Human love. Divine love and human love
The love of God is not only forgiving, it is also selfless. God's love thinks of others first. On the other hand, the flesh is selfish and self-centered. Human love puts itself first.
Sometimes it seems to me that some people in the question of love got it mixed up. When some Christians talk about love, they are thinking about natural human love. They try to compare divine love with natural human love, and they cannot be compared. This is not about natural human love. We are talking about divine love.
The Bible says, "God is love." God is holy. God is love. Above all else, He is love.
We hear a lot today about natural human love, but there is no love like God in the whole world. Natural human love is selfish and self-centered.
I remember a woman coming up to me at a church service. She said, crying, “God knows I love my children. I raised them correctly, but none of them wants to go to church with me, except for my daughter. " Her daughter played the piano in this church.
She continued, "There is no one in the whole church who loved their children the way I loved mine."
I looked at her daughter, who was playing the piano, and I saw that something was wrong with her. She was about 24 years old, she used to take music lessons and even went to college. But if you looked at her, she pulled her head in to hide from you.
I asked this girl's mother: “When your daughter was growing up, did she have friends? She's probably capable because she studied well and graduated successfully with a degree in music? " I knew a little about this family from the pastor.
I asked her, "Did you allow her to have a boyfriend or friend at school?" “No,” she replied, “I just kept her at home. I wanted to protect her because I love her so much. "
I replied: “You are lying. You didn't keep her at home because you love her so much. You kept her at home because your love is selfish. " I know that this is far from a way to win friends, but sometimes you need to shake a person so that he sees the truth!
“I just love her too much to let go,” my mother told me. “She never left home, not for one day.”
I replied, “No, you do not love her. You love her with selfish human love. If you truly loved your children with the love of God, you would want them to have friends. You would like them to communicate with their peers, grow up and live a normal life. "
Then she said: “My son is 17 years old and he just ran away from home. I don't know where he is. Pray for him to come back. "
I said "No! I will pray that he does not come back. Thank God that he was smart enough to pull himself together and escape from this mess. The girl who is sitting on the high chair by the piano probably didn’t think of that, because you broke her as a person. ”
See, here's a born again woman, even filled with the Holy Spirit, who goes to a Full Gospel church, but in reality she didn't have divine love for her children at all. She loved them with natural human love, and that kind of love can be selfish.
Believers cannot say, “I cannot love with God's love,” because the Bible says that God's love is already in the heart of every born-again believer. Everyone in God's family already has one, otherwise - he is not born again.
People may not apply God's love, but they have it. They just need to learn to let divine love rule them. If they could learn to walk in love, they would walk in the Spirit, because love is the fruit of the regenerated human spirit.
If we could learn to walk in love and let this divine love dominate us, everything in our life would be very different. All family problems would be solved.
I’ll tell you something that may shock you, but it’s true: divine love has never gone through divorce and never will. Natural human love will file for divorce, but divine love will not, and it will never fail.
You see, friends, God's love is not looking for its own. Divine love is interested in what it can to give and not what she can receive... She is not selfish and does not seek her own. Divine love does not ask, "What will I get?" She asks: "What can I give?"
Human love is interested by myself: "What will I have from this?" Human selfish love says something like, "I'm not going to put up with this!" or me in my own way I will do it! In the end, I have my own opinion. " It is very easy to recognize self-centered Christians: "I ...", "I ...", "I have ..." Everything they talk about is "I".
There are too many selfish people among Christians. They allow natural human love to prevail in themselves, instead of God's love, which is poured out into their spirit - their heart.
Natural human love will bring division to families and churches because it is selfish and wants its own way.
Have you ever thought about this? Selfishness destroys the world. Selfishness destroys marriages and the church. But God's love never fails because it is not selfish and always puts the other first.
God's love gives, and God's love first of all thinks about others, just as God did: “ God so loved the world that he gave it ... "(John 3:16). When the sinners in the world were not attractive, God gave His Only Begotten Son, “... so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life”(John 3:16).
You see, we, people, have been hurt by someone, and instead of walking in love, we want to give back and repay in kind. Our feelings want to get attention, and our flesh wants to throw a tantrum.
This is what the Word means when it says we must “crucify the flesh” (Gal. 5:24). I don't know about you, but I refuse to accept resentment over anything.
Some, shouting, howling and crying, say: "But you do not know how much he offended me!" This is a manifestation of selfishness, not God's love, because you only think of yourself. When you speak this way, you allow your flesh and your feelings to rule you.
When you are ruled by feelings, you have to refuse to listen to the flesh and go into the Spirit to walk in God's love! The Bible says: “ But you do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, if only the Spirit of God lives in you”(Rom. 8: 9).
Walk in the Spirit! Rise higher and walk in God's love! This is so much better. And I'll tell you: it pays high dividends!
If you want to live well and long, you better obey! Praise God that God's love is working.
One person said, "But in the past I have fallen so much." If you have fallen in the past, ask God for forgiveness and forget about it. Start with the present! God will allow you to start all over again, because by His great mercy and His great love, He forgives!
Aren't you glad that God is like this? God said: “ I, I myself blot out your crimes for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins”(Isa. 43:25).
Therefore, even if you make a mistake, if you repent, God will forgive you, erase it and will not even remember that you did something wrong! Therefore, start walking in His forgiveness and mercy and continue living.
Reflections on the Book of Job
An inexhaustible thirst to love and be loved is inherent in man. Love is knowledge, a joyful feeling of oneself in another, another in oneself. When the Lord brings Eve to Adam, he immediately recognizes her as “bone of bones, flesh of flesh” (Gen. 2:23), that is, realizes her involvement in himself. This union of two loving people gives a sense of completeness; such love is a gift of Divine love, which is accepted by obedience and helps a person to find the good part in God.
After the Fall, having rejected life-giving grace at will, a person loses the integrity of his worldview. The world from joyful and beloved becomes gloomy and hostile. A person loses the relationship of mind and heart, losing unity with others, and thereby the possibility of communion with God.
The abandonment of “first love” by a person entails a “multiplication of iniquity” and will ultimately lead to the fact that “love will grow cold in many,” that is, there will be a final rejection of a person from God, leading to death (see Rev. 2: 4 ; Mt 24:12).
Nothing more terrible can happen to a person, because, as the hero of one of Andrei Tarkovsky's films said, “a person dies without universal love”.
It is this death that Job feels, cursing the day and night in which a person languishes, doomed to ignorance, misunderstanding and irresponsibility, for “the way is closed” and the Lord “surrounded him with darkness” (Job 3:23). An intolerable feeling of God-forsakenness gripped Job's heart; apparently, these are the very arrows of the Almighty, the poison of which drinks his spirit (Job 6: 4).
Job is sure that God arranges everything for the good of those who love Him, but he needs personal communication with God, he needs a feeling of reciprocal love, a constant presence of God in his heart. Only then will he be able to accept everything, no matter what happens to him in this life, knowing that the Lord “will raise up a decaying skin from the dust” and he will see God in the flesh (Job 19: 25–26).
Everything can be endured if you understand the meaning of what is happening, therefore Job addresses God with the words: “Do not accuse me; declare to me why you are fighting with me? " (Job 10: 2). It is extremely important for Job to understand whether he will be able to be justified before God during his life (Job 9: 2), since he is no worse than others, it is known that no one can be born “clean of an unclean thing” (Job 14: 4) , or, as Job justly says, “even though I washed myself in the water of snow and completely cleansed my hands, then You will plunge me into mud, and my clothes abhor me” (Job 9: 30–31).
The deprivation, due to original sin, of “the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) and the inability to know Divine love makes his life a joyless pestilence.
Job is not motivated by an impudent desire to compete with God - he knows that the Lord “fights with His mind<…>impudence ”(Job 26:12), - but a bold desire to find an explanation of the reasons why the Lord punishes those who love and those who are devoted to Him. For some reason, some people call this boldness "fighting against God," following Job's friends, who reproached him: "Why do you direct your spirit against God?" (Job 15:13). But those who rebel against God are those who “doom” their friend “into the spoil” (Job 17: 5), do not sympathize with him, do not defend his righteousness before God, thanks for the good deeds that he showed them.
How can we eliminate the contradiction between the grace of God, poured out on the old man, and his plight, when the heart is closed to this grace and it is impossible not only to increase love for another, but also to keep its sparks in our heart, if “the days of sorrow have embraced” (Job 30:16), and there is no longer “peace, no rest, no consolation: misfortune has befallen” (Job 3:26), when love no longer gratifies our pride, but requires sacrifice from us.
Sin constantly rejects a person from love, cools the heart. How to destroy this mediastinum of sin, to resolve the contradiction between the heart and the mind, when the heart is sure of the existence of Divine love, but has not yet experienced it, therefore the mind cannot understand and accept this love, languishing with heavy doubts? Is it possible for a person to find a way out without God's help? What can he hope for? Or, as Job says, "Is there any help in me for me, and is there any support for me?" (Job 6:13).
Friendship and love are fragile, he draws a bleak conclusion, having experienced the weakness of human feelings, implicated in pride, jealousy, envy, and man-pleasing. What a grievous epiphany! “My loved ones have left me, and my acquaintances have forgotten me. Those who are in my house and my maids regard me as a stranger; I became an outsider in their eyes. I call my servant, and he does not answer; with my lips I must plead with him, - Job's heart weeps. - My breath is sick to my wife, and I must beg her for the sake of the children of my womb. Even small children despise me: I get up, and they scoff at me. All my confidants abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me ”(Job 19: 14-19); “Outcast people, people without a name, rabble of the earth<…>they flee from me, and do not keep a spit in my face ”(Job 30: 8,10). Moreover, Job became “a laughing stock for his friend” - a man “who cried out to God, and to whom He answered, a righteous man blameless” (Job 12: 4)!
And Job, bravely enduring all the sorrows that befell him, remaining unshakable in his faithfulness to God after all the trials that a person can think of, does not withstand the seven-day silence of his friends, these “sons of this world” (see Luke 16: 8), on their hearts which, blinded by passions, lies the veil of ignorance (2 Cor. 3:15). For the first time before him appears the open abyss of alienation, which, it turns out, cannot be overcome even by the people closest to him.
But Job is not confused by arguments and cruel proofs of the righteousness on which his friends soon begin to insist and, wanting to turn night into day, and “to bring light closer to the face of darkness” (Job 17:12), they try to convince Job that he is suffering for his wickedness (Job 15: 5) - he would have remained, according to him, at the same time calm (Job 17: 2) - but how to endure the heartlessness of friends who see him at death and are not ashamed to accuse him of idle talk (Job 11 : 3)! Exactly this petrified insensibility, in which the words of a friend lose their meaning, kills Job. All betrayals can be endured, just not the betrayal of those with whom you have a spiritual relationship, on whose mutual understanding you counted on. “For the terrible thing that I was terrified of befell me; and what I feared came to me ”(Job 3:25). What could be more terrible for a person with a loving heart than the torture of loneliness? “That which my soul did not want to touch, it constitutes my loathsome food” (Job 6: 7) - is it not because those whom he loved turned against him (Job 19:19)?
"How long will you torment my soul and torment me with speeches?" (Job 19: 2) - appeals to Job's friends, for “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:22), and the words of the one for whom you love “cut through the innards” (see Job 16:13) ...
It is painful, very painful to peel off the falling pieces of flesh (Job 2: 8), losing the attachments that are familiar and dear to the heart. But you cannot come to life without dying. You cannot gain the spiritual without parting with the carnal. The image of a snake, which is freed from old skin, crawling between sharp stones that hurt it, mentioned by the Holy Fathers, is the most appropriate and accurate here. Now the only hope is on God: “Step up, vouch for me yourself! Otherwise, who will vouch for me? For you have closed their hearts from understanding, and therefore you will not allow them to triumph ”(Job 17: 3-4).
And until help from God comes, Job will languish from the impossibility of knowing the love of God: "My heart is languishing in my breast!" (Job 19:27), “I cry to You, and You do not heed me, - I stand, and You only look at me. You have become cruel to me ”(Job 30: 20-21). Only those who yearn for reciprocal love, who only lay down their lives in it, can lament this way. But in order to receive love, it is necessary to understand the Lover, it is necessary to feel trust in Him.
