"Spiritual Charity"

A great article by Fr. Oliver Herbel on the interconnectedness of salvation in Orthodoxy and giving can be found here.

"Avoiding Both Self-Ghettoization and Trinket Evangelism"

Fr. Oliver Herbel has an excellent post on balance in Orthodox life and outreach in North America here. He speaks at one point of Orthodox Christians who grow out their hair, wear all black, and wonder around with long prayer ropes and I couldn't help laughing - partly because I was trending in that direction at one point :-) and partly because I still meet converts in that phase.

When I left Protestantism the question of how to be relevant to the wider culture around me ceased to be a question and the beard and prayer rope were added to my 'look.' I certainly haven't grown in faith since those days, but more and more I'm realizing that the question of relevance isn't irrelevant :-). It can be thought about too much (and result in awesome stuff like crowd surfing during church), but that doesn't mean that we in the world shouldn't take a look in the mirror from time to time and ask ourselves how we are witnesses to others of God's call to communion with Him.

So, there's my half penny on all of this. Fr. Oliver's article is much better and to the point. Enjoy!

Pictured is yours truly being culturally relevant in a kilt - culturally relevant for a friend's wedding that is :-).

St. Peter the Aleut New Martyr - True or False?

Fr. Oliver Herbel has posted an article claiming that St. Peter the Aleut did not exist. It can be found here. I don't have particularly strong opinions on this topic, but I find it surprising that Fr. Oliver bases part of his argument on Fr. Michael Oleksa's failure to write about Aleut oral traditions concerning St. Peter in Orthodox Alaska, but also says he couldn't be bothered to write Fr. Michael to ask him about this omission before publishing his article.