The Prophet Samuel was one of the holiest prophets of the Old Testament. But what I find most interesting is that Samuel grew to be a holy prophet while living in the midst of a very corrupt religious and political context. Samuel’s holy mother, Hannah, was barren. But God heard her prayer after many years and much humiliation. God gave her a son, and at the age of three, Hannah gave her…
When I first began visiting the monastery, after I had developed something of a friendship with the monks, I asked the brothers if they experienced any particular problems repressing their sexual urges. They told me that they do not repress, but redirect. That is, the desire and longing that, in the world, is generally expressed in sexual longing, they turn toward God as the One they long for most. When they told…
One of the greatest frustrations in my spiritual life has been caused by a passion for certainty. You might call it a need to know, a need to know what God is doing in my life, a need to have some explanation for or feeling for why my life is the way it is right now. When I don’t know—or when I don’t have some explanation that I can tell myself is…
One of the books I am reading is called Beauty For Ashes: The Spiritual Transformation of a Modern Greek Community by Stephen R. Lloyd-Moffett, published by St. Vladimir Seminary Press. The author is a professor of religious studies at a state university in California. He writes from the perspective of a sociologist who is interested in religion and culture. He writes as a scholar, not as a promoter of Orthodox Christianity. Nonetheless,…
