If you’re still looking for a New Year’s resolution, you couldn’t do better than to try the best-known instruction of a 19th-century Russian monk named Seraphim of Sarov: “Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and thousands around you will be saved.” Far from naive, religious fluff or spiritual psychobabble, these words of a forest-dwelling hermit who became one of the most revered saints of Orthodox Christianity are eminently practical. For example, I try (and often fail) to remember them when I turn on the news or pick up a paper, and find myself assaulted by the abundant evidence of the Fall. It’s so easy to become cynical as a result of the darkness one encounters, even second-hand through media, that I’ve actually fasted from news as much as possible ever since Advent began. One could say I’m burying my head in the sand to avoid the “real world.” Yet I challenge whether the news presents an accurate, proportioned view of reality. And I assert that my abstinence, an effort to follow St. Seraphim’s advice, is actually very real world. Because in the face of wars, shootings and the fascination with obscenity that can be brought to my living room each night,