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World Story – the News and the Good News
Read more: World Story – the News and the Good NewsHuman beings make up stories. I don’t mean that the stories aren’t true, only that we make them up. We connect things. We make sense of things. We ask what is happening and the answer is a story. When we read a history book, we encounter a story. We do not examine the facts of […]
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A Terrible Knowledge
Read more: A Terrible KnowledgeGreek Mythology made the curiosity of Pandora the primary cause of suffering in the world. She fails to resist the lure of finding out what is in a box she is told to leave closed. Opening the box, she unleashes sorrow and suffering into the world. We humans are a curious lot. We want to […]
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Where All Answers Deceive
Read more: Where All Answers DeceiveFrom CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce. Lewis, having taken a bus ride from hell to heaven is being guided and instructed by George MacDonald. The question of what will be in the end comes up. Will all be saved? +++ ‘Ye can know nothing of the end of all things, or nothing expressible in those terms. […]
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The Material God
Read more: The Material GodIn my previous article I used the example of kinesthetic knowledge (as in riding a bicycle) as a means of describing noetic experience, the means of knowing God through communion with Him. It is worth noting that the example is quite material and mundane. It is not an esoteric, exotic meditation or technique. It is […]
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Saving Knowledge
Read more: Saving KnowledgeI have often used the example of riding a bicycle as an image of knowing God. There’s no difficulty learning how to ride if you don’t mind falling off for a while. But no matter how many years you have ridden, you cannot describe for someone else how you know what you know. But you […]
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Akathist Hymn Glory to God for All Things
Read more: Akathist Hymn Glory to God for All ThingsI have seen several translations of this hymn. This one comes from the site of St. John the Baptist Cathedral (ROCOR) in Washington, D.C. I have edited it only typographically. It was composed by Metropolitan Tryphon (Prince Boris Petrovich Turkestanov) +1934 – but frequently attributed to Father Gregory Petrov, who died in a Soviet prison […]
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Beneath Her Compassion
Read more: Beneath Her CompassionAmong the greater mysteries of the New Testament are those surrounding the Mother of God. A large segment of modern Christianity has become tone deaf in this regard, a result of centuries of antagonism towards certain aspects of older tradition. It is a deafness that grieves my heart, primarily in that it represents a […]
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Hiding in Plain Sight and The False Accusation
Read more: Hiding in Plain Sight and The False AccusationIn the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. (Wisdom 3:7 RSV) ____ 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 […]
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A Virtuous Man
Read more: A Virtuous ManVirtue is not a common word in our culture. It sounds somewhat “antique.” For some, it has very little meaning, or a meaning far removed from its original. Within the Christian tradition, however, there is a very long history of the study of virtue. Until the Protestant Reformation, thoughts about what was good and what […]
As a history buff, I find it interesting that Christianity in the old countries went from Orthodox to RC to…