?

d. do we understand our weak brother?

e. do we take care to help him not to repeat his

mistake?

f. do we work for his construction, helping him to see his mistake?

g. do we apply: “they do not judge, so that you are not judged”? (Matthew 7:1).

Such a divine stand definitely

a. constructs

b. helps

c. brings people closer to one another

d. makes them bond more and better.

But an objection arises here. “Does this mean that the offence should go unpunished?”

Of course not. But we should

a. distinguish between the offence and the offender

b. stigmatize the offence, but not to “kill” the offender

c. remember that there is the possibility for us to have

that and other mistakes. So, we are, in our turn,

offenders

d. work, in order to help him not to do it again

e. help him, so that he can become better from the

offence he made

f. have in mind his righting and not necessarily, his

punishment.

And what if the punishment is necessary? Then we should make sure it is done

a. not for the satisfaction of our own egoism

b. as slight as possible, that is without unexpected

effects

c. as down-to-earth as possible

d. without depriving him of basic goods (freedom, food

etc)

e. not for reasons of just applying the law.

Let s not forget that the law was made to help the human being and not for the human being to submit himself to the law.

A small detail. Haste has no place here, because it

a. destroys

b. exposes

c. brings the end before its time

d. influences situations.

And something else.

We must necessarily give him the right of defense. That is to

a. express himself

b. tell his views

c. defend himself

d. plead for extenuation.

Let us not forget that usually appearances are deceptive.

So what is left? But to

a. decide

b. go on

c. act

We have a long way ahead. But we should know one thing. God will

a. guide us

b. bless us

c. see the effort off

d. revive His presence in our life

e. give meaning to our life.

Then we will have given answers to all our existential

questions.

+Fr. George

WHAT ELSE?

“Three fathers used to go are blessed by Saint Antonios every year.

The two of them asked him various questions about the thoughts and the salvation of the soul.

But the third one kept silent and did not ask anything.

So, since they had come many times and that brother always kept silent, not asking anything, abbot Antonios told him:

“Since you come here for such a long time, why don’t you ask me anything”?

Then he answered:

“It is enough for me just to see you, father”!

Now that we have heard the story, it made us think about many issues. But let us take things one at a time.

First let us wonder why did the three fathers go there?

Because

a. they wanted to know

b. they trusted Saint Antonios

c. they admitted that he was grounded

d. they believed that he could help them

e. they were sure that his advice would be useful to them.

So what did they do?

A. The two of them asked about

a. the minds

b. the thoughts

c. the temptations of the mind and the imagination

d. their problems

e. the salvation of the soul.

They asked in order to

a. learn

b. ponder

c. solve their questions

d. be educated

e. see their weaknesses

f. become better.

B. The third one? He

a. did not ask

b. did not talk

c. kept silent

d. participated in his own way

e. only watched

f. contented himself with what his eyes told him.

But what did this monk see? He saw in Great Antonios the expression of

a. gentleness

b. peacefulness

c. love

d. the dedication to God’s will

e. conscious Christian life

f. virtue.

He saw Great Antonios to

a. act

b. react

c. behave

d. live Christ in every day practice

e. teach with his example.

It is a fact, though, that one can teach with

a. words

b. his life

c. his example.

Teaching with example is more

a. powerful

b. constructive

c. profitable

d. substantial

e. vital.

We need to make a clarification here. It does not mean that it is just a matter of him to decide that from now on he will teach with his example and … he goes out in the streets to … teach.

This will happen by

a. the dedication to Christian life

b. a continuous effort to live Christianity in practice

c. the decision that I will do my duty all the time

d. giving, continuously and factually, the right answer to

the question: “What is pleasant to Lord”?

This effort must be

a. pure

b. genuine

c. clear of the “teacher’s air”

d. not involved with any form of show.

Nowadays, though, many people

a. move around fanaticized thinking that they know

everything

b. teach

c. shout

d. provoke

e. invite

f. want to get fans.

Everywhere there are

a. loudspeakers

b. shouts

c. printing houses.

But who listens? Nobody.

As young lady once wrote that she preferred a preaching in deed to 5000 preachings with words. And she was right.

The Latins very characteristically said:

Verba volent. Scripta manent. Exampla trahent. (The words leave. The writings remain. The examples teach). What about us? Who are we to take our cues from?

There is an answer to the question.

It is a fact that we, the human beings,

a. are weak

b. have falls and weaknesses

c. maybe have a hard time to face some situations

d. want an example

e. want someone to set as our model.

The issue is not so hard. As long as we search. We will find what we lack. It may

a. come from below

b. not have degrees or diplomas

c. be something simple, but genuine.

It does not matter at all. What is important is to exploit it.

