Author: prayerfullife7

August 29

Jacob’s well (John 4:5-15) is Scripture. The water is the spiritual knowledge found in Scripture. The depth of the well is the meaning, only to be attained with great difficulty, of the obscure sayings in Scripture. The bucket is learning gained from the written text of the word of God, which the Lord did not possess because He is the Logos Himself; and so He does not give believers the knowledge that comes from learning and study, but grants to those found worthy the ever-flowing waters of wisdom that spill from the fountain of spiritual grace and never run dry. For the bucket–that is to say, learning–can only grasp a very small amount of knowledge and leaves behind all that it cannot lay hold of, however it tries. But the knowledge which is received through grace, without study, contains all the wisdom that man can attain, springing forth in different ways according to his needs.

~St Maximos the Confessor

The Astounding Words of Job

The Lord gives and the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord.

A better man than I spoke these words many years ago.

Although I must admit I love the way they roll off the tongue.

 

Blessed be the name of the Lord—

even though He allowed my life to be torn asunder.

 

Though He gave me my life,

He’ll also allow it to be taken,

along with all the others.

 

How strange.

 

The armies of despair have camped round about me,

and are knocking at the door.

I’ve fought them off with prayer and with hope,

with tears and with sincerity,

with everything I’ve known to do,

and yet here they are again.

 

There are five stages of grief, I’ve read about them;

in fact I read Kubler-Ross preemptively,

to get a jump on grief, and get a head start to healing,

so I could defeat despair and be whole.

 

But here they are—

the armies of despair knocking at my door,

threatening to tear me down.

 

The Lord gives and the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Can you imagine saying this and meaning it?

How strange and how beautiful.

 

Speaking of the stages of grief, I did them all;

and then I did them again,

and then I did them backwards,

and then I did the first one, skipped to the fourth,

backtracked to the second and then the third,

and wrapped it up with the fifth.

 

And then I did that in reverse order just to be thorough.

 

But here we are; despair and I looking at each other through the peephole.

 

Somebody has got to blink.

 

Am I just a toy on a string for the heavenly powers to play with?

Is it fun to watch me bleed, and then to bind me up;

and then to bleed me yet again?

 

Job, how can you say it—

can you teach me how to say it too?

And to really mean it?

 

~FS

August 27

The soul has three powers: the intelligence, the incensive power and desire. With our intelligence we direct our search; with our desire we long for that supernal goodness which is the object of our search; and with our incensive power we fight to attain our object. With these powers those who love God cleave to the divine principle of virtue and spiritual knowledge. Searching with the first power, desiring with the second, and fighting by means of the third, they receive incorruptible nourishment, enriching the intellect with the spiritual knowledge of created beings.

~St Maximos the Confessor

Love’s Pure Light

There is something so simple and so sublime

in the beauty of love expressed, from one to another,

which we are gifted to witness,

which touches our hearts

and causes them to well up with abundant gratitude,

both for the one who has given their love,

and also for the one who has received it.

We love them both all the more for it.

 

There is a love too difficult to bear.

Is there?

I am thinking of a love that pierces our hearts;

that can cause our souls to bleed, if they could.

This is a love that overwhelms our senses,

which can scarcely be contained,

as if the fabric of our being is starting to tear, and to come apart;

for which all the tears ever cried will burst forth in a flood of joy and pain—

as if we are giving birth to life, to an idea, to a new world within us,

and for each other.

 

Is there a love that can reveal the depths and the heights of life to us simultaneously?

Is it possible for us

to plumb down into the heart of the earth while also soaring through the clouds?

We have light, and sound, form and movement

given freely to us from the hand of God,

all of which fill us with this kind of love—

an excruciating magnanimity.

 

This life, so solid and bright;

it fills us with laughter and beauty;

a light reflecting from the shapes of our loves.

In this we move about and have our being.

This life, so paper thin and fragile;

a tear in the paper can take these forms away;

as they fall into the shifting shadows and disappear.

 

How can this life be so wide, so expansive and stretch us so far?

It is an exquisite radiance with a numbing darkness intertwined.

How I wish that it were pure light.

 

~FS

August 25

Since man is composed of body and soul, he is moved by two laws, that of the flesh and that of the Spirit (Romans 7:23). The law of the flesh operates by virtue of the senses; the law of the Spirit operates by virtue of the intellect. The first law, operating by virtue of the senses, automatically binds one closely to matter; the second law, operating by virtue of the intellect, brings about direct union with God.

~St Maximos the Confessor

The Time of Our Lives

What a beautiful day!

 

It’s sunny, it’s rainy,

it’s cold or it’s hot,

it’s what we had wanted,

or else it is not—

 

It doesn’t get any better than this,

we are having the time of our lives.

 

In all things be joyful,

in all things be thankful,

in all things praise our God—

 

for making us,

and setting us,

in this time and place.

 

This is the time of our lives.

 

We’re sad and we’re happy,

we’ve lost and we’ve gained,

we’re old and we’re young,

in health and in pain—

 

This is the time of our lives.

 

From everlasting to everlasting,

from beginning to end;

Was, and Is, and Is To Come—

and nothing new, here under the sun.

 

They had their fun, and they’ll have it too,

just as we do—

we’ll all have this time of our lives.

 

Don’t wait for tomorrow—

do it today!

The Kingdom at hand—

seize the day!

 

The time in our lives,

when Christ arrives–

Now it will be,

 

The time of our lives!

 

~FS

August 24

Suppose there is someone who does not doubt in his heart (Mark 11:23)–that is to say, who does not dispute in his intellect–and through such doubt sever that immediate union with God which has been brought about by faith, but who is dispassionate or, rather, has already become god through union with God by faith: then it is quite natural that if such a person says to a mountain, ‘Go to another place’, it will go (Matthew 17:20). The mountain here indicates the will and the law of the flesh, which is ponderous and hard to shift, and in fact, so far as our natural powers are concerned, is totally immovable and unshakable.

~St Maximos the Confessor

August 23

The capacity for unintelligence is rooted so deeply in human nature through the senses that the majority think that man is nothing more than flesh, which possesses sense faculties so that he can enjoy this present life.

The Lord said, ‘First seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33), that is, seek the knowledge of truth before all things, and therefore seek training in appropriate methods of attaining it. In saying this, He showed clearly that believers must seek only divine knowledge and the virtue which adorns it with corresponding actions.

~St Maximos the Confessor

 

***There is a new podcast on Ancient Faith Radio entitled, The Patristics Podcast which is very good, and I encourage anyone interested in the writing of the early church fathers to give it a try at:

http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/patristicspodcast