St. Paul encourages us in Eph. 4 to not behave like the rest of the world! As Christians we follow a higher standard. He tells us not to get lost in useless thoughts; futile thoughts he calls them. Because God gave us free will, we have total freedom of thought. We can think about anything imaginable. Our mind is continually generating thoughts, some good and some bad. Some thoughts are focused on meaningful things and some are of no value to us. Thoughts can build upon one another, grow and generate into rationalizations. Worthless thinking often leads us to sinful thoughts.

Fr. Thomas Keating in his book on meditation refers to this continuous motion of thoughts running around in our mind as “the monkey mind.” Picture a cage with monkeys jumping around and screeching. They rush at you, then away from you and then at you again, always chattering and making a ruckus. That is often the state of our mind, an endless commotion. Our minds have almost unlimited creativity and freedom. But if we do not harness the great power of our mind it can cause a mess. We talk with someone while thinking about something else more important to us. We listen with interest to a Psalm, and suddenly drift off to other thoughts. We injure our relationships when we do this!

St. Paul refers to still darker thoughts in this Epistle. This futility of our mind draws us to the edge; and we risk stepping off and into a darkness of sin.

When we are interested, however, we do focus our thoughts. An exciting movie holds our attention. A good novel can grip our interest. When our interest is not captured though, it often takes great energy and discipline for us to pay attention to a person speaking to us. We allow our mind to wander because we get lazy.

But God can work miracles through the great power of the mind. Our weapon of defense against a lazy, undisciplined mind is prayer. During Lent we pray the Prayer of St. Ephraim – “take from me the spirit of sloth.” We fight against the lazy, idle mind with “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” We fill our mind with “Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great goodness. Blot out my transgressions.” Our motivation is enlivened by the power of the Holy Spirit when we fill our mind with the name of Jesus.

St. Paul tells us to “renew the spirit of our mind.” We meditate on Christ. We fill our mind with ‘Christ-thoughts’ and ignore the futile thoughts. We enter into this relationship with Christ, and give the Holy Spirit full reign to direct and focus our thoughts. We are confident of God’s grace for us through His work on the Cross, our symbol of his abundant love for us. In the community of our local church, we are continually encouraged to renew our relationship with Christ. Through the motivation and power of the Holy Spirit we strive for righteousness.

Each time we stop our mind from offending, Christ is victorious in us. We saturate our thinking with Jesus. The more active our relationship is with Jesus Christ, the less our struggle is with futile thinking. The monkey mind is quieted. From the mental chaos – emerges peace and order, and incredible beauty, like a procession of the saints, with Christ at the center. We are able to focus on loving Christ and others. We are becoming a new person: “created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.”

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Deacon Seraphim Joa is a third-year M. Div. student at St. Vladimir’s Seminary from Rockville Centre, NY.  He and his wife, Julie, have a married son and two grandchildren. After retiring from an engineering firm in New York City late in 2006, Dn. Seraphim began thinking about studying to become a deacon.  All advice pointed him to St. Vladimir’s Seminary as the best way to achieve that goal.  He continues now hoping to help in the Church as he is led by the Holy Spirit.

This article was originally published November 17, 2011.

"Orthodoxy does not need more professors, but confessors.” -Metropolitan Nicholas of Amissos

St. John the Compassionate Mission was founded in 1986 among the poor and the marginalized of downtown Toronto and is an apostolate of the Carpatho-Russian diocese. The Mission has had, and has, a variety of different programs responding to needs as they arose. “Around” the Mission has grown the thriving parish of St. Silouan. The Mission seeks to be where Orthodoxy becomes Orthopraxy.

At its heart St. John’s seeks to make real the teaching of the Fathers, especially St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom, on how the Church should be present to the “world.” The life of the Mission thus has four essential elements: diakonia (service), community, liturgy, and study, and each is lived out in a regular daily and weekly rhythm.

The Poor our Masters (St. John the Compassionate) – A Deacon’s View, Dn. Pawel Mucha

Five years ago I left Europe to be an intern for one year at St. John the Compassionate Mission in Toronto. Nine months later I was ordained as a subdeacon. The subdiaconate at the Mission was real in both liturgy and daily diakonia, and was also fulltime. At times, it was too “real” and too “fulltime!” My ordination to the diaconate came last year.

