“For if after they have escaped the pollution’s of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them then the beginning” (2 Peter 2:20).

Brethren, bright is the sun but brighter still are the words of the apostle. Brethren, the sun illumines bodies but it cannot illumine souls, while the apostolic words illumine the souls. The apostle clearly sees the heights and depths of a soul and he illumines it for us out of fervent love, in order to lead us on the pure path of salvation. In a few words, he gives us two great instructions. The first instruction: one cannot flee from the impurity of this world in any other way except through the knowledge of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. First of all, without knowledge of the Lord Jesus one is unable to see or to know the impurity of this world, and second, man is unable to be cleansed from this impurity without the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. The second instruction: when man flees from the impurity of this world by knowing the Lord Jesus and, again, becomes entangled in it, then for him “the latter end is worse than the beginning.” For knowing the light, he again returns into the darkness and the darkness becomes even darker, and, recognizing justice, he again sinks into injustice and his punishment is more severe; and recognizing holiness he again falls into beastliness and the animal is still more furious. The holy apostle does not hesitate to equate this turning back with a dog who returns to his own vomit and with the sow, who having been washed returns to wallow in the mire.

Whoever recognized the Lord Jesus Christ also recognized all that is needed for his salvation; he received a binocular to see the impurity, lies and injustice and received the power to flee from all of that. Therefore let him not turn back so that eternal death does not swallow him up. Let him not tempt God countless times. For if God was quick to save him the first time He will be slower the second time, and even slower the third time. My brethren, illuminating are the apostolic words.

O Lord Jesus, Savior, Almighty and All-Good, do not depart from us in the hours of our weaknesses and deliver us when the impurities of this world again draw us to themselves.

To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

Our family just lost my Uncle Ricky Mohr to a surprise aneurysm, and everyone is processing it differently.  I personally have had a profound sense of my mortality and of the mortality of beloved parents.  So I wanted to relay a thought that often goes through my mind at times like these, and put it in print for my loved ones sake and for my kids should they need to try to comprehend why their Dad was so sure in his faith, but never felt that there was a question that wasn’t worth asking God.

I do not believe at this time that my faith is a conviction in the sense that it is usually used.  I do not believe in God no matter what data might be shown to me otherwise.  I do not feel myself attacked by people questioning my faith or putting it down, and I find myself feeling no more justified when a friend picks it up or affirms it.  I have been there, but I do not find myself there anymore.   I am not saying that I have “moved on,” or “moved up,” or occupy any privileged position because of it.  I do not think that someone who still finds themselves upset or justified is somehow on a lower level, only that I am no longer feel the same (it may be for good or ill, time will tell).

There are a great many reasons to not believe in God, and I think many are quite valid.  I think that if I was told that God was the way that many have been told he is, then I too would not believe.  It is more than believing that there is a God, it is believing in a person with a personality, and there are a great many people, I am sure, who would like to deny that I exist on these grounds.  They are closer to the truth than they know.

Suffering poses the biggest problem I think among those who do not see God, and suffering poses the biggest problem for me in my relationship to God.  Perhaps that is why I do not feel rebuked or attacked by atheistic arguments and questions.  Our concern and awareness of suffering makes us brothers-in-arms against a single foe, and I am glad to have a fellow fighter.  Suffering, and especially death, short-circuits our system and leaves us scratching our heads, looking for answers, and wallowing in the meaninglessness of it all.  I do not deny the inherent meaninglessness of death, anyone who has faced it (and the closer we are to the deceased the more obvious it becomes) finds themselves standing at the edge of oblivion, emptiness spread for miles, and nothing to do but “go on.”  From this angle, it is easy, and even sensible to reject the idea of it being “God’s plan.”

I do not find that the “evidence for the existence of God,” helps matters, and is also not helpful in why I believe personally.  There is evidence, but like scientific evidence, it all depends on what rules constrain the find.  Where I see God, another would see a tree.  This does not bother me either.

The fact is that as far as I can tell, the concept of God is not a crutch.  Believing that there is a God does not alleviate the pain of losing a relative, or personal suffering.  Believing that there is a great plan that we are a part of gives one part “meaning” and 9 parts anger of being used to make a logical point.  We would not like it if a teacher made an example of us to the other students, and we do not like the idea of God doing it either.  The concept of God does not somehow drive out the obvious charge that while heaven may be nice, we would very much he rather just make earth like heaven, and not have sin, death, or disease.  You see God is not a crutch, He doesn’t make any of this logically or psychologically easier.

