The Church, Like a Forest, Provides Needed Oxygen
Growing up in Northern Idaho, I was surrounded by mountains and forests. I don’t remember a time when forests did not tug at my heart and fill my imagination with thoughts of adventure. As a small child my parents took my brother Dwayne, and me, on annual camping trips to a state park on the far northeast side of Lake Pend Oreille. There my dad would make us small toy canoes, complete with sails, out of birch bark. This state park is virtually unchanged since that time, and I try to visit the campground every summer, when I go bass fishing with my brother.
As a high school student I regularly went hiking in the mountains around Sandpoint, Idaho, together with my best friend (now a professor of theology and philosophy in Scotland). Jim and I would climb to the highest point of a given mountain, and pray together. We could understand the Prophet Moses meeting God on Mt. Sinai, for we too felt the presence of God on the mountain. To this day I feel closer to God when hiking in a forest, and the grandeur of the mountains that surround the Puget Sound inspire me, and lift up my soul.
When we first cleared the land to build the monastery, we cut down as few trees as possible, desiring as we did to have the buildings appear as though cupped like a kitten in the hands of God. We even named our forest after Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who himself sought solitude in a forest. Our forest not only provides that needed solitude, but gives us oxygen, allowing us to breathe. Like the forests throughout the whole world, ours provides good air to breath, and fills our lungs with the sweet odor that only a forest can provide. Is it any wonder I consider myself a conservationist?
Monks have always had a special place in their hearts for forests. Coptic and Ethiopian monks have been known to plant trees on desert mountains whereupon monasteries have been built, and calling these places, “holy forests”. Russian monks sought their solitude in the Northern Thebaid, forests that became their desert.
For me, forests and mountains have always been associated with prayer. My first chapel was at the end of a hidden trail, in a forest that was just a short walk down the beach from our home on Lake Pend Oreille. I’d constructed a small altar out of driftwood, and nailed a cross made out of tree branches on a tree behind the altar. When in college, my first encounter with an icon took place during the very summer I’d visited the Redwood Forest of Northern California, for the first time.
Our temples are like forests in many ways. When we enter into an Orthodox temple we are encompassed in the living presence of God, and our spiritual lungs are filled. It is oxygen for the soul that we breathe in, and the forest that surrounds us is none other than the cloud of witnesses, the saints, who join us in worship before the Throne of God. The oxygen we breathe in is God’s Grace that flows out to all who would seek the safety and sanctuary that awaits us in God’s Holy Temple.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
4th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Fast. Food with Oil
Holy and Wonderworking Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian, martyrs at Rome.
New Hieromartyr Arcadius priest (1918).
New Hieromartyr Alexis deacon (1942).
Martyr Potitus at Naples (2nd c.).
Venerable Peter the Patrician, monk, of Constantinople (854).
St. Angelina, despotina of Serbia (16th c.).
Venerable Nicodemus of Svyatogorsk (1809).
Translation of the relics of Venerable John of Rila (946) from Turnovo to Rila (1470) (Bulgaria).
Holy Julius and Aaron, protomartyrs of Wales (ca. 304) (Celtic & British).
St. Servanus, Apostle of Western Fife of East Scotland (6th c.) (Celtic & British).
St. Leontius, bishop of Radauti in Moldavia (15th c.) (Romania).
Venerable Gallus, bishop of Clermont (551) (Gaul).
25 Martyrs in Nicomedia (Greek).
Venerable Basil, founder of the Monastery of the Deep Stream in Cappadocia (10th c.) (Greek).
Martyr Constantine the Wonderworker and those with him, of Cyprus (Greek).
St. Leo the Hermit (Greek).
St. Serf, bishop of Kinross.
St. Eparchius the Recluse of Gaul (581).The Scripture ReadingsRomans 11:2-12
2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, 3 “Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life”? 4 But what does the divine response say to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. 8 Just as it is written:
“God has given them a spirit of stupor,
Eyes that they should not see
And ears that they should not hear,
To this very day.”
9 And David says:
“Let their table become a snare and a trap,
A stumbling block and a recompense to them.
10 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see,
And bow down their back always.”
Israel’s Rejection Not Final
11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
Matthew 11:20-26
Woe to the Impenitent Cities
20 Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.”
Jesus Gives True Rest
25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.
1 Corinthians 12:27-13:8
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. 28 And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way.
The Greatest Gift
13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
Matthew 10:1
The Twelve Apostles
10 And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.
Matthew 10:5-8
Sending Out the Twelve
5 These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Beautiful forest photos! I feel called to walk through them. We need to do much more to preserve the trees…plant life…waters that God left us. Not just for beauty but for health and to respect and be guardians of. We cant continue to just take and not replenish…God gave you a beautiful spot on Vachon Is. Peace & Blessings!
It appears so serene , tranquil – true “soul food”.
Blest day, Father.
Dear Father, I am with you on the grace that God gives in our forests, mountains, waterways and ponds. Growing up on 16 wooded acres of mountainside and forest, I too transversed the trails and the adjacent forest land near our property. My father retired from the US Coast Guard in Gresham, Oregon and purchased our land about a half mile from my maternal grandmother with an additional 16 acres of forest land. Having spent my military years in Korea with its own type of forest land and stationed during my eight years in Naselle, WA with its mountains and forest at the mouth of the Columbia River, in Cottonwood, Idaho on the edge of the wheatlands of the Camas Prarie with large mountains all around with lots of timber (near Hells Canyon of the Snake River, then to Neah Bay, WA on the tip of the Olympic Peninusla with large rain forests and the Olympic Mountains, and finally to Red Bluff, CA with its valley views of the nearby coast and Sierra Nevada mountains and their forests (dryer). Now retired in foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and having Oak, Pine, Fir and Sequoia redwoods as neighbors, my love for God’s blessing of this earth to mankind is manifested in my life each morning as go out of the house and look at the nearby McKensie Ridge which skirts the canyon of the Kings River and turn my view a little to the north to pray for the sisters and the monastery. Glory to God.
Father, please correct my post; in the first sentence I typoes od instead of God. Thank you and love from Gerondissa Markella and the sisters. jacksson
Done! And thank you for passing on Gerondissas Markella and the sisters love. Please kiss the hand of Mother Markella for me (but don’t tell her it is from me until after you’ve done it, as she won’t let me kiss her hand). ;o) Mother Markella is dear to me as a blood sister.