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Eating with Mindfulness (Part II)

By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey A central question, however, is exactly what we mean by “mindfulness.” How do we understand what we are doing? Why we are doing it? As mentioned already, both Buddhists and Christians are taught not to condemn or to act as a judge over others. On this subject, St. Paul says, “Who am I to judge another man’s servant?” (Romans 14:4). However, in this sentence we see an important difference between the

Eating with Mindfulness (Part I)

By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey Recently while waiting for my wife at a doctor’s office, I flipped through a “wellness” magazine. In it was an article entitled, “Are You Aware of What You Eat?” True to the title, the article suggested knowing what we are eating. We should also know where our food comes from, we should chew slowly, and we should notice how satisfied our stomach feels. This is called “eating with mindfulness.” The idea

The Second Friday of Great Lent. A Modern Lent.

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 29, 2019  Few things are as difficult in the modern world as fasting. It is not simply the action of changing our eating habits that we find problematic – it’s the whole concept of fasting and what it truly entails. It comes from another world. We understand dieting – changing how we eat in order to improve how we look or how we feel. But changing how we eat in order to know God

The Seventh Wednesday after Pascha: Eating with Mindfulness

By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey Recently while waiting for my wife at a doctor’s office, I flipped through a “wellness” magazine. In it was an article entitled, “Are You Aware of What You Eat?” True to the title, the article suggested knowing what we are eating. We should also know where our food comes from, we should chew slowly, and we should notice how satisfied our stomach feels. This is called “eating with mindfulness.” The idea

Analyzing Our Thoughts and Feelings (II)

Evagrius’s account of self-observation might almost be found in a psychology textbook explaining the various mechanisms of the soul and the connections of the individual feelings and emotions: “It is very important for us that we also learn to distinguish the various demons and to determine the attendant circumstances of their appearance. Our thoughts can teach us this…. Furthermore, we should note which demons attack less often and which are the more burdensome, which abandon