When the demons expel self-restraint from your intellect and besiege you with thoughts of unchastity, turn to the Lord with tears and say, "Now they have driven me out and encircled me"; "Thou art my supreme joy: deliver me from those who encircle me". Then you will be safe. (Maximos the Confessor)

Maximos is writing principally for monastics. But many of us undertake vows, formal or informal.

Vows freely undertaken should be honored. Longing for sensuality, sex, and success can complicate relationships with God and neighbor that are our core purpose.  Choosing to put such longings aside can, for some individuals in some circumstances, clarify and simplify.

We will not, however, keep any vow of our own accord.  If we persist it will be, as Maximos counsels, with God's help.  When we fail - which is likely - we can be restored through God's grace.

Again, vice is the wrong use of our conceptual images of things, which leads us to misuse the things themselves. In relation to women, for example, sexual intercourse, rightly used, has as its purpose the begetting of children. He, therefore, who seeks in it only sensual pleasure uses it wrongly, for he reckons as good what is not good. When such a man has intercourse with a woman, he misuses her. And the same is true with regard to other things and our conceptual images of them. (Maximos the Confessor)

There is a profound insight here and a principle that can keep us from harm. The key is perceiving and setting right our purposes.

Is the begetting of children the only right purpose of sexual intercourse? I understand the logic that could reach such a conclusion. But we are clearly called to relationship with others: intellectual, spiritual, and physical relationship. Might sexual intercourse also have the purpose of making more intimate our relationships?

Intimacy of any sort is powerful. As a result it is especially inclined to misuse. But full and mutual engagement is propelled by intellectual and spiritual intercourse. Sexual intercourse can also contribute to such purpose.

Passion is an impulse of the soul contrary to nature, as in the case of mindless love or mindless hatred for someone or for some sensible thing. In the case of love, it may be for needless food, or for a woman, or for money, or for transient glory, or for other sensible objects or on their account. In the case of hatred, it may be for any of the things mentioned, or for someone on account of these things. (Maximos the Confessor)

A mindless longing for something not needed, but merely wanted, is contrary to our fundamental nature. Paul longed to be with his friends at Rome, and those at Philippi, for Timothy, and others. So it is not the longing (not the passion, if I have guessed right) that is contrary to nature. It is the mindlessness of longing, as for food in such quantity that it harms rather than sustains. The same distinction might be made for women, money, and glory. In each case we can reasonably long for that which which sustains and fulfills us. But in each case we might also desire that which only distracts and diminishes.

When the intellect turns its attention to the visible world, it perceives things through the medium of the senses in a way that accords with nature. And the intellect is not evil, nor is its natural capacity to form conceptual images of things, nor are the things themselves, nor are the senses, for all are the work of God. What then, is evil? Clearly it is the passion that enters into the conceptual images formed in accordance with nature by the intellect; and this need not happen if the intellect keeps watch. (Maximos the Confessor)

I will guess - and that's all it is - that Maximos has written epipotheo for what is translated here (and previously) as passion. It is to have a very strong longing, to yearn for, to deeply desire, to crave.

Epipotheo can be good or bad. In Philippians 1:8 Paul writes that he longs for the Philippians with the affections of Christ Jesus. In James 4:5 we read of the "spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy."

The object of desire is not evil. The perceiving subject is not evil. The act of perception is not evil. The conceptualization of the object is not evil. But when we yearn after our conceptualizations the potential for evil abounds.

It is interesting that Maximos focuses on yearning for the conceptualization, not on the object itself. I don't disagree, but I hope he will give us more of his thinking on an emotional yearning for abstract conceptualization versus reality itself.

I am reminded of Plato's allegory of the chariot. In the Phaedrus he writes, "We will liken the soul to the composite nature of a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the horses and charioteers of the gods are all good..." But among mortals the chariot depends on a noble white horse, an ignoble black horse, and a very perceptive and active charioteer. The black horse is epithumetikon, closely related to epipotheo.

