The Silent War: The Battleground in the Mind with Father Timothy Pavlatos

In this episode, Father Timothy Pavlatos shares his journey from Orthodox upbringing and academic pursuits in theology and psychology to his deep engagement with spiritual warfare, humility, and mental health. Our conversation explores the “Silent War”—the spiritual battle within the mind, the role of demons versus trauma, and how humility and prayer are essential in overcoming mental and spiritual struggles. We discuss the book “Saint Silouan the Athonite," touching on topics like fighting the evil within our hearts and not outside in the world, the withdrawal of grace from God, why it feels as though we are abandoned by God—how Adam must have felt in the Garden of Eden—and keeping thy mind in hell and despair not. We also discuss the profound opportunity suffering offers us to be sanctified for our salvation.

Father Timothy Pavlatos is the pastor of St. Katherine Orthodox Church in Chandler, Arizona.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome back to the Let's Be Friends podcast. With us today is a friend of God, Father Timothy Pavlatos. Father Timothy is a priest at St. Catherine Greek Orthodox Church in Chandler, Arizona. Father Timothy has an extensive educational and practical background in therapy, receiving his bachelor's in psychology, neurobiology and trauma, and at one time working as an inpatient addiction therapist for adolescents. He also received his master's in divinity from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Since pursuing his education and work as a therapist and priest, he has dedicated much of his time and attention to the integration of Orthodox theology and spirituality as it relates to the therapeutic process of counseling. Welcome to the show, Father Timothy.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Thank you. Nice to be on.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I'm really honored to have you here today. Um, I appreciate so much you taking the time to be here and speak to us.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Well, it it took a few tries, but I think we got to it eventually.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, this is definitely the day that it was meant to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

So in this episode, I would really like to take a look at the spiritual battle that we are all going through, the battleground specifically in the mind, like mental struggles, demonic influence, and fighting the evil within our hearts rather than focusing on that in the outside world. Um, I shared, I know I shared a little bit about you, my Christian background with you, but I'm not sure if I mentioned that I was I've really spent a lot of my life um afflicted by mental issues since I was a little girl. And I was actually misdiagnosed bipolar by five psychiatrists over eight years in my um late 20s to 30s. I found out when I was on about 20 pills a day that I had been misdiagnosed through a series of events with a psych my psychiatrist sending me to a place called the Mood Clinic and through the University of Texas that was for people who were bipolar to get you on the lowest dose of medication possible. After extensive interviews, I found out I'd been misdiagnosed. And I had spent my whole life trying to heal myself because I was not a Christian growing up and I didn't know about Jesus. I didn't even believe Jesus was real. So I ended up doing psychedelics and falling into the new age and the occult. Um, I also went to rehab, I went to the psych ward, I went through the gamut of trying to heal myself, and I truly never found healing until I entered the Orthodox Church. So I would love to kind of talk about that sort of area with you in this conversation since it's you seem to have a lot of experience and knowledge about that. What um do you would you like to share with the listeners before we get started, just a little bit about how you you grew up in the Orthodox Church, but how you a little bit about you and also how you got interested in mental health studying?

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Yeah, I'd I'd be happy to. Um you know, it's interesting. I think a lot of people who get involved in um helping vocations, whether it's medicine or um uh psychiatry, psychology, um, any anything where we're helping people, there seems to be a correlation of um between between the vocation that they're choosing to pursue and uh what they have gone through in their own lived experience of life. And um and in in many ways trying to um perhaps heal themselves by helping other people through through difficulties and so forth. Um and I would say that's uh true for me as well. Um, you know, growing up in my home, um it wasn't always easy. I won't go into the details. Uh but um and then I I think also for me, there is um, you know, uh really God put in my heart uh this this calling to be to help people. Um I never thought about the priesthood though. That was not something on my radar. Even when I was in seminary studying theology, uh after I received my bachelor's in psychology, um it was uh suggested to me by a priest that if you want to do this thing that you're talking about, which is the integration of uh psychology, mental health with um orthodox spirituality and and life in the Orthodox faith and so forth, uh, he said you should probably get a degree in theology so that you have a good understanding of that. Prior to that, um you know, I grew up in a home, we were Orthodox, we went to church on most Sundays and major feast days, but it wasn't uh a a life that was deeply lived. You know, we weren't studying scripture, I wasn't learning about the saints, um, any any of those uh beautiful things that the Orthodox Church has to offer. Um it wasn't until after I graduated college, um, and my story is is is on other um um in other places that people can see it. I don't want to duplicate all of that right now, but uh I will simply say that when I went to seminary, uh I I had no idea really what I was doing. I didn't even know the title of some of my classes, what they meant. Uh and so uh I was very fortunate to be uh paired up. Yeah, I was very fortunate to be paired up uh with a a a young man, a young adult man my age, uh, who was very well versed in Orthodox uh theology and scripture. And um he grew up in a uh in a home, his father was a priest, and so he helped me a lot in uh as I was sort of deciphering uh all these classes and the things that I was learning really for the first time at the age of I guess 23 or 24.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Um yeah, so I was I always consider myself a cradle Orthodox, but also a convert in the sense that there was a conversion of the heart, but there was also then a a conversion of really wanting to know more and learn as much as I could about Orthodox, the Orthodox faith. So I went through that program, uh, the Master's a Divinity, um, and then after that, um after graduation, I went on and got a master's in pastoral counseling from Loyola University. And I also um um did a third master's program, but it in it was a certificate because I didn't have to take all the classes because it was very similar to the one in Loyola, but it was in the areas area of marriage and family, which is what I really wanted to focus on in relationships in particular. Um I I will say though that when I was in college working on my bachelor's in psychology, uh I was traveling back and forth um to the the college that I was attending. It was about a 40-minute drive. And it was um I would I would listen to uh Dr. James Dobson, who was a um uh evangelical Christian psychologist in the morning, and then I would listen to the Minworth Meyer Clinic, who are two evangelical Christians that were psychiatrists. And that that um is really what uh planted the seed in me because I started thinking at that time this would be really neat to do with Orthodox, with the Orthodox faith. Um and so that was really the uh the start of it, and then all the academic stuff came later. Um when I was in seminary, I also uh went to Greece uh two summers in a row for three months each in 1989 and 1990. And um over those two summers I I went to Mount Athos uh five times, and one of them I stayed for an extended period of time. That's where I really um became, I think, more rooted in in the uh spiritual life, because on Mount Athos it's really the it's a it's a center of Orthodox spirituality um and has a tremendous history and has produced uh many, many, many saints. And so there that became uh um one of my lived experiences that had a big influence on me. And they also um did a lot of reading. I was very drawn in seminary. I was very drawn to the lives of the lives of the saints. Uh some young men that are up there, they really love church history, some of them like Byzantine music, some of them like dogmatics or liturgical theology. I was really drawn to uh the saints and the lives of the saints. Um so being on monathos was really special because I had a lot of time to be still, um, to pray many hours a day in the church and in my own little cell uh to continue reading the lives of the saints. That was uh, I feel very formative for me. Um and in the midst of all this, right, I'm also struggling, right? I'm also doing battle against uh the evil one, the enemy who doesn't want any of us to draw near to Christ and is putting all kinds of obstacles, always attacking us at our weakest spots, um, trying to cause us to fall, which we do fall many, many times. And and so i that was sort of my own integrative process of learning theology, the the counseling part, going to Mount Athos, but also being engaged in this spiritual battle uh through it all, and still engaged in it, even to this day.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Wow. Um that's such an amazing background and combination of experiences that you had that brought you to where God has you today in this position as um a father, and um and being also having that experience on Mount Athos and being drawn to the lives of the saints. I feel the same that I feel very drawn to the lives of the saints. And we had discussed uh how I've been reading St. Siloman, the Athenaite. I had told you um that his stories really uh come to me and stood out to me. My spiritual father gave me this book when I was baptized last summer, and I've been reading it, and I really relate to a lot of the ways St. Silowan's life was going with his spiritual battle. And it was in here where I I read that the spiritual battle is in the mind, and I was just like, that is what I have experienced. I mean, I could almost cry um just saying that, but my whole life has been um this battle in my mind and with mental health issues and just struggling so much. And, you know, I'm 43 years old and I didn't believe Jesus was even real until I was 38, and it wasn't any kind of denomination that pulled me in. I didn't like Christianity growing up. Um I always believed in God. I just didn't know who he was. But when I became a Christian um was when I started following Christ, was I I I really started understanding there's this spiritual battle going on for our souls. I had been, you know, a practicing occultist. Um, I was working as a psychic medium actually at one time and doing things where I was communicating with demons, allowing them into my body. And I, when I started following Christ, things got worse than they'd ever been in my head with these demons coming at me and trying to kill me, really, like through me hurting myself. I mean, I had had suicide ideations since I was 16, and then, but it just got so bad. And and then eventually, though, after you know, I researched church history after being Protestant for three years, kind of questioning all these denominations, and found the Orthodox Church, became a catechumen, and the enemy came at me even harder. It was, it's been it was a real struggle for me coming out of all of that. And I know there's so many new converts coming into orthodoxy. A lot of people are discovering it and people coming out of the occult in the new age. And I just I really feel like like we have mental health issues, you have kind of the modern way of looking at it with like the DSM manual and the diagnoses and stuff. But then when you look back in time, I feel like it was seen that there was the spiritual aspect, the spiritual affliction from demons. And I just wanted to kind of talk to you and hear like what you think about the mental health issues and struggles that people have. Like what what role is that of demons versus like trauma or um kind of like is it can we talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_03 12:44

