Category: Faith
Kooky Stuff…
happens during Lent, Expect it.
I remember listening a Priest who said “Every Lent I get a craving for McDonald’s Hamburgers and I don’t even like them.” And the stories could go on about weird cravings, coincidences, unexpected changes, fatigues, the whole run of things that somehow manage to pop up at Lent.
If you’re really making some kind of effort to grow as a Christian, to face your deficiencies and seek healing and forgiveness just expect this kind of thing. There’s a world out there that really doesn’t get it. There is, as well, another team on the field defending itself against any increase in goodness. When you try to get out of the larger culture’s rat race and live by higher rules you’re swimming upstream, against the current, and yes there’s even bears, as it were, trying to take you out with one swipe of their paw.
Just know this stuff is going to happen. If you fall back, get up again. If the pressure gets to be too much rest a bit and then start up again. Run the gauntlet knowing that God is with you and willing to help every step along the way.
And laugh at the kooky stuff because you know its coming.
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Orthodoxy and Yoga…
I will actually give you another of my favorite examples, which is taken from the saint of our parish, St. Ephraim the Syrian. He has a beautiful image which tells us what kind of effort we are to make. St. Ephraim sees the human person as the “harp of the Spirit,” this lovely musical instrument. To play well the music of the Holy Spirit, we need to be clean: the harp needs to be clean and well-tuned, and its strings neither too tight nor too slack. That is our spiritual effort, the ascesis, all the things that are recommended in the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox tradition of fasting, almsgiving, repentance, thanksgiving, prayer: all these are means to achieve the tuning. That is what I see synergy is: a redirection of energies God-wards so that God’s energies can flow into us and transform us. I hope that answers some of the criticism.
Read more here…
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A Definition of Holiness…
Holiness is not something that is just about the saints, whose icons we venerate and whose lives we read about. Holiness is better understood as wholeness, made whole, or healed. We seek healing from the darkness and estrangement that we’ve inherited as a result of the fall. We seek out the God of righteousness Who alone can heal us of our infirmity. As Christ increases in us, our fallen nature decreases. In monastic obedience, the self is replaced by the will of God and the ego is trampled down.
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Prayers by the Lake…
You pour out light over the darkness, Lord, and colors and shapes emerge. You bend Your face over the abyss, whose name is Nothingness, and the abyss tries to depict the beauty of Your face in shadows. All creation expresses You the way the abyss dreams of You.
My lake is also beautiful while the peaceful face of the sun remains bent over it. And all those who pass by praise the beauty of my lake. But as soon as the sun hides its face, my lake becomes dark and abysmal. And no passerby ever offers any praise for the lake except in the presence of the sun or the sun’s radiant companions.
The face of the abyss intoxicates those who do not see the sun bent over the abyss. The beauty of things begins when an onlooker bends his face over them. There is no mirror if there is no face in front of the mirror. But even a face in front of a mirror means nothing if there is no light.
In the light of Your face I pay no attention to any creature. Without You, creatures and I would not be mirrors of one another, but rather darkness, and an abyss, and an opaque chill.
Creation distorts Your beauty the way a dream distorts reality. Creation torments me just as dreams torment me. For what is creation except dreams of Your inexpressible Reality?
My neighbors say: “We have dreamed beautiful dreams.” The universe is my witness when I tell you that you are more beautiful than your dreams. The universe also dreams, and cannot dream enough about its own beauty. O my sleepy universe: as long as a dream dreams a dream, one dream is afraid of another, even if one dream seeks an interpreter and comforter in another. Who is prophesying to whom: the dream to reality or reality to the dream?
O my beautiful universe: dream of Reality and Reality will tell you everything. Admit the Reality, of which you are a dream, and you will awaken, and will no longer ramble about beauty, but will be Beauty. There is only one Reality and only one Beauty, and it is the reason for your dream.
Do not tell me, children, about the beauty of the stars. If the Lord withdrew Himself from the stars, your mouths would be struck dumb. Stand in the thick darkness by my lake and try to sing to it. Truly you will be struck dumb and remain silent until the sun dawns, until the sun pours its beauty over the lake and gives your speechless throat its voice.
Your face pours beauty over all creation. The universe swims in Your beauty as a boat swims in the sea. And when You bend over cold ashes, the ashes are transfigured and receive a face.
Bring my heart to its senses, my Lord, so that it may not be captivated by mortal beauty but by You, my Immortal Beauty.
O my only Beauty!
Allow me to see Your Face, just more and more–of Your Face.
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Listening to the Radio…
a few days ago and a speaker stated that if God had no ability to judge than evil would have the last word. The idea that God can judge is, of course, something we avoid thinking about most of the time but for those who are seeking righteousness it really is the final granting of their wish. Only the arrogant, the proud, the self-sufficient, the people whose hearts are full of darkness need fear it, for the rest it is their vindication.
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Default Mode…
People, myself included, often wonder what God would be having them to in this life. There’s at least one answer, Matthew 25. It seems that all the things listed there are what Christians should be about, the default mode if you will for how we should be using our time. Do those things and your life will stand the test, it will be a life well lived according to the only One whose opinion really matters.
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Wise Words…
The person who listens to Christ fills himself with light; and if he imitates Christ, he reclaims himself.
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A Good Thought…
How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendor in righteousness, truth in boldness, faith in confidence, continence in holiness: and all these things are submitted to our understanding. What, then, are the things which are being prepared for those who wait for Him? The Creator and Father of the ages, the All-holy One, Himself knows their greatness and beauty. Let us then strive to be found among the number of those that wait, that we may receive a share of the promised gifts.
St. Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians 35.1-4 late 1st century
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More Wisdom..
Not only should we observe moderation with food, but we must also abstain from every other sin so that just as we fast with our stomach, we should fast with our tongue. Likewise, we should fast with our eyes; i.e. not look at agitating things, not allow your eyes freedom to roam, not to look shamelessly and without fear. Similarly, arms and legs should be restrained from doing any evil acts.
The Beautiful Path 