Письмо 3
The Necessity of Spiritual Hunger
True spiritual health is found in a heart that feels its own poverty and hunger for God.
It's a bad thing when a person is full and content in the heart — but when hungry and poor, how good that is. A beggar runs from window to window and asks even in a hard frost.1 Would he go out if he had a piece of bread? When you feel you're in trouble, there's no end to a person's cares and labors. It's the same with the heart. When a sense of trouble, poverty, and hunger touches it, it gives rest to neither body nor soul. Do this, and press on to that.2 Then there's no room left for self-pity, and every labor is no labor at all.3 And the Lord sends hunger and trouble to the one who prays and asks. This is a sign of health. A sick person has no appetite; they're full even if they go weeks without eating.4 Lord, have mercy on us!
Breaking the Bonds of Attachment
We must cultivate a sense of urgency to break the attachments that keep our souls tethered to the world.
A little bird tied by a short thread will flutter up and fall, flutter up and fall. When the thread is long, the little bird will fly high and far—but it will still be pulled back to the same place. If it weren't for the thread, the little bird would fly off to the fair meadows.5 Even in large cages, little birds fly, but they still aren't free. How can one break free? When fire threatens someone who's tied down, he will yank so hard that he'll break an iron chain, let alone a weak thread. So it isn't that hard: you have to kindle trouble all around you.6 But everything has its time—though when it comes to why the time hasn't arrived, we are sometimes to blame ourselves.✦
The Monastery of the Heart
The true monastery is the inner life of the soul with God, regardless of external circumstances.
It's better not to make plans either way — neither for the monastery nor for life outside it; for that isn't where the strength lies. You need to wound and stir your inner life so you don't fall asleep. Even Samson was bound, shorn, and stripped of his strength while he slept. When the monastery is in the heart, then whether the monastery buildings stand or not makes no difference. A monastery in the heart is simply this: God and the soul. Still, if God leads you into a monastery, you must go. Just don't try to guess what you'll encounter there. You can't even imagine it. Everyone there meets exactly what he needs. What one person finds is nothing like what another finds. It's better to surrender yourself to God's will and receive everything as coming from His hand.
Read the original Russian
Беда, когда в сердце человек сыт и доволен, а когда голоден и нищ, куда как хорошо. Нищий и в мороз сильный бегает по окнам и просит. Пошел бы он, если б у него был кусок хлеба?
Когда чувствуется беда, тогда хлопотам и трудам человека конца нет. Тоже и с сердцем! Когда коснется его чувство беды, нищеты и голода, – покоя не дает ни телу, ни душе. И то сделай, и на другое подвигнись. Тогда уж саможалению нет места, и всякий труд не в труд. А голод и беду Господь посылает молящемуся и просящему. Это признак здоровья. У больнаго нет аппетита; он сыт, хоть по неделям не ест.
Господи помилуй нас!
Птичка, привязанная короткою ниткою, вспорхнет и падет, вспорхнет и падет. Когда нитка длинна, птичка и высоко взлетит и далеко пролетит, но все притянется к тому же месту. Если б не нитка, улетела бы птичка на луга красные. И в больших клетках птички летают, но все не на свободе. Как оторваться?
Когда огонь угрожает привязанному, то он так сильно рванется, что железную цепь перервет, а не то что нитку слабую. Так не за большим дело: надо зажечь беду вокруг. Но всему свое время, хоть и в том, почему не время, иногда мы же виноваты.
Лучше ничего не загадывать – ни в монастырь, ни за монастырь; ибо не в том сила. Внутренность свою надобно уязвлять и тревожить, чтоб не уснуть. Во сне и Сампсона связали и остригли и силы лишили. Когда в сердце монастырь, тогда строение монастырское будь или не будь все равно. В сердце монастырь вот что: Бог, да душа. Однако ж, когда Бог приведет в монастырь, надобно идти. Только опять не гадайте о том, что вы там встретите. Вы и вообразить того не можете.
Каждый там встречает то, что нужно именно ему. У одного все не походит на другаго. Лучше в волю Божию предаться, и все принимать как от руки Его.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Eccl.3.1 — For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Notes
- 1 ↩«бегает по окнам» is the old street-begging image of going along house windows (not indoor window-shopping); rendered as 'from window to window'.
- 2 ↩И то...и на другое is a rapid imperative pair: do one thing, then stir yourself toward another—conveying restless spiritual urgency, not a fixed two-step program.
- 3 ↩не в труд is idiomatic: the work no longer feels like a burden.
- 4 ↩Source has pre-reform spelling больнаго (= больного); translated as 'sick person' without change of sense.
- 5 ↩луга красные: in older Russian красный often means fair/beautiful rather than color-red; rendered as fair meadows.
- 6 ↩«зажечь беду вокруг» is figurative continuation of the fire/thread metaphor: deliberately awaken danger or urgency so the soul breaks free of its attachments, not literal malice.
Letters on the Christian Life companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit