J.D. Salinger and the Jesus Prayer

By John Sanidopoulos

The famous American novelist J.D. Salinger, is most famous for his best-selling classic The Catcher In The Rye, which gave us one of the great icons of teenage angst in the 1950's. Less known is a book he wrote a few years later and published after he retired into seclusion in Cornish, New Hampshire, which is titled Franny and Zooey. Franny and Zooey is a book many credit with first introducing them to both the Jesus Prayer and the Russian tale The Way of a Pilgrim, which is essentially an introduction to The Philokalia. It is a modern American tale that explores the path from existential depression to spiritual illumination, and in this way serves as a conclusion (or remedy) to The Catcher In The Rye, whose main character's teenage existential angst lands him in a mental hospital (which could be why it has been so loved by the insane of our time such as Mark David Chapman, for whom the main character Holden Caulfield was a hero, and John Hinckely Jr). Franny and Zooey is not an Orthodox book, as it more corresponds to a Zen Buddhist form of philosophy, but it does have some worthwhile moments. Its significance for English speaking Orthodox is that it may be the first time the method of the Jesus Prayer and the book The Way of a Pilgrim were exposed to millions throughout the world.

Are There Dangers in Being 'Spiritual But Not Religious'?

Are There Dangers in Being 'Spiritual But Not Religious'?

By John Blake

June 3, 2010

CNN

"I'm spiritual but not religious."

It's a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don't need organized religion to live a life of faith.

But for Jesuit priest James Martin, the phrase also hints at something else: selfishness.

"Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness," says Martin, an editor at America, a national Catholic magazine based in New York City. "If it's just you and God in your room, and a religious community makes no demands on you, why help the poor?"

Christ the Artist

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

An artist is one who, from crude and shapeless stone, carves and shapes forms similar to living creatures. An artist is one who weaves a multi-colored blanket from the wool of sheep. An artist is one who builds a magnificent palace out of earthly bricks. But what kind of artist on earth can be compared to Christ the Artist, who from illiterate men creates wise men, who from fishermen creates apostles, who from cowards creates heroes, who from the immoral creates saints?

Man's Creative Power and the Knowledge of God

By Elder Sophrony of Essex

Many-sided is the image of God in man. Man's creative power is one aspect, manifesting itself in various spheres and branches of culture - civilization, art, science, and so forth. This creative power does not rest here but continues to transcend the visible and temporal in its striving to attain to the origin of all that exists - God the Creator.