Nearly Orthodox
matins...
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It turns out that the church I’m courting does have a matins service during the week…so, there’s that. I’ve been looking for a way to do a kind of location scout and maybe this is the way to do it.  I’m told that there are not many seats in the typical orthodox sanctuary…most people stand during the service. This thought lends me some angst. I wish I could just be invisible until…
Praying in the Rain
The Mayor of Casterbridge 1
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The Mayor of Caterbridge begins with a man selling his wife and daughter for five guineas. The man was drunk at the time, and he really didn’t expect that someone would actually buy her. He was only tormenting his wife, as he occasionally did when he had had too much rum not to speak his wishes out loud. Michael Henchard had married young, making good wages as a hay trusser; but the…
Praying in the Rain
Grandkids and Thomas Hardy (Not Related)
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May you see your children’s children (Psa. 127:6). As some of you know, I have been busy this week with my children’s children. It has been a wonderful and busy week. The week started out with two of my daughters and grandchildren joining me for Saturday morning matins. We began matins by running back and forth across the church nave: “One, two, three, go!” The room was cold and this both warmed…
Nearly Orthodox
hurry...
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I’m always in a hurry. I hate to wait. That whole patience thing is a train I can hear whistling in the distance but can never seem to catch. I watch it going by on a trestle far above my head and think, “well, that’s really majestic and beautiful….and unreachable. I wonder where it’s going.” This is how I feel about Orthodoxy today.  I just can’t seem to get to a service.…
Praying in the Rain
Our Mutual Friend (Podcast Transcript)
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I was eager to reread Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens; I remembered it as being my favorite Dickens novel. However, 100 pages into this 800 page story, I was having a hard time remembering why I liked this novel so much. Our Mutual Friend is not one of Dickens’ popular novels, and certainly it is not one of his best. It is his last full novel, completed in 1865. Like…
Nearly Orthodox
people...
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I’m an introvert. Most people who know me will say I hide that well and I guess I do. I’m an extroverted introvert. I can be outgoing-ish and I can handle myself in a group of people but I’m completely worn out for meeting people.  I don’t mind being IN FRONT of a large group, I’m a performer. Being IN a large group is hard for me. I’m afraid of a number…
Nearly Orthodox
first steps...
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I’ve attended my first Orthodoxy 101 class. I know that I already know most of this. I am at once encouraged and discouraged. I look around the small table of people sitting and listening. The priest, Father G is very kind. He’s young, passionate about the faith.  He keeps stopping in his instruction, asking for questions. We all stare blankly. There is a sweet young couple sitting next to me, they identify…
Nearly Orthodox
long time coming...
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I’ve been considering a return to ancient traditon for a long time now. I was raised Roman Catholic, left that faith when I was in college and then while I kept my belief and love of God and the person of Jesus I just never found a home. I have a family now. They are, I recognize, a brood of little prophets. I have a husband who is strong in theologian leanings…
Glory to God for All Things
Believe It or Not
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I have to confess as I begin this post that I find myself reaching for words. I reach for words to say something I know, but which is hard to express. To believe the truth is not the same thing as having a correct opinion – indeed the two have almost nothing to do with one another. And this is a great difficulty – for most of the things that we think of ourselves as…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Text
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Whenever I have not read The Lord of the Rings for some time, I feel as though I am a long way from home. I try (but sometimes fail) to read it annually. And yet I have all these books around that I bought but just haven’t gotten around to reading yet. They’re good books, mind you. Being a geek who married a geek,…
Praying in the Rain
Love Is The Best Teacher (Dickens Rabbit Trail)
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“Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher.” Bella is now knitting baby clothes, and Dickens comments on how well she is adapting to sewing and knitting small things. Her love for her husband and the baby in her womb is the most wonderful teacher. If you will permit me to take this line out of context, I think this would make a good motto for everyone who teaches. When…
Praying in the Rain
God's Mercy
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Praying in the Rain
Our Mutual Friend part 2: Bella and Love Breaks Through
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As I am rereading Our Mutual Friend, I realize that part of the reason why I remember this novel so fondly is that I relate deeply to two characters. The two characters are Bella and her father, the “Cherub.” I relate to Bella because I understand her struggles with the unfairness of the world, the pull of greed and the confusion of not knowing herself. And like Bella, love made the difference…
Glory to God for All Things
The Boldness of Prayer
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In the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, at the end of the litany that precedes the Lord’s Prayer, the priest intones: And make us worthy, O Master, that with boldness and without condemnation, we may dare to call upon Thee, the heavenly God, as Father, and to say: Our Father… It is a phrase that relfects Hebrews 4:15-16: For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling…
Glory to God for All Things
The Fullness of All Things
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I am fascinated by what the Holy Tradition does with the idea of “fullness” or “fulfillment.” The Church is described as the “fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:23). And it is not unusual for Orthodox Christians to express the meaning of Orthodoxy under the rubric of “fullness”: Orthodoxy is the “fullness of the Church.” The Scriptures do much with the concept – speaking of the “fullness of time,”…
Praying in the Rain
Gentleness
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St. Paul towards the end of his letter to the Philippians urges two women to get along with each other. These two women had “struggled beside [him] in the work of the Gospel” along with St. Clement. How is it that two people who had worked with a saint, two saints, in preaching the Gospel, how is it that they could fall into such a contention that St. Paul a) would hear…
Praying in the Rain
Our Mutual Friend part 1
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I am rereading Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. I read it about ten years ago, and I remembered it as one of my favorite, if not my favorite Dickens novel. However, when I said I would review it for Ancient Faith Radio’s “Speaking of Books” podcast, I had to read it again. Boy was I disappointed. The impression in my memory was quite different from my impression as I was rereading…
Praying in the Rain
Enduring Trials
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Glory to God for All Things
Why Would Anyone Want to Forgive an Enemy?
