Category: Knowledge of God
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The Light of Christ and the Transfiguration
My attention was drawn to the event of the Transfiguration during my college years. It was then that I first read a book on St. Seraphim of Sarov, who himself was transfigured in a famous incident in his conversation with Motivilov. There, on a snowy winter’s day, the saint shown with a brilliant light, and…
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Praying God Within Us
As a follow up to my last post (God Within Us), I offer this ancient prayer. Most people are probably familiar with it, and some may very well use it in their daily prayers. It began to appear in Orthodox books of prayer over the past few decades, reflecting a rediscovery of the Orthodox Church…
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The Importance of Failure
Everybody fails. Imagine sitting in a classroom and being told at the beginning of the term that everyone in the class will fail. There would probably be a dash to the registrar’s office in order to drop the class. But, imagine again, that dropping the class is not an option. You are going to take…
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It Is Good to Be Here
A few days ago, after hearing a very distressing bit of social news, I found myself saying, “I don’t want to be here anymore.” It was a voice of despair and sadness. The occasion had been a public altercation in which a stranger spat at a woman. It was the sort of thing that belongs…
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The Quiet Centrality of Healthy Shame
“For there is a shame that brings sin; and there is a shame which is glory and grace.” (Sirach 4:21) I have written previously about shame (and will continue) and its importance in our life. Despite the crippling effects of shame in its toxic form, shame also has an important healthy aspect that is necessary…
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Life as a Creator (or sub-creator)
The first time I heard the suggestion that human beings should think of themselves as “co-creators” with God was in a liberal, mainline, seminary (Episcopal). This was in the 1970’s. The meaning at the time was something of a mish-mash of culture-notions that was little more than a way of underwriting the myth of cultural…
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Good Friday and Unbelief
Christmas and Easter are often difficult days for those who do not believe in God. Christians are more public about their faith than at other times of the year and this brings with it an annoyance. Christmas bespeaks the birth of God as a human being. Easter bespeaks a resurrection from the dead. For…
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Finding God in the Heart of the Soul
The Prodigal Son is said to have “come to himself” when he was feeding the pigs in a foreign land. Hungry, lonely, having wasted his inheritance, it is said that he envied the pigs for their food. But, what does it mean that he “came to himself?” This is one of the primary stories…
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Everybody is an Expert
The spirit of democracy runs deep in the modern world. I describe this as a “spirit” in that it is clearly a passion, a delusional state of mind in which we imagine something to be true when it is not. One simple example of this delusion is the level of expertise imagined across the…
The Canadian iconographer, Jonathan Pageau, specializes in icon carving. I think it’s an interesting middle ground between paint-on-board iconography and…