Apparently GIPHY doesn’t work …

I’d like to set expectations … I’m terrible at banter for 2 reasons: (first) No one watched soccer growing up, so I’m just happy to meet someone who watches EPL, and (b) I end up looking like Will Ferrell from Kicking and Screaming.

The Holy Spirit directed me to take solace in St. Joseph the Betrothed. Unfamiliar with specifics, I discovered his feast day was Dec 31 for 2023.

Full disclosure: I found this depiction after my dad died suddenly Dec 31, 2022. During a moment of grief in Mar 2023, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper about Jesus’ grief after losing his earthly father …

–The wounding of estrangement
–The wounding of a return to an historic oppressor
–The wounding of finding means to support family in foreign land.
–The color scheme has struck me — why is most everything warm, but the Lily?
–what does the directional gaze of each person mean?

In general? Too many thoughts!

In concert with your reflections?
–The silence of Joseph within Scripture
–The silent years in Egypt
–The silence from parents who know they are entrusted with the Messiah
–The silence from the infant God
–The wound of leaving your homeland without telling your fam

Reflections: Favorite section was the importance of teleology within Maximian participation — creation is given identity with the Logos at the end. Would’ve liked to hear more on Maximus’ tripartite hallmarks and his use of virtue for the telos of theosis.

Loved how he described that we can then view the world as a theophany of God — the Logos embodies the world and is a new gift 🤌🏼

Creatures participate in God’s energy and not ousia, therefore participation is analogical

Boersma highlights that Maximus had no dissonance claiming that creation is paradoxically and simultaneously ex nihilo and ex Deo 😤

The Evangelical imagination of creation and sin seems to function on a hyper metaphysical dualism (ie Kierk’s IQD). American Evangelicals struggle with privatio boni and participation by extension.

Reflections: I’d be interested to hear commentary on any observation of Evangelical use of participation as it relates to sin — in my observation, this is where Evangelicalism truly mis-appropriates, and their system becomes fraught with inconsistencies …

Notes the Evangelical shift away from epistemics to metaphysics — Boersma seemed to jump in and attribute a mis-appropriation, collectively seem to note out of an interest to recover a particular kind of creationist account.

Reflections: Would love to hear Lance riff on his thoughts regarding the aesthetic of wounding silence in Ivanka Demchuk’s Flight into Egypt

Reflections: would love to hear more on this from Courtney — the national identities of various Orthodox communities has intimidated me from further engagement as an “Other.”

Courtney brought in Florovsky’s personalism and desire for Patristic integration as way to aid Orthodox unity beyond Orientalism vs Slaviophilia (and other nationalistic identities supra-impressed on the adherent).