[Ancient Faith Radio; October 2, 2008]
Frederica Mathewes-Green: Today is a Sunday, and I am in Holy Ascension OCA Church in Mt.
Pleasant, South Carolina, right outside of Charleston. This is a very unusual
church building. This was just consecrated last May, and I am speaking with the
architect, Andrew Gould. You look to me like quite a young man, Andrew. Is this
your first church building?
[Ancient Faith Radio; September 11, 2008]
On the day after the tragedy on September 11th, 2001 I had an appointment for confession, so I drove down from Baltimore to meet with my spiritual father, Fr. George Calciu in his church, Holy Cross church, in Alexandria Virginia. And on the way, I went through Washington and even passed the Pentagon, and really didn’t know what I would find on that Wednesday, September 12th. It was not congested, the city was not congested and it felt pretty peaceful as I drove along. I went past the Pentagon and could see they were trying to conceal the damage which was actually on the other side of the building from the road, but they were already getting things in place to begin to seal up that big opening on the building and do what needed to be done to rebuild it. All along that part of I-95 where you could kind of crane your head around and see the damage to the Pentagon, the cars were moving very, very slowly, just a few miles an hour.
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 28, 2008]
Frederica Mathewes-Green: Here I am, I’m in Anchorage, Alaska. My first visit to Alaska, this completes my visiting fifty states. This is my fiftieth state, so it’s wonderful to be here at last. I am on the grounds of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, speaking to Steven Alvarez, who is- what is your role here at the center?
Steven Alvarez: I am Director of Strategic Initiatives and Media.
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 21, 2008]
I am in Anchorage, Alaska, a beautiful beautiful place, attending the Eagle River Institute. I am one of the speakers here, along with Fr. Michael Dahulich, who is the Dean of St. Tikhon’s Seminary. And this is sort of a series of study days that begins every year on August the 1st, and runs through August the 5th, and culminates with the feast of the Transfiguration. After that, many people go down to Kodiak to venerate the relics of St. Herman, and if the weather is fortunate, if the weather is agreeable, also to make a pilgrimage to Spruce Island. So we’re hoping that the weather will be with us and that my husband and I will be able to make that pilgrimage as well.
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 15, 2008]
My mother lives far from me, many states away; it takes me about twelve or thirteen hours to drive there. So I don’t get there that often. I usually fly down about once a month. I didn’t used to go that often, but she had emergency surgery last January, and ever since then she’s been in a nursing home, and her mind is a little fuzzier than it used to be. She’s never quite gotten her strength back, never gotten on her feet again. Eighty-two years old, and it’s hard to foresee what the future holds. At present it looks like she just might continue being in that nursing home. I’m grateful that my two sisters live closer, so they can go there frequently, and one of them goes every day.
[Ancient Faith Radio; August 8, 2008]
I’m looking at an icon of the Transfiguration—and it’s beautiful. Now, you’ve seen icons of the Transfiguration. You can imagine what it looks like. In the center, there’s an image of Christ transfigured in white robes, light streaking from Him. He is standing in an oval that is blue, it comes to a lighter shade of blue on the edges, and that’s meant to suggest a full-body halo. It’s called a mandorla, these large sort of oval halos. And, of course, on the left and right are Elijah and Moses speaking to Him. In these images they have their hands raised, sort of like philosophers, as they’re talking to Him. And around and beneath Him are scattered James and John and Peter, falling on their faces in awe at this amazing scene that they’re witnessing.
[Ancient Faith Radio; July 31, 2008]
FMG: Today I am at the Sheptytsky Institute Study Days at St. Paul University in Ottawa, Ontaria, Canada. This is the Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky Institute for Eastern Christian Studies, and I’m talking to the director of the Institute here, Fr. Stephen—can you pronounce your last name, please?
[Ancient Faith Radio; July 3, 2008]
Not too long ago, I was talking to somebody about something I thought, and he said, “Huh, that’s interesting. You should do a podcast on that.” So, here I am. I was talking about the phenomenon of what democracy means in America. And I think that we live here, we grew up in it, and we don’t really recognize it because it’s just part of our basic thinking.
[Ancient Faith Radio; May 28, 2008]
Today I wanted to touch on a couple podcasts from the past, one recent, one a little longer ago, because I’ve had some other interactions since those podcasts were posted, and it’s given me some more to think about.
One is the very recent one, about light and darkness. I got an email from someone who said, You know, I always pictured that before creation, God was in darkness; that darkness came first, because after all, it says that when God was creating the heavens and the earth, in the beginning of Genesis, Genesis 1: “The earth was without form and void, darkness was upon the face of the deep, God said, ‘Let There be Light’, and there was light”. I always thought that since he had to create light, that the first thing was actually darkness.
[Ancient Faith Radio; January 30, 2008]
There was a time, back in May of 2006, when The da Vinci Code movie was just about to come out, and then did come out and cause a lot of consternation among Christians of every description, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox—controversy about this whole phenomenon, the terrifically popular pop novel, The Da Vinci Code, and the high profile Hollywood movie that was made of that book. And a lot of worry about how can we respond to something that seems to be grasping the imagination of so many people, when you can hardly engage it; the basic ideas are so preposterous that it doesn’t have any historic grounding, you don’t know how to grapple with it.