Among the many “obediences” of the diaconate has been setting up and running the Mission’s intern program – the Lived Theology School. Despite 20 years teaching experience I was to discover that the real teacher was not me, but mission life and the poor themselves. Knowledge in and of itself is not enough; it needs to find a reality.

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Fr. Roberto Ubertino and Dn. Pawel Mucha minister to the poor, socially excluded, and handicapped in downtown Toronto. More information on the history and vision of the Mission can be found here, as well as on the Mission’s website.

This article was originally published November 11, 2011.

Matthew the Poor (1919-2006), also known as Matta El-Maskeen, was a Coptic Orthodox monk who lived in the desert 50 miles southwest of Cairo. This excerpt is from The Communion of Love, a collection of his writings that reveal the essence of the Christian life in simple yet profound images.

If we look back at the early days of the Church, we are astonished at its power, especially that of the newly-founded Churches. In spite of the fact that the people were simple and ignorant of the bible – for manuscripts were only rarely possessed by individuals – and in spite of the newness of their faith in Christ and the deep influence of their old pagan customs, their spiritual life and their demonstrations of faith, love, and zeal were fine examples of a powerful life lived according to the precepts of the Gospel, a model for practical understanding of the meaning of eternal life, the Kingdom of God, living by faith, dying to the world, faithfulness to Christ, expectation of His second coming, and faith in the resurrection. Even up to the present time, we still draw on their faith and tradition, and understand only with difficulty the letters that were written to them, which they understood easily and lived out.

The secret of all this is that they lived by what they heard. Every commandment fell on faithful hearts prepared to act sincerely. All the words of Christ entered deeply into the fabric of daily life. The Gospel was translated into work and life.

Those simple people understood the Gospel. They understood that it was a life to be lived, not principles to be discussed, and they refused to understand it on a purely academic level. Up to this day, faithful followers of Christ still draw life for themselves from the living spring of the understanding of those early Christians…

When they heard “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” they sold everything and laid their money at the feet of the apostles.

When they heard “Blessed are those who mourn now,” they despised all suffering and weariness in the service of the Lord

When they heard “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” they bore the cruelest humiliations and insults and attacks.

When they heard “Watch and pray,” they met in the catacombs to watch and pray all night.

When they heard “Love your enemies,” history recorded no resistance put up by the Christians, whether positive or negative, against their persecutors. And they bowed their necks to the sword in humility and obedience to honor the words of Christ.

This was for them the meaning of reading the Gospel and understanding it. There was born in them a hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God, and this is why the Holy Spirit was at His most active in working with them. He would give power to the word, strengthen their hearts, support them in weakness, lead them in the darkness, comfort them in distress, and accompany them along the way till they gave up their spirit into the hand of its Creator with great glory.

Excerpt from The Communion of Love by Matthew the Poor, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984, p. 24-26.

At various times and circumstances in my life I’ve struggled with a sense of accomplishment and a sense of order.

I’m a pretty well-ordered person, outwardly, but inside I often feel like I’m in danger of failure . . . and I find myself trying to address that by doing more or “accomplishing” more.  I “get disciplined” and do some extra planning, and try to follow through better.  This goes on for some time, with varying degrees of success.  But I easily abandon my best-laid plans of “orderly doing” with the slightest excuse or simply evolve into something else, another mode of operation.  All this is probably a very common problem, the psychology or spirituality of which is pretty basic and well understood–by others!

Prayer and silence is something I want to do, but have a hard time sticking with it, as do many people.  My latest attempt at surrendering my own will to God is to start praying at a particular time of day, and always keep that time of prayer.  I have a prayer rule that is my own, but whether I complete it all or only parts is not as important as starting at the same time every day.  This is my “one thing” that is a test of my own willingness to surrender my will to God.  And even this small thing has proven extremely hard to do . . . a sign of exactly how out-of-control and unwilling I am to surrender anything to God.  I think the person that can really follow through with this “small” thing has really achieved something pretty awesome, and by God’s grace has acquired some humility.

