Vain Pursuits
Posted by Eric (February 20, 2006 at 5:00 pm)
Yesterday I bought a small icon of St. Isaac of Syria. I didn’t know anything about St. Isaac, but I was impressed by the words on the scroll to which he was pointing:
This life has been given to you for repentance. Do not waste it in vain pursuits.
Could there possibly be a sentiment more out of step with our times? It must have been a challenging statement in the seventh century as well, when St. Isaac lived, or he wouldn’t have bothered to say it.
We didn’t invent vain pursuits, but we’re the only culture since the late Roman Empire—which by Isaac’s time had passed away—to so devote our culture to them.
But I didn’t buy this icon in protest of contemporary culture, nor did I decide to write about it here to offer a social commentary. If such were my purpose, I would be missing St. Isaac’s point entirely; that would indeed be a vain pursuit. (more…)