After spending time on the phone with the bank fraud department, the Lord blessed me with resolution to several false charges from some creepy and icky entity in the "online gaming world." Thankfully, the man with whom I spoke had access to my usual pharmacy charges, dentist, medical, grocery and occasional big box store purchases of house maintenance supplies. Also helpful is being a long-time customer of banks which establishes a track record of our temporal, daily habits. Online video games is not my interest!
Unable to be up and functioning, my desire turned to reviewing another couple of texts on watchfulness or nepsis, written by the 9th c. monk and abbot, St. Philotheos of Sinai. I'm discovering much good in what he writes, as I am far from hitting the "mark" of what these next two texts (or probably that which all of the 40 texts) advise.
"3. It is very rare to find people whose intelligence is in a state of stillness. Indeed, such a state is only to be found in those who through their whole manner of life strive to attract divine grace and blessing to themselves. If, then, we seek--by guarding our intellect and by inner watchfulness--to engage in the noetic work that is the true philosophy in Christ, we must begin by exercising self-control with regard to our food, eating and drinking as little as possible. Watchfulness may fittingly be called a path leading both to the kingdom within us and to that which is to be; while noetic work, which trains and purifies the intellect and changes it from an impassioned state to a state of dispassion, is like a window full of light through which God looks, revealing Himself to the intellect.
"4. Where humility is combined with the remembrance of God that is established through watchfulness and attention, and also with recurrent prayer inflexible in its resistance to the enemy, there is the place of God, the heaven of the heart in which because of God's presence no demonic army dares to make a stand."
Stillness is one of my hermit Nine S'--the qualities of the platform which is to undergird my Rule of Life: The Gospel Rule. Have I been existing in a state of stillness? I think not! But with simplicity of circumstances, and of stability of bodily pain, and of coming to deeper grasp of the Living Word of God, particularly the Gospels and the writings of the apostles, stillness reasserts its quiet, unassuming place in the Nine S' line up: Silence, Solitude, Slowness, Suffering, Selflessness, Simplicity, Stillness, Stability, Serenity.
In humility and of placing within the intellect--the thoughts of mind and the emotions of heart--the memory and images of God, and with firmness in praise of God and prayer for the world and all souls, stillness has the opportunity thrive within us, and from within to without as stillness may be sensed in its softness of sensibility. Stillness is that which can be practiced and will be a fruit of divine grace for our Christ-desiring and loving exercise of self-control--the will's gentle subduing of the intellect from its various stirrings.
This evening, with the pain prohibiting as much as rising to prepare some soup, I will practice silently laying on the bed, no external stimuli distracting me, and simply rest in the solitude. I will my mind to seek stillness; I ask Jesus to silence the storm of thoughts that so easily rise within the mind and heart. Practice what St. Philotheos terms "nepsis" or "watchfulness of the intellect."
God bless His Real Presence in us!
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