Yeah, it's uh it I mean it can be a a little bit of a challenging conversation. Um you know, when we talk about trauma, a lot of trauma is also um it comes from the enemy in the sense that uh in certain traumas there's a perpetrator. And so that perpetrator is being influenced by the evil one to uh commit acts or words or what what have you against another person. So we could even say that that has a demonic uh element to it for sure. Um but we're also um made up, you know, we have a body, we have a physiology and and uh and a neurobiology, and and and because we're in a fallen state, uh we recognize mental illness as a legitimate illness, just like we would recognize cancer or uh cirrhosis of the liver or high blood pressure. I mean, these are all physical physiological um illnesses. Um so we do recognize mental illness and and and and the the importance of mental health. Um, and even the monastic communities, and you know, the elders have talked about this too. Um, St. Portifidius had mentioned it and many others. Um sometimes it's it can be hard to discern um what what percentage of per what percentage of it is mental mental illness and what percentage is demonic influence and so forth. And I really only um a saint um who has the that type of level of discernment can can make that call accurately. Um but most of us, you know, we can't. We we see that there could be a uh influence of both things. So um nevertheless, I mean, having said that, ultimately we're looking at every person as a person created in the image of God. And whatever their struggle is, whatever the crosses are that they are bearing, whether it's uh uh truly a mental illness or not, um, our our approach is always the same. It's to to pray to help them, to assist them, um, to support them in in in in all the ways that we possibly can, mostly through prayer, but there are also many practical ways that we can do that. Um, you know, the Orthodox Church isn't against uh psychotropic medication. I mean, it's it's medication. Um but with all medication we want to be careful, right? Even if it's for um not mental things but bodily things, because there are side effects and all of these sort of things. Um I remember um an elder on uh on Mount Athos one time, um he was uh at one of the more well-known monasteries, and a young man in his mid-20s or late twenties was there and he was uh diagnosed with uh bipolar. And when he got there, he felt that the mother of God was just going to heal him and protect him, and so he chucked all of his medicines over the cliff. But then he started uh, you know, acting out and uh he was not regulated from the medication anymore, and it became obvious to some of the brothers in the monastic community, and so the elder talked to him and asked him what was going on, and he told him what he did, and he says, You can't do that. He says, Those medicines are important for you. So um there's a place for it, you know. Um, and I and I have some spiritual children who have been diagnosed with uh SMI, I mean severe mental illness, and it just pains my heart to see the struggle that they have with their thoughts, or whether it's um bipolar or a combination of things like bipolar and um um obsessive-compulsive disorder, and then a spiritual form of that, which is scrupulosity, uh it it's it's a terrible thing. Um and it and it's very hard. I mean, obviously um we can feel somewhat helpless in being able to really feel like we're doing anything good, but this is also where we have to step back and say, Lord, I'll continue to do what I can. But he or she is your child. You created them, and I'm asking you to help them, if nothing else, to be able to endure and to fill their heart with with your grace and with your love and grant them some peace.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Oh yeah. Um that, you know, I I'm a very sensitive person and I cry a lot, I feel a lot. I think that I you know, I can see why the count psychiatrist may have leaned towards diagnosing me bipolar because of kind of how I am naturally. And I one of the priests um at the monastery that I go to said that he's like, Well, this may be one of the crosses that you're carrying, you know, in this life is that feeling so deeply, and that's just you know how it is. And so I, you know, when you said like some of your spiritual children that have these mental health issues that you pray just that God can help them endure that and carry that. And, you know, I'm starting to realize, you know, I'm just a brand new Orthodox Christian, but the struggle, I think that's a big part of how our salvation is being worked out, is is so it's and I I had like I have a friend who's um has cancer, and she was talking to some of us and with one of the priests, and she was crying about what she was going through. And I I said to her, Oh, I wish I could take that away from you. And my friend next to me, Presbyteria Dorothy, um uh Presbyteria, said, Do not take that cross or that crown away from her. She's like, that is something that she's and I I went, Oh, you know, I that is God is giving us all different affli afflictions for our salvation. And I was reading what Elder Ephraim said in his book Um uh Council from the Holy Mountain, no one has ever been saved in comfort and without trials. Thus it follows that if we also bear trials, we should rejoice, for thus walked all all those who were saved. And since we want to be saved too, there is no other road but afflictions.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Well, we even read in scripture it's through many tribulations that we enter into the kingdom of heaven. The the issue, I think, and what the what the with the real challenges today not just today, but what I see a lot of today, um we can hear that uh that word from you know elder Ephraim, we can hear that word from scripture. The challenge is uh how do we bear our crosses in this in this life? That to me uh really doves t dovetails into the into the science of Saint Siliwon. Um Saint Sophroni described the spiritual life in three stages and um the second stage is the stage that most of us exist in for our entire lifetime. The first stage is is a gift of grace. Um he used the analogy of the Israelites uh who were held in captivity by the Egyptians for 400 years, and God freed them through Moses, his servant Moses. This was a very joyous moment, obviously, and the miracle of their freedom and passing through the Red Sea. And and in all their rejoicing and in being free now, they go across, uh they go through the Red Sea and they go into the desert for forty years. Now all of a sudden that wonderful experience of God's mercy and grace uh is is behind them in a sense, and now they're in the desert where they have no provisions. They they did not pack anything really with them to sustain them for any uh um noticeable amount of time. And and so now they're in the desert, and this is the second stage. It's the stage that God permits and what he permitted for them because he wanted to uh uh teach them how to trust him. And so in the in when when that first stage hits for us, and and every everyone will have that first uh experience of just tremendous grace and mercy and the love of God. Um, and it inspires our hearts. It's it's really what leads us to say, I'm doing this, I'm going to follow Christ. Um, however that's experienced, but it's a it's it's a something that takes place in the heart and also in the mind. There is there's some rationale involved, but it's really a leading of the heart, and this is God reaching out to touch every person, to know his mercy and his his love for that person, and what he what it is that he offers them. Then we go into the desert of the spiritual life, and and this is what we're all experiencing at this uh point in time. This is where the struggle is. And so here, too, where we we need to learn how to trust God, how to pray, how to survive, how to exist, uh, how to m continue moving forward during this. It's a very challenging time because, as I said, or as Saint Sephrone says, most of us will experience this until the end of our days. Now, there are those who reach the third stage, and those are the saints, like Saint Sephrony and Saint Silowan and Saint Paisos and all of the saints. They they reach that third stage. Um and and even like Saint Paissios, who reached that third stage, he asked God to put him back in the second stage because he didn't want to be separated experientially from the suffering of those who were coming to him. And to me, that's that's this is uh the ultimate expression of love, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah. Oh yeah. Definitely. This is reminding me from St. Silowan's book when he talks about how Adam must have felt in the Garden of Eden. Um, St. Sophroni says when he describes Adam's inconsolable grief, his weeping when he was driven from paradise, he is in fact speaking of his own sorrow after losing grace. So if you think of um, you know, at in you know, they were Adam and Eve were with God in communion, like completely right, with God. And then after this spiritual death, at that departure, and just how empty they must have felt. I it just yeah, it reminds me of that second stage. And even in I think Yuki said each one of us experiences that. And as a new Christian, when I first realized, oh, Jesus was God, oh my gosh, fully God, fully human, it was like, oh wow, and this is the answer. I found it. Oh, and then all of a sudden, you're just like, oh no, now I'm on the ground sometimes crying to God in front of my icons, just like weeping, like, help me, where are you?

SPEAKER_03 23:48

Yeah, this is something we go, we go through, it's like cyclical. Um, you know, Saint Seffhroni talks about this, and and of course, Saint Silawan uh handed over all of his notes and his uh his writings to to Saint Sophroni, to Father Sophroni at the time, um, which um he gathered all those together and eventually, you know, wrote the book on the life of Saint Silowan. Um but this this is this is part of uh his writings that we go up and down all the time. It's it's when we go through the second stage, it's not just uh struggle and hardship and difficulty constantly, but God always visits us and refreshes our soul, and he gives us moments of grace again to to lift us up and to and to inspire us and um to remind us of his love and that he is always there. And and even though you know our Lord says, you know, that he will never forsake us, uh Saint Sophoni talks about how we experience God forsakenness in life. But that's um very purposeful. This um this withdrawal of the grace of God in the second stage, this is when we feel horrible, like we can't pray. Uh it's difficult to get up in the morning. We don't have motivation to maybe go to church or to do anything, and we can easily see this as uh depression or or despondency or um dysthymia, sort of a low-grade uh continual uh depressive uh state that we're in. But when God withdraws his grace, there's a couple things going on. One is once we have tasted in the first stage, and at different times on the second stage, as I mentioned, once we have tasted the joy of the Lord, his mercy, his grace, his love, those moments when we feel really close to Jesus moments, you know, and it and we just feel like prayer life is strong, and you know, I'm seeing the world differently and all that. That is all free. That is a free gift that God gives us. And in those moments, we need to remember that so we continually thank God for what He's giving us at that moment for as long as that's gonna last. We should thank God for it. Then when when that begins to withdraw, the two things are one, it uh in that time when we're feeling less than what we did before or we're really struggling, we can remember and recall that moment of beauty and love and mercy and grace and joy, and it creates a longing in us in order to pursue it, to find it again. And we see this in the life of Saint Silawan. Um St. Silawan, when he was, you know, given this free gift, tremendous gift of grace by Christ uh through the Holy Spirit, but then went through a titanic struggle for like 15 years when that grace withdrew, withdrew from him. He longed with it for with tears constantly. I mean, once you taste that, you don't want anything else as a nothing will substitute. Nothing can take the place of that. And if we start turning to the things of the world, it's just it tastes nasty, you know. But we continue to do that because that's typically habits that we've had and things that we've gone to before in order to try to feel better about ourselves or whatever. Um, but we we start to long for that grace, and like a child who's been holding its mother's hand for for you know hours and then all of a sudden the mother's gone. There's a almost a panic, but a longing for that child. I want my mommy, I want my mommy. And it's so it's like, I need to find Christ, I need to find Christ again. So it creates that longing. The second reason that the the grace of uh withdraws and in this experience of God forsakenness, it's to help us to learn how we are to bear that in the moment. And I mentioned it before when the Israelites were in the desert, um, but in the spiritual life, how do we bear those moments? Even though in our in our mind, psychologically, we hate those moments and we don't want to be in them, and we just seem like we're just hanging on for dear life, waiting for things to get better. Those moments can be the sp the most productive spiritual moments in our existence, in our journey. Father Zacharias speaks about this a lot in his writings. Father Zacharias is a spiritual son of Saint Sophroni. He speaks about this a lot in his writings. I mean, most of his books, he's mentioning this, and sometimes he elaborates on it a great deal. But in those moments, those are our moments of hell. And in that place of hell where we're experiencing the absence of God or God forsakenness or the lack of grace, in that moment, Saint Silawan was taught by Christ, that is not when you despair. And then we go back to the saying, keep thy mind in hell and despair not. He would voluntarily put his mind in hell. And he would oftentimes he he he wrote down all the sins that he had committed, and he would often refer to them and look at them. So there are times where the the well I wouldn't say times, but for the monastics especially, uh at least according to Saint Sefroni, um, the monastic never never stops going downward, never stops um reproaching oneself, um, always, always going down, humbling themselves, uh, reproaching, condemning themselves, because this was the this was they're following the path of Christ in his condescension. First, when he condescended from heaven to earth, condescending on the earth as he was a servant to all people, even washing his own disciples' feet, which upset them greatly, as a master doing that. And when he died, he he he condescended into Hades. So he he started everything by going down, down, down, down. And this is the path that we're supposed to take, because it's the path of humility. Christ humbled himself, taking on flesh. And so following this path downward, we're following the path of Christ, and in doing so, our Lord says, He who humbles himself, I will exalt. So we don't go out trying to exalt ourselves, but we go downward, humbling ourselves, and we allow God to exalt us. So when we're in this state of um darkness and in the sense of God forsakenness, that is the moment we do not despair, and we we do that by praying to God and speaking the truth of our state at that moment. Lord, you see that I don't have any anything in my heart to give you. You see that my spirit is weak and I don't desire even to pray, even to speak to you. You see that I don't even want to get out of bed or I don't want to go to church. I'm I'm pitiful, but this is my true nature, my fallen nature. This is this is me. Now I'm confessing the truth. And all of those things that we say in that moment speak in the truth. In doing so, we attract the spirit of truth who is Christ, and then he comes to console us. We we always seek ways to console ourselves by buying things, by scrolling, by drinking, by doing drugs, by whatever, anything to try to numb us. This is how we try to console ourselves. But that never leads to true consolation. We even go to people to seek consolation, and sometimes people can console us, and sometimes God will use people to console us, and we we we experience a measure measure of consolation, but the consolation that God gives, no person can give. Just like the peace from above that God gives is like nothing the world can give in terms of peace. So while those moments of time when we're down in the sort of in the bottom part of the cycle of our spiritual life, we have to see that as moments in time as difficult and painful and hard, and as much as we don't like it and won't want to be there, we we can use those moments to grow spiritually by just simply speaking the truth of our state and where we are, turning to God is what we're doing, and we're crying out to him, Lord, I'm thine, save me. Like Peter, when he stepped out on the water, as long as he kept his eyes fixed on Christ, he continued to walk on the water. The minute he started to look left and right, he began to sink. When we begin to sink, like Peter, what did he do? Lord, save me. So God allows us to be in those places because it's a way of refining our hearts. It's a it's a way of enlarging our hearts. He he wants to see if we are going to turn to him in those moments. Because when we begin to do that and we begin to shed a lot of tears at that moment, that is when his grace begins to fill our heart because we're emptying ourselves of our own perceived strength or our own typical ways of trying to help ourselves when we don't feel good spiritually, but we make room for Christ to come in then and begin to work in his way for us.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