But how difficult it can be for a person, especially if he is “blameless, just, fearing God and moving away from evil” (Job 1: 8; 2: 3), yet, despite this, “satiated with humiliation” (Job 10:15); besides, “his flesh aches on him, and his soul suffers in him” (Job 14:22)? How can he resolve the seemingly insoluble: why, for example, the righteous endure sorrows, while the wicked are content, “why do the wicked live, reach old age, and are strong in strength?” (Job 21: 6), why “one dies in the fullness of his strength, completely calm and peaceful” (Job 21:23), “and the other dies with a grieved soul, not having tasted good” (Job 21:25)? And why “in the city people groan, and the soul of those who are slain cries out,” but “God does not forbid it” (Job 24:12)?
But such a desire to understand the essence of what is happening, while going beyond the laws of knowledge, can be likened to an attempt to examine a flower while blindfolded. Here the “spirit of understanding”, on which Job's friends so hope (Job 20: 3), relying on their own ideas of justice, will not help. Only an unreasoning heart filled with love that “is longsuffering, merciful<…>He covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything ”(1 Cor. 13: 4-7), will be able to eliminate all the contradictions that arise.
But for the heart to become like this, love must reveal its secret, showing its most important property: to appear as love-pity, capable of the feat of compassion. And this secret becomes available only to the suffering heart; only suffering comprehends the essence of love, which is a gift from God.
It is due to sorrow, due to the fact that his flesh hurts, his soul suffers, and “his face turned purple with crying” (Job 16:16), enlightenment comes to Job. He is convinced that “to the suffering one should be pity from his friend,” but the feat of compassion is possible only if the friend left no fear of the Almighty(Job 6:14). Otherwise, hope is futile. And the “sons of this world” turn out to be “unfaithful, like a stream, like swiftly flowing streams, which are black with ice and in which snow is hidden. When it gets warm, they diminish, and during the heat they disappear from their places. They deviate from the direction of their ways, enter the wilderness and are lost ”(Job 6: 15-18).
Job's own explanations of what is happening are not so necessary - he gratefully accepts both good and evil from God (Job 1:21; 2:10), as he is tormented by the inability to justify himself before friends who are dear to him, so he asks that the Lord Himself intercede for him, justified him in the eyes of people who think in terms of the laws of the flesh.
But in order to overcome the weakness of human love, a heroic deed is required: it is necessary to make a sacrifice of one's self-esteem, an awareness of one's own weakness, an acknowledgment of one's lack of understanding, of one's blindness is required (John 9:41).
His friends, who are full of false testimonies, will not be able to understand Job's suffering. “Your wickedness is great, and your iniquity has no end” (Job 22: 5), - they hasten to denounce the righteous, explaining their words by the fact that God “deals with him according to the deeds of a man and rewards him in the ways of a man” (Job 34:11 ) and that “those who seek the Lord do not need any good” (Ps 33:11), but “the wicked will not be good” (Eccl. 8:13).
Friends, expecting as a reward for fulfilling the law “good, to eat and drink and delight their souls from their labor” (Eccl. 2:24), find the justification of their innocence in the falsely understood principle of retribution, building their communion with God on the basis of a legal relationship, and not on love, not realizing that earthly blessings, which are perceived by us as a symbol of our piety, before the face of God lose all value, for they affect the realm of the flesh, not the spirit. The meaning of true benefits is hidden from outside observers. The concept of goods is much broader than our understanding of them. True blessings are not “food and drink,” although the Lord provides everything necessary for those who love Him. But it is better to say after the Apostle that “those who love God<…>all things work together for good ”(Rom. 8:28).
Only a loving heart can please God, fulfill the law (Rom. 13:10), without which all our reasoning will be fruitless and our expectations will be put to shame; as Job says, “when I looked for good, evil came; when it waited for light, darkness came ”(Job 30:26). A person, relying on his own mind, cannot help the powerless, support the weak, give advice to the wise and fully grasp the essence of the matter (Job 26: 2-3). The truth of such a person before the face of God turns out to be untrue if the desire to insist on his own overshadows the mind of a person so much that he no longer sees who is in front of him, is in no hurry to share his sorrows with a friend, covering up possible sins with love, but seeks out non-existent sins only for that, to prove his innocence - in such a person there is no spirit of God. That is why Job asks his friend after his accusatory speech, full of seeming truth: "To whom did you say these words, and whose spirit proceeded from you?" (Job 26: 4) - for love weeps with the one who weeps and rejoices with the one who rejoices. After all, everything that Job's friends say is known to him. “Truly, only you are people, and wisdom will die with you! - Job answers his friends with bitter irony. - And I have a heart like yours; I am not lower than you; and who does not know the same? " (Job 12: 2–3), so the reminders of friends are like ashes (Job 13:12). Job's tortured heart does not need instruction, but mercy, pity, and compassion; even if Job were wrong, according to the law of love his iniquity would have to be covered by his friends, for love “covers all” and “endures all” (1 Cor. 13: 7).
Only compassion is right, any seemingly just statements, any explanations crumble to dust before the suffering of others, and it is never possible to understand their cause, or, as Job says, to find “the root of evil” (Job 19:28), for what can a person understand how can explore the abyss, if the "gates of death" have not yet opened for him(Job 38: 16-17), if he can observe only the “seventh day”, and the secrets of the “eighth day” are hidden before him, and if they are visible, then “as through a dim glass, it is divinely” (1 Cor. 13:12) ...
But Job expects the impossible from his friends. “Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me. Why do you also persecute me like God? " (Job 19: 21-22), - he addresses them, although he understands the futility of such a request: "Did I say: give me, or pay from your prosperity for me?" (Job 6:22). Friends, being in a much more sad state than Job (which they, however, do not realize), cannot help him in any way. Mercy is possible only from an excess of love, with which one can “pay” for the suffering person in order to “redeem” him from the sinful captivity of passions that chill the heart, melt him with his love, which exceeds all spiritual gifts. But is it possible for a person, entangled in passions and doomed to slow dying, to bear such love, whose name is Sacrifice. Can this love be learned? And how do you find her?
Only Divine love itself can reveal to a person the full depth of the meaning of its name, only it alone can indicate the place where seekers will find it: true love, “the love of God” is found in the mediastinum of the Cross, opening its arms to everyone, without expecting a reciprocal feeling; love not for something, but because they cannot but love, love not close in flesh or in spirit, but close, that is any, already the existence of this any fills the soul with the fullest joy and the sweetest warmth.
