Hey friend!
I hope this finds you well.
I was not planning on doing a bird's-eye view
this week,
but I guess we are anyways.
I just want to throw in a quick "what I'm
reading currently",
and that's Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward.
Hopefully next week I'll get on the track that I set for myself
(that none of you know anyways), um... and that'll be great!
If you're watching this, I'm going to assume
that you are a bodily corporeal being, and
more specifically a human being, that race
which has roamed our earth for a few hundreds
of thousands of years.
As a species, we've had quite some time to
experience this world with our five sense:
seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.
We've looked up at the skies into deep space
and faced the depths of the oceans too, pondering
grand macrocosms teaming with life and
death.
We've also explored smaller things, observing
microbiology, DNA, atomic structure...
And yet no matter which way you look, we are
more than just a mass of star dust or atoms,
more than just bodies.
We have minds, hearts, spirits, souls.
There are concepts, words that go beyond our
physical senses: love, fear, joy, sorrow,
integrity, truth...
These things that seem to hold Eternal significance
compared to our temporal life.
And sure there are those who believe that
this life is short and it's all we have, but for those
of us have faith and reached out this Eternal,
the word we have for that in English is "Religion"...
though sometimes contested it stems for the Latin meaning "reconnection" or building together.
And I think that's true right?
All religions are trying to build bridges
between the Eternal & the Temporal, the Incorruptible
& the Corruptible, the Kairos time & the Kronos
time.
Going back real far we have Hinduism & Paganism,
Ancestral worship & Shintoism, Daoism & Buddhism,
and of course the Abrahamic religions of Judaism
& Islam.
For myself, I believe the true way and worship
of this Divine is through Christianity, which
has its basis in Christ.
Of course each religion has a different way
of answering Who, What, When, Where, Why,
and How for building those bridges...
-maybe even Which? Sure why not? I don't know-
But for Christians that Who connecting
us is always Christ, the historical Jesus
of Nazareth (Christ being another word for
Messiah or The Anointed One).
Historically, the Christian church started
around 33AD after Jesus's death and resurrection
through his Apostles.
Though I'm sure you are all aware there are some
divisions among us now.
In the 3rd & 4th centuries there was some
separation over theological dogmas in councils,
creating the "Church of the East" and the
Oriental Orthodox church.
There the infamous Great Schism of 1054 creating
the Catholic church, and the Reformation that
followed after that from Martin Luther, as
well as the split off of the Church of England,
from which many more have splinted off creating
all the Protestant churches that we know today.
And all these have that fancy name of Denominations,
which when you break it up in Latin means
the "act of" "naming" "from"... from the religion
of Christianity, specifically [here].
Because we all share the belief of One God
in Trinity -Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-,
with the Son becoming incarnate taking on
our flesh and humanity for our salvation.
The denomination I follow and believe the
closest to Christ's teaching is the Orthodox church.
So generally speaking, while all the Christian
denominations have the same answer for Who?,
the other 6 questions [can] have different
answers.
In the Orthodox church, we don't have a pope
(our only head is Christ), but we have a hierarch[y]
with Bishops and Patriarchs.
For our ordained clergy, we have bishops that come
from our priests, and our priests come from
our deacons, and all our deacons come from
the laity faithful.
So even though we have ordained clergy, we
all come from the Bride & Body of Christ,
the Church, and are a part of the royal priesthood,
in communion trying to follow and worship
God as best we can, despite our brokenness.
Here in the States, it can be a little confusing
due to the historical reality of... immigration.
All these people coming in and all the different
churches and the patriarchs [from "Mother Countries"]
trying to help them [the new Orthodox
in America] there...
This leads us to having ten[eleven] jurisdictions for Eastern
Orthodoxy found in North America, listed here
in alphabetical order : The Albanians, the
[American] Carpatho-Russians, Antiochians,
Bulgarians, [and Georgian!! I forgot],
Greeks, Orthodox Church in American,
Romanians, Russians, Serbians, and Ukrainians [spelled wrong, sorry].
While each might have slightly different local
traditions, what's important to keep in mind here
is that all 10 [11] of this are all Eastern Orthodox,
all answering those fundamental
"Who? What? When? Where? Why?" questions;
broken people seeking
healing and connection with the Source of Life Himself.
Part of this was inspired by Ancient Faith
Radio's brochure about the timeline of the Church.
But also if you're more interested in smarter things,
I read a long time ago "Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy"
about that kind of stuff.
Though Fr. Andrew now has a newer edition
-guess I should show you the difference; it's
much thicker, haha, between the two- so there's
a lot of stuff about all the different kind
of religions and what the differences are
based on the Eastern Orthodoxy.
And then also, you know just based on specifically
Orthodoxy in general, Father [Bishop] Kallistos
Ware's books, "The Orthodox Way" and "The
Orthodox Church" are also good reads.
"The Orthodox Church" is more about the actual
history, and "The Orthodox Way" is more about,
you know, the way of life.
So those are also some good reads.
But, yeah, anyway...
I'm Anastasia; it's been nice to see ya... um,
and I pray this finds you well on whatever walk you're on.
Because that's definitely true, right?
We're all human and we're all on one journey
or another.
Ok, bye!
