noise Archives - Saint Sophia

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Fifth Friday of Pascha: A Quiet Apocalypse

05/27/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, October 12, 2016 Noise. The sound of the world around us generally qualifies as little more than noise. Almost nothing advertises itself as unimportant or something to be attended to later. The insistent cries of everything often raise the demands for our attention to a deafening pitch. “Do this! Read this! Buy this! Remember this! Believe this!” The world constantly presents itself to us as though it were teetering on the

A Mass of Sinners. Poustinia.

01/27/2022

Committed to living as the presence of Christ By Abbot Tryphon, January 17, 2020 According to Saint Ephraim the Syrian (306 – 373), “The Church is not the assembly of saints, it is the mass of sinners who repent, who, sinners though they are, have turned towards God and are oriented towards Him.” As a people whose focus is on God, we are sinners who are committed to living as the presence of Christ in

The Seen and the Unseen. Shutting Out all the Noise.

07/08/2020

By Abbot Tryphon, October 22, 2019 The limits of human reason and the knowledge of God The things that are of God are far beyond the capabilities of our finite mind to comprehend. According to Orthodox theology, the divine can only be known through the nous, that place in the heart that is our true center. It, unlike the brain, is capable of knowledge that is beyond human comprehension, coming as it does from noetic

The Seventh Thursday after Pascha. Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation

06/13/2019

Stand diligently at the gate of the heart. —St. Philotheos The practice of stillness is full of joy and beauty. —Evagrius By the grace of creation and redemption, there is a grounding union between God and the human person. In the depths of this ground, the “between” cannot be perceived, for it is completely porous to the Divine Presence. Indeed, there is more Presence than preposition. While this is the simplest and most fundamental fact

Voices of Wisdom (III)

09/03/2015

In all forms of ego-defense, from the generation of bodily aches and pains and itches to distract one from quiet to the beginning stages of spiritual narcissism as manifested in expectations and false dark nights, the ego is reacting against an intentional attempt to enter into willingness and surrender. It is defending itself against an outright, self -imposed attack. People whom William James considered to be a “once-born” or “healthy” mentality may be spared all

THE SILENCE OF THE ELECTRIC SAW (Part II)

08/26/2014

Gareth’s in ability to cope with the sound of the electric saw disrupting a contemplative prayer retreat resulted from his spasms of preference for only sounds that pleased him, such as birdsong, the rustling of leaves, or rain. Apart from his inner contortions during this one hour of outrageous disruption, there was nothing else going on just then except a saw making the sound saws make when they’re switched on and sawing through timber. The

THE SILENCE OF THE ELECTRIC SAW (Part I)

08/25/2014

It is one thing to see the unity of silence and sound when our teachers are birdsong and the sea’s breaking waves. But what might Wallace Stevens or Robert Penn Warren say about unpleasant noise? Can noise also be a vehicle of that “peace after perfect speech”? Does the sound we would prefer not to hear have anything to reveal? Can noise, too, be a teacher pointing to the Silence that is the ground of

The Open Porches of the Mind: On Silence and Noise (Part II)

07/29/2014

SOME VARIETIES OF SILENCE Not all silence is the same. There is the awkward silence of the road trip with someone we do not know quite well enough to be silent next to, the refrigerating silence of hardened anger, the reverential silence of dogwoods in winter, the vast silence of a cathedral, the focused silence of absorption in our sewing or a good book, the stunned silence of seeing the status of our pension fund.

The Open Porches of the Mind: On Silence and Noise (Part I)

07/08/2014

The result of justice will be silence and trust forever. -Isaiah 32:17 Let stillness be the criterion for assessing everything. -Evagrius If you love truth, love silence. -Isaac the Syrian THE BLACKBIRD SINGING With hopes of teaching them all how to draw, Kathleen Norris stands before her classroom of elementary school students. She recounts in Amazing Grace her remarkable way of going about this. Before teaching them to draw, she first needs to teach them

Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation

10/02/2012

Stand diligently at the gate of the heart. —St. Philotheos The practice of stillness is full of joy and beauty. —Evagrius By the grace of creation and redemption, there is a grounding union between God and the human person. In the depths of this ground, the “between” cannot be perceived, for it is completely porous to the Divine Presence. Indeed there is more Presence than preposition. While this is the simplest and most fundamental fact

Archive

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Fifth Friday of Pascha: A Quiet Apocalypse

A Mass of Sinners. Poustinia.

The Seen and the Unseen. Shutting Out all the Noise.

Voices of Wisdom (III)

THE SILENCE OF THE ELECTRIC SAW (Part II)

THE SILENCE OF THE ELECTRIC SAW (Part I)

The Open Porches of the Mind: On Silence and Noise (Part II)

The Open Porches of the Mind: On Silence and Noise (Part I)

Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation

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