Orthodoxy discussion

Beginning to Pray Absence of God

I am in the middle of the 'knocking at the door' chapter, where he says that we should recognize that we have nothing, that all is given to us, and I was wondering if anyone else had thoughts about this.

At the risk of American political heresy I will venture my thoughts. American politics, in the classical liberal style of the Enlightenment and the Founding Fathers, very much belived in property rights... the three classical liberal rights were right to life, right to liberty, and right to property. Now, I don't dispute that those are helpful political rights and that our society is well founded on these rights and on everyone's respect of them.

What I am trying to weave in is Christianity, which is otherworldly. Christ did not preach on property rights. He said if someone takes your coat, give him your cloak also. He was always trying to liberate us from those things with the idea that not only are they not that important, but, also, God provides for us, and so we can love our enemies and even sorta heap burning coals on their heads by giving them more than they stole from us, because we are FREE from worldly entanglements.

I always have a hard time engaging and reconciling those views.

Attachment and detachment are the clues here, I think. It's perfectly fine to have things. But how much you care about them is what matters. Anytime anything means more to you than God, well, that's when you have a problem of idolatry messing with you.
If someone likes a scarf you're wearing, try saying, here, have it. See what happens inside. It's truly a lesson in detachment. If you later regret it, then you will have learned something. If you don't think about it again, then you've learned something else.
Or am I misunderstanding your meaning?

Good points, Zaina. Attachment and detachment are the issues, not what you do or do not own.

Sorry, I kind of dropped the ball for a while there. Picking up again and reading as work has settled down. :)

When we feed, colth the poor,sick,naked, hungry, lonely, visit the prisoner in jail, we have done it unto Him....