Category: Reflections

  • Recovering Sight

    Recovering Sight

    A final reflective essay This is an essay I wrote for my Mysticism: East and West course. It’s essentially a final exam. I spent a lot of time on it and thought it’d be good to share as an example of reorientation: moving beyond pure reason and abstraction, and taking steps toward re-enchantment. Praxis is…

  • Champion and the Idiot

    Champion and the Idiot

    Love is an Apocalypse “I had heard a good deal about him before and, among other things, that he was an atheist. He’s really a very learned man, and I was glad to be talking with a true scholar… He doesn’t believe in God. Only one thing struck me: it was as if that was…

  • Against Utility

    Against Utility

    Seeking the heart amidst revival “And I shall give you a new heart and establish a new spirit in you and remove the heart made of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I shall establish my spirit in you, and I shall work so that you walk in my…

  • Beauty Will Save the World

    Beauty Will Save the World

    A reflection on my name day “Nothing is greater than a pure heart, because such a heart becomes a throne of God. And what is more glorious than the throne of God? Of course nothing. God says about those who have pure heart: ‘I shall dwell in them and walk, and shall be their God,…

  • The Way is the Word

    The Way is the Word

    Recovering the lost memory of God and eyes to see Him I’ve been writing weekly essays on theories of religion and, more recently, mystical texts for about a year now. What follows is part formal summary, part exploration. I’ll indicate when the shift occurs. While the summary specifically looks at the comparisons and contrasts between…

  • If A, Then A

    If A, Then A

    Law of Forgiveness “For if ye forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their transgressions, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions” (The Gospel According to St. Matthew 6:14-15). The Sermon on the Mount changed my life. Nothing compares. While Pentecost restored what was broken…

  • A is A

    A is A

    Laws of Thought I haven’t been keeping up with posts recently, and I’m trying to amend that before my son is born (when I’m sure things will get backlogged again). I’ve been busy travelling to Boston, writing midterm essays, and dealing with a variety of illnesses. Now, trying to keep my sanity while studying religion…

  • The Possessed

    The Possessed

    Abdication of the Will “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten…

  • Untitled: C Minor

    Untitled: C Minor

    What’s interesting is madness The comic book writer, Alan Moore, on his fortieth birthday decided “rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a mid-life crisis I decided it might actually be more interesting to actually terrify them by going completely mad and declaring myself to be a magician. This had…