Witness, NM

Tag: Dostoevsky

  • The Religion of the Slavophiles

    The Religion of the Slavophiles

    Slavophiles, Westernizers, and the East-West Dichotomy There are few civilizational and cultural gulfs quite like the divide between Russia and the West. It has remained a source of polemical rhetoric and hopeful visions of reunification in recent decades, but the genesis of the East-West divergence spans centuries, profoundly emerging in the wake of the Petrine…

  • Where is our Mind?

    Where is our Mind?

    Our Great War’s a Spiritual War During Lent I attempted to write about demons and the origins of evil with the larger project tracing sin and demonic activity through the early chapters of Genesis, but the research revealed how soul-draining it is to dwell in the demonic realm. It weighs to the spirit. While I…

  • 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,…

  • 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…