The Saint Euphrosynos Cafe

Watching youtube videos, TV, and movies especially with graphic scenes and terrorizing music imprints these images and sounds into our memory, so that we will struggle with logismoi, vivid imaginations gone wild, and even nightmares or night terrors. In addition, such viewing can become addictive as we begin to crave the adrenalin rush. Thus, a vicious habit of viewing and/or posting online can take over our spiritual lives and destroy it little by little.

All this is true, but without proper spiritual direction this fear of bad influence can decay into paranoia, which is itself a serious spiritual sickness, being a form of prelest. The saints were never paranoid about the world; they rejected the world because they were more serious, more grounded, more balanced and more realistic than ordinary people.

Fr Maximus of Holy Ascension Monastery in Bearsville once explained to me what he loved about the saints. He told me about St Simeon Stylites, who was such a severe ascetic that many of his practices appear gruesome to us. Anyone doing that kind of thing in our world would be considered a nut, and almost certainly would be one in reality. But if you hear what St Simeon had to say, you realize that he was a perfectly normal and sane person. His ascetic feats were simply the outcome of a rational, non-delusional rejection of the passions and of the world.

I agree with all of you on this point about the dangers of TV watching, as all have made points I agree with. It is important to actually BE separate to a certain extent, and at the same time to be separate with a healthy frame of mind. It is also important to avoid the pitfalls of "being balanced" which can be a kind of compromise with the world. There is no real issue of balance, per se, in dealing with the world in my opinion. I think that we are simply instructed to do what is healthy and spiritually beneficial and glorifying to God. That might make us look rather extreme, as Jonathan has remarked. However, if one is healthy and Orthodox in the way one goes about this, it will not be extreme or unhealthy, but staying in the centre of the field of God's spiritual meadow, and healthy and a sign of love for God. God help us in this.

Symeon

Maria and Symeon

Do you watch t.v., even if it is minimal?

joasia wrote:

Maria and Symeon

Do you watch t.v., even if it is minimal?

I only watch TV if my husband is watching the news, sees an interesting story, and asks me to come and see.
However, rarely is the news unbiased, nor is it edifying.

I agree with all of you on this point about the dangers of TV watching, as all have made points I agree with. It is important to actually BE separate to a certain extent, and at the same time to be separate with a healthy frame of mind. It is also important to avoid the pitfalls of "being balanced" which can be a kind of compromise with the world. There is no real issue of balance, per se, in dealing with the world in my opinion. I think that we are simply instructed to do what is healthy and spiritually beneficial and glorifying to God. That might make us look rather extreme, as Jonathan has remarked. However, if one is healthy and Orthodox in the way one goes about this, it will not be extreme or unhealthy, but staying in the centre of the field of God's spiritual meadow, and healthy and a sign of love for God. God help us in this.

Symeon. I have no idea what you are talking about. You make no sense. You make references that are odd. Even your attempt to impose an Orthodox inference is loopy. What is your point? "God's spiritual meadow"? Are we back in the 60's with the Age of Aquarius?

Dear Joanna,

I was only making a reference to the great Orthodox work, The Spiritual Meadow, by John Moscos, which is a famous collection of the sayings and lives of desert fathers he collected in his journeys in the early life of monasticism in Egypt and palestine and other places in the empire. Many of his accounts are included in the Philokalia. Their lives reflect not what we would call "balance" today, but simply wise living. So, what I mean is that some TV viewing is harmless but other kinds are not and we need to be discerning about this. That is all I was saying. I myself do not live perfectly regarding this but I have over the course of the past year cut out a huge amount of TV viewing and this has greatly freed up my time and my mind from distraction and I actually am praying more and reading Orthodox literature much more. So with time I hope to be free of TV entirely.

Of your goodness, pray for me a sinner.

Symeon