The Good and the Beautiful

I came from a background in Christianity that emphasized salvation as a matter of justice, of the meeting of divine requirements. Coupled with this was some creeping Pelagianism, which left a contradictory and crippled spiritual life: on the one hand intellectually conscious of the inability of any of us to effect our ultimate salvation, [...]

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Increase and Decrease

“He must increase. I must decrease,” said the Forerunner. “I live, yet not I, but Christ in me,” says the Apostle.
In the great book, The Brothers Karamazov, Elder Zosima says to his brother monks, “Truly each of us is guilty before everyone and for everyone, only people do not know it, and if [...]

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Tending the Flower Garden

Lyrics below the jump.
[H/T: Vox Stefani]

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The Fatherhood Chronicles CXIX

The Family that Prays Together . . .
I just had a most wonderful and heart-warming experience with my younger daughter, Delaina. I had come home mid-morning so that I could watch her for the rest of the day. We played and had some lunch, and while Delaina colored on the floor, I went [...]

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That They All May Be One

After Holy Communion one day [Jesus] made me understand the significance of these words in the Canticle of Canticles: “Draw me: we will run after thee to the odour of Thy ointments.” So, Jesus, there is no need to say: In drawing me, draw also the souls I love. The simple words “Draw me” [...]

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Would You Push the Button?

The interconnectedness of sin and death. None of us sins alone. All our sins affect others.
Button, Button (Part 1 of 2) (9:30)
Button, Button (Part 2 of 2) (10:14)
(From an old eighties Twilight Zone)

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What House Churches Were Really Like

This’ll rock yer world if you think house churches were all about sitting around in the first-century equivalent of jeans and tee-shirts, groovin’ to some guitar-strummin’ praise songs, and just chillin’ fer Jeeezuss.
Architecture of the Ancient House Church [H/T: kevinburt]

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Seen and Unseen

In a previous post, I remarked on the struggle of the Christian who is anchored in the world of seen and unseen realities. Our deacon approached me last night at Vespers and gave me a psalm which highlights this struggle, Psalm 36 (37 MT), here, in part:
Hope in the Lord, and do good, and [...]

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Thy Kingdom Come

The school of prayer is not one from which one ever graduates. And it is, because of our sins, sometimes a most difficult course. Among the difficulties in this school is the mystery of petitionary prayer. We know the verses:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; [...]

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Even More Beautiful

This from a 1987 AGAIN magazine article (link opens a Word document file) on Pastor Richard Wurmbrand’s experience in a Soviet prison, in the pastor’s own words:
When I was in jail I fell very, very ill. I had tuberculosis of the whole surface of both lungs, and four vertebrae were attacked by tuberculosis. I also [...]

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