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Charcoal & Incense

English - Orthodox, Ponderings, Priest
http://charcoalandincense.wordpress.com
Charcoal & Incense · 3M ago

I Don’t Want a Handout; I’d Rather be Working

I couldn’t sleep last because this caught my eye during the day: I recently asked my friends’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President of the United States. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there. So I asked her, “If you were [...]
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Charcoal & Incense · 3M ago

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Charcoal & Incense · 1Y ago

Mud

We live in a world of mud. Everywhere we turn there is mud. Nothing but mud. We are born in mud. We live in mud. We die in mud. When we first open our eyes, the only thing we see is mud. Our mother and father are covered in mud. We look at ourselves and [...]
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Charcoal & Incense · 1Y ago

The Beheading of St. John, Baptist and Forerunner

Only the Orthodox, to my knowledge, honor and venerate St. John to the extent we do. Even the Catholics, who hold much of the same Tradition as we do, do not honor him with such extensive hymnody as we. During Great Vespers and Matins on his feast day, we sing an amazing amount of hymns [...]
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Charcoal & Incense · 1Y ago

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

We recognize that in the person of this king is signified the Son of God, who held the whole human race guilty in the infinite debt of sin., since through the first sin we were all debtors of sin and death. In the ten thousand talents the serious sins of the human race are signified. [...]
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Charcoal & Incense · 1Y ago

Warning signs of suicide – Health.com

Warning signs of suicide – Health.com. No one can be too prepared for dealing with suicide. Sometimes it may be a family member, sometimes a friend. It’s been three weeks since I interrupted the suicide of someone dear to me. I may know the warning signs, but there is no way anyone can be prepared [
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Charcoal & Incense · 1Y ago

Real Humans

It is possible to have a civil discourse on moral issues without falling into polemics? I started thinking about this during a late night conversation with my best friend last Tuesday. The discussion involved how we in the Church relate and react to the various moral issues we deal with daily. Typic
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Charcoal & Incense · 1Y ago

The Real World is at Hand!

The Real World is at Hand! Okay, so in actuality Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is at hand, rather than the Real World is at hand (Mark 1:15), but I think a case can be made that they are one and the same — if one uses “real” in the Platonic sense. Plato [...]
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Charcoal & Incense · 1Y ago

Incense Found To Be Psychoactive

via Incense Found To Be Psychoactive. by Kate Melville Biologists from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have discovered that burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain that alleviate anxiety and depressio
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Charcoal & Incense · 2Y ago

Mystery and Orthodoxy

Everything we do in our liturgy invites a sense of mystery. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, of blessed memory, in For the Life of the World, talks about the Divine Liturgy inviting us on a mystical journey from the mundane world to the noetic realm and back.
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