Lock us up in a cell; feed us through a window on a few Prosphroras a day. Would that make a difference? Make some of us saints or ascetics, maybe? In our real lives, no one is locking us up. We are doing it to ourselves, voluntarily.
In a few moments, we will begin the Moleben for the preservation of God's creation. Our selfishness and exorbitant demands bring destruction to our habitats, our homes and ultimately ourselves. Floods, hurricanes and fires are all over the news. We hear about the number of fires put out or the number of planes and people involved. In the Moleben, we talk about repentance, reforming our lives and returning to God. We live in a Christian country, but we are not any more likely to hear any of these mentioned in the news. The news is rich in details and facts but leaves out the essential things.
There is no better time to pray for our schoolchildren and students than at the start of the academic year. They all need our prayers and support. Already, the world is telling us that one can teach without the teacher - a fast computer is just as good. But what will our children achieve without interacting with their teachers, and learning to trust and love them? The separation of students and teachers is a terrifying prospect.
To embrace God's endless love, we must humble ourselves. Instead, we indulge in our pride, tormenting ourselves and others. We isolate ourselves from God because we are too afraid to trust Him. We feel we do not know Him well enough. That is because we have not genuinely met Him. Yet having such a meeting is vital. Meeting God changes our view of the world. We begin to see it as a whole, not a collection of isolated fragments. Our life and our world extend beyond all imaginable limits. We begin our preparation for eternity by letting God in our present lives, and by doing so, we exist in two dimensions. "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s," as we read in the Gospel. By giving to God what is God's, we move closer to our goal of everlasting life.
No written law diminishes the freedom of a Christian, but Christians are law-abiding. We are not constrained by any external limits, but we set limits for ourselves. Let us keep paying attention to what we do and how we live. Let us not lose from our sight the meaning of our life and every day of it.
And let us never stop giving our thanks to our Lord.
