Temptations as Hunger Pangs

Some thoughts as the Orthodox Christian Church finishes the second week of Lent. As a youth I was heavily influenced by the parachurch organization, The Navigators. For the Navs, the solution (the very good solution, I will add) to most spiritual problems was to pray, memorize scripture, and get together with your trusted group of like-minded people to …

Imagined Burning Desire vs Actual Burning Bushes

A couple of quotes from today's readings that the Australian Anglican Board of Mission put together. The devil sometimes puts ambitious desires into our hearts, so that, instead of setting our hand to the work which lies nearest to us, and thus serving Our Lord in ways within our power, we may rest content with …

Probably Most of Us Should Stay Away from the Desert

I love the desert and I love desert spirituality: the hope of meeting an indifferent desert-dwelling God, the beauty of grotesqueness, and all the other contradictions the desert offers. Having grown up in what many folk of more pleasant climes would call a desert, I also have a natural affinity that only comes from having …

Sheep and Goats

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy …