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The world is not threatened by evil people, but by those who allow evil to take place.
The man who foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him the protection of my most ungrudging love; and the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me.
"Keep from prying into other people's affairs, for such prying gives occasion for slander, judgment, and other grievous sins. Why do you need to be concerned about others? Know and examine your own self." -- St. Tikhon
of Zadonsk
Sin, first and foremost, is the cause of every damage in this world. The evil one is the master of this sin, the master of this damage, but we have the Lord Jesus Christ, the Master of the Kingdom of God to defeat any kind of sin.
Your Father in Christ,
Bishop JOSEPH
http://www.antiochianladiocese.org/
"Be ashamed when you sin, don't be ashamed when you repent [To repent means to have a change of heart and mind. It is not simply a feeling of sorrow ,but a psycho/spiritual growth away from evil/death and a turning to God/life]. Sin is the wound, repentance is the medicine. Sin is followed by shame; repentance is followed by boldness [ Boldness means to beg God for undeserved mercy]. Satan has overturned this order and given boldness to sin and shame to repentance."
Saint John Chrysostom
"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts" (2 Peter 3:3).
Does the mirror change and bend when the scoffer stands before it laughing and scoffing at it? No, the mirror does not change and bend but remains the same as it was. Brethren, neither does God change or bend when scoffers laugh and scoff at Him. The unchanging and All-pure God knows that the scoffer scoffs at himself. By his scoffing at the holy things of God, the scoffer bends himself and makes himself hideous and the holy things of God remain intact.
O, how already in our times, in our days, many scoffers are already here! Many, too many but their multitudes are weaker than the One and Only One. What is a lot of dust before a strong wind? You have only to wait, to wait armed with patience until a strong wind blows.
Many and too many scoffers are already here, who scoff at God's word. They offer their own words in place of God's word; they offer the unholy in place of the holy, the putrid in place of the healthy, death dealing in place of life creating. The word of God is like a strong wind and their words are as dust.
The scoffers are already here, many and too many that scoff at God's works and still many more will arrive. They praise their works above God's works and say that the works of their hands are better and more comprehensible that the works of God. Their works are thievery; for all the good that they built, they built from God's materials and according to the likeness of God's buildings; and all the evil that they have built, they built from the devil's materials, and according to the likeness of the devil's buildings. Therefore, of what will the dust boast? With what will the scoffers praise today or tomorrow, when wild asses trample over their graves with their hooves?
All-pure Lord, Holy and Powerful are Your words, as a strong wind and holy are Your works, and there is no number or measure of them. All-pure Lord, save our tongues from scoffing and save our lives from the scoffers.
To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.
We do not suffer because there is too much godliness in the world, but because there is too much evil. We must overcome the evil around us with godliness, speaking the truth in love.
Your Father in Christ,
Bishop JOSEPHhttp://www.antiochianladiocese.org/
"If you want to go straight before God, you need two walls. Not of brick or stone or earth, but two spiritual walls. Have fear of God on the right, because the Prophet Daniel says, 'With fear of God, man is diverted from all evil.' On the left have fear of death because the Son of Sirach says, 'Son, remember your end and you will not sin.' These two good deeds --- fear of God and remembrance of death --- deliver a man from all sin."
Elder Cleopa Ilie (+1998)
Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing. This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life. Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people.
Saint Theophan the Recluse
Let us be ashamed of our slowness in thanking God when He gives, and of our quickness in grumbling at Him when He takes away. Saint Nikolai Velimirovic
"The prince of this world blinds people who then walk like blind men, feeling their way and because of this they are constantly falling into one bog after another. Science is fraud when its facts are taken as something absolute, for tomorrow's scientific knowledge will contradict today's; most art is a deliberate distortion; politics has always been full of deceit, lies, crimes. Here everything must be understood in reverse---what they call life is but superficial, horrible pettiness, emptiness, lies with out end; in a word, it is the 'age of falsehood,' the kingdom of the prince of this world."
from Abbot Nikon: Letters to Spiritual Children
"The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world."
What I have learned from my work up to now, is to try to be open, but also protect myself by not letting the good and the evil get too much importance.
No one wishes for crisis, but when crises come, they can call forth our best impulses, those of compassion, courage, creativity, and community. And if there are crimes and evils hidden in the dark places of our society and the darker places of our consciousnesses, all the better they come to the surface to be seen, understood, confronted, and healed. If our generation is called to bear a burden of that healing, it is a powerful calling and honor and one within our capability.
What is the greatest experience you can have? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour when your happiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and your virtue.
The hour when you say, 'What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself.'
The hour when you say, 'What matters my reason? Does it crave knowledge as the lion his food? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
The hour when you say, 'What matters my virtue? As yet it has not made me rage. How weary I am of my good and my evil! All that is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
Obsessing on evil is boring. Rousing fear is a hackneyed shtick. Wallowing is despair is a bad habit. Indulging in cynicism is akin to committing a copycat crime.
Evil is boring.
Everyone who believes in the devil is the devil.
DEFINITION: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It's the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It’s a mode of training your senses and intellect so you're able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.
PROCEDURE: Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with blessings.
God is the only evil. His vanity made him the devil.
Just as there is some darknes in every soul, there is some light in every soul.
There is no such thing as evil. There is however, mental illness.
The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the source of the highest good: not only dark but also light, not only bestial, semihuman, and demonic but superhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the word, "divine."
On occasion it is the kind thing to do, to dash someone's hope. And sometimes it is just plain evil.
As you view the world, remember that the black patches of evil which you see, are shown against a white background of ultimate good.
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.
Living in the modern age,
death for virtue is the wage.
So it seems in darker hours.
Evil wins, kindness cowers.
Ruled by violence and vice
we all stand upon thin ice.
Are we brave or are we mice,
here upon such thin, thin ice?
Dare we linger, dare we skate?
Dare we laugh or celebrate,
knowing we may strain the ice?
Preserve the ice at any price?
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