God does not come and go – your attention does.

Put your phone away. Recent studies agree with Jesus. In their distressing 2009 paper “Cognitive control in media multitaskers,” Ophir, et al. found that heavy media multitaskers (or HMMs) “have greater difficulty filtering out irrelevant stimuli from their environment.” They are “less likely to ignore irrelevant representations in memory.” And they are “less effective in suppressing the activation of irrelevant task sets.”

Does this remind you of anyone? Do you know anyone who can’t filter out irrelevant stimuli? Do you know anyone who keeps getting sucked down black holes of memory and fantasy? Do you know anyone who can’t suppress the impulse to do something other than what they’re supposed to be doing?

It’s good: Keep reading »

(via mishappenings: lookatthisfrakkinggeekster: dinnerinthedarkroom: fyeahjewishmen: tumblingnoodle: ohsara)

+18 ° C In Hawaii, take another blanket.
+10 ° C The temperature In buildings in Helsinki without heating.
+2 ° C Italian cars will not start.
0 ° C Distilled water freezes.
-1 ° C You can see your breath. Russians eat ice cream and drink cold beer.
-4 ° C Your dog gets into your bed.
-10 ° C French cars will not start
-12 ° C Politicians begin to talk about the homeless.
-15 ° C American cars will not start.
-20 ° C You can hear your breath.
-24 ° C Japanese cars will not start.
-28 ° C Your dog puts on your pyjamas.
-29 ° C German cars will not start.
-30 ° C No normal car will start.
-36 ° C Russian cars will not start.
-39 ° C Russians fasten all the buttons on their shirts.
-50 ° C Your car gets into your bed.
-60 ° C The residents of Helsinki are freezing. Russians fasten their clothes with hooks.
-70 ° C Hell freezes over.
-72 ° C Lawyers put their hands in their own pockets.
-120 ° C Alcohol freezes. This makes the Russians angry.
-273.15 ° C Absolute zero. The movement of elementary particles ceases. Russians lick frozen vodka.

Ever watch soccer and think to yourself “I wish the ball was bigger. And the players could use their hands. And they should all be armed with Tasers”?

Enter: Ultimate Tazer Ball. It’s just like regular Tazer Ball, only ultimate.

(via devour: thedailywhat)

John Piper wants a “masculine Christianity.” What do you think? — Rachel Held Evans

Men and Church — Frederica Mathewes-Greene

I’ll refrain from commenting till you’ve read their posts for yourself.

Although the Holy Fathers praised monasticism as the angelic state, and although many of the greatest saints lived their lives and attained perfection in the deaf and lifeless desert, nevertheless, the Orthodox Church does not recommend tonsuring to all the faithful. “Neither all those in the desert were saved nor all those in the world were lost,” said one saint. To a city dweller who, with no inclination for monasticism, desired to enter the monastery, St. Niphon said: “My child, a place neither saves nor destroys a man, but deeds save or destroy.” For him who does not fulfill all the commandments of the Lord, there is no benefit from a sacred place or from a sacred rank. King Saul lived in the midst of royal luxury and he perished. King David lived in the same kind of luxury and he received a wreath. Lot lived among the lawless Sodomites and he was saved. Judas was numbered among the apostles and he went to Hades. Whoever says that it is impossible to be saved with a wife and children deceives himself. Abraham had a wife and children, three-hundred-eighteen servants and handmaidens, much gold and silver but, nevertheless, he was called the Friend of God. Oh, how many servants of the Church and lovers of the desert have been saved! How many aristocrats and soldiers! How many artisans and field-workers! Be pious and be a lover of men and you will be saved!

— from The Prologue

February 1 we commemorate Brigid of Kildare.

I wish I had a great lake of ale for the King of kings, and the family of heaven to drink it through time eternal. I wish I had the meats of belief and genuine piety, the flails of repentance, and the men of heaven in my house. I would like vats of peace to be at their disposal, vessels of charity for distribution, caves of mercy for their company, and cheerfulness to be in their drinking. I would want Jesus also to be in their midst, together with the three Marys of illustrious renown, and the people of heaven from all parts. I would like to be a tenant to the Lord, so if I should suffer distress, he would confer on me a blessing. Amen.

— attributed to St Brigid of Kildare

Orthodoxwiki on St. Brigid

“The Giveaway” (from The Love Letters of Phyllis Mcginley, New York, Viking Press, 1957)

Saint Bridget was
A problem child.
Although a lass
Demure and mild,
And one who strove
To please her dad,
Saint Bridget drove
The family mad.
For here’s the fault in Bridget lay:
She Would give everything away.

To any soul
Whose luck was out
She’d give her bowl
Of stirabout;
She’d give her shawl,
Divide her purse
With one or all.
And what was worse,
When she ran out of things to give
She’d borrow from a relative.

