I read this anonymous little booklet many years ago, and during a recent re-organization of the house, I found it again. I realize now that many of my religious and… Read more After Chautauqua – A Pamphlet of Spiritual Unawakening →
Once upon a time, there was a man whose fate on earth was unthinkably bad. He was homeless, jobless, and unable to work. He had a terrible disease. Because he was not a woman or a child, no one’s gallantry was awakened by his plight. He got no health care. He got no help. He had nothing to eat. And this is a man who had harmed no one in his life – or if once he had, his wrongdoing was swallowed up in the horror of his fate. This… Read more Lazarus and the Oppressor →
I spent a little over three years as a Biblical Studies Major in two Christian colleges. The first and last years I spent at Maranatha University; the middle year at a small start-up college. One day, at Maranatha, it occurred to me, “I’m done,” and I withdrew my registration and walked away in the middle of the first semester of my senior year. It was very difficult to explain to people why I was leaving when graduation was in reach. Although I found all the rules and standards stressful, Maranatha’s atmosphere… Read more Theology: Embattled Defense or Heroic Quest? →
Link: A Brief Debate About the Banishment of Theological Reasoning: Theology As Knowledge on ‘First Things’ Why do Christians sometimes seem so adversarial toward higher learning, criticism, and reason? Some learned voices on how it all started, what it all means, and when it will ever end. When all Christian forms of reason are banished from these spheres a priori, then by definition Christians must find their general output objectionable.
Some assume that form is the direct product of intelligence alone. However intelligence cannot interact with natural material in a tyrannical fashion without damage or at best rigidity. Absolute control produces what is lifeless. Intelligence interacting with natural material must do so with utmost respect to the shape, size, makeup, and tendencies – in short, the nature – of that material. I believe that form arises through a cooperation between intelligence and previously existing form. The previously existing form can be the shape and order that is found in pure… Read more How Form Arises →
Today I wonder: Why is my scanner not working? Will I ever finish the plays and stories I’ve started? Do I really have it in me to be a writer or am I just a dilettante? What is the next step to getting the mold smell out of that one area of my carpet? Should I give up writing completely and just focus on music? If so, should I audit a college course on conducting or seek a private instructor in keyboard? What can I make with pork chops, mushrooms,… Read more Today I’m Full of Wonderings →
The more that happens and becomes clear to me, the less there is to say. It would be easy to speak of the unease I feel at certain trends in the Church; far more difficult to speak of the immeasurable river of grace I find there. Easy to criticize individual or parish or even jurisdictional examples of Orthodox Christians forgetting to some extent that they are the Church (and not a social club or a foundation for the preservation of culture or a center of activism for some favorite “issue”… Read more Reflection →
Everyone should go watch this video at Fr. Stephen’s blog. Just to know that there are people out there who do little but pray, people who actually achieve what the apostle commanded when he said “Pray without ceasing,” this video is worthwhile. But it is also full of gospel.
Slow Literature 