Glory to God for All Things
Religion as Neurotic Delusion
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From the Journal of Father Alexander Schmemann, Saturday, December 31, 1977 Father Tom gave me a circular Christmas letter from some Trappist in Massachusetts. In his monastery, all traditions meet (West, East, Buddhism), all rites, all experiences. Sounds rather barbarian. It is as if traditions were some sort of clothing. Dress as a Buddhist – and right away an “experience.” This cheap, murky wave of spirituality, this petty syncretism, these exclamations marks –…
Praying in the Rain
Love and More Love
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“Christ’s final judgement…does not discriminate between those who need love and those who invite condemnation; it only adjudicates between those who need love and those who need more love.” (Andrew Klager, “Orthodox Eschatology and St. Gregory’s [Life of Moses]” in Compassionate Eschatology: The Future as Friend published by Cascade Books. When I read the above line out loud to my wife, she stopped what she was doing and said, “Ahhh.” The kind of “Ahhh” that…
Praying in the Rain
Wisdom, Faith, Hope, and Love
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Glory to God for All Things
Salvation, Ontology, Existential, and Other Large Words
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In recent posts I have contrasted morality with ontological, as well as existential, etc. I’ve had comments here and elsewhere in which people stumbled over the terms. The distinction offered is not a private matter. Orthodox theologians for better than a century have struggled to make these points as being utterly necessary to the life of the Orthodox faith. The following is a small article of mine that tries to do some…
Nearly Orthodox
words...
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My prayers don’t have words these days. It feels empty, forced, not at all genuine. I’m the kid calling home who really has better things to do. I’m not paying attention, just nodding my head and uttering a faint “uh huh” every couple of minutes. I know this happens to everyone, I know it’s to be expected. I feel so emotionally and physically tired I don’t even care. Well, I must care…
Glory to God for All Things
The State of Things
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I’m going to break a few personal rules in this post. Normally I try to write within the known bounds of the Eastern Orthodox faith. I also try to write about things I know – both rules limit the range of my writing. But for this post, I want to “think aloud” about some things that seem worth puzzling about. I’ve long found it useful to look at things that are taken…
Praying in the Rain
Jesus Was Angry
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“And when He [Jesus] had looked around at them in anger…” (Mark 3:5). Jesus certainly was angry; but what did He experience in His anger? Did Jesus experience what I experience when I am angry? The Fathers of the Church teach us that there are two basic “natural passions” (sinless passions or feelings) that might be called desire and irritation. These two natural passions are corrupted by sin to become lust in…
Glory to God for All Things
The Double Mystery of Christ's Cross
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St. Gregory Palamas, in his Homily on the Precious and Life-Giving Cross (Homily 11), makes reference to what he calls the “double mystery” of the Cross. He cites St. Paul’s statement, “The world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). The first mystery is embodied in our denial of the world – the second mystery in our denial of ourselves. The great saint also sees the Cross as…
Praying in the Rain
Lions In Our Hearts
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Jamie Moran in an article in Raising Lazarus: Integral Healing in Orthodox Christianity, uses the metaphor of an evil lion caged inside us. This lion represents sinful passionate desires or urges. Jamie talks about two common ways Christians deal with this lion that don’t work very well and then suggests a way based on the teaching of the Desert Fathers. The first ineffective way is the way of the “Puritan,” the second…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Orthodox Christians and 9/11: We wrestle not against flesh and blood
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Sunday before the Elevation of the Cross, September 11, 2011 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. “Nothing will ever be the same.” So went the refrain again and again and again on September 11, 2001, and for weeks and now years following. I also clearly remember Dan Rather just saying over and…
Glory to God for All Things
Why Morality is Not Christian
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I recall my first classes in Moral Theology some 35 or so years ago. The subject is an essential part of Western thought (particularly in the Catholic and Anglican traditions). In many ways the topic was like a journey into Law School. We learned various methods and principles on whose basis moral questions – questions of right and wrong – could be discussed and decided. These classes were also the introduction of…
Praying in the Rain
The Danger of Miracle Working Icons
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When Jesus performed a miracle, all of the people were amazed; but very few got it. They didn’t get that the miracle was a sign, a sign to reveal something else. The miracle was not an end in itself. And more importantly, the miracle was not an affirmation of what the person already believed. The miracles of Christ were signs revealing Christ’s divinity, revealing the presence of the Kingdom of God. The…
Glory to God for All Things
Forgive Everyone for Everything
