Category: Mystical Theology

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • The Useless God

    The statement, “God is useless,” is, undoubtedly, sure to strike someone as an insult, not a statement of a faithful believing Christian (much less, a priest). That reaction tells me much about how we feel about the word, “useless,” rather than how we feel about God. In current American parlance, “useless,” is mostly a term…

  • The Tradition of Being Human

    Being human is a cultural event. No one is human by themselves and no one becomes human without the help of those around them. This is so obvious it should not need to be stated, but contemporary human beings often imagine themselves to be their own creation. The exercise of individual freedom is exalted as…

  • The Icon of Music

    Orthodox theology is a “seamless garment”: no part of Orthodox doctrine, worship, prayer or life stands in a category of its own. Everything refers and reveals the one thing in Christ – our salvation. Even the doctrine of the Trinity, as utterly sublime as it is, remains a matter revealed for our salvation. Because this…

  • 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…

  • And They Disappeared – Extreme Humility

    Sometime in the year 421 or 530, an utterly obscure woman from Egypt fell asleep in the desert of the Holy Land. Her burial place was intentionally unmarked and remains unknown. However, every year in the Orthodox Church, she is remembered by the name of Mary of Egypt and her life (written by St. Sophronios…

  • The Abyss of Non-Being – And a Cup of Tea

      “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10 “Stand on the edge of the abyss and when you feel that it is beyond your strength, break off and have a…

  • Following a Conversation with a Tree

    “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which…

  • Things I Learned in a Mirror

    In my morning mirror, my father’s face stares back at me. As a child, people would say, “You look like your father.” I couldn’t see it, except that my ears were shaped like his. I had no idea that the ears whispered my destiny. The notion that there is something within us that sets the…


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  1. Thank you, Fr. Stephen. This reminds me of the difference between a real artist and someone who is just technically…

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