Sweet Nothings

photo by The Black Workshop

(Click here to listen to the music where the post title gets its name)
I haven't written anything on here in a while. Here are some thoughts penned down at the halfway mark of Lent.

I recently listened to a podcast regarding the use of secular literature, or indeed things within each culture of every age for redemption and how the "anti-intellectualism" of Christianity is essentially a myth. I also read a very interesting blog about how the eventual salvation of all things may not be heresy, per se; it may just be a specific doctrine of it (just as we Orthodox do not condemn a creed just a certain version of the creed).

This has been getting me thinking about something I always remind myself of, especially when I screw up:

All things are redeemable. 

This does not mean that there are no consequences for our actions but rather that even those consequence can be worked for our good and the good of those around us. Rest assured that when you do something you shouldn't, what you suffer isn't fun but it also isn't the end.

Apart from this, I've also been thinking about the role of video games and movies and YouTube, the things I consume most apart from books. I've been slowly building the habit of praying for the content creators and I'm trying to regain the habit I once had of trying to see traces of God in everything, whether it be humorous or existential (or both at the same time. *gasp*).

I think that when Christ tells us to abandon the world and where St. John says in his epistle to not love the world, he is not exhorting everyone to become a hermit and stop being knowledgeable of the surrounding culture (maybe a few He is, that's a possibility but most likely not. You have to be pretty stellar at loving God and others to not destroy your love for either by continual solitude).

What He is calling us away from is vanity.

Vanity is to see your own reflection in everything. My music collection. My favorite movies. Mine. Mine. Mine. This is the opposite of what we should be doing.

A man in despair  over his sin once went to see St. Seraphim of Sarov. He hung his head saying that God was far from him. St Seraphim exclaimed, "Look at me!" When the man looked up he was astonished to see that St Seraphim's face was glowing brilliantly. The he said to the man, "Look around you!" He saw the woods in which they were walking in glowing brilliantly. Finally he said, "Look within you!" When the man looked at his chest, he saw that it too glowed brilliantly.

This is how God calls us to see all things. But as the man we must first come to an end and be shown in humility in our helplessness. This can be a goal of Lent, not necessarily to keep the fast, but to see you can't keep it truly (that is, to be sinless).

And even if we never see a brilliant glow of God's presence, this story should serve as a way to constantly keep God before our eyes, for He always is regardless.

All things are redeemable.