God actually makes it harder, strictly speaking.   As a Christian, it means that our Good and Loving God saw it all happen, and even though He could have worked a miracle, He didn’t.  God is not a crutch, heaven is not an excuse, and hell is not a threat.  All of this makes more great anti-theistic fodder, but as a Christian I can assure it it does not work that way.  It is far more of a crutch in my view to believe, “these things just happen,” or “we are merely animals,” or “everything dies.”  There is no one who could have done anything, and there never will be.

The reason that I believe in God is precisely because of all the reasons that are posited for His not existing.  I do not believe in spite of human suffering.  I do not believe in spite of death.  I believe simply because He is everywhere present and fills all things.  I believe because every time I have looked into the abyss of death, and every time I have looked at human suffering, I have seen Christ coming out.  Obviously I speak in allegory and metaphor here, but let me explain what I mean as best I can.

When we stare into the void, and I mean when we choose to go right into it like a child does without guarding the heart and trying to cover it over lest the emotion immobilize us, the heart lights up.  It becomes pure fire.  It hurts so deeply, so truly, that at that very moment there is nothing there to feel but our love.  The more love the heart has, the more it burns at the pain and suffering of those we love.  The saints often speak of this burning for everyone throughout the world.  The heart has enlarged to include more people than ourselves.  At this moment we are jolted out of the animalistic habit  of fulfilling our own needs and desires, and find that our heart is so full of someone else, or many other persons, that our heart belongs less to us and more to them.  The self-preservation instinct reverses itself, and man becomes as he was made to be, one living for the other.

So what has this to do with God?  When we meet God (for that is the real reason I believe) we find Him doing the opposite of the god of our imagination.  In our imagination we would have God standing over our loved one, raising him whole from the grave, and causing every knee to bow because “he can even command death.”  However, in the suffering of mankind we do not find God there, quite possibly ever.  We find God in these moments as co-sufferer.  Belief in Christ is not merely belief that God can raise the dead (though this is our faith), rather belief in Christ means not only that God can raise the dead, but that he does it by entering wherever we are (and even becoming closer than we to ourselves) and descending still deeper.  We do not see God standing far off and commanding a reversal, but we see God descending all the way to death and beyond, nearer than we to ourselves, to come and get us.  He does not fear sin, but becomes sin for us.  He does not fear death, but becomes death for us.  He does not fear the judgment, but submits himself for judgment.  He does not fear these things because the one that He loves is in there and He aims to bring Him out.

This is where death’s meaninglessness is confronted.  For as death stands as enemy of God, it stands also as the enemy of meaning, the enemy of the “plan,” the enemy of the outcome for which we were meant.  This enemy stands opposed to God, and before this enemy God offers himself and enters directly into his clutches.  Following the metaphor, as God stands in deaths prison with all of his beloved whom death has taken captive he descends deeper still to be chained with them, bound with them, and left alone with them.  In death’s prison Christ stands, like Shakespeare’s Henry V,

    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
    And rouse himself at Great and Holy Pascha.

    He that shall live this day, and see old age,
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
    And say ‘To-morrow is Great and Holy Pascha (Easter)
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
    And say ‘These wounds I had on Great and Holy Pascha (Easter).’

And in a great moment, unwilling that death, suffering, or disease should hold any longer, he ascends taking us with Him.  Now, we would very much like it if we did not need to descend at all, but that is not God’s method. For Christ desires much more than to vanquish death that it be gone, but to enter into it that all things might be filled with the grace and love of God.  He does not promise us that we will not suffer, because God himself descended to instill himself in all things, that on that last day there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide when He walks among us in the cool of the day. Thus, death is infused with Life Himself, and  meaninglessness is charged through with meaningfulness.  On that day shall we who die be his brothers, he we ne’er so vile.

    And Great and Holy Pascha shall ne’er go by,
    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

It is at this that every knee will bow in heaven and on earth, not because it is forced to, but because it could not really do otherwise in the face of such love.

