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World as Sacrament

The whole world is a sacrament if only we have the eyes of faith to see it By Abbot Tryphon, December 21, 2019  Some of my earliest memories are of the camping trips we would take, as a family, and pitching our tent by the idyllic lakes in Northern Idaho. We would cook over a fire, catch rainbow trout for breakfast (nothing like a freshly grilled trout). When in high school I’d join friends for

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition (Part II)

Characteristically, Scripture uses the image of trees and forests in three basic ways, plus a subsuming fourth, which represent respectively three kinds of the Scriptural tree, corresponding roughly to the Pauline trichotomy of body, soul and spirit, plus a transcending fourth, representing the presence of the Holy Spirit that is “everywhere present and fillest all things.” We may call these three types of tree usages the Natural Tree, the Metaphoric Tree and the Symbolic Tree.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition (Part I)

By Vincent Rossi “Whoever does not love trees, does not love God.” This was the teaching of the renowned Greek Orthodox monk, Elder Amphilochios of Patmos (1888-1970). According to Orthodox scholar Bishop Kallistos Ware, Fr. Amphilochios was an ecologist long before environmental concern became fashionable. “Do you know,” the elder said, “that God gave us one more commandment, which is not recorded in Scripture? It is the commandment, “Love the trees.” When you plant a