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VoL 5, No 2 |
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VoL 5, No 2 |
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FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS |
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MODERN SOCIETY IS GODLESS-
Godless not because man doesn't need God, but because he forgets God, being
too busy with his earthly pursuits. Forgetfulness of God causes self-centeredness
and self-indulgence, and thus insensitivity. Insensitivity produces only
loneliness. Self-centeredness results in the ever-increasing emptiness
of self-worship. When man estranges himself from God, the source of life,
his life on earth becomes meaningless except for his pursuit of self-gratification.
But since the soul by its nature needs God it finds its self-imposed loneliness
unbearable, and it spirals into dissatisfaction, despondency, and despair.
Depression is a kind of self-induced boredom, coupled with an inclination to live as the world would have us do to spend our life attempting to build a worldly paradise. This "paradise" that we create for ourselves turns out not to be paradise at all. Rather it is a cage imprisoning the human spirit. Thus the soul of modern man, like a bird, is caught in a golden cage of materialism and self-indulgence. It cannot but despair in its imprisonment. Adapted from the Introduction to Conquering
Depression, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, St. Paisius Abbey, Forestville,
California, L995.
IF YOU SUFFER LOSSES AND DAMAGES, and there is no one on whom to rest your worried head, your faith will protect you from all gloomy thoughts and cares and will keep telling you how everything that has slipped out of your hand has fallen into the hand of your Father, Who possesses all the riches and all the properties and all the goods of all creation.
Your faith protects you in sickness and from sickness, in trouble and
from trouble, in darkness and from darkness, in despair and from despair,
in loneliness and from loneliness, in death and from death. Even from death
your faith protects you and will defend you -- truly, even from death.
And the atheists do not even know that there is a defense against death,
because atheism is a living death. From that living death your faith defends
and guards you.
YOU WRITE THAT YOU SOMETIMES WEAKEN
to the point of cowardice and even sometimes to that of despair. Know that
there are two principal tricks of the enemy: to attack the Christian either
with pride and conceit or with cowardice and despair. St. John Climacus
writes that one clever ascetic fought off these tricks of the enemy by
using the enemy's own weapons. When they brought him to despair, he would
say to himself and his enemies, "How is it that not long ago you praised
me to pride?" and by this he fought off the evil design of the enemy. If
the enemy switched sides and began to praise him, and gave grounds for
pride and conceit, the elder would answer: "How is it that not Long ago
you brought me to despair? This is self-contradictory.'' In this way this
ascetic with the help of God fought off the tricks of the enemy by using
the enemy's own weapons, using one against the other at the right time.
VERY OFTEN WE INVENT THINGS from the past to explain why we are in a certain mood, rather than warring with it. This is wrong! This is a sin! This is playing with the demons. We have been given freedom. Depression is an invitation to the devil.
If you weep over yourself in egotism, you will go to hell. Without
struggle, life becomes a burden. St. Laurence of Chernigov said that the
end of the world will come when the number of saints replaces the number
of fallen angels. If there are no more saints, the world will drag on in
its pitiable, miserable, squalid existence. We are called to become saints
and nothing less.
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