Category: Dostoevsky
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Suffer the Children
In 1994, Jonathan Shay wrote a ground-breaking book on war and PTSD, Achilles in Vietnam. Those who have read Timothy Patitsas’ The Ethics of Beauty will be familiar with some of his observations. Shay worked directly with veterans who were struggling with the emotional consequences of their war experience and the process of their healing.…
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Forgiveness for All the Sundays to Come
I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the “whole Adam.” By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. For Silouan and Sophrony, this was…
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Can You Forgive Someone Else’s Enemies?
My thoughts have been drawn to this topic any number of times in the past few days. As we near the anniversary of the tragic events of 911, I see plaintive postings of that day saying, “Never forget” (or words to that effect). The Orthodox faith teaches us that the remembrance of the departed should…
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The Kingdom Within
In December of 1849, the Russian author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, stood waiting his turn for execution, having been found guilty of plotting against the Russian Tsar. At the last minute, under instructions from the Tsar, the sentence was commuted from death, to four years in a Siberian prison. Later that day, Dostoevsky wrote a famous letter…
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Forgiveness and the Whole Adam
I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the “whole Adam.” By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. For Silouan and Sophrony, this was…
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An Unnecessary Existence
In Dostoevsky’s The Demons, the character, Kirillov, is insanely fascinated with freedom. He cannot bear the fact that he did not choose his own existence. Life is a “given.” In what must be seen as a parable of the radical thought of the 19th century, Kirillov determines to kill himself, the only act of true…
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A Single Moment
Grushenka, a character in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, relates a now-famous fable about an old woman: Once upon a time there was a woman, and she was wicked as wicked could be, and she died. And not one good deed was left behind her. The devils took her and threw her into the lake…
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Can the Middle-Class Be Saved?
Speaking to His disciples, Christ said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mk. 10:25) Doubtless, most modern Christians take comfort from the fact that they are not rich. Over the centuries, the eyes of needles…
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Food for the Soul
I recently sat in on a meeting between my bishop and a young man looking to attend seminary. After getting the bishop’s approval, he asked a wise question: “What should I be reading to prepare?” I was as interested in the answer as he was. “Read good literature,” was the answer. This advice came from…
Fr. Stephen, “I sometimes think of the scene in The Silver Chair (CS Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia), where the children…