Category: Mystical Theology
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God’s Tattoos
Call me a Boomer. Among the more surprising developments across my nearly seven decades of life is the now widespread practice of tattooing. As a child in the 50’s, the only tattoos I ever saw were on the occasional sailor, and we rarely saw many of them. Indeed, I don’t think there was a tattoo…
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Worshipping a Weak and Foolish God
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 an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God with the presence of suffering, injustice, and evil in the world. Those conversations often involve listening to a deeply…
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Me and My Bible
How do you feel about the Scriptures? What thoughts come to you as you read? Do they comfort you or challenge you? Do you love them or wrestle with them? Does God speak to you in them or are they opaque and bothersome? My primary relationship with the Scriptures as I was growing up was…
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The Wisdom of Man and the Foolishness of God
The Feast of the Nativity, known sometimes in Orthodoxy as “the Winter Pascha,” is one of the great examples in the story of our salvation where the “foolishness of God” defeats the wisdom of man. It is not the story of an underdog defeating the mighty, but a revelation of who God is, and who…
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The Doors and God
You cannot attend an Orthodox service and not be aware of doors. There are the doors that form the center of the icon screen, opening directly upon the altar. There are the two doors that flank them, one on either side, known as the “Deacon Doors.” Someone always seems to be coming out of one…
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Whose Psyche Is It, Anyway?
When we discuss our psychological state, what are we talking about. Better yet, who are we talking about? What is the identity of the guy in my head? Generally, such questions are not asked. They can become important in certain dissociative disorders. If I have two guys in my head, there is clearly an issue.…
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The Tears of Our Fathers
The first time I saw my father cry was a day of deep tragedy. An aunt, my mother’s oldest sister, had been brutally murdered by a stranger who came into her office off the street. It made no sense. I was nine years old. I opened the door to my father’s bedroom and saw him…
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Begotten of the Father
No revelation is more central to the Christian faith than God as Father. Some might immediately respond that the Trinity should be seen as the central revelation. But, in Orthodox understanding, the Trinity has its source (πηγή) in the Father. We should understand this not only as a matter of Trinitarian thought, but as the…
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An Audience of None
In the 1980’s sci-fi comedy, Short Circuit, a charming military robot character, “Number 5,” is awakened into consciousness by a lightning strike. He fears going back to his military keepers where he will be re-programmed. And so, with help from human friends, he begins his touching effort to stay free. His famous line, repeated often,…
Thank you, Father.