It occurs to me that the Liturgy of the Church (meaning any service) begins at a particular time and in most churches does not begin late.  This is one of many examples of how the Church does for us what we may not be able to sustain on our own.  Collectively, we keep each other to the ascetic rule, so to speak–the rule of beginning prayer at a particular time, always, every day (every day the Liturgy is said).  Of course starting on time, always at a particular time, doesn’t seem ascetic because we’re all used to it . . . we have to operate that way to be courteous to others and so that our communal life will have order and peace.  But this is also a gift to us for our salvation and continued growth–being a part of the community, and accountable to others, becomes our external motivation, a help, a support, a means to get to prayer on time.  Of course, we even fall down at this and come to church late sometimes.  But . . . prayers begin without us!  This can be a hard reality, and a warning, that others are taking up their place in the Kingdom of God whether we are there to partake or not.  I’m thankful for this “point” of surrender which does not wholly depend on me.

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Fr. Paul Coats (SVOTS ’08) serves a new OCA mission station in Rock Hill, SC.  He also works as an engineer for a national trade association.  His wife Gerianne is currently directing community youth theater while home-schooling their daughter Helen, who helps lead the singing at the mission.

This article was originally published November 3, 2011.

St. John of Damascus (c. 675-749) was a theologian and hymnographer. He was one of the great defenders of the holy icons against the iconoclasts. The following are excerpts from his first treatise “against those who attack the holy images:

“Of old, God the incorporeal and formless was never depicted, but now that God has been seen in the flesh and has associated with human kind, I depict what I have seen of God. I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation… Do not abuse matter; for it is not dishonorable, this is the view of the Manichees. The only thing that is dishonorable is something that does not have its origin from God.” (Treatise 1.16)

“I say that everywhere we use our senses to produce an image of the Incarnate God himself, and we sanctify the first of the senses (sight being the first of the senses), just as by words hearing is sanctified. For the image is a memorial. What the book does for those who understand letters, the image does for the illiterate; the word appeals to hearing, the image appeals to sight; it conveys understanding.” (Treatise 1.17)

“Is it not fitting to venerate the saints rather than stone them? …If you loved God, you would certainly honor his servants. …How was the dead man who touched the bones of Elisseus (i.e. Elisha, cf. 2 Kings 13.21) immediately raised up? If God works miracles through bones, it is very clear that he can also do so through images and stones and many other things, just as also it happened with Elisseus, who gave his own staff to his servant and told him to go and through it raise up the child of the Shunamitess (cf. 2 Kings 4.29).” (Treatise 1.56)

Excerpts from Three Treatises on the Divine Images by St John of Damascus, translation and introduction by Fr. Andrew Louth, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003.

I grew up steeped in art and in Orthodoxy as a daughter of a well-known iconographer. It didn’t take long for me to combine the two most important elements in my life! After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from an up-and-coming art school in New Hampshire, I began the long and often challenging process of strengthening my faith and serving the Church with my art. I studied iconography under my father, Fr. Andrew Tregubov, and went on to start my own little studio in conjunction with his. I mainly paint private devotional icons for commission and I recently developed a pattern for traditional baptismal robes for infants that I custom sew. A mother of two (one special needs), I live with my husband in White River Junction, Vermont, and work from home.

Throughout my years of giving glory to God through the work of my hands, I have been challenged and tested. I have lost faith in my abilities, only to find them again. Because of hardship and heartache, I have learned what it means to be truly faithful and to bear witness to Christ. In thankfulness, I create my work so that in some small way, I can share some of the beauty of our faith and of the profound love that our Lord holds for us with others!

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Artist and iconographer Anna DuMoulin currently lives in Vermont with her husband Justin (SVOTS ’10) and their two children.

This article was originally published October 27, 2011

Written by Fr. Lev Gillet, also known as “A Monk of the Eastern Church,” In Thy Presence is a book of short spiritual reflections on the presence of Christ. As in the case of the quotation below, these reflections are sometimes imagined as words spoken from our Lord to the believer.

