Glory to God for All Things
Reading and Being Read
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There is one experience (at least) of reading Scripture, there is another altogether different of being “read by Scripture.” Both are quite valid but very different things. Reading Scripture is, of course, something we do all the time – perhaps so much so that we rarely stop to think about what we are doing. It is never a simple gathering of facts (like reading a newspaper article), nor is it like reading…
Glory to God for All Things
Why We Don't Believe In God
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A note: This article has been described by someone on a blog reference site as a description of why atheists don’t believe in God. Apparently they haven’t read the article. Throughout I use the pronoun “we” because I am not talking about non-believers, per se, but about both believers and unbelievers. I have not spared myself in the use of “we.” I think all of us have common issues. If you think otherwise,…
Glory to God for All Things
Let the Righteous Rejoice
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Glory to God for All Things
Why I Believe in God - Part 2
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In my earlier posting I wrote primarily about my personal journey as a Christian and why I am a believer rather than an atheist. In the course of my life I do not think atheism would have ever been a possible way to live – the questions of my life and heart would have been either silenced or bludgeoned into non-existence. But there are other aspects worth writing about. One has to…
Glory to God for All Things
To Depart in Peace
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Glory to God for All Things
Why Do I Believe in God?
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I am always interested in the posts that come to my site from self-professed atheists. They tend to live in a world far-removed from the one I inhabit (surrounded as I am with religious services and the whole culture of the Church). I never satisfy the questions posed (which usually demand rationalist answers, that, though they can be given, are not my particular strength). But I am interested in why someone does…
Glory to God for All Things
What An Icon Says
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According to the Seventh Ecumenical Council, “An icon does with color what the Scriptures do with words.” It is a very simple, straightforward explanation of icons – but it holds within it a world of theological understanding. This morning I had opportunity with a visitor of the Church to fall into conversation about the Scriptures. The discussion turned towards the relationship between the Old and New Testament. My point was to underscore…
Glory to God for All Things
Leaving the Secular Life - Part 2
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It is one thing to describe the cultural mix in which we swim and quite another to swim in an opposite direction. One of my favorite icons is a Theophany icon (Christ’s Baptism). In it you can see fish swimming in the water. All of the fish are swimming downstream except one. A single fish, just beneath the hand of Christ, is swimming in the opposite direction. The first time I saw…
Glory to God for All Things
Leaving the Secular Life
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The default position of America is secular protestantism. I say this is the default position and mean by it – that without effort and care – we all find ourselves thinking and acting out of a secular protestant mindset. Of course, I need to offer a definition for my terms. By secular protestantism (and I mean no insult to Protestants by the term) I mean a generalized belief in God – but…
Glory to God for All Things
Godly Counsel from a Holy Elder
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I am sharing here a few sayings from the Elder Amphilochios of Patmos, someone whose life and teachings I have heard spoken of before by Metropolitian Kallistos of Diocleia (Kallistos Ware). They are worth savoring. The quotes come from the volume Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit. I am especially fond of his attitude to trees. +++ My children, I don’t want Paradise without you. Whoever plants a tree, plants hope, peace,…
Glory to God for All Things
A Thank You
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I noted with gratitude that Glory to God for All Things passed the milestone of 250,000 views today, all of these since beginning late last October. I am grateful for those who visit this site and pray that it is of some use to you in your day. Someone asked me today if I ever felt that the blog was like a parish. Yes and no. The cyberworld has its own sense…
Glory to God for All Things
Somethings Have to be Shared
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Having posted several times about my son’s wedding last weekend (how could I not?), it seemed only right to post a photo of the young couple (James and Anna). I asked one of my extremely talented, artistic children who had all of the photos in digital form to send me a few wedding pictures this week so that I could share them – but strangely – none of the pictures were of…
Glory to God for All Things
Orthodoxy and the Christ-Haunted Culture of the South
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One of my favorite priests in the Diocese of the South is Fr. Paul Yerger who serves Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Clinton, Mississippi. His gentle demeanor and kind words are what I have always associated with the South, though it is rarely witnessed today. I had a chance to visit with him this week at the Diocesan Assembly in Miami. Three years ago he was our keynote speaker at our assembly…
Glory to God for All Things
The Intercession of the Saints
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Doubtless one of the less understood aspects of the Orthodox faith, particularly by Protestants, is the importance of the intercession of the saints. Orthodox doctrine and teaching is quite clear that we do not treat saints as objects of worship, nor as worthy of worship. This would be blasphemous to us. Nevertheless, it is a huge part of the “ethos” of Orthodoxy, probably only understood from the inside and then only after…
Glory to God for All Things
The Boundary of Death
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This was posted originally last Spring. I have posted again for re-reading and for its assurance that Christ is the only guarantee of our dignity. Having spent two-and-a-half years as a Hospice Chaplain, I had opportunity to be present to over 200 deaths (that does not include the many I have witnessed in my years in ordained ministry. As you sit with someone who is dying, there finally arises a boundary beyond…
Glory to God for All Things
Christ the Only Assurance of the Dignity of Man
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I am in Miami attending the annual Diocesan Assembly for the South. This first evening was primarily time with with our Archbishop DMITRI, and my brother clergy in the Diocese. I have known His Eminence since around 1994 and have, on occasion, spent a extended periods with him. I have heard him speak at least three to four times a year (and sometimes more). I add to that numerous private conversations.…
Glory to God for All Things
Can The World Be Changed?
