Lent, Quotes, and Me

If you yourself are free from attachment to natural things, and give yourself to prayer and fasting, then even in you the Spirit will as it were, swallow up the flesh and you will become spiritual, and behold God the Holy Spirit everywhere in nature; while on the contrary, those who are attached to earthly things, especially to food and drink or to money, become sensual, having not the spirit. And in everything they see only flesh, not beholding the spirit, and even rejecting the spiritual aspects of things.
-St. John of Kronstadt

Add to this the words from our first prayer of the Trisagion: Oh Heavenly King, O Comforter, Who is in all places and fillest all things...

and

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Matthew 5:8

Put it all together, and whattya get? Hopefully we get an understanding that to pursue God, seek Him, and love Him, leads to our ability to see Him and know Him everywhere! Is the Holy Spirit really evident in that bum? That flower? That cat? That slum? Yes! When we have purity of heart through joining ourselves to Christ, we are able to more clearly see His presence. People are icons of Christ. God has revealed Himself through His creation. All aspects of it. And how can we, loving the Creator, not care for His beloved creation? Through prayer and fasting, we die to ourselves and gain life with Christ. May we not be clouded by "the world" and it's passions, by our own desires and thoughts. May we attain to purity of heart, that we may see God in all things.

This is not a very composed post, and I don't really know for whom I am writing, but such is life. Lord have mercy!