Category: Mystical Theology
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Shame in the Public Arena
In 401 AD, twenty-nine Saxon “slaves,” strangled each other to death with their bare hands in their prison cells. They chose this death rather than being forced to fight one another in Rome’s arena. Better death than shame. Their “owner,” the Senator Symmachus (famously known as the “Last Pagan”), wrote of them that they were…
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The Soul Is a Mirror
There are meditations and insights that simply change your life. I recall walking across the campus at Duke some 30 or so years ago. I had been plowing through a book of Orthodox theology (very thick reading). I would read a page and think, and read it again. But I recall very plainly a moment…
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The Healthy Shame at the Heart’s Core
Imagine: A large crowd has assembled and you know that something special has been planned. Unknown to you, however, is the fact that the something special is for and about you. At a given moment, you are called forward. A short speech detailing some extraordinary thing you have done is given. You had not thought anyone…
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The Paschal Gift
It is impossible to describe the joy of Pascha, particularly as I experience it as a priest. This year, I was deeply aware that I stand in a place that was both created for me, and for which I am unworthy. The joy of such a combination is the realization of the Gift. When you…
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The Abbreviated God
When an Orthodox Christian is asked questions about the faith, there is often a hesitation. The questions that come to mind are: “Where do I begin?” and “How much do I try and tell them?” For, in many ways the amount of information includes about 2,000 years of history and an encyclopedia’s worth of teaching,…
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The Mystery: Upborne, Fulfilled
Orthodoxy has a number of “favorite” words – all of which fall outside the bounds of normal speech. Though we commonly use the word “mystery” (for example), popular speech never uses it in the manner of the Church. I cannot remember using the word “fullness,” or even “fulfilled,” in normal speech. More contemporary words have…
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Getting to the Point
With this Ring, I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. – The Book of Common Prayer (1662) +++ English is a great language, except when it isn’t. We…
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To Serve God
In a therapeutic culture in which our goal is to be our very best, it is almost impossible to serve God. The reason is quite simple: when my goal is to be my very best, the goal is my God. “Serving God” thus becomes a euphemism for a Christianity that we take to be therapeutic…
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That Thing You Do – Right Worship
In my Anglican years I watched the introduction of a new prayer book. Among its most notable features was variety. In a certain manner, it brought under one roof that most obvious feature of modern Christianity: options. Our culture has an understanding that ideas, thoughts and sentiments are what matters; how they are embodied is…
Matthew, I can see how what I said earlier might have sounded confusing. My reframing isn’t epistemic but ontological. Sometimes…