Category: Orthodox Christianity
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Beauty and God
This is a reprint of an article from earlier this year. I found it worth re-reading. Everything is beautiful in a person when he turns toward God, and everything is ugly when it is turned away from God. Fr. Pavel Florensky I come to the end of a day that has been filled with other…
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The Problem with Lying
Anyone familiar with Scripture will be aware of the commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Lying is treated as a problem from the earliest moments of Scripture. Adam and Eve fail to speak the truth in a direct manner when questioned about their breaking of the commandment and eating of the forbidden fruit. The…
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The Act of Giving Thanks as a Way of Life
The act of giving thanks is among the most fundamental acts of love. It lies at the very heart of worship – in which, in the words of Archimandrite Zacharias, there is an exchange. In giving thanks we make an offering which itself is always inferior to what we have received – but which is…
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Give Thanks In All Things
I heard this from Archimandrite Zacharius, the disciple of the Elder Sophrony: The Elder Sophrony once said that if a man would give thanks always and for everything, he would have kept the saying which Christ gave to St. Silouan: “Keep your mind in hell and despair not.” I pondered this statement for a long…
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The Tree in my Backyard
I have given this posting a very prosaic title in order to help readers focus on precisely what I am saying. In my previous post on icons – I noted that even the world functions as an icon – but, undoubtedly, having put that in a very theological context, most readers think simply about the…
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The Agent of Change
As inhabitants of our modern culture, we find ourselves trapped in a world of “cause and effect.” It is a physical explanation of the universe that has, for all intents and purposes, become a universal metaphor, dominating religion and the most personal aspects of our lives. We see ourselves as the agents of change –…
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The Kingdom of Choice
This is a slightly edited version of a post from last June. I plan to use it as an introduction to a series on the choices we make – and don’t make. Part of the spiritual landscape of American religion is the sizable role played by choice in a culture shaped in the free market – with…
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A Note of Thanks and Some Statistics
One of my personal joys at the recent All American Council in Pittsburgh was the opportunity to meet face-to-face a number of readers of this blog, including some who regularly post comments. Their warmth and encouragement for the writing that I do is about all it takes to keep me writing. That, and a whole lot…
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Cynicism and the Goodness of God
I admit to being a child of the 60’s (which means I was born in the early 50’s). I have lived through a period in American history marked by assasinations, abuse of power, incompetence and unrelenting and outrageous pieties from the lips of the impious. As such, like many in my generation, I am tempted…
Father, Dana and Matthew, I live and work in a spiritual desert. Your kindness and kind responses are a cool…