Glory to God for All Things
Reading Rightly
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The course of your reading should be parallel to the aim of your way of life…. Most books that contain instructions in doctrine are not useful for purification. The reading of many diverse books brings distraction of mind down on you. Know, then, that not every book that teaches about religion is useful for the purification of the consciousness and the concentration of the thoughts. St. Isaac of Syria quoted in The…
Glory to God for All Things
Without Distraction
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A desert hermit, dear to God and often in prayer, was joined by two angels as he walked, one on each side. He tried to pay them no attention. He did not want to be distracted from his conversation with Christ. From the Desert Fathers This is one of the great religious tragedies of our age – we do not want God so much as the proof of His existence – all…
Glory to God for All Things
What Can One Man Do?
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In our modern world we sometimes forget that a single person is not able to do much on their own. If Wittgenstein was right, then we really can’t do anything on our own. We live, for good or ill, within a culture, within a social matrix that makes most aspects of our life possible. Language is a social construct; world-views are a social construct; family is a social construct and I could…
Glory to God for All Things
Cultures of Remembrance
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I grew up in a “culture of remembrance.” By that, I mean that the history of the place in which I lived was far more a matter of discussion and meaning than the present or the future. That culture was the American South. Much of the remembrance we discussed was not true – just a left-over from the sentimentality of the 19th century. My childhood was spent in the 1950’s, which may…
Glory to God for All Things
Remembrance
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St. Macarius said, “If we remember the evil that others have done to us, we shut down our ability to remember God.” From the Desert Fathers Memory is a very powerful thing. The older I get, and the more of my earthly life lies behind me instead of before me, memory becomes indeed powerful. I have lived in my present home for almost 20 years, which, for a priest, can be quite…
Glory to God for All Things
Me, You and the Other Guy
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It has been said that a recession is when someone else loses his job; a depression is when you lose your job. I am too young to remember the Great Depression, though all the adults I knew as a child had come through that period. In 1928, my paternal great-grandfather lost everything (farm, machinery, house, etc.) in the Cotton Market Crash that preceded the Great Depression. My father was four years old…
Glory to God for All Things
When Money Fails
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I know little about economics, perhaps less than most. I do know when I hear scary stuff on television, though I know television likes to scare us (it keeps us watching). Nonetheless, I can’t help but notice that, world-wide, various markets are in a bit of a panic – and if not panic – at least they recognize a crisis when they see one. One of the great difficulties in our modern…
Glory to God for All Things
The Great Crisis
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I wanted to write a bit more on “crisis” following up on my previous article on Dostoevsky, et al. The “Great Crisis,” if I can coin a term, is the threat of non-existence, or relative non-existence. Classical Orthodoxy, following St. Athanasius does not threaten humanity with pure non-existence, but with a dynamic movement towards a “relative” non-existence, which some have described as a “meontic” existence (to get a little technical). If you…
Glory to God for All Things
Crises, Dostoevsky and the Gospel
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There is something of a common thread that runs throughout the novels of Dostoevsky, the 19th century Russian writer: personal crises. Dostoevsky has long been recognized as a genius of psychological perception, writing at a time before psychology was a formal academic discipline. Many of his novels carry a relgious theme, particularly Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. There are other personal crises in many of his other works – though…
Glory to God for All Things
The Humility of God
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The humility manifested in Christ’s voluntary death on the Cross was not an aberration, but a manifestation of who God is. Humility is divine. St. Silouan offered the following observation: There are many kinds of humility. One man is obedient, and has nothing but blame for himself; and this is humility. Another repents him of his sins and considers himself loathsome in the sight of God – and that is humility. But…
Glory to God for All Things
O, Happy Day
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Today I return to my home parish, my home altar, and the people who are my home in the Orthodox Church. We are not a perfect lot, but it is the lot that I know and love, and who, largely, know and love me. Some of them have suffered long with me from early early days in a warehouse in Knoxville, TN, to our present, relatively good days, others have joined us…
Glory to God for All Things
Where We Stand in Time
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An aspect of travel through the ruins of earlier civilizations is a sense of walking through the past. Here in the South we have numerous Battlegrounds, preserved as reminders of our nation’s struggles in the 19th century (and some from the 18th as well). There is even a lively sub-culture of “re-enactors” who seek to have some sense of the experience of times past. Christianity stands in a very different place with…
Glory to God for All Things
In the Garden of our Heart
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The Holy Land, it is said, is a microcosm of the world. It is certainly a microcosm of the Middle East – but I’m willing to accept the idea that it is also a microcosm of the world. And if that is the case, then it is also a microcosm of the heart of man. It is in thinking about this that insights and revelations have come. There is no denying the…
Glory to God for All Things
Can This Really Be the End? - Musing about the Eschaton
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This is one of the earliest articles I wrote. In view of our current crises (plural) it seemed worth reprinting. O, Mama, can this really be the end? To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again. Bob Dylan Ok. I’ll confess it right up front – I’m a Dylan fan. It shows my age and generation. My children have had to learn to put up with his voice, but…
Glory to God for All Things
Longing for Jerusalem
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My wife and I, as well as other pilgrims from our group, have been spending our time since coming home letting our bodies adjust to the “jet-lag.” It is easy to blame many things on jet-lag until the excuse will no longer work. I noticed towards the end of last week, that beyond any expectation, I simply missed being in Jerusalem. In truth, I had spent several months ahead of our pilgrimage…
Glory to God for All Things
Memories - Prayers By the Lake XXX
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This poem by St. Nikolai Velimirovich should not be read as looking back to a pre-existence of souls – but to the fullness of our Baptism and the purity that was ours at the font. It emphasizes in the imagery of memory, the desire to have communion with God above all else. XXX Blot out, O Lord, all my memories–except one. For memories make me old and feeble. Memories ruin the present…
Glory to God for All Things
What Do You Want From God?
