Arsenios

I’m wondering if there’s any chance you’ll be notified of this message and respond somehow. :O

Don't be a stranger here and about.

Hey, PJ...
What's on your mind?

hi.

Hi! No I don't make beer, it's just part of my name. It's great to have another Orthodox here!

Hey, PJ...

hey buddy !

1 and 1? With the "Lay down, Satan." post?
Or some other post?

I think he was agreeing with you about unity? Like "Get thee behind me."

:idunno:

Here is a pop-up player of Fr. Tom's lecture giving his recommended reading list and the reasons for each one:

http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/recommended_reading_from_fr._tom_hopko

The page links to his podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio on all manner of subjects as well... I have spent many hours listening to him...

Thank you for the recommended reading, and for the insightful wisdom and instruction. Regardless of my ultimate affiliation with Orthodoxy or not, I know I must approach communion as discipled by the Orthodox Church. In tenderness and obdeience, yielded in heart and mind. These are still only words to me now in many ways; but I'm trusting and believing for their reality in simplicity as God's Spirit moves by grace upon the depths of my inner man. Much of the hardness, angst, and ego have given way, and I continue to thank you for your prayers and for being a catalyst of love and faith to me and for me. I'll likely never know the true role of such intercession in this life, but I humbly appreciate your servanthood to our Savior in that regard.

It is not something to be blundered into, but to be carefully lived in slow immersion according to your disposition and willingness... It is not about making friends, although you will make many... And it is not about establishing a new family, although that will happen too... And it is not about being a member of a community, though that too will occur... It is about preparation for meeting God Person to person, which is purification of the heart and living very differently...

Have you listened to Fr. Tom (Hopko) on Ancient Faith Radio online? Taught Dogmatics at Vlad's seminary... About 75 now... Dean Emeritus... Brilliant and sharp and funny and serious and worthwhile... Gets into some hot water on occasion... I think you will love him as I do... A great educator, and photographic recall, lectures spontaneously from an outline...

These posts are too long for this format...

A.

So read Lossky, and take the simple approach to the Trinity of three Persons having one Essence that is essentially and completely unknowable... And this for now, until you figure it out and decide to embrace or reject it... Meanwhile, you can read Hierotheos' "Empirical Dogmatics" to get a better idea of the basis of that dogma... The important part is finding a guy like Fr. Thomas Hopko and have a conversation with him about it, and begin the living of an Orthodox Life, living the liturgical Calendar, establishing a prayer rule with your priest, doing services, doing the fasts, the whole obedience thing... Grace is not given on the basis of holding correct dogmatic doctrines, but on purity of heart and friendship with the Person of God, and all this under the aegis of someone who can direct you in that life, and finding out what it entails...

I know I'm not "normal", but I do want to approach my further embrace of Orthodoxy in a "from within" manner of wisdom. I don't know that I can ever get there in a way that I would ever be accepted into the Church to confirmed and participate in the Holy Sacraments; but I still contend there is more grace and mercy for me outside the Holy Communion if I cannot whole-heartedly accept the Orthodox formulaic of three hypostases. I cannot feign anything from the heart, but that is all that separates me that I'm aware of without further understanding. I recognize all you say from where I am as best I'm able; and can agree with everything beyond the minutiae of Theology Proper. I see the monergism AND the synergism of us in God's timeless foreknowledge, and don't need to "know" I'm saved as an Evangelical event. It's being accomplished until I receive the end of my faith. Thank you for your long-suffering as an ambassador of Christ on my behalf.

Best is to visit a few monasteries in the US, and then go to the Holy Mountain, Mt. Athos, in Greece... Be warned, there is a "line" and you can only come (or remain) by invitation... Having your heart melted by looking into the eyes of someone who loves you is not the meat and potatoes of monasteries, but is a blessing of God's Grace that His Servants are sometimes instructed to give, and normally not... Normally, just going and paying attention to all that is involved in the enterprise [it is a pilgrimage] will carry its own Blessing from God, and whatever else one receives is actually a part of that...

Normally, starting out with the Philokalia is universally NOT recommended by the Fathers of the Church... You are not normal, so may it be blessed... Vol 2 was my second read in Orthodoxy, and I knew I was 'Home'... Because these were my 'friends' writing, to me, across some 1500 years... You may or may not get that from it...

Would I ever be able to meet Abbot Tryphon or someone like him to which you have referred? I'd welcome having my heart melted by looking in their eyes. It would be a blessing.

And would you recommend a top 10 reading list? I'm ordering the 4-volume Philokalia and Loosky's The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church.

And is there an online central resource that is exclusively for Orthodox titles?

We are in the second week of the Great Fast of Lent unto Pascha... A lot of hard things are happening to good people in this season... To the Glory of God! This is the time for things to go wrong in the world, helping us to go right with God...

I hope to send you an email about your last post to me today. I haven't overlooked, or am ignoring. Just gotta run something by you first. I hope that it will be sometime this evening, Lord willing.

God Bless you!

That definitely makes me smile!

My favorite color is tye-dyed. No, don't have a picture... when our ship comes in we will maybe have all those type luxuries... you know... a camera, phone and computer from this millennium... that kind of thing.

You just did not seem, in my imagined vision of you, to exactly BE... What can I say...??? Well,exactly to BE a RED CAPE kind of Girl! Got a pic?
I must say, it does have a kind of resonance with your ebullience in your postings, mind you...