Category: Mystical Theology
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Dust of the Earth
“You are dust, and to dust you shall return…” (Gen. 3:18) Human beings have a fundamental bond with the planet on which we live – we are made of its stuff. We are not made of Mars dirt, or Moon dust, Jupiter gas, or Saturn rings. We are made of earth dust – we always…
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Is Anybody There? Speaking to the Heart
“Talking to you is like talking to a fence post!” I can still hear the words. I don’t remember who said them – but I heard them sometime in my teenage years. The occasion was doubtless some sort of argument. There were many things to argue about: Love, Peace, War, Jesus, Drugs, Sex, Rock ‘n…
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Passionately Drunk
The Philokalia, that wonderful collection of writings by the fathers on prayer of the heart, has as its full title, The Philokalia of the Neptic Saints gathered from our Holy Theophoric Fathers, through which, by means of the philosophy of ascetic practice and contemplation, the intellect is purified, illumined, and made perfect. Little wonder it is…
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The Incomprehensible God
In ’03 there was a small Indy film, Dopamine. The story involves a young computer programmer who is part of a small tech start-up in the Bay Area developing an artificially-lived computer character. The cartoon-like bird, can “hear,” “see,” and “interact,” with the user. The tech company manages to place its prototype in a children’s…
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What We Really Want
One of the great misunderstandings of our modern world centers around the place of the “will” in our lives. Modern democracies are built around slogans of freedom and fancy themselves to be the vanguard of advancing that cause. It has been a powerful force. Coupled with various aspects of free-market capitalism and the technological revolutions…
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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 of…
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The Erotic Language of Prayer
The very heart of true prayer is desire, love. In the language of the Fathers this desire is called eros. Modern usage has corrupted the meaning of “erotic” to only mean sexual desire – but it is a profound word, without substitute in the language of the Church. I offer a quote from Dr.…
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Before the Judgment Seat of Christ
For a Christian ending to our life: painless, unashamed, and peaceful; and a good defense before the dread judgment seat of Christ, let us ask of the Lord. From my childhood, I have memories of the phrase, “Great White Throne of Judgment.” It comes complete with an abundance of frightening images and threats. It is…
Byron, My primary thought is that it our communion with Christ is given in and through His “broken” Body and…