“My child, I want thee to feel thyself in communion with the greatness of my universe, with its unformed aspiration, with its unformed thanksgiving. But above all, in those moments when thou seekest to become one with limitless Love, I want thee to be very humble.

Thou hast seen the morning dew. It forms trembling pearls on the blades of grass and on the leaves, before or shortly after the rising of the sun.

Dew is abundant where the earth is humid and exposed, when the weather is fine and perfectly calm.

Each small iridescent drop mirrors the colours of the rainbow. No matter how minute, it reflects the basic colours of the universe.

My child, be thou this infinitesimal drop of dew coming to life on the humid earth of tenderness, as the sun rises in a loving heart.

Be this drop which for all its smallness, in its whole extent, reflects the beauty of the world.

And then be re-absorbed thyself into the light and heat of the sun. Because it is the sun that gives the dewdrops their being.”

Excerpt from In Thy Presence by Lev Gillet, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977, p. 30.

St. Isaac says, “Silence is the language of the age to come.”  Going beyond this thoughtful sentence, we know that in heaven the seraphim constantly sing, “Holy, holy, holy.”  We might say that we need to be silent to access the music of heaven, the “Holy, holy, holy” refrain that continues to be background music in our soul.   Yes, angels continually sing in our souls, if we have ears to hear.  If we are silent enough to truly listen.

Silence is the entrée to heaven, the music of heaven, the heavenly music that lifts our soul to an entirely new plane of awareness.  So, we might say that through silence we become music.  We embody the music that we are.  We each have a unique song, melody, harmony that only we can sing.  We each have a “Holy, holy, holy” song in our heart that harmonizes with the angels.

When we are our real selves, our particular “song” blends with the music of all the others and becomes the Divine Symphony we call the Body of Christ.

Silence is a choice.  If we don’t proactively choose silent times, still moments, then noise muffles the music. We can choose between inner noise, anxiety, or inner melody.

Perhaps awareness of our breath, out heartbeat is the easy access to our inner silence, our heart-song.  Then, through Christ, our very movements become our song.  Our thoughts, in Christ, become our music.  Our choices, made to do His Desires, become our musical expression.  Our very being can slowly become a beautifier of the cosmos, a melody like no other.

Silence provides the entrée to our inner universe, the echo chamber of our heart-song.

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Albert S. Rossi, Ph.D., teaches courses in pastoral theology at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. After teaching at Pace University for 24 years, he retired as Associate Professor of Psychology. You can hear more of Dr. Rossi on Ancient Faith Radio.

This article was originally published October 19, 2011.

In Father Alexander Schmemann’s important work, For the Life of the World, he teaches us that when we speak of “life” in the context of our experience of the Kingdom of God, we cannot separate “religious life” from our secular experience. Yet we slide easily into a weekly pattern of segregating our “religious life” into a “Sunday only” experience. Service through Scouting is one tool that we have to help “keep whole” or integrate a young Christian’s identity.

Scouting in North America has a rich history of cooperation with the Orthodox Church. Indeed, the Eastern Orthodox Committee on Scouting was one of the first significant efforts of the Orthodox in our land to work together. The model advocated throughout most of the twentieth century focused on the creation of Scouting units in the parish. This model has been particularly effective where the faithful live in geographically contained communities surrounding their parish.

Yet this plan is less workable when many of our parishes serve geographically dispersed families. I suggest that many parishes could purposefully encourage children to join local “neighborhood” Scouting units and create programming that brings together Scouts from these distinct local units as Orthodox Scouts in the parish. I write from experience with the Boy Scouts of America but other programs may also be effective tools for our parishes (see www.ecos.org for more information on the various Church-supported programs).

Utilizing the Scout Oath and Scout Law, Scouting helps youth develop academic skills, self-confidence, ethics, leadership skills, and citizenship skills in a program that is based on service. The focus on character and service makes the Boy Scouts of America a uniquely compatible program for the Orthodox Church.

