Author: Anna

On prayer, pp. 82-85 (part II)

When St. Silouan hears the account of a soldier who claims that his life was saved in a battle because he prayed, he immediately believes him. He could tell “by the attitude of his body,” that “he had been utterly wrapped up in God.”

True prayer, then, is not achieved through just the right words or posture but by our willingness to be completely “wrapped up in God” – oblivious to the world, the chores that we cram in our “to do” lists, the stories of future glory we fantasize about and the resentments and hurt feelings that dominate our thoughts.

This is why St. Silouan writes:

Uninterrupted prayer is born of love, but fault-finding, idle talk and self-indulgence are the death of prayer.

Understanding this concept, however, does not enable us to pray with our heart. Another danger awaits us.

Have you ever found yourself so eager to experience a state of ecstatic love for God that you become impatient and try to bring about the outcome on your own? Have you ever had such a yearning for total union with Him– a soul totally “wrapped up in God,” free of mundane worries and anxieties – that you “will” this state to happen, pushing yourself to feel strong emotions or mistaking sentimentality for true connection with God?

St. Silouan knows this temptation well and reminds us:

Some are there who have injured their heats in their efforts to force their minds to pray in their hearts, so much so that afterwards they were unable to say the words of their prayers with their lips either.

This is because by forcing our agenda about when to experience a prayer of the heart, we are following our own will and only listening to our own voice.

“A man is beguiled by listening to his own self…” Silouan says.

The prayer of the heart does not come about through our own will but from God when we have emptied ourselves of worldly attachments, are humble and submissive to Him.

The Lord loves us and in his mercy, he gives us prayer …God bestows His gifts on the simple, lowly and obedient soul

Chapter “On Prayer,” pp.79-82

I always thought of prayer as an act, within a finite space and time. That is, “always” until I read this chapter by St. Silouan.

‘He who loves the Lord,” he tells us, “is always mindful of Him, and remembrance of God begets prayer.”

“Always mindful” implies a continuous state of mind and relationship with God. You no longer need designated times to talk to God—when you attend church or it is time for your morning prayers. Prayer has become a habit and part of your life. Your mind and heart are always full of His presence while you walk, lie down, talk, work, shop or watch TV.

This means that, instead of searching for ways to render our prayer perfect, we must strive to cultivate a “prayerful mind;” a mind that is “intent on God and in humbleness of spirit stands before the face of the Lord, who knoweth the soul of him who prays.”

To get there we first need a guide. Humility and submission are prerequisites of true prayer. Reliance on our own resources puts our own will above all else and allows it to become a barrier between us and God.

Our distance from God, and a truly prayerful mind, starts with judgment. Since we hear only our own voice on what “feels” right, what the right approach is, whom to trust and whom to forgive, we constantly judge others.

Like C.S Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters,” this chapter offers us glimpses of the gradual erosion of trust and inner peace as judgment replaces submission. What if I know more about prayer than my priest confessor? “My confessor lacks experience and is occupied with vain things.” How can I let him guide me? I can’t respect a man with a dull intellect. I, on the other hand, am a very insightful and erudite person. Why can’t I learn through books?”

St. Silouan is unequivocal about what humility and submission to God are. Even if our confessor lacks the qualities we believe are necessary in a spiritual guide, he tells us, accepting his guidance gives us the humility and serenity that will enable us to enter into union with God and partake of his mercy.

After all, St. Silouan reminds us, we are not alone. “…The Holy Spirit dwells in your confessor and he will tell you what is right.”

Cutting off the temptation of judging others and eliminating the anguish of being the sole “experts” and drivers of outcomes, brings peace.  It is in this peace that we recognize our true kinship with God and our desire for union with Him grows.

My soul yearns after the Living God, and my spirit strains toward Him, my Heavenly Father, my kin.

The narrative here shifts from the external—criticisms of our confessor, theories, reliance on books—to the internal region of the heart, from description to exclamation, from rules about prayer to the state of a prayerful mind.

The Lord made us his Kin by the Holy Spirit. The Lord is dear to the heart—He is our joy and gladness, and our firm hope.

When our mind is prayerful, prayer brings more peace and complete reconciliation.

He who prays aright has the peace of God in his soul…The man of prayer should feel tenderly toward every living being. The man of prayer loves all men and has compassion for all, for the grace of the Holy Spirit has taught him love.

When prayer is a continuous state of mind, and takes place in our hearts, there are no unreconciled contradictions and conflicting allegiances.

Though we recognize and castigate wrongs, we still love and pray for our enemies. Our relationship with God is not one-dimensional and one-sided – from high to low and low to high. We can now love God, not only out of fear but because we recognize our kinship with Him and long to be one with Him.

Our prayer is no longer limited to place and time. It transforms our vision of ourselves and relationship with the world. It expands us and effaces limits.

For the man who prays in his heart, the whole world is a church.

From the chapter, On the Will of God and on Freedom, pp, 72-78

St. Silouan talks about two paradoxes: giving free reign to your own will leads to enslavement, and, conversely, submitting to God results in the only true freedom that you can experience.

Let’s break down what St. Silouan defines as “slavery” and “true freedom.”

• Exercising your will and enjoying the “quick fix” of removing inconvenient restraints brings about momentary relief without halting the tyranny of lingering resentments, obsessive and circular thinking, fear, and anxiety.

Submission to God’s will, on the other hand, lifts us above the quagmire of self-preoccupation that sinks us deeper and deeper into isolation from God and despair. It purifies and calms our souls and unites us with God.

The man who is given over to the will of God is occupied only with God. The grace of God helps him to continue in prayer. Though he may be working or talking his soul is absorbed in God because he has given himself over to God’s will wherefore the Lord has him in His care.

• I know when I have truly distanced myself from God by the increased turmoil within me: impatience and irritability towards others; focusing on losses or fantasy over what I already have; unflattering comparisons between my life and that of others; discontent; mourning over speculations of what might have been or rehashing perceived insults against me—with each new recollection fueling a fresh wave of anger.

Submission to God frees us from the oppression of this treadmill of passions and brings us serenity, joy and union with God.

When the Holy Spirit dwells in us it feels like we have paradise within us.

• There is an image I recall from a book or movie. It is of a mother waiting for her son to arrive from China at an airport. She is so worried about his safety that she comes up with a sort of mental exercise of continuously visualizing the airplane staying in the air and landing safely. She is afraid to interrupt her visualization even for one minute from fear that the airplane might crash without it.

Relying on our own will and resources gives the same delusion that, were it not for our efforts—worries, advice, interference, anxiety etc.—our world would collapse. Like the mother in this example, we are weighed down by the burden we take on of “holding the airplane in the air” through sheer will power, and become exhausted.

There is no empty space for God in a soul that is consumed by the effort of controlling what is not within its control and exhausted by its futile endeavors. It is a soul that is unable to experience inner peace, rejoice over what it has or pray.

Giving ourselves to the will of God frees us from the delusion of willing the airplane to remain in the air, allows us clarity, serenity and true prayer.

But the man who is entirely given to the will of God can pray with a pure mind, his soul loves the Lord, and he finds everything pleasant and agreeable.

The man who is given over to the will of God is occupied only with God. The grace of God helps him to continue in prayer. Though he may be working or talking his soul is absorbed in God because he has given himself over to God’s will wherefore the Lord has him in His care.

• Holding on to grudges, judging the magnitude of others’ sins and deciding whom we are willing to forgive and who is unforgivable is another way that we allow our will to place a burden on us—appointing ourselves to be judges and becoming saddled with the unbearable weight of hatred and resentment.

Forgiveness of others and God’s forgiveness of us is fundamental to submission to God.

• Cleary we cannot submit ourselves to God, and abandon the illusion of control, without humility.

I learned that freedom is with God and is given of God to humble hearts who have repented and sacrificed their will before Him

What blocks us from true freedom is pride. St. Silouan laments for the human condition of pride and the sorrow of losing paradise because of it. All he can affirm is the eternal longing for God and the glimpse he offers of paradise regained through submission.

Though man lives on earth…in his love for God he forgets everything that is of this world. But our trouble is that through the pride of our mind we do not continue in this grace, and so grace forsakes us , and the soul seeks it, weeping and sobbing and saying:

“my soul longs for the Lord”

“It is a great good to give oneself up to the will of God,” St. Silouan tells us.

What does submission to God really mean?

For one thing, it is manifested through the absence of fear and loss of anxiety, St. Silouan explains.

Resistance to God’s will is the result of pride; the delusion that we can handle everything through our own will and resources.

The proud man does not want to live according to God’s will. He likes to be his own master and does not see that man wisdom enough to guide himself without God.

This is how Silouan lived before he came to know God through the Holy Spirit. Once he submitted his will to God’s, however, his entire orientation to life changed:

My soul submitted to God and now I accept every affliction that befalls me and say: ‘The Lord looks down upon me. What is there to fear?’ …”

Is complete submission to God mere fatalism then? What emerged from our discussion was a resounding “no.”

Fatalism, we decided, was nothing but false serenity while true submission resulted in inner peace through union with God. Fatalism is stasis while submission is a continuous and dynamic journey of ascendance. Fatalism implies resignation and indifference while submission to God’s will is hope and love

Submission to God is not simply tolerating suffering. It gives us deep understanding of the will of God and, hence, the ability to see the world through His eyes and become united with Him.

 The most precious thing in the world is to know God and understand his will, even if only in part.

Fatalism implies surrender to random and arbitrary forces. Submission to God’s will implies the ability to discern God’s presence, love and divine plan behind everything, even pain, illness and hardship. It gives us inner peace found through union with God rather than resignation. The universe is neither random nor indifferent but replete with God’s love. In all circumstances the man who lives according to God’s will “knows that the Lord in his mercy is solicitous for us.”

The inability to discern and submit to God’s will is caused by pride. Pride and reliance on our own will is like “a wall of brass between us and God preventing us from coming near to Him   or contemplating His mercy.”

Acceptance of God’s will requires humility– recognition that we don’t have all the right answers; that our script for what life should be is not necessarily correct; that our sense of superiority over others is the result of our self-absorption preventing us from really listening and understanding. Pride—pushing against the grain to re-shape the world according to our will—leaves us exhausted, resentful, and angry. Accepting God’s will, on the other hand, fills us with gratitude and enables forgiveness.

It is good to live according to God’s will. The soul then dwells unceasingly in God, and is serene and tranquil.

Theoretically, we all know that we are God’s children. Theoretically, we understand that we have been fashioned in the image of God. Yet, for most of us this knowledge does not transform our lives or our perception of our role and relationship to God.  What does this kinship with God really mean on a daily level? In this short chapter, Silouan looks at this kinship with new eyes and ponders its true meaning.

God has revealed to us his mysteries. He lives within us “and the sacraments of the church.” He calls us to Him constantly, nurtures us, loves us and has mercy on us. He leads us to “where we can behold His glory” yet very few are able to see it. Most of us do not spend our days filled with awe when we consider the supreme mystery of having been fashioned in His likeness and the privilege of being able to partake of His essence.

This is because, Silouan tells us, man can only behold God’s glory “according to the measure of his love.”

There are three levels of love and hence ability to behold the glory of God and connection with Him:

1. Ardent love: “The more a man loves, the more ardently does he set his face toward God in yearning to be with the beloved Lord and therefore, he will approach the nearer to Him.”
2. Moderate love: “…the man who loves but little will have but little desire for the Lord”
3. Indifference: “and the man who does not love at all will neither wish nor aspire to see the Lord and will spend his life in darkness.”

Silouan weeps for this last category of people who do not know God and, thus, his mercy.

To show us the contrast between those who are near God and those who are deprived of His presence, he juxtaposes the light of the knowledge of God to the darkness of his absence.

Living in darkness is a choice, he tells us. It means that “we have accepted the darkness of the enemy.”

A parallel contrast is that between beauty and ugliness. As individuals pass from the innocence of childhood to the acceptance of darkness, their faces and expressions increasingly reflect the growing anguish and despair of a life without God.

We are, according to Silouan, the creators of our own darkness. He faults pride for choosing to believe that there is no God and that we can find salvation by our own means. We fall in love with our own cleverness and admire the conclusions we’ve reached, not realizing that these thoughts are not indications of brilliance and originality but are sent by the devil. Our perceived freedom from restrictions, rules, hardship and sacrifice is really slavery to darkness.

“If all people on earth,” he tells us, “knew how deeply the Lord loves man their hearts would be filled with love of Christ and Christ’s humility, and they would seek to be like Him in all things.”

“The Lord has made us kin with Him.”  By choosing alienation and faithlessness we squander that gift. By discerning God’s glory, yearning to be one with Him and being always aware of our kinship — “…without rest neither by day nor by night…” — we would never feel empty, desperate or alone.

 “Thus the Lord by the Holy Spirit makes us one family with God the Father.”

pp. 53-63

As if completing a puzzle, St. Silouan adds another piece in the ecosystem of love and union with God. In the previous chapter he addresses Adam and asks for his advice and help in uniting himself to God, as he has done. He now calls upon the Mother of God and all the Saints—also human, like himself, yet living in the presence of God.

In this chapter, he gradually reveals the dynamic nature of love and explores the interrelationship among love, suffering, knowledge, and holiness:

The greatest the love, the greatest the suffering of the soul.

The fuller the love, the fuller the knowledge of God

The more ardent the love the more fervent the prayer

The more perfect the love, the holier the life.

Mary embodies these relationships. Her love for her son was the center of her life. Her suffering was therefore proportionately great. Yet it was this suffering that gave her true knowledge of God and love for His creation. Her love extended to all of us. She is the mother of the apostles, the saints, and all people.

Love is inexorably linked to suffering. The saints rose to sainthood through enormous suffering and repentance. They still experience sorrow for our sins.

Paradise is not static or cut off from humans. St. Silouan wonders how the saints could possibly know about all of our individual lives. He concludes that “…through the Holy Spirit they see too the sufferings of men on earth.”

The Holy Spirit, then, does not seal the saints from humans in a closed, distant paradise. On the contrary, it enables them to experience both heaven and earth through endless love.

“In the kingdom of heaven, the holy saints look upon the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; but through the Holy Spirit they see too the sufferings of men on earth. The Lord gave them such great grace that they embrace the whole world with their love.

St. Silouan told us that when he felt God’s presence in his soul, he immediately started loving others and weeping for their sorrows. “The Holy Spirit,” he tells us in this chapter, “gives His chosen such a wealth of love that their souls are possessed as it were by a flame of desire that all men should be saved and behold the glory of God.”

 It is in fact the Holy Spirit that enables Mary to be in constant relationship with us and “embrace the whole world with their love.”

The goal in our ascent to God is not to enter into a solitary, two-way relationships with Him but to find our role in God’s Holy Assembly:

Thither aspires the soul, to the wondrous holy assembly which the Holy Spirit has gathered together.

It is true that our connection to God is fragile and one single thought can destroy it, but we are not alone. St. Silouan presents us with a universe inhabited by this Holy Assembly and the possibility of our active participation in it.

The saints, he tells us, “are far only from those who have taken themselves away from them.”

St. Silouan, himself, can hear the Mother of God and take comfort in her guidance. His love for her uncovers and reveals to us what was veiled “in her heart in silence.”  He brings other examples of miracles that Saints performed for those who asked for their help.

Love, God’s love, is enabled by the Holy Spirit and becomes the glue that unites fragments into a whole through interconnected and dynamic relationships.

“…if they were to love one another, the world would know freedom from sin; and where sin is absent there is joy and love of the Holy Spirit , in such wise that in all sides everything is pleasing, and the soul marvels that it is all so well within her and praises God.”

pp. 42-46

How is it possible to love God without ever seeing Him?

We do not come to know and love God through physical connection or logical proof, St. Silouan tells us. Instead, God makes himself known to us “by His effect on the soul.”  Silouan spends the last pages of this chapter describing these effects.

When God dwells within us:

• We can understand and experience His mercy, as did St. Silouan. “I did not know this before, but now every day and hour, every minute, I clearly see the mercy of God. The Lord’s mercy gives peace even in sleep, but without God there is no peace in the soul.”

We live at a time when so many of us seem to be filled with “righteous” indignation:  outraged with politicians or an injustice; “fed-up” with situations; angry at others. Last Sunday, Fr. David talked about the danger of being trapped in a cycle of hate. Whether we are simply against something or actively working to demean, demonize and defeat it, we are still defining ourselves through hate.

Now imagine what our experience of the world would be like if we were cognizant of Lord’s love and mercy at every moment of the day, despite sufferings or injustice around us. Hatred and rage cannot take root in a heart filled with gratitude.

