Glory be to thee, O Christ, love of my life, overcoming my death by your death, resurrecting my death in your life, ascending my light through your light, descending as glory from your glory, glorifying my brokenness with ineffable light. Glory to thee, Father of light, generating light from light in the night of my life, light of turning, light… Read more »
Just as the Apostle Paul speaks of hearing ineffable words in the paradise of the third or highest heaven (2 Cor 12:4), so desert wisdom discerns ineffable number in paradise, unveiling the primordial dimensions of the Holy of Holies hidden at the heart of the heaven of heavens. Oneness generates the second when the Father generates the Son, whilst a third proceeds from… Read more »
The Spirit of glory prays without ceasing in the midst, interceding in ineffable words of uncreated love and mercy, revealing that the throne of grace is a mercy seat standing under all verbal, audible prayers. Revealed by Christ, in human words, this ineffable prayer is called the ‘Lord’s Prayer,’ and is known to all whilst its ineffable scope and efficacy remains hidden as the… Read more »
Solitude was always persecuted by those who lived in terror of silence and martyred by those who distrust stillness. The original symphony of verbal prayers and stillness was lost when stillness was crucified. Desert seers understand why persecution of stillness was always a martyrdom of silent solitude but also know that glorification of God precedes and succeeds the Cross of loving stillness…. Read more »
Heaven and earth are full of the glory of God, surrounding awareness with the presence of God in his Name, encircling the breathing spirit with the oneness of the Holy Spirit. One with Christ and the Father, the Spirit imparts wisdom in Christ that discerns fulness of glory everywhere, empowering purification to resurrect with Christ as illumination and illumination to ascend… Read more »
The wisdom of the Beloved Disciple inspired the Fourth Gospel and the Book of Revelation in different ways, enabling three epistles to speak of her love of her Beloved who loved her, which is not mere sentiment but the profoundest wisdom. Love of her wisdom regenerates Holy Orthodoxy way beyond the boundaries of the old Byzantine Empire, inspiring many and speaking through… Read more »
The purified heart beholds the vision of God that illumines saints in the age to come, restoring glory to God that was lost when the fall deprived seers of wisdom. The ineffability of wisdom discerns the openness of glory, awakening wisdom to the spontaneous presence of glory in the Oneness of the Name. The Spirit of truth abides with Christ… Read more »
Doxological stillness transcends all identities but playfully offers an identity, ‘Orthodox Hesychasm,’ that situates it in the human world of identities and stories. Stillness abides in the glory of the age to come by indwelling uncreated light as wisdom beholding glory at the heart of the world. Stillness is doxological in ways that include many stories, many identities, without identifying with… Read more »
Saint Sophrony the Hesychast unveiled the holiness of glory with humour that made the flame of the Name bearable, concealing uncreated fire beneath dancing laughter that conventional correctness could not repress. He unveiled uncreated holiness veiled for a secular age to handle, a grace that hid regenerative glory beneath an aged human exterior, overcoming contemporary ambivalence without compromise. His precision of… Read more »
Philokalia is love of the beauty of goodness and the goodness of beauty, but in our times nihilism divorces drab goodness from beauty and seductive beauty from goodness, having lost all sense of the beauty of truth or holiness. Separation of goodness from beauty spawns ugliness, whilst division of beauty from goodness spews vacuous glitter. But beauty tempts only when beauty is… Read more »