Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) on the Absence of God
I'm trying to start reading again. Not sci fi novels and that sort of thing, but books that will change who I am in a good way.
Regardless of whether I'll keep with it or not, I've just started Metropolitan Anthony Bloom's book "Beginning to Pray," which was recommended to me by Fr. Joshua ages ago. In the introduction (the text of an interview with Metropolitan Anthony before his recent falling asleep) Vladyko Anthony says the following: "The day when God is absent, when He is silent - that is the beginning of prayer. No when we have a lot to say, but when we say to God 'I can't live without You, why are You so cruel, so silent?' This knowledge that we must find or die - that makes us break through to the place where we are in the Presence. If we listen to what our hearts know of love and longing and are never afraid of despair, we find that victory is always there the other side of it.
"There is that time when there is a longing in the heart for God Himself. There is sadness in the eyes that grow deep and look into infinity, often in the midst of fulfilment and happiness. There is longing for home, but a home that has no geography..." (pages 17 & 18)
Regardless of whether I'll keep with it or not, I've just started Metropolitan Anthony Bloom's book "Beginning to Pray," which was recommended to me by Fr. Joshua ages ago. In the introduction (the text of an interview with Metropolitan Anthony before his recent falling asleep) Vladyko Anthony says the following: "The day when God is absent, when He is silent - that is the beginning of prayer. No when we have a lot to say, but when we say to God 'I can't live without You, why are You so cruel, so silent?' This knowledge that we must find or die - that makes us break through to the place where we are in the Presence. If we listen to what our hearts know of love and longing and are never afraid of despair, we find that victory is always there the other side of it.
"There is that time when there is a longing in the heart for God Himself. There is sadness in the eyes that grow deep and look into infinity, often in the midst of fulfilment and happiness. There is longing for home, but a home that has no geography..." (pages 17 & 18)