It is necessary, Plato has Socrates explain, for the intellect - especially the foresight and discipline - of the charioteer to command the black horse, encourage the white horse, and guide the chariot.

When the intellect begins to advance in love for God, the demon of blasphemy starts to tempt it, suggesting thoughts such as no man but only the devil, their father, could invent. He does this out of envy, so that the man of God, in his despair at thinking such thoughts, no longer dares to soar up to God in his accustomed prayer. But the demon does not further his own ends by this means. On the contrary, he makes us more steadfast. For through his attacks and our retaliation we grow more experienced and genuine in our love for God. May his sword enter into his own heart and may his bows be broken. (Maximos the Confessor)

It is not in soaring that we are closest to God; it is usually in despair. When we recognize our relationship with God... or with our neighbor... or with our self is broken, we may be motivated to reconciliation. Too often we are out of right relationship, but do not notice. The origin of blasphemy is the Greek meaning to injure (blaptein) the reputation (pheme). The Greek Bible employs blasphemare to condemn abusive language against peoples (e.g. 2 Samuel 21:21) or individuals (e.g. 1 Corinthians 10:30) as well as against God. In anger I will blaspheme myself. Given what I understand is my true self, such blasphemy is as destructive as that against God.

Those permitted by God to test us either inflame the desiring aspect of the soul, or stir up its incensive power, or darken it's intelligence, or envelop its body in pain, or deprive us of bodily necessities. The demons either tempt us themselves or arm against us those who have no fear of the Lord. They tempt us themselves when we withdraw from human society, as they tempted our Lord in the desert. They tempt us through other people when we spend our time in the company of others, as they tempted our Lord through the Pharisees. But whichever line of attack they choose, let us repel them by keeping or gaze fixed on the Lord's example. (Maximos the Confessor)

Yesterday I arrived too early for a meeting in Richmond, Virginia and visited a small exhibit on Edgar Allen Poe. The curator argued Poe had - decades before Freud - found that our greatest threats are interior rather than exterior, psychological demons rather than the sort represented in medieval gargoyles.

We tempt ourselves. With pride, ambition, fear, and neediness we are distracted from the present and our best potential. Not knowing ourselves, neglecting God, and too often seeing our neighbor as a means rather than an end, it can seem, as Poe wrote, "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." Or a nightmare.

The Lord's example was to be wholly himself, fully in relationship to God, and loving all as neighbor. Jesus was real which, as Poe, Freud and even Maximos might agree, is the best talisman for courage and competence.

"Shun evil and do good", that is to say, fight the enemy in order to diminish the passions, and then be vigilant lest they increase once more. Again, fight to acquire the virtues and then be vigilant in order to keep them. This is the meaning of "cultivate" and "keeping." (Maximos the Confessor)

In the second chapter of Genesis, verse 15, we read, "Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it." Here cultivate and keep are the same Hebrew word: 'abad

Despite Maximos, 'abad means to work, to labor, and eventually it implied to serve. It is to nourish and draw-forth the potential good that is present. There is no suggestion of fighting.

The farmer does not so much fight drought as he digs wells and builds irrigation ditches. Fighting is focused on what is wrong. 'Abad is focused on amplifying the potential that exists.

I can be my own worst enemy. There are habits and attitudes that have earned a sustained fight. But more effective may be time and effort given to cultivating faith, hope, and love.

In fighting the one restriction God placed on paradise, Eden was lost. Surely it would have been better to cultivate and keep all the rest that was freely given.

If there are some men you hate and some you neither love nor hate, and others you love strongly and others again you love but moderately, recognize from this inequality that you are far from perfect love. For perfect love presupposes that you love all men equally. (Maximos the Confessor)

This strikes me as clearly true. Each one is equally a child of God. Each one is an expression of God.

Love is to be in self-aware relationship with and to value the other. We are in relationship with each and, given the relationship of all to God, each has equal value.

We are not self-aware - in any real way - of our relationship with the vast majority. From this arises inequality of feeling.

In some intimate relationships it is all too easy for strong feeling to either exclude others or to weirdly dilute the value we recognize in the other.

This reminds us that love - or chesed in Hebrew - is not a feeling, but an ongoing engagement of tsedek (righteousness) and mishpat (justice).

Men love one another, commendably or reprehensibly, for the following five reasons: either for the sake of God, as the virtuous man loves everyone and as the man not yet virtuous loves the virtuous; or by nature, as parents love their children and children their parents; or because of self-esteem, as he who is praised loves the man who praises him; or because of avarice, as with one who loves a rich man for what he can get out of him; or because of self-indulgence, as with the man who serves his belly and his genitals. The first of these is commendable, the second is of an intermediate kind, the rest are dominated by passion. (Maximos the Confessor)

How the English might differ from Maximos' original Greek is beyond my present ability to know. I am troubled by some aspects of meaning. But I can agree if his intent is similar to the following.

Men and women are motivated to be in relationship with one another, commendably or reprehensibly, for the following reasons: by recognizing God in the other; or by deeply empathizing with the other; or seeking to derive something desired from the other.

It can be treacherous translating across time and culture. There will always be tensions. The tensions can be helpful in recognizing important distinctions. But we should listen with as much sympathy as possible.

He who drives out self-love, the mother of the passions, will with God's help easily rid himself of the rest, such as anger, irritation, rancour and so on. But he who is dominated by self-love is overpowered by the other passions, even against his will. Self-love is the passion of attachment to the body. (Maximos the Confessor)

There is integrity to the teachings of Maximos. He applies a profound and consistent philosophical framework.

But I am concerned the framework may at times clarify beyond the intention of Jesus. If anything, Jesus was comfortable - even delighted - with paradox and pushed his followers to engage creatively with ambiguity.

Pride is a central problem. Yet Jesus taught we ought "love your neighbor as yourself." Love of self in right relationship with love of neighbor and love of God is foundational to the teachings of Jesus.

Whatever a man loves he inevitably clings to, and in order not to lose it he rejects everything that keeps him from it. So he who loves God cultivates pure prayer, driving out every passion that keeps him from it. (Maximos the Confessor)

Jesus often critiqued the half-heartedness of his generation and called them to wholeheartedness.

I very seldom see in my generation - and certainly not in myself - the sort of wholeheartedness that Maximos describes. Instead we are fractured by a wide range of desires.

Gracious God, enable me to filter out the noise that keeps me from full participation in your kingdom.

Two states of pure prayer are exalted above all others. One is to be found in those who have not advanced beyond the pratice of the virtues, the other in those leading the contemplative life. The first in engendered in the soul by fear of God and a firm hope in Him, the second byan intense longing for God and by total purification. The sign of the first is that the intellect, abandoning all conceptual images of the world, concentrates itself and prays without distraction or disturbance as if God Himself were present, as indeed He is. The sign of the second is that at the very onset of prayer the intellect is so ravished by the divine and infinite light that it is aware neither of itself nor of any other created thing, but only of Him who through love has activated such radiance in it. It is then that, being made aware of God's qualities, it receives clear and distinct reflections of Him. (Maximos the Confessor)

In each example we "concentrate... as if God himself were present, as indeed He is."

The Old Testament can be read as a long story of a failure to communicate. Again and again God offers his love and counsel.

From the clarity of the one restriction at Eden, to the principles outlined at Sinai, through prophets, priests, and scripture God tries to get our attention.

Paradoxically, we are often most attentive when we perceive God has withdrawn.

At least for me, one of the most important messages of the New Testament is God assuring us that even - perhaps especially - in pain and failure, God is with us. If we will open our eyes to see and our ears to hear.

