“Soldier… save me from slavery!” Both indifferentism and rigourism are slavery. The former is a slave to fashion and convenience; the latter is a slave to the rules and conventions. The Truth WILL set you free… but do want freedom from slavery? Really? Think on it…
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I saw this on FB:
I was in a conversation with both rigourist and lax on Orthodoxy and various modes of meditation and “mindfulness” as offered nowadays. It disappeared. A few things became clear. First, the flinty fear of demons works as a control function, indulges a passion, and fosters an atmosphere of absurd creepiness, besides assuming a mechanical idea of God. Often, people express this fear as the belief that using your breath, voice, and body wrongly… not evil deeds or words, but just patterns… puts you at risk for demonic attack. It’s as if walking were safe, but skipping opens the doors to devils, and a dance step might lead you straight to hell. Moreover, clearing the mind of bad thoughts, or thoughts at all, logismoi, is analogised to the parable of the house cleared of demons, only to be repopulated by a new crew. On that warning, you’d better not brush your teeth! A new crew of bacteria is going to get you.
The squishy side, having no such fears, relies on the Holy Spirit being everywhere, and in every line of traditions and practises. That’s another distortion: the Holy Spirit might be anywhere, but the precise thing at issue is that one doesn’t RELIABLY find Him anywhere but where He has promised to be. In addition, Since He isn’t mechanical, one can’t manage or flim-flam Him, but He’ll deal according to your motive and intent. If you leave where He offers to meet you… or apostatise by reinterpretation… I don’t think He’d look for you in some dress-up alternative place, even with a lot of foreign words.
Lastly, the idea that a Christian need perform a prayer while doing such meditation or contemplation strikes me as like thinking a wire needs a hole through it for the electricity to go through. The sacramentally changed and sanctified person is, in himself, with his intention set, already the mode, and opening for Grace that the particular praying was meant to make. Not that you can’t, nor that there may not be special reasons at particular junctures, but that the being of a Christian “doing” these practises is essentially different from the being of someone else so doing.
Tita Deacon
My reply to the above was:
The Apostle said, “Love God and do what you will”. Orthodoxy is the most Zen-like corner of Christendom. We are NOT crusaders or preachers… we ARE people in touch with the Mystery. If you can apprehend that… everything falls into place.
Rigourism is being dead from the neck up… as is indifferentism… keep to the Golden Mean, as the Holy Fathers advise. We’re not Calvinists nor Jesuits nor Pentecostalists… we’re ORTHODOX… keep that in mind.
BMD
Voices from Russia 
14 November 2015. As Seen by Vitaly Podvitsky… #Je Suis Paris (2)
Tags: cartoons, death, editorial cartoons, EU, European Union, France, grief, ISIS, memorial, Memory Eternal, Paris, political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, terror, terrorism, terrorist, terrorists, Tragedy, Vitaly Podvitsky, war and conflict
#Je Suis Paris (2)
Vitaly Podvitsky
2015
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