Tag Archive: Logos


Death and the Struggle for Permanence

Filed under: Pascha
April 25, 2014

Abba Evagrius said: While you sit in your cell, draw in your mind, and remember the day of your death. And then you will see your body mortifying. Think on the loss, feel the pain. Shrink from the vanity of the world outside.

~ Sayings of the Desert Fathers, 3.3

Last night I was honored to participate in a panel discussion at the Acton Institute (my employer) that discussed the art of Margaret Vega, a professor at Kendall College of Art and Design here in Grand Rapids, MI. The subject of my contribution was “Death and the Struggle for Permanence.” Given the many ascetic commendations of meditating on the day of one’s death in the Christian tradition (see above), I figured that it might be of interest to readers at Everyday Asceticism as well. The full text, with some light editing, is below: Continue reading →

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The Ladder of Humility: Step 11

Filed under: Humility, Silence
February 23, 2014

The eleventh degree of humility is, when a monk discourses with moderation and composure, mixing humility with gravity; speaking few words, but home, and to the purpose; not raising the voice. “The wise man is known because he speaks little.”

~ Rule of St. Benedict, 7

This step of the ladder immediately reminds me of a saying from the Tao Te Ching:

He who knows does not speak;
He who speaks does not know.

Indeed, across cultures the saying is true: “The wise man is known because he speaks little.” While it may disturb some that I would immediately think of a text from another religion, it is worth noting that St. Benedict here is quoting the Sentences of Sextus, a compilation of Christianized Pythagorean proverbs. As St. Justin put it, “whatever has been well said by anyone belongs to us”—for in the Logos, whose humility we are seeking to imitate through St. Benedict’s ladder, is “the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world” (John 1:9). Continue reading →

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Psalm 14 in Rhyme, with Commentary

Filed under: Poetry, Praise
December 13, 2013

[I]f we have the same attitudes of heart wherein the Psalmist wrote or sang his psalms, we shall become like the authors and be aware of the meaning before we have thought it out instead of after. The force of the words strikes us before we have rationally examined them. And when we use the words, we remember, by a kind of meditative association, our own circumstances and struggles, the results of our negligence or earnestness, the mercies of God’s providence or the temptations of the devil, the subtle and slippery sins of forgetfulness or human frailty or unthinking ignorance. All these feelings we find expressed in the psalms. We see their texts reflected in the clear glass of our own moral experience. And with that experience to teach us, we do not hear the words so much as discern the meaning intuitively. We will not merely recite them like texts committed to memory, but bring them out from the depths of the heart as an expression of moral reality.

~ Abba Isaac in The Conferences of St. John Cassian, 10.11

The saying of the psalms is central to Orthodox monastic piety. And the Divine Liturgy and other services are full of verses and references to the psalms. I used to have quite a few memorized, 14 or 15, but now what I remember is more like 5 or 6. Reciting the few I retain is still part of my daily rule though—such “meditative association” can be highly beneficial to the soul. Continue reading →

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