Unless various successive spiritual contemplations also occupy the intellect, the practice of virtues by itself cannot free it so entirely from passions that it is able to pray undistractedly. Practice of the virtues frees the intellect only from dissipation and hatred; spiritual contemplation releases it also from forgetfulness and ignorance. In this way the intellect can pray as it should. (Maximos the Confessor)

In response to my critique, Maximos seems to ask, "Well, are you indeed attached in love to your neighbors?"

To which I should respond, "Not always." More accurately I would acknowledge that I have narrowed my definition of neighbors and my acts of love.

So to support my virtuous intent and irregular practice of virtues, Maximos encourages spiritual contemplation.

Reading, reflecting, meditating, singing, and praying can prepare us to practice the virtues more fully and efficaciously.

The spiritual and physical are not, rightly understood, in tension; but are each aspects of divine wholeness.

The effect of observing the commandments is to free from passion our conceptual images of things. The effect of spiritual reading and contemplation is to detach the intellect from form and matter. It is this which gives rise to undistracted prayer. (Maximos the Confessor)

I will certainly grant that our conceptual images of things are a problem.

There is a need to loosen our intellect's tendency to see what it expects to see.

Spiritual reading and contemplation will contribute to this loosening.

I am less certain about being detached from form and matter.

The greatest commandment is to love God and neighbor. My neighbors have a form and matter from which I ought not be detached.

When passions dominate the intellect, they separate it from God, binding it to material things and preoccupying it with them. But when love of God dominates the intellect, it frees it from its bonds, persuading it to rise above not only sensible things but even this transitory life. (Maximos the Confessor)

Maximos and I could be describing the same phenomenon -- and he could be right, though both of us are probably a bit wrong or worse --but I prefer less attention to the passions per se and more on what motivates that which Maximos persists in calling passions.

Motivation that is self-inflating, controlling of others, or full of fear separates from God. Motivation that is self-critical, serves others, and is creative can start without God, but leads closer and closer to God, even with no initial awareness of God.

God is love. Too often intellectual notions of God can encourage separation from God. Rather than passion, intellect, or even right motivation, acts of love invoke an experience of the divine more effectively than any incense or liturgy or theology.

The intellect that dallies with some sensible thing clearly is attached to it by some passion, such as desire, irritation, anger or rancour; and unless it becomes detached from that thing it will not be able to free itself from the passion affecting it. (Maximos the Confessor)

Attachment and detachment, we tend to think of these as a Buddhist concerns. They are, however, recurring issues in phenomenology and spiritual realism across cultures and faiths. Given the centrality of the issues to Buddhism we may find there some particular insight.

A Zen Master, John Daido Loori, teaches, "According to the Buddhist point of view, nonattachment is exactly the opposite of separation. You need two things in order to have attachment: the thing you’re attaching to, and the person who’s attaching. In nonattachment, on the other hand, there’s unity. There’s unity because there’s nothing to attach to. If you have unified with the whole universe, there’s nothing outside of you, so the notion of attachment becomes absurd. Who will attach to what?"

In order to better understand, Aristotle taught the value of separating and categorizing sensible things. I perceive Maximos is - probably unawares - following the Aristotelian path and trying to separate the universe into God and non-God. But how is this possible if God is creator of all things?

Maximos dallies over issues of separation when he - and we - might be opening ourselves more and more to the love of God.

He who truly loves God prays entirely without distraction, and he who prays entirely without distraction loves God truly. But he whose intellect is fixed on any worldly thing does not pray without distraction, and consequently he does not love God. (Maximos the Confessor)

Can we truly love without truly knowing our beloved?

What is required, how long does it take, to know another? How do we ever come to know God, who will - no matter how well we pray - remain profoundly other?

Can we truly love another without some strong sense of self?

Infatuation thrives in mutual illusion. The less we know the other and the less we know ourselves, the more thrilling the encounter.

Last week I heard Karin Armstrong, author of A Biography of God and more, tell how as a seventeen year old nun she could not pray for two minutes before her mind would flit in a dozen different directions.

