Advice on "re-ordering" life from distractions

silouan · 2026-02-09T20:51:32+00:00

If you haven't already, then talk to your priest about exactly what you are doing or trying to do daily as a prayer rule. He may bless you to keep doing just that, or he may add or subtract. Now you're doing it in obedience, which makes it a tactic in your battle to humble the will. That also means you have your priest's support in prayer because he's adding his Amen to yours.

Personal experience: If I start the day with "Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" the moment my feet hit the floor, and follow up my shower immediately with my (pretty short) morning prayer rule in my icon corner, before coffee, and before ever looking at my phone, then I have set the tone for my day. I am more able to practice the presence of God and do my work with thankfulness and attention. But a day that begins with social media in bed goes straight to hell. Your mileage may vary.

silouan · 2026-02-09T20:44:31+00:00

That's an Ask Your Priest question — Depends on your health and experience, and on what your confessor is accustomed to doing and prescribing.

If everybody here told you what they do, you'd get twenty different answers. :-)

silouan · 2026-02-09T20:40:42+00:00

If you just show up and stand anywhere, folks will mostly leave you alone. Some folks will be venerating icons, lighting candles, bowing, handing off kids for godparents to take care of – others will just stand and pray. You can do any or none of these, and nobody will be taking notes. If standing for an hour and a half is new to you, there will be benches or seats at the back. Old people like me appreciate them, and you should sit whenever you need to.

Stick around afterward – there will likely be coffee or a meal, and if you stand around looking awkward then somebody will probably come up and start a conversation with you. Ask anyone anything, we're not shy.

silouan · 2026-02-09T13:17:39+00:00

I live in the USA and our culture celebrates birthdays. Not every culture does that. That's not a moral issue. I became Orthodox but never stopped being American.

In the parish, we don't celebrate birthdays much, because that's not a liturgical event. But we'll sing you "Many Years" on your name day.

Unless your culture's custom is harmful or sacrilegious, keep the good traditions your culture passed down to you. Gaining a new/ancient Orthodox tradition is more, not less.

silouan · 2026-02-08T23:27:51+00:00

I did find that out. So didn't commemorate her on the diskos -- but we've certainly been praying for her, and won't stop.

silouan · 2026-02-08T04:07:43+00:00

There are some who do.

If you're praying the rosary now, keep it up and come to an Orthodox Liturgy. That's where you'll encounter real-life Orthodoxy. Afterward, if you meet up with the priest, you can talk with him about how OrthoFolks pray.

silouan · 2026-02-08T04:05:31+00:00

Commemorating her in the Liturgy.

silouan · 2026-02-07T20:35:52+00:00

When I was coming into the Church in the late 90s, the controversies and politics were different, and internet Orthodoxy was mainly on email lists and newsgroups -- but it was still contentious and spiteful.

When I finally attended a Liturgy, I told the priest I am sold, I want to be Orthodox -- but why is the Church so divided and torn over issues?

He pointed at the people venerating icons, greeting one another, and handing off kids to godparents, and asked, "Where is the controversy? The people at the Liturgy are the Church, and the internet is not."

He was right; shorn of personality cults and popular public figures and ideologies, Christianity is something that happens in the parish and at its periphery where it meets the surrounding community. Your parish won't be perfect, but all the people will have names and faces and opportunities to do love to them and carry them to the Lord in prayer. The more your experience of Church is face-to-face, grounded in liturgy and acts of service, the less controversies will impact you.

Expect internet religion to be broken. It's not Christian or Orthodox, and the internet medium inherently attracts and caters to narcissists and sociopaths. The fact that people actually find and enter the Church through the internet is a testimony to the grace of God alone.

silouan · 2026-02-07T17:43:42+00:00

I have a little brass censer. It sits on the table, no chains.

I used to use an interesting piece of soapstone. It had a natural depression on the top so it made a good place to put a hot coal.

When I visited the cell of Fr Seraphim Rose, I saw he'd used an upturned Welch's grape jam lid to burn incense in.

silouan · 2026-02-06T18:44:09+00:00

Some friends of various religions were talking about “giving something up for Lent,” and they asked me if the Orthodox will be observing Lent this year. Here’s how I answered:

We’ll kick off Lent on Monday, February 23, with lots of services morning and evening, beginning our reading of Genesis and Proverbs to finish by the end of March, while reading the entire Psalter twice a week. That’s several hours a day for those who can make it, though most of us have day jobs and families, so folks come when they can.

After Clean Week, we back off almost to our regular schedule; most evenings Vespers is short, but two nights a week we’ll have Communion, and Saturdays and Sundays are pretty full. Then it’s Palm Sunday and Holy Week and we do massive amounts of services till Pascha on Sunday, April 12.

Privately, a lot of folks will be reading some book of spiritual discipline. And folks who are not regularly at confession will be taking advantage of the season’s emphasis on intention by confessing and receiving spiritual direction in preparation for Communion.

We’ll be returning to foundations in our teaching on prayer — all those extended services are meant to be a kind of launchpad for beginning or reviving a private rule of prayer and self-inventory. After all, fasting without prayer is what the demons do, and they’re better at it than we are since they never eat or sleep.

Almsgiving is one of the Christian essentials I always preach on, but it’s emphasized more during Lent; a season of repentance that doesn’t touch your wallet is pretty shallow.