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That Christians are commanded by Christ to forgive their enemies is common knowledge. We often take this at face value – discover immediately that it is very hard (often impossible) and conclude that the commandment is an unachievable ideal. For non-Christians, forgiveness of enemies may, in some cases, be a shared ideal (most people believe in “peace”), but many if not most non-Christians would recognize immediately the dangers involved in forgiving an…
Praying in the Rain
Vessels of Wrath
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When St. Paul talks about God’s preparing vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy as a potter who has power over clay, he seems to make God out as almost arbitrary. It seems terribly harsh, as though God says to Himself, “This one will do, I’ll show mercy to her; but the rest are out of luck.” If all you have is Romans chapter nine, it looks pretty grim. However, writing to…
Glory to God for All Things
Now That We've Come to the End of the World
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And although in the course of their long history Christians have much too often forgotten the meaning of the cross, and enjoyed life as if “nothing had happened,” although each one of us too often takes “time off” – we know that in the world in which Christ died, “natural life” has been brought to an end. Fr. Alexander Schmemann in For the Life of the World. +++ By age 19 I…
Praying in the Rain
When I Am Weak, Then I Am Strong
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St. Paul boasts to the Corinthians about all of his qualifications of pedigree, education, suffering and revelation so that they would know that he is as qualified as the “super apostles” who had been leading them astray. However, about all of his qualifications he says that they count as nothing. He doesn’t want people to relate to him based on his qualifications. He wants people to relate to him based on what they…
Glory to God for All Things
The End of Religion
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Christianity…is in a profound sense the end of all religion. In the Gospel story of the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus made this clear. “‘Sir,’ the woman said to him, ‘I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’ Jesus saith unto her, ‘Woman, believe me, the our cometh, when ye shall neither…
Glory to God for All Things
Even If I Descend into Hell...
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Charles Williams, one of C.S. Lewis’ circle of friends, once wrote a book entitled, The Descent into Hell. In it he chronicles the slow inexorable damnation of a soul. Choices made or not made – a chronicle more of spiritual ennui than of willful rebellion – it is a very sobering read. There is an understanding of hell that goes far beyond the typical lake of fire and burning Gehenna. Those images,…
Praying in the Rain
Food, Sex and Humility
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In the Garden of Eden, Eve was tempted by food. The draw to the food, or the justification for the draw to this particular food, was intellectual, not biological. That is, she was not drawn to the forbidden food because she was hungry. Eve’s mind and the machinations of her mind (with the help of a serpentine friend) increased desire and justification to the point that she was overcome by desire. The…
Praying in the Rain
Politics and the Image of God
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“Never confuse the person, formed in the image of God, with the evil that is in him; because evil is but a chance misfortune, an illness, a devilish reverie. But the very essence of the person is the image of God, and this remains in him despite every disfigurement.” — St. John of Kronstadt It is often hard for us to believe that the person who hurts us, opposes us, takes from…
Glory to God for All Things
Servanthood and Freedom - A Word to Neurotic Christians
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Be both a servant, and free: a servant in that you are subject to God, but free in that you are not enslaved to anything – either to empty praise or to any of the passions. Release your soul from the bonds of sin; abide in liberty, for Christ has liberated you; acquire the freedom of the New World during this temporal life of yours. Do not be enslaved to love of…
