growth

Avoid praise, but do not be ashamed of reproach.

A man must practice good works for a long time, with great effort and determination, and "at last God comes, dwells within him and he in the Lord, and the Lord Himself sows His own commandments within him, filling him with spiritual fruit." - St. Marcarius the Great - Homily 19

"Sometimes God allows a relative or fellow worker to cause us problems in order to exercise our patience and humbleness; however, instead of being grateful for the chance God gives us, we react and refused to be cured.  It is like refusing to pay the doctor who is giving us a shot when we are ill."

Father Paisios Eznepides (+1994)

Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing.  This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life.  Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people.

Saint Theophan the Recluse

"He who follows properly the spiritual pathway begins to see in himself more and more sins, until finally he sees himself completely immersed in sin.  Through his spiritual eyes he perceives his leprous soul.  He feels with his whole heart that he is dirt and filth, that he is unworthy even to call out the name of God.  Like the publican, unable to raise his eyes, he cries out with pain of heart: 'God have mercy on me the sinner.'  When a person maintains his soul in such a spiritual state for a long time, he finally emerges from it absolved, like the publican."

Abbot Nikon

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

I've never met anyone with a perfect upbringing. It seems to me that life on planet Earth just doesn't work that way. The basic challenges of getting our needs met and managing boundaries are inherent in growing up human.

"It is not the self -critical who reveals his humility ( for does not everyone have some how to put up with himself? ).  Rather, it is the man who continues to love the person who has criticized him."

Saint John Climacus

Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.

They were nice enough people and all, but there wasn't much love in them.  Because they were too busy being afraid. Love didn't grow very well in a place where there was only fear, just as plants didn't grow very well in a place where it was always dark.