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In a recent exchange on one of my postings I was congratulated for my advocacy of attention to small things, and told that thereby we will change the world. I wrote a light-hearted response in which I demurred from such a lofty goal – but have thought much of it since – and have decided to post on the present topic – why changing the world is not the agenda of the Christian…
Glory to God for All Things
Before the Feast
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I will not likely get a chance to post until after the weekend – the wedding is coming soon upon us and it’s not local. Bags are being packed – last minute details that seem to be endless are all coming to an end that lack of time alone can bring. When it’s all said and done a wedding takes place. As I have written before, our family gathers from the four…
Glory to God for All Things
The Unity of the Faith
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It is said proverbially in Orthodoxy that “one who prays is a theologian and a theologian is one who prays.” This intends fully to say that an unlettered peasant may be a greater theologian than someone who holds many degrees and can offer page after page of published articles. There is only one reason this is so: theology is about God as reality and not God as a concept. Subtlety was an…
Glory to God for All Things
I'm Glad We Cleared That Up!
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Pope Benedict XVI has just released a clarification on the documents of Vatican II where he explains what is meant by calling the Orthodox “Churches” while still maintaining that they are “defective.” In a major problem that exists between Orthodox understandings of the nature of the Church and Roman Catholic understandings of the nature of the Church – he reiterated that the recognition of the papacy as universal primate of the Church…
Glory to God for All Things
The Fire of Pentecost in Orthodoxy
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No one, of course, can describe the fire that fell on the Apostles at Holy Pentecost. At most we are told that the Spirit appeared “like tongues of flame lighting upon the heads of the Apostles.” Not much a description. Other times in Scripture we are told of a Pillar of Fire and of the bush that burned but was not consumed. Again, this is very little information. To this day, there…
Glory to God for All Things
Some Things Have to Be Posted
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My house is quickly being swallowed up by impending nuptials. Tomorrow my oldest daughter and my second’s daughter’s husband arrive. News continues to reach us of family the will be joining us in S.C. for my son’s wedding. He is marrying an Orthodox girl who delights our heart. Indeed our hearts are very full. But I post a photo of my son from much earlier years. I treasure it because it speaks…
Glory to God for All Things
Charismatic Episcopal Church Congregation and Clergy to be Received into Holy Orthodoxy
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Glory to God for All Things
The Spirit, the Modern World, Pentecostalism and Orthodoxy
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Part of the larger Christian context in which Orthodoxy lives today includes not only Catholics (of various sorts), Protestants (of even more sorts), but Pentecostals as well (of which there are quite a few sorts). Indeed, having come splashing onto the modern religious scene around 1900, Pentecostals have been by far the fastest growing of all Christian groups, and have had huge influences everywhere, with only the possible exception of the Orthodox.…
Glory to God for All Things
The Life of the Spirit
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The following paragraphs are from the chapter on “The Life of the Spirit” in Fr. Sophrony’s We Shall See Him As He Is. St. Silouan’s method is to place us before the general principle and then leave us to work out and diagnose our own case. To give a few examples: ‘One should eat only so much as allows prayer and the feeling of the Divine presence to continue uninterrupted after food’;…
Glory to God for All Things
Losing My Religion
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I could not resist using the title from the R.E.M. hit of a few years ago for this post, though it’s really not about losing one’s religion: it’s more about losing your soul. In one of my favorite C.S. Lewis novels, That Hideous Strength, Lewis tries his hand at the description of a soul in danger of being lost. His friend, Charles Williams, had, years before, masterfully done the same in his…
Glory to God for All Things
The Wonder of Communion
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Despite the title, this post is not directly, or at least not yet about the Mystery of Holy Communion. Instead it begins first with the mystery of communion that can only take place when other persons are about. For yet the third time in my family’s life, a child is soon to marry, though this time it is a manchild (to use the Biblical expression). On Sunday week my son will marry…
