This year for Lent, I took on the discipline of fasting before the Eucharist. It doesn’t quite rank up there with St Antony of the Desert’s heroic efforts of asceticism, but my spiritual director felt that they would be a good discipline for me. My tendency is to want to take on more, do more, accomplish more, and so any discipline of letting go, of self-denial, is going against the grain for me – and is...
Posted by
Holly Ordway on Feb 28th, 2010 in
Literature |
1 comment
Here’s a question: why do people read the classics? It’s not because they’re “important” in some abstract way; it’s not that they’re “good for you,” like literary vegetables. In truth the real classics, the works that truly have earned a place in the canon, are read because they’re the most satisfying and enjoyable books to read. They are, in the most concise way of putting it, good books....
Two years ago I tried out a low-key Lenten practice (I won’t dignify it with the name of “discipline”). The idea was to keep a “Lenten cupboard”:...
“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” – C.S. Lewis, Preface to The Screwtape Letters.
Let me be clear: the year is 2010, and the Enemy is real. Not a metaphor for “negativity” or some other waffle-word, but a real, conscious spiritual...
In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul gives us a bracing challenge: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”...
Dr Holly Ordway came to Christ through reason, in the pursuit of truth. "In your hearts honor Christ as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 15).
Her book, "Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith," is forthcoming from Moody Publishers in May 2010.
