Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Superior Vegetarian Chili Recipe (hyper-annotated)
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Rejoice, nerds and ascetics alike (and you know who you are), for your humble servant, the Irrev. Fr. Andrew, is passing on to you in tradition this, the recipe for the finest vegetarian chili you will ever eat. (If it is not, then that means you’re doing it wrong.) This recipe originally started with a certain Mr. Gorski with whom I shared living space…
The Morning Offering
Work
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Spiritual Work and Physical Work The compartmentalization of the work week can wreak havoc on the inner life. It is easier to keep your prayers, spiritual reading, and focus on Christ, reserved for the weekend. Like so many, you struggle to keep spiritually grounded while at work. So many jobs make it seem impossible to stay centered, spiritually, when you…
The Morning Offering
Idols
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Hoping this is our last snow for the season. Beware of False Idols Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object worshiped as though it were a god. Idolatry can also involve objects, persons, entertainment, even self. Anything that replaces the centrality of God in our life, can be a form of idolatry. Job,…
Praying in the Rain
The Forty Days
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Recently I had a discussion with a devout person about the number of days in Great Lent. This person was concerned because, depending on what days you count, Great Lent in the Orthodox Church can be from forty to forty-eight days long. I explained to this person what I had learned: Great Lent is from Clean Monday to the Friday before Lazarus Saturday, which is forty days. The following eight days are…
Nearly Orthodox
marked...
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On Tuesday I will be meeting with a woman who will most likely be inking my last tattoo. I’ve been pondering the design for another tattoo for a couple of years now. My first tattoo was designed by me with a few alterations and clean ups from my graphic designer sister-in-law. I don’t exaggerate when I say that I prayed about getting that first tattoo for more than 10 years. For me…
The Morning Offering
The Disturbed Heart
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Novice Theofil, Abbot Tryphon, Hieromonk Paul, and Monk Moses (click photo to enlarge) Forgetfulness of the Things of God The Lenten struggle is a perfect time to do battle with the passions that create a state of unrest in our hearts. Anything that causes us to forget the goal, which is union with God, must be resisted. Saint Basil the…
Glory to God for All Things
The Desert Struggle
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One of the best-known sayings to have come from the Desert Fathers is: “Stay in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.” To a large degree the saying extols the virtue of stability. Moving from place to place never removes the problem – it only postpones the inevitable. Somewhere, sometime we have to face the heart of our struggle and by the grace of God overcome. Of course, not everyone…
The Morning Offering
Fasting and Prayer
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Fasting and Prayer go Together One of the great benefits of fasting is to be found in the aid it lends to the controlling of our bodily inclinations to resist communion with God. Fasting and prayer go together for the precise reason that fasting helps the body conform to the spiritual conditions wherein we are open to the things of…
Glory to God for All Things
The Christian Crisis
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Any student of Church history should be well aware that there has been no century in which the Christian faith was safe, untroubled and not in crisis. To a certain extent, the Cross will always bring Christians into crisis. However, these are some thoughts on the present and some aspects of the crisis in which we live (at this moment in history). +++ One of the larger crises facing modern Christians is…
The Morning Offering
I'm Back!
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I’m Back! Due to changes made by Google, I’ve been locked out of my blog since Wednesday, unable to upload any articles. I’m not a tech sort of guy (being old), so have had to rely upon my younger friends. Thanks to Peter and Richard, both tech guys (but by no means geeks) I am now back up, and able…
The Morning Offering
Acquiring Humility
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How to become Humble We have a fairly clear idea of what humility is, for we’ve all met people who are truly humble. Metropolitan Laurus of blessed memory, the saintly man who’d led the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia as her Chief Hierarch, was such a man. Our brotherhood’s beloved Father Spiridon (the Scotsman whose own humility inspired us,…
The Morning Offering
Thursday March 1, 2012 / February 17, 2012
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Grateful Dead A Monk is to be Dead to the World A monk is to be dead to the world, for by his very vocation he is called to be set apart, living a life in imitation of the angels. Whether he be praised or offended, a monk must react as though he were a dead man. He must not…
Praying in the Rain
Sunday of Orthodoxy
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On the first Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the Sunday of Orthodoxy, sometimes called the Triumph of Orthodoxy. I don’t like to use the latter expression because in the North American context of Christian denominationalism it is easily misunderstood–by both Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christians. So let me begin by saying one thing that the Sunday of Orthodoxy is not, and then go on to explain a little bit about what it is.…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
FB/G+/TWT