A person who has experienced such love testifies to the whole world, as the holy Apostle Paul testified that “neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Beginnings, nor Powers, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord "(Rom. 8: 38–39), because" for me life is Christ, and death is gain. " “I am drawn to both” (Phil 1: 21,23), for “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
Saint Theophan the Recluse explains what was said as if on behalf of the Apostle himself: “I am sure that whoever once tastes true love for God, nothing can tear it away from it, he will not exchange it for anything and will not allow himself to cling to anything with his heart -or other than God ”.
Satan, who, being filled with indifference and anger, can think of people's relationship to God and to each other only at the level of calculation and mutual benefit, twice demanded that he prove this devotion. Satan enters into a dispute with God, questioning Job's fear of God and his integrity and offering to test him: “Is Job fearing God for nothing? Did you not round about him and his house and all that he had? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his flocks are scattered over the earth; but stretch out Thy hand and touch all that he has — will he bless Thee? " (Job 1: 9-11).
Not satisfied with Job's courage and faithfulness, with which the righteous man endured all temptations, Satan demands from God to expose his very life to mortal danger next time, believing that then Job will not be able to resist and will deny God, cursing Him (Job 2: 9) ... “Skin for skin, but a man will give everything that he has for his life; but stretch out Thy hand and touch his bone and his flesh — will he bless Thee? " (Job 2: 4-5). The person in the person of Job is invited to prove that it is possible to remain faithful to God, to love Him (and a blessing is nothing but a manifestation of love), without receiving temporary perishable benefits for this, but only enjoying a constant stay with God, only in this, seeing the source of joy and happiness.
Thus, a difficult task is set before a person: to determine what is true good for him, in other words, whether a person thanks only for what promises him pleasure, or gratitude is an inexhaustible need of the soul and the blessing itself carries the fullness of pleasure and happiness. ? That is, is it possible to love for the sake of love, as, according to St. John Chrysostom, the holy Apostle Paul loved Christ: “not for the sake of Christ's, on the contrary, he loved everything for Christ's sake, fixed his gaze to Him and was afraid of one thing - to fall away from this love ”, because“ falling away from the love of Christ for him was more terrible than Gehenna itself, as well as being in love more longed for the Kingdom ”?
But such love eludes the one who seeks his own benefit, relying on “flesh and blood” (Matt 16:17), who dismembers the one, that is, the carnal and spiritual, believing that a person can draw vitality from the temporal and the perishable.
The prophet said about such people: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes the flesh his support, and whose heart moves away from the Lord. He will be like heather in the wilderness and will not see when good comes, and will settle in places of heat in the steppe, on a barren, uninhabited land ”(Jer 17: 5-6). The sultry steppe and barren desert is likened by the prophet to the petrified heart of such a person; it does not “have a root” (Luke 8:13), and therefore cannot comprehend “good”, being subjected to curse and alienation from God. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31), and only a humble heart will remain unpunished.
The accusers forget that everyone can be in the place of the suffering person, and then his concept of justice will certainly change. Job reminds his friends about this: "Will it be good when He tests you?" (Job 13: 9), and what would you say, “if your soul were in the place of my soul?” (Job 16: 4).
But Job's warning does not frighten his friends and they do not stop attacking him, seeing only themselves and appreciating only their own experiences. “I listened to the reproach, shameful to me,” says one of Job's friends (Job 20: 3), “without feeling the inappropriateness of such claims and insults. They do not want to tolerate even a little when it comes to them, demanding from another at the same time a feat that clearly exceeds human capabilities, without fear of being rejected by God for it. For friends do not understand the most important thing: people with such a dispensation of the soul cannot be with the Lord, Who looks not at outward behavior, but penetrates the heart and tests the insides, “in order to reward each one according to his path and according to the fruits of his deeds” (Jer 17:10 ). Trying to convict Job of wickedness, they say to him: "Should not your fear of God be your hope, and the integrity of your ways - your hope?" (Job 4: 6). But it is not love of God, but the fear of punishment that guides them. For the time being, they only have access to relations with God, either as a slave to a master, or as a mercenary to a master, whose loyalty is based on fear or on the expectation of a certain payment. Apparently, this is how Job's friends understand the meaning of the word “fear of God” with their heart, blinded by arrogance, because of which they cannot “understand” anything (Job 37:19), being an obedient instrument of the angels of darkness. Seeing that his friends are possessed by a wicked spirit who “looks boldly at all that is high” and is a king “over all the sons of pride” (Job 41:26), Job asks one of them: “Will there be an end to windy words? and what prompted you to answer that way? " (Job 16: 3).
Was it not because the Lord allowed Satan to tempt Job, because the spirit of jealousy, envy and anger had long seized his friends and they thought in their hearts, not realizing that this was the voice of the enemy of God: “Is Job fearing God for nothing?” (Job 1: 9). Who knows, maybe it was precisely these thoughts that caused Job's misfortunes? For the wicked one conceives evil, gives birth to a lie, and his womb prepares deceit (Job 15:35), which serves as the dwelling place of the wicked one.
Job also trembles before the face of God, contemplating eternity, and fears His name (Job 23:15). But “the spirit of God is in my nostrils,” he says (Job 27: 3). Job's soul longs to know the truth that could deliver him from his slave fear, for, according to the words of the holy Evangelist John, only she can make a person free (John 8:32). “Let Him only pay attention to me<…>and I would receive freedom forever from my judge ”(Job 23: 6-7). “Behold, He is killing me, but I will hope; I would only wish to defend my ways before Him! ” (Job 13:15).
Unlike his friends, Job knows that the fear of God is not an “animal fear” that grips a person who is afraid of being deprived of earthly goods and makes everyone slaves, as the Apostle Paul said: “From the fear of death they are subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:15 ).
But Divine love deprives a person of fear, for “perfect love casts out fear, because in fear there is torment” (1 John 4:18); fear for one's flesh humiliates a person and turns his life into a real torture. After all, a person who takes care of his own welfare as the basis of his life is constantly dying “from lack of reason” (Proverbs 10:21).
And Job, whose days are fading away, and he is already at the edge of the tomb (Job 17: 1), reveals to his friends the secret of fear of God, which has nothing to do with fear: “Behold, the fear of the Lord is true wisdom, and removal from evil is reason” ( Job 28:28).
