In response to my reader

Dear Gregor,

I wanted to say something regarding you comment to me the other day.

Particularly this: that we become attached to sin through our passions and our real actual needs and wants. That hence it is hard to even ‘want to be rid of sin’.

I have been reading and hearing some relevant theology around this matter recently, which I think goes a little something like this. (please forgive me my choppy use of these notions):

1. This summer I read a priest who says that the passions are not something bad that we need to uproot and be rid of. They are not as such evil energies that we need to eliminate and become flat. He says that these passions are the energies that God gave us, but they have become corrupted.

He says that God gave us infinite energies. If these energies are properly directed, towards God (that means also towards other people IN THE LOVE OF GOD) then all is great. They are infinite energies, and only the infinite Good can satisfy them. If they are turned towards God, then they are infinitely satisfied, and we are infinitely satisfied, without end.

But if these energies are directed away from their true aim – if they are directed towards creation which is finite and ‘created’ – then they are infinitely frustrated. Nothing created and limited can ever satisfy an infinite need. Nothing. 

They (your energies) will crush the creature through their force of infinite desire. And, alongside this, they will be left unsatisfied. And you will be left in pain. 

That is why we can only properly love one another through God. that is one reason why God says leave your family and friends and love me. turn everything to me. give everything to me. because it is ONLY in this manner that we can love one another, and appreciate creation. Only.

There is nothing wrong with creation. God made it. He saw it, and said that it is good.
there is nothing wrong with our energies, our wants and our desires. God made them, he saw them and was glad. he said they are good.
but you cannot direct your desires and needs towards the created.
It's not a sentimental matter, or even really plainly a moral matter. 
it is a matter of fact. 
these are the physical laws of spiritual reality.

Only the infinite can satisfy the infinite. Do not be rid of your energies, do not try to do away with them. We do not abolish the passions. We cleanse them and redirect them towards their real aim. they are our hands with which we will grab onto the Lord and have life eternal. (right now! life eternal includes the life right now also). God gave us these infinite energies so that we can be with him and share in his infinite goodness. 

We learn the truth about our selves and we seek that which is truly good and that which we actually really want.  
It's a matter of fact. 
The truth will set you free. 
Knowing the truth about yourself, and about God, will set you free. From all passionate attachment, from all sin, from every prison. 
Renew your ‘passions’, put them in the space of God where they are not crammed but they can grow and spread out like the skies. 

When we say only God is good, we mean it. we really mean it. do you see?

Realize that you are trying to eat something that could never feed you. 
And let sin go. Don’t waste your time.

2. We say ‘Accept Lord…the voice of my supplication…that I too may become a companion of the prudent virgins with the shining lamp of my soul, and may glorify you, God the Word, who are glorified with the Father and the Spirit. Amen.’

Be prudent. Yes, do seek for what you want and need. And you do need these things and more besides. Our needs and wants are in fact infinite. But don’t be an idiot. Look for life where you will actually find it.

But you don’t just want some theoretical relationship with God? You want relationships with other real people? You want people to see you and know you and communicate with you and love you and appreciate you and share with you? Of course you do. We all want that. But all that exists only in God. Without God, without the love of God, nothing can be together, the distance between persons can never be bridged. Not by anything. Not if you wear handcuffs with someone and live on top of each other. Not if you talk all day. Not even if you are inside one another all day. Nothing. Nothing can bridge the gap of isolation but the love of God. So let us not be idiots, but look for what we need there, where it actually is to be found.

3. St. seraphim of Sarov says: be prudent. Shop well. Spend your talents well. Do not be left without the light of God but go forth to the feast now while the doors are open.  Do not sell your inheritance for a bowl of soup.

4. So what I am trying to say is this: we don’t turn from sin so as to never be satisfied – sitting on a hill and meditating our way to zenland. We turn from sin because we really need to be satisfied, because we must be satisfied, because we have to. And we don’t waste time, we turn now, because we want it right now.

right here

right now.

we don’t settle for some pretend nonsense.

We don’t settle for anything. Nothing. (Don’t be an idiot)

we don’t follow a carrot we will never eat, we go to the Feast of feasts.

We know that our own will and our own wants are easily fooled and misdirected, and that – without the help of God – we are not even able of wanting that which we really want. So we say ‘May Your will be done and not mine’. Because God knows what we need and want – he made us. And he is good and loves mankind. And he came so that we may have life and have to the full. And we say ‘lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’ – because we know that we are surrounded by lies and that we have no discernment, and that if we are left to our own devices we will want the wrong things and stay hungry.

We say ‘give us this day our daily bread’ – because only God can do that. And because we need it. We turn to God because we are hungry. We are so hungry! We are starving. We want and we want and we want. Everything. We do not need to try to erase our hunger and then turn to God – pretending to be like immaterial spirits. No. We say ‘give us this day our daily bread’ oh God, you, who are the source of life and of all good things, lover of mankind, our only Savor. You, the only Source.

Read what Alexander Schmemman says in For the Life of the World. He says: you are what you eat.

Forgive me for being so presumptuous.