Category: Aesthetics

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
The Ecstasy of Knowing God

Consciousness is something of a constant in our lives (even when we sleep there is a level of consciousness). We do not think about it very often – since it is simply our awareness of the world outside (as well as the world inside). It is not what we are a ware of – it is…

March 11, 2014
Singing and Dancing through Great Lent

I grew up in a rural American Protestant culture. In many ways there was a level of piety that was beneficial. God’s name, particularly the name of Christ, was held in great reverence. Stores closed on Sundays – and if many people used the afternoon for recreation – most used the morning to attend Church.…

March 8, 2014

I can only speak of God as I know Him in Christ crucified. Apart from that, the conversation becomes an…

Ook, That the earliest community of Christians in Jerusalem held all things in common was certainly a response to the…

Fr. Stephen wrote: “If you do this sort of thing for a good number of decades, and couple it with…

The focus of this blog is on spiritual aspects, but I would emphasize that aphesis (ἄφεσις) in Luke 4:18 translates…

I think the idea that we have no expectations of God is mythologizing our own virtue. We do expect that…