Status Updates From In The Spirit of Happiness

“When we say that God no longer calls the sin to mind, we are saying, effectively; that he has exiled it: he does not hold it against us. “As far as the East us from the West, such is the distance he has removed our sins from us.” Further, even more radically; it is not that God forgives us when we entreat him for this: he has already forgiven us. He exists in a mode of being that is eternally forgiving.”

“Work is one of the ways we pray. Prayer is not just verbal…good work expresses prayer, which is how abbeys were built, farms tended, land managed, art and skills nurtured, and culture passed on. Monasteries didn't just appear: monks built them, by the sweat of their own labor. Their work was their prayer."

Dorotheos then pointed out that to move toward the center, to God, the task of each of our lives, is equally to move closer to one another. 'The closer we come to God; he said, 'the closer we become to one another, and the closer we are to one another, the closer we are to God.' Regardless of the context, the other is our path to God.