Thank you for this, Father, and bless you.

Met. Anthony Bloom of blessed memory has a wonderful little book on prayer, which I have been rereading parts of. He has a wonderful chapter on the absence of God, with many similar points along the lines you have written here, some of it from a slightly different angle. He writes:

“. . . To meet God face to face in prayer is a critical moment in our lives, and thanks be to Him that he does not always present Himself to us when we wish to meet Him, because we might not be able to endure such a meeting. . . . He does not come in an untimely way. He gives us a chance to judge ourselves, to understand, and not to come into His presence at a moment when it would mean condemnation.

“I would like to give you an example of this. Many years ago a man came to me. He asked me to show him God. I told him I could not but I added that even if I could, he would not be able to see Him, because I thought –and I do think–that to meet God one must have something in common with Him, something that gives you eyes to see, perceptiveness to perceive. He asked me then why I thought as I did, and I suggested that he should think a few moments and tell me whether there was any passage in the Gospel that moved him particularly, to see what was the connection between him and God. He said ‘Yes in the eight chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, the passage concerning the woman taken in adultery.’ I said, ‘Good, this is one of the most beautiful and moving passages. Now sit back and ask yourself, who are you in the scene which is described? Are you the Lord, or at least on His side, full of mercy, of understanding and full of faith in this woman who can repent and become a new creature? Are you the woman taken in adultery? Are you one of the older men who walk out at once because they are aware of their own sins, or one of the young ones who wait? He thought for a few minutes then said ‘No, I feel I am the only Jew who would not have walked out but who would have stoned the woman.’ I said ‘Thank God that He does not allow you to meet with Him face to face.’”

I was also struck by this short paragraph:

“There are other ways too in which God is ‘absent’. As long as we ourselves are real, as long as we are truly ourselves, God can be present and can do something with us. But the moment we try to be what we are not, there is nothing left to say or have; we become a fictitious personality, an unreal presence, and this unreal presence cannot be approached by God.”

Thank you for another shaving off this great Saint’s endless ration of Light!
Fr. Stephen you write often about loving our enemies.
I was saddened by the response of cheering when a recent infamous enemy was killed. Can you give us a reflection on this- the loss of life, a distorted human life certainly, but how should we as Orthodox respond?
It is impossible for me to believe real justice is in the destruction of life, especially brought home in this Paschal Tide.

Thank you;
-Mark Basil

I find it interesting that if God is hidden from us, it is primarily because we do not know how to see Light.

Psalm 36:9 For with You is the fountain of life; In Your Light we see light.

“Man hides within his lies” – Father Stephen Freeman

This is a fascinating statement.

Romans 1:21-23

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.