Bodily Suffering
The Role of Bodily Suffering in the Salvation of Humankind

Elder Ambrose of Optina Monastery said, "We should not forget that in our age of 'sophistication' even little children are spiritually harmed by what they see and hear. As a result, purification is required, and this is only accomplished through bodily suffering....You must understand that Paradisal bliss is granted to no one without suffering."

A person has salvation not only by his good deeds, but also by his patient suffering of various griefs, illnesses, misfortunes, and failures (Luke 16:19-31, Mark 8:31-38, Romans 6:3-11, Hebrews 12:1-3, and Galatians 6:14). Jesus Christ gives us the power which is needed for transformation, and prepares us to live with strength under the most difficult conditions, preparing us for the peace that is eternal.

Heaven and Hell are a condition of relationship with God that is either theosis or perdition. The lake of fire and heaven occur within the same realm, both being not about places, but about relationships. For one who hates God such a place as in the presence of God, will be eternal suffering. The Orthodox Church teaches that Heaven and Hell are in the same realm, and that Hell is not separation from God symbolically or physically, Hell is a place chosen.

Without suffering, we can not join ourselves to the cross, and when we do take up our cross in suffering, it is with our Co-Suffering Saviour. Sickness and suffering are not given to us by a wrathful and punitive God because we have sinned, but rather allowed by this loving God who co-suffers with us. It is Western juridical misconceptions concerning sin which has tended to distort a proper recognition of suffering and its connection to sin.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Alive in Christ
Dead to the World, but Alive in Christ

We cannot give Christ to others unless we have welcomed Him into the central place in our own heart. We must know and love Christ, personally, before others can see Him in us. When we are willing to sacrifice self for the sake of Christ, and live according to the Gospels, we will become living temples of the Most High, and the whole world will be changed.

The Gospel of Christ is imparted by word and example, and the love of Christ shines forth by our witness. We love and please God by following the commandments, and proclaiming the Good News, is our vocation.

We are not called to minimal holiness, but to a full expression of holiness, and are empowered for this transformed life by the action of the Holy Spirit. God's sanctifying Grace is not merely the absence of evil or sin, but the presence of Divine Love in the soul.

We are called to holiness, for the Scriptures say, “Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).” We were created by God to share in His Divinity, and we will never be completely happy until we have died to self, and been made alive in Christ.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Love
Prayer is Born of Love

If we find fault in others, our judgmental attitude prevents us from having a successful communion with God. Prayer is born of love, while fault-finding, idle talk, and self-indulgence are the death of prayer. Love and prayer are interconnected because both involve God, and if we love God we are given the power to keep our mind on Him both day and night. Nothing keeps us from Him, and nothing hinders our communion with him. Even the distractions and temptations of the world fade away as nothing, for as God's love grows in us, so does love of our neighbor grow.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Atheist?
I've Never Met an Atheist!

The young man announced at the beginning of a college class that he was an atheist. I'd been invited as a guest lecturer, and had opened the talk with the observation that everyone has a nous that hungers for God. This young man took exception, declaring there was no God, and furthermore stating that he certainly did not have hunger for a relationship with anything that could be defined as a god.

I asked him to define the god he'd chosen to deny, and after hearing his definition, I declared that I agreed with him. I, too, did not believe in such a god. The average understanding of just who God is, has largely been based on a concept that is not in sync with the biblical description of God, nor the teachings of the historic Church. Furthermore, the false science that is the basis for the denial of God's involvement in creation, and in the life of our world, has come about due, in large part, to this very misconception of just who God is, to begin with.

The God that has been revealed in the holy scriptures, and the God we worship within the life of the Church, is a God that so loved us, that He took on our human flesh, that He might experience our hunger, our thirst, our sorrow, our pain, and even our joy. He is not a remote God, incapable of understanding His creation, but, rather, a God who chose to join Himself to His creation, and invite us into communion with Him. We have been invited to share in His divinity, and, through the gift of eternal life, to dwell with Him forever.

Our God is present everywhere, and is Light in a darkened universe. Everything that is good, is from God, for He is love, and has invited us into communion within His love. His light shines upon us, even when we choose to live in darkness, for He is everywhere present, and fills all things. Our disbelief in no way cancels out His presence, nor does our disbelief in any way negate the fact that He is God.