•  We are filled with love for others. Our empathy and care for them fills our heart leaving no space for self-pity and self-preoccupation: “The man who has come to know the love of God himself loves the whole world and never murmurs at his fate, for temporary affliction endured for God’s sake is a means to eternal joy.”
•  We are no longer afraid. We experience and believe in God’s love and mercy. Without it, we do not believe in God’s love for us and are incapable of finding rest within it. We think God is “forgetful” of us and despair of our salvation
• We experience peace and joy. “The Lord gives peace even in sleep, but without God there is no peace in the soul.”
• We surrender to God’s will and no longer exhaust ourselves in trying to fashion perfection on our own: “The soul that has surrendered humbly to God’s will invisibly beholds God in every second, yet finds no words for it…”

 Union with God transcends words and human intelligence. Our human capabilities can take us only so far. To advance beyond this point, we need the help of the Holy Spirit.

We must, therefore, be willing to accept our own limitations and humble ourselves, shifting from our own intellectual constructs to prayer and surrender.

“We must not argue about faith but only pray to God and His Mother, and the Lord will enlighten us…” 

Without this leap into faith beyond understanding, we will remain on the surface, running in circles, without ever reaching our destination of union with God.

Just as we know God’s presence through His effect on our soul, we also know his absence through the darkness that his departure leaves.

“Where art Though my Light? Where art Though my joy?”

A soul that is bereft of God’s presence:

• Is filled with fear and anger as it is unable to experience God’s love and mercy
• Sees knowledge as a material end unto itself–a source of pride and separation from others it deems inferior. Humility and love enable us to see others as complete human beings rather than as props for our pride, without reducing them to component parts–intellect, wealth, physical appearance, etc.
•  Is anguished and unable to find peace or to rest on solid ground: “ The soul that is not humble and has not surrendered herself to the will of God cannot come to know anything but flits from one idea to another and never prays with an undistracted mind or glorifies the majesty of God.”
•  Is tormented by circular, obsessive thinking and is unable to have empathy for, or provide comfort to, others: “…but we are not humble and therefore we torment ourselves and those we live among.”

 Yet St. Silouan does not juxtapose knowledge against experience. He contrasts, instead, knowledge without humility and help from God against knowledge achieved through the help of the Holy Spirit.

“Without the Holy Spirit men go astray, and though they study endlessly they cannot learn to know God and have not discovered what it is to rest in Him”

Pp. 37-42

“My soul yearns after God, and I seek him in tears,” writes St. Silouan in both chapters.

Having been granted knowledge of God by the Holy spirit, St. Silouan knows the darkness that befalls the soul from which the presence of God has departed, as he describes in his chapter on love:

But now my soul is overspread with melancholy, and I am unable to lift an undistracted mind to God, and I have no tears wherewith to bewail my evil deeds; my soul is withered away and spent with the night of this life.

So, what is the nature of the love he yearns for? What was missing when the Holy Spirit no longer enabled him to know God and experience His love?

St. Silouan uses the theme of forgetfulness to allow us a glimpse into the state of complete union with God and divine love.

The first kind of forgetfulness refers to the complete and continuous abandonment in the love of God.

Though imperfect humans fall into and out of grace and love, when God enters “our soul is drawn to pray unceasingly and cannot even for a moment forget the Lord.”

Complete love is not a part-time occupation. It is not a feeling we indulge in when we don’t feel pressured or busy with our activities, after we have had adequate “me” time to pamper ourselves, when we are not depressed, sick, worried or unemployed. God and his love are always present and focal. They become the only lens through which we see and experience the world:

But the soul that has come to know the Lord in the Holy Spirit is pierced by His love and cannot forget Him…Blessed is the soul that knows her Creator and has grown to Love Him, for she has found perfect rest in Him

The second kind of forgetfulness is the abandonment of worldly attachments.

The Lord’s love is an ardent love and allows no thought of the earth

It is only when we “forget the earth for the sweetness of the love of God” that we are able to keep God in sight as a constant.

The Holy Spirit is love St. Silouan tells us. Yet this love is fragile. It can be easily “lost to us with the approach of pride and conceit, enmity, fault-finding and envy,” in short, any attachment to worldly things. Unless we “forget” the earthly things, it is impossible to fulfill our yearning for God. We will not be able to fill our souls with His presence if our thoughts and actions are preoccupied by passions.

Concerns such as those over our success, reputation, revenge, control, managing others’ impressions of us and avoiding looking like fools are all-consuming. They become obsessive preoccupations and encourage us to rely on our own will to achieve the results we want.

