CLARITY IN A CONFUSED WORLD

CLARITY IN A CONFUSED WORLD

Fr Luke A Veronis

We live in an age of deep confusion. Reality is denied. Language is distorted. People cling to ideologies over absolute truth. And thus, many are overwhelmed by fear, anger, and division—looking for direction and clarity in all the wrong places. It can feel as if a grey fog has settled over the land.

Every week, I see new examples of this confusion:

I recently communicated with an extreme evangelical Protestant who defended the killing of the two lawmakers in Minnesota by telling me that God uses his servants to kill the wicked, and this murderer was killing politicians who were pro-abortion. He even noted to me how the shooter was a former Christian missionary in Congo, as if that was a badge of his faithfulness.

Utter foolishness!

A University of Florida Law School student received an academic honor recently after presenting his capstone project in which he argued how the framers of the US Constitution intended for the phrase “We the People,” to refer exclusively to white people. From there, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites and even posted racist and antisemitic messages on X, saying that Jews must be abolished by any means necessary.

Utter craziness!

Then recently, I’ve encountered four sets of parents estranged from their children. How sad when relationships between parents and their children devolve in a manner where they are ostracized from one another. At first, I thought this might be something unusual until I read several articles highlighting how the millennial and gen Z generation are blaming their parents for many of their problems and see the only solution as cutting them out of their lives.

Where are the attempts of reconciliation from both sides that come from forgiveness, humility, repentance, mercy, and grace? Our world is falling into deeper delusion and confusion.

Yet through this fog a voice still calls out: “Follow Me.” The call is as clear today as it was on the Galilean shore.

Too many people in our society have lost any sense of a Christian worldview where unconditional love and mercy, forgiveness and grace, humility and repentance, reconciliation and peace lie at the center of a healthy and meaningful life.

Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life” Seen through Christ’s lens, the world’s chaos is exposed as counterfeit reality. “Truth,” says St Basil, “is God’s most loving gift; delusion is the devil’s subtlest snare.”

Christ’s light shows us how to live. Life is about sacrificial love and merciful compassion. It is about deep repentance and turning back toward God daily. It is about receiving God’s grace and then forgiving others 70 x 7. It is about washing the feet of those who may even betray us.

Are we willing to trust Jesus and follow Him, as Peter and John did 2000 years ago, leaving behind the ways of the world?

-      To follow Him means leaving behind our world of fear, hatred, divisions, and violence.

-      To follow Him means setting aside our destructive habits, addictions, and sinful ways,

-      To follow Him means casting aside our insecurities with all our guilt and regret.

-      To follow Jesus means searching for eternal meaning and significance in our shallow society of entertainment and pleasure.

-      To follow Jesus implies entering into His kingdom of divine love and finding rest for our souls.

 “To live in the world without belonging to the world,” the noted spiritual guide Henri Nouwen writes, “summarizes the essence of the spiritual life. The spiritual life keeps us aware that our true house is not the house of fear, in which the powers of hatred and violence rule, but the house of love, where God resides.”

St. Isaac the Syrian says: “As the sea is full of water, so is the heart of a merciful person full of love.” This is the heart of one who follows Christ.

During the ideological storms of the 20th century, thousands climbed the rocky paths of Mount Athos to reach a humble cell where an elder saw with unclouded eyes. One anxious visitor recited a litany of political outrages. Saint Paisios listened, then pressed a komboskini into his palm, and said, “For every knot offer a prayer, not an argument. When the heart is at peace, it will know what to do.”

Saint Paisios firmly led confused pilgrims back to Christ’s healing path of forgiveness, repentance, and mercy. “Some people live in a fantasy world and mistake it for spirituality. The true spiritual life is love, sacrifice, humility.”

Today, we see how easily the name of Christ is misused. Christian nationalism, violent ideologies, and manipulative politics dress themselves in religious language to justify hatred, division, and control. These are false gospels. As St. John Chrysostom declared: “To be Christian is to love one’s enemies.”

So, how do we live with such clarity in our world today?

1.    We root ourselves in Christ. We turn off the noise of the world and tune in to the quiet voice of God in prayer.

2.    We take an honest look at ourselves, go to confession, and repent. Name the fog within us; a cleansed mind “sees things as they are” (St Maximus the Confessor).

3.    We consciously offer acts of mercy. This week, reconcile with one person and relieve one stranger’s burden.

4.    We fill our minds with the Good News. Replace fifteen minutes of scrolling with reading a Gospel chapter or a life of a saint—let’s replace the noise with words of wisdom.

St. Maximus the Confessor said: “The mind that has been purified sees things as they are.”

The early Church did not change the world through violence or coercion. They changed it following Christ and imitating His life. They ministered to the sick, forgave their persecutors, fed the poor, and welcomed the stranger. They saw Christ in the other. That’s how they overcame the confusion of the world.

Let’s do the same. Let our lives be shaped by following the Master and imitating Him. “In our times,” St. Paisios offers, “God is asking for silent heroism, for inner struggle, for love without limits.”

May we walk with that kind of clarity. And in a world filled with noise and confusion, may others see in us the quiet, radiant truth of Jesus Christ.