Archives for 2017

Depending on the age of our body there are the weights we can lift. And while this is get older, when we come to the age at which the person begins to be considered an elder, then the weights begin to decrease again, and as time passes, our physical strength decreases gradually to reach zero. This is our nature; this is the function of life as a whole, in the trees, in the animals, etc.

Unlike nature, the life of living faith follows another course, in which no age is foreseen, and there is no abatement for the vital functions of our internal world.

While people, animals and trees reach their full productive age, and then everything begins to decline to end up in death, in the life of faith, in the body of faith, there is only ascendancy and increasing production of the fruits of faith, which is another law , a law of faith and not nature.

In the law of faith, the production of fruit of faith remains increasing, there is no mitigating process, and the decision of man must be interwoven and adapted to what Christ said: some things you understand and you lift today, in the future you will understand and lift more.

The decline in production that you see in nature can be good teacher but it is not to be mimicked.

An experiment is called the effort to prove that something is actually happening and I prove it through repeated confirmations.

The experience that I gain as I try something, leads an experiment of any initial failures to the ultimate success.

And we all know that our everyday life is now more and more framed by data that have not only experienced a long experimental process, such as health, safety, etc, but even after successful experiments, there are efforts for improvement through continuous observation and testing new data. This is how mankind has been going through the 20th century.

Every day without understanding it, we ourselves experiment with thousands of things and in the end we follow the conclusion that we think can satisfy our demands.

This happens in driving our car, and in thousands of other habits that require our own personal responsibility.

So, it’s a very good question why when we come to the issues of faith in the living God, suddenly the experiment, the test, every effort to extract safe conclusions, is not only excluded from our individual and personal spiritual system but we are rushing to throw to the fire every effort to improve the tools and methods of exercising our faith.

A young man approaches Christ and asks him what he can do to inherit eternal life. He is wealthy, has inherited many estates, is pious and approaches Christ on his knees, but has not realized that not everything is inherited.

He may have inherited real estate and securities, may have inherited family virtues, he may regularly go to his Synagogue, but he knows that something is missing and this something is not the Mosaic Law that he knows well and has always abided by.

He knows that what he’s missing is not among what he has already inherited or has already conquered.

He senses that the secret is held by Christ alone and is rushing to seek answers to his questions. But the Master’s response is far from his legacy. He asks him to leave the property to the poor and to follow Christ, not barefoot, but baring his cross. And the young man leaves frustrated because every thought involving loss of property and social appreciation is beyond his powers.

Suddenly, the supplies that he inherited from his parents, the ossessions and virtues, are no longer a necessity, but have become an obstacle in the way that Christ suggests to him in order to discover what his soul seeks.

The word πείρα (experience) lies behind the concepts of πειρασμός (temptation), πείραμα (experiment), πειράγματα (teasing) etc. and we all understand how important the concept of experience is.

Indeed, it is obvious that the experience of others does not have the same intensity and value as personal experience. What you are experiencing cannot be transferred. Images and words can be transferred, but not the experience that always remains absolutely personal and irreplaceable.

For this reason everyone has his or her own personal experiences and they depend mostly on them. My individual experience leaves its traces in my life, I learn from it, and experience is the key element in every experiment. We try something, and by positive or negative experience, we continue or interrupt the experiment.

There is no progression without experiment and this indicates the value of the concept of trying. In the life of faith no one wants experiments. We all want security and certainty. Without personal experience, however, without personal experiments and personal evaluation of the results, there is no certainty about the course I follow.

Inertia and inaction are the opposite of experience and experiment. The first ones kill, the others promote and enrich.

Without a doubt, two thousand years is a long time between us and the presence of Christ in Judea at that time.

Paradoxically though, we read the same book, face the same problems, the same challenges and the same questions for those two thousand years.

Excluding the technology of the last hundred years, we all agree that nothing has changed in humans.

Needs are the same in food and human relations, questions about life and death remain relentless within generations.

Addressing the same questions therefore requires the seriousness and responsibility that Christ himself asked of his disciples when they themselves asked the same questions as ours.

For the Greeks, the common language then and today is a good tool to ask questions and get answers through the Holy Letters, the answers given by Christ Himself. If we do not ask the questions, there can be two reasons for it.

Either we do not care about the quality and length of our lives, or there is a wall of fog that questions the value of the truth our questions have. Remember, though; behind the clouds and the fog there is always the sun and the truth.