The Hitchhiker's Guide

Distilling the question of purpose & self worth

In my last post, I opened up a dialogue about where we draw our sense of worth from, especially with making the journey from an Evangelical perspective to one of the ancient faith of Orthodoxy.  I don’t have any answers, and in fact I think my list of questions continues to expand the more I think about this.  But after evaluating everything and processing things out loud in a dialogue with another tumblr member, I think I’m coming closer to the source of my angst and my doubts as a relatively new convert to Orthodoxy.

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So what now?

Although I was raise Lutheran, my roots in the evangelical way of life ran pretty deep — I was consumed by anything and everything that was of the church.  I was vivaciously active, “leading worship” wherever they would have me, going on retreats, leading bible studies, and consuming anything that I could get my hands on that would help reinforce the faint idea that God loved me and had a plan for me. 

Faint, yes. 

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Book Review: Orthodox Christians in America: A Short History

I picked up Orthodox Christians in America: A Short History a while ago and finally got a chance to finish it off last night. This is a very quick and fast read about the history of the Orthodox Church in America (only about 100 pages of narrative text). One of the unique things about Orthodoxy in America is that it’s still very tied to the “mother churches” in other parts of the world. Often times this has meant that American churches are caught up in the ethnic affairs of their homelands, even though they are thousands of miles away. This is the story that Erickson tells.

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Healthcare and the Christian

NOTE, the contents of this post are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of other authors on this site.

Today on a walk, I was listening to a podcast from a Franciscan friar about the history of Catholic hospitals. This again started prodding some thoughts in my head, that have been ruminating there for a while, about the topic of a Christian response to the healthcare debate in the United State. History shows that when it came to bringing healthcare to the people, it was the Christian churches (and religions in general) that led the cause, and in fact were the only source of health and healing for most people. As early as 325 AD, the Council of Nicea ordered that every town that had a cathedral, also must provide a hospital to care for the sick. This even developed into Christian monks helping to create some of the first mental health counseling treatments.

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Orthodoxy and the Culture Club

I apologize in advance, knowing full well that I will probably make a few unorthodox statements and probably ruffle more than a few feathers — I’m sorry, really. But indulge me for a few minutes and allow me to be quite frank. There’s a long overdue vent that requires being thrown out into some ones and zeros and let people ruminate on.

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First Eastern Experience

This past Sunday I had the honor of being able to experience the Eastern liturgy for the first time. Michael’s child was being baptized, and even though the baptism doesn’t take place during the liturgy, we were all invited to attend the liturgy beforehand. I decided to take them up on the invitation and see just how different the Eastern liturgy is, and so I thought I’d document some very brief thoughts.

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The sum of the parts

I won’t lie — I’ve neglected my contributions to The Hitchhiker’s Guide [psst… and I’m the admin]. In fact, because I felt like I had nothing to say or to contribute to the discussion of the ancient faith, I didn’t say anything at all.

It was probably better that way.

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Lenten Discipline

Reposted from Boolah

In the season on Lent, Christians are called upon to focus themselves on Christ’s sacrifice for us in the upcoming Passion, by engaging in some form of spiritual discipline. We’re all familiar with the traditional avenues this usually takes, such as picking something to give up for Lent, and the traditional Catholic discipline of no-meat on Fridays. However, many times we miss the point when we simple “give something up”, that it’s not supposed to be just about our ability to overcome our desires, but our discipline is meant to bring us into closer communion with God. That means that our discipline doesn’t have to be about letting go, but could also mean adding on. Because of everything that has happened in my life this past year, I’ve decided that simply giving something up is not what I need to do this Lent. I’ve had to give up a lot this year already, and I feel I need to add something to my spiritual life instead.

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Orthodoxy and earthly distractions

It’s been an interesting summer — obviously having taken the summer off from writing in HHG with April being my last posted entry — and I’ve walked away with a few observations about Orthodoxy, culture, and plenty of introspective conclusions about myself and the life I lead.

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Almost there, almost

Tonight we celebrated the lamentation service of our Lord, where throughout a beautiful and ornately decorated setting, we expressed our lament of Christ’s death through spoken words, through sung lamentations, and in the candlelit sanctuary processed under an icon of Christ’s body representing our passing into death as did Christ — an expression of sharing in His sufferings and His death.

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