Mar 25, 2009

Here's the problem. The moment we begin to talk about existence, we implicitly pledge ourselves to follow the existence script, and that script (quite reasonably) limits us to existence discourse. To exist (from exsistere = to stand out) is to be a discrete object or relation that can be distinguished (because it "stands out") from other discrete objects or relations. "Does God exist" reduces God to the status of object, and then we're no longer talking about God - because God doesn't exist. Huh?…

Mar 1, 2009

Contrary to what many think or feel, Lent is a time of joy. Unless we understand this quality of joy in Lent, we will make of it a monstrous caricature, a time when in God’s own name we make our life a misery. This notion of joy connected with effort, with ascetical endeavour, with strenuous effort may indeed seem strange, and yet it runs through the whole of our spiritual life, through the life of the Church and the life of the Gospel...

Nov 19, 2008

The Way, through tests, introspection, and suffering, is hard and has many pitfalls. There is a strong temptation to look for happiness and consolation right from the beginning. If we experience disillusionment or disappointment, then we might start fearing that our journey to God might turn into torment and punishment...

Sep 27, 2008

The Christian faith is not merely a set of beliefs and propositions. It is better described as a “relationship” – and even this modern word is inadequate. It is better to use the old word perichoresis, or “co-inherence.” This old Patristic term describes the current of love which flows within the union of three Persons in the Godhead.

Sep 25, 2008

A brother went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can I say my prayer rule, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame." This is what monasticism is: a longing for God that knows no limits. It is the beginning of the Age to come, of the Kingdom of Heaven still here on earth...

Sep 2, 2008

In 1999 a British ad agency produced a black-and-red Easter poster for the Anglican church depicting Jesus in the likeness of Che Guevara. Both method and message were typically ‘ninetyish. People under fifty did not recognize the allusion to the Guevara poster, which had been popular in the 1960’s. Nor did they know who Guevara was. A vintage copy of this poster is now a valuable semi-antique collectible, in the category of "paper ephemera."...

Aug 5, 2008

No one can be a Christian at second-hand: such is the frequently repeated teaching of the Fathers. Holy Tradition does not signify merely the mechanical and exterior acceptance of truths formulated in the distant past, but it is in the words of the Russian theologian Vladimir Lossky — nothing else than ‘the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church here and now, at this present moment...

Jul 31, 2008

European and American histories treat the alienation between Eastern and Western Christian Churches as though it were inevitable, because of an alleged separation of the Roman Empire itself into “East” and “West.” But evidence suggests that these attempts to explain the separation between East and West are conditioned by the centuries-old propaganda of the Frankish Papacy.