Here’s a surprising bit of advice from a desert theologian I came to appreciate in writing Time and Despondency: When you are tempted, do not fall immediately to prayer. First utter some angry words against the [demon] who afflicts you. Evagrius, The Praktikos 42 The quotation is found nestled into the middle pages of his treatise called The Praktikos, a…
Hi Time Eternalites! It’s officially Triodion Season, which means Great Lent is coming! If you’re looking for a spiritually beneficial book to read AND a way to have deeper fellowship with others this Lent, I recommend joining the Lenten reading group for _Time and Despondency_! It’s open to anyone with a Facebook account who plans to read or re-read…
Early last month, sandwiched between random crises, deadlines, and stressors, I wondered how in the heck I was going to do Christmas presents this year. My husband and I like to keep things homemade, but I hadn’t knit anything and knew I was quickly losing time to make anything. Plus, baked goods don’t really work for my side…
Christ is (almost) baptized! The new year is always an exciting time, temporally speaking, all the more so as we approach the Feast of Theophany. The Time Eternal Blogathon has more or less come to a close. Before we conclude, however, I’m sharing a guest post from one of the most loveable (and teasable) priests I know, Fr.…
Dear Time Eternalites, Just a quick note in between baking and cleaning to wish you and your families, friends, and enemies a blessed and meaningful Feast of Christ’s Nativity. Wherever you are, whatever this Christmas looks like for you, I pray you encounter the manifested love of God in our humble, earthly realities. May we and all creation endeavor…
This morning, Nic Hartmann is back on the Time Eternal blog with a reflection on having a birthday that falls at the end of Nativity. I enjoyed reading this and thinking about my own internal metaphors and temporal “landmarks” that mark my way through this Fast. Whether we have a birthday during this season or not, the temptation…
Lately, one of the dominant themes to surface during my parish’s post-Liturgy coffee hour is the complicated nature of conversion. Newcomers ask me and other “converts” (of course, we’re all converts! But you know what I mean…) why we became Orthodox, and many of us find it’s simply too difficult to explain our reasons. As one friend has pointed…
I asked Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick to stop by the Time Eternal blogathon and share something with us about St. Ignatius. Why? Because today (December 20) is St. Ignatius’ feast day–AND because Fr. Andrew’s most recent book is about him, and because I wanted to know what St. Ignatius had to say about the birth of Christ. Why…
The first time I guest posted on Time Eternal last October, I explored the problem of impatience and its connection to the Fall. I noted that impatience amounts to a disordered relationship to time—a belief that we should decide when to receive God’s gifts, rather than waiting for His appointed moment. As we approach the Lord’s Nativity I…
