Lord, give rest to the souls of your departed servants, in a place of brightness, refreshment, and repose; where all suffering, sorrow, and sighing have fled away.
Morning Prayer
Tag: Culture
Does possessing wealth get us closer to God’s Kingdom, or does wealth keep us out of the Kingdom? Here’s what we learn from Jesus’ encounter with a rich young man in Matthew 19.
You can also listen to the audio on anchor.fm.
The availability heuristic
It’s true, you learn something new every day. Yesterday, I learned about the “availability heuristic.” As the definition above indicates, the availability heuristic says that people will make judgment calls based upon the data that is most available to them, regardless of what other data and relevant facts reveal.
Continue reading “The availability heuristic”The Beheading
Today is the feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (see Mark 6:14-30). This holy day is a day of strict fasting in the Orthodox Church, as we remember the death of an innocent and holy man at the hands of a weak leader governed by his ego and insatiable appetites.
Taste and see…
Christianity was never meant to be merely a topic of academic study. Christianity is communion with the living God. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalms of David)
Yes, we must use our heads when learning the Faith. But Christ doesn’t want us to leave him in our heads, he wants us to invite him to sit on the throne of our hearts.
Sometimes?
The only edit I would make to this meme is removing the word “sometimes.”
All ends of the world shall remember
“All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.” (Psalm 22)
Love quotes
We are what we repeat
I’ll be putting this meme somewhere that I can see easily see it. I need the reminder.
Neuroscience tells us that what’s going on in this quote is a function of something called myelination. Myelin is a chemical that allows signals to travel faster in our neural pathways. We build up myelin by repetition. The more we do something, the stronger the pathways in the brain needed to get it done. That’s why “practice makes perfect.”
Myelination doesn’t just affect learning skills, it also shapes things like character and attitudes. Choosing to be positive will make us a more positive person, because we are strengthening the “positive” pathways in our brains. The same is true for negative thinking.
In the words of the 20th-century Eastern Orthodox monk, Elder Thaddeus:
Our thoughts determine our lives.
Lock down, protest – fasting, liturgy
I’ve been following the work of Jonathan Pageau for a couple of years now. An Orthodox icon carver from Montreal, Canada, Pageau has developed a large body of commentary (particularly on YouTube) on modern culture, narrative, and the Story that keeps getting told over and over again throughout human history.
In this video, Pageau talks about the religious imagery in the protests following the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis. In the video notes, Pageau writes:
From kneeling and chanting to contrition and acts of communion, the protests used catharsis as a means to a form of religious ecstasy, which was made more intense because of the Covid-19 lockdown.
The intent is not political commentary but a reflection on how the protests, within the context of the Corona virus outbreak, reveals how “religious” human beings really are. Ritual, fasting, offering are all woven into the fabric of our being.
