"The most basic illness (of the heart) that the holy elders talk about," Father Maximos began, "is ignorance. In their language, however, ignorance does not mean lack of the right kind of information of the right kind of intellectual knowledge. What they really mean is the heart's ignorance of God. And this lack of direct experience of God renders human beings incapable of knowing what it means to live apart from God. Consequently, they are not conscious of how abysmal their deprivation and predicament is." ...
"What you don't know you don't miss," I added. "I suppose it is analogous to people who are content to live in polluted cities. They are perfectly happy because they have never experienced the clean, fresh air of the mountains and the countryside."...
"...Or It (city water) cannot be compared to the mountain water we have here. But for people who live in the city, their water tastes just fine. So, it is similar to our relationship with God..."
~Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence
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