The Desert Fathers on Blogging

Have I mentioned I love these folks lately? Here are five more reasons, from the perspective of a blogger.

A brother asked Abba Poemen, “How should I behave in my cell in the place where I am living?”

He replied, “Behave as if you were a stranger, and wherever you are, do not expect your words to have an influence and you will be at peace.”

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Some old men said, “If you see a young man climbing up to the heavens by his own will, catch him by the foot and throw him down to the earth; it is not good for him.”

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An old man said, “Every time a thought of superiority or vanity moves you, examine your conscience to see if you have kept all the commandments, whether you love your enemies, whether you consider yourself to be an unprofitable servant and the greatest sinner of all. Even so, do not pretend to great ideas as though you were perfectly right, for that thought destroys everything.”

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God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers or unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from passions or those caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated and the illiterate, of the healthy and the sick, of the young or the old. He is like the outpouring of light, the glimpse of the sun, or the changes of the weather which are the same for everyone without exception.

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Palladius said, “One day when I was suffering from boredom I went to Abba Macarius and said, “What shall I do? My thoughts afflict me, saying, you are not making any progress, go away from here.”

He said to me, “Tell them, for Christ’s sake, I am guarding the walls.”

Heh!