Soul destroying words and deeds

This phrase really caught me this morning during the divine liturgy.  In our materialistic America, our attention is, almost exclusively, on the physical.  We are paying more and more attention upon what we eat, and drink, the quality of air, going organic and non-gmo.  These things are all good and fine but we are mistakenly focusing on only half the picture.  The concept of the spiritual being anything other than "going to heaven when you die", is almost completely foreign to the average American.  Unfortunately, much of the attention that is paid to things spiritual comes from Hindu or Buddhist thought, in the form of new age. 
The thing to think about is this.  God made man body and soul, as a complete whole.  We need to start paying attention to and addressing, our spiritual selves.  We need to avoid the mistake of even thinking of it as one part of us.  The spiritual is really the other side of the coin.  But don't listen to the world or to other religions, the church has specific teaching on tending to our souls.  We need to start recognizing soul destroying words and deeds. We need to start learning how to avoid them.  We need to learn to repent of them.
Soul destroying words and deeds are actually far more important to address than diet and exercise.  The latter only affects (for the most part) our temporal bodies, but the former affects our eternal souls.  Think about that for a while.

Names, again

If you remember, and I hope you do, I have spoken in the past about names, naming and what it means when someone names someone/something.  Over the last several years, I have begun to take notice of the names of churches.  Traditionally, churches take the names of important saints, or important events in the life of Christ.  Roman Catholic, Anglican and Eastern Orthodox churches especially have historically practiced this.  But as of the last few decades, churches have started naming themselves after experiential events.  Take for instance "Open Door Fellowship", "Breath of Life" or "Liberty Fundamental Baptist Church".  I don't really know what to think of a shift like this, other than to suspect that it is simply fruit of a spiritual gathering focused on experience rather than the Eucharist. 
The other thing that is odd about these names is the lack of the term "church", in many.  It's almost like a huge Freudian slip.  These Protestant gatherings seem to unconsciously know that they are actually not churches, at least in the practical, historical sense.  They have no priest, no hierarchy, no bread or wine, no confession and no practical connection with the apostolic faith.
I actually really do appreciate the renaming that is going on.  At least they are being honest about who and what they are.  I may come across as harsh, but a rose is a rose.  A man may honestly believe himself to be invincible, but he's not.  A spiritual gathering it may be, but historically speaking, it's not the church.

Experience and history

A further thought had occurred to me in regards to my previous post on interpretation.  As we experience various things, we will interpret them according to our worldview.  And it seems that no one really questions the validity of doing so.  But if one steps back and considers what is actually going on when we do so, it starts to appear rather untenable.
To try to analyze, interpret and label the reasons behind why things happen, we really ought to marvel at how little we actually know.  This goes for interpreting world history as well.  Basing an interpretation of events on our extremely limited knowledge ought to make us pause.  Our knowledge and experience storehouse is simply far too small.  But this is why we have the church.
One, we can trust that God is moving through and directing history toward his desired end.  Two, we can know that God is moving through and directing his church, making it a spotless bride for himself.  Three, we can know that the Holy Spirit will always be with us, his people.  Beyond that, assurance is tenuous.  God has created us to be in communion, with him and with his people.  As God said to Adam, it is not good for man to be alone.  We live and move and have our being , in the body of Christ. Jesus Christ is life and there is life nowhere else. 
As we live, we will go through peace as well as trouble.  We won't have answers for some things that happen. In other words, our limited knowledge will fail us.  But we have the assurance of life and love, as we are part of the people of God.  If we want answers, the church is there for us. If we tire of the fight, we can rest with his/our people.
Regardless of where we are or what we see and think we understand, we are loved by a God who is directing history, has all the answers and has provided us with the means to reach a wonderful end.
Regardless of whether we understand the journey or not.

Framework and interpretation

We all live our lives with a wide variety of interactions and experiences. The culture in which we happen to live, in large part, controls how we interpret these various situations.  Growing up in America, someone will have a very materialistic, comfort centered way of thinking that will be motivated and driven by this worldview.  Someone in agricultural India or Asia will obviously be different, very likely moving in Buddhist or Hindu circles and frame of thought.
I have been thinking lately about reality and how we interpret it.  Regardless of one's desire to be ecumenical or politically correct, there is only one reality.  The reason there are so many different religions and worldviews is not because of different realities, but differing interpretations.  There is only one framework that constitutes reality.  How honestly, thoroughly or consistently we interpret that framework will determine which worldview we embrace.  Without going into the details of why we interpret dishonestly or inconsistently, the fact is, the whole thing is a vicious circle. We interpret the framework because of our worldview and our worldview is molded by our interpretation of the facts.  The biggest challenge is to be able to step outside of our framework and consider from a different angle.  There may be facts that we have ignored or are ignorant of.  There may be certain beliefs that we have embraced either consciously or unconsciously, that prevent us from moving in a particular direction or seeing certain things.
My suggestion is this. Start asking questions such as"why".  "Why do I believe x, y, or x?"  "Why do I do thing a, b or c?"  As you ask yourself a question, also seek out how others have answered the same question.  When you have answered that question, ask the question that supports that answer.  Eventually you will come into some very difficult philosophical questions and that is okay.
This is especially interesting when we come to interpreting religious or spiritual experiences.  These experiences fully depend upon the worldview we have embraced.  We have nothing else upon which to lean.  We have no other frame of reference to look to.
Reality is what it is.  It is our responsibility to get it right.

Names and time

Today is the day of Pentecost. As someone pointed out, according to the church calendar, time, from this point forward, is named as "days after Pentecost", and this is significant.  The way we name things reveals several things, one of them being levels of importance.  In the Orthodox church, Pentecost is a great holy day, seconded only by Pascha (Easter).  What actually happened at Pentecost and what was communicated cannot be overstated.  The miracle of speaking in tongues was a reversal of the Tower of Babel.  When God looked down upon the efforts of men striving after rebellion, in trying to build a tower to heaven, he confused their language to stop their sinful unity.  Now, at Pentecost, because of Jesus' salvific work, man can, united as one in Jesus Christ, unify and once again enter into God's presence.
I would suggest that the overarching theme of Pentecost is mankind united as the church.  As a united people of God, we once again come to God.  This is simply everything.  That singular event should define our reality, thus the concept of naming our time based on this event.
To flesh out one more aspect, consider... linearly speaking, our life moves forward only in regards to the life of Christ, thus our use of his birth for our yearly calendar.  But cyclically speaking, we rise from the dead with Christ at Pascha, but our cycle of life is from Pentecost, when we join together as the church and move through life together, with the blessing of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.  It's always been about "the people of God."
That's important.

Recapture

As Americans, with our eyes on our wallets and our attention on physical appearance, we desperately need to recover and live out the truth that we are spiritual, as well as, physical beings.  Sure, you listen to people talk and see what many people do on Sundays and it may appear that people believe in the spiritual side of things.  But really, it is only talk and two hours on Sundays.
If we lived our lives with a balance between physical and spiritual, things would look radically different.  As it stands today, just a hair over one percent of our time is spent on spiritual life.  That is unbalanced.
I am really in no place to even begin suggesting what a balanced life looks like, but I do know that what we are doing right now is woefully lacking.

Spiritual and material

My thoughts have been moving lately in the direction of holism.   When we look at the wide variety of cultures across time and around the world, we see two tendencies.  A culture will either tend toward materialism or toward the spiritual.  I think reality is a spectrum with these two extremes on opposite ends.  A whole, healthy person will be perfectly balanced in the middle.  He will balance his energies between taking care of his body and his spirit without neglecting or injuring one in favor of the other.
The biggest problem for us today, here in America, is our terrible emphasis on the material, to the best total neglect of the spiritual.  Most Protestant churches are no better.  They preach on morality, on healthy living and on going to heaven someday (or avoiding hell, depending on the church).  But there is almost nothing said about healing the soul, restoring our spirit, or cleansing our heart.  It is so bad that to even to try to speak on the topic will bring either looks of confusion or derision, with accusations of being "New Age".
The far east, on the opposite end, tends toward the other extreme, at least religiously.  Meditation and reincarnation form a worldview that downplays the place of the body.
We need to remember, God made man body and soul.  He formed him from clay and breathed life into him.  We should not fall into the error of Platonism, which sees the spirit in the prison house of the body.  But we shouldn't neglect our spirit either, putting all our emphasis on exercise and the pursuit of youthful beauty.
It will be a very difficult path to find and travel, as we have been way off for so long.  But we must find a balance.  A whole new world will open up for us, in which we will know others more deeply, we will interact with all of creation more fully, we will come to know the spiritual side in ways we cannot even begin to comprehend, and we will know God in the way we were created to know him.
Our reality must be built upon a framework of loving God and loving neighbor.  We can only do this when we are whole, spiritually and physically healthy and balanced.  The tools that we need to move in the right direction are provided for us in the church, the holy, apostolic, historic Orthodox Christian church.  Let's learn to use them holistically.  Life is complex, this will take us a long time to figure out.