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WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 1 - Page 5 | ||||||
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Darkness of
the psyche The Hermit's Message
Way of Theosis Psychological method Prayer of the heart
praxis studies
Introductory studies
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The need for what we could call 'Emotional Education'
There is clear evidence
[i]
that the way the mind is formed when
we are
young predisposes it one way or another
in its attitude towards religion and towards inner growth. The Hebrews
appear to have been aware of this, and the Greeks, if not fully aware of
this spiritual question, as well they may have been, were certainly aware of
the social importance of education. With their combined Hebrew and Greek heritage, for many centuries both Eastern and Western churches played a similar educational role in their societies ... specifically, they helped to train behaviour in certain ways and to introduce certain sensibilities and inculcate certain attitudes, some of which form the basis of modern morality and ethics. These attitudes and sensibilities were essential for those who wished to enter a life of prayer, but were also valuable for their effect on everyday life, in which they improved people's ability to live together in meaningful ways. Thus the religious life of the time placed its stamp on that society in a way similar to that in which certain branches of Greek monasticism today shape the behaviour and attitudes of lay people who maintain contact with the monasteries. Seen objectively, this reveals the benefits possible to any society which shapes the minds of its members in this way.
Today, we live in a society in which one of the main problems is the
number of people requiring treatment or hospitalisation for what are called
neuroses or mental illness. It is easy and probably correct to conclude that
the almost epidemic growth of problems of this kind is directly traceable to
the decline in what might be called emotional education in our society. In our contemporary society, as the authority of the church has declined, the question of training the emotions has sometimes been taken over in part by schools originally formed by the church, amongst which the English so-called public schools, at least, were remarkably monastic in their character. As the form of education now becomes more and more career-oriented, emotional education is more and more obviously left to the family ... which often either neglects this role or is ignorant of how to perform it. The result in many cases is failure, often catastrophic.
It is certainly arguable in this case that to restore the emotional
element of early educational methods would be highly beneficial both for
individuals and for society as a whole. |
different christianity
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