Please see http://www.monasteryofstjohn.org/documents/abbatialessays/Do_not_react.pdf for the entire discussion:

(Please note this is an Eastern Orthodox view, they do not view original sin the same way as the Western Church)

Amazing, the ability of some simple questions to lay bare our sin:

Loving God

Do I love God? Do I really believe in God, or just go through the motions?
Do I pray, and when I do, do I connect, or is it just mechanical? Do I rush through prayers, Scripture readings, and spiritual literature? Do I seek the will of God in all things? Do I rebel against what I know to be God’s will, and the Christian life? Do I try to be obedient, and constantly surrender my life to God?
Do I go to church, go to confession and communion regularly, keep the fasts?
Do I try to be conscious of God’s Presence, or not?
Do I try to sanctify my life? Or do I give in to temptation easily? Thoughtlessly?

Loving our Neighbor

How do I treat the people around me? Do I allow myself to judge, criticize, gossip about or condemn my neighbor? Do I put people down? Do I look for their faults? Do I condescend and talk down to others?
Do I treat others with kindness, gentleness, patience? Or am I mean, rough and nasty? Do I try to control others, manipulate others?

Do I regard others with love and compassion?
Do I bear anger or resentments against others? Hatred, bitterness, scorn?
Do I use and objectify others for my own pleasure or advantage? For sex, for profit, or for anything else which de-personalizes him/her?
Do I envy and bear jealousy towards my neighbor? Do I take pleasure in his misfortunes?
Do I act thoughtlessly, oblivious to the feelings or conscience of the other? Do I lead my neighbor into temptation intentionally? Do I mock him or make fun of him?
Do I honor the commitments I have made? Marriage vows? Monastic vows? Do I honor my parents? Am I faithful in my relationships? Do I have stability in my commitments? Am I conscious of how my words and actions affect others?

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s