Phronema: More Than Having the Right Ideas “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 2:5 There is a word in the Christian East that is difficult to translate. Phronema. We can call it mind. Mindset. Disposition. Consciousness. Way of thinking. Spiritual perception. None of these is wrong. None is enough. Perhaps the difficulty itself tells us something important. Phronema does not describe merely what we think. It describes the place within us fr

When Prayer Becomes a Way of Seeing “The remembrance of Jesus, combined with heartfelt fervor, will destroy all the enchantments of our thoughts.” — St. Hesychios the Priest We usually begin prayer by thinking that prayer is something we do. We set aside time. We say words. We keep a rule. We read the Psalms. We stand before an icon. We invoke the name of Jesus. We become distracted and begin again. All of this is necessary. But after many years another possibility begins to

What the Heart Knows by Suffering “The knowledge of the Cross is concealed in the sufferings of the Cross.” — St. Isaac the Syrian There are things we know only after they have happened to us. Before suffering, we may possess the words. After suffering, we begin to know what they mean. This distinction has become increasingly important to me. For much of our lives we assume that understanding precedes experience. We learn something, comprehend it, and then perhaps apply it. T

When Repentance Ceases to Be Fear “Repentance is the trembling of the soul before the gate of Paradise.” — St. Isaac the Syrian There is a kind of repentance that leaves us staring at ourselves. We examine our failures. We measure our guilt. We rehearse what we have done. We wonder whether God has forgiven us, whether we have repented sufficiently, whether some hidden severity remains behind the mercy we have been promised. God may be present in such repentance, but often at

Sitting at the Feet of the Ascetics The heart does not learn the language of God by mastering ideas, but by dwelling among those who have learned to speak it with their lives. There comes a point when reading the Fathers changes. At first we read them because we want to know what they thought. We underline sentences. We compare translations. We follow arguments. We collect sayings from the desert and passages from the Philokalia. We learn the vocabulary of nous, nepsis, apath

Before Theology Becomes Words How the Christian Life Teaches Us to See “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” — Psalm 33:9 LXX There is a knowledge of God that comes before explanation. Not before revelation. Not before truth. Not before the Church gives us the words by which we confess what has been revealed. But before those words become our own—before theology passes from the lips into the heart—there is often something quieter taking place. We are learning God by living b

When Mercy Becomes the Way We See The heart is changed when mercy ceases to be something we believe about God and becomes the light by which we see everything. “As a grain of sand cannot counterbalance a great quantity of gold, so in comparison God’s use of justice cannot counterbalance His mercy.” — St. Isaac the Syrian ______ The Grammar of the Heart is a nine-part series exploring how prayer, repentance, suffering, and the ascetical tradition gradually form not only what w

How Prayer, Repentance, and Grace Teach Us to See “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” — Matthew 5:8 The Grammar of the Heart is a nine-part series exploring how prayer, repentance, suffering, and the ascetical tradition gradually form not only what we believe about God, but the way the heart learns to see Him. This is the Introduction. _______ There comes a point in the spiritual life when the question is no longer simply what we believe. The question bec