Our culture and media resound with the call to live more simply. Interestingly, the desire to pare life down to the essentials is voiced by virtually every major segment of readers, from secular to new age to generally religious to specifically Christian crowds. There is something about our current societal, cultural, and digital predicament that activates the human…
The Time Eternal podcast is back with a new format and approach. In this first episode, my husband and I walk the meditation trail at Antiochian Village and ponder this whole business of recovering eternity in the world of time. With this relaunched version of Time Eternal, one of the new things I’ll be doing is posting show…
This morning, I received an interesting email from a reader/ listener of Time Eternal. This person had recently read Dr. Al Rossi’s book Becoming a Healing Presence. “Rossi speaks of time as cruciform (cross-shaped),” she wrote. “This idea really intrigues me, but I also feel like I don’t fully grasp what is meant by it and how I…
Well, it’s finally here. We’re in the thick of the Apostles’ Fast–a fasting period that begins the day after the Sunday of All Saints (the Sunday immediately following Pentecost) and culminates in the feast of Sts Peter and Paul (June 29). The fast goes back at least to the fifth century, and probably a bit earlier (there…
Christ is risen! Xristos Anesti! Christus ist auferstanden! A week or two before Holy Week, I mentioned to a friend that our Greek Orthodox parish (like most Greek parishes) doesn’t do blessed baskets at Pascha (1). I don’t think my priest would know what to do if–in the chaos of pre-Pascha preparations–I suddenly appeared on the solea with a basket full…
Dang it. I’d done it again. I vowed not to, I told myself I’d be smarter this year. But alas… it seems I’m doomed every Holy Monday evening to the same fate. Namely, the fate of slipping quietly into Church and opening my prayer book (smartphone app) to the Bridegroom Matins of Holy Monday. And not realizing until…
In Germany, where I’ve lived several times, there is a well-known proverb that translates: “Five minutes ahead of time is exactly the right time.” One of my supervisors there once threatened to dock pay when I showed up on time for work one morning. For her, if I wasn’t ahead of time, I wasn’t on time. And I was setting myself on…
February 2, the Presentation of our Lord, the marks the next of the twelve major feast days on the Church calendar. It’s a time we commemorate the Jewish ceremony of the redemption of the firstborn as well as the ceremonial purification of the Theotokos after childbirth. In Greek, the feast sometimes referred to as the Meeting. In that…
