Category: Church

Playing with God

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 32 Leave a Comment on %s
There are things that children understand instinctively. And the things that children know and understand are worth consideration. They have much to teach us. Among the most natural things children do is play. Depending on how you define play, it is among the first activities in which we engage. It comes to dominate the lives of children and is the hallmark of their existence. Play is what children do. It is quite…

Are We Connected?

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 30 Leave a Comment on %s
How connected are we? Do your actions, thoughts, feelings, have an effect on me even if I am unaware (or on the other side of the world)? Is my existence bound within the existence of other human beings, or are we simply sharing the same planet for a period of time? Connections between people, particularly of a spiritual nature, were declared to be mere superstitions in the march of modern rationalism. To…

Only Love Knows Anything

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 35 Leave a Comment on %s
  Only Love Knows Anything There’s a part of us that is wired to be careful. It senses danger and hunkers down. It looks for danger. It can easily become the dominant mode of our life. Anxiety and depression, are among the most common noises of this internal warning system. When it comes to dominate, we see the world through fear-colored glasses. In the classical language of the Church, we describe such…

The Path of the Good, the True, the Real

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 79 Leave a Comment on %s
Imagine a character in a story who is wraith-like, barely existing. His every move threatens to draw him deeper into non-existence. As it stands, others around him are only able to see him moments at a time. He often disappears for whole days at a time as he lapses into such ghostly non-being that he cannot be seen at all. Each step he takes either diminishes his existence or establishes it. As…

Asking the Right Questions

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 36 Leave a Comment on %s
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7) I believe that among the most central things in our life are the questions we ask – or even the question we ask. This is far removed from our passions…

The God Who Sees Us

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 48 Leave a Comment on %s
Recent days and thoughts have brought me to the conclusion that what we require is not so much to see God, as to be seen by God. The most frightful words in all of Scripture are, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” To not be known, it seems to me, is tantamount to having never existed. The Christian quest to see God would be bizarre if it were removed from this…

The Communion of Tradition

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 28 Leave a Comment on %s
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life–the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us–that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also…

Mystical Theology and the Orthodox Faith

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 33 Leave a Comment on %s
A turning point in my life took place in an unremarkable manner. In my college years, my best friend approached me in the university library and thrust a book into my hand. “Steve, read this!” He said. The book was Vladimir Lossky’s Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. The year was 1976. I did as he asked. I understood very little of what I read, though it changed my life. Interestingly, I…

The Debt of Sin and the Sin of Debt

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 61 Leave a Comment on %s
There are a number of ideas and phrases that most Biblically literate Christians would swear were in the Bible, but are not. Among those is the phrase (or concept) of the “debt of sin.” It is simply not there. Nor is there a phrase that describes sin as something that we “owe.” Again, it’s simply not there. The phrase, “the debt of sin,” or “sin debt” is extra-biblical. It is an idea…

When Miracles Ceased

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 70 Leave a Comment on %s
One of the stranger ideas that accompanied the Reformation, was the notion that miracles had ended at the time of the New Testament’s completion. Never stated as a doctrinal fact in the mainstream of Protestantism, it remained a quiet assumption, particularly when joined with an anti-Roman Catholicism in which the various visions, weeping statues, and saints lives were considered to be fabrications of a corrupt priesthood. Stories abounded during the Reformation about…