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If you can make any sense out of the headline for this post, You Might Be a Digital Native. In any event, this is merely a reminder that, now with the addition of a Twitter account, I’ve completely signed on to the Great Trifecta of Social Media. (Hm. Now the phrase social medium occurs to me, and I am left with an image of…
Praying in the Rain
Peace
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Be at peace with your soul and heaven and earth will be at peace with you. St. Issak the Syrian
Glory to God for All Things
Smashing Icons
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The first Sunday of Great Lent, on the Orthodox calendar, is set aside to remember the restoration of icons to the Churches during the reign of the holy Empress Theodora (9th century). It commemorates as well the gift of the entirety of the Orthodox faith. I offer these thoughts in honor of the day. The opening quote is from an earlier posting. We have to renounce iconoclasm. In so doing, we inherently set ourselves…
The Morning Offering
Pettiness is the Enemy of Clergy
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Petty Clergy Pettiness is that sickness of the heart that can lead some clergy to constantly be on the lookout for anyone who might offend them. Ready at a moments notice, they are poised to confront the offender. Such clergy build up their low self esteem by finding someone they can look down upon, needing, as they do, to find…
Praying in the Rain
The Canon of St. Andrew of Crete
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During the first week of Great Lent in the Holy Orthodox Church, we recite the theologically profound Canon (hymn) of St. Andrew of Crete. This huge hymn is divided into four parts and read Monday through Thursday evenings in the first week of Lent, and in its entirety on Thursday of the fifth week. This hymn, written in the eighth century, is a school for repentance. The hymn is essentially a meditation…
The Morning Offering
When People Don't Forgive
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Rejected There are people who insist on holding on to resentment, often inventing situations in their minds that never happened, justifying their bad behavior, and putting the blame on others. They see themselves as the abused party, always quick to take offense. Rarely are they able to have healthy relationships, for they are in reality, the abusers. Their world centers…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
From General Hospital to the Hospital of Souls: Interview with Jonathan Jackson
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This morning, after Matins, I high-tailed it across New Jersey over to Newark Liberty International Airport, pulled up to the Departures area at Terminal A, and picked up a man holding a tray of coffee. We drove to the airport parking, picked a spot, and proceeded to chat for about ninety minutes, about sixty of which I caught on tape. The man was (as…
Nearly Orthodox
rooms of regret...
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Because I’m a parent of small children it follows that I live in a house with a constant chorus of “sorry.” It comes in various tones ranging from the  toss off “sorry” swinging to the resentful “sorry” to the weepy “sorry.” I can read a sincere “sorry” though, the “sorry” that starts in the eyes, when one kid sees that whatever he or she did caused hurt. The sincere “sorry” isn’t clouded…
The Morning Offering
Embrace the Lenten Fast
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The Great Fast As we begin the Great and Holy Fast, let us remember that our soul is immortal, and care must be given to ensure its health. Our bodies will die, yet we often give more attention to the health of our bodies, than we do for our souls. Let us embrace the Lenten Fast with wholeheartedness, and use…
The Morning Offering
Keeping the Great Fast for the Right Reasons
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Fasting The late afternoon sun (). The Lord condemned the Pharisee, not because he fasted, but because his motivation was based on pride. The Pharisee wished to be seen by men, and he had no fear of God. He dared to stand before the Lord in pride and arrogance, while the Publican stood afar off, beating his breast, begging for…
Praying in the Rain
Hellbound and the Prayers of Paradise
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On the blog for the movie Hellbound, several arguments are presented for and against various views of hell and related topics. What struck me as I read through them was that in just about every case, the arguments seemed to hinge on an either/or formula. I find this tendency to reduce matters of ultimate importance to mutually exclusive dyads unhelpful. It is as if we really think that God and the…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Evangelical Lent Redux
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In my previous post, a comment from a Protestant challenged me to argue for Lent purely from Scripture, also saying that his own experience of Lent, like Mark Galli’s, was pretty miserable. That led me to consider that I actually had left several important things out in the previous post, most especially touching upon the question of the dualism of Evangelicals and what that…
The Morning Offering
Be Quick to Embrace the Prodigal Son
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The Sins of Other Some people abandon themselves to sin in order to cover up their lack of self esteem. In their need for intimacy and acceptance, they seek out worldly pleasures, thinking these will fill the void that has kept them from happiness. In their desperate search for love, they are unable to form lasting friendships, and they spiral…
Glory to God for All Things
Do Something
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My recent post, The God Who Is No God, spoke of Christianity as a set of practices. This is a crucial understanding – a requirement for a living faith. It requires that we ask the question of the rich young ruler, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Oddly, he did not ask, “What must I believe to inherit eternal life?” Nor does Christ give him an ideological answer. He is…
