book Archives - Behind the Scenes

An Ancient Faith Family Christmas Letter

December 23, 2020December 30, 2020 · Melinda Johnson 2

Blessed Nativity! In the spirit of those family Christmas letters your relatives send, recounting adventures they’ve had since last Christmas, we’re delighted to bring you this round up of news from our content contributors. We have been blessed and delighted by what our people have accomplished. Not only are they overcoming difficult circumstances in their own lives, but they are actively working to encourage and edify others through their work. Glory to…

Schedule for Seven Holy Women and You: 2020 Online Ancient Faith Women’s Retreat

October 28, 2020 · Melinda Johnson

This year, the beloved Ancient Faith Women’s Retreat is moving online for a special journey into the lives of seven women saints and the ways they foster our own spiritual identity. Created as both a deeply personal and enriching communal experience, our live, interactive webinar retreat will feature the writers of Seven Holy Women: Conversations with Saints and Friends. A copy of the book is complimentary with each registration package. We are…

Unveiling Morwenna: How a Twenty-First-Century Researcher Fell in Love with a Fifth-Century Saint

October 22, 2020October 22, 2020 · Laura Jansson 1

When Seven Holy Women was just a gleam in the eye of Khouria Melinda Johnson, she gathered around her a group of seven not-especially-holy women and started doling out saints. Each one of us authors was to write about one of the venerable figures Melinda had identified; each one of the saints was a lover of Christ from another age, honored by Christians in both East and West – lesser-known and deserving…

Gratitude in Life’s Trenches: an Interview with Robin Phillips

August 25, 2020October 12, 2020 · Melinda Johnson

Your book Gratitude in Life’s Trenches has been creating quite a stir since it came out earlier this month. Within days of the book’s release it became an Amazon best-seller in its category, and it has received a string of positive reviews. Rod Dreher wrote that “this book will open closed minds, gladden weary hearts and change people’s lives,” while Bishop John, Antiochian Orthodox Bishop of Worcester and New England, praised the…

Laurel and the Wind: Picture Book Review by an Art Therapist

June 23, 2020 · Ama

In our digitally heavy world, where our senses are somewhat numbed by media overload, it is absolutely a breath of fresh air to read a book that is, in my opinion, a work of art that engages our imagination.

Apostle to the Plains: A True Story of Heroism and Sacrificial Christian Love

October 28, 2019February 6, 2020 · Nicholas Kosar

Do you want to read a story about how the Suez Canal, Asian silk production, and Ottoman persecution drove two Lebanese Orthodox Christian newlyweds to the Great Plains of America in 1892? How an immigrant couple with no knowledge of English who grew up with daily views of the Mediterranean arrived in Nebraska in midwinter?

Book Review – The Age of Paradise: Christendom from Pentecost to the First Millennium

September 10, 2019September 10, 2019 · J. Patrick Sullivan

As Strickland argues, those believers of the first millennium lived with a confidence and hope, truly making that an age of paradisiacal belief. United as they were in their beliefs, despite wars and political intrigue over what was once the Roman world, one could still at that time speak of Christendom as a single common society.

Words for Our Time: A Book That Lives Up To Its Name

August 23, 2019 · Shanda Kelly Smith

An Orthodox priest once told me, “Finding Orthodoxy is the easy part. The hard part comes when you begin to learn the depth of what our faith means. Each time you step into the next level of relationship with Christ, you will see a new and greater depth in which you must traverse to continue the journey.”

The Body Grateful: A Review of Garden in the East: The Spiritual Life of the Body by Angela Doll Carlson (audiobook)

May 30, 2019 · Brandi Willis Schreiber 1

“The body is a garden,” proclaims Angela Doll Carlson in the opening lines of her book, Garden in the East: The Spiritual Life of the Body. It is a declaration that should make any reader pause, particularly anyone who has ever struggled with body image, chronic illness, or immobility. It’s the line that immediately pulled me into the rest of Carlson’s poetic exploration of the relationship she has with her body and…

Using A Child’s Guide to Confession with My Kids: A Review

May 23, 2019 · Nikki Johnson

My kids especially appreciated the self-examination questions, which help with introspection and examination of conscience and focus first on love and our failures to love perfectly, rather than on sin.