Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Writings, Recordings and Recommendations: An Update
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As you probably can tell, I’ve mainly been focusing my weblogging energy into the new Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy weblog. Forgive my neglect here. I’m still working out the balance of the kinds of work I plan to do there and here. In any event, in case you don’t happen to be a reader over there yet (and why not?), I thought I’d update you…
Nearly Orthodox
In a rush...
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In a rush, I lit the candles on my altar today. I was in the middle of at least three other conversations. It was automatic, cleaning out the old wax from the votives first, replacing them with new ones, long wicks, while I settled an argument between my boys. We got a late start today. There was no time for quiet, no time for waiting and listening and silent prayer and deep…
Nearly Orthodox
where faith lives...
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In prayer this morning, as I lit the candles before the icons of the Theotokos and that of Theodora of Alexandria I remembered those in Aurora, CO who were injured or killed. I remembered the families and friends of those victims. I remembered those people who sat in that theater and watched this happen, those who were trapped, those who were able to run to safety. I remembered the shooter, the family…
Nearly Orthodox
taking root...
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We’re thinking about moving again. Our Nashville house is on the market and if that sells soon enough there’s a chance we’ll be able to buy a house in Chicago. It’s a good move, a positive move but it’s a move nonetheless. It strikes me that it was just about this time last year that we came to the decision that we’d finally be moving to Chicago from Nashville. It strikes me…
Nearly Orthodox
Circling wagons...
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When the panic sets in I circle the wagons. The world is frightening and generally I feel unprepared. I forget myself there in the middle of the wagon train and turn my back to the world, to social events, to branching out and trying new things. Things have been so bad in my brain and in my spirit lately that I have not been able to even put words to paper in any…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
No True Church? No True Church History.
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One of the criticisms of Orthodoxy’s understanding of its own history (not to mention, Roman Catholicism’s) is that there really is no unbroken Christian tradition of anything at all, that Church history is really just about multiple movements, doctrines and practices that cannot coherently be traced back to the Apostles. This is essentially one version of the historiography of the anti-ecclesiologists. If there is…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Orthodoxy at the Emmys
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Not that I watch awards shows more than perhaps once every five years or so (and I didn’t see this one, either), but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this is the first time that Orthodox Christian monastic enclave Mount Athos was mentioned in an Emmy speech. This is Jonathan Jackson winning his fifth Emmy. Readers may recall my…
Nearly Orthodox
puzzles...
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That old anxiousness creeps back in from time to time. It is anxiety that has followed me around for most of my 44 years. It is the fear of missing something, it is the fear of not missing it at all. The absence of “care” on my part or on the part of someone else. We’re home from Liturgy today because three of the four kids are sniffling snotty messes. We’re home…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Granola Robots
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…we are supposed to act with great deference to natural rhythms and patterns when it comes to nature “out there,” but extend—by government fiat, if necessary—the greatest possible technological control over human reproductive rhythms and patterns. We should learn to live with and in nature out there, but conquer nature in here. To what can one attribute this fundamental contradiction? Peter J. Deneen, “Forward”…
Nearly Orthodox
you're doing it wrong...
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One of the first weeks after we began to attend our church here in Chicago I had a conversation with a woman after church during coffee hour. She introduced herself to me, she was very friendly, very sweet. She sought me out as I tried to hide in the corner. I had my children with me that week for the first time. They were busy sugaring up on donuts and apple juice,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Who's not a Christian?
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Why can't God love me the way I am?
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One of the perhaps most pressing theological questions of our time and place is answered beautifully in this post from Jim John Marks: The question is not “why can’t God love me the way I am”, the question is “why can’t I love God the way I am”. And it is the pursuit of the answer to that question which opens the door to…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
A Firm Foothold
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I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again. —Frodo Baggins I happened upon this quotation again yesterday evening, while I was reading my daughter The Lord of the Rings. It seems a dauntingly long tome…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The One True Church and the Partisans of Anti-Ecclesiology
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Nearly Orthodox
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“Pray, in all simplicity.” St. John Climacus We pray at Liturgy. We pray a lot. I don’t know why this struck me so solidly this morning as I sat on my porch drinking coffee. It may be a reaction to the conversation I had with my mother in law yesterday. She asked to bring the boys to their church camp and I reacted with a quick, “no, I don’t think so.” It…
Nearly Orthodox
in the air...
