Glory to God For All Things

February 8, 2019

To Know What We Don’t Know

Two corollaries: We will not know God until we know ourselves; we will not know ourselves until we know God. I believe that both of these are true, even though, taken together, they seem to preclude knowledge altogether. In truth, what they preclude is doing one without the other. We can only do both, and simultaneously, at that. St. Paul tells us that we “know in part,” and that we “will know, even as we are known.” St. John says that what we shall be does not yet appear, but that it will appear when we see Christ “as He…
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Knowledge of God, Modernity, Personhood, Reflections
February 2, 2019

Candlewax and Hedgehogs – Groundhog Day

Candlewax and Hedgehogs—a peculiar way to entitle an article, I’ll admit. But both have their associations with the second day of February. The first is more important so we’ll begin there. The second day of February is one of the 12 great feasts, and is also celebrated by Christians in the West. The feast is the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, described in the second chapter of St. Luke’s gospel. There we are told that the Christ child was brought by his mother into the temple in fulfillment of the law, 40 days after his birth (February 2 is…
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Culture, Reflections
January 28, 2019

Why How You Feel Is Not All That Valuable

We live in a culture of strong feelings. How we “feel” about something is generally taken to mean “what I believe.” This is not at all the case. Most people have a set of feelings or sentiments that largely serve the purpose of supporting the story they tell themselves about who they are. “I am a person who cares about animals.” It does not actually pierce through to the level of describing character. It would be more accurate to say, “I am the kind of person who is defined by a set of feelings.” For the feelings themselves, our sentiments,…
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Modernity, Morality, Reflections, Secularism
January 22, 2019

Living In the Silence

The word is usually translated “silence.” It also carries the meaning of “stillness.” It is a quiet, not just of the mind but of the body as well, the silencing of the noise within us. It is Hesychia. The practice and understanding of hesychia is termed Hesychasm. Alexandre Kalormiros wrote: Hesychasm is the deepest characteristic of Orthodox life, the sign of Orthodox genuineness, the premise of right thinking and right belief and glory, the paradigm of faith and Orthodoxy. In all of the Church’s internal and external battles, we had the hesychasts on one side and the anti-hesychasts on the…
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Knowledge of God, Modernity, Prayer, Reflections
January 18, 2019

Words As Icons

Creation has a sacramental purpose: it reveals God. For from the first making of the world, those things of God which the eye is unable to see, that is, his eternal power and existence, are fully made clear, he having given the knowledge of them through the things which he has made (Rom. 1:20) This is inherently true in things as they exist in nature. However, it becomes another matter as things pass through the hands (and lips) of humankind. We were created with something of a god-like function. In the story of Adam’s naming of the animals, God brings…
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Icons, Knowledge of God, Modernity, Reflections
January 15, 2019

An Unrepentant Secularism

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of life in a secularized world is the freedom from failure. The mantra of progress ignores every secular failure as an abiding ill of an earlier age yet to be vanquished. Thus, its every failure is an excuse to double-down on the same insanity that failed the first time. The secular world’s unbridled self-confidence comes at the price of self-awareness. With freedom from failure comes freedom from repentance. We regret nothing. And this is the deepest poverty of soul in our modern world. This aspect of secularism is dominantly an aspect of American culture. Older, European…
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Modernity, Reflections, Repentance, Secularism
January 9, 2019

An Unnecessary Existence

In Dostoevsky’s The Demons, the character, Kirillov, is insanely fascinated with freedom. He cannot bear the fact that he did not choose his own existence. Life is a “given.” In what must be seen as a parable of the radical thought of the 19th century, Kirillov determines to kill himself, the only act of true freedom he can take. His insight about the necessity of his own existence and its lack of freedom was correct. We did not choose existence for ourselves – it is given to us. I must eat. I must breathe. I must work. I must suffer.…
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Communion, Dostoevsky, Personhood, Reflections
January 5, 2019

Theophany – Showing the World to be the World

I was standing beside the Jordan River, somewhere along its trek through Israel. I was with a group of pilgrims led by Met. Kallistos Ware gathered for the Great Blessing of the Waters. Somehow, it seemed that I was the only priest who had brought an epitrachelion (stole), so I loaned it to the Metropolitan for the service. As the service began, I noticed a school of fish at the edge of the water, watching the bishop as eagerly as the rest of us. Great art Thou, O Lord, O Lord, and marvelous are Thy works. There is no hymn…
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Reflections, Secularism, The Sacraments
January 2, 2019

Fixing Jesus

In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, a ghostly theologian has found himself at the very edge of heaven, having taken a bus from hell. He is invited to remain, though doing so will require that he leave behind the imaginary world of the unreal (hell), and take on the difficult task of being truly what he was created to be. The conversation has an interesting moment when he describes his latest project: thinking about what Jesus might have accomplished had he not died so tragically young. The proposition is comic, on its surface, a misunderstanding of Christ’s work so profound…
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C.S. Lewis, Modernity, Reflections, Solzhenitsyn
December 31, 2018

Hiding in Plain Sight

In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. (Wisdom 3:7) ____ The story is told of St. Macarius that he was falsely accused of fathering a child by a young woman in the village. After being beaten and humiliated by the people there, he returned to his cell and gathered all of the mats and baskets he had made and gave instructions that they were to be sold, and the money given “to my wife.” In time, he was vindicated of the crime for which he had been falsely accused.…
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Atonement, Forgiveness, Knowledge of God, Morality, Repentance, Solzhenitsyn

Dirk, Good thoughts. Many thanks. Your words to Matt’s question are spot on. Thanks again.

Colin, May God give you grace!

If writing was really invented or for purely mundane and utilitarian purposes then it can’t have taken long before it…

Jenny, I have found monotonous task to be a pleasantly unexpected source of refuge from our overwhelming world full of…

This is so timely. Someone has just hurt me deeply and I have been struggling to forgive, your lovely words…