We can either spend our lives swimming against the current…against the flow…against the complacency…so that we can move towards the source of Life…or we give up. We let our passions take control. We refuse to change. We refuse to live humble lives and we get swept up by the flow and carried to our own spiritual death.
Although truth is a heavenly thing and all should love it, in a faithfulness and corrupt era, if there’s anything that people hate, turn away from, and even persecute…it’s the truth. Just as someone whose sight is damaged by the sun finds the sun burdensome and wishes to live in a dark place, evil and corrupt people want to live in sin and ignorance, which is the terrible darkness of the soul.
-Bishop Augustinos of Florina
That child-like joy and innocence that we experienced during the Feast of Christmas…the tears of happiness that we saw in the eyes of those in the nursing home when we sang on Christmas Morning…that special feeling that somehow makes Christmas Day stand out from all of the rest: Take it all, bottle it up like Holy Water, and sprinkle it throughout the next 365 days. All of that joy, all of those smiles, and the glorious reality that is the coming of Christ cannot cease in our hearts once the Christmas Tree has been taken down.
In an Orthodox Funeral for a departed loved one, there is a very pointed and direct verse that is said by the priest, that always sticks with me, even after I move on to the next few verses:
Let us go forth and gaze into the graves, for man is naked bones, food for the worms, and stench. Only thenwill we learn of what are true riches, and comeliness, beauty, and strength!
Why does that verse hit so hard those who hear it? Because it is a pure does of truth that so many in the world, especially living in our material driven society, do not want to admit: The desire to gain money, power, and wealth, those things which the world holds so dear, are meaningless to the existence of mankind.