While various activities teach basic skills and promote teamwork, Scouting goes beyond that and encourages youth to achieve a deeper appreciation for service to others in their community. This service to the neighbor is foundational. The highest achieving Scouts lead a service project as the culmination of their programs. This happens in a movement that holds “reverence” as a core of the Scout Law. We cannot measure faith, but in a recent study of the general population, eighty-three percent of men who were Scouts five or more years say attending religious services together as a family is “very important.”

Orthodox Scouts are encouraged to work with their parish priests on earning a series of medals issued by the Church that help contextualize service in the faith of the Orthodox Church with age-appropriate content.

If we encourage our young parishioners to join “neighborhood” Scout units, the priest and other clergy and youth leaders in the parish can be visible in the life of these geographically dispersed units. Archbishop John (Shahovskoy) once noted “the purpose of ministry is to widen the Church beyond its material boundaries, to take it into the people’s homes, into their souls” (The Orthodox Pastor, p. 49). By utilizing and supporting membership in local units, the pastor has a new tool available to “widen” the Church both for his young parishioner and for other families in Scouting. In our Sea Scout unit in San Francisco, our bishop and other clergy have become “regular” presences at award ceremonies and other functions.  The families of that unit are – at the very least! – aware of the Orthodox Church, and our parish youth involved in Scouting have memories of the Church and her servants that are integrated into major accomplishments.

A parish or regional grouping of parishes can further support membership of their Scouts in local units by bringing Orthodox Scouts together for events that facilitates friendship and common effort with other Orthodox Scouts. The Greater St. Louis area Orthodox parishes are working with this model of combining the best of neighborhood troop affiliation with regional Orthodox Scouting programming.

Our children are “pulled” in so many praiseworthy directions: academics, sports, and all sorts of activities. Membership in Scouting helps raise up young men and women who know how to lead themselves in lives of service and faith in the Orthodox Church. We can be active participants in this “game with a purpose” and help show that the Kingdom of God is real life.

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Archdeacon C. Kirill Sokolov (SVOTS ‘07) is Director of Diaconal and Late Vocations for the Orthodox Church in America, Director of Technology at San Domenico School, and a doctoral student in leadership at Pepperdine University. Fr. Kirill is a Quartermaster Sea Scout and served on the Board of the Eastern Orthodox Committee on Scouting (EOCS) from 2008-2010. He, his wife Sophia (SVOTS ‘05), and their three children live in California. Their six year-old “begins the journey” this year in Cub Scouts.

This post was originally published October 14, 2011

Six months after receiving my Life Scout advancement, I was eligible to start working on my Eagle rank, the highest linear class in Boy Scouting. From the start, I knew I wanted to do something for St Vladimir’s Seminary. For some time I have noticed an area in the front field that flooded consistently due to rain. There was also a marble bench in the area that was cracked and had much erosion. In its present state, this area was not too ideal for relaxing or quietly enjoying the environment, unless you wanted muddy feet. With the help of Fr. Chad Hatfield, whose son is an Eagle Scout, I was able to frame my ideas and develop my project.

Originally, I wanted to replace the bench, but realized that I needed to stop the flooding problem if the area was to be a place for people to spend quiet time. The simple idea of fixing the flooding expanded to remodeling the entire area. I knew developing a project like this would help the Church in one aspect and add even more splendor to the seminary’s beautiful campus. After serving in the Church and Scouting for more than half of my life I learned, in addition to many other things, the values of respect and coexistence in a healthy community. Hopefully, completing this project demonstrates my love for the seminary community and will inspire others in some way.

I am very appreciative to the team of seven individuals that helped me complete the first part of the project: Scoutmaster Gustavo Gobatto, SVOTS Plant Manager Rafael Rivera, Dad Manuel Soto, Michael Bouteneff, Leonardo Gobatto, Felix Behr, and Paul Szumny. I would also like to thank my family, friends, and the seminary community for the financial support they have given me to complete this project. The second part of the project is to build two benches and secure them in a cement foundation. I expect to finish the project before the end of October. Check for an update soon!

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Skye Andrew Malone is a Life Scout in Yonkers Troop 4 (Westchester Putnam Boy Scout Council). He is a member of the Three Hierarchs Chapel community at SVOTS.

This article was originally published October 7, 2011.