Now many will still see in this wishful thinking on my part, and crazy hopefulness against hope.  Again, that is fine.  There is only one reason that I am so sure of what I am saying, I see it.  Many will say, “I do not see what you see.”  And to this I can only reply, “that is very interesting.”  However, I cannot deny what I do see.  That love overcomes the grave by going into the grave.  That adversity among mankind is answered by the love of those who give themselves to living with the suffering in their suffering to lift them out as far as they can.  In this I see God.  Perhaps more importantly to the topic at hand, is the fact that God descends ever deeper. Many of us looking for Him have looked up for Him standing afar off observing.  We missed Him.  For myself, I descended once and came face to face with Him, His Mother, the Saints, and now I begin to notice that in order to see Him more deeply I must descend further still.

It is hard to find a humble man, not because there are so few (though there are), but because they do not stand where eyes are looking.  How much more with an infinitely humble God?

*My apologies to Shakespeare for ruining his meter and superior poetry, but many thanks to you Shakespeare for expressing such deep truth to us all.

First, the most obvious matter is that in order to be in communion with the saints we must walk as they walked, in the mouth of death itself.  That is to say, we must lay down our lives and look to the lives of others.  We must think, not how might this help me, or further my cause, but how might this help my neighbor, spouse, or child, reach the kingdom of heaven.  Then, walking into death itself, actually give ourselves up in order to help them reach that goal.  Not living for ourselves, we live for one another.

Second, our battle at that point is rewarded with reinforcements.  The saints and angels are then found to be rolling that great stone away with us.  This is their battle.  It is like working out in a sense (as I am doing once again [I always get spritual lessons when I am working my body - go figure]).  When we work out we work the muscles that we are going to use for a certain purpose.  I am doing lifting, jumping, stretching, etc, for an over all fitness goal, while Manny Pacquaio (the amazing boxer that I read about yesterday) focuses almost entirely on stamina exercises, and spends virtually no time lifting in comparison.  I need to get to a basic level of fitness, but after a certain point the body specializes in certain activities so that it can do a better job.  A baseball player hits, runs, catches and throws, even Manny Pacquaio could not do those things as well as a AA ball player probably.

In relation to the angels and saints their strength is in virtuous work (pardon the bad analogy of course).  They seem to be distant when we are working ourselves into a frenzy in ungodly activity or thought.  When we rely upon ourselves and insist on our own way.  Not because they lack love, but in a sense, they have no experience in that arena.  Now, they are highly skilled at fighting against these passions, and in as much as we battle those they battle with us.  When we begin to prefer these ways of living, however, they simply let us have at it.  I am better at following my passions and my own willfulness then St. Christopher is.  He helps me, but in the way that he knows how, and in this case it would be actually praying against what I am doing.  He works against me for me.

So, it is interesting to me that when we willingly walk into death, we actually receive life, help, and joy (from God) through the common bond of a common goal with the saints and angels.  We make this trip into death hell by seeking our own and cutting ourselves off from the strength of our reinforcing troops (so to speak).

The wind was blowing off and on, but quite forcefully, as Emmy, Bella, Liliana, Erin, my Mom and I walked.  Every couple minutes one or more of us would say, “aw it got me,” or some variation on the theme.  The candles were blowing out.  Emmy did the best, hers only went out once, a thing she was quite proud of.

It occurred to me though, that this was another one of these “life sized parables.”  We are given families to relight our candles.  Each time one candle went out, someone else could light it, and I just couldn’t help but notice how true it is throughout my life.  Thought I might share it with you too.

When I was done she asked if she could sit with me while I read. “No Emmy, I don’t think that is a very good idea,” I replied, at which she began to question my decision. Eventually she couldn’t take no any longer, and began to cry, “I just want to cuddle.”

Now I am not heartless, and I wanted to let her out from the beginning, but something told me that she was very, very tired. Also, her little sister, who could go to sleep at 8 if hr big sister would ever let her, would have wanted to come out too. 9:30 is far too late for little B to be out of bed. I had to say no for her own good, and for the good of her little sister.

