Category: Reflections
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Get Deep for Christmas
St. Athanasius College has extended me the invitation to do a four class series on the Incarnation. I am using the occasion to look into the depths of the Incarnation and the basic language that the Church uses for expressing it as theology. It undergirds virtually all Orthodox teaching. I understand that the class will…
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Providence and the Good God
How do you see the world? Is it deeply troubled, teetering on the brink of disaster? Are dark forces lurking, quietly undermining even the possibility of doing good? There is much talk, here and there, about the nature of the “Orthodox mind.” Whether it is discussed under the heading of “acquiring an Orthodox phronema” (which…
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Self-Emptying Prayer
We are told that Christ “emptied Himself” in His death on the Cross (Philippians 2:5-11). Further, we are told that this self-emptying is to be the “mind” that we ourselves have. It is possible to grasp that such self-emptying can be practiced in our dealings with others when we place them above ourselves – when…
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Goodness and a Word in Due Season
There is an old mystical Jewish belief that when God created all things, He did so by speaking their names (in Hebrew, of course). It was further believed (and here’s the mystical part) that if you could manage to speak that name in the right way, you, too, could cause it to be. The instinct…
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The Singular Goodness of God
From the Archives: It has long seemed to me that it is one thing to believe that God exists and quite another to believe that He is good. Indeed, to believe that God exists simply begs the question. That question is: Who is God, and what can be said of Him? Is He good? This…
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The Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6) I have been laboring (with some success) on a promised book regarding the nature and…
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The Collapse into Chaos – Where Only God Makes Sense
Nothing is more traumatic than the onset of chaos. Predictability breaks down, goodness seems to disappear, and the madness of sheer survival takes over. In chaos, everything seems plausible since reason itself has become unreachable. A recent spate of reading took me down the rabbit hole into the madness of the 14th century. For all…
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Words from St. Isaac of Syria
St. Isaac stretches love and mercy to it’s farthest limits, occasionally beyond the bounds of canonical understanding. He remains a saint of the Church and his words are very important to hear. Let yourself be persecuted, but do not persecute others. Be crucified, but do not crucify others. Se slandered, but do not slander others.…
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Music to Die For
Living in the South, I am confronted with the reality of American Country music whether I want it or not. Of course, I’m confronted with all of the other genres as well, though Classical and Jazz seem to be less ubiquitous than Rap and Country. However, I was making my way through a public venue…
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The Perpetual Catechumen
It should not surprise us to learn that we are often creatures of the culture in which we live. We understand this, particularly when we travel and encounter people whose culture differs profoundly from our own. What seems obvious to us, might seem obscure to them. What we eat, how we shop, what counts as…
What a good point to make Mr. Jacobs: the existence of “cheap Grace” and counterfeit Joy. Thank you.