True love requires self-awareness, self-criticism, and vulnerability to the other. Young love is often excruciatingly vulnerable, but absent the other two criteria.

Love takes time together (here I agree with Maximos). But it is less a matter of intensive time and much more a matter of extended time.

(Editorial Note: My reference copy of the Philokalia has a long lacuna extending from the 49th saying of the First Century by Maximos to the beginning of the Second Century. If you have been following the original text, this explains the sudden leap.)

The person who fears the Lord has humility as his constant companion and, through the thoughts which humility inspires, reaches a state of divine love and thankfulness. For he recalls his former worldly way of life, the various sins he has committed and temptations which have befallen him since his youth, and he recalls, too, how the Lord delivered him from all this, and how He led him away from a passion-dominated life to a life ruled by God. Then, together with fear, he also receives love, and in deep humility continually gives thanks to the Benefactor and Helmsman of our life. (Maximos the Confessor)

I do not perceive we are intended -- even in a life ruled by God -- to live free of passion. We now think of passion as being made up of lusts, especially for sex, money, and fame. This is a weird warping of its Latinate meaning (contemporary with Maximos) which is closest to the English to suffer, which is why we speak of the passion of Christ on the cross.

In this life we will suffer. We do not always suffer because of anything we have done or not done. We are, rather, passionate creatures in a passionate world. In classical Latin passus was an undergoing, as you might undergo a trial or a march or a task. It could also mean submission. We derive passive from the same root. Not only are we passionate, we are called to be compassionate. We are to identify with and fully share the hopes, fear, and lives of others.

Certainly our desires can compound our suffering. Humility can reduce what we contribute to our own suffering and that of others. Thankfulness can transform what we are undergoing. Together with love, thankfulness can, as Maximos teaches, inspire us to a new life. I have not, though, perceived any benefit from fear, especially not in fear of God.

I am intrigued by the Kabbalists' notion of a fractured world where we are partners with God in healing and restoring. But I am more convinced of a universe organized for ongoing creativity. Everywhere we look there is a breadth and depth of freedom, creative destruction, wonderful renewal, and - occasionally - something entirely and profoundly new.

Rather than partners in healing, I perceive we are to be partners in creating. One outcome of this perpetual creativity is passion - in the forms of both desires and suffering. But other outcomes - if we embrace the possibilities - are fully worth the price.

He who has not yet attained divine knowledge energized by love is proud of his spiritual progress. But he who has been granted such knowledge repeats with deep conviction the words uttered by the patriarch Abraham when he was granted the manifestation of God: "I am dust and ashes." (Maximos the Confessor)

Information is organized data. Knowledge is information placed in context. Wisdom is knowledge effectively applied to a problem.

Knowledge energized by love is especially sensitive to the needs of others and bold in taking risk for others.

Humility allows seeing beyond the self, which enhances knowledge, which - when energized by love - can transform even dust and ashes.

He who has been granted divine knowledge and has through love acquired its illumination will never be swept hither and thither by the demon of self-esteem. But he who has not yet been granted such knowledge will readily succumb to this demon. However, if in all that he does he keeps his gaze fixed on God, doing everything for His sake he will with God's help soon escape. (Maximos the Confessor)

I wonder if Maximos is writing of kenodoxia. It only appears once in the New Testament, "Do nothing from from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves." (Philippians 2:3)

St. John Cassian describes kenodoxia as a "multiform, various, and subtle form of pride." A synonym is vainglory. It is an empty, meaningless yet nonetheless overarching sense of self. For Aquinas kenodoxia is the particular sin of imagination, worshiping an unholy trinity of fame, glory, and vainglory.

I have a vigorous imagination. My earliest and, perhaps, most earnest prayer, asked for this imagination to be preserved. I recognize the demon Maximos describes.

