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• Tobit

  March 2015 edited March 2015

  That's a very broad question, Monica. Perhaps narrowing your query would help in answering it. Generally we are called not to conform to this world by to transform it. Secular culture can be constricting & permeates most aspects of our lives which makes the task daunting to the lone Christian who doesn't know how to approach the matter with discernment. 
  
  We have seen Christians transform the communities around them but not before they were persecuted, mocked or lied about. Those are the ones who endured.
  
  I have also seen Orthodox Christians who I considered pillars but through the steady progression of spiritual compromise and pleasure seeking became avid relationship seekers, halted their prayers, services, became vain in appearance, shisha smokers, etc. 
  The saddest part is not that they fall into these sins since every repentant sinner finds forgiveness, but they`ve have become the prime defendant camp of such practices, through opinionated self-assertive pride and the worship of their judgment of things. So long as they have the words and arguments for it they`re satisfied. In reality they have begun to worship their own minds and discernment of things and have become so clouded in their spiritual insight that one wonders if they ever possessed it. 
  
  To fall so far doesn`t happen quickly, and the demons make sure it`s at a slow steady pace (evagrius ponticus) because our human nature is most corruptible by the slow passage of time and compromise. When the devil is quick it`s in all too discernible experience for the soul and we`re careful to catch our fall. 
  
  That`s why priests and bishops are constantly criticized when they warn against `this or that`. We charge them with `extremism` and `lack of understanding`. But what they see and what we`ve perhaps been blinded to is that the demons`vocation is to harpoon the whale. The whale eventually dies from its injuries or loss of blood, and it takes time. All that is need is a hook, a seed or thought; perhaps a justification. Then the doubt is sowed & subsequent laxity of spiritual thinking.
  
  Probably not what you were asking about. But I was reminded of something I read in Evagrius Ponticus.
  
  
  
• Monica

  April 2015

  No it's even better! Thank you for that. It's not that I'm "looking" for a relationship but it's learning how to get back up after allowing others to deter one's once vibrant and spiritual life...it's not allowing the past to be evoked by today's emotional/sometimes sentimental music that comes on almost everywhere and just keeping focus on having God be the MAIN and MOST IMPORTANT figure in my life and knowing that God want's us to learn and grow. And learning how to accept what are huge mistakes and setbacks in my own perspective. @Tobit
• Monica

  April 2015

  I found this reading on Evagrius Ponticus's teachings: "Live alone or associate only with the like-minded. Worldly people (that is, anyone else, whether of worldly values or just caught up in worldly business) will subject one to social pressures, vain conversation, material desires, anger, depression, scandals. This extends to parents and relatives, who will being with them their worldly affairs." (General Question: How to maintain your thoughts on growing spiritually and how could one maintain a boarder between people who are not like-minded without appearing stand-off/ish?)