The person who declares himself an atheist, is in fact one who avoids the obvious. Refusing to believe in God's existence in no way cancels out the reality that God indeed does exist. Just as refusing to believe the world is round because it appears flat from our perspective, or denying the existence of molecules because we can't see them, the denial of God's existence emanates from a narrow focus on self.

That one would deny the existence of God, yet accept the theories of quantum physics, which are based on an unprovable noetic science, is proof that we, as a species, have fallen far from that which our Creator God had intended, having become, in our pride, gods unto ourselves.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Please remember to pray for me as I go in for spinal surgery on Thursday. It is my prayer that I will once again be able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, and walk our island's many forest trails. God's will be done.

Guarding Our Thoughts
Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

"Our life depends on the kind of thoughts we nurture. If our thoughts are peaceful, calm, meek, and kind, then that is what our life is like. If our attention is turned to the circumstances in which we live, we are drawn into a whirlpool of thoughts and can have neither peace nor tranquility (Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica)".

Saint Seraphim of Sarov said that if we "acquire peace, a thousand around us will be saved", for having been created in the image of God, and we are part of the Divine thought that was made material in time and space. We not only influence those around us with our thoughts, but we even influence the cosmos. If we focus on the negative, those negative thoughts impact everyone around us, and even the whole world. The Elder Thaddeus tells us we can be either very good, or very bad, depending on the thoughts and desires we breed.

There is a lot that is wrong with the world, but it begins with us. If there is to be peace in our world, it must begin with me. If hatred, anger, envy, lust, and spite, are to end, it must end with me. When we allow destructive thoughts to destroy our peace, the peace around us is destroyed. We can not blame the world, or even those around us, for that which happens around us, radiates from us. Blame for all that is wrong with the world, can not be placed beyond our own hearts.

Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Photo: Archpriest Alex Kotar, Bishop Theodosy of Seattle, and Matushka Natalie Kotar. Please pray for Father Alex, dean of Saint Nicholas Cathedral. He has been diagnosed with sarcoma behind the sinuses under the eye. Malignant single cell neoplasm.

I'm the Chief of Sinners
Witnessing to the Love of Christ

What is our responsibility, as Orthodox Christians, as regards those who do not live according to biblical morality? We first remember that we have fallen short of the glory of God, and say, like Saint Paul, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief (I Timothy 1:15).

When we say these words "of whom I am chief" before receiving the Holy Mysteries, we must mean it! To focus on the perceived evilness of another person's lifestyle, or sin, only takes the focus off our own sin, and we will fail to correct the log in our own eye.

When we look only upon our own fallen nature, our own sin, we will find the mercy of God for ourselves, and be far more merciful toward others, as a result. We will be given the grace to love even the worst of sinners, because Christ is in us. We will know that the Lord does not love us because we are good, or because we keep the commandments. He loves us because His very nature is love. When His love dwells in us, we are empowered to love.

It is our love, as Christians, together with our prayers for those who seem lost, that will change hearts and lead others to repentance. This I believe with my whole heart.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Oxygen
The Church, Like a Forest, Needs Oxygen

Growing up in Northern Idaho, I was surrounded by mountains and forests. I don't remember a time when forests did not tug at my heart and fill my imagination with thoughts of adventure. As a small child my parents took my brother Dwayne, and me, on annual camping trips to a state park on the far northeast side of Lake Pend Oreille. There my dad would make us small toy canoes, complete with sails, out of birch bark. This state park is virtually unchanged since that time, and I try to visit the campground every summer, when I go bass fishing with my brother.

As a high school student I regularly went hiking in the mountains around Sandpoint, Idaho, together with my best friend (now a retired professor of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland). Jim and I would climb to the highest point of a given mountain, and pray together. We could understand the Prophet Moses meeting God on Mt. Sinai, for we too felt the presence of God on the mountain. To this day I feel closer to God when hiking in a forest, and the grandeur of the mountains that surround the Puget Sound inspire me, and lift up my soul.

When we first cleared the land to build the monastery, we cut down as few trees as possible, desiring as we did to have the buildings appear as though cupped like a kitten in the hands of God. We even named our forest after Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who himself sought solitude in a forest. Our forest not only provides that needed solitude, but like the forests throughout the whole world, provides good air to breath, and fills our lungs with the sweet odor that only a forest can provide.

