OrthoAnalytika

Luke 16:19-31 Fr. Anthony reflects on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, revealing how our blindness—born of sin and a materialist worldview—turns the world and one another into mere commodities. Yet when we learn to see with love and humility, tending creation as God's garden, we rediscover beauty, grace, and the feast of life already set before us. ---- The Gospel of Lazarus and the Rich Man Homily – gardening in love It is hard for us to live the way we should. From our time in Eden to now, we have failed, and the consequences to our hearts, our families, and our world have been disastrous. The world groans in agony. One of our challenges is that we do not see things as they really are. We do not see their beauty and we do not see how they are connected. Instead of seeing things as both intrinsically good and perfectible, we evaluate them based on what they mean for us; what we can get from them. We see through a mirror dimly, in part because of our personal sin, and in part because our corporate worldview is fallen. The two work together to blind us to the world and opportunities for grace. There is this idea that cultures that do not have a word for something, say for instance a specific color, then they cannot see it. Their visual system will receive the requisite frequencies for that color, but it will not match any concept within their minds, so it either gets mislabeled or simply missed altogether. This was certainly the case with the Rich Man in today's parable – somehow he missed seeing Lazarus and the opportunity for grace a relationship with him would have provided. Moreover, he and his community – here represented by his brothers – had missed the point of the entire religion that they claimed to be a part of. And Abraham says that even a great miracle – a man rising of a man from the dead – would not be enough to restore their sight. Humility is the root virtue of discernment; and in humility, we have to take it as a given that we are in may ways just like the Rich Man. And I say take it as a given, because if it is true, then we will automatically mislabel – in this case meaning justify – our misperceptions and the gaps in our vision. The Rich Man missed the purpose of his riches and his calling to serve the man at his doorstep; more than that, he missed the very purpose of his life; the thing he was put on this earth to do. We are like Him and his brothers – and we claim to know the truth of the resurrection. The Rich Man and his brothers had the same calling that all of us have. This is the calling given to us at the beginning; we talked about this yesterday. We were designed – made as God's imagers - to bring out the best in everything and everyone; to heal those that are hurt and to build up those who are already well towards perfection. But instead of this, our fallen materialist worldview and our sin combine, for example, to get us to think of things as objects and ourselves as consumers. We want to know what we can use things for and what we can get out of people. One of the results of this is that our souls are starving from - a lack of grace. We feast sumptuously on commodities, but cannot see the more real and and much more vital meal God has put before us. We feed our bodies, but take no thought of the food required for our souls. Again, let's go back to Adam and Eve. Think of how they fell. One of the ways to understand their fall (from St. Nikolai Velimirovich) is that they turned the thing they were meant to tend – the garden – into a commodity; from something that deserved respect and the greatest of care to something that was useful primarily as food. Even the thing God told them not to eat became a commodity to them: they wanted what it offered. And remember what they learned? That it "tasted good." What a loss. Hear me well: Adam and Eve were meant to eat the things that grew in the garden, but the availability of food was really just a side-effect (what economists call a "positive externality") of being a good steward. They got it all wrong when they put what they wanted from the garden before their love for it. Instead of tending the garden, they tended to themselves. They forgot about beauty; they forgot about connectedness; they forgot about service. And so all the fruits of the garden became completely unavailable to them. We are so much worse than they were; our commodification of people and things in this world knows no end. We are always looking for an angle; looking for the best deal. Looking for how things do or do not fit into our plans. And because the materialist worldview is fallen and because selfishness is a sin, we do not see grace nor the many opportunities God has given us to multiply it in this world. And so we starve in a world of plenty. Let me give you a concrete example. Marriage was given to us in the Garden. It was meant to bear fruit, and this fruit was meant to be both physical and spiritual. But men should not love their wives because they hope for something physical in return, they should love their wives because they want to help nurture them towards perfection (but I am not speaking of marriage but of the Church). If we cannot see this here and in our marriages, how will we see it in the world? Christ does not love us because He wants something from us. He does not sacrifice Himself for us in hopes of getting help with His plan to restore beauty to this world. As we become perfect as God is perfect, we will help Him with this plan; but He sacrifices Himself for us because He sees the potential beauty within us and wants it to grow. He does it because He loves us. We have to stop looking at one another as things to be used, things that either bring us pleasure or pain; that are useful or irrelevant. We have to see one another the way God sees us. [More on Blindness: Commodification leads to a lack of proportion] Surely one of the ways we have cursed ourselves through our blindness is that we cannot see the beauty that emanates from all of God's creatures; the potential for grace that is present in every moment and every encounter. Why is this so hard? Why are we unable to enjoy the fruits of God's love for us? Why don't we see things the way they are? Why couldn't the Rich Man see the grace that would flow from helping Lazarus; why could he and his brothers not understand the deeper meaning of the Law and the Prophets? This blindness really is a curse; it pulls us further away from our purpose and robs us of the joy we were meant to have and share. There are so many examples in our lives where we are blind to miracles. Yes, the problems are there, but they are so minor compared to the miracles! This even happens in Church. I bring this up because it is the Eucharistic Feast and the Church that gathers around it that is most permeated with grace. And yet, in many communities, parish life becomes a magnet for discontent, and a forum for judgment and complaints. I pray it not be so here. There are very real issues that parishes must deal with – things like how best to evangelize, what sorts of projects should be focused on, and how limited resources like space should be used. But our automatic inclination – even here where God's grace should flow most abundantly – we treat these things as objects about which we disagree with the natural inclination for polarization, rather than an opportunity to grow collectively in discernment, in earned harmony, and in love. The Orthodox internet is often more perverse. Every aspect of church life becomes something to be analyzed and debated, objects to market for or against… and it all threatens to turn the celebration of God with Us into a series of political or ideological positions that can be analyzed and judged … I do this all the time; I suspect some of you do, too. We have turned even the Church, the vessel of everything good and true, into a commodity, something to be judged, to be measured, to be evaluated like some product on a grocer's shelf. Is it any wonder that we do the same thing with our spouses, our children…our enemies… the beggar on our doorstep? Conclusion: Love without reservation My point is not that the things that attract our attention in this way are not important or that they should not be discussed. Going back to the example of the garden, food is important. If we don't eat, we die. But Christ reminds us; "Do not be anxious about what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing." (paraphrase of Matthew 6:25). God is right here with us, working miracles in our midst, and we miss them by focusing on His height ("Oh, is that Jesus; I imagined he'd be taller.") Let's not get distracted. Let's love without reservation. Let's love without expecting anything in return. Let me repeat the irony; if we tend this world – this garden – in love, we will receive what we need – the necessary commodities, if you will, in return. As the Lord says in almost the next breath, if you really love, if you really give of yourself without reservation, then "it shall be given unto you in return; a good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over…" (St. Luke 6:38). And again in St. Matthew (paraphrase of 6:33-34); "seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness, and all the things you need will be given to you as well." The beggar is not an obstacle to our enjoyment of live – nor is our alleged enemy. They are not objects to be judged in this way at all. They are the cosmos, in need to God's grace – and we are called to be its steward, the priests who minister them towards healing and perfection. Let's open our eyes and our hearts to beauty and feast on the abundant grace God has surrounded us with; the feast of grace here in the Church, the feast of grace that is achieved when we love our neighbor, and the feast of grace that God blesses us with when we tend to the needs of the world.

This talk was given at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church (UOC-USA) in Charlottesville, VA. In it, Fr. Anthony presents Orthodoxy's sacramental view of creation and uses music as an example of how the royal priesthood, in Christ, fulfills its commission to pattern the cosmos according to that of Eden. My notes from the talk: I'm grateful to be back in Charlottesville, a place stitched into my story by Providence. Years ago, the Army Reserves sent me here after 9/11. I arrived with a job in Ohio on pause, a tidy life temporarily dismantled, and a heart that didn't care for the way soldiers are sometimes told to behave. So I went looking for an Orthodox church. I found a small mission and—more importantly—people who took me in as family. A patient priest and his matushka mentored me for six years. If anything in my priesthood bears fruit, it is because love first took root here. Bishops have a sense of humor; mine sent a Georgian convert with no Slavic roots to a Ukrainian parish in Rhode Island. It fit better than anyone could have planned. The Lord braided my history, discovering even ancestral ties in New England soil. Later, when a young man named Michael arrived—a reader who became a subdeacon, a deacon, and in time a priest—our trajectories crossed again. Father Robert trained me; by grace I was allowed to help train Father Michael; and now he serves here. This is how God sings His providence—melodies introduced, developed, and returned, until love's theme is recognizable to everyone listening. Why focus on music and beauty? Because they are not ornamental to the Gospel; they are its native tongue. Beauty tutors us in a sacramental world, not a "God of the gaps" world—where faith retreats to whatever science has not yet explained—but a world in which God is everywhere present and filling all things. Beauty is one of the surest ways to share the Gospel, not as salesmanship or propaganda, but as participation in what the world was made to be. The Church bears a particular charism for beauty; secular beauty can reflect it, but often only dimly—and sometimes in ways that distort the pattern it imitates. Beauty meets the whole human person: the senses and gut, the reasoning mind, and the deep heart—the nous—where awe, reverence, and peace bloom. Music is a wonderfully concrete instance of all of this: an example, a symbol, and—when offered rightly—a sacrament of sanctifying grace. Saint John begins his Gospel with the Logos—not a mere "word" but the Word whose meaning includes order, reason, and intelligibility: "All things were made through Him." Creation, then, bears the Logos' stamp in every fiber; Genesis repeats the refrain, "and God saw that it was good"—agathos, not just kalos. Agathos is goodness that is beautiful and beneficial, fitted to bless what it touches. Creation is not simply well-shaped; it is ordered toward communion, toward glory, toward gift. The Creed confesses the Father as Creator, the Son as the One through whom all things were made, and the Spirit as the Giver of Life. Creation is, at root, Trinitarian music—harmonies of love that invite participation. If you like, imagine the first chapter of Genesis sung. We might say: in the beginning, there was undifferentiated sound; the Spirit hovered; the Logos spoke tone, time, harmony, and melody into being. He set boundaries and appointed seasons so that music could unfold in an ordered way. Then He shaped us to be liturgists—stewards who can turn noise into praise, dissonance into resolution. The point of the story is not that God needed a soundtrack; it is that the world bears a pattern and purpose that we can either receive with thanksgiving or twist into something self-serving and cacophonous. We know what happened. In Adam and Eve's fall, thorns and thistles accompanied our work. Pain entered motherhood, and tyranny stalked marriage. We still command tools of culture—city-building, metallurgy, and yes, even music—but in Cain's line we see creativity conscripted to self-exaltation and violence. The Tower of Babel is the choir of human pride singing perfectly in tune against God. That is how sin turns technique into idolatry. Saint Paul describes the creation groaning in agony, longing for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. This is not mere poetic flourish; it is metaphysical realism. The world aches for sanctified stewardship, for human beings restored to their priestly vocation. It longs for its music to be tuned again to the Logos. Christ enters precisely there—as the New Adam. Consider His Theophany. The Jordan "turns back," the waters are sanctified, because nothing impure remains in the presence of God. He does not merely touch creation; He heals it—beginning sacramentally with water, the primal element of both life and chaos. In our services for the Blessing of Water we sing, "Today the nature of the waters is sanctified… The Jordan is parted in two… How shall a servant lay his hand on the Master?" In prayer we cry, "Great are You, O Lord, and marvelous are Your works… Wherefore, O King and Lover of mankind, be present now by the descent of Your Holy Spirit and sanctify this water." This is not magic; it is synergy. We offer bread, wine, water, oil; we make the sign of the cross; we chant what the Church gives—and God perfects our offering with His grace. The more we give Him to work with, the more He transfigures. And then Holy Friday: the terrible beauty of the Passion. Sin's dissonance swells to cacophony as the Source of Beauty is slandered, pierced, and laid in the tomb. Icons and hymns do not hide the scandal—they name it. Joseph and Nicodemus take down a body that clothes itself with light as with a garment. Creation shudders; the sun withdraws; the veil is rent. Liturgically, we let the discomfort stand; sometimes the chant itself presses the dissonance upon us so that we feel the fracture. But the dissonance does not have the last word; it resolves—not trivially, not cheaply—into the transcendent harmony of Pascha. On the night of the Resurrection, the church is dark, then a single candle is lit, and the light spills outward. We sing, "Come receive the Light from the unwaning Light," and then the troparion bursts forth: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death…" The structure of salvation is musical: tension, longing, silence, and a resolution that is fuller than our peace had been before the conflict. Here is the pastoral heart of it: Christ restores our seal. Saint Paul says we are "sealed with the promised Holy Spirit." Think of a prosphora seal pressed into unbaked dough; the impression remains when the loaf is finished. Sin cracked our seal; everything we touched bore our corruptions. In Christ, the seal is made whole. In Baptism and Chrismation, that seal is pressed upon us—not only on the brow but on the whole person—so that our very engaging with the world can take on the pattern of the Logos again. We do not stop struggling—Paul's "what I would, I do not"—but we now struggle inside a music that resolves. Even our failures can become passing tones on the way to love, if we repent and return to the key. This is why the Church's common life matters so much. When we gather for Vespers and Liturgy, we enact the world's purpose. The Psalms give us perfect words; the Church's hymnody gives us perfected poetry. Music, rightly offered, is Logos-bearing—it is rational in the deepest sense—and love is the same. Music requires skill and repetition; so does love. Music benefits from different voices and timbres; love, too, is perfected when distinct persons yield to a single charity. Music engages and transfigures dissonance; love confronts conflict and heals it. Music honors silence; love rests and listens. These are not analogies we force upon the faith—they are the way creation is built. The world says, "sing louder," but the will to power always collapses into noise. The Church says, "sing together." In the Eucharistic assembly, the royal priesthood becomes itself—men, women, and children listening to one another, matching pitch and phrase, trusting the hand that gives the downbeat, and pouring our assent into refrains of "Lord have mercy" and "Amen." The harmony is not uniformity; it is concord. It is not sentimentality; it is charity given and received. And when the Lord gives Himself to us for the healing of soul and body, the music goes beyond even harmony; it becomes communion. That is why Orthodox Christians are most themselves around the chalice: beauty, word, community, and sacrament converge in one act of thanksgiving. From there, the pastoral task is simply to help people live in tune. For families: cultivate attentiveness, guard against codependence and manipulation, and practice small, steady habits—prayer, fasting, reconciliation—that form the instincts of love the way scales form a musician's ear. For parishes: refuse the twin temptations of relativism and control; resist both the shrug and the iron fist. We are not curators of a museum nor managers of a brand; we are a choir rehearsing resurrection. Attend to the three "parts" of the mind you teach: let the senses be purified rather than inflamed; let the intellect be instructed rather than flattered; and let the nous—the heart—learn awe. Where awe grows, so does mercy. And for evangelization in our late modern world—filled with distraction, suspicion, and exhaustion—beauty may prove to be our most persuasive speech. Not the beauty of mere "aesthetics," but agathos beauty—the kind that is beautiful and beneficial, that heals what it touches. People come to church for a thousand different reasons: loneliness, curiosity, habit, crisis. What they really long for is God. If the nave is well-ordered, if the chant is gentle and strong, if the icons are windows rather than billboards, if the faces of the faithful are kind—then even before a word is preached, the Gospel will have begun its work. "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth," the emissaries of Rus' once said of their time at worship in Hagia Sophia. Beauty did not close their minds; it opened them to truth. None of this bypasses suffering. In fact, beauty makes us more available to it, because we stop numbing ourselves and begin to love. The Scriptures do not hide this: the Jordan is sanctified, but the Cross remains; the tomb is real; the fast is pangful. Yet in Christ, dissonance resolves. The Church's hymnody—from Psalm 103 at the week's beginning to the Nine Odes of Pascha—trains us to trust the cadence that only God can write. We learn to wait in Friday night's hush, to receive the flame from the unwaning Light, and to sing "Christ is risen" not as a slogan but as the soundtrack of our lives. So: let us steward what we've been given. Let us make the sign of the cross over our children at bedtime; let our conversations overflow with psalmody; let contended silence have a room in every home; let reconciliation be practiced before the sun goes down. Let every parish be a school for choir and charity, where no one tries to sing over his brother, and no one is left straining alone in the back row. If we will live this way, not perfectly but repentantly, then in us the world will begin to hear the old pattern again—the Logos' pattern—where goodness is beautiful and beauty does good. And perhaps, by God's mercy, the Lord will make of our small obedience something larger than we can imagine: a melody that threads through Charlottesville and Anderson, through Rhode Island and Kyiv, through every parish and prison and campus, until the whole creation—long groaning—finds its voice. Let God arise. Let His enemies be scattered. Christ is risen, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

Today Fr. Anthony covers Chapter Six from Zachary Porcu's Journey to Reality, "Sacramental Being." (FWIW, he still doesn't buy the idea of something becoming a spiritual battery as batteries work seperate from an active power source and nothing is separate from the presence of God). Enjoy the show!

Luke 7:11-16 (The Widow of Nain) At the gates of Nain, the procession of death meets the Lord of Life—and death loses. Christ turns the widow's grief into joy, revealing that every tear will one day be transformed into the eternal song of alleluia. A "by-the-numbers" homily - enjoy the show! --- This was an encounter between two forces: death and the very source of life. We know how this encounter always turns out. Life seems so fragile (war, disease, accidents, violence) and we seem doomed to die. What happened (Jesus brought the dead back to life) Focus briefly on three parts of this Gospel reading: the procession, the grief of the mother, and how it ended. The funeral procession. How we do funerals. Preparation for it. Psalms. Preparation of the body. Funeral service(s). Burial. The movement of the person from one list in our daily prayers to the other. Nine-day prayers. Forty-day prayers. Annual prayers. Often with koliva or a special bread. The grieving mother. Do not weep. "Blessed are those who mourn." Jesus Himself, always in the Spirit, wept at the death of Lazarus. Do not weep "like those who have no hope…" (I Thessalonians). Repent of the sin that leads to unhealthy tears; and that repentance requires that we live knowing that we may never have another chance on this side of a funeral to mend a relationship. Tears of honest grief are cathartic, as are tears of outrage at the absurdity of living in a world where death is so prevalent. But let those tears flow in the knowledge that as outrageous, ignoble, and offensive as death is; that our tears of sorrow are being turned, as we sing in the funeral service, into the song "alleluia!" And that is how I want to conclude... How it ended. This was an encounter between two forces: death and the very source of life. Who won? And who won when death took a man captive and found that it, instead, it was forced to encounter God? Who won? It was no real contest! As we hear from St. John Chrysostom on Pascha: Christ-God annihilated death! In a world that was made and is governed by the source of Life, death place is temporary, a consequence and concession to our sin – sin which itself is, again through Christ, only temporary. It is holiness and life that endures forever. Conclusion. That is the side we have chosen: we reject sin and we reject death. We have intentionally chosen the side of holiness and of life. It seems as though our relationship with life is so vulnerable – to sickness, to violence, to sudden catastrophes; but in the only reality that matters in the end, it is quite the opposite. It and all its associated grief, anxieties, traumas, and pain are products of this world, doomed to end when it is remade in glory. Again, we have intentionally chosen the side of life. Let's live it as it was meant to be lived, not in fear of death but in the joy of the One who has through death defeated death and who desires us to live well both now and into eternity.

Luke 8:5-15. Faith is a living seed sown by God, but it cannot survive in the air of ideology or emotion—it must take root in the heart. Fr. Anthony calls us to cultivate this inner soil through the ancient disciplines of the Church so that our faith might stand firm and bear fruit a hundredfold. Enjoy the show! ---

Filling all things… Journey to Reality Chapter Five: Sacramental Thinking St John 14: 1-7. Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. St. Basil the Great (On the Holy Spirit). We understand the "way" to be the road to perfection, advancing in order step by step through the words of righteousness and the illumination of knowledge, always yearning for that which lies ahead and straining toward the last mile, until we reach that blessed end, the knowledge of God, with which the Lord blesses those who believe in him. For truly our Lord is a good way, a straight road with no confusing forks or turns, leading us directly to the Father. For "no one comes to the Father," he says, "except through me." Such is our way up to God through his Son. ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 8.18. "Modern, westernized people tend to think about the world from the starting point of physicality. The physical world, as we would say, is the primary reality… It is the objective, measurable world on which we can all agree." Page 50 of 142. The assumption of materialists is that if a thing cannot be measured, then it is unprovable, a matter of opinion, AND of lesser importance. The natural world is everyone's baseline. Religious or spiritual people have an added category, that of the "supernatural," but as long as we operate in the material paradigm, these are the things that BY DEFINITION cannot be measured and are thus kind of optional. Belief then becomes a way to stand up and assert that there are some things that are important that cannot be measured directly. "I believe…" is our assertion that there is a supernatural reality and that it is well-ordered and that there are supernatural outcomes that should matter to us: · Forgiveness of sins · Sacramental marriage (vs. an agreement or contract) · Eternal life When we talk about religion, it is often in materialist terms. · What good is it (for health, family, society)? · What does it cost in terms of time and money? · Does its system make sense? E.g. Juridical vs. Therapeutic vs. Holistic Healing But this worldview can only take us so far. It "misses the mark" when it comes to understanding the world and how it works. An irony: the materialist world may allow us to see things objectively, but not truly. I am playing with words here, but it points to the difficulty. Objectivity refers to the quality of being unbiased and fair, making decisions based solely on facts rather than personal feelings or beliefs. It is often considered essential in fields like science and journalism to ensure accurate and impartial reporting or analysis. Objects have attributes that can be measured. As a social scientist, I was taught that we have a poor understanding of something if we cannot put a number to it and that if we took enough measurements, we could explain everything. Omniscience – or godhood – then is a matter of having enough data and the computing power to run the numbers. Omnipotence involves the ability to manipulate everything towards a desired outcome. This is no longer just the stuff of science fiction. This is another one of those areas where claims are being made for technology that should not be made. We can rightly question double-predestination, but what will keep us from doing the same thing as we grow in material understanding and power? A step in the right direction is to recognize that there is a moral dimension to the world. But the problem is that it cannot be measured. Outcomes can be measured, but their values can only be asserted. This is why both secular philosophers like Nichze and religious ones like C.S. Lewis and Fr. Seraphim Rose claim that this kind of worldview leads to nihilism and the assertion of will. Religious and spiritual people who believe in the supernatural will then say that God (or spirit, or Arche) is the solution to this problem. Again, this gets us heading in a good direction, but it usually keeps within the materialist worldview. Again, which system makes sense, agrees with what I prefer, has the best agape meal, and so on. But it really is strange to come at God in this manner. All we are doing is taking the "God of the Gaps" concept and applying to morality and value. This is like looking at the world through a two-dimensional, black and white filter. We can do better. Let's see how our ancestors did it. They did not see the natural and supernatural as separate. It was just "the world." Some things were visible and some things were invisible. Just as we cannot see radiation, atoms, and gravity know them to be part of reality, so it was with our ancestors for the invisible things. "This idea that the physical and the spiritual are not seperable has a few important implications. If we say that the physical and the spiritual have to go together, then what we're really saying is that there is a spiritual quality to everything physical, and a physical quality to everything spiritual. This means, among other things, that physical objects and actions can have intrinsic meaning." (Page 53 of 142) The example of two bisecting lines. A Cross. There is a story behind it, and that gives it subjective meaning, but there is more to it. The things that are described in that story create meaning. The cross is part of something primal and real it has "cosmic significance" (ibid). And this is true regardless of whether people recognize it as such (example of vampires). Another way of describing this older view is as "enchanted" (vs. disenchanted). Another way is that we are part of a grand story. Stories are excellent at conveying meaning. This is why some stories are said to be true even though they are fiction. This is complete nonsense to the materialist mind. What about objectivity? Isn't this view biased? Isn't it subjective? It certainly is biased. But it is only subjective because our perception of the world is incomplete and often wrong, and we really do assert our wills to create and share meaning. We have to go beyond thinking about things primarily as either objective – meaning things that can be measured, or subjective – meaning things that cannot. A refresher on objective vs. subjective: Pizza. · Objectively, it has bread, sauce, and topics of a certain type and consistency and spices that affect the olfactory system in certain measurable ways. This is seen as what the pizza IS. · Subjectively, we prefer certain kinds of bread, sauce, topics, and spices. This is our opinion about the pizza. · We can argue about what belongs on a pizza or how it should be prepared, but it's easy to come to an agreement on what the pizza actually is. The problem with this kind of a dichotomy is that it turns value and meaning into a matter of opinion and not only does that lead to disaster – it doesn't describe the way the world really is. Why disaster? Disagreeing about pizza can lead to arguments and bringing home a pizza one person sees as valuable and another doesn't may lead to temper tantrums; but what if the thing being described is something like human life or someone else's freedom? Why is it wrong? Because everything has intrinsic value. And this is because it has being through it's connection to the source of value – the Arche.' Personal Knowledge Another step in getting us to where we need to go is to look at knowledge that is gained personally, from the inside. But even in relationships, we miss the mark. Vices and virtues affect how well we can know things and people. An angry person is going to notice – and even create – things in people and their behaviors that stoke their anger. Humility allows the person to be open to the truth. Vice clouds our vision. "The practice of virtue is, therefore, an essential element in seeking knowledge and the ultimate truth of things. Why? Because reality is participatory. Or, to put it more simply, if you're a bad person, you're also going to be a bad friend. If you're jealous, resentful, petty, or arrogant, your going to have a hard time building a relationship with anyone to the extent that those impulses control your life. To have better relationships, you have to be a better person. And if Truth itself is a Person, you're only going to be able to know Truth to the extent that you're able to have a relationship with Him." (Page 61 of 142) In summary: the physical and spiritual world are inseparable. This gives everything meaning. We learn that meaning through participation; this involves both intellectual and moral growth. How can this work? Tune in next week! Some questions: · How is personal knowledge more than just data? · How do we keep from pretending our subjective opinions are illumined? · How does anyone know how clean their mirror is or how true their sight is?

St. Luke 6:31-36The Gospel's "Golden Rule" reveals more than an ethical ideal—it unveils the way God heals His creation. Fr. Anthony shows how practicing mercy, even toward our enemies, transforms hearts and communities, turning the parish itself into an ark of salvation and mechanism of the world's perfection.

St. Luke 5:1-11. Drawing on St. Luke's account of Christ calling His disciples to become fishers of men, this homily explores why marriages and parishes often falter when built on human strength alone. Fr. Anthony reminds us that brokenness, poor models, and cultural confusion cannot be overcome by willpower or good intentions, but only through Christ and His Church. Just as the apostles' empty nets were filled at the Lord's command, so too our families and parishes flourish when rooted in His blessing and obedience. --- Homily: Why is it so hard to build a good marriage (and parish)? Saint Luke 5:1-11; Fishers of Men So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net." And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men." So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him (St. Luke 5:1-11). Introduction: How Christ Builds the Church This is a beautiful story from the ministry of Jesus Christ. It comes on the heels of his Baptism, his temptation by the devil in the wilderness, and the beginning of his preaching ministry in the synagogues of Galilee. In this Gospel, Christ has started building something very special; something that would never fall; something that would bring healing to broken humanity; something through which He would change the world. He began building the Church. And He did it with simple fishermen on the side of a lake. Continuation: We are Building, too We are participating in this work as well. We want to build something that will never fail; something that will bring healing to broken people; something that will transform a troubled place. We are building a parish. Today's Gospel provides a wonderful lesson for us on this very thing. In his homily on today's Gospel, St. Nikolai Velimirovich writes; "Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain." (Psalm 126:1) If the builders build in God's name, they will build a palace, even their hands are weak and their material poor. If, though, the builders build in their own name, in opposition to God, the work of their hands will be brought down as was the Tower of Babel. There is no power that can bring God's work to ruin. Pagan palaces and cities fall into ruin, but God's huts remain standing. That which God's finger upholds stands more firmly than that which [the mythical titan] Atlas supports on his back… May the almighty Lord preserve us from the thought that we can achieve any good without His help and His blessing… May today's Gospel serve as a warning that such vain thoughts must never be formulated our souls. It speaks of how all men's efforts are in vain if God does not help them. While Christ's apostle's were fishing as men, they caught nothing; but when Christ commanded them to cast their nets once more into the sea, they caught such a great haul of fish that their nets tore. Why would anyone think they can build something worthwhile without Christ? I don't know. It is futile. We know better. But we do it all the time. Understanding the Curse of Sin: the example of marriage Let's look at the example of marriage. It can be so hard to get it right, and there are just so many ways to get it wrong. Why is it so hard? It isn't because people aren't trying. In fact, they are trying all kinds of things… but they aren't working very well. At best, some couples might end up with a marriage that lasts, but marriage was not just meant to endure. It's not supposed to be like a boxing match that makes it to the final round; with the two so tired they can hardly lift a glove and they just lean on one another gasping and looking forward to the bell (or, as is as likely to happen in marriages, the two just hang out in their separate corners doing their own thing until the final bell sounds). A good marriage does more than last, it brings joy to its members and its fruit brings happiness that endures from generation to generation. But why is this so rare? It should come as no surprise. Look how many people come from broken families. It isn't their fault, but this really puts them behind the eight ball. They come from broken families and a broken world, so they have bad examples and have internalized all the wrong instincts. Brokenness has been imprinted in their minds and hearts; this cannot help but shape their actions, no matter how good and noble their intentions are. Even if they try to rise above and do things right, what examples are they going to follow? Television? Movies? TikTok? Their friends? Their hearts? None of these is a reliable guide – all of them are fallen. If statistics are correct – and there is no reason to doubt them – our young men are learning more about how to relate to women from pornography than they are from anything good and real. And the expectations and self-respect of our young women are being shaped by this same blighted culture. Is there really any wonder that we are so bad at marriage? That even those young couples who try to get it right end up building a perverted parody of the kind of blessed union of flesh and spirit that we celebrate in the Mystery of Crowning? That we have far more "towers of Babel" than temples of true love? Reiterating the Problem… and the solution To repeat the Psalm; "Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain." (126:1). We cannot overcome our own brokenness by trying harder or following the examples and guidance of people who are broken, too (St. Matthew 15:14; … if the blind lead the blind both will fall into a pit). An alcoholic cannot live a healthy life by trying harder; he has to admit his problem, heal and transform his heart and habits. And he has to let God be the foundation of this process. This is why twelve-step programs are so successful: they transform the hearts and habits of the repentant, with God as the foundation of the process. How many addicts do you know that continue ruining their lives because they think they can work everything out on their own? But alcoholics and philanderers do not just hurt themselves. We know from history and our own observations that the children of alcoholics and broken homes are cursed by both nature and nurture. Again, it isn't fair, but it is true. If we want the next generations to succeed then we have to be honest about both the cause and the cure of what ails them and us. The cause is our brokenness, and the cure is Christ Jesus. The cure is His Church. The cure is the Way of Holy Orthodoxy. All else is vanity. They are Towers of Babel. They are sand castles at a low tide. Back to Today's Gospel: becoming fishers of men The curse of sin is the very thing that Christ came to remove. To put it in very practical terms, Christ came to save your marriages, to heal your addictions, to restore your sanity, and to replace your sorrow, pain, and frustration with joy and eternal blessedness. That is to say, He came to save you from the very real, very specific, and very damning problems in your life. And not just yours, but everyone's. A world that was created good groans in agony, and our Lord loves it too much to allow that to continue. And so He became a man, He taught us, He died for us, He was resurrected and ascended into Glory, and, more to today's point, He established the Church to be the Ark of our salvation. What a beautiful image a boat is for the Church. Think about it: we are drowning in a sea of sin and trying to tread water amidst a storm of temptation. We cannot survive this on our own, and it does not help to band together – eventually, even the strongest swimmer must succumb to weakness; moreover, the weak are infamous for dragging the stronger down. It is a terrible situation to be drowning in this stormy sea. Our breaths are numbered, and we are sure to die in agony. It is only a matter of time. But into this bleak scene comes salvation: the apostles cast out their nets and pull us in to the safety of the boat. We can finally breath without struggling. It is calm in the boat. It is here that our real healing begins… then we are given our own nets. Conclusion: we cannot catch men if we don't try; we cannot catch men if we don't learn how We are in the boat. Here at Christ the Saviour, we have the fullness of the faith (we are like a fractal of the Universal Church) so it is fair to say that we are the boat. But remember that bit earlier about how nature and nurture conspire against our marriages? You know me well enough by now to know that I wasn't just talking about marriage. Marriage is an image of the Church: the union of flesh with one another and the union of that one flesh with God (Ephesians 5:32). Why should we think that we are naturally any better at living as the Church than we are with marriage? The same forces work against us: we suffer from both nature and nurture. Just as good intentions are not enough for the children of broken homes, they are not enough for us as we try to build this parish. Without serious help, we will just end up building the equivalent of a miserable and failed marriage, another Tower of Babel, a perverse monument to our own fallenness. We cannot do it on our own. We need help. We need Christ. Without Him, we are like the Apostles in today's lesson before our Lord came; "toiling all night and catching nothing" (St. Luke 5:5). It had been a hard night for them and they had given up on catching anything; but then Christ came and told them to go back out, and they caught more than they could carry. So many that their boats almost broke. This parish has been through a lot. There was a time when it was down to a handful of people. Like Simon in today's lesson, we had good hearts and the best of intentions, but we were tired; and we had pretty much given up on catching fish. But the Lord has told us to get back out there and get it done. And so that is what we are doing. Of course, we are smart in the ways of the world, and we are always tempted to rely on our own strength and our own hearts. But our hearts are broken and our strength will fail us. "Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain." (126:1). But for those who put their trust in the Lord and in His way – there is no limit to the good that they can do. This is where we are. We have given our lives and the future of this parish to the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Simon, we haven't always seen the point of what the Lord commands, but also like Simon, we follow Him. And we know the result of doing the Lord's will: the catch was so great that their nets were so full that they were all but bursting, and the ship could barely stay afloat. Does this sound familiar? The Lord has bless your commitment and your faith; and our growth has been so great that we wonder if our walls can hold the number of men, women, and children who have been pulled in to the safety of the Church. So great that we, like Simon calling for the second boat, are helping to plant missions and look for new properties to provide enough room. Because there is no reason to expect this growth to stop. After all, there are a lot of people drowning in the waters around us. We cannot allow them to perish – it is God's will that all be saved. It is a tough calling. But we do not labor in vain: because we are building according to the Lord's command. We have been transformed fishers of men. To God be all glory and may He bless us as we do this work.

This episode introduces our series on Orthodox Christian virtue, beginning with the call to authentic masculinity. Fr. Anthony explains that true manhood is humble, courageous, and sacrificial, and can only be formed through living a life in fellowship with others. ------------- Introduction to our Series on Orthodox Christian Virtue Men's Group, Christ the Saviour in Anderson SC Fr. Anthony Perkins, 28 September 2025 Etymological note: the word "virtue" is from the Latin virtus, which means strength, manliness, and moral excellence. The trick is not to redefine moral virtue around fallen concepts of manliness, but to regain the sort of masculinity that is, by its nature, both strong and godly (ie, holy). Why a Series on Orthodox Christian Masculinity? · Men struggle with the development of a proper goal and worldview that would allow them to thrive, specifically as Christian men. · Men increasingly lack sound role models and guides, but there are many influencers who would fill that role for all the wrong reasons and give bad advice. · This combination of high demand and unreliable supply means that everyone suffers; men who are called to be part of the solution to the problem of the world's pain instead increase it. · The Orthodox Church is the fullness of the faith, but has addressed this problem inconsistently (Note on the book "Why Men Hate Going to Church"). It is great to have Orthodox influencers addressing the issue, but this happens at the expense of building the kind of community would and should naturally foster community. Men can watch videos, listen to podcasts (do men even read books anymore?!), and increase their tribal commitment to virtue, but unless they are in the trenches with other men committed to the same goal and part of a system that blesses and supports the goal and its pursuit, this is idle posturing. o This is the problem of superficial mentorship: ideas without connection or skin in the game. (incomplete or bad ecclesiology). It is both gnostic (because it is anti-incarnational) and Protestant (in that each person becomes their own guide, moving to the idea/guru that matches their inclinations rather than joining and submitting to something substantial and real). o The temptation of clericalism. Leaving all teaching and mentoring to the parish priest. (incomplete or bad ecclesiology) o As on the internet, the men who might want to step up and fill this void may not be suited for it because they lack the proper temperament, manner of life, experience, or training. (Self-selection is bad ecclesiology.) Remember Matthew 15:14b on the blind leading the blind. · This is NOT a series that is going to present THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF MASCULINITY ™ so that we can all adjust our minds to its reality. Lord willing, it will teach the right ideas, but that is not how real spiritual formation happens. · It is a series that is part of our effort to create a community of men who not only understand masculine virtue and commit themselves to its achievement, but also one where we train and work towards that standard together. So it includes NOT JUST ideas of manliness but intentionally develops scalable ecclesial institutions that incarnate the living of those ideas through the brotherly support, mentorship, encouragement, and accountability. Your role in the process: commitment to living a life of virtue in community with others. My role in the process and why I am the leader of our local chapter · Long-standing commitment to Christian virtue and all the sacrifices that entails; as well as the many blessings that have followed. · Married thirty-five years. · A respected and decorated leader in the Army, community, and Church. o Retired Military Intelligence Chief Warrant Officer with deployments throughout the world, to include two to Afghanistan. o Three master's decrees: political science, divinity, and special education. o Ordained as a priest in 2007, have been teaching seminary since 2008; and have served in multiple leadership positions in the national church and at seminary. · Trained and experienced in the concepts of teamwork, spiritual development, community, and theology. · A lifetime of experience teaching these concepts and discipling others to teach them in the military, academia, parishes, seminary, and on the internets. If I were into self-promotion or social media, these might get me a following; but the real reason that I am the leader of the process is ontological, that is to say baked into our reality: I am the legitimately and canonically ordained priest assigned by our bishop to the priest – that is to say the "elder" and pastor – of this parish. This would be true even if I had never served in the military, taught at seminary, or enjoyed the benefits of a healthy marriage. It is accepting the fact that we "go to war with the army and leaders we have, not the ones we want" that allows us to get traction in doing the work we are called to do. We might gain a rudimentary understanding of what we are called to do and be as Christian men from our favorite Orthodox influencers on the internet, but if we are more attached to them and their virtual communities than the leaders and community in which we actually live, then we are setting ourselves up for failure. The Church has been perfecting the saints for many centuries without the internet; it is foolishness to jettison that system in favor of one that has not been tested and is known to be skewed towards narcissism and exaggeration. So here are the objectives of this series: · To provide a deeper understanding of Orthodox Christian Masculinity that each of us can defend and commit ourselves to. · To provide tools that will allow us to grow in personal holiness, first by dealing with our fallen "manly" temptations (anger, lust, gluttony, manipulation, and just checking out) and second by the acquisition of a peaceful, confident, and humble spirit. · To provide the tools – and not just the ideas! – to lead our family, communities, and parish. · To develop and intentional community of men, with mentorship, discipleship, and accountability. · That mentorship includes o The expectation that every man will go to confession regularly and schedule meetings with his priest as necessary. We should be going to confession AT LEAST FOUR TIMES A YEAR; the ideal is once a month. o The development of horizontal friendships with other men IN THIS PARISH for encouragement, accountability, and the deepening of Christian love. o Each of us will develop and maintain a relationship with a mentor. You can have more than one mentor, just like you can go to more than one priest for confession, but the point is that salvation is LOCAL. Again, you don't go to war with the army and leaders you want, but with the one we have. The temptation is to Americanize ecclesiology through the internet and to turn the local stable of churches and paraliturgical communities into our very own spiritual buffet. Didn't we say we wanted to give that way of thinking up when we became Orthodox? These mentors are: § [NAME] § [NAME] § [NAME] § [NAME] o Why these? § They are old. Let no man despise your youth, but a healthy culture has a special place and respect for gray beards. Younger men are wonderful spiritual brothers and we should rely on them for such. They can certainly be leaders in other ways, AND it is our job (and especially mine and the mentors) to disciple them so that they are able to do a better job than us when their beards turn gray. This is within the spirit of having age requirements for formal ordination. § They have been committed Orthodox Christians for a while. This is important because it takes time for Orthodoxy to gain traction. No one doubts the novice's commitment, but experience is required for mentorship. Again, this is in line with the spirit of ecclesial norms: Canon Law prohibits the ordination of novices. · Think of it as a kind of apprenticeship, but one where we are all already active life-smiths, but need a good system to help us improve the quality of our work. So what is Orthodox Christian Masculinity? · The way of a man committed to living out his faith humbly, courageously, and sacrificially in service to God, family, and community. o Humble o Courage (confidence) o Sacrificially: DUTY!!! Get up and do something! Reliability. "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." —Theodore Roosevelt We are doing great deeds together. To the glory of God and the transformation of the world.. Future classes: Mentors are going to lead. Spiritual discipline and asceticism. How to build a strong and safe home. Financial asceticism. How to protect and serve the weak and vulnerable. In the meantime, commit yourself to being a reliable and godly man. Peaceful and strong. Give up things that distract you and build up habits that will make you better. Lead your family in prayer, lead them in going to church; encourage your friends to be godly and hold them accountable in private when needed, and live the kind of Cross-carrying life that transforms your souls towards perfection and brings peace and joy to those around you.

God is a Personal Triune Arche' Journey to Reality Chapter Three: Who is God? Money quote from this chapter:"The reality is that Christianity is profoundly different from every other religion in history precisely because the Trinity solves this problem of the One and the Many on the basis that God's nature is love. No other religion is like that." (pg 37 of 142) Framing Scripture on the Godhead (this is just an introduction to the subject): Genesis 16:7&13. Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness by the spring on the way to Shur… Then Hagar called the name of Lord who spoke to her, "You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees-Me"; for she said, "I have seen the One who appeared to me face to face." Genesis 19:24. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and on Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. (repeated in Amos 4:11). Genesis 22:15-16. Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, "By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you did this thing and for My sake did not spare your beloved son. [God appears many times to Abraham in human form. Jesus confirms that that was Him in John 8:56-58; Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it, and was glad." Therefore, the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.] "God had appeared to Jacob visibly in a dream at Bethel (Gen. 28:10–22), where he was identified as the Lord. Later the Angel of God came to Jacob in another dream and told him point-blank that he was the same God who met him at Bethel earlier (Gen. 31:11–12)." (Heiser, Supernatural), Ch 6). Exodus 3:4. When the Lord saw he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Exodus 23:20-22. Behold I send My Angel before your face, to keep you in the way and to bring you into the land I prepared for you. Listen to Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My Name is in Him. [In 1 Corinthians 10 and Hebrews 11, St. Paul explains that it was Jesus the Logos that brought the Israelites out of Egypt, was with them in their journey, and brought them into the promised land. Jude 1 does the same.] Judges 6:20-24. The Angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so. Then the Angel of the Lord stretched out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Now Gideon perceived that this was the Angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, "O Lord, my Lord! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face." Then the Lord said to him, "Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die." So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it the Peace of the Lord. To this day, it is still in Ephrata, the father of Esdri. Jeremiah 1:4-9. Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." Then I said, "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth." But the Lord said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord." Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. Proverbs 8:22-30. Wisdom's role in creation. All this is to say that God has always been Three Persons and has always made Himself known to us through His Son. Of course, the Incarnation is the most obvious of this. We could do the same with the Holy Spirit. Which brings us back to Chapter Three: The moral reality of the Arche'. Not just the unmoved mover – reality itself – but also GOOD itself. This idea is fairly widespread. The Personal God. But the Arche' is also personal, with a mind and a will. Must avoid allowing this to bring us back to the idea of gods like Zeus or such; or even the Universe as a person. These pagan ideas are often well-intentioned, but they are too small. You can imagine something being a person. A rock with a personality, or a cosmos with a spirit, but we mean a lot more than that. "We're not taking some object (a rock, a mountain, a planet) and adding the idea of personhood to it. We're saying that the ultimate governing principle of reality – distinct from the created universe – is personal. This is what we end up with "I AM" as His name. The One or the Many? What is a person like? Are persons like water, appearing to be separate, but they merge when you put them together and their distinctiveness disappears. In this view, the Arche is the source of all water, and persons have a propensity and calling to be brought back together into oneness with other drops and the Source. This is the worldview of the "one". Or perhaps persons are distinct objects. You can put them together, as when you stack stones, but they keep their own uniqueness. You cannot merge them together; if you break them up to do so, they are no longer themselves. In this individualist view, the Arche' is like one huge stone, and we have broken off of it and can never merge back with it. Both of these worldviews seem to explain an important element about the world we find ourselves in, but each does so at a cost. The worldview of the One explains, truly enough, that there is some kind of fundamental unity among all people and all things, but it does so at the cost of our individualism. Persons can't really exist in this view; our distinctiveness turns out to be an illusion, as our very nature means that we belong to a greater whole that has no place for our individuality. If a drop of water falls into the ocean, the drop ceases to exist and there's no way to get it back. In a worldview of the many, we get to preserve our individuality but at the cost of any sense of unity. Because (in this view) you don't share a connection with any other person at the level of ultimate reality, there's a sense in which you'll always be alone, despite however many connections of relationships you make. And in fact, this needs to be so in order to preserve your individual uniqueness. Otherwise you'd just melt into other people and disappear – the way water droplets do. Neither of these views paints a complete picture of the way we experience reality, and still less do they resolve the problem of how to understand the Arche' as a person. … In order to transcend the limitations of both these views, we need a worldview that can combine the best features of the One and the many without being either of them. The Trinity Three distinct persons (individuals? No.) with one essence. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit is not the Father. BUT they are NOT separate: they are ONE GOD. There are many ways we try to simplify this: modes, focusing on one aspect at the expense of the others, personalities, three gods. The Oneness and Threeness are part of the definition and need to be held together. [Comparing it to a family? Hmmmm (Awww, Patrick!) ] Being and Love. Neither the water nor the stone approach (one and many) has room for love. But the Trinity is ideal for love: there are other persons to love, but it isn't just an individual attribute of attraction. Our individualism makes it hard for us to understand the implications of a world made for love by love. We are relational beings. Interdependent and connected. God is Love. Three persons united in one essence and existing as a perfect, loving, community. We are called be one as God is one. Next week: The Problem of the Fall?