(image via Wikimedia Commons) I just read a very powerful piece of writing on the outward manifestations of suffering and how the Church should respond, written by my friend over at “Morphodoxing.” I encourage all of you to go over and have a look at “The Poor In Spirit.” Your legs are too broken to try to stand when others stand. Your eyes are too broken to see what others can see. Your heart is too broken to stop crying.... Read more
(image via Pixabay) The Nativity of our Blessed Mother is celebrated today! (image via Wikimedia Commons) From the propers for today’s Liturgy: Your birth, O Virgin Theotokos, heralded joy to the universe, for from you arose the Sun of Justice, Christ our God. Removing the curse, he gave the blessing, and by destroying death, he granted eternal life. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever, Amen! At your Holy Birth,... Read more
(Image: a fresco of Saint Demetrius, via Wikimedia Commons.) I took a free Orthodox calendar from the back of the OCA Orthodox Church the other day. I’ve been flipping through it to look at the pretty icon pictures since. In flipping through, I have learned that our Orthodox brothers and sisters eat a lot of “wine and oil” during Lent, and that they don’t call it Lent but the Great Fast. I have also learned that there’s a Sunday called... Read more
We ended up at Divine Liturgy at an OCA Orthodox church last week. Never mind how we got there. There we were, an hour too early. We sat on the steps and waited until it was time to go in. It was the tiniest of churches, a little clapboard rectangle like a Pioneer schoolhouse, with an onion dome on top of the spire, built into the side of the hill so the back of the church was flush with the ground,... Read more
(Image via Pixabay) There’s a meme going around Facebook again; you’ve probably seen it yourself. It looks to be a wrinkled newspaper clipping, or a page from a cheap Protestant tract, but it turns out it was doctored for comic effect. But it reminds me an awful lot of the Planet Charismatic on which I spent most of my childhood; there are authentic lists just as silly. We had similar lists drilled into us. It says, “Beloved, do not take... Read more
(Image via Pixabay.) There have to better ways to respond to protesters than this. Also did anyone catch that this pipeline construction is taking place in violation of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples? A declaration that the US supposedly agrees with? Update: If you were wondering about why they the protesters were so up in arms- the reason for Saturday’s bulldozing was to destroy Native burial sites before the North Dakota preservation office could intervene. Furthermore it is... Read more
(image via Pexels) I should preface this by saying that I am white. I am about as white as you can get. I’m your standard Celtic-and-Anglo mix with light brown hair and skin the color of an unbaked piecrust. As such, I usually don’t feel like I should write about racial justice issues. I don’t know what it’s like to be a black person and I never will know. And I’m not going to drag out that old saw about having... Read more
(image via Pixabay) I’d like to repeat what I’ve stated several times already, that Steel Magnificat is not endorsing a political candidate this year because every single candidate who stands a snowball’s chance of the United States’ Presidency supports at least one grave evil. Make your own decision on how you will vote to lessen evil, don’t commit the idolatry of letting any political party rather than our Faith tell you what’s morally right, and I’ll see you at the... Read more
(image via Pixabay) There is a Protestant church near my house, whose kiosk boasts “explosive services” and a choir known as the “Gospel Glamor Girls.” The explosive services happen during Sunday’s Divine Liturgy time, or else I think I would sneak out and attend one of them– there’s something very holy and wholesome about a modest brick Protestant church in the middle of a very poor neighborhood in Northern Appalachia. I like to go on my walks down that street in the evenings,... Read more
(image via Pixabay) What if I told you I’ve learned how to become invisible? I’ve joked about wanting to disappear, but at the time I’d forgotten that I actually had become invisible, once. It’s not the sort of thing you can turn on and off at will. It’s what happens to you, if you’ve had certain types of misfortune. Once, for a brief time, it happened to me. And while I was invisible, I learned how to see invisible people. It happened about... Read more
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