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Can a reader read the same text twice?
This is an odd question, one that has been asked many times since the beginning of this “postmodern” age. Yet the thought behind it is as ancient as the pre-Socratic philosopher who asked if a person can step twice into the same stream. Now, as then, the answer is both Yes and No.
This is an important…
The beautiful expression, “bright sadness,” came back to me with special poignancy during Holy Week this year. In Greek the compound noun is charmolypê, variously translated “bitter joy,” “joyful mourning,” or “affliction that leads to joy.” It expresses what the Fathers of the Church call an “antinomy,” a truth that defies normal logic. The word…
Orthodox theology, like Holy Scripture, accomplishes what in strictly human terms is not possible. It takes the ineffable and incomprehensible mystery of God’s being and activity, and makes it intelligible and accessible.
Most of the images we have of God are pitifully inadequate. Our minds are simply not able to grasp the reality of God, either as…
Some three months have passed since the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean took hundreds of thousands of lives and left millions homeless and destitute. During the weeks following that horrendous event, mudslides, blizzards, floods and other natural disasters have taken their toll as well, in California and throughout the world. Material aid…
To close this series of reflections on silence, solitude and inner stillness, it seems most appropriate to share a few very modest, personal experiences that I have been blessed to undergo over the years. These involve encounters with unpretentious yet holy persons whose example can guide all of us who long to acquire these virtues or qualities for…
Although they are often used interchangeably, the terms “silence” and “stillness” are not synonymous. Silence implies in part an absence of ambient noise, together with an inner state or attitude that enables us to focus, to “center” on the presence of God and to hear His “still, small voice.”
To silence, the virtue of stillness adds both…
In the New Testament little is said of silence as such. The examples that do exist, however, are striking and significant.
The people are reduced to awe-filled silence as they witness Christ’s ability to silence his adversaries (Lk 20:26). Jesus, in the presence of His disciples, displays the authority to still the waters and silence the thundering…
The second-century Latin theologian Tertullian declared that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. This remains true to our day, as witnessed most poignantly by the martyrdom of bishops, priests and lay people during the Communist era, in Russia, Romania and elsewhere, and in the ongoing persecution of Christians at the hands of Muslim…
The last column in this space took up the issue of the relationship between fact and truth in the biblical accounts of Jesus’ birth. I tried to point out that the question “Did it really happen that way?” arises from a certain common misunderstanding, one that confuses fact with truth, while it overlooks the point that everything reported as “fact”…
The Christmas season inevitably leads people in the media to speculate on whether or not the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ conception and birth are historically accurate. The question they raise in the public mind is whether these cherished stories are really “true.”
A good, well-balanced example of this kind of reflection appeared in the December 13,…
I’m sorry this column can’t be accompanied by sound. One of the most precious components of Orthodox Christianity, perhaps especially in the Russian tradition, is its store of melodies to liturgical hymns that are heartbreakingly beautiful. I just came across a fine example, tucked away in the iTunes folder of this laptop. It’s a contemporary…
A bearded man in blue coveralls is building a wall around the garden outside my window. It’s a low wall, about a meter high, miraculously taking shape as one rough stone is laid upon another. The man seems oblivious to his surroundings: a bucolic valley in the Vercors region of south-central France, where the tall green hills rising around us flow…
Norma McCorvey’s (Jane Roe’s) hope of reversing Roe v. Wade by appealing the original Supreme Court decision, was denied in federal court this week. But certain new realities have been made their way into the mind of at least one federal judge and emerged in the written decision. This excerpt from a recent “National Review” article describes…
Beauty is often expressed by symmetry or balanced proportions. Musical compositions and graphic art usually strive for some measure of symmetry, in order to appeal to our esthetic tastes. They provide us with a sense of harmony, stability and peace—even a sense of sanity, within an often chaotic and crazy world. Major theological themes do the…
Nostalgia is universal. Rumors abound that it afflicted even the likes of Stalin and Hitler. The term is generally defined as a sentimental yearning for some irretrievable experience or condition, such as bouncing playfully on the knee of our long-deceased grandfather, or singing bawdy ballads in the old fraternity bar, or going home again.
There…
Not long ago, the American press reported, with a combination of shock and amusement, some fantastic developments Italian scientists had achieved in the domain of procreative medicine. Given the relative ease with which embryos can be created these days in vitro, Italian specialists in the field of MAP (medically assisted procreation) were enabling…
In late August this site ran the second half of a parish brochure I had prepared as a simple introduction to Orthodox history and doctrine. In it I gave a very brief summary of key elements of the Nicene Creed. One sentence read: “It [the Creed] declares God to be the Father and Creator of all things. It stresses the true ‘incarnation’ of the…
A few months ago in this space we raised the issue of “Care for Patients in ‘PVS’,” or “persistent vegetative state.” With the continuing storm of controversy surrounding the case of Terri Schiavo, it seems worthwhile to return to the question.
Terri has been diagnosed by her physicians as being in a persistent vegetative state, a diagnosis…
Hurricane Charley just came barreling through, lickety split, hell-bent on more destruction up the Carolina coast. It already devastated a large swath of Florida, laying waste to the region around Port Charlotte. Several people were killed when their mobile homes went airborne, others were lost in the ruins of stores and office buildings, and the…
Orthodox Christians accept the Bible as the Word of God and the ground of their faith and practice. The Bible, however, took shape within Holy Tradition: the oral and written “memory” of Israel and the early Church. To Jesus and the apostles, Holy Scripture consisted of what we call…