She cried and cried sitting at her spot in the gate. I could hardly watch and stay my course but I did. I was reading the Book of Joshua, and it occurred to me that this was a living parable. There she sat, crying and pleading that her daddy would allow her to join him in his evening rituals. She was not necessarily being patient, by any means, but she was actively seeking me and my heart was moved with compassion and a real desire to let her enjoy a cuddle before she headed off to sleep. This was to be the position of my soul before God.

Do I wait and the gate and plead with Him with true desire? Or, do I choose the path of instant gratification, seeking my own way for its own sake, and instead of pleading to join Him from love, turn to a way of life that I am in charge of? Do I seek Him out of total love and devotion so much so that when he is distant I can do nothing but sorrow?

On the other hand, is he like I was in this scenario? Willing and ready to grant the request as far as He is concerned, but knowledgeable of the danger that would pose for my well-being. Is God’s heart moved when I plead, though He must deny my request out of love? Does He hear, but gird up His heart (so to speak), in order to direct me to the things that are good for me awaiting the time when he will, in fact, let me in?

At the end of the ordeal I called Emmy to me. She came out of the gate, sniffling but joyful. “Emmy, I wanted to let you out, but I couldn’t,” I explained, “because I thought you were too tired. Actually, I was going to let you come cuddle if you played quietly in your bed until your sister was asleep. Then, I would know you weren’t really tired, and your sister wouldn’t be kept up by you leaving her room. Your crying proved that I was right, and that you are too tired right now. Go back to bed, and I will see you in the morning.”

God handles me better than I handle my daughter for certain, but is this one of those life-size parables?

Often as I read the Psalms I find myself able to identify with Israel and her struggles and failures, as one person embodying in my fractured self the life of this ancient kingdom.  In me I can find the prophets that speak of the law, of the covenant of my baptism, of the love and severity of God, and in me I can find the fractured sufferers of a kingdom ruled by false prophets, priests and kings.  I am a divided kingdom.  Good kings come and go, and at the root is a fractured soul routed by enemies both within and without.

Today my reading schedule put me in Acts 2 where I read this, “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.”  This passage describes well the life of my own soul and the salvation that I long for by faith.

I have been baptized and have received the communion of the Holy Spirit by the grace of God the Father and through the loving-kindness of His eternal Son.  Still, I find myself grieving Him in my inner life.  I cause Him to suffer in me many losses and to suffer with me in the deepest sense of the word.  I have nailed Him to the cross and I have put Him to death.

On the other hand, it is the power of God in which I hope.  Because “God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.”  My sin is not capable of routing Christ in my life.  Obviously there is free will, and I am free to deny Him and he will leave as asked, but there is hope in the faith, no matter the amount or strength, that Christ will not be routed from my struggle or lose in my inner battle so long as I hope in Him.  I may suffer all kinds of loss, but He will not lose ground.  Why do I have this hope? Because it is not possible for Him to be held by its power.

He will be faithful, though I be faithless, for it is not possible that He should be held by the power of any sin in anyone.  To God be the praise and glory forever!

It is easy to look at salvation, or discussions about it, as between one person who thinks they “get” it and one person they want to “give it to.”  It is perceived then as a self-righteous power play.  One person has everything so well figured out that the other person should not only listen to them, but should do what they say.  In my article yesterday I spoke of baptism and salvation, and I realized this morning that salvation is so often used in this false way, that talking about baptism that way may have been a bit flippant and sounding self-righteous.  I’d like to take a step back and think through this out loud with you.

To be a saved person is to be a person in union with God.  Union with God occurs when the Spirit of God dwells in a person, and that person dwells in the Spirit of God.  Saint Paul speaks of it thus in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” David says it another way, ““You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.” Both of these authors speak of the same thing, describing only slightly differently.  To be saved is to be truly what we were made to be.  To be saved is to be a new creation.  To be saved is to be truly a person in the fullness of the word.  To be saved is to be a “god” and a “son of the most high.”

So when an Orthodox Christian speaks of salvation, he speaks in these terms.  “Going to heaven when you die,” is not what salvation is, though going to dwell eternally with God is certainly “salvation.”  Perhaps a western way to put it (and i know no other way being a westerner) would be, if I go to heaven when I die, I will be saved then, but that says nothing about whether I am saved now.  A saved person is not a person who will go to heaven when they die.  A saved person is a person who has heaven in him now.

