Dear Theophilus, 

In the last letter, I had discussed a practical plan for starting out on a life of prayer. In this letter, I want to draw your attention to some of the other factors that help in rounding out our spiritual lives.

The Fathers of the Church refer to penthos which is a Greek word which calls on believers to repent. To repent means to resolve to turn away from our life of sin and to try to live a righteous life. It is understood that for man, living in a fallen world, this is difficult to do but the effort to try to live righteously should be practised by us always. A spiritual life isn't all lightness and goodness; it also involves looking into our hidden depths to see what lurks there. Even when we do good, we stand in danger because of motives for doing the good or that our pride will grow. Penthos is something that is indispensable for a spiritual life in the Christian understanding. This is one of the characteristics that differentiates Christianity from Eastern religions.

One of the reasons why we are called on to repent is due to the fact that God's judgement operates in the world, but it has become unpopular to talk in these terms. There is a clear sign of judgement in today's world. We have seen the emergence of the great scourge of AIDS. Millions of people have become infected and millions have died. Two fluids which prolong and pass on life, semen and blood, have now become dangerous fluids which are the bringers of death. There is a message here for all of us. If we drift from living with God, a terrible price is exacted from us. Some people do not like to hear words such as these. They see them as judgemental and intolerant. They are right, if the purpose of raising this point is to point a finger at some people and say how terrible they are. This is not what we are to do; we are not to judge. But we cannot be wilfully blind. Indiscriminate sexual practises and drug usage have highlighted that there is a moral law operating in the universe. We, as a society, are under judgement. You will hear counterarguments that to see judgement in the AIDS epidemic is to go back to a prescientific age. The virus that causes this illness is understood and it is simply the operation of biochemical laws that has brought this pestilence into the world. It is true that we understand, to a large extent, the biochemistry of the disease but this is not all that there is to it. We may, if we want to use these arguments, talk about music as simply vibrations of different frequencies. But there is much as more to it as we realize through experiencing music. Similarly, we must experience God if we are to make sense of episodes in the life of our civilization. And what goes along with this understanding is repentance. It is not enough to stand and proclaim we are under judgement. We must repent and change ourselves and through our example speak of the God who awaits to save all of us.

Coupled with penthos, we have ascesis. This is a term that refers to activities undertaken by us to help discipline us and to help us to persist in our efforts and also, to strengthen us. One of the most important practices here, and one that is probably least attended to, is fasting. Fasting is abstaining from something, usually food, but it could be, as we shall see, something else, in addition to abstaining from food. The fundamental purpose of fasting is preparation and it is not, in itself, a goal. Fasts could be divided into different purposes.
We have what are called fasts of expectation such as when we fast before receiving the Eucharist. It is not that this fast helps us to become better or to make us more worthy for receiving the sacrament. It means to abstain from food but also, and this is very important, to promote an investigation of our lives to see our sins clearly and to repent of them.

Other fasts have, as their main goal, to build remorse in us. The best example of this is the Great Lent before Easter. This calls on us to examine our lives and to repent which means to change the direction of our lives. We re-evaluate what is important to us and think of eternity where we will be going once our life on this earth is over.

Other fasts can be used to express love for our fellow man. We may make a resolution to limit how much we eat, or we may limit how much we are willing to spend on the purchase of food, and what we save in this process, we donate to the poor or needy.

There is also the fast of remembrance. One fasts on Fridays in remembrance of the crucifixion and the terrible sacrifice that was completed on our behalf on a Friday on Golgotha.

In general fasts develop discipline and help us to strengthen our resolve to do God's will. In our society of wealth and affluence this is particularly difficult to do. There is such a surfeit of material goods that it seems ludicrous not to enjoy them. One may be called a killjoy or some worse term for practising fasting.

The other very important thing to remember is the purpose of fasting. It is to change us and what good does it do for us to abstain from eating meat while we revile our neighbor. The purpose of fasting is not in the very act of fasting; the purpose of fasting is to make us into new beings.

It has become almost a given that when we are said to fast it means abstaining from meat. But we must understand something here. When the rules for fasting were being instituted, meat was a fairly rare commodity. To give up meat meant to sacrifice something sought after and rare. In our society we may give up meat and eat fish which may be more expensive and thought of as a more luxurious item than meat. If we blindly follow the rule about not consuming meat, we will have lost an essential point of the fast. We should give up meat, because even doctors tell us that this is a good move, but we should also give up other things to which we may have become enslaved. Give up television viewing, or give up gossiping that is so dear to us, or give up alcoholic beverages.

Adam fell through the consumption of food in improper circumstances. We try to undo this by abstaining from food. Through this act, we affirm our freedom and practise our will. We reaffirm our freedom from the demands of our impersonal, biological needs.

What we have been talking about is more of an individual effort. The practise of this, for Christians, needs to be complemented with communal worship. We are, after all, members of each other in some mysterious way and this is expressed through the Church. You should take part in communal worship as expressed through the Liturgy. Here you should also partake of the Eucharist, as often as you can. These are important if you are to grow and make headway.

Your spiritual life should include love shown to others either through service to them or through sharing of material wealth or simply sharing your presence with those are ill or incarcerated. Spirituality always has an active part to it.

What you will notice, as your life in God grows, is that the circumstances around you change. But they change in not so much what happens to you, but in the way you react to them. You will be able to always see some good in whatever happens to you. Eternity now becomes a measuring stick for you and the changes and challenges of daily life will now be seen from a different perspective. Even in your life of prayer, what you will find is that distractions and hindrances will now be turned around as you see things from a different perspective. For example, if a child makes noise while you are trying to pray, you may discern in the child's noise the vitality of life. And seeing things in this manner you get less upset and your spirituality starts to encompass all of your life's experiences.

I can already hear one of your arguments, Theophilus. You are simply playing mind games in all this and imagining things whereas nothing has really changes. The outward circumstances are still the same as they were before.

The power of your argument lies in the fact that there is truth in it. Indeed, the outward circumstances have not changed. But there is more to the matter here than outward situations. Our reactions to these situations are just as important and meaningful as the actual circumstances. So something has changed and something that is noticeable. Don't worry about terms such as imagination. We have been taught to see imagination as almost synonymous with falsehood. This is not so. All great steps forward in the arts and sciences have come through people who have imagined something new and through this, important works of art or important discoveries in the sciences have been made. The use of imagination, so powerful in children, becomes atrophied in adults. This is a pity because we lose so much in this.

One of the great tragedies of our lives is that we go through them with very little awareness of God's immediate presence. We should make a strong resolve, if we are going to make some progress, to never wilfully forget God. If God were to forget us, we would not even exist. And yet, from the very first breath that we take in, He is there with us. God is there, here; His presence merely needs to be exercised. The purpose of life is to grow in our love for God and how can we do this if we continually forget Him or forget even about Him? Remember that we are called on to pray with the mind in the heart. We are to pray with our total being and that includes the mind and intelligence and will.

In the Eastern Church, man's destiny is theosis, an intimate union with God. It is interesting that the Greek word theosis has the same root as theomoi, a term which means to see. We are to see God but, not necessarily through our physical eyes but through our imagination. Remember that the imagination is a gift given to man and this is one of the things that differentiates man from other creatures.

Yours truly,

Bar-Abbas