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In Dostoevsky’s great last work, The Brothers Karamazov, the story is told of Markel, brother of the Elder Zossima. Diagnosed with tuberculosis, he is dying. In those last days he came to a renewed faith in God and a truly profound understanding of forgiveness. In a conversation with his mother she wonders how he can possibly be so joyful in so serious a stage of his illness. His response is illustrative of…
Glory to God for All Things
So Great A Cloud of Witnesses
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…who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings,…
Praying in the Rain
The Temptation to Press
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I’ve gotten started on the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey-Maturin series. Book one, “Master and Commander,” is also the title of the movie starring Russel Crowe based on a couple of the novels in this series. I was hoping to do a podcast on the first book, but I didn’t find much in the novel to recommend it as an edifying read for Orthodox Christians. Nevertheless, I’m quite enjoying the novels. It’s one of…
Glory to God for All Things
The Chariot of Israel and Its Horsemen - The Repose of Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas
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And so it was, when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?” Elisha said, “Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.” So he said, “You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall…
Praying in the Rain
Some Thoughts on the Wrath of Man
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“The wrath of God came against them, and slew the stoutest of them, and struck down the choice men of Israel” (Psalm 78:31). “For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). I think we have an anger problem. The problem I’m talking about is not related to self control, but to understanding. Why does human wrath never produce the righteousness of God while God’s wrath seems…
Glory to God for All Things
Memory Eternal - The Hymn
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Glory to God for All Things
The Shadow of Death
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Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
As Lambs Among Wolves
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Tenth Sunday After Pentecost, August 21, 2011 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. “Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves.” These are the words that were heard nearly two thousand years ago by a man named Thaddeus, and they were spoken by the Lord Jesus when He sent out the…
Glory to God for All Things
The End of History
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This past Friday morning, I arrived to visit my invalid father, only to find that he had fallen asleep in the Lord some five minutes earlier. Today (Monday) we laid him to rest beside my mother to the sounds of an Orthodox funeral – a source of reality and hope. His passing is something of an “End of the World” for me – an end of my childhood and the myths I…
Nearly Orthodox
light from light....
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There is no getting around it. I still feel stupid and awkward standing in front of my altar at home, praying. I feel stupid and awkward at the church, mind you, but at least we’re all there for the same drill. At home it’s just me. I’m not sure what I’m modeling to the small carlson folk at this point so I guess I am choosing stupid and awkward. I’ve had votives…
Glory to God for All Things
The Benefits of Ignorance
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I have had conversations in recent comments sections on the role of reason in the Orthodox life. I readily acknowledge that no one lives without some use of reason – but I contend that most of what forms the content of our life in Christ is not reason. The faith does have to contend with attacks and challenges from many arenas – and yet its success will not be established by the…
Praying in the Rain
Tormenting Fire
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“He that trusteth in the Lord shall not fear when God shall judge all with tormenting fire.” (From the second Antiphoy of the Resurrectional Anabathmoi in tone eight). Notice that “all” will be judged with tormenting fire. In St. Mark’s Gospel (9:49) Jesus says that “everyone will be salted with fire.” The question is not if, it is when–and what you will do when you experience fiery torment. The promise of this…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Orthodox History Symposium early registration discount expiring
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I was asked to pass this on. God willing, I’ll be giving a short paper at this symposium about the detachment of the Antiochian parishes from the Russian archdiocese in the 1920s and 30s. For Immediate Release Registration Discount for Orthodox Conference at Princeton About to Expire There are still a few days left to register at the early-bird rate for “Pilgrims and Pioneers:…
Glory to God for All Things
The Day the Earth Stood Still
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Orthodox Christians (New Calendar) are currently observing a two-week fast in preparation for the Feast of the Dormition, a day which marks the death (“falling asleep”) of the Mother of God. For those for whom such feasts are foreign, it is easy to misunderstand what the Orthodox are about – and to assume that this is simply a feast to Mary because we like that sort of thing. Flippant attitudes fail to…
Praying in the Rain
To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice
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A guest staying with us for a few days mentioned that she had heard a nun (Roman Catholic, I believe) say that the asceticism of monasticism and parenthood are really quite similar. She said that as a monastic, whenever the bell rings, she immediately has to stop what she is doing and obey the bell. For parents, that bell is their children. Similarly, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh in the introduction to his Essential Writtings…
