But then, how is one to relate to such depths? The task is difficult since they are not a “place” in themselves. One sees the depths, actually, only through those contents which flow from them. This is a condition synonymous with love, which one truly sees only through the acts which demonstrate and incarnate that love. Otherwise, love has no internal content of its own – it is then merely a word.
The task is difficult, to be sure. More than that, it is fearful; “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Heb. 10:31)
And yet we must! Saint John Chrysostom meant this when he said, “Find the door to the inner chamber of your soul, and you will discover the door to the Kingdom of Heaven.”
And again, Saint Ephraim the Syrian knew that God placed in man at creation “all the Kingdom” for which he must dig deeply. Such men know this simple truth: the way “upward” is the way “inward.”
We explore, then, the part that we can play in discovering just what it is that flows from these depths, revealing to us God’s presence in whose image we are formed. It is, after all, from this deepest level of our self, that we can also exclaim, “Out of the depths have I cried.”
Metropolitan Philip