-
Continue reading →: Pressing Into The KingdomI have always been encouraged by Saint Thomas. He usually receives the title of “Doubting Thomas” for his refusal to believe the disciples’ account of meeting the Lord when Thomas was absent: “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and I put my finger into the…
-
Continue reading →: Letting Go: The Blessing of Forgetting in God’s KingdomAt Bible study yesterday, a question arose about forgiveness: What if the other person won’t forgive me? What will heaven be like between us if they refuse? I found myself recalling old wounds — things I was deeply offended by in my twenties that I can barely recall today. I…
-
Continue reading →: Emptiness Is Now FullnessFor He is everywhere present and filling all things. ~ Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom Today I was reading Zizioulas’ Being as Communion and stumbled across a footnote about δόξα — glory. Doxa is one of those words that underwent a transformation when it encountered God, much like πρόσωπον (prosopon) did in the fourth century.…
-
Continue reading →: The Senseless KingdomYesterday I had an interesting conversation over coffee. I was asked, “What are you doing with your life? My dad studied for years, always waiting for his life to start.” Reflecting on what I have learned in the past couple years from the Fathers and the Martyrs, “when does your…
-
Continue reading →: Revealing the Cosmic Offering: Christ and Creation in Anaphora“In the West we love to separate things into little boxes of elements. One for gold, one for silver, another for bronze. But in the East the relationship of things took priority.” These were the words of the last lecture I had with my beloved professor and friend Bill McCurdy.…
-
Continue reading →: Eternal Love: How Marriage Mirrors the TrinityCan marriage heal the individual from being consumed by the self? Does marriage extend into eternity? Are these the same question? To move from time to eternity is to enter into the Life of the Trinity where all things moves from the self to the “Other” as the center of…
-
Continue reading →: Judge Nothing Before Its Appointed Time
https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/04/22/101183-venerable-vitalius-of-gaza Saint Vitalius, a monk of the monastery of Saint Seridus, arrived in Alexandria when Saint John the Merciful (November 12) was Patriarch of Alexandria in the 7th century. When he was sixty years old, undertook an extraordinary task: he wrote down from memory the names of all the prostitutes…
-
Continue reading →: Healing into a PersonThis week I have been reflecting on what brought me into the Orthodox Church. The Church lacked anything characteristic of a western church that I was used to – no list of doctrines to compare to a denomination or non-denominational church and no worship band to play with. At the…
-
Continue reading →: What is Communion?
“If we say we have koinonia with Him and walk in the darkness we lie and do not practice the truth.” (1 John 6) Last week I wrote about my talk with Matt and Chu and our innate desire for communion as our true salvation. That’s a bold claim. What…
-
Continue reading →: Communion Over CarbonaraThis weekend my parents and I traveled up to Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho to spend some time with my sister and her family. On Sunday I went to church with Matt, a friend from Pocatello and was blessed to listen to him teach about Mormonism in his Sunday school class.…
Cycles of Newness 