Thus, when the Church speaks of there being no salvation outside the Church, She means simply that there is no way to have heaven in you in the present without being submerged in it, eating it, drinking it, being sprinkled with it, and communing in it through prayer and fellowship (with the saints before and present) .  No salvation outside the Church does not mean other people will go to heaven when they die, truly St. Justin Martyr celebrated Socrates as a non-Jewish person living in the Old Testament who knew God.  No Salvation outside the Church means that the Church is where Jesus enters and abides in us.  We may be saved on the last day, but why wait?

Getting more specific, children receive Baptism, Chrismation (Confirmation) and Holy Communion, why?  Because they need to be in union with God.  Baptism and Chrismation (Confirmation) submerge and anoint the child with heaven itself.  It is not that the child is broken and needs fixed, its that we want for them in their first days to have what we all long for all our days, union with the divine life.   Children, in truth, are more fit for heaven and more able to seek God than adults, for this reason we are confident in their salvation.

A baptized person like myself has no right to hang my “salvation” over another however.  Yes, I was saved (united with God) at baptism, but am I uniting my body, soul, spirit, and will to his now?  As we grow and mature we gain more abilities, and those abilities have to be incorporated into our relationships.  When we are young, our family is by birth, our friends are by birth (friends of family), etc. As we grow we choose our friends and even choose what kind of relationship we will have with our family.  This is not different with God.  Salvation is to be united to God.  The sacraments, the services of the Church, the icons, are all intended to facilitate growth in the relationship (salvation).  But, it is up to us.

Thus, the question “do you know where you would go if you died now?” is not a question of whether a person is saved. It is a question of whether they think they WILL be one day.  “Are you saved?” is a question about the nature and maturity of someone’s relationship with God.  This is why I think it is so offensive to us.  The answer to that question when it comes from a stranger is “none of your business.”  When it comes from a friend, perhaps there is some discussion, but the answer is probably not “yes,” without some caveats.

The easiest and most assured way to receive the life of God is the sacraments.  The easiest and most secure way to maintain it is to learn from the saints and what they have done to cultivate the love of God in themselves.  Salvation without the Church would simply be feeling around in the dark that haply we might find Him.

To summarize what I am trying to get at, salvation is not about going to heaven when you die, but about union of body, soul and spirit with the divine (Christ).  Baptism and the other sacraments are objective ways to imbibe heaven (Christ).  The way we live and die is a matter of working out that energy put into us by imbibing heaven (Christ).  Whether I go to heaven when I die is a valid concern, but it is of just as much concern to me whether I am saved (in union with God).

Well the Bible doesn’t exactly make the issue perfectly clear.  Saint Peter says at Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Now, of course, there is a simple meaning to this passage.  We receive forgiveness of sins at baptism and receive the Holy Spirit, but over the course of our life we can walk in the faith of the Holy Spirit, or fall away.  Thus, salvation is tied to walking by faith.  Simple.  I find this explanation in some ways a bit too simple, in as much as I do not walk by faith, seem to not have the ability to make the trip by faith, and based on previous experience have every reason to believe that if salvation is up to my faithfulness, there is absolutely no hope.  Either something significant much change, or I will fall.  Now that is simple.

At its worst, a misunderstanding of the Scriptures and of the Orthodox way leads to depression and giving up.  If salvation depends upon me, then salvation is unattainable.  I think in this misunderstanding, depression is inevitable.  So, how can we avoid despair.

Well, there is another side to this “simple” meaning that I often lose sight of, but I was reminded of it this morning.  He who is at work in you, is greater than he who is in the world.  At baptism we receive the Holy Spirit, and with this life we receive new life “salvation.”  It is unequivocally true that he who is baptized is saved. Now, that person may fall away and not attain to final beatitude, but at Baptism he was given the very life of God in himself, and in truth in him was implanted a new version of himself.  Now this self is not actually new, it is actually the real self that lies deep within, but Christ having opened the door to this self by the Holy Spirit, has removed the sword from the garden and invited the baptized in.  This is salvation.