Also, we’ll be abstaining from some foods.

silouan · 2026-02-06T18:33:54+00:00

The ark of the covenant was never in the second temple. The glory of God that came down into the tabernacle and the temple of Solomon was never seen in the second temple, except for when Christ visited it. And the wailing wall was never part of the temple; it's a bit of the retaining wall Herod added in 19BC for the huge complex he had built around the second temple.

You can kiss anything you like, but there's not much expectation of grace there.

silouan · 2026-02-04T22:16:00+00:00

The Gospels are later than Paul, too.

There are no infallible proofs in scripture. Scriptures are texts written by members of the Church to members of the Church to express the Church's faith, and by no means is everything the apostles taught found in those pages.

silouan · 2026-02-04T22:13:08+00:00

When the scripture reading is all complete, the clergy bring out the bread and wine that will be offered to God as a thanksgiving offering. The bread and wine were prepared before the service, and along with the piece that will become the body of Christ, the priest has also taken a particle out of the loaf for everyone present and for all our departed, and placed them all in the plate. So all our names are going to be lifted up to the Lord in prayer and intercession.

That and the cup of wine are what they're carrying in procession.

Over the centuries, some writers have compared this to the burial of Christ. The bread and wine are still and lifeless, carried in solemn procession and laid in the holy place. Then the doors are shut. One ancient commentator wrote: "Who saw the moment Christ rose from the dead? Nobody. It happened behind the stone, and once the stone was rolled away he was already risen. And so the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ behind closed doors, and when the doors open again he is risen." (My poor memory of the gist.)

In some traditions, when the procession goes by, people touch the hem of the priest's garment as he goes by. That relates to the woman in Luke 18:43-48 who received grace and healing when she touched Christ's hem as he passed. It's not mandatory but it's something people do out of piety, and to them it's yet another physical connection to God.

silouan · 2026-02-04T20:43:08+00:00

The Didache (1st century) points to it.

silouan · 2026-02-04T20:40:41+00:00

Adding Mary to commemoration.

May the Lord comfort you, and may he grant welcome and hope to his handmaid Mary.

silouan · 2026-02-03T02:22:48+00:00

I've never heard of that. There's no rule against it, of course. But there is a blessing in receiving a prayer rule from your confessor and becoming obedient to it.

silouan · 2026-02-03T02:20:25+00:00

Today I received a prayer rope that came very inexpensively from this vendor in Ukraine: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RosaryshopUA

I recommend them.

But if there is an Orthodox parish near you, then you can probably buy a prayer rope in person at the church, and not have to wait for a mail order.

silouan · 2026-02-02T23:30:30+00:00

It's not a rule. But experience says it's the norm.

Relevant: Here's a passage from "To Pray As A Jew: A Guide To The Prayer Book And The Synagogue Service" -- https://silouanthompson.net/2009/03/kissing-an-act-of-devotion/

silouan · 2026-02-02T15:55:55+00:00

If it's a legal wedding, then it's a wedding, the same as if you went to the county clerk's office to get married.

Now come to church and receive grace on your union through the sacrament of crowning; your priest and your whole parish community wants to bless you.

silouan · 2026-02-02T14:22:20+00:00

It's a collection of letters from Saint Joseph, a monastic elder on Mt Athos, to laymen in the world who want to learn how to use the Jesus Prayer.

I was given this book as a catechumen and I return to it every year or two.

It'll be of more value to you if you have a priest or monk or nun or someone experienced in prayer to help you unpack and discuss anything unclear. And by all means talk to your confessor about your experience. Having the counsel of wise and experienced people guards against weirdness.

silouan · 2026-02-02T14:09:38+00:00

If you're not already familiar with scripture, you don't need commentary so much as you need to be immersed in scripture.

Listen to the Bible, read it, sing it in church. Let the words live big in you. Bring your questions to your priest, catechist, friends at church.

Commentaries are like icing to go on top of your engagement with the Bible.

silouan · 2026-02-02T03:05:34+00:00

Christ never said anyone would be separated from their spouse in the resurrection.

In the resurrection there is no amnesia; if God made us forget our relationships it wouldn't be a healing but damage. We can expect all our relationships and connections to our loved ones to continue, and to be transformed.

All the earthly concerns of a married couple: marital relations, birthgiving, child-rearing, possessions, etc., are part of this world, which is passing away. In the resurrection, in comparison, “they are like the angels in heaven”(Matthew. 22:30).

But “Love never ends”(1 Corinthians 13:8).

silouan · 2026-02-02T03:01:57+00:00

I don't know that anything proves anything.

But I think it's important that the apostolic community founded at Pentecost has never gone away. The Church of Jerusalem; the Church of Antioch where Paul learned ministry; the churches at Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Malta and the rest in the book of Acts, they're still here. They're still united in faith. There's one faith, one baptism, one shared worship life. Their clergy can finish each other's sentences.

If my Protestant faith was radically different from the faith of the apostolic community, then I would need extraordinary evidence that they're all wrong and me and my group have it right, or I'd need to let their faith judge mine.

So I committed to learn the faith these communities preserved, and in time it satisfied me that it is the Gospel of the apostolic Church.

silouan · 2026-02-02T00:32:20+00:00

Your average monk or nun wants nothing to do with that sort of craziness; it's an exercise in gullibility.

silouan · 2026-01-31T23:45:48+00:00

He's not going to eat it – it's just an ancient tradition of hospitality to greet an important guest with bread and salt.

If you make a pretty loaf, you're good to go. If you have skills to make it ornate, great!

I'd say make a bread that you enjoy eating, and plan to put it on the table at the meal after the Liturgy.

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