The Boondocks

This little ditty has been running through my brain of late, due to my hearing it on the radio as I travel to and from my teaching gigs.
I feel no shame
I’m proud of where I came from
I was born and raised in the boondocks
One thing I know
No matter where I go
I keep my heart and [...]

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The Fatherhood Chronicles XCIII

The Awakening to Salvation
It’s late (getting close to midnight) and I should be going to bed, but I’m up feeling overwhelmed to the point of tears by God’s goodness to me in my wife and daughters. I’ve been saved three times over, and thrice more every day.
Words fail me to speak of the mystery [...]

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Zacchaeus Sunday

I don’t know why it is but this year, like last year, and the last couple of years, this particular Sunday takes me by surprise. I’m going along, minding my own business, then bam Zacchaeus jumps out from behind the sycamore tree and says: “Great and Holy Lent is around the corner.” Next [...]

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Papal Encyclical: Deus Caritas Est

His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI’s newest encyclical has been promulgated: Deus Caritas Est (here’s the Latin).
From the excerpts I’ve read, it is fully emblematic of Pope Benedict’s keen mind and pious heart.

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Fr. Lawrence Farley: Reading Over the Shoulders of the Fathers

In “Reading Over the Shoulders of the Fathers”—A Call for an Orthodox Approach to Scripture (pdf file), Fr. Lawrence Farley writes:
The much needed ‘return to the Fathers’, Fr. Alexander Schmemann said, “means, above all, the recovery of their spirit, of the secret inspiration which made them true witnesses of the Church” (quoted in Liturgy and [...]

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St. Maximos Confessor: from Ambiguum 7 (II)

From my other blog, Wisdom!: Readings from the Fathers of the Church:
The mystery hidden from the ages (Col 1:26) and from the nations is now revealed through the true and perfect incarnation of the Son and God. For he united our nature to himself in a single hypostasis, without division and without confusion, and joined [...]

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The Joy of Discovery

Back in late spring of 2003, I was reading a translation of Aristotle’s De Anima, specifically III.4-5 on human thinking, and ran across a footnote that tied DA III.5 to the Metaphysics XII.7, 9. That is to say, human thinking episodically thinks the same thing as divine thinking (when each is thinking the form [...]

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Where’s the Baby? (Or How to Make an Entire Baby Disappear in the Space of a Sentence)

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (those folks ECUSA’s Executive Council are ga-ga over) has a link on its home page titled “If you are pregnant.” Once you get to the page, the title becomes “Considering Abortion? Clarifying What You Believe“
Their opening paragraphs runs thusly (see if you can follow the disappearing baby):
There is [...]

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You Might Be Emergent If . . .

My friend, and fellow gadfly over at the GCM boards, David, sent the following link to me via email and suggested it was something that ought to be posted.
I agreed. Take a look . . . if you dare!
You Might Be Emerging If…

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You Know You’re Orthodox If . . .

Memoirs of a Catechumen has a great post up (from last Nov) You know you’re Orthodox if…:

On Wednesdays and Fridays you eat Japanese food.
You are more comfortable standing in church than sitting.
You can suck/vacuum up the crumbs of bread out of your hand without coughing.
You can sing ison to any song (and you know what [...]

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