Dusty, dark, cold, and hard, coal has no beauty of its own, but when it is consummated by fire it is beautiful and becomes what it was designed to be.
Could a body broken and blood spilled two thousand years ago restore my own damaged life?
As I ponder my pilgrimβs progress to Orthodoxy, however, I realize that I didnβt make the trip alone, but in a two-seater. And I wasnβt the one driving.
A segregated spiritual subculture does women no good, even if it does have adorable butterflies in the logo.
I think intellectualizing annoys me because it is the enemy of experience; you cannot experience the presence of God and analyze it at the same time. You can't analyze anything and experience it simultaneously.
As a teenager and a student, I totally cast away the Christian faith. I just believed it was stupid, and only stupid people could believe it. I actually became an anti-Christian, and very antagonistic.
It is tragic that some Christians have been so battered with stories of a prideful, vindictive God that they have fled from Jesus' fold.
I've been able to dig deeper into awareness of my own sinfulness, and take baby steps toward spiritual healing. I'm able to worship in an ancient communion full of awesome beauty, one that is now being blessed with quiet revival.
Somehow we just don't make the same boisterous fun of Holy Week that we do of Christmas. No one plans to have a holly, jolly Easter.
The Orthodox hierarchy doesn't have the kind of power that high-ranking clergy do in other churches. There isn't even a worldwide governing board to hold all the various Orthodox bodies together.
Temptation coaxes us toward sin, and sin leads to sickness and death, and ultimately confinement in the realm of the evil one.
God is not looking for repayment, but repentance. What heals a broken relationship is sincere love and contrition.
Women don't need to have our own little corner of the church where we can feel precious or, alternatively, cranky. In every essential thing, as far as life in Christ is concerned, the differences between men and women are irrelevant.
The Church's teaching isn't an official statement, but the cumulative understanding of all the people who have loved and experienced Jesus through time.
The Church is the safe place to be. I can safely believe everything the Church teaches. It will not harm me, and in fact it will equip me to grow and grow and have a better and better ability to experience that direct presence.
The Christmas story has such power and such appeal every year. There are other stories we get tired of. You think of your favorite movie; you don't want to watch it 15 times.
Easter tells us of something children can't understand, because it addresses things they don't yet have to know: the weariness of life, the pain, the profound loneliness and hovering fear of meaninglessness.
There are lots of things to like about being Eastern Orthodox - incense, liturgies, all the baklava you can eat - but you know what I like best? None of that stupid 'women's ministry' stuff.
Someone who wanted to challenge Orthodoxy would not be able to locate a building to hold a protest march in front of. The faith is too diffused.
The devil's main purpose is not to scare us, in a horror-movie way; when we're scared of him, we're alert to him, and that might undermine his plans. Instead, he wants to quietly, subtly lure us into stepping away from God.