That was so beautifully put. It's making me uh tear up a little just thinking about um my life and my journey was all um trying to fix myself and ways of this world through medicines, through drugs. Um I had a I was smoked weed for like daily for decades before I was baptized into the Orthodox Church and doing psychedelics to just leave this world taking medicines to numb myself. I had counselors and people that I would call all the time friends, just in panic, every single thing but going to God. And God allowed me to fall to what felt like hell. Truly. And um, I didn't have God. And so, you know, I he was objectively always there, but subjectively I didn't have him. And I it, you know, it was a lot of suffering that brought me to Christ. And I can see now that that is such a blessing um that that happened, and and it's not the way that you think that these things are gonna happen. This world is so backwards on how they teach the purpose of life or how healing happens. But um it is in those moments when you are on the ground crying to God and just help me, help me, um, save me that you said that he wants us to get to. And yeah, thank you for describing that the way you did.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Yeah, I it's um unfortunately um or fortunately, I don't know, because as we we I think we can all attest who have gone through these things, we can look back in retrospect and say, now I can see how God was working, but at the time I couldn't see that. Um, but now I can see this. And if you think about it, um that experience, that dramatic, painful experience that that we go through until the point where we come to a place on our knees and just crying out to God, because now we have what what is often termed in in uh you know in anonymous addictions groups is hitting rock bottom. Um that place is where we had to traverse to because that place is where Christ is. He is in that place because that is where we are most vulnerable, and we let go of everything. We have let go of everything, and when when and we have to be brought to that place, many people have to be brought to that place in order to to to know that they have nothing and nowhere to turn. And when they're there, that's when Christ shows himself to us. Because that's where we need him. And we are we are now open to embrace him and to say, Lord, I have done everything and I have gotten nowhere, I've tried many paths and many ways, and everything has been a dead end, and I have found no joy, I have found no hope, I have found no life, I have found no strength. Now I turn to you, and Christ is there. And we all we often think of you know Jesus being out, you know, up there in heaven, but ultimately he is in the depths and the darkest places of us because that's where we need him and that's where we meet him. And look at the life of Saint Mary of Egypt.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:59

I mean, we have so many saints. I mean, hers is probably one of the most well known, but and and this is the beauty of the saints in the church and their lives. Is um, I mean, we do have those who were, you know, preserved and very pious from, you know, infancy and so forth, but the vast majority of them are those who have gone through horrific struggles and pains and sufferings and traumas and all of these things. And so they're living proof of the grace and the mercy and the love of God. We're just we're on the exact same path. Our experiences could be a little bit different, but the result can be the same if we get to that point where where God is leading us to meet him so that we can turn our life over to Christ.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

St. Siloan, um, when you mentioned keep thy mind in hell, but despair not, I I didn't understand that when I first heard that. I was like, what? Keep your mind in hell, despair not. And then then reading more when I was reading the book, he talks, you know, that he saw in spirit that it sin's deepest root is pride. And the, you know, it speaks of the experience when he when God said, Keep thy mind in hell and despair not, and it said he was doing, he was having like, you know, nocturnal demons and stuff like that. And it says, at last he rose from his stool, intending to bow down and worship, when he saw a gigantic devil standing in front of the icon, waiting to be worshipped. Meanwhile, the cell filled with other spirits. Father Silawan sat down again, and with bowed head and aching heart, he prayed, Lord, thou seest that I desire to pray to thee with a pure mind, but the devils will not let me instruct me, and what must I do to stop them hindering me? And in his soul he heard, the proud always suffer from devils. Lord said Silawan, teach me what I must do that my soul may become hum humble. Once more his heart heard God's answer, keep thy mind in hell and despair not. The pride always suffer from devils. Um, that hit me very hard because I've realizing just every day God shows me more how prideful I am. I want everything to be my will, my way I'm like a child tantruming when things don't go my way. And you know, I live a lot decades of my life just trying to please me and I, and you know, uh love, love myself, self-love and the whole new age movement and all of that. And then starting when I started learning more about Christ as a Christian, it's like, well, Jesus rode into Bethlehem on a donkey, and you know, God, you know, like you said, he washed his apot his disciples' feet and just everything about God, Christ was humility. And, you know, in orthodoxy, we speak of the virtues, like if you have pride, how to fight that with humility, and demons don't like humility. And I've suffered from a lot of demonic interference in my life, and I realize this is my God's allowing that. You must be because of my pride.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

Yeah. Yeah, of course. I mean, the fathers speak about pride as the as the root, as the the mother of all vices that gives birth to all the vices. Um, we see that pride is what caused Lucifer and all of his fallen angels to be cast out of heaven. It was pride that caused Adam and Eid to be expelled from paradise. Um, we hear the phrase pride comes before the fall. So this is why humility is the greatest of all virtues and will give birth to all the other virtues. He who humbles himself will be exalted. So when when Christ appeared to St. Silawan uh after this, um after this incident that you're mentioning, um Saint Silowan fell to his knees. He he had no strength to stand. And the reason is that when he gazed upon the face of Christ, and it was only for a moment, he said if it would have been longer, he wouldn't have survived. Just for a moment, he saw the the face of Christ. It was the humility and the meekness within the face of Christ that undid him.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

And and so again, this speaks about the importance of following Christ in his humility. And he even says this learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. The meek shall inherit the earth. There is so much that is spoken about in the in the spiritual literature of the Orthodox faith, and coming from Scripture in the saints, of course, how important it is to humble oneself, how important it is not to impose ourselves and our will on other people, not to be demanding, um, not to look for praise or to have our own way. Um we are we are we're to consider others as greater than ourselves. St. Paul speaks about this. St. Silwan, I mean Saint Safrani talks about this as well. He even says, don't do anything that would wound the conscience of your brother. This is a tremendous word for us. We're in the world today we want it our way. We want things done in the way we want them done, and we we fight to defend our opinions, we fight to defend our perspectives and what we want. All of this is very is very damaging um to us, but this is really what the world is teaching us, right? It's like preserve yourself. And that's not the Christian message. We are to die to ourself and to be willing to die for our brother as Christ did.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Silowan um talks about as well how um you know, when the situation happened in the Garden of Eden, um, and God came and spoke to Adam, he basically blamed Eve, you know, right away. And that's kind of like how he's like, I'm ready. You know, it's like we're all ready to answer for our own sins, but certainly not for the sins of others. And um I feel like that's very much the concept of this world. It's all about ourselves, but we are supposed, like you said, like you don't even want to, you don't want to hurt somebody else in any way. And when you, you know, the whole world is, we want the whole world to be to be saved. God, you know, I think even St. Sylwon mentions like God doesn't God intend for ever for everything to be saved. And so when we, you know, hurt somebody else, we're we're hurting God. And, you know, we so it's it's a but that's a very you know, it's just like w this world, like you think like you drive in Austin, we see I see a lot of homeless people, I see a lot of people that need help.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

You know, to Yeah. Well, for sure. Um, you know, if if every person was to go inward into their heart uh and to find uh Christ there and to pursue peace, um then they would begin to treat everybody around them very differently. Um this is why, you know, th we work so much um on our heart and and this is what we're asking God to heal more than anything. Um the world suffers because of pride and because of evil, and and the evil one obviously is working constantly in the world and on people and so forth. But you know, the this world is not going to become paradise. You know, we're we're looking toward the world to come, but we've we've we desire the same thing. Our Lord desires that the Father, that the Trinity desires, when Christ says, I desire that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, who is Him. So this is this is our same desire that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. St. Scylla once said, you know, I desire um that, Lord, that all may come to know thee by thy Holy Spirit. So we we always pray for this. We pray for this in the liturgy. We pray we should pray for this in our private prayers, but also knowing that we're not the Messiah. So we we do all that we can in this world to help others, and we do what we can and and most of all spend as much time as we can in silence and in prayer for the world and and and for for everything that's happening in the world. But we leave we le we offer our our prayers to God, but we're not the ones who are going to fix and change everything, you know. We can we can do things um, you know, with our hands and we can we can say we can speak out and these sort of things. But unfortunately, prayer seems to have, if not no place at all, it has a last place. Oftentimes you hear people say, Well, I guess we can just pray about it. Well, actually that should be the first and the most important thing and what we spend the most time in doing.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

You know. Um all of this is in is in God's hands, and what he's what he's desiring for from us is to be faithful servants to him, um, and to give our whole life to him, and to to do what we can in our place of the world in the ways that we can. I mean, today because of social media and technology, just look at how much how many beautiful, beautiful things are out there in terms of our Orthodox faith and how many people are turning to it um because of what they're hearing, because of how different it is, because of how challenging it is, um, because that it's rooted. It's rooted in the time of Christ and the apostles and has remained uh unchanged for for two thousand years. This is incredible stability that people have never seen before in anything. And so th this is what people are looking for. Our world is is in a constant earthquake. We don't have to physically feel an earthquake, but our world world is compl always being shaken. You know, just read the news and we feel shaken within ourselves. People are looking for or something that's solid, that's a rock, that's stable, um, and that that is backed really by um by the practices and the beliefs and the worship and all of that that has been a part of the of what Christ has given us in the beginning of time.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

When I became a Christian, um, it was because I became a believer in Jesus and because I you know I didn't even believe he was real, and then I I realized that he was, and I was like, okay, well, this makes me a Christian. I didn't know there were different denominations in Christianity. I didn't even know Catholics were Christians, I didn't know Mormons were, and so I became very confused the more I started learning because each denomination defined things differently, interpreted things differently. And so I did, I just you know, kind of what you're saying. I I re I went back to, well, what did Jesus teach the apostles? Like that's what I want to learn. Like, because I I you know I had a big awakening in 2022. In 2019, I got off my medications, which I'd been on for eight years, and I was highly medicated. And my mind really, because I didn't need that medicine, it made it really made me not clear in the head and mentally very more sick. So I was thinking clearly and I realized that the world wasn't what I thought, and that we would have been lied to by in a lot of different ways and a lot of different aspects of life. And so I was nervous when I became a Christian because of I saw all these conflicting viewpoints, and I just had this thought didn't God preserve the truth? Like, surely, God who this is his world, like preserve the truth. And when I discovered the Orthodox Church, it was such a relief to know that yes, the truth is preserved. And then realizing that the Orthodox Church is seen as like the hospital and our sin is seen as our illness really made a lot of sense to me as someone looking for healing. And because my problems had been mainly mental, um, hearing hearing that like God wants to heal our hearts, can you talk a little bit on the heart and kind of in comparison to our mind and our thinking? And is the noose connected to all of that?

SPEAKER_03 50:29

Wow, that's a that's a lot of uh that could take a lot of time, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 50:36

Well, you know, we have the um we have a faculty of of our intellect, right? This is something that that God has given to us as humans, the um the intellect, and to have knowledge. Um but there's also a difference between you know worldly knowledge and and spiritual knowledge. There's a difference between knowing things about God and actually knowing God. Um but uh the the obviously the goal is um uh to become purified in our heart and illumined uh with the knowledge of God by the Holy Spirit. But this isn't something that just happens from a request or a prayer or petition. This is something that we we were that we participate in. God is willing to give us all good things, all the gifts that He has, He wants to bestow upon all of us. Um and and we work in this synergistic way, um, this cooperative way, where in actuality we're probably doing one percent and he's doing ninety-nine percent. But he wants to see that we truly desire these things. And and our desire is something sometimes that that also needs to be healed, because that faculty of desire has also been scattered across the world, and we desire attention, we desire fame, we desire money, we desire pleasure, we desire all these things. But that that that gift of desire that God implanted in man was so that man would desire him with his entire being. After the fall it became dispersed. So now we're trying to uh with with repentance and through God's grace and help and through our own efforts of prayer and uh fasting and the reading of scripture and learning how to deny oneself and love others and all of these things. We're trying to take that dispersion and and and lessen it uh as much as we can, so that we can place all our desire to know God. This is what Saint Silowan spoke about. Once he experienced the love and the mercy of God, he he he the world that he saw as truly beautiful, like trees and rivers and life and which which there is beauty because these are the energies of God. But once he had that experience of Christ, all of that became nothing. He he wasn't striving to um see more of the beauty of the world. He wanted to see the beauty of the kingdom of heaven and Christ himself, you know. So the the work that we do um is really the work on the heart. Um Father Zachary talks about it in terms of the refashioning of the heart, the enlarging of the heart. You know, oftentimes I use the example of um the uh the movie The Grinch. You remember the Grinch, right? The green green guy. So he was traumatized. And the story is that he was traumatized as a child. He either he lost his parents or he grew up in an orphanage, but he wasn't, he didn't have the experience of nurturance and care and love and gentleness and all of these some sort of things. So as he grew up, he was very hurting, right? He's a hurting heart. And uh a hurting heart uh uh oftentimes manifests itself as anger and resentment and you know, just getting even with people and so forth. But beneath all of that behavior is is a lot of pain and s and sadness. So he was so miserable that he wanted everybody else to be miserable. So what happened was you know, he goes in, he steals all the gifts, he goes back up to his mountaintop, and uh he's he's succeeded. He's gonna see all these people miserable, and that's gonna bring him joy, right? Because he's miserable. But seeing other people miserable too is what makes him happy, so twisted. But anyway, that's the story. So what what happens as you know, all the people come out and they're they they they're just shocked and they're saddened and they're looking around. Everybody's house got stolen, uh, all the gifts, the trees, everything, right? Even to the last, like, you know, ornament. So what they do is they come together in a circle and they hold hands and they begin to sing. And they have this joy without any of the material things, because the joy of uh uh and their celebration is something else. And when he looks down and sees this, his big grin becomes sort of a frown, and then they zoom in on his heart, which is like really tiny. But as he's witnessing the joy of these people, you see his heart becoming larger and larger and larger and larger, right? And I I use that metaphorically and in and visually, that that's that's what needs to happen to us, that our heart is a certain size, but we want it to become larger and larger so we make more space and room for Christ and for all people, so that we can fulfill the two greatest commandments to love the Lord our God with our whole being and and others as ourselves. This is this is the goal, the the the Christian goal of uh of the Orthodox faith is to have our hearts enlarged, to be purified.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

It's so when you think about the process of how that happens, it kind of takes me back to like the struggles that we're given, you know, in our life and the the times where we feel you know God allows his grace to to pull away. And also I I think about um you know the just the demonic aspect. I I kind of come to think about that a lot just because of my own experiences. And I think of the book of Job sometimes, how you know Satan, you know, came to God and God says we're looking for someone to torment, and God is like, we'll have so he allows that to happen. Is that kind of part of the role of the demons? Is it so there is some kind of catalyst to bring this parasitical evil into the world onto us to fight?

SPEAKER_03 56:56

Well, remember, Satan had to go to God to ask permission to do all of those things to Job, and God said, You can do these things, the only thing you can't do is take his his life. So again, these things are permitted, and the devil's hope is that by doing these things that we're going to curse God, that we're going to lose faith, lose hope, give up, turn away. All right. This is why it's so important to see these things as opportunities, because then we f we we foil the the the the attacks of the evil one. And this is what what this is repentance is what really destroys the demons. That even though we fall into sin, God God obviously doesn't want us to fall into sin, and of course He's not the author of sin, He doesn't cause us to sin. That's that's our free choice when we're presented with something that we we can fall into that or we we don't we don't fall into it, right? But when we fall we would say, you know, I I think what happens is is our ego and pride get in the way, and when we fall, we feel so guilty and we start beating ourselves up. But but that's really about ego. I should know better than this. I why do I keep doing this? What why do I why can't I shake this? Why, why me, why me, why me? And that's just like, yeah, that's not good. Say, you know what? It's because I'm I'm wretched. I I'm I'm just I'm sinful, I'm nothing. But now I turn to God and I say, Lord, you see how weak I am, you see me in my wretchedness, you see how easily I fall. I hate this. I hate this. And I don't want to keep falling in this. Help me. Help me to raise up and to continue walking. So the God's greatest concern is whether or not we're going to turn to him and how quickly we're going to do it and say, Lord, save me. I'm sorry I fell into this about into this again, and I'm not I I don't want to sit here and just beat myself up because that's when the demon to despair always follows whatever demon of a particular sin hits us, and we fall into that. The demon to despair is always right behind there. It's like a tag team, you know, to keep us down, to you know, then we want to turn to things that we've turned to before to try to numb out the pain. Right. We gotta step away from that whole mode of operation.

