Weekly wisdom continues as we head into the sunny and stormy mid to late July. In the summer - the sky can be deceiving in one instance blue skies and in a matter of moments the atmosphere changes with dark clouds rain, hail and wind descending.

It is what came to mind as I read from the Philokalia this morning.

“I entreat you not to leave your heart unguarded, as long as you are in the body. Just as a farmer cannot feel confident about the crop growing in his fields, because he does not know what will happen to it before it is stored away in his granary, so a man should not leave his heart unguarded as long as he still has breath in his nostrils. Up to his last breath he cannot know what passion will attack him; as long as he breathes, therefore, he must not leave his heart unguarded, but should at every moment pray to God for his help and mercy.” [St. Isaiah the Solitary from I, On Guarding the Intellect, sec. 15]

The wisdom for today comes from Skylight Paths book, Philokalia (The Eastern Christian Spiritual Texts: Selections Annotated & Explained). The Philokalia is a very revered and important text in the Orthodox tradition. Briefly, philokalia is a greek word meaning, “love of the beautiful.” The work which bears this title contains stories and teachings from the monks on “the holy mountain.” The monastery on Mount Athos in Greece was/is known for it’s authentic spirituality, watchfulness, and practice of contemplative prayer - it was the combined wisdom from this well which flows to us through this ancient text (primarily from the 9th & 10th Century - although there are snippets from the 4th - 14th century that “sneak in”).

In the anonymous nineteenth-century Russian classic The Way of a Pilgrim, the pilgrim asks a staretz, or spiritual father, whether the Philokalia is “more exalted and holier than the Bible.” The staretz answers:

“No, it is not more exalted or holier than the Bible, but it contains enlightened explanations of what is mystically contained in the Bible, and it is so lofty that it is not easily comprehended by our shortsighted intellect. Le me give you an illustration. The sun is the greatest, the most resplendent and magnificent source of light, but you cannot contemplate or examine it with the simple naked eye. You would need to use a special viewing lens, which, though a million times smaller and dimmer than the sun, would enable you to study this magnificent source of all light and to endure and delight in its fiery rays. Thus the Holy Scriptures are like a brillant sun, for which the Philokalia is the lens needed in order to view it.” (The Way of a Pilgrim, p. 15)

So, take up the Philokalia and read it!

Our weekly wisdom from the Philokalia:

“Truly blessed is the man whose mind and heart are as closely attached to the Jesus Prayer* and to the ceaseless invocation of his name as air to the body or flames to the wax. The sun rising over the earth creates the daylight; and the venerable and holy name of the Lord Jesus, shining continually in the mind, gives birth to countless intellections as radiant as the sun.” (St. Hesychios the Priest; I On Whatchfulness and Holiness, sec. 196)

*The Jesus Prayer is a foundational practice in the Orthodox tradition which incorporates the following prayer into everyday living: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Today - our midweek dip into the wisdom of those early Christian ascetics continues. Today we are guided to look at our appetites - what do we find ourselves hungry for? What do we crave?

“Abbot Palladius said: The soul that wishes to live according to the will of Christ should either learn faithfully what it does not yet know, or teach openly what it does know. But if, when it can, it desires to do neither of these things, it is afflicted with madness. For the first step away from God is a distaste for learning, and lack of appetite for those things for which the soul hungers when it seeks God.”

(from Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert pp. 44-45)

This weeks wisdom is from Abbot Theodore of Pherme (paraphrased by Thomas Merton from The Wisdom of the Desert p. 35).

“Another brother asked the same elder, Abbot Theodore, and began to question him and to inquire about things which he had never yet put into practice himself. The elder said to him: As yet you have not found the ship, and you have not put your baggage aboard, and you have not started to cross the sea: can you talk as if you had already arrived in that city to which you planned to go? When you have put into practice the thing you are talking about, then speak from the knowledge of the the thing itself!”

So three weeks in and I missed a Wednesday already! Today’s offering is short but sweet from St. Evagrios of Pontus (345-399 AD). His writings have been passed on to us through the Eastern Church’s principal text The Philokalia. [I will post on the significance of this text in the very near future.]

Today’s wisdom:

“If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly you are a theologian.”

Last week I began this series I so innovatively (a doug-ism, apparently) entitled, “wisdom for wednesday” - if you haven’t a clue - you can catch up by reading last weeks post, here.

This week our wisdom is again taken from The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton (p. 25-26).

“A brother asked one of the elders: ‘What good thing shall I do, and have life thereby?’

The older man replied: ‘God alone knows what is good. However, I have heard it said that someone inquired of Father Abbot Nisteros the great, the friend of Abbot Anthony, asking: what good work shall I do? and that he replied:

Not all works are alike. For Scripture says that Abraham was hospitable and God was with him. Elias loved solitary prayer, and God was with him. And David was humble, and God was with him.

Therefore, whatever you see your soul to desire according to God, do that thing, and you shall keep your heart safe.’”

from the sayings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers (a paraphrase by Merton)…

The Desert Mothers and Fathers sayings have been gathered in numerous anthologies by the Orthodox and Roman church. These hermits of the Egyptian desert formed the basis for the formation of formal monasticism and give us a glimpse at a literal following of Jesus’ teaching. The sayings of our spiritual ancestors which I will share on Wednesdays for the for-seeable future are primarily taken from the hermits of Scete who fled the “worldly” habitation of the Roman Empire during the 3rd and 4th century.

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“Once two brothers were sitting with Abbot Poemen and one praised the other brother saying: ‘He is a good brother, he hates evil.’

The old man said, ‘What do you mean, he hates evil?’

And the brother did not know what to reply. So he said, ‘Tell me, Father, what it is to hate evil?’

The Father said, ‘That man hates evil who hates his own sins, and looks upon every brother as a saint, and loves him as a saint.’”

[from The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton p. 70-71]