Monks have always had a special place in their hearts for forests. Coptic and Ethiopian monks have been known to plant trees on desert mountains whereupon monasteries have been built, and calling these places, "holy forests". Russian monks sought their solitude in the Northern Thebaid, forests that became their desert.

For me, forests and mountains have always been associated with prayer. My first chapel was at the end of a hidden trail, in a forest that was just a short walk down the beach from our home on Lake Pend Oreille. I'd constructed a small altar out of driftwood, and nailed a cross made out of tree branches on a tree behind the altar. When in college, my first encounter with an icon took place during the very summer I'd visited the Redwood Forest of Northern California for the first time.

Our temples are like forests in many ways. When we enter into an Orthodox temple we are encompassed in the living presence of God, and our spiritual lungs are filled. It is oxygen for the soul that we breathe in, and the forest that surrounds us is none other than the cloud of witnesses, the saints, who join us in worship before the Throne of God. The oxygen we breathe in is God's Grace that flows out to all who would seek the safety and sanctuary that awaits us in God's Holy Temple. It is the breath of life that comes in our relationship with Christ.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Laying Blame
Putting Blame in the Right Place

"A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scriptures, will refer everything to himself and not to another." Saint Mark the Ascetic

We all have a natural tendency to lay blame on others, when in truth we must blame only ourselves. When facing our own sins and shortcomings, it is always easy to put the blame on others, yet our faith tells us that spiritual progress can only come with the acquisition of a humble and contrite heart. As long as we are anxious to put the blame on others for our shortcomings, we will remain stagnant on the spiritual path. The saints give clear witness that progress towards holiness can only come when we look only to our own faults, and not see the faults of others.

It is far more comfortable to see the wickedness of others, for in focusing on them, we can forgo the all important work of changing our own behavior, and allowing the Holy Spirit to transform our own fallen nature. Focusing on the shortcomings of others allows our own self-serving pride to grow stronger, and we remain puffed up, and wallow in unfounded pride.

When we keep our attention focused on our own shortcomings, we keep vigilant until our last day, guarding our soul until the final judgement. When we take our eyes off our own faults, while focusing on our neighbor's sin, we deprive ourselves of precious time for repentance. Since we do not know the day or hour of our last breath, we must treat every moment as though it were our last.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

The Vastness of Orthodoxy
"They knew not whether they were in heaven, or on earth"

The interior beauty of an Orthodox temple, even one as small and simple as ours, speaks of the beauty of our Faith. When Prince Vladimir sent emissaries to the known world, "shopping" for a religion that would unite his people, and benefit his nation, his emissaries returned from Constantinople, saying of the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom, "they knew not whether they were in heaven, or on earth." Orthodoxy is like that. First encounters, for most of us who've converted to Orthodoxy, is usually one of being overwhelmed by the beauty of Her temples, and of Her worship. What awaits us, when we go deeper, is the astounding revelation that Her Mystical Theology is even more beautiful. The longer I am Orthodox, the more I behold the beauty that I've only barely begun to understand, and, because I desire to be transformed by God, I am only beginning to see the vastness of this Faith, and the spiritual depths my journey is taking me.

God desires to share His Divinity, with our humanity, and it is the journey we are taking to the Heart of God that will bring about the transformation of the heart, and, ultimately, lead to deification. It is this deification that ultimately completes what God began with the creation of mankind. We humans are different from the rest of creation, for we, and we alone, have been destined by God, to share in His divinity, forever. This communion of the created, with its Creator, is the main purpose of this life we've been given.

Glory to Him Who has shown us the Light!

Abbot Tryphon

Photo: The Great Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, as it was before the Ottoman conquest.

Happiness
All we need for happiness is right in front of us

It is easy to resist taking care of oneself if we run at full speed as though we are the only one who can get things done. We all need to set priorities, making sure we focus on Christ and not let that which is transitory rule our lives. If we pay attention to our health, family and spiritual life, everything else will take care of itself. We shouldn't let life be so full of work that we don't have time to focus on the things that bring us joy. We must pay attention when the Lord is calling us to slow down.

If we focus only on the things that haven't been done and ignore the little things that bring joy to our life, we'll find ourselves in a rut. If we are constantly thinking of where we'd rather be living, or the job we'd rather have, or the work that still needs to be completed, we'll wake up one day and realize all we've needed for happiness has been right in front of us. We don't want to wait to enjoy what we already have.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon