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Christians are Naturalized Citizens

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The following is the naturalization oath that makes someone a citizen of the United States when immigrating from another country: I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend theā€¦

Some Encouragement, O Christians!

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Sometimes, Christian exhortation can get you down. It’s not that it’s not edifying when received well, but sometimes we don’t receive it well. If we’re not ready to receive the exhortation, we feel judgment. And of course an encounter with God’s word is always a judgment, because it reveals who we are. We should be receiving God’s word with joy, because it’s good news,ā€¦

The Struggle of True and Pure Citizenship

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
With the national election now (mostly) in the rearview mirror but yet not so distant, we are again in a time of reflection on national service and what it means to be a citizen, most especially on our duties to our fellow citizens. Unfortunately, most of the reflection is of a rather cynical and externalized sort, trying to figure out why this candidate wonā€¦

What is Spiritual Discipline Actually For?

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh is one of my favorite modern writers because, even though I have not really even begun to read all of his that is available in English, whenever I read something by him, I immediately feel a sense of hope in Jesus Christ. His transparency and peace are immediately accessible in all his writing. And since there is still soā€¦

Shouldn’t This Thing Just Work? An Intentional Christianity

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I get frustrated at machines sometimes, especially computerized machines. They do the most inexplicable things at times. When I was a stagehand, we called this IWF (Intermittent Weird Failure). IWF when I was a stagehand was eminently addressable—in most cases, we just switched out the offending part and went on with our lives. But I don’t always have that option out in the worldā€¦

Salvation Costs Nothing. And Everything.

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost / Thirteenth Sunday of Luke, November 27, 2016 Ephesians 2:4-10; Luke 16:19-31 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Many people who are introduced to the Orthodox Church for the first time, especially if they come from a Protestant background, may be rubbedā€¦

No One Ever Gets the Problems He Can Handle

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Another bit of wisdom today from Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix: Where parents are willing to take responsibility for their own unworked-out relationships either with their own parents or with one another, children rarely develop serious symptoms. Symptoms in a child are most likely to develop in the areas of the parentā€™s own traumatization whereā€¦