SPEAKER_02 59:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 59:25

You know, and so when we when we turn to our Lord and we say, I've fallen again and I feel disgusted, I feel sick, I hate this. Lord, please help me. And and and then even if it means getting on our knees or getting on our faces and and just not moving and just saying our Lord's name over and over and over and over again, He will give us the grace and He will help us to stand up so we can keep walking. The will the the demons will always be there. The spiritual warfare does take place in the mind. Every sin does begin with a thought. And this is why we have we have this beautiful uh science and practice and spiritual way of life of how to guard the mind from the thoughts. And this takes time too, you know. Everything takes time. We have to be patient, but we have to be persistent. And it's it's we learn every time we fall, we learn. But the one thing we have to start getting better at is getting up as quickly as we can.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:26

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's the hardest part sometimes. And but it, you're right, it takes time to learn these things. And it's like um, you know, uh St. Paul talks about how like, you know, we're this life is like a marathon. It's like a marathon, salvation's a marathon, you know, like that we're running. And when you think about like lifting weights, and you build up strength by the more that you lift those weights. And I, you know, I I've got my little prayer rope and I've been, you know, I I try to say the you know, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, a holy mother, God, save us. And sometimes I can't do it at all. And I forget about it, and there'll be times, and then other times I'll do it. Oh, I'm doing it a lot. Look at this, and then that something comes in, and then I'm like, oh no, I can't do it. And it's you know, God's grace is giving us that strength. But um, in Saint thinking of St. Silomon, he had an experience where um he he received the prayer on his heart, right? To be to be read all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:23

Um it was given to him by the Mother of God.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

That's right. That's right. And so when and I've heard in Saint Joseph the Hesychast had that as well, right? Where it's and that's so when it's on your heart and it's being said all the time, is it can you explain a little bit? Can you kind of give some insight on that?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:43

Yeah. I mean, and in that in the instance of Saint St. Silouan, obviously that was a that was a gift, and um a gift that he was given. And it it has been given to other people. You know, um I I can say this. Um when I go to um to the monastery in Essex that St. Safroni started, I go twice a year. And um when I go there, I'm able to immerse myself in the rhythm of the life of the monastery, and I'm usually there for two weeks or or maybe a little bit more. But I can tell you this, when when the conditions are presented, when the conditions are are at your disposal, meaning the the Jesus prayer service that St. Safroni um really uh constructed and put together, um, that prayer service is done multiple times a week. It's done um let's see, Monday, Wednesday, uh I see, they have liturgy on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, they have the Jesus prayer service about two hours long, and then every evening except for Saturday, they have the Jesus prayer service. So you're talking a lot of hours of prayer of the Jesus prayer service and the way that it's done. It's dark. Um a person is assigned, each per the the priest comes out and assigns certain monks or nuns or some lay people who know how to do it the way that they've been instructed to do it. So for two hours, you're just hearing this prayer in silence and darkness. So when you come if if you if you are putting your mind, and it takes time, especially coming out of the world, because our mind is just like on on you know hyper speed. Yeah. But when when you can slow down and you begin to put those words, uh, you know, you start to absorb those words, then the prayer becomes something that is ongoing. And I remember one time when I came back, uh the prayer was consistent in my heart for for two and a half months.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

For two and a half months. I couldn't not say it. This was a gift. It was also the I think the experience, of course, that I had, but it was a gift. Um and then I realized one day, I I remember the the moment it happened when I felt it starting to slip out. And I I was pulling up to a stoplight. I was on my way to church, I came off, I was on an off-ramp, and I came up to a stoplight, and I it just hit me that it was that it was moving out. And in that instant, I burst into tears. Oh I just burst into tears and I cried out, God, Lord, please don't don't take this from me. Don't remove this from me. Um I mean, I was begging. I couldn't even see when the light turned green. And and then it uh when I got to the church and we had a service and so forth, it stayed with me again, I think for another week or so. But then it began to fade, and and then it it just it it was never that strong again. And subsequent to that, when I've gone back, um there's a regeneration of it. What what this tells me that one is that it's it it proves to me in my own experience the sweetness of the prayer, the grace and the power of the prayer, but the joy of the name of Christ, um, what it does to the heart, what it does to the soul, what it does to the mind, and the peace that comes with that is indescribable. But now I'm back to not maybe quite where I was without it at all. Um, but I find moments where my heart desires it more and I'm able to sit with it more, and other times where it's very difficult for me to sit in silence and to to really concentrate on the words, you know. Um I find that I have to really first, I typically ask God to help me. Me through the Holy Spirit to say the name, his name, with with great attention, with all my attention. And it takes sometimes a few times saying it. I mean, it could take maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 times before I I I feel like I'm I'm actually now in the prayer. But it's very hard. And there are times I forget it. Then there are times where all of a sudden I'm saying it, but I didn't consciously think, oh, you know, I haven't said the Jesus prayer all day. I think I'll say it. And at that moment, that is a gift. Through the Holy Spirit, our Lord gives us the prayer. And at that moment, we better, we better, at that moment, we better say, Lord, thank you for giving me this. And then we can we can grasp onto it and continue to say it as much as we can for as long as we can, you know, because we have appointments, we have to do this, we have to do that, all these sort of things. Ultimately, we want to be conscious of God and giving thanks to Him for every moment of our waking life, every breath, every sip of water, every food, being brought to the to our home safely in our cars. We want to become as God conscious, and and that takes effort. If I'm not going to church, which I have to go to church, but I thank God for that, but I'm the priest. But sometimes walking into the altar and celebrating a Vespers and Orthodox or whatever service is my only sanctuary at that moment because everything else around me is just falling apart or what have you. But I also realize that if I skip one morning where I don't read just something of the scripture, or at night if I don't read something from the works of my spiritual father, um, just one skipping one morning, one evening, or two two days, I'm a very different person. My thoughts are in different places, my my my whole being is in a different state. And when I return to those things, even when I don't feel like it, because this is where we have to say, tough. It's not an option. Even if you feel like your heart's not engaged, go and stand and do your cross and say, Lord, my heart's not here, but accept what I offer you tonight. Forgive me, and and and bring bring bring zeal and and and life to my heart again and to my desire to to desire you. This is this is something, um, that's really important. Because if if we are faithful in just the little things, like the the short prayers, if we're faithful in that, God will give us much to be faithful over. He says this. It's up to it's up to us in our own free will to make sure that we're consistent, even in the smallest way. We may not be able to do forty-five minutes of reading or prayer or whatever, but to skip something altogether, we can't do that. It we can't do that. We have to spend uh uh and give ourselves at least a few minutes in the morning and the evening to God to show him that we are faithful to him.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:29

In the times where I've really been in despair, um, especially when I was a new Christian and and and particularly Orthodox, you know, my spiritual father always says, Well, pray about that, or pray, you know, pray, just pray. And you mentioned earlier how important prayer is. And because we live in this world, especially in America, where it's the land of convenience, or you, you know, and I was in the pattern of, oh, I'm not doing good, I'll just smoke a joint, or you know, before I'll take a pill, or I'm having anxiety, better take a, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like now I'm in this place where I don't have any of those. I don't, you know, I'm not to partaking in any of that. And so I go to my icon corner and I I pray or I I say a Jesus prayer, or I, you know, I come, you know, into in front of one of my icons, or I I have, you know, Father Elder Ephraim is very important to me. I come up and just kiss that and look at him and just stare into his eyes and ask for help. And you I always feel a shift. Always. And it's not like an answer or a something, but it's just uh oftener I'll cry and I'll I'll just give it to God. And then somehow I realize a like a little while later, I'm like, oh, I'm okay. Like I it's not like a tangible thing that's given. It's just like there's a shift that happens when you pray and when you turn to God. And without, you know, I sometimes have to think back without the the despair that I feel, or without the situation that occurred, or the whatever it is that influenced me to get into that dark place. Like that darkness brought me back to turn to Christ. And so you said, you know, Christ is in our darkest places, and it it's definitely taken me time to see that that the like the the how the struggling is is actually good for, you know, to be in that struggle or to have that suffering is actually a good thing. Like the medicine's bitter, it doesn't taste good, but taste and see the Lord is good.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:26

Yes, and you know, if you think about it, we we have to go through unless God decides otherwise, but we have to go through these cycles. In the beginning, we don't see how the the the difficulties and the hardships are related in any way to our our our life in Christ and how they can be profitable for us. And then we have a small experience and we're like, oh, it wasn't as bad, and now I look back and I can see this, but we still don't live that way. It it it's it's like a moment where there's an aha, but it hasn't it hasn't gotten to the place where we see and hear and experience everything through God's providence. Right? So by by going through these uh time and time and time and time again, it it continues to build and build and build and build our trust in God more and more and more. And this is why the saints had such peace. And no matter what was happening around them, no matter what the threats were, no matter what the wars, no matter what the weather, no matter what the shortage of food, they were constantly at peace. Because they they they in their hearts and then their minds and their souls with their whole being, they they trusted fully and completely in God. There was no anxiety, no fear. God will take care of everything. They were convinced of that. We are in a process of being convinced of that. So we're somewhere along this continuum in our experiences, and the the more we go through them, and however, however much God, you know, fills us with that trust and that faith in Him, that could be an instantaneous, but ultimately it everybody goes through the wandering of the desert until hopefully we get to this place where like, Lord, for me to die is gain. That why why should I worry about anything in life, my my my health, my food, whatever? Every every day I give my life to you. Whatever you give to me that day, thank you. May I be blessed. I'm not going to ask for anything more or anything less. What do I have to fear? What do I have to have anxiety about? What are are aren't we told within the the hymn of the the churubakim to let us let us set aside all the cares of this life so that we can receive the king of all. If we're not setting aside all the cares of this life, we cannot fully receive the king of all. But we but in this we also see how much we are attached to the things of this world and the care that we give to them, which is the space in our heart not available to Christ to dwell because it's occupied by something else.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

Yeah, that the crucifixion of my own will, the crucifying of my will has been a big thing that I've been experiencing since I been baptized last summer. And often I go to my spiritual father and I tell him things, and his response is always, we'll pray about it and don't worry about that. He always says, Hola cola, uh like, you know, Carrot, you're okay, Lenny, you're okay. Like, and I'm just like, I'm okay, I'm not okay. And he says, Don't worry about anything. I'm like, not worry about anything. I've spent my life worrying about everything, and I've been trying to control every single thing. And it's it's I feel like, you know, I guess like when a when a dog is like acting, you know, kind of crazy and stuff, you can like lay them on the ground and put your hands down on them. And eventually they'll all of a sudden there's this moment where they just calm down and they just succumb. And I feel like that's what God's been doing with me is I've been tantruming about nothing going my way, and I'm so mad, and I'm just ah, me, I'm just poor me. And he's finally, I'm just finally like, oh, starting to understand what you were saying. Like everything that happens is God's will. And and and it's you know, that peace that surpasses our understanding. I would read that as a Protestant, particularly as a new Christian, and I I didn't understand it. And then you what I think, and you know, I'm sure I still don't fully understand it, but that when we realize that everything that God has going, like, don't worry about it, like it is exactly how it's supposed to be. Then that you say like the saints would have peace about everything, it's because they knew everything happening was God's will. I feel like that must be that peace that surpasses our understanding.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:51

Absolutely. They they fully trusted in God, in his providence, and all of his ways. It's a choice. I mean, we either are going to fully trust God or we're not. We're gonna partially trust him, or maybe trust him when it feels good to us or when it's convenient for us, but to trust him fully in all things, you know, this is something that's hard because we have this illusion of control that we are able to control our situations and outcomes when we can't, you know. And so again, when we when we can and this is something we can do for ourselves when we intentionally reflect back and think about all the times where we have been in difficult situations or in pain or have had loss or whatever, and we see that we have come out of those things, and we can acknowledge that there has been even the smallest amount of growth in that, and we start to realize how that has happened over and over and over and over again. We realize that God has used all things for the good, all things to glorify his name, all things to bring us closer to him. And the accumulation of that hopefully will sink in. And we'll say now going forward, when the next thing pops up and happens, I don't have to go into freak out mode or control mode. I can say, you know, may it be blessed. I don't know what the outcome is going to be, but I'm not gonna worry about it. I'm not gonna be anxious and troubled about it. But God has proven to me time and time and time and time again that He is in control of all of these things. So what my job is, is to remain faithful in H to Him, to continue my my life of prayer and living within His commandments and His in His love, and to continue to put my faith in Him and say, Lord, thy will be done, Thy will be done, Thy will be done. I don't understand this. I I don't know why it doesn't make sense to me, but that doesn't matter. I don't want it to make sense to me. You even said, Your ways are not my ways. I don't want I want my way to be done. If it's your way, then yeah, I trust you. I completely trust you. No matter what it means, I completely trust you. That's faith. So we pray and ask God to increase our faith, increase our trust. Like when Jesus healed the the young boy of the man who came to him and he said, This was a gospel reading a few weeks ago, you know, Lord my son, he's you know possessed by demon, and sometimes he throws him into the water, into the fire, and so forth. Um, can you heal him? If you can, I mean, can you heal him? And Jesus is like, if I can. It's like, what do you mean, if I can? And so the man says, Well, I believe, but help my unbelief. In other words, I have I have a measure, otherwise I wouldn't have come here to ask you. And forgiving me for asking you if you can, but that's the part of me that really doesn't have the fullness of faith and trust in you yet. So, yes, I believe, but then he says, But help my unbelief, increase my measure of faith and belief and trust in you. This is a petition that we should be making.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:07

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:08

And then when things happen, when we can give thanks in the midst of our suffering and struggle, that attracts a tremendous amount of grace from God. Because it's showing him at that moment, in those moments, we're not just hanging on for dear life, hoping for a quick, you know, and and a good outcome, but we're actually glorifying him and thanking him in the midst of our suffering for being able to even suffer a little bit as he suffered for us. In other words, all of our suffering that we go through, we should never detach from the suffering of Christ, but we we unite it to that, and in it we can give thanks to God even in the midst of the difficulties.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:56

Wow, yes, that's that I mean, unbelief is considering, you know, for 38 years, I I literally thought Jesus was a fictitious character in a mythological book called the Bible, and that all Christians were in cults. That's what I would always say. I mean, unbelief is something that I absolutely have been struck has struggled, have struggled with. And then even now I as a b I believe in Christ and I'm following Christ, God, you know, just this conversation especially is really like showing me and just thinking like these situations you get, like I, you know, I pray for more faith. Well, then here comes an opportunity to have faith. And so to see when that comes, instead of breaking down and just, oh my gosh, like this is, you know, this is this is awful. What's happening to me? Um, instead, just saying, oh no, God's giving me what I asked for. He, I, I wanted more faith. And so now he has to withdraw too, right? We were talking about like how the withdrawal of grace, how God pulls that away after he pulls you in with it, and then you have that, oh, I believe, and then it goes away because he wants to strengthen our faith. Do we, you know, right? It has to happen in like that. And uh it's just uh it makes so much sense the way that thinking about it that way and the discussion we're having.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:19