Now the soul must make the trip to the heart to recover himself (so to speak), and it is this trip for which I am not equipped. I am saved at baptism.  That’s simple enough.  But, the walk I have ahead of me is much too hard for my own feet, and my brokenness gives way much sooner than expected.  I am not able to make the trip to receive the benefit of Christ’s salvation.

Now, I am at a crossroads.  The narrow road ahead of me promises a perfect end IF I can get there, while the broad road presents a destructive road that I can see (or foresee as the case may be).  As it happens, there are angels and saints all along the narrow road who can show me the way and encourage my trip.  These saints and angels can, in fact, see the narrow road because they have made the walk before me.  Whereas, along the broad road, there are bones and abandoned camps as far the eye can see, no one has traversed this road to its end point, but many have traversed it, to be sure.  The thing that is deceiving is not the end, it is the means.

At this fork in the road there is no deception as to what the end will be, or how to get there.  The deception, the mirage in my eyes, is that there is a crossroads at all, and that there is a narrow pathway in front of me.  In actual fact, the way is Christ Himself.  Choosing the way, is to choose Christ.  If I choose the broad road, i choose the mirage.  And while I may choose the narrow road as a mirage, what I have actually chosen is Christ.  This is salvation.

During the trip, as hard as it may be, I am accompanied by fellow-travellers, saints, angels, and the theotokos.  Each of these, in as much as the life that God gave them has enveloped every bit of their being, these too are Christ.  In me is Christ, the way is Christ, the saints are Christ (it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me).  This is salvation.

The mirage, the illusion, is that synergy depends upon me.  The illusion is that “works” are my works, and that salvation is dependent upon “me.”  In actual fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth.  We are saved by faith in Christ. It is customary for Orthodox to say that Christ came and opened the way of salvation.  This is very true, of course.  But, for an ex-protestant who doesn’t understand that the Church has the hymn “God is the Lord, and He has revealed himself unto us.”  He has revealed Himself in His incarnation and pointed us to repentance (the way)  and Baptism (the imparting of Himself to us).  He then points us to communion and confession (himself), and the life of prayer, fasting, and feasting (himself).  He points us to his mother and the saints (whom He so lives in that they say themselves, it is not I, but Christ who lives in me).

The passions seem so real, but are in fact nothing.  There is nothing in them, no kingdom, no power, no glory.  As Lewis says in the Great Divorce, the problem with speaking of hell is that is so close to nothing.  Our sin is nothing, our passion are nothing, our life is nothing on this path but a ghost of a life.  Still heaven awaits beneath a light gleam of the water of the baptismal font, it disguises itself as a narrow way, it presents itself in bread, wine, wheat, and oil.  It presents itself as prayer, fasting, feasting, and fighting the passions.  But, if we do not forget it, these things are Christ.

If you will be baptized you shall be saved.  If you will call on the name of the Lord, you shall be saved.  If you confess the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, then you shall be saved.  All of this is true, because in each of this cases it is Christ that we cling to.

It occurred to me, as I was listening to Matins this morning, that the temptation that the Christian undergoes,the struggle that he has, and the defeats that he suffers from time to time are , in fact, redemptive in as much as they are suffered because of our love for Christ.  When we pursue Christ for self-help we close off the circuit and short-circuit the system, as it were, thereby turning our struggle into a personal hell.  On the other hand, in the moments when we seek a particular course out of love for Christ, or another person, then the circuit opens and the suffering and sacrifice becomes redemptive.

Any sin that we may commit, if we are willing to lay it down for the sake of the world (for Christ indirectly) or for Christ (directly), that sacrifice and subsequent struggle that ensues as we dislodge ourselves (or Christ in us dislodges us) becomes a redemptive, life-giving struggle.  So if a man lays down a pornography habit because he wants to be a better man, this, though commendable perhaps, may not have the redemptive quality that laying it down for his wife, children, or out of a deeper respect for women in general would have.  Seeking a kinder disposition because we are unhappy with our way, is not redemptive, though it may help us become more “positive”.  If we seek a kinder disposition because we are desirous to not damage others as we have, or because we want to show those around us our love instead of our discontent, or because we want to emulate someone we love, is redemptive for us and for others.  The difference is love.

Whether this is the Metropolitan’s point I am not sure, judge for yourselves.  But, as I thought on it today, I wanted to put it somewhere I would not forget it.