You are certainly welcome here. There are a lot of different perspectives shared here, and yours is a welcome addition. I have a deep respect for Orthodoxy–especially the way of understanding the Triune God, the understanding of salvation as participation in the Divine Nature, and the ability to embrace Mystery.

I just asked a question and you are quite welcome to answer in any way you see fit (or not), and free to come to different conclusions than I do. It's a good thing to reach out for a connection (I did that online years ago, when there were no people around me then with similar views to discuss such things; and some of those connections turned into long term relationships). If you don't give up too quickly you might find something good.

And thanks for sharing more about yourself; it makes it easier to respond well to you. You can read more about me here (if you're interested).

This is in no way a denial of the harsh prophetic– as I said, the strength of the Evangelical approach.

I've been unemployed and homeless myself. And I spent 16 years working among low income and mentally ill people. Anger and pain daily. Makes the prophetic very real. Yet beauty and joy were welcome rarities.

I am a very late convert to Christianity; I do not deny that I was suspicious and even contemptuous of the faith for decades. I still do not feel that I fit anywhere easily. But I wanted more than harshness. Those of us with mystical gifts do not deny the prophetic, the immanent. We just emphasize the sense of creation as good, and the experience of connection with the transcendent. The struggle between the mystical and the prophetic dimensions is as old as religion, which contains both.

As for using the words”gilding it…” a rather ugly dismissal. Icons are not just pretty works of art. They are the presense of spiritual reality– including the prophetic; righteous anger.

I've been reading the posts here for some time. And felt the possibilty of connection to others who, although they approach their faith out of a different context, also understood the terrible impact of misguided materialism on the world. But it feels like I'm not welcome. And I'm not up to defending an entire tradition. So I'll get off of this list. BTW, I'm also transgendered and gay. Which makes it difficult enough to be Christian; I don't need any more pain.

You are certainly welcome here. There are a lot of different perspectives shared here, and yours is a welcome addition. I have a deep respect for Orthodoxy–especially the way of understanding the Triune God, the understanding of salvation as participation in the Divine Nature, and the ability to embrace Mystery.

I just asked a question and you are quite welcome to answer in any way you see fit (or not), and free to come to different conclusions than I do. It's a good thing to reach out for a connection (I did that online years ago, when there were no people around me then with similar views to discuss such things; and some of those connections turned into long term relationships). If you don't give up too quickly you might find something good.

This is in no way a denial of the harsh prophetic– as I said, the strength of the Evangelical approach.

I've been unemployed and homeless myself. And I spent 16 years working among low income and mentally ill people. Anger and pain daily. Makes the prophetic very real. Yet beauty and joy were welcome rarities.

I am a very late convert to Christianity; I do not deny that I was suspicious and even contemptuous of the faith for decades. I still do not feel that I fit anywhere easily. But I wanted more than harshness. Those of us with mystical gifts do not deny the prophetic, the immanent. We just emphasize the sense of creation as good, and the experience of connection with the transcendent. The struggle between the mystical and the prophetic dimensions is as old as religion, which contains both.

As for using the words”gilding it…” a rather ugly dismissal. Icons are not just pretty works of art. They are the presense of spiritual reality– including the prophetic; righteous anger.

I've been reading the posts here for some time. And felt the possibilty of connection to others who, although they approach their faith out of a different context, also understood the terrible impact of misguided materialism on the world. But it feels like I'm not welcome. And I'm not up to defending an entire tradition. So I'll get off of this list. BTW, I'm also transgendered and gay. Which makes it difficult enough to be Christian; I don't need any more pain.

But I'm not sure where “beauty will save the world” comes from. Do you see that message in Jesus' teaching or life?

And Zosima's embrace of everything (which would hardly cause much opposition, it seems) even sounds somewhat opposed to the “offense” of Jesus' harder teachings and prophetic anger. Reflected, for example, in the line I quoted in the story, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” I'm not sure how that can fit with “beauty will save the world.” Any thoughts?

Maybe the biggest question is raised by the ultimate moment of Jesus' salvation of the world: his crucifixion. I know some have tried to make it beautiful, gilding it, iconizing it. But the reality seems quite far from anything that could be described as “beauty.”

“Great elder, speak! Do I annoy you by my vivacity?” Fyodor Pavlovitch cried suddenly, clutching the arms of his chair in both hands, as though ready to leap up from it if the answer were unfavourable.

“I earnestly beg you, too, not to disturb yourself, and not to be uneasy,” the elder said impressively. “Do not trouble. Make yourself quite at home. And, above all, do not be so ashamed of yourself, for that is at the root of it all.”

“Quite at home? To be my natural self? Oh, that is much too much, but I accept it with grateful joy. Do you know, blessed father, you'd better not invite me to be my natural self. Don't risk it…. I will not go so far as that myself. I warn you for your own sake. Well, the rest is still plunged in the mists of uncertainty, though there are people who'd be pleased to describe me for you. I mean that for you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. But as for you, holy being, let me tell you, I am brimming over with ecstasy.”

He got up, and throwing up his hands, declaimed, “Blessed be the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck—the paps especially!”

(Fyodor Pavlovitch had a pretty good recall of scripture, didn't he?)