Instead of investing effort in impressing others, achieving goals or maintaining appearances, St. Silouan wants us to become like “…those who assume folly for Christ’s sake and are glorified because they overcame the world.”

To know God, we cannot rely on our own resources and will. To expect that our own intelligence, alone, will fulfill our yearning for God is to become “blind and stupid.” Instead, we must stand before Him child-like in humility, emptied of our pride, passions, and worldly attachments:

Humble yourself and you shall know not only the sun but the creator of the sun

Chapter 2, pp. 24-30

From romantic movies, songs and novels to statements of aspiration or sermons, the word “love” is almost commonplace in our lives. It is hard to strip it from all the connotations that immediately jump to mind. Yet to begin to grasp the meaning of God’s perfect love that St. Silouan writes about, we must abandon all knowledge of past usage and start with a blank slate.

The chapter starts, not with definitions or theological arguments, but with lyrical expressions of the state of the soul that are reminiscent of the language of the psalms.

His opening lines talk of the unending craving for God’s love:

My soul thirsts for the living God. Time and again my soul seeks fulness of delight in the Lord

My soul yearns for the Lord and I seek Him in tears.

He follows with the mourning for Go’s love lost and the darkening of one’s soul:

…But now my souls is overspread with melancholy, and I am unable to lift an undistracted mind to God, and I have no tears wherewith to bewail mu evil deeds: my soul is withered away and spent with the night of this life.

O who shall sing me the song that I have loved since the days of my youth—the sing of the Lord’s Ascension into heaven…

He then focuses on the meaning and experience of the fulness of perfect love.

He admits that it is not easy to understand or describe it. For most of us who have heard and used the term repeatedly all our lives, it may be difficult to accept that we really do not understand this concept. Yet St. Silouan maintains that “no man of himself can know what is God’s love, unless he be taught by the Holy Spirit…”  Hence, to even begin to understand, we must go to Him with complete humility “like little children—lowly and meek.”

Love is not a static state. It differs with the individual and his/her state of readiness and spiritual advancement and entails growth. As in the case of knowledge, Silouan speaks of a continuum of love with each level higher than the previous one. The love of those who:

• Fear of sin
• Have a tender heart
• Have a heart that dwells in joy
• Experience grace in body and soul—perfect love

Perfect love is not an addition to other noble attributes or something that we engage in at certain times, perhaps when we don’t feel stressed out, exhausted or absorbed by our work. It is a constant and all-consuming state of the soul.

“The soul that is fillest with love for God,” Silouan tells us, “is forgetful of both heaven and earth…” Even good thoughts or deeds are superseded by the love of God. No other thought can exist within us, no inner struggles or conflicts can derail us any longer.

...and the soul sheds many sweet tears and is unable to forget the Lord for a single second, for the grace of God gives strength to love the Beloved.

Perfect love purifies us and excises all passions, such as fear:

The sinful soul which does not know the Lord fears death, thinking that the Lord will not forgive her, her sins.

Perfect love is not simply a private and closed relationship between a person and his God. On the contrary, freed from worldly passions, we see the world and fellow men through new eyes. As soon as St. Silouan was able to experience the love of God, he suddenly looked at others as he had never looked at them before and his heart was filled with empathy and care for them.

By the grace of God I have experienced what the love of God is and what it is to love my neighbor; and day and night I pray the Lord for love, and the Lord gives me tears to week for the whole world. But if I find fault with any man or look on him with an unkind eye my tears dry up and my soul sinks into despondency.

God’s perfect love opens the world wide-open. Because we are not separated from it through fear, jealousy, hatred, desire to impressed or manipulate, we can embrace it and be one with it through love.

The Lord bestows such grace in His chosen that they embrace the whole earth, the whole world, with their love, and their souls burn with longing that all men should be saved and behold the glory of the Lord.

Instead of separation and alienation we feel that “If the Lord is ours, then all things are ours. That is how rich we are.”

Our happiness does not depend on prioritizing our needs over those of others, fighting for “me” time or “pampering ourselves.”  This is why, ever since God gave him the Holy Spirit and through it the knowledge of God’s love, he grieved over “God’s people.”

Blessed is the soul that loves her brother, for our brother is our life.

And my soul weeps for the whole world