Lew☦️ on Nostr: The whole lifestyle of modern man is arranged in such a way that there is no place ...
The whole lifestyle of modern man is arranged in such a way that there is no place for genuine spiritual life. Those who seek the spiritual life are thrown into despair, driven further and further into the mire of worldliness. The very pulse of modern life is nervous, refusing to allow a person any solitude for self-examination, creating an atmosphere hostile to leading a spiritual life. Modern man is like a screw or cogwheel in the gigantic machine of materialistic culture. He loses his individuality and personality and, as they say, runs in circles like a hamster in his cage. “Time is money” is the catchword for modern man’s lifestyle, therefore allowing no time for self-reflection, introspection, attention to the movements of one’s spirit and to the voice of one’s conscience. This nervous, rabid lifestyle wears one out entirely, drains a person’s energy and, thus, leaves him no time to work on himself, which is a necessary demand of the spiritual life. The only desire that remains is to be entertained, to relax, and to get away for a time from the oppressive mechanism of life. As a result, now all kinds of cheap, light-minded entertainment abound—movies, discotheques, etc., and places to spend free time from work and study. Without a doubt, this is the curse of modern life, corrupting all that is healthy in a person. It is the inevitable offspring of modern culture, of a person who has renounced God and made the foundation of his life the spirit of self-satisfying human pride.
All of modern entertainment acts like cocaine and alcohol on our contemporaries. Contemporary entertainment puts spiritual life to sleep in man, paralyzes spiritual impulses, and suppresses the voice of the conscience and of moral norms. Little by little, a person descends from the natural to gross carnality, becoming like a body without a soul according to the words of the Psalmist, I was so foolish and ignorant: I was like a beast before you (Ps 73:22). The terrible sentence of God, once directed to the contemporaries of righteous Noah who perished in the flood, is pronounced on such people: And the Lord said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man forever, for that he also is indeed flesh …” (Gen 6:3).
- Archbishop Averky Taushev
All of modern entertainment acts like cocaine and alcohol on our contemporaries. Contemporary entertainment puts spiritual life to sleep in man, paralyzes spiritual impulses, and suppresses the voice of the conscience and of moral norms. Little by little, a person descends from the natural to gross carnality, becoming like a body without a soul according to the words of the Psalmist, I was so foolish and ignorant: I was like a beast before you (Ps 73:22). The terrible sentence of God, once directed to the contemporaries of righteous Noah who perished in the flood, is pronounced on such people: And the Lord said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man forever, for that he also is indeed flesh …” (Gen 6:3).
- Archbishop Averky Taushev