51. Как обращать житейские дела и вещи на духовную пользу

Saint Tikhon led me to the following useful instruction for you, namely: how to turn every thing into a preacher of the truths of God and into a reminder of God. You wrote that housework distracts thoughts from God. I showed you how to prevent them from being distracting. But you did not mention one more thing that can and does distract the mind from God. This is that every external thing that affects the senses attracts our attention and attempts to tear it away from God. But there is also a certain technique here, in which visible things will not distract, but will attract to God. How is this possible? You need to reinterpret all the things that happen before your eyes in a spiritual sense, and fill this reinterpretation into your mind in such a way that when you look at a thing, the eye sees a sensual thing, and the mind contemplates spiritual truth. For example, you see stains on a white dress and feel how unpleasant and pathetic it is to encounter it. Interpret this to mean how pitiful and unpleasant it must be for the Lord, the Angels and the saints to see the stains of sin on our soul, whitened by creation in the image of God, by rebirth in the font of Baptism or by washing in tears of repentance. Do you hear that small children, left alone, make a fuss, noise and uproar? Interpret this to mean what noise and uproar arises in our soul when attention is turned away from it towards God with the fear of God. You smell the smell of a rose or something else and it is pleasant to you, but when you encounter a bad smell, you turn away and hold your nose. Interpret it this way: every soul emits its own smell 11 (2 Cor. 2:15): good - good, passionate - bad. Angels of God and saints, and often earthly righteous people, smell this smell and rejoice over good things, but mourn about bad things. I am telling you this only as an example, but every thing can give rise to different spiritual thoughts: one has one, another has another. As you find something more suitable for yourself, reinterpret everything that surrounds you and that you might encounter in addition. Start with the house and reinterpret everything in it: the house itself, the walls, the roof, the foundation, windows, stoves, tables, mirrors, chairs and other things. Go to the residents and interpret parents, children, brothers and sisters, relatives, servants, visitors, etc. Reinterpret the usual course of life: getting up, greeting, lunch, work, absences, returns, tea drinking, treats, singing, day, night, sleep, and so on, and so on, and so on. Again, take St. Tikhon as a help for yourself. He has as many as four books of such reinterpretations written under the name “Spiritual Treasure Collected from the World.” Take it and read it. After reading and seeing how he does it, you will learn to do the same yourself. Or even directly assimilate his interpretations. If, perhaps, reading those books seems too long to you, then he also has an abbreviated reinterpretation entitled “Chance and spiritual reasoning from that” (volume 2). Here he briefly reinterpreted one hundred and seventy-six cases. And it will cost you little effort to review them carefully; meanwhile, they embrace everything that you need to reinterpret. However, as you know, just be sure to do as you are asked. When you do this, then every thing will be to you as if a book is holy or as an article in a book. Then every thing will lead you to the thought of God, like every activity and deed. And you will walk among the sensory world as in the spiritual realm. Everything will talk to you about God and maintain your attention to Him. If every time you add to this reminder the fear of God and reverence for His greatness, then what other teachers and educators do you need?! But, of course, both work and tension are needed, both mental and heartfelt. And don't feel sorry for yourself. If you feel sorry for yourself, you will destroy yourself. If you don’t regret it, you will save it. Throw away that wrongful action that often attacks almost everyone: that we do not spare labor for any work, but we spare it for the work of salvation. We think that all we have to do is think and want - and everything is ready. But in reality this is not the case. The work of salvation is the first work. Therefore, it is also the most difficult. According to the importance of business and work. Work hard, for the Lord's sake! You are about to see the fruit. If you don’t work, you’ll be left with nothing and will be worthless. Deliver you, Lord, from this! The Apostle says: “We are the fragrance of Christ.” You might be interested in: