āThe self resides in the face.ā ā Psychological Theorist, Sylvan Tompkins +++ There is a thread running throughout the Scriptures that can be described as a ātheology of the face.ā In the Old Testament we hear a frequent refrain of ābefore Thy face,ā and similar expressions. There are prayers beseeching God not to āhide His face.ā Very clearly in Exodus, God tells Moses that āno one may see my face andā¦
Few things are as difficult in the modern world as fasting. It is not simply the action of changing our eating habits that we find problematic – itās the whole concept of fasting and what it truly entails. It comes from another world. We understand dieting – changing how we eat in order to improve how we look or how we feel. But changing how we eat in order to know Godā¦
“Who am I?” The question of who we are is deceptively simple. When we begin to press the question, almost every answer that we can give is something other than the self. When we leave the (ideally) intimate communion of our early years and begin to forge our way into a social setting, an uncertainty begins to be our social companion. This questioning of identity (which is fairly normal) becomes the seedbedā¦
I am pleased to announce that my new book, Face to Face, Knowing God Beyond Our Shame, has just been published and released by Ancient Faith. You can click on the link and order it. I hope to complete the audio version as soon as my voice comes back. This has been a long labor of love. Order the book here.
I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; Ā (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the āwhole Adam.ā By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. For Silouan and Sophrony, this was something known in the present tense, a āhypostaticā knowledge of the fundamental unity of the human race.ā¦
How is your marriage progressing? This simple question is a way of focusing our attention on right-thinking about progress and the Christian life. I posed the question to myself ā I have been married now for 47 years. My first thought was, āWhat would āprogressā in a marriage mean?ā Do I love my wife more, or any less? What would more love look like? The truth of marriage is that progress isā¦
Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become aĀ poet. – St. Pophyrios of Kavsokalyvia St. Porphyrios made this statement in the context of love and suffering: That’s what it is! You must suffer. You must love and suffer–suffer for the one you love. Love makes effort for the loved one. She runs all through the night; she stays awake; she stains her feet with blood in order to meet her beloved.ā¦
In the film, Ground Hog Day, actor Bill Murray awakens each morning to the same day – February 2 – and does the same things over and over. At first it’s fun. Then it’s maddening. Indeed, a whole string of days finds him committing suicide in an attempt to stop the repetition, only to awaken again to the same day. In conversations about the film, the writer-director Harold Ramis suggests that theā¦
Candlewax and Hedgehogsāa peculiar way to entitle an article, Iāll admit. But both have their associations with the second day of February. The first is more important so weāll begin there. The second day of February is one of the 12 great feasts, and is also celebrated by Christians in the West. The feast is the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, described in the second chapter of St. Lukeās gospel. Thereā¦
You meet someone and like them. You slowly get to know them. Conversation and sharing, listening and learning, a picture or a reality beginĀ to emerge. You think about them when theyāre away. Youāre aware that you matter to them as well. The thought of anything hurting them is painful. This is friendship. We easily reduce friendship to a set of shared emotions. Why we like someone else, we can imagine, rests onā¦
