Marginal Christianity

Fr. Stephen Freeman 1 Comment In the minds of many, grace is a legal concept – an expression of the kindness of God in the forgiveness of sins. As such, grace is instant and complete. This fits well within the legal conceptions of salvation. In the classical understanding of the Orthodox faith, salvation can indeed have a quality of “suddenness” – the thief on the Cross found paradise “in a single moment” according to the hymns of the Orthodox Church. But for most people – salvation is a life-long process in which we “work out our salvation from day to day in fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12). That experience, like most of life, has a slow quality to it. From  Prayer by the Elder Sophrony: At times prayer seems over-slow in bringing results, and life is so short. Instinctively we cry, “Make haste unto me.” But He does not always respond at once. Like fruit on a tree , our soul is left to scorch in the sun, to endure the cold wind, the scorching wind, to die of thirst or b...

  By Jonathan Massimi | December 7, 2015   In school my son has learned to measure time. In being taught this skill he has now been given another way in which to make sense of his reality. This struck me the last time I went to Chicago for my studies. When I had left, my son asked my wife, “How long will daddy be away?” She replied, “He’s gone for a week.” At which point he went into his room and burst into tears. He understood what a “week” was and for a six-year-old a week can feel like an eternity. This is juxtaposed to the previous trip where he asked the same question. Upon being given the answer he simply gave me a hug and went off to play. This occurred at a point where he did not have the conceptual tools to understand what a “week” was. It meant nothing to him. I could have said 1000 years and I would’ve received the same reaction. Read more at http://www.christianweek.org/the-holiday-of-advent/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/sunday-review/no-time-to-think.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 By KATE MURPHY JULY 25, 2014         ONE of the biggest complaints in modern society is being overscheduled, overcommitted and overextended. Ask people at a social gathering how they are and the stock answer is “super busy,” “crazy busy” or “insanely busy.” Nobody is just “fine” anymore.   When people aren’t super busy at work, they are crazy busy exercising, entertaining or taking their kids to Chinese lessons. Or maybe they are insanely busy playing fantasy football, tracing their genealogy or churning their own butter.   And if there is ever a still moment for reflective thought — say, while waiting in line at the grocery store or sitting in traffic — out comes the mobile device. So it’s worth noting a study published last month in the journal Science, which shows how far people will go to avoid introspection .   “We had noted ...

http://theotherjournal.com/churchandpomo/2013/10/30/early-onset-postmortality-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheChurchAndPostmodernCultureConversation+%28the+church+and+postmodern+culture%3A+conversation%29 by   Adam S. Miller   on Wednesday, October 30, 2013 ·   Leave a Comment   Filed under   Uncategorized In   The   Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans , Giorgio Agamben reads Paul’s letter as an extended commentary on messianic time and the grace that attends early onset postmortality. The model for what Agamben calls messianic time is that peculiar time—that remnant of time that remains—following the messianic event but preceding the end of time. Agamben argues that this messianic remnant should not be understood either as what remains to be saved or as what postpones an apocalyptic day of redemption. Rather, it should be understood as a kind of “time within ti...

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2013/01/cathedrals-of-time.html http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2013/01/cathedrals-of-time.html Posted on 1.02.2013   I hope you're enjoying the Christmas season. Yes, it's after the New Year, but your Christmas stuff should still be up. Because it's still Christmas! Christmastide lasts from the Feast of the Nativity (December 25) to the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6). These are the proverbial "Twelve Days of Christmas." But I expect that most American Christians have already moved on from Christmas, having already gotten Christmas "put away" before the New Year. As I wrote about last year on this topic, I think the biggest culprit in this truncating of Christmas is New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Smack in the middle of Christmastide is this other "holiday." Though it isn't, in fact, a "holy day" at all. So what we have here is a clashing of times , wi...

Posted: 22 Dec 2012 07:36 PM PST http://empireremixed.com/2012/12/22/take-up-your-clock-and-follow-me/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+empireremixed+%28Empire+Remixed%29 by Andrew Federle I’ve had a planner since I was in the 7th grade. Some kids devoted their free periods to hanging out in the cafeteria; my friend Alex and I got a head start on our homework. In the church-less existence of my first fourteen years of life, receiving my first planner was as close to a sacrament as I got: A leather-bound tome with a lovely page for each day of my life. My father, a disciple of Benjamin Franklin in general – and his Mormon-offshoot ‘Franklin Planner’ in particular – wanted his son to grow up with every advantage. Chief among these would be the cultivated virtues of productivity and efficiency. I became a good disciple of Mr. Franklin. At age fifteen, I became a disciple of Jesus. But it was only later – perhaps 10 years later – t...

During the week between Christmas and New Years in 1999 Carolyn and I made an impromptu trip to Stanta Fe, NM. We had no agenda for this trip. So when we saw signs promoting the Palo Dura Canyon near Amarillo, we headed for it. We viewed the expanse of the canyon (the second largest next to the Grand Canyon) from the observation deck and then drove down to the bottom of the canyon to take in the view from there. Something I couldn’t quite identify began to niggle away at my consciousness. Finally, after several hours exploring this exquisite piece of geography, while still standing on the floor of the canyon, I “got” what had to growing inside me. “This is God’s work,” I realized. “And God does wondrous work, and he takes his time!” A little over a year later, on February 5, 2001, perhaps the most counter-cultural event of the modern/postmodern age began and continues on to this day. Maverick composer John Cage composed a piece titled “Organ2/ASLSP” (for “as slow as possibl...

Leo Rock, SJ ( Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits , 20 ) Killing time How do I kill time? Let me count the ways. By worrying about things over which I have no control. Like the past, Like the future. By harboring resentment and anger over hurts real or imagined. By disdaining the ordinary or, rather, what I so mindlessly call ordinary. By concern over what’s in it for me, rather than what’s in me for it. By failing to appreciate what is because of might-have-beens, should-have-beens, could-have-beens. These are some of the ways I kill time. Jesus didn’t kill time. He gave life to it. His own.