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“If this Orthodox thing doesn’t work out I’m going to have to become an atheist,” I’d said. My conversation partner was taken aback. “Why an atheist, why not an agnostic?” And I realized then, in that moment that I didn’t really mean what I had said. Perhaps, I meant that I’d give up on denominations or organized church or the whole system of religion but I didn’t really mean I’d become an…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: The Weblog
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I have an announcement of a major new project, opening today: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: The Weblog. It’s been plain to me for some time that Christian doctrine is starting to matter to more and more people, and a lot of the people it matters to are Orthodox Christians, some of whom are doing some very good writing about it. You’re of course aware of…
Nearly Orthodox
communion...
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Under a canopy of trees, less a grove or forest, more an outcropping of overgrowth in the corner of our back yard I celebrated the Mass. Greeting my friends as they entered my chapel of branches, I’d place white bread and grape juice on the makeshift altar of rocks and mud, alternately lifting hands, speaking words, making signs of the cross in the air. I celebrated the Mass. I was more than…
Nearly Orthodox
antidoron...
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Last Sunday a woman approached my daughter and I at Liturgy. I knew her by sight, we’d had a conversation at Pascha. I had noticed her the first week I attended. She was there with her children and her husband. She looked to be a little younger than I; wearing her hair cropped short, funky glasses and quirky fashion. “She could be a good friend for me” I thought. I’ve attended this…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Saving the World from Suicide: Localism, Christian Evangelism and the Culture War
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The world is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time; so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and to save the world from suicide. —T. S. Eliot, “Thoughts After…
Nearly Orthodox
Stations...
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It was warm that day in Miss Gardner’s classroom. In an effort to save some time Father Boyle gathered all three of our 2nd grade classes into one room and we sat there, pressed together and listening. I was near the back, hiding in the corner but positioned so that I could see and hear Father Boyle. I took note of how bulbous and red his nose appeared. When he was on…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy turns one!
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On Saturday, May 12, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Exploring Belief Systems Through the Lens of the Ancient Christian Faith turned one year old! It’s honestly a little hard to believe. This little path has now been winding about for more than three years. O&H was originally done as a series of lectures offered at St. George Orthodox Cathedral in Charleston, West Virginia, beginning in November…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Church History and Same-Sex Marriage
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There have been several postings online in the past few days of various articles claiming that the Christian Church at some period in history formerly sanctioned same-sex weddings and treated them just like marriages between a single man and a single woman, based mainly on the work of the late John Boswell. Someone even posted one of those articles in the comments section of…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
"Aren't You Supposed to Hate Me?": Calvinism and the Politics of the Damned
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Update: This post is now available as an audio recording at Ancient Faith Radio. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Orthodoxy, Allegory and Fantasy
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Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker. —J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories” There is a new post today on MyOCN‘s “Orthodox Writers, Readers, and Artists series,” whose title caught my eye: Is it Orthodox to Read…
Nearly Orthodox
Nearly Orthodox...
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Naming is important. After a year and a half of documenting the struggle of becoming Orthodox (and realizing I still have FAR to go) I’ve re-named this blog, to “Nearly Orthodox.” In addition the old url of unorthodoxlyorthodox.wordpress.com will forward to this shiny new url. Just wanted to give you all a heads up. The name is the only thing that will be changing, and you can still access the blog from the…
Nearly Orthodox
Living in the mystery...
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Nearly two years ago I had this plan; take some Orthodoxy classes, learn a little Greek, find my baptismal certificate and get chrismated in time for Pascha. It didn’t happen that first year along the road to Orthodoxy so I changed my plan, second verse, same as the first…best laid plans. May 2012 finds me a catechumen in a new city, in a new community and I think I understand now, some…