Job is afraid of being alienated from God: "Does not His majesty terrify you, and does His fear not fall on you?" (Job 13:11), - he addresses his friends. For what, if not the absence of the fear of God, prompts friends to respond so proudly and scatter thoughtlessly “frivolous words”? - Only the fear of God makes it possible to doubt one's own righteousness and to be careful when denouncing.
But people who are humane, biased, striving to extract self-interest from communication with neighbors, which can manifest itself in an effort to show their understanding, using even the misfortune of friends for this, do not understand that they “ruin their neighbor with their lips” (see Proverbs 11: 9) and turn out to be cut off from divine love, because “they harbor anger in their hearts and do not cry to Him when He binds them in bonds” (Job 36:13). "How powerful are the words of truth!" (Job 6:25), but the hypocrites pervert the words, and the words lose their power, become fruitless, "idle." The Lord will not leave them unpunished, “although they are secretly hypocrites” (Job 13:10), and “when he will take, when God has plucked out their soul”, what hope will remain for them (Job 27: 8)? The Lord will not let them “triumph” and they will not go “before Him” (Job 13:16), but will be cast out into “outer darkness” (Matt 22:13), which they loved (John 3:19), for each inherits the part to which he adhered during his lifetime.
Is it possible to love God without experiencing love for your neighbor, and think that you are afraid of God, if you are impudent with your neighbors, if you please a person for your own benefit, if you expect benefits for yourself, and before a strong man who is endowed with power or knows how to boldly stand up for you bow your head, but humiliate the humble and convict of sins, not being ashamed of his gray hair, and not being afraid to sin with false testimony.
Job's friends, “lifting up their eyes from afar, did not recognize him” (Job 2:12). Before them was no longer the man to whom everyone listened and kept silent at his advice, without reasoning after his words (Job 29: 21-22), seeing whom the young men hid, “the elders stood up and stood” with him, “the princes refrained from They laid their tongues and fingers on their lips ”(Job 29: 8-9). “The ear that heard me pleased me,” says Job, “the eye that heard me praised me” (Job 29:11). What has changed, why those who “waited for him like the rain” and “like the late rain, opened their mouths” (Job 29:23), now dishonor him, “invent speeches for reproof” and “dig a hole” for their friend? (Job 6: 26,27).
Now Job is weak, “his body is covered with worms and dusty scabs; his skin bursts and festers ”(Job 7: 5). He can no longer “save the sufferer who cries out and the weak orphan”, because he himself has become this suffering and defenseless orphan, his house will not be thrown open to comfort the suffering, it is now run by “aliens”.
“Since He<…>struck me, then they cast off the reins before my face ”(Job 30:11). These words explain such impudent attacks on Job by his friends: the temptation is very great to humiliate the wise and to expose the righteous, if there is such an opportunity. Feeding anger in their hearts (Job 36:13) and envy and not caring about their correction, friends rush to justify themselves before their conscience, but their “thoughts and tricks” are “one lie” (Job 21: 27,34), for they are subject to “The law of sin and death” (Rom. 8: 2).
To break the seemingly unshakable wall of sin between God and the human heart, in order to live “not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8: 1), you need a Mediator who “would lay his hand on both of us” (Job 9: 33). "I know my Redeemer lives!" (Job 19:25) - exclaims Job's tortured heart. Only He who is not subject to this sin can atone for sin, return a person to the original state of “first love”; to teach love, to put it in the heart, only He who knows how to love himself. Therefore, only God can be the Redeemer and Mediator, returning to man an integral vision of the world. Only the Lord can transform rational, evaluating, profitable love, which is essentially selfish love for oneself, only aggravating division, into life-giving love that “never ceases” (1 Corinthians 13: 8), into love that is not subject to human weakness.
But in order to find true love, one must first get rid of sensual love, mixed with self-indulgence, with passions according to the flesh. “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt 10:34), - says the Lord, - a sword with which one should cut off everything that is unworthy of the Kingdom of God. And unworthy of the Kingdom of God is what we do to please ourselves, our carnal feelings, all this inherits death and crumbles to dust. In other words, in order for Divine love to enter the heart, human love must undergo a change, be transformed from sensual, carnal love into spiritual love.
But such a change is impossible without the Sacrifice, which stands at the head of our salvation: the Lord suffered death for us, so that we could live for His sake, because He “is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt 22:32).
The Lord will open His arms to us, rush to meet us, like a loving Father, if we give Him the opportunity to save us by sacrificing our humble heart to Him, for only a broken spirit can receive the saving grace of God. This will require a feat of us: we will have to sacrifice “our possessions”, to return to the Father that which was torn away from Him by our pride (Luke 15).
It is possible to “trample”, to destroy death only by destroying the old man, slave and mercenary in oneself, and life can be acquired only by voluntary dying. The Lord sacrifices His life for the sake of love for us, we must make a reciprocal sacrifice for the love of Him, giving our lives to God and to each other, expecting no rewards, for true love cannot but sacrifice.
"My eyes see You!" (Job 42: 5), - Job exclaims in great joy, receiving a hundredfold reward for his long-suffering. What he so firmly believed in had already happened for him in this life. He beheld God with a spiritual eye, beheld with bodily eyes, transformed by the grace of God, beheld the longed-for Beauty, clinging to Which, you find true fullness and joy. In Her radiance, any physical and mental suffering becomes faded and insignificant, as the Christian martyrs clearly testified from the very first days of the existence of the Orthodox Church.
Having endured all the torments of the cross: renunciation and cowardice of friends who “saw terrible things and were afraid” (Job 6:21), carnal sufferings and, finally, the horror of being forsaken by God, Job also receives the fruits of these torments, which those who follow the Savior receive: an all-forgiving heart ( “But Jesus said: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34)) and adoption (“Woman, behold, thy son. Then he says to the disciple, behold, thy mother” (John 19: 26– 27)).
Inexhaustible joy in the Lord touched the heart of Job and brought him repentance, a true transformation of heart and mind: “I heard about You with the hearing of the ear; now my eyes see you; so I<…>I repent in dust and ashes ”(Job 42: 5-6).
