Category: Culture
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Leaving the Secular Life – Part 2
It is one thing to describe the cultural mix in which we swim and quite another to swim in an opposite direction. One of my favorite icons is a Theophany icon (Christ’s Baptism). In it you can see fish swimming in the water. All of the fish are swimming downstream except one. A single fish,…
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Leaving the Secular Life
The default position of America is secular protestantism. I say this is the default position and mean by it – that without effort and care – we all find ourselves thinking and acting out of a secular protestant mindset. Of course, I need to offer a definition for my terms. By secular protestantism (and I…
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Somethings Have to be Shared
Having posted several times about my son’s wedding last weekend (how could I not?), it seemed only right to post a photo of the young couple (James and Anna). I asked one of my extremely talented, artistic children who had all of the photos in digital form to send me a few wedding pictures this…
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Orthodoxy and the Christ-Haunted Culture of the South
One of my favorite priests in the Diocese of the South is Fr. Paul Yerger who serves Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Clinton, Mississippi. His gentle demeanor and kind words are what I have always associated with the South, though it is rarely witnessed today. I had a chance to visit with him this week…
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Before the Feast
I will not likely get a chance to post until after the weekend – the wedding is coming soon upon us and it’s not local. Bags are being packed – last minute details that seem to be endless are all coming to an end that lack of time alone can bring. When it’s all said…
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The Spirit, the Modern World, Pentecostalism and Orthodoxy
Part of the larger Christian context in which Orthodoxy lives today includes not only Catholics (of various sorts), Protestants (of even more sorts), but Pentecostals as well (of which there are quite a few sorts). Indeed, having come splashing onto the modern religious scene around 1900, Pentecostals have been by far the fastest growing of…
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The Wonder of Communion
Despite the title, this post is not directly, or at least not yet about the Mystery of Holy Communion. Instead it begins first with the mystery of communion that can only take place when other persons are about. For yet the third time in my family’s life, a child is soon to marry, though this…
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The God Who Is Beautiful
Everything is beautiful in a person when he turns toward God, and everything is ugly when is is turned away from God. Fr. Pavel Florensky I come to the end of a day that has been filled with other activity and little time for writing. But in my reading at bedtime I came across the…
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Things I Never Did for Summer Vacation
I am frequently impressed by the things done by youth these days (yes, they do many positive things). When I was in high-school summer was job time. In college, summer was again, job time. Of course, I had no international connections at the time. One of the youth from our parish, Ryan Erickson, is a…
Couldn’t You save us without being crucified ? I could, but I would show my power. I want to show…