SageTree

I like your profile pic!

What is work placement. And thank yes, thing have been good. I'll hve to hit you up on skype soon

Your welcome

On Eastern Orthodoxy, that's funny because I am theologically Eastern in a lot of my beliefs (ie my approach to sin, divorce, theosis etc.) rather than Western. I do not view sin or faith legalistically at all, as certain interpretations of Roman Catholicism and certainly Calvinism tend to be. On other areas I am more aligned with the West but I once considered converting to Eastern Orthodoxy (hate using the word "conversion" we're all Christians after all but what other word is there?). The Divine Liturgy of Orthodoxy is more appealing to me, as are the style of their churches and use of icons, than the Western style. That's just a personal preference though.

You know, I've always had a soft spot for Anglicanism. I always admired its via media stance between Catholicism and Protestatism ie "Catholic & Reformed". The Anglican tradition has such a richness too it. I really like choral evensongs, and the greats like CS Lewis, Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Traherne, William Wilberforce, T.S Eliot, John Donne, Henry Vaughan (another mystic), George Herbert (mystic) and...I could go on, there all Anglicans and all major influences upon my spirituality. So your in a great position as an Anglo-Catholic IMHO

Silesius said:

"In water lives the fish,
the plant in the ground,
The bird in the sky, the sun in the firmament,
The salamander must with fire be sustained,
And God's Heart is Jacob Boehme's element"

I have read only three of his voluminous works The Way of Christ, Aurora & Of Heaven & Hell, as well as quotations from him in anthologies. The Way is translated in the classics of Western Spirituality series. He is beyond doubt one of the most impressive of the mystics for the sheer sublimity of his subject matter. I have never read the book by him that you mentioned on the other thread, "Personal Christianity". What's it about?

Another Protestant Christian mystic I would recommend highly is Thomas Traherne. His Centuries of Meditations is IMHO the most beautiful prose work written in English.

Jakob Boehme! I certainly do - the inspired shoemaker! He is one of the mystics I have in the works to put up on wikiquote. He truly had a natural genius for the transcendent. Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, ranked him on the same level as Meister Eckhart as the joint greatest of the German mystics. To him everything has a mystical significance - every animal and tree has a spiritual lesson for humanity. Boehme was influenced indirectly by Eckhart, Tauler and Suso through the Germanic tradition of latter mystics of his own time; he in turn influenced the last of the great German mystics, the Catholic convert Angelus Silesius. Indeed the latter's epigrams are a poetic rendering of much of Boehme's mystical theology.

Thank you so much for the frubal! It was totally unexpected, so was a nice surprise

It's my calling.

Yeah, it's like climbing a tree. The trunk is your main faith and grounding, but the branches may lead you to other views, or to a dead end. So you backtrack from that dead-end limb. You go back to the trunk to see if the other branches take you to a good place, but you're still connected to that tree.

Wow, that was trippy! I could have left it at "I know what you mean".

Btw, I'm such an idiot, I posted to my own wall, then deleted it.

Still kind of, but downplayed. I still have my Buddhist statues, and I light candles and incense by them, I say some Buddhist prayers, which actually go to Krishna, as he said all prayers do. Like water, it seems to have found its own level.

Thank you.

Thanx for the frubal. I really wasn't trying to be offensive..

Thanks for the frubal. I figured your post was rhetorical. I just wanted to expand it further in that direction. Good stuff!

Hi Sage

The box for posting visitor messages just appeared today! I think there must have been some sort of error because it wasn't there before.

Anyhow you are most welcome vis-à-vis the frubal!

Thanks! (I remember that show.)

Thanx for the Samurai Jack frubie!
I've wondered who else enjoys his battles with Aku & the machines.

RIP, Mako Iwamatsu (Aku)

Irie Brothren! I teaching Idren at my placement, which is at an alternative school.
It's pretty cool being a teaching assistant.
Very invigorating, unexpected and enlightening.
Although some of the lessons are some Christopher Columbus-isms :/

Still, that stuff isn't what they need or are taking in this setting.
Much more just a stable friend with the help kind of thing.

Peace, Ras :namaste

Irie ras, have had a nice week. How about the I?

Getting really formal instruction from an Orthodox spiritual father on advanced spiritual practices outside of the context of the Church is going to be very difficult, if not impossible. I can point you to a few books that explain Orthodox spirituality like Metropolitan Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Way, and a few primary sources like St. John Climacus's Ladder of Divine Ascent, or the anonymous Way of a Pilgrim that get deeper into this kind of thing, but that's about all I could do.

Now, there are some things in Orthodox spiritual practice that you could do, like practicing the virtues; keeping a prayer rule; fasting; reading and meditating on Scripture; reading and studying the lives of the Saints and the writings of the Fathers; singing Psalms, akathists and canons; almsgiving; etc, etc. that any Christian can do, and even I could help you with that. But as far as things like hesychasm, that's a different ball game.