Search results for: “church as cross”
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What Theology Looks Like
Read more: What Theology Looks LikeSome seventeen years ago (I cannot believe it has been that long) I became a “dropout” of sorts, withdrawing formally from the PhD program at Duke University and converting my studies into material for an M.A. in theology. The story is more convoluted and personal than I would care to share in this public forum. […]
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Conversion Amidst Family Strife
Read more: Conversion Amidst Family StrifeMy posting yesterday spoke of things we could do as a family to strengthen ourselves in the common mind of Christ, allowing for the possibility of greater unity, particularly when considering something as major as conversion to the Orthodox faith. Sometimes, all efforts to the contrary, no peace or common mind arise. If someone believes […]
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An Orthodox Family
Read more: An Orthodox FamilyYesterday, at least two of the comments on the post about my son’s birthday asked questions about the family and Orthodox conversion. This is extremely close to my heart – both because of the blessings we have enjoyed in our family – and the blessings and difficulties I have seen in others. I should quickly […]
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On the Other Hand
Read more: On the Other HandOn the other hand – irony is probably too much to ask of youth. If I can remember myself in my college years, the most I could muster was sarcasm. Irony required more insight. There is a deep need for the appreciation of irony to sustain a Christian life. Our world is filled with contradiction. […]
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Ironic and Sardonic
Read more: Ironic and SardonicI am the father of two children who still (for at least the next day or so) measure their lives in numbers that fall in the “teens.” My son turns 20 on Monday. Be that as it may, I still qualify as the father of teenagers. They certainly hear plenty from me about God, about […]
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The Struggle for Prayer
Read more: The Struggle for PrayerFr. Sophrony relates part of his struggle for prayer and the grace he received to help others. The passage is from On Prayer. …On more than one occasion I felt as if I were crucified on an invisible cross. This would happen on Mt. Athos when I got angry with those who vexed me. My […]
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Carolina in my Mind
Read more: Carolina in my MindSome readers might appreciate the fact that I was born in South Carolina. For some other readers, I think especially of our Europeans and others across the internet globe, South Carolina means little. It is “Deep South” in the U.S., with its own distinctives. Perhaps one of its striking characteristics is that it has a […]
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Reflections on Florovsky
Read more: Reflections on FlorovskyThe following is from my earlier post of Florovsky on Ecumenism: The entire western experience of temptation and fall must be creatively examined and transformed; all that “European melancholy” (as Dostoevsky termed it) and all those long centuries of creative history must be borne. Only such a compassionate co-experience provides a reliable path toward the […]
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You Must Be Born From Above – John 3
Read more: You Must Be Born From Above – John 3Absolutely one of the strangest conversations to occur anywhere in the gospels takes place between Jesus and the inquiring Nicodemus in the third chapter of John. Of course, at least one of its verses (or at least its Stephanus Pagination verse number) has become nationally famous as an attendee at almost all televised American sporting […]
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Mystagogical Catechesis and the Gospel of John
Read more: Mystagogical Catechesis and the Gospel of JohnI promise to get “off topic” from time to time – but I would like to do a bit of a “series” here in the post Pascha period – doing what has been done in the history of the Church – and look at the Gospel of John and what it means for us as […]
Father, These words are so comforting. Sometimes I really struggle with loving others, especially those who express their disparagement of…