Stop defiling your flesh with shameful deeds and polluting your soul with wicked thoughts; then the peace of God will descend upon you and bring you love. Afflict your flesh with hunger and vigils and apply yourself tirelessly to psalmody and prayer; then the sanctifying gift of self-restraint will descend upon you and bring you love. (Maximos the Confessor)

I am a great advocate of restraint, but I am not confident it will in itself bring love.

I understand the distracting nature of shameful deeds and wicked thoughts, but self-affliction of the flesh can be as distracting.

There is something in what Maximos prescribes that smacks of worthiness. In my experience accepting God's love has much more to do with readiness.

Readiness requires making time and space for God. It also requires being in meaningful relationship with others. What you do and think is part of readiness, but so is why you are doing it and thinking it.

Motivation is key to readiness. If motivated to be worthy of God's love, we will fail. But opening ourselves to the the presence of God is something, just barely, within our ability... with God's help.

If a man desires something, he makes every effort to attain it. But of all things which are good and desirable the divine is incomparably the best and the most desirable. How assiduous, then, we should be in order to attain what is of its very nature good and desirable. (Maximos the Confessor)

Most of us do not make every effort to attain our desires.

Our desires are often rather ill-formed, uncertain, and even in conflict.

But even if our target - secular or sacred - is known, we may not know how to attain it.

I have known a few to be assiduously compulsive in pursuing their desires. Some succeed. Most do not. The cost of assiduous compulsiveness seems high in either case.

Maximos is urging us to climb the Greek philosophers' ladder of eros, as a lover might ascend to the balcony of his beloved.

Have we not, instead, experienced a desire so deep we did not know it, offering itself to us beyond our expectations, and requiring nothing more of us than acceptance?

Is this not our more typical experience of incarnation, sacrament, and grace?

He who loves God lives the angelic life on earth, fasting and keep vigils, praying and singing psalms and always thinking good of every man. (Maximos the Confessor)

I pray and sing fairly often, daily or at least several times a week.

If I have kept a vigil, I have forgotten. I have a vague memory of staying up all night for an, allegedly, spiritual purpose as a teenager.

I have not engaged in a spiritual fast for many years.

I do not always think good of every man There are two who I have generally consigned as bad men. There are many more with whom I have a passing annoyance.

Certainly, I am no angel. Maximos would say, no wonder.

He who loves God neither distresses nor is distressed with anyone on account of transitory things. There is only one kind of distress which he both suffers and inflicts on others: that salutary distress which the blessed Paul suffered and which he inflicted on the Corinthians. (Maximos the Confessor)

The Corinthians prompted Paul to repeated criticism. Maximos is probably referring to the "godly grief" of chapter 7 of the second letter.

For godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves guiltless in the matter. (verses 10-11)

I have recently encouraged embracing the tragic. Without knowing so, I may have been encouraging godly grief.

There is an emotional response -- sometimes called grief -- that seeks to blame, perpetuates sorrow, and assumes the mantle of self-righteousness. This is deadly.

There is another response that is inclined to self-criticism, seeks to learn, and tries to reach out in love. The tentative language is purposeful.

We will often respond with both forms of grief. This is our reality. This is our tragic condition. But by embracing the tragic, we give ourselves the opportunity to forsake what is deadly and cultivate the attitudes and habits of abundant life.

We actively manifest love in forbearance and patience towards our neighbor, in genuinely desiring his good, and in the right use of material things. (Maximos the Confessor)

There is something passive aggressive here.

Love is forbearance? Love is to bear up against or control one's feelings. Love is to endure (not love will endure). Love is to put up with something in the other requiring endurance?

Love is patient? After starting with forbearance, the need for patience suggests a neighbor who is annoying at best and probably a real pain.

Is "desiring good" a manifestation -- a plain and palpable expression -- of love? Rather restrained, it seems to me. How about contributing to her good, supporting his good, or celebrating her good?

Then given Maximos' clear and consistent skepticism of the material, what does he even mean by the right use of material things?

Love may well involve forbearance and patience. I welcome others desiring my good. But love begins with something much more.

In love we seek the full reality of our neighbor, we recognize God in our neighbor, and we realize that we cannot become our full self outside of relationship with our neighbor.

Do not say that you are the temple of the Lord, writes Jeremiah; nor should you say that faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ can save you, for this is impossible unless you also acquire love for Him through your works. As for faith by itself, 'the devils also believe, and tremble.' (Maximos the Confessor)

I wonder if Luther and Maximos, Paul and James, continue in a heavenly symposium on works versus faith?

Because I have been raised in and continue in the Protestant tradition, the promise of grace has been the explanation of redemption most available to me.

Because grace has been the concept most available to me, I am inclined to attribute the principle of grace to what I read in the gospels and other spiritual sources.

Both availability and attribution encourage me to an experience of grace, which anchors the perception in my understanding of reality.

Anchoring, availability, and attribution are the complex of factors that most often cause misperception of reality.

I am not, by any means, rejecting grace. But neither should I be so self-assured to simply reject Maximos out-of-hand.

If love is long-suffering and kind, a man who is contentious and malicious alienates himself from love. And he who is alienated from love is alienated from God, for God is love. (Maximos the Confessor)

Crucially - and I think, correctly - Maximos gives attention to how we alienate ourselves from God.

I have not experienced, and find it difficult to conceive of, God withdrawing.

Great saints have written of dark nights of the soul and such where God is absent. I wonder, though, if rather than God withdrawing, they have perceived the gulf of alienation they have created.

I have alienated myself from God. Through pride and its progeny I have - and will again today - draw farther away. I am too often too self-important to even turn and consider the breadth and depth that my pride has been dredging.

In the dark night of the soul it seems likely we turn and gape at the treacherous landscape we have left in our wake. In humility and recognized need, we begin to retrace our path made much harder by our own passing. Fortunately, we have God's help.

A man who has been assiduous in acquiring the fruits of love will not cease loving even if he suffers a thousand calamities. Let Stephen, the disciple of Christ, and others like him persude you of the the truth of this. Our Lord Himself prayed for His murderers and asked for the Father to forgive them for they did not know what they were doing. (Maximos the Confessor)

Love may begin as feeling, as fleeting as any. Over time love can become a habit, as unthinking as any other. Each has its grace.

But the love of which Maximos writes requires conscious care. It is a love under attack. It is love challenged at every turn.

Such love is exercised, strengthened and refined, assiduously as any athlete, until each strain and struggle unfolds in a beautiful wholeness.

A culpable passion is an impulse of the soul that is contrary to nature. Dispassion is a peaceful condition of the soul in which the soul is not easily moved to evil. (Maximos the Confessor)

Tomorrow I will vote against a candidate for Attorney General of Virgina. I don't know much about his opponent.

But the candidate against whom I will vote has said, "My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. ... They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.”

There are several parallel narratives and sub-plots in the gospels. But certainly one of the most prominent is the effort Jesus makes to reform the Pharisees, the natural law party of his day.

There is some evidence that Jesus emerged from among the Pharisees. At the very least he was deeply familiar with their doctrines.

Jesus was explicit that he did not intend to change any point-of-law. But he sought to fulfill the law by infusing it with love.

Love can be tough. Jesus was not always kind or patient with the Pharisees. But what made Jesus furious was the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, especially their confidence in using God's law to condemn others and justify themselves.

A pure soul is one freed from passions and constantly delighted by divine love. (Maximos the Confessor)

It was, I think, this notion of soulfulness that explains the teaching of Jesus, "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

Children have their passions, but they are not imprisoned by them. Anger, envy, and much more pass quickly. Many of my deepest concerns are entirely absent from those younger than 10 or 12.

Even more striking is the delight of many children in the simplest of experiences. Their wonder, their openness, their joyfulness is our model.