Glory to God for All Things
The Journey towards Love
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The Elder Porphyrios treasured the following quote from the writings of St. Symeon the New Theologian. He had it printed and handed out to his visitors. We should look upon all the faithful as one person and consider that Christ is in each one of them. We should have such love for them that we are ready to sacrifice our very lives for them. For it is incumbent upon us neither to say,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
"Spiritual But Not Religious" and the Path to God
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I sometimes encounter folks who tell me that they are “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR). I wish I asked more often what exactly that is supposed to mean, though I am usually held back from asking by a strong suspicion that such a statement is not meant to undergo any sort of scrutiny. But what does it mean, anyway? This post is a reflection…
Nearly Orthodox
stations of the cross...
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Growing up Catholic we would attend church every wednesday.  During Lent we would go to church on Wednesday mornings but instead of our regular service we would start with Ash Wednesday to kick off the season. Then, each Wednesday after that until Easter we would have the Stations of the Cross, the way of Sorrows. It was a telling of the Passion, visual and visceral. I felt it, deeply in me.  I…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Salvation of All
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A friend recently weighed in on a theological question that made the New York Times. One should always be suspicious when newspapers start talking about theology, because, well, newspapers seldom know anything about it. The piece of theology essentially goes this way: There really is no hell, and God is too loving to send anyone there. How could God possibly be so cruel to…
Praying in the Rain
From Faith to Atheism
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What do you do when God does not do what you know he should do? What do you do when what you have believed about God turns out not to be true? Most Christian believers, if they are sincere and thoughtful, go through a Job-like experience at least once in their life: an experience in which life, logic, emotion, friends, and any manner of other circumstances, thoughts and feelings work to convince…
Glory to God for All Things
The Temptations of Church
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I have sometimes said (in a light-hearted manner) that God gave us the Church to keep us honest. The truth is, that God gave us the Church that we might be saved. The failure to see why and how the Church is the ark of salvation is a failure to understand some of the most fundamental parts of our Christian faith – and often a failure which transforms Christianity into an ersatz…
Nearly Orthodox
beginning clean...
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The absence of Ash Wednesday offers some grief for me. I like those ashes, damn it. I liked the feeling of having them placed on my forehead, I liked wearing them out into the world. I like this. I suppose what I liked most was the reminder of being ash. The deeper thought and feeling there being the very transient nature of the body, the eternal nature of the spirit, the real…
Praying in the Rain
True Fasting
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“When fasting is understood in a true, Christian sense and not in a legalistic, pharisaical way, then the forgiving of insults and abstaining from covetousness are a fast, and this the most important fast, or, if you wish, the greatest fruit of fasting. For indeed, there is very little value in abstaining from food without abstinence from the returning of insult for insult and the illusion of earthly riches.” — St. Nicholai…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Aslan is on the move
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The Sunday of Forgiveness, March 6, 2011 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. “They say Aslan is on the move.” With these whispered words, the seventh chapter of the allegorically Christian novel by C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, introduces the character of Aslan. “Aslan is on the…
Praying in the Rain
Charismatic Gifts and the Orthodox Church
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What is the role of the charismatic prophet and prophecy in the Orthodox Church? In the Orthodox Church there is no office of prophet (while, I have been told, there is in the Roman Catholic Church). However, we have great respect for the prophetic gift, which in the Orthodox Church is usually called “clairvoyance.” That’s a tough word for Protestants because it is the word commonly used to refer to pagan fortune…
Nearly Orthodox
Great Lent...
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I’m meant to attend a service tomorrow, the last day before the start of Great Lent. I’ve been emailing with a new friend, someone who strikes me as kindred in some very good and holy ways…artist, mother, wife, outspoken and funny… And I wake up today with a raging headcold. There are no accidents, you know. This was well planned by my body, extremely well planned. I’m not saying that I don’t…
Nearly Orthodox
tongues...
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I’m back on the Jesus Prayer most of the day. Constantly…moving my lips along with the words, silent on my breath…when I’m driving, when I’m typing, when I’m trying hardest not to lose my temper or lapse into future living instead of the now…present tense… The Jesus Prayer is always present tense. Today, sitting alone while the kids were all out playing I clung to my quiet house, my warm coffee cup,…
Praying in the Rain
Maria Blokonsky in War and Peace
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Do you think Maria Blokonsky best embodies the Orthodox way in War and Peace? I would say that Maria Blokonsky, and I believe there is also an aunt who is pious in St. Petersburg, is certainly the most pious. However, I would not say that she embodies the Orthodox way. The Orthodox way is very personal. Each person based on ability, life situation, education, etc. walks toward Christ in a rhythm or…
Glory to God for All Things
Inner Stillness
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A very fine essay by Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA on essential practices of the spiritual life can be found among the abbatial essays on the website of the Monastery of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. It is worth the read – even worth printing out and saving… I find it especially helpful in preparing for Great Lent and utterly essential when things seek to trouble our minds and hearts……
Praying in the Rain
Hans Boersma -- Heavenly Participation
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I’d like to recommend Hans Boersma’s Heavenly Participation to any one trained in western thought (that’s about everyone who will read this). He presents a look at the mystery of what Eastern Orthodox Christians understand as an iconic view of all creation. That is, Orthodox Christians understand all creation to reveal God. As one of the Fathers said (St. Anthony the Great, I think), “Creation is the Word of God written in…
Nearly Orthodox
pause...