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This may seem an entirely innocuous question. But I ask it in earnest. What do you want from God? On the level of the trite, we may want more of what we already have, but have it in abundance. We may want less of what we have, only have it in a healthy manner (relationships come to mind). What is more difficult, for the heart, and for the spiritual life in general…
Glory to God for All Things
Truth and Existence - A Second Look
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The original article (which follows) was published in August (not long ago). However, questions that continue to arise tell me that I need to publish it yet again. I will here emphasize its connection with the Atonement. Theories of legal indebtedness as the problem of sin are certainly popular in some circles of the Christian faith – though they do an extremely poor job of giving a proper account of the largest…
Glory to God for All Things
Pascha And Creation
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There are several religious or theological mistakes to make about Christ’s resurrection. They are generally innocent, and refelct the faith as a number of people have been taught it. The problem lies in the fact that many do not rightly understand the resurrection nor the true scope of its significance. I am just a sinner and not worthy to offer corrections to others – but I will offer what I know. 1.…
Glory to God for All Things
A Single Monk
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I earlier shared the story of my conversation with a monk at Mar Saba Monastery in the Judean desert. For me, it was both an oasis of rest (it really is in a desert) and an oasis of truth. We had spent the morning traveling, with our guide also giving us a political commentary – which though appreciated, easily becomes a rant in which you want to say, “OK. I get your…
Glory to God for All Things
Rocks, Desert and No Rain
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Jerusalem is in a desert. Water is easily the most essential element. There are great aquifers in the area and the politics of water underlies much of the political reality on the surface of the ground. It was observed by one of our pilgrims that the early Christians left the cities to enter the desert, there to fight with the demons and to find God. But in our modern period, the cities…
Glory to God for All Things
Assimilating the Gospel
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A pilgrimage is reduced to tourism if it does not become a part of the pilgrim himself. I have been home for a little over 24 hours – most of it in the stupor of “jet-lag.” I have sat down to write several times, only to find that I was too tired to say much. This week may carry some aspect of that until my body is back on Eastern Daylight Time.…
Glory to God for All Things
Flying Home
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Today we fly home, with an overnight lay-over at Heathrow. Many thanks to all of you for your prayers. As God wills, I’ll be posting photos and writing more when I reach home. Doubtless there will be parish matters to attend to – thus how quickly I get back into rhythm is anybody’s guess. May God grant us all to make pilgrimage to the true Jerusalem of the heart. A pilgrimage cannot be…
Glory to God for All Things
Away From Home
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From a modern American perspective – one of the interesting components of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is to find yourself largely outside of the news cycle. There has been no television or radio. I have looked briefly at the internet, but mostly to answer email or tend the blog site. I am not unaware that the American economy is having difficulty, and I understood from my daughter at home that…
Glory to God for All Things
Jerusalem and the Modern Heart
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Jerusalem, more than any city of the Holy Land, is a place of layers. This is generally true of most places here. Long before Jerusalem was the City of David, it was the city of the Jebusites, the city where Melchizedec, King and Priest, ruled and prayed – he who offered bread and wine and received tithes of Abraham. But the city of the Jebusites, and perhaps cities before that, are only…
Glory to God for All Things
The Hardest Pilgrimage of All
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I have stated – not tongue in cheek – that “I am an ignorant man,” and I have also added that “I am a man still in need of a Savior.” These things do not change on a pilgrimage but become only clearer. The most difficult of all pilgrimages is the pilgrimage to the heart and finding there, not only the treasuries of paradise, but also all the garbage stuffed there over…
Glory to God for All Things
The Borders of the Grace of God
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Today, walking and weaving our way through the streets of Old Jerusalem, shops on each side of the alley, the smells of a rich mixture of spices and a thousand other things, shop-keepers calling with eagerness to the “foreigners” passing by – we were on a free morning, and there were gifts to be found. We came across another pilgrim, separate from our group, who took us to a greater gift. In…
