Posted by Christina on April 30, 2002 at 12:04:13:
In Reply to: Prayers or Deeds? posted by Nikos on April 28, 2002 at 22:55:21:
It's okay, Niko, no hard feelings :) Yes, I do agree with you that the real work of God is going out and helping others. But we cannot discard prayer from our lives. For people like us with a I suppose you can say "normal" lifestyle, five or ten minutes out of our sleep time before we go to bed certainly won't do any harm.
And as for the monks, I think they have followed their calling to pray in order to keep God's mercy a part of this world. (Now whether this is helpful or not is where we differ, and I respect what you are saying because I can see where you are coming from.) But to say that this has been harmful to society... when all is said and done, less than 0.1% of the people on earth have dedicated their lives to monasticism. I think there are so many more Greek and non-Greek people (and intelligent people, nonetheless) who have wasted their lives by giving in to the globalization of the United States and spending 5 out of the 7 nights out of the week in the disco. In my opinion, that is where the real brain-drain is these days. But what is going on these days is sort of off-topic, so anyway...
But really, I don't know much about Greece's first brain-drain and why we fell from the top of the world to something less than a 1st world country, but I think it would be safe to assume that the monastics have always been very much of a minority. Taken by themselves, they can be seen as a waste of man-power... but when we look at them in the light of what our whole society needs, the bigger waste comes from somewhere else. I think a much greater majority of the Greeks have "wasted" their lives away in the cafenions drinking and playing tavli. (This is just an example, I hope I'm not offending anyone.) Anyway, it's occurring to me as I'm writing that I think we're (not just you and me, but in general) looking for somewhere to place the blame for Greece's disappearance from its ranking among top countries in this world. That can't be entirely constructive, so then, how do we fix this problem? That certainly should give us all something to think about...
~Christina
: I didn't mean to sound sarcastic about your own medical work, what I was doing was posing rhetorical questions to you while of course knowing, by which profession you have chosen to follow, exactly where you, and pragmatic people that have a HEART to go with their 'soul'. This was a long way of saying that even you too know the true value of REAL work with our hands and our hearts to help others, that is, I feel, the real work of God: to act out God's will on this Earth. Jesus was not only a preacher, but a HEALER. Minor personal theological beliefs of my own. But as for those who choose to live a cloistered life, praying God's good hours away whilst the world merrily goes to hell, sorry, but I don't see the point of it. And I still maintain, what a waste of man power. I think this was the Greek worlds first and most destructive Brain-Drain.