AmericanMom
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Posts posted by AmericanMom
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That sounds awesome! I have heard great things about Dr. Reynolds; I had no idea he was Orthodox though before this.
I called and spoke to the provost and I am very impressed. It is going to be an old-style tutorial system, so they aren't ever going to have more than 16 students in a year and most of the classes are integrated. They already are accredited because they have partnered with King's College in NYC, though this is their first year. Their Board is mostly (or maybe all?) Bishops and priests, and that's in their by laws, I was told, so it will stay Orthodox. The Antiochian diocese out there is involved in it, so it is approved by/affiliated with the Church.
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Hey everyone! Hope you're all well. I haven't been around in a long time, but I wondered if anyone in Texas (or anywhere else) had heard about this. My oldest is a senior and looking at colleges is crazy... He was just born! ;) It looks really interesting and so different. They also have an amazing Board, and a k-12 school.
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the Byzantine Texts were kept in the hands of Christians and were therefore constantly being used. The Byzantine Texts are older than the Alexandrian Texts in wording, but all of the originals were worn out because they were either being read or used to make copies.
Ok this is interesting.
These "Byzantine Christians" who preserved the texts for us were also great missionaries and translated the Bible into many languages, some of which they invented alphabets for so the people they were sharing with could have Bibles in their own languages. This group still exists today and is called (in the West) the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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I vote genetics. All the women in my family have huge babies, working or not. Doing genealogy research, I wondered if that was why so many women on my maternal line died giving birth...
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Looking at the Greek Bible, you will see that the word used here for "are saved" or "are being saved" is σωζομενοις, which is a present passive participle. That means it is an ongoing present passive action. Therefore "are being saved" is a perfectly acceptable - arguably preferable - way of translating it. To say that "are saved" avoids an "unintended" theological distinction is to add personal interpretation. How do we know Paul didn't intend it to mean that? Either translation is accurate, but the interpretation that it is fixed is not. It is ongoing in Greek.
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A lady from my parish has used Scholars Online for her sons - one of whom is in graduate school right now, so it's been around several years. She had only good things to say about it.
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We don't have a curriculum per se, we just teach the Gospel lesson for the day and add in any other important feast or saint days that fall near. We have a teacher paper that our archdiocese (antiochian) puts out with the lesson and some basic starting point questions, each teacher gets one of those for their age level. Other than that, each class does things differently.
My dh teaches the teens (and we have two kids in his class) and he is pretty deep. They go pretty much verse by verse and talk about the Gospel and what it means for them in their lives. He uses notes on the text from somewhere - not sure where he gets those? I'll see if I can find the source.
The younger kids do the same, using the Gospel lesson for the day. I think the middle school class and the upper elementary class do the same as the high school, just in a different level. I have two girls in the UE class and she gives them papers like crosswords and word searches about the Gospel to take home, which my girls love. I don't know if they go over them in class but they always seem to know the lesson well.
I teach the youngest class, mostly pre- and beginning readers. We use a story Bible and talk about the Gospel and they usually color those black and white icon drawings of the Gospel while I read. They ask very insightful questions I think!
We try to incorporate Church teachings in context. For example, if we are beginning a fast, we will talk about that. I tell my kids every week that God wants them to do 2 things- love God and love others. For the little ones, they can learn that, and we can talk about how you love God and others in life. Sometimes they memorize verses too. The parents in my experience want to do things but don't always know what to do. So I try to get the kids to learn the Lord's Prayer and the Trisagion so they can participate more fully in Liturgy. Things like that. We don't do crafts because I'm not crafty, but we do sing, kid songs and liturgy songs. We have an icon shelf in our room and we light a candle and sing "This Little Light of Mine" every week before we start and we put the candle by the icon and I remind them Jesus is our Light. If I forget this, they will always remind me! We usually sing the Trisagion hymn too at the end, and, depending on who is there (we seem to go through cycles where most of the kids in that class are new to the Church) things like how to cross yourself and what to do when you enter the sanctuary and why we light candles.
We do Sunday school for about 30-45 minutes before liturgy, which means late people miss it but the kids get to hear the Gospel lesson that Father will be preaching on at their level and before he preaches, which I think helps them learn better and makes the sermon more meaningful.
O6, that book you mentioned is awesome! Our priest's wife gave it to me to look through and I showed it to my dh and he wants to try to use it somehow in Sunday school. I'm glad you mentioned it, I had forgotten in over the summer. I need to remind him...
About youth fellowship, we have tried to do this at our church, but it is hard during the week because so many families live far away. We just had a back to school retreat, though, where the kids spent the night at the church and had some organized games and lessons and prayers and then the next day went to someone's house to swim and cook out and play games. That went well, I think. Because everyone drives so far, people tend to stay for lunch after, and we have a "teen table" where the kids hang out together during/after lunch. We've talked about getting together with the nearest other OC, different jurisdiction, and do some pan-Orthodox fun stuff, but it hasn't happened yet. PJ, I agree with you that it is important for them to have other Orthodox friends. Everything in this world is trying to tear them away from God and the Church. Friends can make a big difference.
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The Orthodox Church does NOT believe in Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
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I am in the Deep South, and my church is about 75% converts. We have all kinds of people - Americans of every race and foreigners from all over.
Only a couple of women cover, but they are converts, not people who grew up Orthodox, ironically. Mostly skirts and nice pants on Sundays, less formal during the week.
I would check out the church website to see what people are dressed like.
When I first went to an Orthodox Church, I felt like I'd gone back in time. It was quite shocking to me. But it wasn't the dress or the language, which was English. It was the Liturgy. It's difficult for me to put it into words. I guess I felt like I stood out like a sore thumb, but I really didn't, it's just that I was so out of my comfort zone, if that makes sense.
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Praying...
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Two days ago a good friend of mine was received into the Church with her whole family and I got to be her sponsor! It was so awesome, watching the whole family come in to the Church together, and it reminded me of my own family's chrismation in 2012, after a year and a half of being inquirers and catechumens. I am so grateful to God for the Church, which provides so much help in this path of becoming like Christ!
And I wanted to say thanks to the patient ladies here (especially a shout-out to Patty Joanna! :seeya:) for answering all my questions and encouraging me along the way!
Thanks!
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His background is LCMS Lutheran - went to one of our universities and everything. (People forget that Lutherans, though Protestant, are still very much sacramental Christians, which I mention, because CiRCE is so very rooted in a sacramental view of Christianity.) I don't know if he still is or not, though.
He is an Orthodox Christian now, I believe.
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Those things would affect the whole service. The singing is likely less than 10 minutes, spread out over the mass.
In my church (Eastern Orthodox), the entire service is sung/chanted. An hour and a half minimum. That's a long time to listen to something jarring. I'd speak to my priest about how distracted I am and ask for spiritual advice on how to overcome it myself. If you think it's that bad, and others do too, it's likely the priest knows as well and he is allowing it to continue for some reason you may not be aware of. But he can give you advice on how to overcome and focus yourself.
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I picked up a recipe booklet in the line at the grocery store that was vegetarian crock pot recipes and it has been a treasure! Easy meals with healthy ingredients that cook themselves. About half of them have no dairy either.
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My kids have had to use it in factoring. It's a quick way to see if 9 is a factor of a big number, along with the other tricks for other numbers, and I don't allow calculators until algebra 1, and then only for super messy numbers. There are lots of times a calculator is slower than mental math, in real world problem solving. Just my two cents, I know I am pretty old fashioned. But my father can solve most complicated math problems in his head faster than I can get out a calculator and plug in the numbers, and it keeps one's brain exercised as well. My dh is faster than my calculator too, though not quite as fast as my father. I didn't get quite that good an education in mental math, but I want that for my kids. He was in one of those tiny country schools a long time ago where they had to do compound interest problems in their heads and such. Amazing.
