Hello readers of Everyday Asceticism!
I’m writing to let you know about a new Substack I’ve started called The Cutting Room Floor.
From the first post there:
Good writing requires cuts, but sometimes the cuts deserve a second life.
The Cutting Room Floor is a space for all the little bits of interesting content that get cut from things I publish.
In particular, I have a new book coming out this year, tentatively title The Kingdom of God & the Common Good: An Introduction to Orthodox Christian Social Thought, to be published by Ancient Faith Publishing.
The manuscript is too long, unfortunately, so there will be significant cuts to get it down to size. So The Cutting Room Floor is a place where I will give those cuts a “second life.”
The book is about how to engage modern economies from an Orthodox Christian point of view, and of course that involves some everyday asceticism! But since the scope is broader than this blog, I decided to start this separate Substack for these posts in order to keep this one focused just on asceticism. But I think readers of this blog will be interested, so if you are, head over there and subscribe for free!
Find the first post “Welcome” here.
Thanks for reading! Don’t worry, I’ll keep posting here, too.
Now, it is certainly required that what is subject to change be in a sense always coming to birth. In mutable nature nothing can be observed which is always the same. Being born, in the sense of constantly experiencing change, does not come about as a result of external initiative, as is the case with the birth of the body, which takes place by chance. Such a [spiritual] birth occurs by choice. We are in some manner our own parents, giving birth to ourselves by our own free choice in accordance with whatever we wish to be … moulding ourselves to the teaching of virtue or vice.
Everyday Asceticism 