Appalachian Orthodox Chant

Appalachian Orthodox Chant

Just a fascinating video description I found, written presumably by an American Orthodox Christian. Well worth the read:

"A snippet from "God Is With Us," an ancient Orthodox hymn based on the prophecy of Isaiah, chanted here in traditional Appalachian Bluegrass style. It's wonderful because it sounds ancient yet has an authentically Americana sound. Orthodoxy never subverts the cultures it comes across, but rather grafts the wholesome elements of those cultures onto Holy Tradition to give glory to God. In an age where Protestant and Catholic churches in America are hemorrhaging people, Orthodoxy is slowly growing, and this particular hymn provides a hopeful glimpse at what genuine American Orthodoxy could be. This actually makes me feel really patriotic. America has a great sin; a kind of prelest born out of its rejection of monarchy. The forefathers had their reasons and their good intentions for rejecting it, but they had an ignorance of the Orthodox understanding of the symbolic need for a submission to monarchal hierarchy, and the Protestant individualism that ensued has led to the present relativism, which could potentially be our demise. America stands in a quite ambiguous place. But God, who mercifully "desireth not that the sinner should die, but turn from his wicked ways and live," sees our good intentions and knows that America, despite our long-foolhardy ignorance of the Orthodox way, has always called upon the name of Jesus Christ. And maybe, for that, He could forgive us."

Here's the video if ur interested:

I particularly love the respect and love for good parts of American culture (which absolutely do exist), and the hope embodied in the overall message. I'm not orthodox and certainly no monarchist, but I think anyone can see that rampant individualism has made us angry, divided, and lost people. I hope you can take something away from it even if you don't agree with it all. Some beautiful and relevant prose there. Despite everything, God is truly with us. He is slow to anger and rich in love.

Does anyone know any good media (fiction books or movies/tv) with realistic/healthy portrayals of a Christian (or at least Godly) marriage or relationships?

Just became aware that most of my idea of what a relationship looks like comes from not exactly edifying sources.

Stuff like the chosen!

On Sanity

Chesterton has already pointed this out, but I was struck anew today after talking with a robin and feeling wind in my hair, that it was the irrational, not the rational, that makes us sane.

To love, to befriend, to laugh, to think philosophically, to write, to play, to dream. Poetry, music, dancing, nature. As I watched the sunset and whistled, feeling more sane than I ever had in my weeks of studying for exams, I remembered it is the neglect of these that leads to madness. For it is not the dancers and florists who go mad, but mathematicians and chess grandmasters.

Aquinas says that the nature of a human is to be a rational animal. He said that, of course, to distinguish us from animals. Unlike them we have the power to reason, and it is a terrible power and beautiful responsibility. But even Aquinas from his ivory tower doesn't dare eliminate the animal inside us.

There is something deep in the bones of our nature quite apart from rationality. We are animals still, and we must love that. The primal, the guttural, the free and the wild. This too makes us human.

Bonhoeffer, writing in Weimar Germany, talks about how one can live a comfortable, secular, Bourgeoisie life whilst still being respectable and 'Christian'!

Not so anymore! There is much secularism must answer for, but I will say this in its defence - it will eradicate the normal, respectable, dead Christian. "Churchianity", cultural Christianity, and nominalism are all dying rapid deaths amidst secularisms' derision, lies, mockery, and cultural persecution.

More and more these days, if someone tells you openly they are a Christian they bloody well mean it.

Praise God!

Desperately need a book set in the fens of old England, following a family's experience of the enclosure act and industrial revolution ripping their community and way of life apart over the course of maybe a century, perhaps with a time skip to their descendants living in the now dry, industrial, unrecognisable Norfolk. Maybe with a hopeful glimmer at the end or something.

Seriously. This setting is incredible I don't know why more people's imagination aren't captured by this. People lived in cottages miles apart and used stilts to walk across swampland between homes, most were subsistence herders. Think of the folklore, the culture, the community, the oral, ancient practices still alive in that strange land. And this is only what, 400 years ago?

England had 'natives' once. And what happened to them is happening to all the other natives still left around the world.

It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine.’

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed