You should also learn to distinguish the impassioned thoughts that promote every sin. The thoughts that encompass all evil are eight in number: those of gluttony, unchastity, avarice, anger, dejection, listlessness, self-esteem and pride. It does not lie within our power to decide whether or not these eight thoughts are going to arise and disturb us. But to dwell on them or not to dwell on them, to excite the passions or not to excite them, does lie within our power.

In this connection, we should distinguish between seven different terms: provocation, coupling, passion, wrestling, captivity, assent (which comes very close to performance), and actualization. Provocation is simply a suggestion coming from the enemy, like "do this" or "do that," such as our Lord himself experienced when he heard the words, "Command that these stones become bread." Coupling is the acceptance of the thought suggested by the enemy. It means dwelling on the thought and choosing deliberately to dally with it in a pleasurable manner. Passion is the state resulting from coupling ... it means letting the imagination brood on the thought continually. Wrestling is the resistance offered to the impassioned thought.... Captivity is the forcible and compulsive abduction of the heart already dominated by prepossession and long habit. Assent is giving approval to the passion inherent in the thought. Actualization is the putting the impassioned thought into effect once it has received our assent. If we can confront the first of these things, the provocation, in a dispassionate way, or firmly rebut it at the outset, we thereby cut off at once everything that comes after.

These eight passions should be destroyed as follows: gluttony by self-control; unchastity by the desire for God and longing for the blessings held in store; avarice by compassion for the poor; anger by goodwill and love for all men; worldly dejection by spiritual joy; listlessness by patience, perseverance, and offering thanks to God; self-esteem by doing good in secret and by praying with a contrite heart; and pride by not judging or despising anyone in the manner of the boastful Pharisee, and by considering oneself the least of all men. When the intellect has been freed in this way from the passions we have described and been raised to God, it will henceforth lead the life of blessedness, receiving the pledge of the Holy Spirit. And when it departs this life, dispassionate and full of true knowledge, it will stand before the light of the Holy Trinity and with the divine angels will shine in glory through all eternity.

- St John of Damascus

A characteristic of those who are still progressing in blessed mourning is temperance and silence of the lips; and of those who have made progress – freedom from anger and patient endurance of injuries; and of the perfect – humility, thirst for dishonors, voluntary craving for involuntary afflictions, non- condemnation of sinners, compassion even beyond one’s strength. The first are acceptable, the second laudable; but blessed are those who hunger for hardship and thirst for dishonor, for they shall be filled with the food whereof there can be no satiety.

- St John Climacus, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent" (Step 7)

The other day someone said: When Noah became so drunk that he lay naked in his tent, one of his sons ridiculed his father’s nakedness, while the other two walked backwards with a covering to cover their father’s nakedness. The two sons who honoured their father were blessed. The one that did not was cursed.... Everyone is created by God. Only God has the right to judge....

But actually all three sons judged the father. All the sons judged that their father had put himself in a shameful state. Two acted with kindness and modesty to save him from further shame.  One mocked him. They all judged - discerned, evaluated, formed  a judgement about his actions and condition - but two acted with compassion.... and one was cruel.

We need to judge - between right and wrong, better and worse, stop and go - and we are meant to condemn sin. But we are not to condemn the sinner. We are not to write him or her off, and certainly not to take pleasure in the fix they have put themselves in and to relish any comeuppance or painful consequence that comes to them. There are probably only very few situations in which most of us would have any real obligation to insist that the consequences of sin be visited upon the sinner. Parents sometimes do. Magistrates do. Those whose job is to fit remedial, therapeutic or punitive consequences to wrong actions ought to do so without taking pleasure in the fall and suffering of the wrongdoer. For the most part we are called to be kind.

Judgement is an ambiguous term. It has come to mean condemnation, although an actual 'judgement' might be an exoneration or vindication. It can also mean evaluation and discernment. To tell the truth, we need much more - and not less - judgement.

- Chaikhana

Death is the last great taboo.... The fact of death unpicks many of
the truisms by which we live. A detailed survey... from 2003 claimed
that fully 92 per cent of Americans believe in God, 85 per cent
believe in heaven and 82 per cent believe in miracles. But the deeper
truth is that such religious belief, complete with a heavenly
afterlife, brings believers little solace in relation to death. The
only priesthood in which people really believe is the medical
profession and the purpose of their sacramental drugs and technology
is to support longevity, the sole unquestioned good of contemporary
Western life.

If proof were needed that many religious believers actually do not
practice what they preach, then it can be found in the ignorance of
religious teachings on death, particularly Christian teaching....

Christianity is about nothing other than getting ready to die. It is
a rigorous training for death, a kind of death in life that places
little value on longevity. Christianity, in the hands of a Paul, an
Augustine or a Luther, is a way of becoming reconciled to the brevity
of human life and giving up the desire for wealth, worldly goods and
temporal power. Nothing is more inimical to most people who call
themselves Christians than true Christianity. This is because they are
actually leading quietly desperate atheist lives bounded by a desire
for longevity and a terror of annihilation...

- Simon Critchley, The Book of Dead Philosophers