Category: Knowledge of God
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When Things Are Not As They Seem
It is said that when some of the natives of the South Seas first saw Captain Cook’s ships approaching, they saw them as clouds. There was no category in their world for “ships,” thus the Captain and his crew came in “clouds.” I’ve have always wondered about the connection between how we name things in…
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‘Til Christ Be Formed in You
Writing to the Galatians, St. Paul utters the cry of a spiritual father: My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you…(Galatians 4:19) Though, interestingly, the imagery he uses is that of a mother and her children… But it is a groaning parents have for their own children…
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The Church of Many Rooms
In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? (John 14:2). I have shared before about a dream I once had of a Church in which there were many rooms. It was an old, wooden Orthodox Church, packed…
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Being Saved This Day in the Church
I thought I would bring the discussion down from the heady heights of theology and into the place where I spend my time and the bulk of my life. Being saved in the Church is a very day-to-day and moment-to-moment thing. Getting started: Do I cross myself before I get out of bed. It sure…
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The Mystery of God
Unless we start out with a feeling of awe and astonishment – with what is often called a sense of the numinous – we shall make little progress on the Way. When Samuel Palmer first visited William Blake, the old man asked him how he approached the work of painting. “With fear and trembling,” Palmer…
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The Mystery of Ourselves
For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:11 I think it can be quickly agreed by all that God is a mystery – we do not know…
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What’s At Stake in the Atonement
One of the more common topics both on this blog and on a number of other Orthodox sites are questions about the Atonement. In general the Atonement refers to how it is we understand that Christ reconciled us to God. When we say, “Christ died for our sins,” what does it mean? The questions of…
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The Silence in which We Dwell
There is a strange noisiness to our culture. Most of us live very busy lives in which time itself is noisy. My phones (there always seem to be two) are primed to go off at any moment and the very details that surround us carry a kind of noise about them. It is rare that…
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Why The Small Things Matter
Perhaps one of the greatest disservices done to Christians by the spate of “Left Behind” novels and the like, and the romanticism that is inherent in the drama depicted – is that it makes the true struggle undergone by Christians seem trivial by comparison. When the small actions, little choices for kindness, forgiveness, joy, comfort…
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What St. Seraphim Meant
“Acquire the Spirit of Peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.” This is perhaps the most famous quote of the great Russian saint, Seraphim of Sarov. Many of his icons have this saying on them. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like it. On the other hand, I think there are many…
Father, I’ve been thinking about this subject in the context of what you describe as “modernism.” That is, with its…