Category: Prayer
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An Avalanche of Kindness
A chance conversation with my wife opened a world of wonder for me recently. I mentioned to her that, as I reaching for a scarf before my walk on a chilly morning, my thoughts drifted to a woman (a parishioner, now deceased) who had knitted several items for me. As I remembered her, I prayed…
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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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What We Shall Be
The city that I live in was founded in 1943 for the purpose of building an atom bomb. Various movies have shared Hollywood’s moral opinions on that endeavor, none of which are very surprising. When I moved here in 1989, I met a good number of the “Class of ’43,” people who were here during…
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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,…
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The Way of Shame and the Way of Thanksgiving
The language of “self-emptying” can have a sort of Buddhist ring. It sounds as we are referencing a move towards becoming a vessel without content – the non-self. Given our multicultural world, such a reference is understandable. It is, however, unfortunate and requires that we visit the true nature of Christian self-emptying. Our self-emptying is…
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The Sacrament of Humility – Part Two
In my earlier article, I described humility as “our willingness to receive with thanksgiving those things (of whatever size) that come our way.” This describes humility as a virtue, but the article’s title described it as a “sacrament.” Oddly, I seemed not to have unpacked what that means. There are several ways to think about…
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The Sacrament of Humility – Part One
Some things are so obvious that you cannot see them. Their powers of invisibility do not lie so much within themselves as within those who cannot see them. We are hard-wired for danger, our eyes attuned to threats. We overlook the power of weakness and the vulnerability of humility – the queen and fount of…
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Playing with God
There are things that children understand instinctively. And the things that children know and understand are worth consideration. They have much to teach us. Among the most natural things children do is play. Depending on how you define play, it is among the first activities in which we engage. It comes to dominate the lives…
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Of Whom I Am First
In the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, it is customary for a prayer to be offered by all who are coming to receive communion. I quote a portion: I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom…
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What To Do When God Is Everywhere
If there is no such thing as “secularism” (see my previous article), then how are we to live? If God is “everywhere present and filling all things,” how are we to spend our time in the day? It is possible to be distracted by such questions, to wonder whether Christians need to construct an alternative…
Dee, Vladimir Lossky used (or coined) the phrase “participatory adherence” as his definition of faith. It is a kind of…