This this is uh Saint Sophroni spent so much time elaborating on the second stage of the spiritual life because it was so critical for us to understand it. Like we're describing it and talking and dialoguing about it right now. It's so important because this is where we spend most of our time. Suffering is the universal language of the world, it is unavoidable by anyone, and it's it it's it's shared by all humanity, but it has great it has great promise in it in terms of how we how we move through it, to use it for our benefit, to draw near to Christ. And so this is why it's so important to have this conversation and to talk about these things so that we don't forfeit opportunities to experience what we go through with faith and trust in God, even giving thanks for it. This is how we sanctify suffering. We want to avoid it. We want to be out of it the moment we're in it. But as Orthodox Christians, we are called to sanctify it by connecting it with the suffering of our Lord who suffered for our sake, that we can endure a little for him. St. Paul talks about this a lot in his epistles, and that we use this time productively, drawing near to Christ, so that we become closer and more like him. It's very it's very, very important. It's this this part is very, very important in the spiritual life to understand you know how we are to move through the second stage and and what this is how men and women went from ordinary people to holy people. It just didn't snap one day and they woke up and they were godlike. I mean, it it they went through so much. Think about just think about um, you know, those who suffered within the the communist death camps, the prisons, um you know, both in in Russia and in Romania and other other eastern countries. And so many of them, we have so many saints, especially coming out of Romania, men and women saints, um, beautiful stories. They many of these men, they went into these concentration camps as good pious men. When they came out, they were saints. Now think about that, and they attribute all that they endured and went through because it was how they went through it. They knew how to go through it, and God taught them and educated them, but they it's how they went through those horrific conditions, horrific conditions that they went in as good and faithful men, but when they came out, they were saints. Their hearts were sanctified, and they've spoken about that. Father Roman Braga speaks about how the death camps, the death camp experience is what brought him so close to Christ. So who are we to say when things were struggling a little bit in America here with some, you know, something that's unfortunate or or an inconvenience or something like that, and all we can do is just complain about it and and moan about it and ask God why me? And you know, it's like Lord have mercy. We have to learn how to go through these things because it is going to be a part of our life for the rest of our life. And if it's it's such a part of our life, why not learn how to move through it in a way that is going to be so spiritually beneficial to us that we can become more and more and more like Christ, and this is what we learn from Saint Silawan and Saint Sifroni, and many other saints too, but uh Saint Sirfroni made a science out of this, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:22

It's a gift to the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:24

Mm-hmm. No, I I reading Saint Silawan the Atheni, I highly recommend anybody watching this interview to get pick up this book if you enjoy this conversation, because it's so Saint Symfroni just the way he writes and tells us is so digestible to me because I'm a simple person and he just writes in a way that I understand, telling the story of St. Siloman and just so many moments that just have touched my heart. And reading the lives of the saints, I think it was Father Cosmos, who's the priest monk out of Australia. He has a podcast Orthodox talks. He was, I was listening to one, and he said that you don't really understand the gospel until you un start reading the lives of the saints, because they showed us how to live the gospel, or they showed us like they gave us examples, like real lives examples and thinking about you know Father Roman Braga or what they went through in the death camps. And it's like that turned them into sanctified them and just having their stories or Saint Mary of Egypt, you know, my testimony coming out of the occult, coming out of a a horror, a different life of debauchery, and then seeing these stories and learning these stories of the saints and how they turned away from that and changed. It's just it makes it real, like knowing, like having the lives of the saints and reading and just it it's it's such a key part to the Christian life. And I, you know, I didn't get that until I came to the Orthodox Church at all. I I had crazy delusions about the saints when I was in the in as a Protestant, and it's just it's such a gift to have their stories.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:07

It it's absolutely so. I mean, God glorifies though those who glorify him, right? And we have uh the the Orthodox Church has many, many um treasures. I mean, most of all we have the body and blood of Christ, we have the word of God, the scripture, we have the name of Christ in which we call upon in the Jesus prayer, we have the mysteries of holy confession to help us when we fall um to get back up and to start over. We have the lives of the saints. I mean, it's it's tremendous. We a lot of people turn to uh famous people in the world, whether they're athletes or singers or musicians, they look up to them as idols, they want to be like them, they buy their products, their music, their whatever, and all these things. You know, this is just the People have, you know, gifts to do these things, but it doesn't make sense. I mean, I can see it when we're younger, but when we can turn to men and women who who lived very questionable lives far from Christ, who now have drawn so near to Christ and they they were just full of the love of Christ and it showed in the way that they spoke and the way that they lived and how many other lives they touched. I mean, spreading this this grace and love and mercy and kindness of God to all those around them. This is what the world is in desperate need of. We don't need another rock singer, another, you know, you know, professional athlete, you know, to to follow or to be excited about. We're, you know, absolutely. It is a treasure. It is such a treasure. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:48

Yeah, I love that you brought that up because I was reading about St. Timothy Timothy. I didn't realize that he was a martyr and that Saint Timothy's life ended in martyrdom in 90 around 93 AD. He was killed by pagans in Ephesius after he attempted to stop a festival honoring idols. So it I thought interesting. So, you know, I think that's uh very timely that you said that.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:12

He was uh he was one of uh Saint Paul's uh sons, right? He wrote two letters to him and um yeah he's one of a million. You know, I I we probably are running out of time, I don't know, but God raises up saints in every generation. Every generation. There's never been one generation without um someone who whom God has found their heart, who desired to know Him and to give their whole self to Him, that to God. And He there's never been a time where there hasn't been a someone uh in a generation that God hasn't found who wanted to give their whole life to Christ, and so He raised them up and helped them to become yet another one of His uh holy ones. We're all called to become saints. We're this is our destiny. We're we're all called to become like Christ. This is why we were created, this is you know everything for us, and we don't have much time.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:17

We don't have we have very little time, so we have to um be careful of how we spend it and where we put so much of our our attention and our resources that we're not uh continue to chase uh shadows and and things that have no eternal value to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:36

That's a very good reminder, especially for me. I, you know, is with the internet and being uh you know on social media and I have a a a platform there and I did a lot of conspiracy decoding, and it's still hard for me to step away from some of that sometimes. And it's just I'm really I think that God is really trying to show me like, what are you focusing on that for? And I even this podcast, it started out, I started it six years ago, I think, and uh it was about the occult at first, because that's what I was into, and then it was very, very conspiracy. And now this last six months to a year, I've I've been interviewing priests and trying, you know, to to do more of these conversations because what more could I should I use this platform for? But to to talk about salvation. That's what matters. That is the the purpose of life is is to work out our I mean, uh, one of the priests uh where I at my church said the other day, and it hit me, I don't I should have gotten this, but like we, I mean, I know like this life is working out our salvation right now. The work is right now because once we die, once we pass over and repo we meet Christ, and then it's judgment day. You don't have any more oper there's no purgatory. That's you know, that's not true. It's this is the time to do the work right now. Yeah, this precious life. Yeah, yep. Father Timothy, thank you for the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:01

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:03

Yeah. No, if you have more to say.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:07

No, it's a good one to end on. It's a good one to end on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:11

Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for this conversation. This was such a blessing. I appre I so deeply appreciate it. And um, I'm so grateful to have been connected with you and for you to share this wisdom that God's illumined you to see and understand. And thank you for everything that that you're doing. Um it's just uh this is such a blessing. So thank you for coming on the Let's Be Friends podcast. It's my pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:38

Yeah, thank you for having me and thank you for the time to just have a very open dialogue. I I forgot we were recording, you know, as we were going more and into the conversation. I was just focusing in and and able to to to be present with you and what with what we were talking about. And um you know, we're and Lenny, we're just doing what's expected of us. We we we don't we're not doing anything exceptional here. Yeah. You know, we're just doing we're having a conversation, we're speaking about things of importance according to Christ and and and our Lord. And we're not doing anything exceptional, we're just doing what's expected, what we should be doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:18

Yeah, uh yeah, absolutely. No, it's yeah, thank you for that. Thank you. And yeah, it doesn't, I I I I know it's is a conversation that God willing many will reach many, but it definitely has felt like just the two of us, you know, having this, and that's nice because I always get nervous when I start a conversation or a podcast, and then you kind of get into the flow of it, and uh some tears will probably fall from my face, and it definitely I could felt my heart, like the Grinch, expanding during this conversation. So thank you so much for for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:54

Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:56

Yeah, all glory to God, all glory to God.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:58

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:58

Well, I'm thank you. Well, everybody, thank you for joining us on this conversation. Thank you, Father Timothy.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:05

See you again soon, God willing.