Her father’s gold,
Her grandsire’s dinner,
She’d hand to cold
and hungry sinner;
Give wine, give meat,
No matter whose;
Take from her feet
The very shoes,
And when her shoes had gone to others,
Fetch forth her sister’s and her mother’s.

She could not quit.
She had to share;
Gave bit by bit
The silverware,
The barnyard geese,
The parlor rug,
Her little niece-
‘s christening mug,
Even her bed to those in want,
And then the mattress of her aunt.

An easy touch
For poor and lowly,
She gave so much
And grew so holy
That when she died
Of years and fame,
The countryside
Put on her name,
And still the Isles of Erin fidget
With generous girls named Bride or Bridget.

Well, one must love her.
Nonetheless,
In thinking of her
Givingness,
There’s no denial
She must have been
A sort of trial
Unto her kin.
The moral, too, seems rather quaint.
WHO had the patience of a saint,
From evidence presented here?
Saint Bridget? Or her near and dear?

(via the Frogman)

(via jamesfromta: andrewwrichard: sinirella)

“As he was putting on his sandals he saw another man who was also putting on his sandals, and this monk said to him, ‘Is it on my account that you are going away? Because I go before you wherever you are going.’”

— from the Desert Fathers

This Christian Denomination Selector seems to have got me figured out. These tests usually tell me I should be an “Orthodox Quaker” first; Nice to see one that agrees with me :-)

Your Christian Denomination Selector Results:
Link: Christian Denomination Selector

		Eastern Orthodox Church
		Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
		Evangelical Lutheran Church
		Roman Catholic Church
		Episcopal/Anglican Church
		Methodist/Wesleyan Church
		Church of Christ
		Mennonite Brethren
		Assemblies of God
		Free Will Baptist
		International Church of Christ
		Orthodox Quakerism
		Seventh-Day Adventist
		Presbyterian Church in America/Orthodox Presbyterian Church
		Reformed Churches
		Southern Baptist
		United Pentecostal Church
		Presbyterian Church USA
		Mormonism
		Reformed Baptist
		Jehovah’s Witness
		Liberal Quakerism
		Unitarian Universalism
		Unity Church

Incest? So it seems.

We should as, though: Is incest sin because it reinforces accumulated genetic defects, causing much more likely birth defects?

Or is it sin because God says so in Leviticus 18?

That matters — because if we choose to Genesis as history, then Adam and Eve were created fresh with no genetic defects. It would have taken many, many generations for genetic drift to have got to a place where siblings or cousins risk deformed children when they marry. And the Law forbidding incest doesn’t come along until thousands of years later, in Moses’ time.

So if it’s a genetic issue, no problem; by the time Cain marries, Adam and Eve and all their descendants have been happily reproducing without birth defects for decades or centuries.

And if it’s a legalistic issue, still no problem, because that law doesn’t exist yet in Genesis.

The world, before the first sentient man left the garden of Paradise and looked at it, had not yet been defined by attention — it had been a spectrum of worlds-in-potential that had not yet included humanity, an infinity of possible prehuman histories; but by the time Adam stepped out and turned his attention on it, he had sinned mortally, and so the history that came to the fore as the actual one was a history of undeserved suffering and death. When Adam’s foot touched the soil, when his eyes took in the landscape, it stopped being many potentials and became one actual: a landscape that had been a savage killing ground for millennia.

Light turns out to be particles if you measure for particles; waves if you measure for waves. Adam had helplessly measured for misery. What sort of world would a sinless first man have found pre-existent out there? Animals that had never starved, cats that had never killed?

From a short story called “Through and Through” in the anthology Strange Intineraries.

Click to embiggen

Among the stewards was a certain monk, Father P., who was outstandingly capable, yet somehow always unlucky – his initiatives usually met with no sympathy among the fathers and his undertakings often ended in failure.

One day, after one such enterprise had resulted in disaster, he was subjected to sharp criticism at the stewards’ table. Father Silouan was present but took no part in the ‘prosecution.’ One of the stewards, Father M., turned to him and said:

‘You are silent, Father Silouan. That means you side with Father P. and are indifferent to the interests of the monastery. You don’t mind the damage he has caused the community.’

Father Silouan said nothing but quickly finished eating and then went up to Father M., who by that time had also left the table.

‘Father M. – how many years have you been in the monastery?’

‘Thirty-five.’

‘Did you ever hear me criticize anyone?’

‘No’

‘Then why do you want me to begin with Father P.?’

Disconcerted Father M. replied shamefacedly: ‘‘Forgive me.’

‘God will forgive.’

(From The Monk of Mount Athos, p. 42-43, by Archimandrite Sophrony)