Even if some of those, whom we set as examples, let us down (since human beings are with weaknesses and falls), there is one, who will never let us down. He is Christ.

Christ is

a. the perfect model

b. the only true and sincere friend

c. they only one, who will never let us down

d. the only one, who will stand by our side to help us

e. the only one, who really loves us

f. the only one we can depend on

g. the only one, who will not ask for exchanges

h. the only one, who will be with us for ever.

Yes,

a. in happiness

b. in sadness

c. in misfortunes and storms

d. in calm

e. in war and peace.

So, this is the way to face things and go on. It is the only way to

a. live happy

b. find our way

c. achieve our goal

d. end up to the leeward harbor, which is nothing else

than the open arms of the father.

Yes, the open arms of father God.

Then, what else do we want?

We will be happy.

+Fr.George

TO THE TARGET

“It is told about a venerable father, that he fasted for seventy weeks, eating once a week, and asking God during that time to reveal to him the meaning of a quotation from the Bible. But God did not reveal it to him. Then he says to himself:

“Here, I made so many pains, and I did not achieve anything. So let me go to my brother and ask him”.

As he was leaving and shutting the door, Lord sent an angel and told him:

“The seventy weeks of your fasting did not reach God. But when you humiliated yourself and moved to your brother, He sent me to explain the quotation”.

After he had informed him about the meaning of the quotation he asked for, the angel left.

One is impressed, when he reads stories from the venerable fathers of the desert, like this one. Why? But because

a. they teach so many lessons with a few words

b. they give us great messages

c. all that is said, is taken from life

d. these stories are animated by the grace of the Holy

Spirit.

Now let us appreciate the facts of our story.

The first point that one notices, is the issue of fasting.

Fasting is

a. determined by God. Let us remember the

commandment He gave to Adam and Eve

b. useful to the human being. It cleans him from the

toxins

c. necessary in the spiritual life. It helps the human

being to become more spiritual, secluding him

from the materials.

Is fasting a target? Absolutely not. One does not

fast, just fasting.

Fasting is the means for a target.

The target of every Christian is

a. to level up spiritually

b. to mature

c. to move from

A lot of means are offered for this accession of the human being. Among other things is fasting.

But what does a human being do, when he fasts?

a. does he gain points for his credit?

b. does he get rights?

c. does he fight and ask for exchanges later on?

d. does he try to impress God?

Such a facing it

a. wrong

b. doomed

c. rejected

d. negative

from the very beginning.

He fights with fasting, because it

a. is God’s will

b. helps him

c. is necessary to him.

So our ascet fought with fasting. But God did not give him what he wanted. Even though it was good. Because there is the case, when someone can ask something wrong.

So he ascertains the failure of his attempt. And then he

a. remembers his brother

b. realises that he has someone, he can ask help from

c. understands that by himself is not enough

d. ascertains his own failure

e. understands that he cannot depend, only and

continuously, on his own personal powers.

f. Thinks it is foolish to insist on his first view and asks

the help of his neighbor.

g. Brings to his mind the phrase of the proverbs: “A

brother offended is harder to be won than a strong

city” (18:19).

But is it right to admit that we are not self-sufficient? Of course yes. Since we know that we do not … know everything.

The insistence on the view that we are self-sufficient is

a. problematic

b. destructive

c. anti-social

d. purely selfish.

But how does he compromise with what Apostle Paul

says “Having food and raiment let us be therewith content”

(I Tim.6:8).

It is clear that here Apostle Paul wants to help us

a. become frugal

b. be contented with little

c. be satisfied with what we have.

So he talks about self-sufficiency as

a. a virtue

b. a drag to waste

c. an obstacle to the wish for the acquisition of more

and more material goods.

Something else that is shown in our story, is the humbleness that the venerable father showed, when he tried to run to his fellow-being. He did not say

a. why? Who is he to help me?

b. where did he find the knowledge?

c. is he better than I am?

d. do I, the great and grand, ask the help of another

human being?

He need not even go the neighbor, because

a. God gave him the present

b. the victory was completed

c. egoism was defeated

d. the bad self was put aside

e. the right hierarchy was completed.

So what else is left to say? One and only.

By wanting to

a. problematise

b. move on ourselves

c. imitate the venerable father

d. copy him.

And we will be sure about the results.

Of course difficulties will arise. They will derive from

a. our environment

b. our own people

c. our self

d. the conditions of our life.

Let us not be abashed. And let us move on. The victory

is ours.

May be, of course, if it was one of us, we would be disappointed with the discovery that what we wanted did not come.

But disappointment does not mean

a. failure

b. deafeat

c. spiritual death

d. desperation

e. something not creative.

So keep disappointments away.

Let us move our target.

And God will help.

+Fr.G.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-23