Month: October 2008
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Reading Rightly
The course of your reading should be parallel to the aim of your way of life…. Most books that contain instructions in doctrine are not useful for purification. The reading of many diverse books brings distraction of mind down on you. Know, then, that not every book that teaches about religion is useful for the…
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Without Distraction
A desert hermit, dear to God and often in prayer, was joined by two angels as he walked, one on each side. He tried to pay them no attention. He did not want to be distracted from his conversation with Christ. From the Desert Fathers This is one of the great religious tragedies of our…
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What Can One Man Do?
In our modern world we sometimes forget that a single person is not able to do much on their own. If Wittgenstein was right, then we really can’t do anything on our own. We live, for good or ill, within a culture, within a social matrix that makes most aspects of our life possible. Language…
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Remembrance
St. Macarius said, “If we remember the evil that others have done to us, we shut down our ability to remember God.” From the Desert Fathers Memory is a very powerful thing. The older I get, and the more of my earthly life lies behind me instead of before me, memory becomes indeed powerful. I…
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Me, You and the Other Guy
It has been said that a recession is when someone else loses his job; a depression is when you lose your job. I am too young to remember the Great Depression, though all the adults I knew as a child had come through that period. In 1928, my paternal great-grandfather lost everything (farm, machinery, house,…
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When Money Fails
I know little about economics, perhaps less than most. I do know when I hear scary stuff on television, though I know television likes to scare us (it keeps us watching). Nonetheless, I can’t help but notice that, world-wide, various markets are in a bit of a panic – and if not panic – at…
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The Great Crisis
I wanted to write a bit more on “crisis” following up on my previous article on Dostoevsky, et al. The “Great Crisis,” if I can coin a term, is the threat of non-existence, or relative non-existence. Classical Orthodoxy, following St. Athanasius does not threaten humanity with pure non-existence, but with a dynamic movement towards a…
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Crises, Dostoevsky and the Gospel
There is something of a common thread that runs throughout the novels of Dostoevsky, the 19th century Russian writer: personal crises. Dostoevsky has long been recognized as a genius of psychological perception, writing at a time before psychology was a formal academic discipline. Many of his novels carry a relgious theme, particularly Crime and Punishment…
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The Humility of God
The humility manifested in Christ’s voluntary death on the Cross was not an aberration, but a manifestation of who God is. Humility is divine. St. Silouan offered the following observation: There are many kinds of humility. One man is obedient, and has nothing but blame for himself; and this is humility. Another repents him of…
Holly, The lives of the great writers are often all over the map. Few writers have been as impactful in…