This morning I opened to a passage from St. Palamas which seemed eerily perfect for this first day of Great Lent. He writes of God’s “incomparable grandeur of compassion,” in that He promises to give us the reward of eternal life for us simply “toiling on our own behalf.” Using a well worn Christian analogy, we…
The following piece was written a little over a year ago, but for some reason never made it to my blog. Reading it over again brought back some insights that I wanted to share with my readers. My hope is that it finds its way to people working through similar issues who might need a…
In a previous article I vented many of my pent-up frustrations with the attack on men in our culture. The article wrestled with the recently invented social category, “toxic masculinity,” and how the phrase not only fails to capture the real problem with men, but adds to the confusion. With this article I want to…
(This article is still awaiting final editing but I published it anyway because I’m an impatient, lazy, toxic male with an insatiable appetite for instant gratification.) Pressured on all sides to form an opinion, not of my own but one manufactured for me by pop-psychology and its master, mainstream feminism, about so-called “toxic masculinity” –…
I stumbled across an untitled “hymn of praise” in St. Nikolai’s Prologue of Ohrid,* last week which pulled me out of a funk, the type of funk I get into only when I pay too much attention to the news. I’ve never been into religious hymns, per se, even Orthodox Christian ones, but this one…
“What do you seek?” (John 1:37). These are the first words from Christ to those who would become disciples; a question as simple as they come, and no less profound. I often ask my clients in therapy, “what do you want?” And I leave the question there, hanging in ambiguity. The usual reply is,…
The primordial man says of his wife, “This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.” (Gen 2:23) St. Nikolai of Ohrid on this verse repeats a familiar consensus of the church saying, “this is the foundation and reason for the mysterious attraction and unity of husband and wife.” As with…
I’ve loved Kierkegaard for 2 decades and have managed to read nearly everything he wrote, many two or three times. Yesterday during my second run through of The Concept of Anxiety I was struck by a passage that spells out the task of psychology in a way I’ve never heard it; something that I apparently…
Originally posted on Eric Hyde Counseling:
Something I’ve been thinking about lately is the notion of what I call the “Noble Line,” i.e. the psychology of ancestry. It used to be that growing up a person had a sense of family roots – roots not limited to one’s immediate parents or grandparents, but roots extending…
“Partisanship,” writes Aldous Huxley, “is a complex passion which permits those who indulge in it to make the best of both worlds. Because they do these things for the sake of a group which is, by definition, good and even sacred, they can admire themselves and loathe their neighbors, they can seek power and money,…
“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” This is the new fun phrase from Nike’s new ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick circulating social media. I have no interest in getting involved with the NFL kneeling thing or the time-wasting delirium of debating Nike’s intentions with the ad, but I feel a need to…
Why do some people hear the wisdom of God – the “word of the kingdom of heaven” – and change their lives forever, while others are either unaffected or take interest only for a period and then turn away? In short, why are some saved and some lost? The 13th chapter of the Gospel of…
"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced" -Kierkegaard
Doctrine Matters
Then they told what had happened on the road
