“Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Science without humanity Knowledge without character Politics without principle Commerce without morality Worship without sacrifice. https://vidjambov.blogspot.com/2023/01/book-inventory-vladimir-djambov-talmach.html Try, brother, yourself to be kind, and if you find that you have no shortage of anything said, but you do everything with great zeal and a warm heart, then you will understand that with the light of faith you have an unshaming hope; not the hope that is generated by the conceit and vanity of those who perish, and what hope of the charms and lies none of those who nourish can know, but the hope, I say, good, true, and which comes with the true and non-deceiving light of faith, and on top of which you will see the love that is God, seated, as on the Cherubim. When you gain this love in this way and see it, then and after you will not want to torture much about anything future and invisible, you will even force others to not talk about anything like that, you will convince them not to torture about any of this and not to start controversy and contests about what has to be in another life, you yourself learned from a generation of experience that the whole future and the invisible are inexplicable and unthinkable. If you haven’t done yet what may be the first to let you know that you are truly a faithful Christian — but in comparison with the infidels, you are faithful, and in comparison with the faithful, you are convicted of your conscience, like an infidel, perfect hope and assurance that you are among the saved, and you cannot speak, as St. Paul said: even you will force others to not talk about anything like this, you will persuade them not to torture about any of this and not to start disputes and contests about what has to be in another life, you yourself learned from the experience that the whole future and the invisible is inexplicable and unthinkable. If you haven’t done yet what may be the first to let you know that you are truly a faithful Christian... the boldness to pray to the Comforter, as St Simeon the New Theologian — that great devotee of the Divine Beauty — exclaimed with unrivaled lyricism: "Come, true light. Come, eternal life. Come, hidden mystery. Come, unnameable treasure. Come, reality beyond any speech. Come, person beyond all comprehension. Come, unceasing exultation. Come, impenetrable light. Come, unfailing hope of the saved. Come, lifter up of the fallen. Come, resurrection of the dead. Come, Almighty, for Thou dost unceasingly create, transfigure, and change all things by Thy will alone. Come, invisible one that none can touch or feel. Come, for Thy name fills our hearts with desire and is always on our lips; but Who Thou art and what Thy nature is, we cannot say or know. Come, unique one in one. Come, for Thou Thyself art the desire within me. Come, my breath and my life. Come, comfort of my lowly soul. ..." From sullied lips, From an abominable heart, From an unclean tongue, Out of a polluted soul, Receive my prayer, O my Christ. Reject me not...