Through his suffering and love, he also freed his friends, his “miserable comforters” (Job 16: 2), who were on the brink of destruction, and he himself, thanks to prayer for them, received all kinds of gifts: And the Lord restored Job's loss when he prayed for his friends(Job 42:10); he found the joy in the Lord, which his ancestors left in paradise, feeding in search of delights on the fruits of the deadly tree.
So, Love reveals its mystery to us on the Cross, revealing itself as a Sacrifice, when the entire redemptive path of the Lord appears before us in the form of suffering and humiliation surpassing all understanding, absorbing all the weakness of human nature in order to tear death to pieces on the Cross of Obedience. But in order to participate in this saving Love, it would seem that the absolutely impossible is required of us: to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow the Lord (Matt 16:24). As Napoleon wrote, completing his life's journey, “Jesus Christ makes a demand that is difficult to fulfill, surpassing all other requirements. He asks for a human heart. ” But “what is impossible for men is possible for God” (Luke 18:27). And the sufferings that frighten us bring joy and consolation; The cross, at which we gaze with horror, thinking that it will crush us, becomes two wings behind our back. Everything that we bring to the Lord is returned to us in abundance, the heart entrusted to God is overflowing with His grace and a soul is acquired that was lost for the Lord's sake (Matt 16:25). You can only get it by giving. This is the law of spiritual life (Mk 10: 29-30).
And then our heart will be inflamed, with the help of God, with love for the Lord and for each other, opening in ourselves an inexhaustible source of “living water” flowing “into eternal life” (John 4:14). It only depends on us to desire this feeling of love “with all our heart, and with all our mind, and with all our soul, and with all our strength,” and then the Lord Himself will put into our heart, which is open to meet Him, languishing with “spiritual thirst,” “a coal burning with fire”, about which the Lord said: “I came to send fire to the earth, and how I would like it to be kindled already” (Luke 12:49) - that fire that so longed to behold in our hearts the Savior suffering on the Cross (John 19: 28).
CONVERSATION SIX
HUMAN LOVE
Know how to protect and respect, exalt and improve human love - the most subtle and most capricious, the most tender and strongest, the most fragile and strongest, the wisest and most noble wealth of the human spirit.
Thousands of poems have been written about this wealth, millions of songs have been composed. Together with you, dear fathers and mothers, I want to look at that facet of love, which is little talked about - love as a child's educator.
The memory of the life of Nikolai Filippovich, a good doctor and a sensitive person, will forever remain a bright star in the sky of my memory. For forty-two years he worked in a large Dnieper village. His wife Mary bore him six children - three sons and three daughters. When, after a difficult operation, Nikolai Filippovich would come, tired and exhausted, Maria would say: “Lie down here, in the vineyard, rest, there is no work more exhausting than yours ...” He, smiling, replied: “No, the most the hard work in the world is the mother's work. And the hardest, and the most exhausting, and the most honorable. I help people in grief, you create happiness for humanity, you create humanity. "
Remembering the life of Nikolai Filippovich, I think: this life expressed the wealth of the human spirit - human love. Summer dawn. Mary sleeps, tired of the daily worries about children, sons and daughters sleep. Nikolai Filippovich quietly gets up so as not to wake up his wife and children. He goes into the garden, cuts a rose flower, brings it into the bedroom, puts it in a wooden vase on the night table near his wife's bed. Nikolai Filippovich cut this vase in the first year after marriage, cut it out for several months, it stands like a maple leaf ... Maria sleeps and does not sleep, hears Nikolai Filippovich's careful steps through her sleep and can no longer fall asleep from the sharp smells of a rose, lies, happy, with closed eyes for another half hour.
It was like this every morning - years, decades. Nikolai Filippovich built a small greenhouse - especially for flowers; he came to the greenhouse at dawn and in severe frosts, and in autumn bad weather, and in early spring, he took a delicate flower and carried it to his wife. Children grew up one after another. And, growing up, they got up with their father at dawn, and there were already two, then three, then four, five, six, seven flowers in the vase ...
Nikolai Filippovich died. Sons and daughters scattered to different parts of our Motherland, and mother Maria still lives today in a large Dnieper village. And no matter how far from her sons and daughters live, they come to their mother once a year - on her birthday; and again in a wooden vase seven roses are burning - six from the children and one from the father - symbolically. Mother Mary cannot go to live with any of the children, for, giving an advantage to one, she will mortally offend others.
This is what I always think about when it comes to raising children.Human love is a powerful parenting force.The one who multiplies with his life this priceless wealth of the human spirit - he educates himself, brings up his children. For, as L.N. Tolstoy wrote, the essence of raising children is to educate oneself. Parenting yourself is a powerful way parents can influence their children.
That is why, dear father and dear mother, dear young man and girl who are preparing to enter the first step of family life, today we will talk about love - this is a conversation about the holy of holies of upbringing. About human love - this must be emphasized again and again, since it is not only happiness, not only the purest source of joy and human pleasures. It leads to the most joyful and most pleasant, but at the same time to the most difficult, most difficult and most responsible human duty - for this is eternal duty to marriage. Marriage and its bonds, Voltaire wrote, are either the greatest good or the greatest evil. When he is good, then this is heaven itself on earth ... If you understand the entire complexity of the marriage union as a civic duty, as a duty of soul and body, mind and ideal, then marriage, having become the greatest good, will at the same time become a fertile field of labor - great, tireless work, and this work, dear father and mother, is called human love.
The wisdom of raising children lies in the intricacies of this work. Human love is not a natural attraction and a natural instinct, although it is based on the mutual attraction of opposite sexes and is unthinkable without an instinctive beginning. But already a month after marriage, lovers will exhaust themselves if only natural attraction, only instinct, pushed to marriage, since this is not human love. Human love is a union of soul and body, mind and ideal, happiness and duty.
And through all this, labor, labor and labor again runs like a red thread - unremitting and tireless labor, which creates the wealth of the human spirit in yourself, father and mother.
The boy and the girl passionately fell in love with each other. They were advised: take a good look, get to know each other better. No, we are confident in our love, it is eternal. We got married, lived for several months, she became pregnant, and then another girl caught the eye of the young husband, he suddenly felt that there was no love for his wife. Here is another divorce for you, another tragedy for society, for a person who has not yet been born, grief for life. Why does this happen and what to do to avoid this, how to educate young people?
