Glory to God For All Things

Category: Aesthetics

  • Look Who’s Talking

    In the Transfiguration, Christ is seen speaking with Moses and Elijah on the top of a mountain, shimmering with a light of unbearable brightness. It is an event unlike anything else in the gospels, deserving the Great Feast that is associated with it. That Christ is seen speaking with Moses and Elijah is itself an…

  • A Beautiful Heart – The Acquisition of Grace

    Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Phil 4:8 +++ Some people tell me that they are scandalized because they see many things wrong in the…

  • Everything is in Motion

    For years I have been told that the meaning of the word hamartia (translated “sin”) means “to miss the mark.” This is certainly accurate. However, the image I have always had in mind has been an arrow aimed at a target and missing the bull’s eye. Thus I have thought of my life as a moral effort…

  • The Useless God

    The statement, “God is useless,” is, undoubtedly, sure to strike someone as an insult, not a statement of a faithful believing Christian (much less, a priest). That reaction tells me much about how we feel about the word, “useless,” rather than how we feel about God. In current American parlance, “useless,” is mostly a term…

  • Again and Again

    I was visiting a hospice patient back around 2000. The home was quite modest as was the woman who was the subject of my visit. We had conversations that ranged over her life and her family – the things that mattered most for her in her last days. The climax of our time together came…

  • The Tide of Faith

    Dover Beach – (Matthew Arnold, 1867) The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from…

  • The Peaches of Paradise

    The parish to which I have retired, St. John of the Ladder in Greenville, SC, has the extreme blessing of an iconographer-in-residence. The Church was built but a few years ago, and has slowly seen its walls frescoed. It is a place of beauty. Serving in the altar, I find that my eyes are frequently…

  • The Icon of Music

    Orthodox theology is a “seamless garment”: no part of Orthodox doctrine, worship, prayer or life stands in a category of its own. Everything refers and reveals the one thing in Christ – our salvation. Even the doctrine of the Trinity, as utterly sublime as it is, remains a matter revealed for our salvation. Because this…

  • Following a Conversation with a Tree

    “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which…

  • Things I Learned in a Mirror

    In my morning mirror, my father’s face stares back at me. As a child, people would say, “You look like your father.” I couldn’t see it, except that my ears were shaped like his. I had no idea that the ears whispered my destiny. The notion that there is something within us that sets the…

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Latest Comments

  1. Drewster, if I could “heart” your comment I would. Thank you!

  2. Mallory, It should be noted that this passage (and its parallels) are not at all avoided by the Orthodox Church.…

  4. Drewster: Thank you for these comforting thoughts. Very beneficial for me!

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