Mastering Watchfulness with the Tactical Pause in Holy Orthodoxy

Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Hello, I'm Father Sebastian. Today I'm

going to talk about something that helps a lot with acquiring what we call in Holy Orthodoxy watchfulness.

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>> We'll save the academic discussion of what watchfulness is for another video perhaps. But in common understanding,

watchfulness pertains to custody over our thoughts usually primarily, but really over everything over our

thoughts, our feelings, our desires, of course, our words and our actions as well. So really watchfulness is the

ability to remember and to tend to all the things that we are inclined to do and actually

do. So why is watchfulness important? Well, it's really the foundation

of everything that we do in the spiritual life in a sense. I mean, this pertains to how we pray, how we worship,

how we engage in difficult situations with others. Really, it's kind of the

baseline of um every one of our thoughts, desires, and actions. It pertains to all of them

and is a necessary part of um sanctifying all of these. So, what is the tactical pause? Where

does it come from? It could be [sighs and gasps] understood best by

um something that professional warriors, military, law enforcement, and the like. What they utilize before

going into a bad situation, you stop and you take sort of a mental account of everything and decide, well,

do I have have all the gear I need? Is my gear up? Is everything working the way it's supposed to? Do I have all my

team members? Is everybody ready to go? It's a way of taking a a mental assessment of the situation and

determining what's necessary um what's most essential to achieve success in that situation.

So how does this apply to the spiritual life? Well, the spiritual life is in one sense like all the rest of our

life. And success in the spiritual life is similar to success in the rest of our life in so far as the same dispositions

and habits are necessary in order to accomplish our goals in a manner that is in accordance with our intentions.

And so the way this applies is before we act, an action in this case also entails

uh engaging in a particular thought, embracing that thought. Obviously words that come out of our mouth. Before we

think or do anything, we stop to consider the ramifications and the consequences, the

potential consequences of this thought or action. And it also pertains really to our our

desires too and our you know our perceptions and the the reaction internally that we have to these.

And so the way it works is when something when you're confronted with a situation, say somebody cuts you

off on the road, right? It happens all the time. People drive very inconsiderately these days.

you stop. You take a tactical pause before you react, before you get angry, before you yell at them in your mind or

in person, you know, in the car or even worse than that, um, [snorts] engage in road rage or something, god forbid, you

stop and think about, is this fit? Does this fit what a Christian would do? Does this fit what

our holy orthodox faith requires of us? Is this God-pleasing? Is this going to lead to a good outcome

for myself, my family, or others? If someone decides to in a situation like that to break check them or to get

aggressive with them, and he knows where that's going to lead, okay? Could lead to an accident, could lead to here in

Arizona, it's unfortunately a common problem of people getting shot, you know? So we don't [snorts] but but even

if none of those things happen, it's still problematic because you have given in to the evil

one. You've given in to your passions. So for the sake of brevity, I'm not going to comment very much on this. It's

a very simple concept. It really just boils down to thinking before you do. When you're inclined to have a thought

about something, stop and consider that thought, before engaging with it. Certainly keep your mouth shut, you

know, before saying whatever comes to mind and all the potential damage and harm that comes to others and yourself

and the relationship between you. So, it's really just a matter of pausing, stopping, considering what

you're about to do before doing it, right? Because remember every one of these things even the thoughts we have

even the desires that arise from these thoughts then come initially from that initial decision

whether to join with the thought or not to embrace the thought or not to embrace the feeling or the desire or not.

So finally dear viewers, let's not forget once again that the things that make us successful, what we perceive to

be successful in the other aspects of our life can often apply as well to the spiritual life. Let's not look at our

spiritual life as disconnected from the rest of our life. I think this is a problem sometimes that orthodox

Christians fall into. They look at their Christian life the the duties that go along with this and their spiritual

activities as somehow independent or separate from the rest of their life. Really we should be one integrated

person and the things that we do should be likewise integrated right we should be

one one person and one set of actions. If you appreciate this content, please head over to my website

technologyofverirtue.com where I have an online community and I do personal counseling and online

courses. Thank you and may the Lord bless you. [music]

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