A Presentation
for the Observance of the Protection of the Environment
9-28-2014
by Fr Ted
Toppses
In the Name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
It was
morning in the pre-dawn hours and the sun had not yet risen, the beginnings of
light were now starting to spill over the horizon. The water was cold and the air crisp as I
entered my kayak and my mind quickly began to calm. The world that I knew in my
day to day existence seems to be very far away as I gently rode on the water. Soon the sun began to peek over the horizon
and the water was filled with thousands of dazzling diamonds and I was at peace
reaching out in silent prayer to the Lord who flooded my heart in the boundless
beauty of what I beheld.
There are
many ways to reach to God in our prayers and our lives. When our physical bodies are calm and quiet
the prayer of the spirit can be made more clearly. From Christ we are given the direction to
take time to separate ourselves from the hustle and bustle and go into the
wilderness. Christ was led by the Holy Spirit to go into the wilderness and
allow Himself to be tempted by the devil.
Christ fasted and through His time in this isolation He demonstrates to
us that we can use periodic isolation in nature to combat the temptations of
this life.
In Luke 6:12
we learn of Christ taking time apart and praying in the nature of the mountain.
Luke 6:12 reads “Now during those
days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to
God.”
The natural
environment is gift from God for us to have a transformative place to go and
pray. The Lord directed His people to the wilderness as recorded in Exodus 5.1:
Afterwards Moses and Aaron went to
Pharaoh and said, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Let my people go, so
that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.”
St.
Porphyrios when inundated by many people visiting him would relive the
peacefulness of his youth on Mount Athos by going into the woods and setting up
a bed in a tree giving himself a peaceful evening and night calming his mind
and connecting his heart to Christ’s.
St. Symeon
the New Theologian in his experience of the Uncreated Light of God saw in his
vision that the light of God supports all things and touches all things. St. Symeon saw the natural would as one of the
ways to connect with God who shines His light within it.
We cannot
underestimate the need for peace during our prayer life, to connect to Christ
in a way in order that our Lord becomes truly known to us. The External peace and magnificence of God
found in nature can lead to the internal peace of the heart when we take more
and more time to pray while being affected by the Glory of God in nature.
What happens
when we partake of this God given gift? The external peace found in nature, when
allowed to penetrate through the experience of peace and prayer, will transform
the heart in a calm and miraculous way as we carry the Presence of Christ
within us.
St.
Nektarios writes about finding God in nature when approaching it with a pure
heart. The following is from the
Writtings Of Saint Nectarios Of Aegina
St.
Nektarios writes:
When the man
of pure heart looks at the World of Nature, that is, at the sky, the earth, and
the sea and at all things in them, and observes the systems constituting them,
the infinite multitude of stars of heaven, the innumerable multitudes of birds
and quadrupeds and every kind of animal of the earth, the variety of plants on
it, the abundance of fish in the sea, he is immediately amazed and exclaims
with the Prophet David: "How great are Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom Thou
made them all." Such a man, impelled by his pure heart, discovers God also
in the World of Grace of the Church, from which the evil man is far removed.
The man of pure heart believes in the Church, admires her spiritual system,
discovers God in the Mysteria, in the heights of the theology, in the light of
the Divine revelations, in the truths of the teachings, in the commandments of
the Law, in the achievements of the Saints, in the very good deed, in every
perfect gift, and in general in the whole of the creation. Justly then did the
Lord say in His Beatitudes of those possessing purity of the heart:
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." – St. Nektarios
-
From Selected Passages From The
Writtings Of Orthodox Saints Compiled by Father Demetrios Serfes
So with our
task today of remembering the protection of the Environment we are reminded
that protecting the proper use of Nature is protecting a path to God. This natural path can remove us from the
daily grind of the world of man and give us an additional glimpse into the
world of God. We must not only protect
our natural environment from improper use or destruction, we must go and immerse
ourselves in nature regularly in order to give us a time of peaceful Godly renewal. In this way we are assisted to be at peace
and readily connect with God.
Take time to
immerse yourself in the beauty and magnificence of God’s creation in nature. Allow yourself to reach to our Lord in prayer
while experiencing this awe inspiring beauty.
Amen.
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