Category: Mystical Theology
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The Nature of Being Human
“Human nature” is a term that can have a casual meaning in any number of conversations. I recently listened to a discussion with an academic professional who made the statement that “anyone who failed to understand that human nature was evil would never understand the lessons of history.” From the perspective of Orthodox theology –…
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The Eye of Evil and the Eye of Light
Throughout the film version of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the image of the “Eye of Sauron,” a tower with a great fiery eye burning at its peak, is an abiding threat overhanging every moment of conflict, every chance encounter. It threatens to interrupt the quest to destroy the Ring of Power. It is an…
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Behold Your Mother
Christ’s words from the Cross to St. John, “Behold your mother,” are both an intimate whisper of a son’s care for his most beloved as well as a cosmic directive to the whole of humanity and creation. This woman is Woman – and her significance abides and will not fade. She points us towards the…
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Blood Brothers of the Incarnation
My childhood in the 1950’s had the innocence of the time, fed by stories of our elders and the clumsy movies. We played soldiers (everyone’s father had been in the Second World War) and “Cowboys and Indians.” Despite the clear bias of the movies and the slanted propaganda that passed for history, almost everyone wanted…
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Love and Being
Perhaps the most intriguing statement in the New Testament is St. John’s simple, “God is love.” As mysterious and awesome as the revelation of the Divine Name (“I am that I am”) to Moses might be, St. John’s statement gives a content that echoes and infolds the death and resurrection of Christ itself. Indeed, any…
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A Beautiful Heart – The Acquisition of Grace
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Phil 4:8 +++ Some people tell me that they are scandalized because they see many things wrong in the…
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The Space Between
Is there a God “out there”? God is “everywhere present and filling all things,” we say in our Orthodox prayers, but is He “out there?” For what it’s worth, I want to suggest for a moment that He is not. Largely, what I am describing is what takes place in our imagination – that is,…
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Nostalgia for Paradise
This is an excerpt from the small book, Nostalgia for Paradise, by Dr. Alexander Kalomiros. It’s good for the soul. When the ascetical life of a Christian and the privations that he imposes upon himself are beyond the measure of grace that he has been given, a void is created in his soul. Either it…
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Contradiction and Paradox
The following quote is taken from a letter by Mother Thekla (sometime Abbess of the Monastery of the Assumption in Normanby, England) to a young man who was entering the Orthodox faith. Some of her comments drew my attention. I add this note: this article was written and published on the blog in January of…
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Worshipping a Weak and Foolish God
This is a reprint of an article that is deeply apropos of the present conversation on the blog. I offer it within that context. I cannot begin to measure the amount of time I have spent over the years in conversations about the “problem of evil.” That problem, in short, is the impossibility of reconciling…
Michelle, I think that grace alone can make suffering to be good. May God give us all grace!