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From A Spiritual Psalter
Read more: From A Spiritual PsalterSt. Theophan the Recluse collected excerpts from the works of St. Epraim the Syrian and arranged them as 150 “Psalms”. the following is Psalm 11. I Can Control Neither Myself nor the Enemy. Help Me, O Lord! No one can heal my disease except He Who knows the depths of the heart. How many times have […]
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Scripture and Tradition – Fr. John Behr
Read more: Scripture and Tradition – Fr. John BehrThe following is excerpted from Fr. John Behr’s lecture on the Orthodox Faith, delivered in 1998 at the University of North Carolina. A link to the full text is given at the end of the article. Fr. John is now Dean of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary. Rather than talking about the historical or external aspects of the Churches […]
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Frederica Mathewes-Green on Autism
Read more: Frederica Mathewes-Green on AutismKhouria Frederica shares these very poignant thoughts on her autistic grandson. I heartily recommend it.
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See Paradise
Read more: See ParadiseThis June I will be joined by Fr. Justin Mathews and his family here in my ministry at St. Anne Orthodox Church. Among other things, he is a contemporary Christian musician with some excellent work. I have a feeling that I’m going to know much more about contemporary Christian Orthodox musicians in the near future. […]
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The Problem of Goodness
Read more: The Problem of GoodnessFrom my first class in Philosophy 101 in college, the so-called “Problem of Evil” has been tossed up as the “clincher” in arguments against the existence of God. How can a good God allow innocent people to suffer? The most devastating case ever made on the subject was in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. Ivan Karamazov, in […]
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His Life Is Mine
Read more: His Life Is MineThe following is an excerpt from Rosemary Edmond’s introduction to Archimandrite Sophrony’s His Life is Mine. In these paragraph’s she describes the great monk’s journey from Paris, where he had been an artist and a seminarian, to Mt. Athos, where he would take up his vocation as a monk. He speaks of despair and the […]
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The Despair of Unbelief
Read more: The Despair of UnbeliefI am gradually learning things that I have not known before – or only suspected. Posting occasionally as I have on the subject of atheism, and receiving occasional reponses from atheists, is an education in itself. There is atheism as I imagine it to be (I suppose what it would look like were I one) […]
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A Song, A Saint, A Good Listen
Read more: A Song, A Saint, A Good ListenI’m 53 years old – so I don’t hear a lot of contemporary music. One may not be connected with the other but it feels that way. Nonetheless I recently stumbled across the music of a contemporary band called, “Joyful Sorrow.” They’re easy to listen to, and the songs seem largely focused on the lives […]
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A Poem in the Light
Read more: A Poem in the LightAbout the Samaritan Woman and her meeting with Jesus at the well, where she was drawing water. There is a moment I would like to hold up, A point of light that has pierced the eye of my heart. I know that I will have to be satisfied with walking around it, as it is […]
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“Do You Know Jesus?”
Read more: “Do You Know Jesus?”I have written in numerous posts about various aspects of conversion to the Orthodox Christian faith. Oftentimes there is an unspoken agreement between myself as writer and those who read in which we assume that we understand each other – that when I say “conversion” we all know what I mean. On reflection there are […]
As a total aside: Henry Adams practically invented Social History with his efforts almost 200 years ago. A magnificent book…