Category: Aesthetics

Leaving Mary Out

Decades ago, when I was in seminary (Anglican), a professor told me that he did not believe in angels. I was surprised and asked him why. He responded that he “did not think they were necessary…that anything angels did could be done by the Holy Spirit…” While this is obviously true, I noted that angels…

August 14, 2014
The Smashers Are Back – Lord Have Mercy

The Smashers are back. The news is carrying photos of the wanton destruction being wrought in the Middle East by ISIS. Churches, Mosques, and human beings are being subjected to a new round of destruction at the hands of one of the most iconoclastic groups to have risen in the past century. One of their…

July 10, 2014
Face to Face – Beholding God

My mind wandered back to these thoughts as I pondered the growing phenomenon of “selfies.” Even the President cannot resist making them. Of course, the “selfie” is the passion-driven distortion of the theology of the face – existence as ego. For the mystery of the face is not to look at myself, but to look…

July 5, 2014
Depth Perception

One of the great blessings of the human brain can be found in its ability to take two things and make them one. We have two eyes, which means they necessarily see things differently. Look at the world with one eye open and switch to the other eye. Things appear to move. Viewing the world…

June 8, 2014
Some Poems for Pentecost

St. Porphyrios said that to become a Christian one needed first to be a poet. This has nothing to do with arranging words, but everything to do with hearing words. Words, like everything else in our world, hide far more than they reveal. God has so arranged His world that its treasure is reserved for those…

June 7, 2014
The Erotic Language of Prayer

The very heart of true prayer is desire, love. In the language of the Fathers this desire is called eros. Modern usage has corrupted the meaning of “erotic” to only mean sexual desire – but it is a profound word, without substitute in the language of the Church. I offer a quote from Dr. Timothy…

May 31, 2014
The Song of A Good Universe

“My whole life is a mess…” I am a priest and I have heard statements to this effect any number of times in my ministry. It usually comes not after a single misfortune, but after multiple problems. It also reflects that the problems have moved beyond their external boundaries and have now become the framework…

May 23, 2014
A Particular Scandal

A character in a Peanuts cartoon once declared, “I love mankind! It’s people I can’t stand!” The statement accurately describes our problems with the particular. It is easy to love almost anything in general – it is the particular that brings problems. Nowhere could this be more true than with God. Speaking about God in the…

May 19, 2014
The Bridegroom and Judgment

Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom. But rouse…

April 14, 2014
The Fullness in Lent

This article keeps coming to mind as I celebrate the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts on these Lenten Wednesdays and Fridays. There is nothing to compare to them in the Christian liturgical world. It’s hard to thinking of fasting in the midst of such a feast. Orthodoxy has a number of “favorite” words – all…

March 18, 2014

Owen, Have a good day. My week has, thus far, been highlighted with the practical efforts (at present) of down-sizing,…

Owen, This idea that other religions is of the devil seems like something a fundamentalist would think. Frankly there is…

Fr. Stephen, I find it to be a natural law that living things need resistance to grow. So, I welcome…

As I read and write dear friends, I sit at the bedside of my dying mother-in-law. She is suffering a…

My comment is belated, but I was just re-reading this article/comments and wanted to add this: Father, in tandem with…