Archpriest Andrey Tkachev
Beloved in the Lord, today we will talk to you about such an everyday ailment as grumbling. We, priests, are forced to look at the “wrong side of the vacuum cleaner”: stand at confession and listen to human revelations about “great deeds”. We know the world from the other side, as do its workers, for example, morgues, or doctors, or police officers, or prosecutors, those who are most corrupted, because they are constantly faced with the underbelly of the world. Beautiful people walk along the street, but talk to them… “Speak so that I can see you,” writes Plato. The mouth opens, a stream of consciousness begins… – and you think: who is this? A well-fed, young, handsome, well-dressed man with a higher education. What kind of demon is in it? Not even a demon, but a bunch of demons. And one of the demons in this bunch is the demon of murmur. People grumble, are constantly dissatisfied, mutter, grumble, suffer… It would seem, why? And today I would like to talk about how to heal from this dissatisfaction with life.
The writer Arkady Averchenko has several short short stories, quite witty, about the revolution that took place in Russia. In one of them, he describes a certain guy, a shoemaker, who, according to him, earns little and is always dissatisfied. He did his job, with the money he earned he bought himself a little caviar, a little stellate sturgeon, some fresh bread, a little of this, a little of that, a small glass of vodka… He drinks, snacks on caviar and complains about life. He says: “I wish this government would change soon.” And so the power changed, and now he receives a salary for the same work, with which he buys himself stale bread, without stellate sturgeon and caviar and without anything at all, and a bag of moonshine. And he drinks bitterly and doesn’t know what else to want. Because what happened, it turns out, was wonderful, it was wonderful. And what was there to complain to the idiots?! – Averchenko asks this person “off-screen”.
Why were you complaining? Are you feeling bad? – Buy a goat. There is a Jewish joke. A “sufferer” came to the rabbi and complained: “Lord, have mercy. A small hut, a bunch of children, an old mother in her arms, nothing to breathe, nowhere to live…” “And you buy a goat,” says the rabbi. – “Which goat?” – “The real one! The one that runs, the one that can be milked…” – “And where should I ram this goat?” – “Yes, straight to your hut and ram it. Then you’ll see what happens.” The “sufferer” bought a goat and lives. Everything remains as it was: the mother is old, the children can’t breathe, there’s nowhere to live, and the goat is running around and wants to be milked. Again the “sufferer” goes to the rabbi: “I will go crazy from such a life! I’ll hang myself!.. What should I do?” – “Sell the goat.” He sold it and ran back to the rabbi: “What a beauty! It’s so good without a goat!”
Buy a goat, you murmurer. Are you feeling bad? Do you want to get sick? If they find you have cancer, will it be better? Or what if you break your leg, or crash your car, or your loved one leaves you? Or if your neighbors flood you? Do you want problems? Who wants problems, complain about your health. God will give you problems, and you will be happy: “God, how good it was before. And yesterday it was so wonderful!” “Happiness was so possible…”
My friends, you cannot grumble. We live in a uniquely well-fed world. In a world uniquely beautifully dressed. We live in a healthy, comfortable world in which individual rights are respected. No one will forcefully drag us by the collar into slave labor. No one will force us to do what we don’t want. They will make fun of us, and any policeman who, in good times, would hit you on the head with a club, will say: “Dear citizen, please show us your documents. Please come here.” Otherwise they won’t talk to us – they’re afraid. Everyone is afraid that they will have to answer. So why are you complaining, what do you want?!
What does a person need so as not to grumble? What can I give you to make you happy? Turn on your imagination. So they settled you on an island in the Caribbean, gave you a yacht, a house for three months free of charge, and you could drink and eat whatever you wanted. Will you be happy there? Only two days. So what is next? And then – the sand is prickly, the sun is hot, the pineapple is tasteless, the motor in the boat has stalled… It will start again. Everything will be bad again. Everything is bad for a bad person. Everything is good for a good person.
I listen to confessions, conversations, all sorts of whining from morning to evening. Like any priest, I’m tired of whining. Why don’t you thank God? Why do you come to the Church, even to this holy house of God, the Gates of Heaven, Jacob’s Ladder, to complain and whine? Why do you continue at the foot of Jacob’s Ladder: “Give me this!.. Give me that!..” Why don’t you thank? Gratitude is the best cure for despondency. This is gratitude. We need to teach people in confessions and sermons: “Stop asking! Give thanks, praise God.” Just think about how we live?!
Such an interesting experience: several years ago, maybe five or more, one journalist imagined the world as a village of 100 people and calculated the gross product of this world. How many people, how many men, how many women. How many are black, how many are white. How many believers? The statistics turned out to be interesting. The gross product of the entire village is concentrated in the hands of two people, both of whom live in America. 70 people are illiterate, 30 are literate. The vast majority have a living wage of $1 per day. For 30-40 out of 100 – 5-7-8-10 dollars. We get to the top number. Competent. We eat well. So that our ancestors ate this way! If our ancestors had risen from their graves and sat down at our table and looked at the pickles that we eat, they would have said: “Well, brothers, you live in paradise!” If they climbed into the bath, straightened their legs under hot water and rested in the soapy foam for half an hour, or turned on the TV, listened to some song… – they would tell you: “What did you do to deserve such a magnificent life?! But in the 9th, 10th, 11th, 15th, 18th… centuries we lived completely differently, and we did not complain. We gnawed on the cracker and rejoiced.”
Paisiy Svyatogorets spoke about the time when he prayed on Mount Sinai in the monastery of St. Catherine. This monastery was “served” by Bedouins: they accompanied tourists there, earning a living from this, bringing water, food… Bedouins are Arabs, not Christians, they are Muslims. Paisiy Svyatogorets said: “I remember those Bedouins: when they had a pinch of tea and a little sugar, they danced on one leg with joy and thanked God that they had tea and sugar. And the Jews… oh, those Jews! They built them cottages in the desert and brought them broken down cars from all over Israel as gifts. Now every Bedouin has a broken car – and they have no joy.”
Civilization burdens man with false benefits and robs him of joy. She makes him an ungrateful boor, makes him grumble, envy, and dream about himself. “Why is it them and not me?! Why are they shown on TV and not me? Why does he have this and I don’t?” – fallen man lives in such vile thoughts. And if you don’t change these thoughts, you will never see happiness. You will live your whole life like a whining schmuck and die unhappy. And you won’t see heaven, because in heaven everyone is grateful. People’s hands were cut, and they thanked God; their eyes were gouged out – they thanked God. People were lowered into fire or boiling tar – they said: “Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee!” In heaven everyone is grateful. There is not a single whiner in heaven. If there was an excursion to paradise, we would walk around paradise and wonder: “Where are the whining, crying, suffering people?” Eeyore cannot enter heaven. In Winnie the Pooh’s Heaven. Winnie the Pooh is fine. He always sings: “There is sawdust in my head, tra-ta-ta.” He’s having fun. But Eeyore always doubts: “Is this so?” – “How are you doing, donkey?” – “Badly. What can I expect from those who interfere with my life?” Everything is bad for the donkey Eeyore. The donkey will not be in heaven, but Winnie the Pooh will be. This is an optimist who knows that he has sawdust in his head – he is self-critical: “I’m stupid, my penmanship is bad …” – but he is cheerful.
A Christian should be a strong, cheerful, self-critical person. And not a dead, boring, deflated ball. “Where did this rag come from? What was this “boom” and where did this rag come from?” This is a man who is good for nothing.
A person, according to the Apostle Paul, must be ready for every good deed, for every good deed. And you’re dead, and you’re whining, and you’re whining, you can’t live life to your fullest. The food doesn’t taste good to you, the sun doesn’t make you happy, nothing makes you happy. Yes, you are a Demon! Remember how Pushkin talks about the Demon? “And he didn’t want to bless anything in all of nature.” You won’t stop looking at anything with a blessing. You don’t have a second when you would say: “Stop, just a moment: you are beautiful!” You don’t have that! Everything is boring and bad for you. “They feel good, but I feel bad… They feel even better, but I feel bad.” My friends, this is the prevailing mood of the people. Moreover, young, healthy people. And look at the old women, at the old people: how much fire there is in their eyes, although they can barely walk! They have their whole life behind them, only the Last Judgment is ahead, the Kingdom of Heaven – and they still have an interest in life, they are fighting for life. They have difficulty getting out of bed and taking care of themselves. Young, lazy people fall apart, sit for half a day and play the fool, looking for adventures and pleasures. Of course, there will be despondency and blues; Of course, life will not be a joy for a person. Of course you will grumble.
My friends, you should never grumble! Our people, who survived camps, wars, collectivization, and forced emigration, never lost heart. There were cheerful people in the camps who maintained their presence of mind. In war, there is always Terkin in any unit, in any company and in any battalion. At a rest stop, he will unfurl his accordion and dance, sing a ditty and lift everyone’s spirits. And there must be such a person. People went into exile, and just imagine: nobles, generals, bishops, scientists were kicked out of Russia – kicked out of their homes, from noble estates, from their own houses and apartments in the center of Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, kicked out from the departments in which they taught, they were deprived of their name, honor, fame, money, family, health… – so what, they all hanged themselves, or what, abroad? Nothing like this. They built churches, began publishing magazines, opened educational institutions, cadet corps, seminaries, Russian cultural centers, gave birth to children, raised several generations of people speaking Russian, baptized in the Orthodox Church. And today we would get a kick in the ass and get out of here – and what would we do? We would hang ourselves, go to taverns to drink our grief, and then go hang on a strong nail in our separate room. You can not do it this way!
We are Russian people, we cannot mope. We are well-fed people, we cannot be sad. We are believers, we must not lose heart. We should help each other, we shouldn’t complain. You should cry alone, quietly. Then wash your face and go out to people with a bright face. As Yuri Samarin writes about Alexei Khomyakov: he buried his beloved wife – his beloved, the only woman he loved – and children – one after another, but he always remained cheerful and surprisingly optimistic. Yuri Samarin recalled how he once spent the night at Khomyakov’s house and heard sobs from the back room. He went on tiptoe to see: Khomyakov prayed on his knees all night with tears, wept before God about himself, about his heart, about his wife, about his children… In the morning he went out to breakfast as if nothing had happened, washed, fresh, with straightened shoulders, sparkling , cheerful, smart, not confiding his troubles to anyone…
Cry before God! Cry before God, not a girlfriend in front of a girlfriend on a smoke break. Cry before God – don’t cry in front of people. In front of people, wash your face and be firm, cheerful and strong. You can’t mope! We have everything. We have more than we deserve. We have more than we deserve. Thank God, don’t ask Him for anything. Glory to You, Lord, I live. Thank you, Lord, I have friends. Glory to Thee, Lord, I am on my feet with a clear memory. Glory to You, Lord, I have a job, I have some money, I buy my own bread, I don’t lend a hand. Glory to Thee, Lord, I am baptized. Glory to You, Lord, I know a lot and can read, I can comprehend any science. Glory to You, Lord, I still have my whole life ahead of me. Glory to You, Lord, I will enter heaven when I die, because You died for me – I believe in this, I want to live in heaven. Live forever. Why mope?! Hey, you people, come to your senses, stop being despondent, sad, and sad! Let the atheists be sad, melancholy and despondent. Let them dispel their melancholy with satanic pleasures. Let them “expand”, “move” and sniff, because they have no more joy. You and I have a million reasons to smile and say: “Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee!”
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