Speaking in silence

While silence certainly has its place in a person’s life, according to the Orthodox church, as human beings, we are created for communication and interaction.  While it is true that we are to emulate Christ, in every aspect of our lives, communication is one key area that is often overlooked, in this regard. Jesus told many stories to communicate the truths of a right relationship with God.  So on one hand, we can say, with certainty, we must learn to communicate, in the most effective ways possible, so as to remove all possible means of misunderstanding and mis-speaking. Another way of saying this is that we do not communicate by silence, we communicate with words.  God spoke to a sinful world by means of word. We, now, as his body, should do the same. It is when a heart has been changed, has learned to drive away the distractions of the world and listen for silence that one is ready to begin to hear God in the silence.

At the same time, we can say that we are to seek after silence as we strive after theosis.  We pray out loud in order to learn to pray inward in order to learn to pray in silence. In other words, we learn to be quiet so as to hear the voice of God, speaking in silence and guiding us by his Holy Spirit.

So what is speaking in silence?  It is speaking out loud, in love, to those around us, not expecting them to simply know what we mean.  But it is speaking, with a passion for, a love for and a goal of silence, so that we are led by the Spirit of God.

The Organic Nature of Reality

The reality and objectivity of Jesus' incarnation, death and resurrection doesn't seem to garner enough attention with the Protestant/Evangelical/Roman/Orthodox world.  For sure, these branches talk about Jesus and his work, but the objectivity does not seem to be embraced as it should. 
When we read in the gospels and the epistles that Jesus died to save the world or that God loves all men and sent his son to die for the sins of the world, we need to understand what is being said here.  The question should come to mind, "Did Jesus succeed in what he set out to do?"  Of course we will say yes, but how that "yes" is defined differs between branches.  The Calvinists will argue that Jesus' saving work only applies to "the elect", while the Evangelical/Roman world will argue that Jesus' work was comprehensive, the actual application only pertains to those who choose to embrace it.  But the Orthodox world sees it differently.
Far too often, the dichotomy of "universalism" or "unconditional election" is given as the only two options, but this is false.  If we take the words of the gospels literally, we would have to say, "Yes, Jesus died for all men", but that does not mean that all men will be saved.
To cut to the main point here, Jesus' work was not about a legal transaction or a fee paid to an angry God.  God is love, not a bank ledger or an angry judge. Man's problem was not about paying a fee, but about being in bondage to sin and death.  Jesus' death and resurrection was about defeating the power of sin and death and freeing man from that bondage.  Now that ALL men are free from that bondage, it is now each man's responsibility to make use of the tools that God has given us through the church by the power of the Holy Spirit, to transform his soul into the image of Christ. The Orthodox church calls this theosis.
So really what it comes to is two things.  First, Jesus actually accomplished all that he set out to do, he defeated the power of sin and death for all men. Second, man too has responsibility to transform his soul by the power of the Holy Spirit.  This two fold responsibility has always been the situation/relationship between God and man.
This is not a matter of man "earning" his salvation.  Jesus did that already, free and clear.  It is a matter of someone formerly in bondage, now freed, using the tools to transform himself into what he was created to be, that is, in perfect, loving communion with God.