The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. But there too is God, the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasuries of graceāall things are there. (H.43.7)Ā St. Macarius If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it wereā¦
The Native Peoples of Alaska and the far north really do have over 50 words for snow.Ā In total, there are around 180 words for snow and ice. There is āaqilokoqā for āsoftly falling snowā and āpiegnartoqā for āthe snow [that is] good for driving a sled.ā There is also āutuqaq,ā which means, āice that lasts year after yearā and āsiguliaksraq,ā the patchwork layer of crystals that forms as the sea begins toā¦
It should not surprise us to learn that we are often creatures of the culture in which we live. We understand this, particularly when we travel and encounter people whose culture differs profoundly from our own. What seems obvious to us, might seem obscure to them. What we eat, how we shop, what counts as polite, what is rude, all of these are shaped by culture. In truth, this is just theā¦
In On the Orthodox Faith, St. John of Damascus declares: āThe Son is the image of the Father, and the Spirit the image of the Sonā. Such statements are easily read and passed over as among the more obvious Trinitarian statements. I add to this statement another from St. Irenaeus: “That which is invisible of the Son is the Father, and that which is visible of the Father is the Son.” Ofā¦
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 lifeāthe 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 usāthat which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you alsoā¦
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¦
We are apparently living in the age of the face, and I donāt think itās necessarily bad. Ā I know all the complaints about our culture of āselfies,ā and there are certainly many things in that to make us wonder, but our fascination with our faces long predates the technology of our phones. In the usage of the early Church, the word for face (prosopon) is also the word for person. It isā¦
The word āfrontierā has long been associated with certain aspects of American mythology. āFrontier Daysā is short-hand for log cabins, flintlocks, and the rugged life. Occasionally it takes on aspects of the āWild West.ā In recent generations it has been moved off-planet, such that we hear Captain Kirk intone, āSpaceā¦ā¦.the final frontier.ā It is also a word whose meaning has been forgotten, as our mythology has overtaken it. Originally (15th century), theā¦
St. Augustine, in his Confessions, offered this simple statement: “Noverim me, noverim te.” “If I knew myself, I should have known Thee.” There is probably no writing in the life of the early Church as “self-reflective” as Augustine’s. His Confessions have sometimes been called the first “modern” writing. They are certainly the first writing that can properly be described as “autobiographical.” He gives us the first truly “interior” view of an ancientā¦
I have often used the example of riding a bicycle as an image of knowing God. Thereās no difficulty learning how to ride if you donāt mind falling off for a while. But no matter how many years you have ridden, you cannot describe for someone else how you know what you know. But you know it. I also suspect that if you thought too much about riding a bicycle while youā¦
