Month: July 2008
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The Endless Knowledge of God
How often are we brought up short, incapable of understand His will. His first and last thought for us. We do not easily abandon ‘our ways’ and with enormous difficulty search out ‘His ways’. The instant it seems to us that now I begin to see…He demonstrates how immeasurably distant He is. My soul is…
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The Soul In Prayer
Vast numbers of people with no experience of the beneficial action of prayer do not know that a world of indescribably magnitude is disclosed to the spirit of man through prayer. Prayer unfolds both the dark depths of hell and the luminous heavenly spheres. Without faith in the resurrection almost all suffering is without meaning,…
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Many Thanks for your Support
As the ministry of Glory to God for All Things continues to grow, I give thanks to readers who read, comment, and share with others what they find useful. Tonight or tomorrow we will have logged 800,000 visits to the site, a very gratifying number. I recently added a “flag count” to the blog, which…
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Our Capacity for Love – An Update
An earlier form of this article appeared in 2007. Our first child was born over 27 years ago. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by the event – staggered at the seriousness of what had happened in my life. Evey aspect of her coming into our life was new – and I felt completely unprepared. On her…
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Good Without Any Effort
A Hermit said, “We fail to make progress because we do not comprehend our capacity. We weary of the work we have started. We want to be good without making any effort.” From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers There is a popular cultural statement, “I’m only human,” that serves to make excuse for our…
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Seeking God
If I seem to avoid Church arguments on this blog site, there is a reason. For one, debates between Orthodox and Roman Catholics (or Orthodox and others) are interminable and unresolvable on the level of the internet. Most of us are arguing about things in abstract and are thus engaging in useless arguments. Secondly, it…
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Frederica Mathewes-Green and the Holy Grail
Khouria Frederica Mathewes-Green, a long-time friend and well-known Orthodox writer, has an excellent piece in First Things that I had not seen (it’s almost a year old). A friend sent me a link and I deeply enjoyed the read. It is a creative use of sources that I really appreciate in a writer – someone…
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Reading Recommendations
Having just posted “ten books of influence,” (by request) – I’ve been reflecting on the role of books in the Orthodox life. I’ll start with the story of a brief encounter: During my years as an Anglican priest, I continued to read Orthodox writings, a practice that had begun in college. I worked on “digesting”…
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Ten Books of Influence
It is always difficult to say what has most influenced you when it comes to books. My Orthodox reading began when I was in college and has thus spanned some 35 years or more. I’ve read much outside of Orthodoxy, very little of which I would recommend. But in response to several requests, I’ll give…
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Orthodoxy and the Apocalypse
And Christ said unto them, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts 1:7) We live in difficult times, and for some of us the times are more difficult than others. We also live in a culture of apocalypticism, in which…
This is a wonderful conversation! Father, thank you for your reply; it is beautiful. I’ll add that I IM’d you…