Good strength to you during this second week of Great Lent. I hope you have consulted with your spiritual father regarding your Lenten journey and the disciplines you are practicing. All together now: Prayer, fasting, almsgiving! You’ve probably noticed that the lectionary includes much longer Bible passages than the rest of the year, and we begin the fast with Old Testament readings in Genesis, Proverbs, and Isaiah. You may also be trying…
I’ve been thinking a lot about words lately. Not specific words, but just the excess quantity of them. We’re surrounded: in addition to our own talk, we’re inundated with the internet, social media, the 24-hour news cycle, and on and on. You know all this. It sometimes feels like we’re waging a losing battle against all the noise. There are two different categories of words to consider: those we speak, and those…
It’s happened more than once. Way more than once. I will be standing in church during the Divine Liturgy, singing the responses, crossing myself, and literally going through the motions, but my mind is a million miles away. I’m filled with worry, with grief, with stress over my to-do list. My heart might be heavy, or simply numb. Or, I just can’t focus. I’m sure you’ve been there too. The list of…
It’s been a long hiatus, about four months, and in that time my daughter Caitlin married a wonderful young man, John, whom we love very much, and I have recovered from all the wedding stress and holiday busyness. And here we are, past mid-January. This is the traditional time for people to give up on their new year’s resolutions, in a sort of collective domino effect, where the act of surrender…
I grew up in a miracle-believing town. Tulsa, Oklahoma, was and still is a center of charismatic Christianity, which Merriam-Webster defines succinctly and accurately as “the religious movement that emphasizes the seeking of direct divine inspiration and extraordinary power (as of healing) given a Christian by the Holy Spirit.” Tulsa is the home of Oral Roberts University, Rhema Bible Institute, and many churches that actually schedule and promote healing services and expect…
In our last post I discussed the omission of the Church as a topic in Protestant Scripture memory systems. Before I became Orthodox, I never identified the lack of attention given to the Church as a problem. I didn’t think about the Church much at all except in personal terms—being connected to a local congregation and serving there—and in eschatological terms—someday every tribe, tongue, and nation will be worshiping before God’s throne…
I still remember the circle of padded chairs and the industrial carpeting where our Wednesday night group met weekly for Scripture memory. I was a high school sophomore at the time, and our small gathering of teens met after Bible study. In our purses or backpacks we carried stacks of little 2×3” cards in protective blue vinyl holders—cards that helped us to “hide the word in our hearts,” as Psalm 119:11 instructed…
My husband Rob played guitar in a worship band for a small church plant that we had been attending. The little church, which focused on ministry to immigrants, was part of the charismatic Foursquare denomination, and we met on Sunday evenings in the sanctuary of a large, established church that was Evangelical Presbyterian. Soon Rob and I would discover Orthodoxy, but at the time we were all over the religious map in…
Out of sight of the folks in the nave, the priest moves to the second pre-Matins service, the Vesting prayers. These prayers, recited as the clergy put on each article of their vestments, are all based in Scripture. Of course, we laypeople don’t need to worry about this sort of thing when we prepare for the work God has given us. Instead, St. Paul instructs us to put on spiritual armor. We’ll…
I remember quite vividly the first Orthodox service I ever attended. It was a vespers service during Lent, on the Saturday evening before the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt. I remember this detail because I was not expecting the image of a skeletal, white-haired woman on the icon stand. I can’t remember a single psalm or prayer from that service. But one thing deeply affected me: the sense of…
