Письмо 91
Restoring Inner Order
The author calls for a return to spiritual discipline and warns against the distraction caused by restless visitors.
Save yourselves! It looks like you've completely fallen apart.1 Either other people have pulled you in every direction, or you're tearing yourself to pieces. It's time to sit down and settle in. Hurry and put things in order, get yourselves settled, and that will put an end to it. And now N. has shown up at your place. N. Now she'll start gathering pilgrims and pilgrim women!2
True Hospitality and Discernment
True spiritual life is found in surrender to God's will rather than in the frantic gathering of people or self-imposed works.
Ask her: is there really salvation in clinging to every person who comes along? And further: can such a work be good when it is bound up with disturbing others? Whoever is needed, God will send — and why should you force yourselves on people? You can't summon a true pilgrim or pilgrim woman just by calling, and you rarely meet one as it is.3 . . Still, everyone has their own way of thinking and feeling. All that's needed is to offer everything to God as a sacrifice.
The Illusion of Worldly Progress
The author contrasts worldly notions of progress with the necessity of being rooted in Christ, warning that human efforts apart from God are futile.
These are the cares that now stand before you—and they're the more significant ones. There's nothing of self-will in them.4 Only everything must go by lawful order: no tricks and no underhanded workarounds. If the Lord arranges it, so be it; if He doesn't, may His holy will be done. What a progressive that woman of yours is!5 She's sure she's acting on Christian principles. Let her take it in that Christian progress is a completely different matter from what she thinks. Progress according to the spirit of the world is a dream.✦6 This much is certain: every plant that the Heavenly Father hasn't planted will be uprooted, and whoever isn't in Christ withers like a branch and is thrown into the fire.✦✦ Lord, have mercy on us! How many false phantoms there are, luring us away in place of the truth.7 . . How many men and women labor away at pounding water!8 May God's will be done over them!✦
A Prayer for Mutual Edification
The letter concludes with a petition for peace and the grace to build one another up in the Christian life.
Lord, bless us all to walk the path of life in peace and mutual consolation, building each other up rather than tearing each other down.✦
Read the original Russian
Спасайтесь! Ну, совсем, кажется, вы разорились! Или вас разволокли другие, или вы сами себя разбиваете. Пора сесть и усесться. Поспешите установить порядок и устроиться, да и конец делу. А тут подоспела к вам N. N. Начнет теперь собирать странников и странниц!
Спросите ее, разве есть спасение в том, чтоб липнуть к встречному и поперечному? И еще: может ли такое дело быть добрым, когда оно соединено с беспокойством других? Кто нужен, того Бог пошлет, а самим-то что навязываться? Настоящаго странника или странницу не дозовешься, да и редко встретишь. . . Впрочем у всякаго свой склад ума и сердца. Все только надо приносить Богу в жертву.
Вот те хлопоты, что ныне предстоят вам, те по значительнее. Тут самостнаго ничего нет. Только надо чтоб все шло законным порядком: не употреблять хитростей и задних обходов. Устроит Господь, пусть так; не устроит, буди Его святая воля. Какая это там у вас прогрессистка! Она уверена, что действует по началам Христианства. Пусть возьмет в толк, что по христиански прогресс совсем другое дело, нежели, что она думает. Прогресс по духу мира – мечта.
То несомненно, что всяк сад, его же не насади Отец Небесный, искоренится, и что тот, кто не во Христе, иссыхает как ветвь и бросаем бывает в огнь. Господи, помилуй нас! Сколько ложных призраков, увлекающих нас, вместо истины. . . Сколько тружеников и тружениц, водотолчением занятых! Да будет над ними воля Божия!
Благослови, Господи, всем нам пройти путь жизни в мире и взаимном утешении, назидая друг друга, а не разоряя.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Cor.2.12;1John.2.15-1John.2.17 — Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that comes from God, so that we may understand the things freely given to us by God. 1John.2.15 — Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1John.2.16 — For all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life—is not from the Father, but is from the world. 1John.2.17 — And the world is passing away, and its desire; but the one who does the will of God remains forever.
- ↩Matt.15.13 — But he answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted."
- ↩John.15.6 — If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and is dried up; and they gather them, and throw them into the fire, and it is burned.
- ↩Matt.6.10 — Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
- ↩Rom.14.19;1Thess.5.11;2Cor.13.10 — So then, let us pursue the things of peace and the things that build one another up. 1Thess.5.11 — Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, even as you are doing. 2Cor.13.10 — For this reason I write these things while absent, so that when I am present I may not have to deal with severity, according to the authority the Lord gave me—for building up and not for tearing down.
Notes
- 1 ↩разорились can mean financial ruin or figurative collapse; context of spiritual disorder favors fallen-apart/ruined-yourselves.
- 2 ↩странников и странниц can mean pilgrims or wanderers; later context (true pilgrim) favors spiritual travelers/pilgrims.
- 3 ↩Russian странник/странница can mean pilgrim or wandering guest seeking hospitality; rendered as pilgrim/pilgrim woman to match the letter's gathering of wanderers in the preceding section.
- 4 ↩самостнаго from самость: Feofan's term for self-will / egoistic self-assertion, not mere 'selfishness' in the modern casual sense.
- 5 ↩прогрессистка: a progressive/modernist woman in the nineteenth-century sense; keep the period force of the label without flattening it to mere 'activist'.
- 6 ↩мечта can mean dream, fantasy, or illusion; rendered 'dream' to keep Feofan's dismissive force without over-modernizing to 'delusion'.
- 7 ↩призраков can mean phantoms, specters, or deceptive appearances; 'phantoms' keeps the sense of unreality against 'истины' (truth).
- 8 ↩водотолчение is an idiom for futile effort (literally 'water-pounding'); rendered to keep the image of pointless labor rather than a flat paraphrase.
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