By the grace of God, we’ve made it through the first half of 2020—it’s felt rather longer than six months! And all indications suggest that we’re in for another long six months of this topsy-turvy year…
It will come as no surprise to people who know me that my personal coping mechanism has been to read a lot. These are the books I’ve finished in 2020 thus far (given everything going on, a rather higher proportion than usual has been light fiction!): Continue reading
For some time now, I have been working my way through St Irenaeus of Lyons’s Against Heresies—rather slowly, off and on, as I’ve also picked up other patristic works along the way.
But when I do get back to reading him, I am often struck by just how clear and worked-out his theology is for a Christian writing so early. The popular scholarly narratives of slow Christological development simply crumble when you read someone like Irenaeus. (Or, for that matter, even the undisputed letters of Paul…) Continue reading
Here are the books I finished in July, with some notes. This was a good reading month. Continue reading
The books I finished last month (minus a manuscript I proofread for the Press), with some brief notes on each: Continue reading
These are the books I finished last month, in order of completion, with some brief notes on each:
I love books. In a real sense, my life is dominated by books. Dealing with books is the heart of my job—selling them, getting them together for orders, speaking to customers about them. At home, my free time is largely given over to reading; I’ve already finished five books this month, and I’m actively reading seven others at the present. Books have always been a big part of my life, ever since I learned how to read. I could attempt to wax poetic on this point, but if you’re a reader you understand—and if you’re not, I doubt I could help you do so.
I suppose it is a sense of mortality peculiar to being a reader (or at least one in the modern age) to be keenly aware that there are far, far more books in the world than anyone could ever get to in a single lifetime. Even if you reduce that set to merely the books you’re interested in, the sheer number of books still prevails. Our time is finite, the number of books continues to grow, and with each book picked up there is an opportunity cost of those left on the shelf. Continue reading
I’m still feeling the post-Paschal fatigue, so no commentary today, but here are the books I’ve finished reading in the past couple of months, in order of completion. Maybe I’ll get back to writing real posts again soon… Continue reading
The prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian is the basic prayer of the Lenten season:
O Lord and Master of my life, give me not the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
It’s been some weeks since I’ve managed to write anything here. We’re now in the fourth week of Lent, and today we’ve been singing about reaching the middle of the Fast:
The Fast, the source of blessings,
now has brought us midway through its course.
Having pleased God with the days that have passed,
we look forward to making good use of the days to come,
for growth in blessings brings forth even greater achievements.
While pleasing Christ, the Giver of all blessings, we cry:
“O Lord, Who fasted and endured the Cross for our sake,
make us worthy to share blamelessly in Your paschal victory,
by living in peace and rightly giving glory to You
and to the Father and the Holy Spirit!”
The books I finished reading (I’m partway through several more, of course!) in February, in the order of completion:
1) Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, trans. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1993.
The last time I read this (in a different translation) was slightly over a decade ago, the summer before my senior year of high school. It was required reading for my AP English class, but I liked it enough that I read some other Dostoevsky novels on my own that year, though I quickly stalled out when I attempted The Brothers Karamazov—which I only finally succeeded in completing this past December, on my third attempt.
I think part of the problem with that first attempt was that the BK has a lot of explicitly Orthodox content in it; at the time, I simply had no context for that. But in rereading C&P I was also struck by how much Orthodoxy there was in this book as well, even if not so explicitly; reading it this time around, after being Orthodox for a few years, was certainly a different experience. I may yet write a separate post on this. Continue reading
Loving the Word 