Routine, dreams and Dorotheos

I got tired of Dorotheos for the moment and decided to write here a bit. It's not as busy as yesterday, I have time to get bored between calls.

Nothing much to report today. It's still very grey and cold outside. It's gonna go down to -3 tonight. Apparently there was an power failure yesterday and when I got home as I set the time on my stereo I forgot to set the alarm to wake me up this morning so I woke up at 8am instead of 6:50am. I had a very strange dream about some 14 year old kid that I was going to marry soon. He looked alarmingly like Scott's friend Andrew lol. In my dream I was worried about the fact that I was marrying someone a whole 10 years younger than me. Scott was in my dream as well. I don't remember much, just that I saw him at some point.

Dorotheos is right when he says we don't have to be a monk to have opportunities for obedience, they are everywhere. As with opportunities for humility, patience etc. I have yet to learn to make good on these opportunities, especially with clients at work. I'm constantly frustrated and indignant with clients at work that I like to complain are hurried and impatient and impolite (as I'm sure they complain the same of me, with reason). It's been a year and a half that I've been working here already. I wonder if it will take 2 more, or 10, or 20 for me to finally learn? Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I just remembered something that I wanted to quote from Dorotheos yesterday but I forgot about it. It was in his discourse "On Refusal to Judge our Neighbor"

"So the holy fathers, by patience and love, draw the brother and do not spurn him nor show themselves unfriendly towards him, but as a mother who has an unruly son does not hate him or turn away from him but rules him with sweetnes and sometimes does things to please him, so they always protect him and keep him in order and they gain a hold on him so that with time they correct the erring brother and do not allow him to harm anyone else, and in doing so they greatly advance towards the love of Christ. What did the blessed Ammon do when those brothers, greatly disturbed, came to him and said, 'Come and see, Father. There is a young woman in Brother X's cell!' What tenderness he showed to the erring brother. What great love there was in that great soul. Knowing that the brother had hidden the woman in a large barrel, he went in, sat down on it, and told the others to search the whole place. And when they found nothing he said to them, 'May God forgive you!' And so dismissing them in disgrace, he called out to them that they should not readily believe anything against their neighbor. By his consideration for his brother he not only protected him after God but corrected him when the right moment came. For when they were alone he laid on him the hand with which he had thrown the others out, and said, 'Have a care for yourself, brother'. Immediately the other's conscience pricked him and he was stricken with remorse, so swiftly did the mercy and sympathy of the old man work upon his soul.
Let us, therefore, strive to gain this love for ourselves, let us acquire this tenderness towards our neighbor so that we may guard ourselves from wickedly speaking evil of our neighbor, and from judging and despising him. Let us help one another, as we are members one of another. Which of us, having a wound on his hand or foot, or any other member, would despise it and cut it off, even if it turned septic? Would he not rather bathe it and take away the poison and put a plaster on it, sign it with the cross, apply a relic, and pray and beg the saints to pray for its cure, as Abbot Zosimos used to say -- to put it simply, not to turn aside or run away from our own members even those of bad reputation but to do all we can to cure their disease. In this way we ought to bear one another's burdens, to help one another and be helped by others who are stronger than ourselves, to think of everything and to do everything that can help ourselves and others, for we are members one of another,' as the Apostle (Rom 12:5) says".

The story of the father who hid the woman really struck me and I just wanted to show it to someone else. I have yet to even begin to learn anything about this myself.