The Sea of Life

Before my eyes lies the majestic sea. In the north it is mostly overcast and stormy; yet at times it is also beautiful. Vast sea! deep sea! You draw to yourself both the gaze and the mind. I gaze upon the sea for long stretches of time, without thought. There is no variety in this spectacle; yet the eye and the mind cannot tear themselves away from it: they seem to float upon the broad sea, to plunge into it, to be engulfed within it. What inspiration is stored in the depths of the sea! What fullness is felt in the soul when the eyes have taken their pleasure and been satisfied by the contemplation of the sea! Let us look, my friends, let us look upon the sea from our monastic shelter, set by the hand of God’s providence beside the sea.

Beyond the sea—another sea: the capital of the mighty North. Its appearance is magnificent when viewed from across the water, from the seashore where the dwelling of the Venerable Sergius is situated.[1] This sea is a stretch of the famous Belt. It spreads wide, crystalline and silver, between gently sloping banks. It is enclosed by Kronstadt, beyond which the boundlessness of the sea merges with the boundlessness of the sky.

Once the holy David sang of “the great and wide sea. There are creeping things innumerable there”—he says—“creatures small and great, the fishes of the sea, those that pass through the paths of the sea; there ships sail, and this great leviathan, which you have formed to play in it” (Ps. 103:25–26; Ps. 8:9). The words of David have a mystical meaning. The holy Fathers explain this meaning. The world is called the sea;[2] the countless creatures and fishes that fill the sea are called the people of all ages, nations, and stations who serve sin; by ships in general is meant the holy Church, and in particular are meant true Christians, who conquer the world. The serpent that dwells in the sea is named the fallen angel, who was cast down from heaven to earth.

The holy Church sails upon the waters of the sea of this life throughout the whole of her earthly sojourn, through centuries, through millennia. Belonging to the world by her material condition, she does not belong to it in spirit, even as the Lord said to the Church in the person of the Apostles: “You are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world” (Jn. 15:19): in body, by the needs of the body, you belong to the world; in spirit you are strangers to the world, for you belong to God, whom “the world has hated” (Jn. 15:18, 23). The holy Church sails upon the waves of the sea of this life, and abides above those waves by the Divine teaching, holding within her the true knowledge of God, the true knowledge of man, of good and evil, of the material and temporal world, of the spiritual and eternal world. All true Christians throughout the whole world belong to the one true Church and, holding her teaching in its fullness and purity, constitute that company of ships which sails across the sea of life without being submerged in its dark depths.

Every true Christian journeys upon the waters of the sea of this life, pressing toward eternity. Upon the material sea there can be no permanent dwelling; only voyaging lives there: and upon the sea of this life there is nothing permanent, nothing that remains forever as man’s own possession, that accompanies him beyond the grave. Only his good deeds and his sins go with him into eternity. Naked he enters into earthly life, and naked he departs from it, leaving even his body behind. The slaves of the world, the slaves of sin, do not see this; the true Christian sees it. He may be likened to a great ship, filled to the full with spiritual treasures of every kind, unceasingly augmenting them on his way. The world cannot contain these riches: so great are they. So precious are these riches that all the riches of the world are as nothing in comparison with them. The world envies these riches and breathes hatred toward him who has acquired them. The ship, notwithstanding the soundness of its construction and its great size, is beset by contrary winds, storms, hidden rocks, and shoals: every Christian, notwithstanding that he is clothed in Christ, must accomplish his earthly sojourn amid numerous dangers. All, without exception, who desire to be saved, “shall be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). The ship presses toward its harbour; on the way it halts only for the briefest time, only in extreme necessity. And we also must strive with all our might toward heaven, toward eternity. Let us become attached in heart to nothing temporal! Let not our soul “cling” to anything earthly, let it not “cling” to it through the action of the self-deception dwelling in us, through the action of the self-deception that surrounds us! By our fall, “our soul has been humbled to the dust” and has received a draw toward everything corruptible; “our belly has cleaved to the earth” (Ps. 43:26)—our spiritual essence, instead of pressing toward heaven and eternity. Our earthly duties and obligations we shall bear as those placed upon us by God, fulfilling them as though before the eyes of God, conscientiously and with zeal, preparing to render account of our fulfillment of them to God. Let not sinful motives and aims steal into and defile these duties! Let us accomplish our earthly deeds with the aim of pleasing God, and earthly deeds will become heavenly deeds. Let the chief and essential occupation of our lives be service to God and the striving to be united to Him. Service to God consists in the unceasing remembrance of God and of His commandments, and in the fulfillment of these commandments in one’s whole conduct, visible and invisible.

The helmsman guides the ship: he thinks constantly of the harbour to which the ship’s cargo must be brought; he is constantly careful not to lose the way upon the sea, where there is both a path everywhere and no path at all. Now he looks at the sky and at its stars, now at the chart and the compass—weighing both one and the other, he steers the ship. Man is guided by his mind. And upon the sea of this life there are no set paths; everywhere is a way upon it for the true Christian. No one knows what circumstances await him in the future, what he will encounter in a day’s time, in an hour’s time. Most often what meets us is unforeseen and unexpected. On the constancy of a favourable wind it is impossible to rely: it blows sometimes for a long while, but more often it suddenly turns contrary and is replaced by a terrible storm. For the Christian there is a way everywhere: he believes that all that befalls him befalls him by God’s will. For the Christian even a contrary wind becomes favourable: submission to the will of God reconciles him to the most burdensome and most bitter conditions. Our mind must unceasingly turn its gaze to the spiritual sky—the Gospel—from which, like the sun, the teaching of Christ shines forth; it must keep constant watch over the heart, over the conscience, over inner and outer activity. Let this helmsman press unswervingly toward the blessed eternity, remembering that forgetfulness of eternal blessedness leads to eternal misery. Let the mind restrain the heart from being swept away into attachment to the vain and corruptible, from growing cold toward the incorruptible for the sake of corruption, toward the true and essential for the sake of vanity. Let it look often, as at the compass needle, at the conscience, so as not to take a course contrary to that which the conscience points out. Let it guide all activity so that it is pleasing to God, that the harbour of eternity above the clouds may open its gates and receive into its bosom the ship laden with spiritual treasures.

Let us not be frightened by the storms of the sea of this life. Its waves rise up to heaven and descend to the depths; yet living faith does not allow the Christian to be submerged in the raging waves. Faith rouses the Saviour who sleeps in the stern—who, in the mystical sense, appears to be sleeping to His disciples as they sail across the sea of life, when they themselves fall into negligence: faith cries out to the Saviour with fervent prayer from a humble heart, from a heart that grieves over human sinfulness and weakness, asks for help, for deliverance—and receives them. The Lord and Master of all rebukes the winds and the sea and establishes upon the sea and in the air a “great calm” (Mt. 8:26). Faith, tried by the storm of the wind, finds itself strengthened: with new forces, with new courage, it prepares itself for new struggles.

Let us not trust in the calm of the sea of this life: this calm is deceptive; the sea is changeable. Let us not allow ourselves to fall into carelessness: the ship may unexpectedly run aground or strike against an unseen submerged rock, covered by a gentle ripple—strike it and sustain severe damage. Sometimes what appears to be an insignificant little cloud rushes in: suddenly it begins to pour out whirlwinds, thunder, and lightning, and the seemingly tranquil sea is boiling with a dangerous storm. Our life is filled to overflowing with sorrows, vicissitudes, and temptations. Our own mind plots against us: this guide not infrequently loses its own way, and draws our whole life after it into error. Our own heart plots against us, inclining to fulfill its own promptings and evading the fulfillment of God’s will. Sin plots against us: both the sin planted within us by the fall, and that which acts upon us from the temptations that surround us on every side. The world plots against us, serving vanity and corruption, striving to draw everyone into this service, both by flattery and by persecution. Our enemies—the fallen spirits—plot against us; those possessed by them and enslaved to them plot against us. Often our very friends, willingly and unwillingly, become our adversaries. The Lord has commanded us to be unceasingly watchful over ourselves, exercising ourselves in the virtues, guarding against sin by the word of God, by prayer, by faith, by humility.

Who are “the great creatures” that graze in the boundless expanse of the sea of this life? Neither for myself nor for any other would I desire a likeness to these titans of the sea, whose one delight is the dark depths, densely covered with water, where the rays of the sun do not reach; there they live, there they dwell, going forth from time to time in pursuit of prey, sustaining their life by the slaughter of numerous victims. Their watery, wild gaze cannot bear, cannot endure, any light. Under their name, Scripture understands those who are great in abilities, in learning, in wealth and power, yet—alas! — attached with their whole soul to vanity and corruption. Their hearts and thoughts are directed exclusively toward the acquisition of earthly glory and earthly sweetness. They have sunk, they have become mired in the sea of this life; they chase after only the temporal and momentary, only after phantoms: “they pass through”—says Scripture—“the paths of the sea” (Ps. 8:9). Strange are these paths! Their traces vanish in the wake of those who pass along them, and for those who travel them there is no sign of the road ahead. Such is earthly success: it does not know what it seeks; having found what it desired, it is as though it no longer possesses it; again it desires, again it seeks. The light of the teaching of Christ is heavy and unbearable for the sons of the world. They flee from it into dark, deaf abysses: into dissipation, into manifold distraction, into carnal pleasures. There, in moral darkness, they spend their earthly life, without a spiritual and eternal purpose. Scripture does not honour such people with the name of human beings: “man, though in honour, did not understand; he has been compared to the senseless cattle and made like them”[3] (Ps. 48:13). Man is the one who has known himself, said the Venerable Pimen the Great; man is the one who has known his own worth, his own condition, his own calling. — By “small creatures” of the sea are meant those not endowed with particular abilities, not granted wealth or power, yet even in such a condition serving vanity and sin. They lack the means to commit great and notorious iniquities; but guided, swept along, and blinded by their own free will corrupted by malice, they take part in the lawlessness committed by the great creatures, and themselves commit lawlessness according to their own strength and means. They wander in the sea of this life unconsciously, without purpose. — The serpent is “king over all the children of pride” (Job 41:26), “this great leviathan which you have formed to play in it” (Ps. 103:26). The fallen angel is called a serpent, on account of the abundance of malice and cunning that live within him. He acts as secretly as possible, so that his action, being little noticed, may be the more certain and deadly. His slaves do not feel the chains that bind them on every side—and they call their ruinous bondage the name of freedom and the highest happiness. True Christians laugh at this serpent, discerning his wiles by the purity of the mind and trampling them down by the power of the Divine grace that has overshadowed their souls. — Let us be like ships sailing in good order upon the sea! A considerable part of them is also in the water; yet they are not submerged entirely in the water, as fish and other sea creatures are. It is impossible, impossible for one sailing across the sea of this life not to be wetted by its waters: one must not sink into them.

In the sea—“a countless multitude of creeping things.” What shall be said of them? Their very name says all. Wretched is the lot of those whom the word of God has deprived of the name of human beings and reduced to the name of irrational animals: how much more wretched are those upon whom it—the all-holy Word, the Judge of the universe—has set the stamp of the name of creeping things? Not the deep waters are their constant dwelling and delight, but the foul and muddy slime, into which the enraged wave sweeps all manner of impurity, into which the corpses of those who perished in sea-disasters and by the daggers of the pirates of the sea of life are swept and putrefy.

My brethren! My friends! I stand with you on the shore of the sea and look upon the sea, traced over with stripes of many colours. Beyond the sea—another sea, with blazing golden domes and spires… Meanwhile in the house of God there rings forth the majestic, many-meaningful song: “Beholding the sea of life uplifted by the storm of temptations, I have run to your calm harbour and cry out to you: Raise up my life from corruption, O Most Merciful One.”[4]