Healthy eyes of the body fill our minds with the light of day and the ability to learn through our bodily senses about people and nature. Similarly, healthy eyes of the soul see the light of the divine presence in people and in nature.

In her talk to our parish community, Elizabeth Theokritoff recommended the book called How to read a tree. This teaches us to notice many visible aspects of trees we had previously overlooked, changing profoundly the way we relate to trees, making us realise whether a tree is healthy or endangered, how it relates to air, wind, rain and surroundings, and its species in all its details.

Having learned so many things about a tree, we have entered into a deeper relationship with it as a living being, not only a shape in the landscape. The simple acquaintance with the many physical aspects of a tree established a deeper, already personal interaction. Deep knowledge of the many physical characteristics of a specific tree has a spiritual dimension, which is far from negligible.

Our relationship with God cannot be separated from our awareness of being part of nature and part of the cosmos. If we mistake ourselves as spectators only, not actually part of the world, we have drifted into illusion and set up a wall between God, who is the fulness of truth, and ourselves, leading to the profound moral failure of ecological disaster.

The eyes of the soul complement but are not entirely separate from our physical sight: our body and soul are not alien to each other, do not relate like oil and water which do not mix. Metropolitan Kallistos defined the body as the aspect of the soul accessible to our five senses.
Our spiritual life cannot be divorced from our bodily life. Failing to relate to other people, to trees, fields, rivers, seas, mountains, sky and clouds inflicts poor health on our soul.

An important aspect of our Church life is relating to people, to the garden, the fields and woods. Recent scientific discoveries have revolutionised the understanding we have of animals, plants, even galaxies, abolishing the false impression that the universe is mainly mindless matter. To their own surprise, astrophysicists have recently concluded that the forty billion galaxies could not be the organised cosmos if they were mindless matter.

Healthy physical and spiritual eyes are essential to human life. They reveal the divine omnipresence. They recognise the radiance of love, joy and peace in a person’s face. They help us realise that a landscape or a tree are full of life.

Attentiveness to the little theophanies of everyday life is a key aspect of being a Christian. Standing on a beach facing the sea and the sky fill the heart with an awe close to being given a glimpse of heaven. Human eyes invariably, but also animal eyes, are windows into the soul more than metaphorically. Our Orthodox Church is not reluctant to admit the evidence that animals have souls, although we refrain from imputing sinfulness to animals. Animals like the rest of the universe relate to God. Through spiritual eyesight, we are aware of the radiance of the uncreated and the created reality around us.

Through the eyes of the mind, we perceive that the real is rational and the rational is real. If the universe were a meaningless accident, language, the vehicle of meaning, could not exist, because it is not possible to believe that the truth is that everything is meaningless. That phrase is self-destructive, a no-through mental road.

Our minds have their own kind of eyes, which we call reason and discernment. They enable us to dismiss as nonsense that life and the world could be meaningless. We must not be afraid, if necessary, to point out that nihilism is an intellectual impossibility.

Matter, mind and spirit always coexist, combining three forms of eyesight: with one we see shapes and colours, with the second we discern sense, with the third we sense God’s presence in all things. May God grant to each one of us healthy eyes of the body, mind and spirit.

Amen.

Given by Father Yves