When men search for God with their bodily eyes they find Him nowhere, for He is invisible. But for those who ponder in the Spirit He is present everywhere. He is in all, yet beyond all.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that God cannot be perceived through physical senses and can only be understood spiritually.
Symeon The New Theologian emphasizes that the search for God through physical means is futile, as God is fundamentally invisible and can only be experienced through spiritual contemplation. This understanding implies that the divine is omnipresent and exists beyond material existence, accessible to those who seek deeper wisdom and connection with the spiritual essence of life.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the nature of faith and divine presence.
Through repentance the filth of our foul actions is washed away. After this, we participate in the Holy Spirit, not automatically, but according to the faith, humility and inner disposition of the repentance in which our soul is engaged. For this reason it is good to repent each day as the act of repentance is unending.
When the state intervenes to insure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favor of that doctrine.
He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebecca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers with Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, and in which Amarana Ursula had sewn the tiny clothing for the child, and in that flash of lucidity he became aware that he was unable to bear in his soul the crushing weight of so much past.
They do not want to know that centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.
But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.
What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?
This kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is a place where you can make it if you try. We tell people - we tell our kids - that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, work hard and you can get into the middle class. We tell them that your children will have a chance to do even better than you do. That’s why immigrants from around the world historically have flocked to our shores.
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