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I ran into a wall this weekend and now I don’t want to pray. I was speaking to someone recently about my journey. She was interested in it as well and I think she had hoped I would be able to enlighten her on some of the finer points…which is crazy…because I know so little. I’m a terrible spokesperson for Orthodoxy. The most I can say is that I feel more stirred…
Nearly Orthodox
remedial...
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cross posted with http://www.mrsmetaphor.com remedial… Where matters of faith are concerned everything is remedial. I have become a pilgrim of sorts in the last six months on a road I never imagined myself taking. The destination is not new. I can easily say that meeting God on a regular basis has been the destination that I look toward. I’m all about it. In my best moments I suppose I thought I was…
Glory to God for All Things
The Unreal Land
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A few axiomatic thoughts… God is the “only truly existing God.” All existence is a gift from God who is our Creator. None of us has “self-existing” life. We exist because God sustains us in existence (“in Him we live and move and have our being”). Sin is the rejection of this gift of God – a movement away from true existence. +++ Much of our lives in the modern world engages primarily…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Podcasts page created
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In an effort to put all (or most) of my podcasting work into one navigable place, I’ve created a podcasts page on the Roads from Emmaus website. It not only has the full Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy series, but also the various series and talks I’ve done for Roads from Emmaus, as well as some talks I’ve done as part of other series. It’s grouped…
Praying in the Rain
Charles Williams: Descent into Hell
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[A wordy offering] In Charles Williams’ novel Descent into Hell, one of the characters, an old man and a wise poet, Peter Stanhope, helps a young woman, Pauline, who is tormented by fear. She fears meeting her double. One might argue that she is psychotic, believing that her double exists and that she has several times seen her double walking toward her. Psychotic or not, Pauline’s fear is real. She is like…
Nearly Orthodox
fits and starts...
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Perhaps that is what this journey will always be, fits and starts. For someone who likes to think of herself as “even keel” this whole fits and starts business is frustrating in it’s utter inefficiency.  Can’t I just speak whatever words are necessary, have a priest slap some oil on my head and be done with it? Why does this have to be complicated? I’m complicated…but not really. I dreamt last night…
Nearly Orthodox
church...
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It’s easy to skip church right now. I confess, it’s possible I’ve used our relationships with the people at the Presbyterian church as an excuse to not attend Divine Litury up to now.  I’m so conflicted on Sunday mornings. I wring my hands and wander around the house just looking for someone to tell me to go or tell me to stay home or tell me to leave everyone at home and…
Praying in the Rain
Tips to Avoid Delusion When Reading Spiritual Books
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“Do not deceive yourself with idle hopes/ That in the world to come you will find life/If you have not tried to find it in this present world.” From “The Ladder of Divine Graces” by Theophanes the Monk in volume 3 of The Philokalia. Generally speaking, I do not recommend that people read the Philokalia, except as guided by a spiritual father. This is important for several reasons. First, like the Bible,…
Nearly Orthodox
hungry...
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Bad news for the potential pill popper part of me, the one who had hoped that one day the blue pill would finally dispense me from the hard work of faith… I’ve picked up a book by Alexander Schmemann and the first line reads, “Man is what he eats…” No matter where I turn I find I am facing this very thought. I am a function not merely of what I say…
Nearly Orthodox
fear and hope...
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I’m convinced that, for me, being an introvert is not a function of having low self esteem. I actually think highly of myself…perhaps a little too highly based upon some recent prayer revelation, actually. Being an introvert is a function of understanding most things that appear ordinary and routine as having some deep mystery and then making room for that mystery in my opinion. This brings me to some thoughts I had…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Byzantine, Texas interview
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Glory to God for All Things
The Edge
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One of the peculiar marks of life in the modern world is the sense one has of standing on the edge. We are always (it seems) either standing on the edge of disaster or on the edge of some great discovery. Of course, a lot of this is simply the way we market the world to ourselves. But it is an inherent part of modernity to constantly look towards the future and…
