the hitchhiker’s guide: the journey forward to the ancient roots of our faith

We’ve come now to the third or mansions, or the third floor of our tower. At this point in Teresa’s descriptions we’ve arrived at the point where people are basically living a pious life. In this level we find people who have managed to overcome the day to day struggles of sin. Granted, from her description, the holiness appears to be an outward holiness, and perhaps hasn’t penetrated them completely.

I believe that, through His goodness, there are many such souls in the world: they are most desirous not to offend His Majesty; they avoid committing even venial sins; they love doing penance, they spend hours in recollection; they use their time well; they practise works of charity toward their neighbours; and they are very careful in their speech and dress and in the government of their household if they have one.

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Written and posted by Jamison on September 26, 2009, 12:38 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation

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This second portion of Teresa of Ávila’s work is quite short. She explains that this is because she has covered much of this material in a different book. However, I don’t really feel compelled to go and seek out that book, and want to just stay focused on what she’s given us to chew on in this book.

In the second mansion described by Teresa , we have progressed deeper into the human soul, but not too deep. We are still in an area of the castle where the broods of vipers and wild animals (as she is so fond of talking about) can still enter and seek to bite us, in other words we can still be tempted to sin quite readily. However, in this second phase of our journey inwards, we start to see a change in intention. If prayer is the doorway in which we begin our pathway towards uniting Christ and our soul, then it is in the second mansion that we start to perfect our steps through the denial of sin.

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Written and posted by Jamison on September 21, 2009, 9:40 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation

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Today I picked up, and started reading Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila. I thought it might be an interesting task to bring the readers of HHG (all 3 of you) along with me as I journey through this classic work. The nature of this work is to examine our souls as if they were a mansion with many layers of rooms. Christ’s light is at the core, with His power of love, compassion and perfection. The world of sinfulness and darkness exists beyond the outer rooms. Therefore the question we face is how we can move ourselves further inwards towards the pure light of Christ.

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Written and posted by Jamison on September 19, 2009, 5:01 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation

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>мебелиe are tough days indeed — plenty of anxiety, stress, and negativity to go around and then some. And of course the overly-spirited mud slinging between Presidential campaigns, their supporters, and anyone with a political point of view has only contributed to further divisions, polarizing individuals even further than before. My wife and I have even been the target of some of that mud slinging because we don’t hold to a certain party line, which I think is just preposterous. But before I get distracted with political points, I’m going to lay that aside to reflect on something of greater importance: finding peace by drawing near to God and His mercy through the simple act of prayer.

Written and posted by Michael on October 20, 2008, 2:26 pm.
Filed under: Daily Walk, General Discussion, Orthodoxy, Transformation

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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.

It was one of the most beautiful services that I have been to in a long time — the sanctuary was dimly lit, candles lighting up various areas of the alter, and an ornately decorated arc-like structure covered in roses, washed over in candlelight, and containing the cross of Christ, symbolizing his burial into the tomb.

The service was nearly two and a half hours, and with just twelve hours before I become christened into the Orthodox Church, I honestly felt like I have not sufficiently prepared myself for this moment.

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Written and posted by Michael on April 26, 2008, 12:05 am.
Filed under: Catechumen, Orthodoxy, The Journey, Transformation

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Tonight was the night! At the Easter Vigil tonight I was welcomed into the Roman Catholic Church! My son also took his first communion with me. It was an amazing service (even though it was over 2 hours long) and I’m not too “manly” to admit that I had tears in my eyes as I saw the Eucharist consecrated for the first time for me. I felt such a huge feeling of release and comfort as I took the Lord’s Body and Blood for the first time as a Catholic Christian.

I’m home Lord, I’m home….

Written and posted by Jamison on March 22, 2008, 10:01 pm.
Filed under: Catholicism, General Discussion, The Journey, Transformation

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We all have great intentions — I know I do anyway. I have great aspirations of maintaining strict disciplines, like a rule of prayer, fasting from certain passions, and even cultivating some of the artistic gifts I’ve been given. But the problem is that my passions (as known by the Orthodox; different from a passion for music, for example) are not passive and do not sit back and allow me to just lay my stake in the ground and claim it done. Unlike Evangelicalism™ which generally professes a transactional version of salvation — an event that happens, and then you’re saved — I am finding that maintaining and working out this gift of salvation and becoming more like God is going to be a long, slow, and arduous process, requiring much patience, faith, endurance, and above all humility.

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Written and posted by Michael on March 20, 2008, 1:29 pm.
Filed under: Culture, Daily Walk, Orthodoxy, Transformation

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This morning I was ceremonially welcomed and prayed for as a catechumen into the Orthodox

Written and posted by Michael on March 9, 2008, 1:24 pm.
Filed under: Catechumen, Culture, Orthodoxy, Transformation

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There has been a topic on my mind over the past several weeks as I’ve started on this journey towards Orthodox Christianity and into a life of theosis — when I become Orthodox, what becomes of my artistic expressions and what is that supposed to look like within the context of being an Orthodox Christian? And I must forewarn you, that there are far more questions in this particular entry than useful reflections or things we can all learn from. Instead, I would hope that it might generate some significant discussion that would ripple into the arts community within Catholic and Orthodox traditions — especially the latter of the two.

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Written and posted by Michael on February 27, 2008, 12:30 am.
Filed under: Culture, Orthodoxy, Transformation

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At the beginning of 2006 I began my studies at a Lutheran seminary in town that was approved to train Methodist pastors. It was a seminary I had attended many, many years before and so I felt very comfortable there. I also enjoyed the fact that they had daily chapel and weekly communion, with a sense of some liturgical heritage. However, the one difficulty with this school was that it was not structured for working adults. Meaning that it was becoming harder and harder for me to find classes that fit into my schedule, since I couldn’t just give up my job to go to school.

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Written and posted by Jamison on February 18, 2008, 11:20 pm.
Filed under: Catholicism, General Discussion, Looking Back, The Journey, Transformation

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It seems that every time I walk out of St. George Antioch Orthodox Church — whether on a Sunday morning or at my catechumen class — I come home with more and more books to read. And anyone who knows me well, I don’t exactly finish books in a timely fashion (let alone at all). How I will manage to keep up is but a mystery… fitting as I am pursuing Orthodoxy and they’re all about mystery.

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Written and posted by Michael on February 14, 2008, 4:47 pm.
Filed under: Catechumen, Daily Walk, Orthodoxy, The Journey, Transformation

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