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20050404 Monday April 04, 2005

Kyriacos Markides: The Mountain of Silence
A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

5 stars (out of 5).

I was in California all last week, and the cross-country flights on Monday and Friday gave me time to finish this splendid book.

At first, I have to say, I found Markides somewhat irritating. He was like a cub reporter following a saint, and I was pleased to be irritated -- on Fr. Maximos's behalf -- at the obvious and simplistic questions, at the secular "doubting Thomas" approach to many of the elder's stories and sayings, at the frequent comparisons to this off-beat charismatic healer or that far-away guru du jour.

But once I got into the thick of the book (which, at 272 pages, isn't all that thick), I began to appreciate two things. First, that Markides's questions were clearly not simply his own, but were on behalf of the likely majority of his readers who would have exactly the same questions. This is not a book written for "Orthodox cognoscenti", but for lay people of any tradition. It assumes no prior familiarity with the Athonite spiritual tradition -- and from that perspective, it is entirely sucessful in finding and revealing the Orthodox spirituality which is the subject of the search.

The second thing I came to appreciate was the clear organization of the book, which is surely Markides's doing, since unedited conversations are never this organized. Not with any Orthodox I've ever met. :) (Present company included.) The table of contents is revealed as the curriculum for a comprehensive general introduction to Orthodox faith and spirituality, with each chapter well organized and relatively self-contained. You could do far, far worse than to begin an exploration of the Orthodox Church with Markides and Fr. Maximos as your guides.

The bottom line -- and why I gave this book five stars -- is that it helped me and inspired me to pray. Starting Lent with this book has made it a better Lent (thus far, anyway) than I've had in a few years. It has both comforted and challenged me, both confirmed what I believed and taught me things I never knew. It changed me -- and you can't ask any more of a book than that.

I highly recommend it to anyone, Orthodox or not, beginner or... well, in the company of Fr. Maximos and the elders whose wisdom he shares with us, we're all beginners.

[GET IT]

(2005-04-04 06:51:06.0) Permalink Comments [3]

Trackback URL: http://blogs.sun.com/jsolof/entry/kyriacos_markides_the_mountain_of1
Comments:

THE MOUNTAIN OF SILENCE I'm going to respond to this post, as I'm not sure if there are others. I'll look later and perhaps, you'll get more mail from me. I'm new to this blog stuff. First, I would like to comment that I feel exactly as you did(in April) about the impact it has made on my spiritual focus(quote: It has both comforted and challenged me, both confirmed what I believed and taught me things I never knew. It changed me --). These are my exact feelings too. I felt inspired to pray. To me, the conversations revealed a living force, which we tend to forget about, in our everyday distractions. My heart became focused on the purpose of our existence: to aquire the Holy Spirit. And when our hearts feel that...don't our hearts start yearning to pray? Don't we feel a spiritual surge of faith? It's like we can't stop it. I think the main reason I became aware of it, is because I really got drawn into the conversation. I almost forgot where I was when I was reading. And you're right about Kyriacos' form of writing...he did present it in a way that was meant for us to understand the subject matter. His questions would be the kind I would ask too, but not out of ignorance, but in order to present a ligitimate understanding about the Orthodox faith. I've read many writings of saints and all the Philokalia and they are spiritual treasures, but why did Kyriacos have the ability to help me to understand, finally, what the saints were talking about all these centuries? Now I get it. I really get it. Fr. Maximos' explanations are amazing. Or perhaps, you and I are at a point in our lives where God has allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of theosis: this is the main explanation that I focused on. What else is more valuable in life than to reach the state of theosis(the aquistion of the Holy Spirit)? I've raved about this book to all my friends and on Orthodox chatboards. I've even read it 3 times over, just to absorb all the essencial points(because I have a bad memory and I don't want to forget all the important spiritual points, due to the distractions in my life). It's an amazing revelation. And you're right...we're all beginners. Compared to the spiritual life of these monastics, we have so much to learn. In Christ, Joanna

Posted by Joanna on August 16, 2005 at 11:03 PM EDT #

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Posted by 剪板机 on February 19, 2008 at 10:12 AM EST #

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