This is an excellent summation of the three stages of the spiritual life. I'm currently reading "Remember Thy First Love" By Archimandrite Zaccharias (slowly!). I suspect I've hit the 2nd stage a couple of times in the past, but not understanding, I shrunk back into the illusory comforts of sin. Thankfully, God, in His great mercy, rescued me and set me back on the path. Feeling the pains of stage 2 again now, but with a better understanding of what's going on. Lord have mercy.
Maybe this writing is factually accurate, but it can be like handing a Calculus 3 textbook to a kindergartener struggling to tears just to make his numbers. Part of the power of Orthodoxy is, at its best, the personal guidance and level-appropriate instruction. C.S. Lewis' statement (I paraphrase his paraphrase) "All that can be shaken will be shaken, and only the unshakable will remain," is powerful and true. Maybe it IS a good thing to learn from writings like this that shaking WILL come...and when it comes it comes it may not be a slight tremor. There may come a time in our lives when God and Providence literally no longer make sense; when the floor falls out from under us and our reality and even our sense of ourselves and who and what God IS is completely destroyed. We hang onto faith by our fingernails...and that is slipping. Perhaps forewarned is forearmed. At the same time, I think writings like this need to be introduced with great care, and at the right time. Although Orthodoxy seems to shy away from it, even Jesus stumbled under the weight of the cross and needed someone to help him lift it again....not pile additional weight and fear on him. Jesus did not come to break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax, but to repair the one and fan the second into life again.
This is an excellent summation of the three stages of the spiritual life. I'm currently reading "Remember Thy First Love" By Archimandrite Zaccharias (slowly!). I suspect I've hit the 2nd stage a couple of times in the past, but not understanding, I shrunk back into the illusory comforts of sin. Thankfully, God, in His great mercy, rescued me and set me back on the path. Feeling the pains of stage 2 again now, but with a better understanding of what's going on. Lord have mercy.
Maybe this writing is factually accurate, but it can be like handing a Calculus 3 textbook to a kindergartener struggling to tears just to make his numbers. Part of the power of Orthodoxy is, at its best, the personal guidance and level-appropriate instruction. C.S. Lewis' statement (I paraphrase his paraphrase) "All that can be shaken will be shaken, and only the unshakable will remain," is powerful and true. Maybe it IS a good thing to learn from writings like this that shaking WILL come...and when it comes it comes it may not be a slight tremor. There may come a time in our lives when God and Providence literally no longer make sense; when the floor falls out from under us and our reality and even our sense of ourselves and who and what God IS is completely destroyed. We hang onto faith by our fingernails...and that is slipping. Perhaps forewarned is forearmed. At the same time, I think writings like this need to be introduced with great care, and at the right time. Although Orthodoxy seems to shy away from it, even Jesus stumbled under the weight of the cross and needed someone to help him lift it again....not pile additional weight and fear on him. Jesus did not come to break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax, but to repair the one and fan the second into life again.