Peppermint Winter

This is officially my new favorite pop Christmas song. 

...And then Facepalm

Sometimes you do things because you have to. You ask questions you already know the answer to because you have to. The answer comes. It's exactly what you thought it would be.

And then you

and do what you need to do in spite of people, places, and things. It has nothing to do with being kind or nice or anything of that sort. It's just that you have to and why expect anything different?

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

Even Hitler Liked Dogs

I fail miserably at this sometimes. There are times when I try so hard to remember good things about people but sometimes I just cannot. Heck there are sometimes I just will not. I don't know why exactly. I mean, even Hitler was kind to dogs, right? That was something somewhat decent about the man. I could think about how he was a better dog-trainer than I will ever be.

Does it mean I have to like him as a human being?

These are the things I think about late at night. Some folks I can think good things about--they are better teachers, better librarians, better students...But then some folks I can't come up with anything at all and that kind of bothers me. So how do I get around that to recalling anything decent about them?

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner

Relevant Reading
St. Tikhon of Zadonsk
Heel, Hitler

Systematic Theology

I love theology. I love dogmatics and doctrine. I love knowing the whys and wherefores of my faith. As I journeyed to Orthodoxy over the years, a lot of my understanding of the doctrines of the faith came from reading the Fathers of the Church and the great theologians in a piecemeal fashion. That is, as I encountered something within the Church, I went to these sources to discover where it came from. I never read in any systematic fashion, but I just nibbled here and there off the sides of what is a HUGE cake. 

Mice Eating Cake

I think I may have found a way to remedy my scattershot knowledge of the works of the Fathers of the Church. There is a website (there is always a website) by a couple of Protestant laymen who came up with the formula that if one reads seven pages a day for seven years, you can read the Fathers. All of them.

Seven pages a day is not a lot. At least not for me.  I can read seven pages of just about anything in no time at all. And I've done a lot of things over the past seven years that took a heck of a lot more time out of my day. The writings are available free online as well. It's a win-win situation.

So this is my new project. I like having intellectual projects. I got my Masters degree after all. I would LOVE to be able to turn this into a career in a theological library. 

So here I go again!

Relevant Reading

Read the Fathers

Early Church Fathers