T is for Theophany

 

I Am Released

 

2008 Reading Full Circle Challenge

Here’s a cool reading challenge I’m taking on:  The Reading Full Circle Challenge. 

Explains Joy:

Use the common words from your book titles to connect the last title and the following title. For example:

Last Days of Summer

Book of a Thousand Days

A Thousand Bones

Winter’s Bone

 For the full rules and to sign up, go here!

Here’s my reading list, from the sacred to the mundane                                                                                                                                                          

(linking words indicated with italics):

My 30 Days Under the Overpass:  not your ordinary devotional
Mike Yankoski
 “Thoreau said, ‘Simplify, simplify, simplify!’ but at that moment I couldn’t help wondering if I had gone too far.” 

Under the Beetle’s Cellar  (fiction)

Mary Willis Walker

Texas crime reporter Molly Cates seems to be the only hope for rescuing a busload of children who are being held hostage by a cult leader preparing for Armageddon.  

Praying in the Cellar: a guide to facing your fears and finding God

Anthony Delisi

We all hurt in various ways—pain from childhood, unspoken fears, memories that remind us of loss—but Anthony Delisi, a Trappist chaplain, teacher, and retreat leader for nearly sixty years, shows us how to bring all of these to God as we learn to pray “in the cellar.”   

 Behold the Beauty of the Lord: praying with icons

 Henri Nouwen                                                                                                                                      Although Nouwen was a Roman Catholic priest, in this book he explores Eastern Orthodox spirituality, explaining how to pray with icons. According to a reviewer on Amazon.com, “his teaching, from an Orthodox perspective, is doctrinally sound and very insightful.” The book has four sections, one for each of the icons: The Holy Trinity (a famous icon by St. Andrei Rublev–see the movie), the Virgin of Vladimir (a beautiful icon painted by St. Luke the Evangelist, according to legend), the Savior of Zvenigorod (also by Rublev), and Pentecost.

 Living Icons: persons of faith in the Eastern Church

Michael Plekon

A close look at the lives of ten Eastern Orthodox Christian faithful, each of whom lived in the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. 

Living on the Edge: fiction by Peace Corps writers

(various)

Seventeen stories by authors who worked in the Peace Corps; includes John Coyne and Norman Rush. 

Short Trip to the Edge: where earth meets heaven — a pilgrimage

Scott Cairns

Recounting three visits to Mt. Athos and another trip to an Orthodox monastery in Arizona, Cairns describes his struggles to grow in the life of prayer as he searches for a spiritual father who can help him. 

Why is a dress?   who? what? when? where?

Elizabeth Hawes                                                                                                                      Elizabeth Hawes was a visionary and an iconoclast. She was a designer of inventive clothing and a fashion writer whose analytic prose still illuminates the world of Seventh Avenue. 

My mother’s wedding dress : the life and afterlife of clothes
Justine Picardie                                                                                                                                    A former features editor of British Vogue, Picardie uses fashion, however broadly construed, as her version of Proust’s madeleine, the occasion to go in search of lost time and lost people. The result is a series of brief essays that eagerly wander down any conceptual path that can somehow be associated with style.     

 

Just So You Know

To ascertain the reading level of your blog, click here.

 

New Blog: Offbeat Modest Dress

I’m splitting the clothing posts and info off into a second blog:  Offbeat Modest Dress.

 

The Men of the Orthodox Church: Think ‘Braveheart’

   

 From the article:  “Orthodox churches call men to be courageous and act (think ‘Braveheart’). Men love adventure, and our faith is a great story in which men find a role that gives meaning to their ordinary existence.”  

Orthodox writer Frederica Matthewes-Green opines that the Orthodox Church may be the only church which attracts and holds men in numbers equal to women.   She emailed a hundred Orthodox men, most of whom joined the Church as adults. Her question?  “What do you think makes this church particularly attractive to men?”  She suggests that their responses, here, may spark some ideas for leaders in other churches, who are looking for ways to keep guys in the pews.  

It’s been noted that the Orthodox Church may not be as fully supported by Orthodox men beyond America’s shores.  Readers, any thoughts?

 

Clergy Etiquette

A guide for properly addressing Orthodox clergy.

(the icon is of Holy Nicholas the Wonderworker;  thank you, Vara, for this image!)

 

Holy Righteous Grand Princess St. Yelizaveta the New Martyr

The icon of the Holy Righteous Grand Princess Saint Yelizaveta the New Martyr is by Filipp Moskvitin.  (thank you, Vara!)

I am enjoying reading Lubov Miller’s Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia : New Martyr of the Communist Yoke.

 

Painting: A Goblet of Mead by Makovsky

The artist is Konstantin Makovsky and it’s called “A Goblet of Mead.”  (thank you, Vara!)

 

New Collage: Ella Columba (gothic arch)

I need to do some more stuff to this one, but it’s a sweet image as is.