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Originally Posted by Brianna
Yes, I am duly reassured!---Now--can you explain THE WAY OF THE PILGRIM? coz after reading FRANNY AND ZOOEY, I got that book and tried to read it and I think I may have (read it) but I didn't get much out of it. Yeah--it's Russian Mystic shit and it made Franny have a complete breakdown....so....what is the deal with that book?
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Ooooh. I didn't realize that what I thought was a relatively obscure book was referenced in another relatively obscure book.
I'm halfway through it, but it's like this.
There's this Russian peasant, see, and it's like when there were still Tsars and Pogroms and such, and he just kind of wanders around all over. Well, in the first few pages of chapter one he explains that he heard this sermon focused on a passage in First Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians (not one of the more remarkable bits of the New Testament) where Paul says one should "Pray without Ceasing".
Deceptively simple, isn't it?
The Pilgrim, of course, doesn't get it.
So off he wanders until he comes upon an old priest who gives him this book of commentary by Eastern Orthodox mystics and ascetics called the
Philokalia (The Love of Spiritual Beauty). He learns from this book that he should repeat the "Jesus Prayer" thousands of times per day. Ways of working up to the recommended total are provided.
The old priest dies, and the Pilgrim spends the rest of the book wandering from place to place, finding other people from a variety of social strata (from other peasants to very wealthy landed gentry) who coincidentally are ALSO endlessly repeating the Jesus Prayer, or he talks folks into doing so to enrich their spiritual lives. He has many encounters which at first glance seem coincidental, but in which he certainly sees the hand of God at work.
And he eats a lot of bread.