Not only to educate, but above all, to be educated - that's what is important. Our young people did not have any love. There was a consumer craving for pleasure that they mistook for love. In their marriage, there was no main thing - vigilant labor, which in its essence is the contribution of their spiritual forces to another person, so that this person would be better - spiritually richer, happier. The main thing is to be happier. When young spouses mutually create happiness, when there is this most subtle and strongest human wealth in everyday worries, then mutual love is eternal, then it will not suddenly be possible to open up that one person is better than the other. When it comes to love and marriage, then in general it is impossible to make such a comparison - one is better, the other is worse. Each person is unique, with the birth of a new person, a new world is born, and when a mother gives birth to a child, she, wife and mother, becomes a thousand times unique in her beauty, but we create this uniqueness, we create by our tireless work. There is an old Ukrainian wisdom: a good husband has a good wife, your wife is a well, look into it, as you see yourself, such is your wife.
The strongest, most subtle wealth of the human spirit - love - acts on a child like music, like an enchanting beauty that captivates the soul. This wealth constantly tunes the sensitive string of the child's heart - sensitivity to the word, to goodwill, to affection and cordiality. The one whose childhood is illuminated by the sun of love as tireless labor, who mutually creates happiness, is distinguished by exceptional sensitivity and sensitivity to the father's and mother's words, to their goodwill, to their teachings and parting words, advice and warnings.
In the family of Nikolai Filippovich there was such a rule: when the family finishes dinner, all the children (the difference in years between them was not so great - nine years) clear the table, wash the dishes. One day the family was having dinner in the yard, under a pear tree. The youngest, a six-year-old daughter, forgot about her debt. The mother shook her head reproachfully and set to work, which was to be done by her daughter. The girl began to cry, she acutely experienced the reproaches of her conscience ... How, raising herself, to raise children?
If, among the wealth of synonyms that our speech denotes human love, choose the one that most expressively conveys the essence of love as tireless work, then the word duty will be such a synonym. Nurturing powerhuman love- this is the beauty of a person's duty to a person. To love means to feel with the heart the subtlest spiritual needs of a person. This ability to feel a person with the heart is transmitted from the father and mother to the child without any words or explanations, transmitted by example. Nikolai Filippovich did not require the children to get up early in the morning with him and bring the mother's or, as the girls said, an early flower. He put little effort into making sure the children saw him go into the garden or greenhouse and bring a flower. The children were asleep and, as it were, through a dream, they felt what the father was doing and for what, what feelings he expressed, what these feelings gave to the mother. Children learned to grasp the greatest human desire — the pursuit of happiness. They wanted to meet this desire, and they walked, did good, gave their mother joy.
An early flower for a mother is the pinnacle of beauty, the wealth of the human spirit, created by tireless work in the family of Nikolai Filippovich. Stony and thorny paths led to this summit. Raising six children - this work required great physical and spiritual strength from the mother. At every step, the children saw, one might say, with their hearts they felt the father's attitude to the hard work of the mother. The children - as soon as they could understand it in mind and heart - were worried not only about the fact that the father took on everything he could take to make the mother's work easier. They were especially worried about the attention, sensitivity of the father, the ability of his soul to feel that the mother was not easy, that she needed help. The development of this ability is the upbringing of oneself - the best, most graphic example, about the role of which the great sage L.N. Tolstoy spoke about. Where a young father, in front of his young children, tirelessly develops this ability, where the worries and concerns of his wife gradually become his worries and concerns, the family is a school for the emotional and moral education of children. It seemed that no one specifically teaches children: do not be indifferent to people, but they are sensitive, affable, benevolent, attentive. This sensitivity is developed in them by their father's self-education.
Human loveis not only the priceless wealth of the human spirit. It is also an ever-changing wealth. This is not a diamond whose brilliance has not changed for decades. This is a gem, the play of colors of which changes every year, even month, and the most amazing thing is that the owner and master of this play of colors is the one who owns this stone. Know how to be a sorcerer, on whose wisdom depends the great art of preserving the overflow of colors of a precious stone for life. The educational power of your love depends on this art, moreover, the strength of marriage as a union of soul and body, mind and ideal, happiness and duty depends. The passing passion of the first months of conjugal love, and if, apart from this passion, the marriage did not hold on to anything, the precious stone of your love will turn into an ember. And instead of heaven, hell will come to your house, and for children - suffering, indifference, disbelief in a person. In a highly moral marriage, the fire of the first passion is the most precious memory for the whole life, it is, as it were, the light reflected by the new life - the mutual creation of happiness, the upbringing of children. Highly moral long-term love at every step expresses the human attitude of a person to a person, and above all a husband to a wife. The human relationship to the wife and mother is the relationship to the source of life, to life itself. For a woman, a wife, a mother is, first of all, the creator of a new life, and when this thought, this ideal permeates the whole family life, the child learns from the example of his parents - first of all his father - to value life, to treat it as the highest value, which neither with which it cannot be compared.
Teaching to value life is the pillar root of moral behavior from which the branches of sensitivity, cordiality, and concern for a person feed. I know one good family: my husband is a tractor brigade clerk, and my mother is a milkmaid. Mother's job is not easy. Several days a week, it is necessary to start the working day on the farm at six o'clock in the morning. You need to get up at four to make breakfast. The husband does not allow his wife to get up so early. At four he gets up, prepares breakfast and lunch, escorts his wife to work, and then the children to school.
The husband returns from work at four o'clock, the children are already at home, the wife is not yet. After dinner, the father prepares dinner with the children. The common work of the father and the children is inspired by the thought: our mother is not easy, she has a busy day today, we will prepare a delicious dinner, we will do everything so that, after returning from work, she can rest. Working for children is not a game, but taking care of the dearest person - the mother. A mother becomes the most dear person due to the fact that physical and spiritual strength is applied every day to bring her joy. What becomes dear to people is that in which the forces of the soul are invested. If you, a mother, want to be the most dear person in the world for your son, your daughter, spiritualize them with the desire to create joy, happiness for you.
The attitude to the crown of human beauty - a woman - is recognized by the child's heart in the most subtle, imperceptible trifles. Every time the mother has a hard, stressful working day, the father, having cooked dinner with the children, takes out a clean towel and hangs it near the sink. Mother is the greatest worker, in this clean towel is respect for her work, for human beauty, for the source of life.
This is the education of love, the education of oneself and children by their behavior. Only where the father educates himself, the child's self-education is born. Without a vivid example of a father, all talk about the self-education of children remains an empty phrase. Without the example of parents, without the light and warmth of parental love, expressed in mutual care and respect, it is simply unthinkable. A child wants to be good only when he sees the ideal and is fond of this ideal. In this very subtle area of education, moral concepts are formed only on the basis of noble human feelings. And the feelings of children are caused by the feelings of the parents.
This is what my pupil Valya Kobzar said on the eve of the solemn day of graduation - about the deepest experience of childhood: “I was seven years old when my mother fell seriously ill. The father sat by the patient at night. There is a memory in my memory. I wake up somehow at dawn. My mother is breathing heavily, and my father is bent over her, looking at her face, and there is such an unbearable sadness in his eyes, such pain and such love that at that moment an unknown side of human life was revealed to me - loyalty. It seems to me that since that morning I really fell in love with my father.
Ten years have passed. Dad and mom live in peace and harmony. They are the dearest people in the world to me. I love my father with some special love. There was no such case that I did not heed his advice or told him a lie. Always, when I look into his eyes, I see the inextinguishable light of great human love. "
Ponder, father and mother, these words. What do we leave in the hearts of our children - do we leave with our deeds and words, actions and feelings? How will we be remembered by our children, how will we exalt ourselves in their eyes? There is the only powerful spiritual force that cannot be compared with anything, which is capable of imprinting our image in souls - the image of real human beauty. This power is the great wealth of the human spirit - love. Let's create this wealth with our lives. There is it in our parental hearts - there is something to bring up children.
... "Love your neighbor as yourself! .." Without understanding the structure of God's Love, the commandment of love cannot be fulfilled. The love of God is fundamental. The whole doctrine of truth is built on it: "On it the whole law and the prophets are affirmed." It is with this love that you need, ... you can, ... the only way to love God. "May your hearts be guided into the love of God." 2 Thess. 3: 5. “God's love” and “human love” are not that different from each other. There is nothing in common between them! - In the first case: “human love” represents the state of an egoist (a member of the “Host of Gods”), who all that he loves belongs to him. Reflecting the state of the strongest desire to possess, to use this (beloved) subject to build your throne. The basis, the strength of such love is the spirit of jealousy. - “God's Love” is based on the system of complete dissolution of yourself in your neighbor and him in you. - “God's love” is: when two, three, five, .. a thousand - are combined into one single substance. Who, having united, use in relation to the one with whom they are united - all their resources of goodness, creativity, etc. - all that they have. As it is said: "With all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my strength ... to everyone, everything, everything ... with the attainment of the state of disappearance of oneself in the one whom you have loved." Such a process is called: “I am in you, you are in Me and they ... all who entered this single union. As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they be perfect together! " “These words do not represent a simple unity, they represent the Love of God. - This is further stated as follows: "The love with which you loved me will be in them, and I in them."
People "Love" were divided into subgroups: civil, friendly, sexual, etc. In fact, such love brings people only grief! - “Jehovah's Law” declares that only he knows everything about “Love”, testifying: “Love cannot be received as a gift! She needs to learn ... and learn - from God! " "You are taught by God to love." 1 Thess. 4: 9.
Anyone who is mired in love for sex, drugs, drunkenness, theft is not able to free himself from these passions, which never satisfy him, every day driving him to a new "refueling" in order to re-plunge into the maelstrom of false love! For those, "Love" turned into slavery - into indefinite confinement. Throughout human life, poets, writers, composers, artists, philosophers have tried to explain the phenomenon of the word "Love". - But, alas, nobody could figure out the "formula" of Love! But, when there is no specific definition of something, then a situation arises that makes it possible for any false concept that is passed off as truth to arise. So it happened with the definition of the word "Love". The deceitful spectrum of which has spread in an infinite range, bringing to every inhabitant of the Earth not a spectrum of happiness and pleasure, but - sadness, tears, disappointment. - If where a sad song sounds, it means it's about Love, .. about a broken heart, .. about the unbearable pain of betrayal, .. betrayal in the environment of the Game of Thrones. The man of the Earth is not one who wants to love. Everyone dreams, wants to be loved, beloved. His first commandment reads: "Love me all who only are - with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength." - This is the greatest, central commandment of every earthling. - He was not born to Love. He is not someone who loves to love. He only wants to be loved. His whole life is a daily whining, how bad he is and no one loves him. He is lazy, he is the one who is looking for such a life, where only he is loved. After all, he is a god by nature, whom everyone should love, glorify, dignify. He has the same attitude towards God. The center of his consciousness works 100% only to find for himself the pleasure of the external manifestation of Love from anyone. Christ said: “The whole law, the whole Truth is contained in one word - love your neighbor as yourself. Only this will save you, your dying civilization! " Insane, with the remainder of 3% of the mind, humanity has perverted the only true recipe for its recovery. It loved its neighbor FOR ITSELF! Sank in a dirty, masterful chess game, trying to reshuffle, reorganize the laws of domination, Dumas, Parliaments, Constitutions to somehow change the situation.
Trying to perfect his counter-law: "Everything is for me, for us, for our people, for our country." Alas, all of this is doomed to failure. The Savior of the world will not give a second advice! There is one Constitution, one single Law, one true medicine for the dying civilization of earthlings - one true Word of the Legislator of the Creator of the Earth and humanity! Who, having assessed the current situation, made a diagnosis and wrote out one prescription: “Love your neighbor as yourself!
- Due to the fact that a person cannot love his neighbor as himself, properties such as murder, theft, adultery, perjury, the desire to seize his neighbor's property, etc. have appeared.
The one who wants to love - endless expanses of happiness are open for him - there are so many people! ... - the objects of your happiness. On which you can pour out the streams of your open feelings. “It’s like giving a fan of motorcycles a billion different motorcycles. Likewise, the lover, Love, is provided with 7 billion people. Take it and be happy. He has only one path - go, and try to give birth to the energy of Love all your life! Cleanse yourself from the virus "Host of Gods", open your soul to your neighbor, filled with feelings and that's it ... God said that everything is contained in the first commandment: - "Love your neighbor" ... but, do not: "Let him love you, - Oh my God!". So much for the whole path of happiness.
... "Time of Truth of the 22nd".