Tag Archives: the soul

Not Star Trek mythology.

humanity, quotes, reality, , , , , , ,

More and more I notice that people, including me, use the words brain and mind interchangeably; but they are not the same thing at all. No scientist has been able to find the mind in the brain. And when we are considering mind vs. heart, where is the heart exactly? As the Scripture says, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.” The more researchers probe into the intricacies of the human body and its functions, the more complex we are found to be, the more questions emerge.

I am using the photo of the book cover at right only to illustrate one use of the word mind; it’s been a while since I read it, but I think the author may have been thinking of this passage of Scripture:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Father Stephen Freeman draws attention in a recent article to the way we moderns tend to think about minds and our thinking:

“We are material beings. We are not souls that have bodies, or bodies that have souls. The soul is the ‘life’ of the body, but is not, strictly speaking, a thing in itself. Most moderns mistake the soul for consciousness, and they imagine that at death their consciousness migrates somewhere else (to heaven, etc). And, we do not care very much about what then happens to the body, so long as our precious consciousness abides. This, I might add, is the mythology of Star Trek, where in at least several episodes, Spock’s consciousness is deposited in various other places. It is not, however, true Christianity.”

You can read the whole article here:  “The Secular Mind Versus the Whole Heart.”

Auguste Rodin, The Thinker; Rodin Museum, Paris

St. Gregory Dialogus

poetry, quotes, saints, , ,

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Gregory the Great (590-604) is usually called Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome. The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, which he compiled, is a service that we use on weekdays during Lent. You can read about his other writings and inspiring life, including several quotes from the saint, on this site. Here is one of the quotes, fitting for Lent:

“Every day you provide your bodies with good to keep them from failing. In the same way your good works should be the daily nourishment of your hearts. Your bodies are fed with food and your spirits with good works. You aren’t to deny your soul, which is going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going to die.”

I only recently began to learn about St. Gregory, after reading this poem by him:

DIVINE CREATOR OF THE LIGHT

Divine creator of the light,
Who, bringing forth the golden ray,
Didst join the morning with the night
And call the blessed union day;

We bow to thee, whose mighty word
Made time begin and heaven move;
Hear thou our tearful prayer, O Lord,

And warm us with the light of love.

Lord, let no crime our souls oppress,
Or keep us from thy law divine;
Oh guard us by thy saving grace

And make our wills accord with thine.

Still may we seek thy heavenly seat,
And strive eternal life to gain;
Oh, keep us in thy mercy sweet,

And cleanse our souls from earthly stain.

-Gregory the Great (c. 540 – 604) Italy

       Translated by Daniel Joseph Donahoe

If you have a heavy heart, that is okay.

death, grief, humanity, love, , , , ,

Saturday being the day of Sabbath rest, we Orthodox often have memorial services this day, and pray for those who rest in death, waiting for the Resurrection. For that reason I thought to share these words spoken at a funeral earlier this year. But also, my parish has seen two of our community fall asleep in death this month, and we are feeling the sorrow right now. Read on to hear what the rabbis say:

“If you have a heavy heart and are grieving, that is OK. We weep for those we love and who have loved us. One hears from time to time: ‘Oh, you should not cry. He is in a better place.’ But Christ God Himself wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. And the rabbis say that God weeps at the death of every human being. So, don’t be afraid to weep.

“You can also hear it said among some Christian groups: ‘Oh, that is not Father Anthony. He is with the Lord! That is just a shell.’ I ask you then who is that there in our midst?! You see, to be a human being is to be a soul enfleshed, that is, a soul wrapped in a physical body. Angels do not have bodies.

“The tragedy of death is that the union of soul and body is torn asunder! That is why Christ died a real human death, and rose from the dead as a real human person, his body and spirit united again. Fr. Anthony’s body is as much Fr. Anthony as is his soul which awaits the last day when it will receive a new body.”

-Archbishop Benjamin at the funeral of Father Anthony Karbo, March 2024

Memory eternal!

Boredom, the guide to mystery.

prayer, quotes, , , , ,

Eric Hyde is an Orthodox Christian psychotherapist writing at Eric Hyde’s Blog. I appreciated his brief musing, on the increase of his understanding of boredom from reading Heidegger; he combined it with his own experience and that of his clients, in this post: “Heidegger’s ‘Profound Boredom’: using boredom to cultivate the soul.”

Heidegger names three levels of boredom, the most extreme which is profound. To many people, the idea of profound boredom probably sounds frighteningly close to deep depression — a condition to be avoided at all costs. But I have heard more than one person say that they welcome boredom — even if it is said half-jokingly, as in, “I wish I had time to be bored!” But there are various ideas out there about what boredom is, and theories about what to do about it, if anything. I’d like to learn more about the difference between boredom and acedia. So this probably won’t be my last post on the subject.

Eric Hyde writes:

“If you’ve ever sat alone at the beach, or in the mountains, or the country, or sat gazing at the fully illumined night sky and had that deep sense of your own smallness, of your own seeming triviality in the broad scope of existence, and yet rather than crushing your soul it gave you a sense of calm wonder, a sense of spiritual ordering, then you’ve likely had the experience of profound boredom as Heidegger described it.

“In short, what I found so powerful in the notion of profound boredom is that boredom has the power to grant a person ‘attunement’ to oneself and to existence as a whole—or more properly speaking, attunement to Being as a whole—in a truly spiritual manner. Rather than causing torment, boredom, if used properly, can be at once a guide to peace and a guide to the very mystery of being.”

I’m familiar with this attitude, because it is commonly taught in the Orthodox Church; offhand I think of books on prayer by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom.

Hyde gives three tips:

1. Don’t wait for boredom to find you—search it out.
2. Once there, allow boredom to reveal its message.
3. Repeat daily.