Echoes in my memory! I was ruminating after the end of the Soviet Union, contemplating what life is about, how people could pursue one way, then switch to another way, (And the way of consumerism has no more fulfilment than communism) when I chanced upon the sermon on the mount. I read "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth...... But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also". In that instant I had that same awakening of self-aware anger. Wholeheartedly agree with your point - if I had read the sermon on the mount some other time, I would have glossed right over it as hippy mumbo jumbo not applicable to real life. As it was, a lightning bolt of realisation of how much I was wasting my life lit my mind up. The right moment, the right context, and above all, I would suggest, "seeking" is of paramount importance to spiritual awareness. If you ain't lookin', you ain't gonna find.

@GregoryBSadler

2 жыл бұрын

That's pretty strange to be so black and white about whether a piece of writing means anything, especially one found in the Gospels.

@johnmccormick8765

2 жыл бұрын

@@GregoryBSadler I'm agreeing with your point that context and timing are important, not whether the item being read has any particular meaning. Although I am adding that the reader also needs to be seeking rather than simply consuming for some other motive like study or research.

i like that you still start every core concepts video by saying its a 'new series' even though youve been doing these for several years now haha

@GregoryBSadler

2 жыл бұрын

It’s the same sound clip

I think one can admire the desert fathers as exemplars, and yet not claim that Jesus was real, and the only son of god. The life of Anthony is very interesting. In it, St. Athanasius states (I paraphrase) that god became man so that man could become god. This is close to what Feuerbach said in "The essence of Christianity", with his anthropotheism, though somehow I suspect that the desert fathers would not like Feuerbach's book. I have many doctrines, practices and names going through my mind at the moment. I have read Cassian's conferences with my wife within the last 6 months. Suddenly I want to reread the philokalia.( I am presently rereading a history of Russian thought from Catherine II to 1905). Yes, let's live like St. Anthony. Let's have a house devoted to study, and perhaps prayer (if prayer can mean silence, then yes...prayer). (though some of us may have a disciplined practice of vocal prayer). Every time you say Ponticianus I think of Evagrius Ponticus! The story is not about us, but applies to us? Yes. While I have wandered, my boat always tacked to a single point on the other side. The goal of life is wisdom. This involves knowledge and character, and both go to support the other. Go sit n your cell, your cell will teach you everything. Particularly if you have a library, and an internet connection ( there goes the practice of silence..)

@GregoryBSadler

2 жыл бұрын

Athansius' idea of theosis is vastly different than Feuerbach's. So no, the desert fathers wouldn't be into any of his books