Failing at the Jesus Prayer

· Lynnette Horner 2 Leave a Comment on %s
No matter where we go in the Orthodox Christian world—books, podcasts, blogs, sermons, monastery road trips—somebody is mentioning the Jesus Prayer.   It’s ubiquitous. Sometimes it’s referred to as simply “The Prayer,” and everyone knows exactly which prayer that means. It is one of many tools the Church has provided us for spiritual growth and for living an Orthodox life. These tools include making the sign of the cross, establishing a prayer…

Pondering the Nativity Icon

· Lynnette Horner
[Note to readers: I was really struggling with cropping images in WordPress, so I gave up. I apologize that I was not able to include more close-ups. But you can search for an icon of the Nativity of Our Lord on your device to see these things.] We’re past the midpoint of the Nativity fast, and I’m enjoying the twinkle lights while fasting from certain foods with varying levels of success. Increasing…

DIY Christianity versus Sacramental Faith

· Lynnette Horner 4 Leave a Comment on %s
[This episode is adapted from the Walking an Ancient Path blog post “A Family of Faith, Spiritual and Real,” published on October 23, 2019] I was standing in the lunch line about 12 years ago at a Christian writers’ conference, chatting with a former professional comic. I asked him about his church, and he told me that he and his wife often attend “Bedside Baptist” on Sunday mornings. It took me a…

A Countercultural Christmas Carol

· Lynnette Horner
[This is an updated version of a blog post from 2018] Are you thinking about Christmas right now? I know I’m not. For once I have done quite a bit of advance shopping, but that’s so I can pack gifts in my bag when I go to visit my daughter and son-in-law in a few days. It’s mostly a matter of time management—it’s certainly not a spiritual exercise. The stores have been…

The Experience of an Orthodox Christian Death & Burial

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We’ve covered a lot of ground in this miniseries on death and burial for Orthodox Christians. As I’ve put together these posts, I’ve experienced a level of sadness that I wasn’t expecting. Not sadness about death itself, although death is unnatural and a result of the Fall. Instead, I’ve felt grief about the things that have been lost in the Christian West, such as our understanding of the sacredness of the human…

Preparing for Death with End-of-Life Planning

· Lynnette Horner
You must not be greatly troubled about many things, but you should care for the main thing—preparing yourself for death. — St. Ambrose of Optina In our previous post I promised that next time we would look at the care of the body in death and learn about the Orthodox funeral service. But I decided to save that for our fourth and final post in this mini-series. Because before we get there,…

The Sanctity of the Human Body & the Church’s Stance on Cremation

· Lynnette Horner
Quick announcement: Walking an Ancient Path is available in both blog and podcast formats. The blog has been hosted on the ancientfaith.com website for almost five years now, but Ancient Faith Ministries will shut down its entire blog platform on October 1st. I will continue the blog by migrating it over to a Facebook business page. I have a very short time to figure all that out, but I hope to have…

Remembrance of Death and “Celebrations of Life”

· Lynnette Horner 11 Leave a Comment on %s
News flash: Before we get to today’s topic, I want to tell you about a new book that I’m very excited about. Yesterday Ancient Faith Publishing released Behold a Great Light: A Daily Devotional for the Nativity Fast through Theophany. Some of you may not know that I’m an editor at Ancient Faith, and at Christmastime about two years ago I started thinking about how the Orthodox approach to Christmas is so…

Stumbling Stones on the Orthodox Road: The Veneration of Relics

· Lynnette Horner
Last time I promised an interview with my hubby Rob about our bumpy road to Orthodox Christianity. Well, we recorded the podcast version but had numerous technical problems, including a thunderstorm, a scared doggo whose fast panting in response to thunder showed up on the recording, a recurring buzzing sound, and volume control issues. After numerous delays and attempts to edit and fix the recording, we set both blog post and podcast…

Kinda Sorta Almost Orthodox

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Recently I received an email from someone who listens to the podcast version of Walking an Ancient Path. The listener wrote, Thank you for hosting this podcast! I’ve been listening since last year this time. It’s been very helpful in navigating my personal questions and struggles. My husband would like to convert to Orthodoxy, and I’ve been “looking into it” for about 2 years now. My husband won’t convert unless I’m fully…

Otherworldly Music & Pop-Culture Christianity

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I still remember a particular summer morning. Rob and I had discovered the Orthodox Church a few months earlier, toward the end of Great Lent, and had begun attending OCA services and talking to people from the parish during coffee hour. The Orthodox Christian Church was ancient but very new to me, and I was intrigued, edified by her consistent teachings, and drawn by the palpable sense of holiness in the services.…

Getting Used to the Physical Aspects of Prayer

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A couple of months ago my hubby Rob contracted shingles. It was definitely not an experience he would recommend to anybody. Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox, and it runs along nerve pathways. Rob said his rash wasn’t itchy but felt more like a bruise or maybe a burn—very sensitive to the touch. The sensation of his shirt touching the skin on his left side was exceedingly…