The Web of Imagined Security
Our nation is going through a period of economic slough, with many families having suffered great loss. Mortgage foreclosures have displaced many from their homes, with increased numbers of children attending school, counted among the homeless, and hiding their plight from their friends. They are living in motels, in family vans, or even tents, and feeling terrible shame and despair. Husbands and fathers are feeling like total losers, unable, as they are, to find jobs to support their families. For many, this period of history has become a repeat of the Great Depression, and they see no end in sight.
As this modern tragedy unfolds, many others are doing quite well, holding down jobs in the high tech industry that pay very well. We have become a society of the haves, and the have-nots. Many people who have abundance, tend to ignore the plight of those unfortunate enough to have lost everything, perhaps fearing they may be next. They’ve given themselves over to the pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment, like the grasshopper of storybook fame, fiddling away, and not preparing for winter.
Having job security, and money, often leads to a sense of false security, and the person is distracted from the real meaning of life. We were not placed on this earth to pursue pleasure, but rather, to pursue the Kingdom of God. We dare not allow ourselves to ignore the spiritual, especially if we are feeling comfortable with job security, and abundance. All this could be taken away in an instant, and we would have squandered valuable time, and finding ourselves in a state of spiritual poverty, as earthy poverty has taken a grip on us.
We must live our lives in balance, making sure that pleasure and ascetic struggle are at least lived in equal proportions, lest we lose the treasure that will be eternal, and find ourselves caught in a web from which there can be no escape.
“The eyes of pigs have a natural conformation which makes them turn towards the ground and they can never look up to Heaven, so is the soul of one who lets himself be carried away by pleasure. Once the soul is allowed to slip into the slough of enjoyment, she can no longer get out again (The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers).”
Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
About the author
Fr. Tryphon is the Abbot of the Monastery of the All-Merciful Saviour, which was established in 1986 by Archimandrite Dimitry (Egoroff) of blessed memory. The Monastery is under the omophore of His Eminence Kyrill, Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
