By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 1, 2015 You are not saving the world. In fact, you barely make a difference. These are harsh words. They are meant like a splash of cold water to wake us up from the dream in which we live. They are by no means meant to say that you don’t matter. In fact, you have infinite value. But your value is not based on saving the world or making a difference. I’ll
By Stephen Freeman, May 1, 2008 I pushed the envelope a little in my last post, intentionally pressing against what I understand to be false boundaries created by an inadequate understanding of Scripture and a view of the world that establishes limits at places they need not be. I am not an enemy of boundaries – indeed – without them we would not exist – at least not as Persons. Even though the Orthodox faith
At the outset of His public ministry Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God and announced that the powers of the age to come were already active in the present age (Lk 7.18-22). His words and mighty works were performed “to produce repentance as the response to His call, a call to an inward change of mind and heart which would result in concrete changes in one’s life, a call to follow Him and accept His
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 26, 2011 Sunday, the third in Lent, is set aside to honor the Venerable and Life-Giving Cross. I offer these thoughts: In a short work, The Beginning of the Day, (I believe it was a special printing and is not generally available), Met. Kallistos Ware notes this about the Cross and its connection with the whole of creation: …[The] created order in its entirety participated in the Savior’s Passion: the earth shook,
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 3, 2015 Children, at their best, have an amazing ability to wonder. The world is fresh and new for them, with many things being seen and encountered for the very first time. They sometimes come to wrong conclusions, but even their wrong conclusions can be revealing to adults. Adults often fall into habit when it comes to experiencing the world. We drive to and from work by the same routes
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 13, 2015 At the heart of the modern narrative is a concern to alleviate and even eliminate suffering. This understanding is rooted in the Christian virtue of compassion. In many ways, however, modern compassion has been detached from its original context and become a thing-in-itself. Modernity is an arena where compassion has run amok, and, ironically, promises to create new and unique miseries in its wake. The Christian gospel is
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 1, 2015 Somewhere in the late 60’s (my teen years), I found myself home recuperating from an appendectomy. In those days they actually recommended a period of convalescence before returning to normal activities (today’s medical advice, written in insurance offices, deems recuperation to be a needless bit of a money-drain). But I suddenly had extra time on my hands with little to do. I searched the bookshelves for something unread,
The sixth of January is the feast of the Epiphany. Originally it was the one Christian feast of the “shining forth” of God to the world in the human form of Jesus of Nazareth. It included the celebration of Christ’s birth, the adoration of the Wisemen, and all of the childhood events of Christ such as His circumcision and presentation to the temple as well as His baptism by John in the Jordan. There seems
By Abbot Tryphon, November 5, 2019 We are all in this together As we struggle in this life, it is good to remember that we are all together. We find our place of silence, where we encounter God, but even in this place set apart, we are together. In our journey to God, our common goal is the acquisition of a humble and contrite heart, and our common homeland is found in the Divine Liturgy,
By Stephen Freeman, September 3, 2015 I have continued to meditate this past week on the quote from Stanley Hauerwas that I shared previously: The project of modernity was to produce people who believe they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story. Such a story is called a story of freedom – institutionalized economically as capitalism and politically as democracy. That story, and the institutions that embody it,
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