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We have two or three churches that are closer than our current parish, but we chose it when we started exploring for a lot of reasons. We had been there before with friends and knew the priest and his wife. There are kids there my kids' age. It is a very special place as far as the people, hard to explain, but every one who goes there just says you can't help but feel the love. We are also at this point use to the style (Antiochian). But I've been to other Antiochian, Greek, ROCOR, OCA, and Carpatho Russian, and I think if we moved I could go anywhere. It would depend more on the parish itself more than the jurisdiction I think.
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What PJ said about volume of work and inflexibility is what hit my ds the hardest this year. That, and having a mean teacher that just plain did not like him. It was unpleasant at times, but it was definitely a learning experience. After the semester was over, he was so glad he'd never have to have her again (he wasn't the only one!), and I waited a whole day before I reminded him he was going to have to work on forgiveness now! Lol
Have you heard anything about the school yet?
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Welcome!
I was trying to remember why the 12 Things article freaked me out when I first read it years and years ago, so I went back and looked at it. Yep, it was the kissing! Ironically, I am okay with it now for icons and crosses and Bibles, but I still have to make myself not shrink away when greeting other women after church! Everyone is all kissy and I am just a scotch Irish Appalachian girl and we aren't the kissy type! lol Am I the only one?
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Glorify Him!
Welcome!
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Another funny thing about St. John of Kronstadt. Last night at service I looked to my right from where we always are, always, for 2 1/2 years, and right there at eye level to me was a bright blue (how could I have missed it before?!?) icon of St. John! Turns out we have a relic of his in our church! I think Someone is trying to tell me something. Off to try to figure out what it is!
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Alenee, yes parenting is so hard! I hope your daughter did well on her test!
Thanks for the prayers! My son did alright in finals. Not spectacular but okay. If he'd aced all of them he could have made three A's and a B, but ended up with two A's, one B, and one C. (block scheduling so four classes this semester and four different ones next semester.) He said he learned a lot about managing himself, we'll see if it sticks! He is technically on academic probation for the C, but as long as he doesn't make another next semester it doesn't really matter.
Someone mentioned upthread about St. John of Kronstadt. Funny thing, my second son's sponsor gave him an icon of him and a book about him for Christmas last night! I will definitely be reading that over the break. It seems to me he must have something to say to our family...
Praying for all!
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Good luck! Keep us updated!
I know what you mean about gushy... You know what I did? I kept track of all the things he had done and made him a "homeschool k-8 yearbook" and gave it to him before he started high school. I am not terribly crafty, but I bought one of those big scrapbooks and did two page spreads for each year or two, hitting the highlights. I had pictures of him playing sports, or in theater, or when he got his first guitar, or with his dog, and family trips we took, and other fun things he did, ribbons for swim team, etc. Our chrismation photos were in there too. It was a good way for me to process him going to school, too!
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Merry Christmas to all!
Christ is born!
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Patty Joanna, Yes that is the promise I have clinged to this semester, that He is faithful even when I am not! I tell myself I did the best I could, but I see so many mistakes I've made it's hard to really believe that sometimes...
I found a saint that is commemorated on his birthday: St. Oswald, an Anglo Saxon king I'd never heard of before but whose story was so good I read it to my son this morning before he left and I could tell it made an impression on him. He was a soldier-king who was in exile as a youth and had to fight to win his own kingdom back again as a young man, but had a real heart to spread the Gospel and take care of the poor as well. Without going into too many details, this is just the kind of example this child needs right now. God is good.
This entire opiod backlash is really upsetting me right now.
in The Chat Board
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It stinks that the abusers are affecting people who are truly in need.
Around here, pharmacists are overwhelmed with abusers and doctors are prescribing it frequently. In my own family, we have had to refuse narcotic prescriptions four times. Doctors are afraid of people being in pain and blaming them I guess? Once for a gum graft and once for neck pain for myself, I had to finally say I will not accept that prescription because I won't fill it and the street value is very high - I didn't even want the prescription in my home. My husband had back pain and they kept trying to give it to him and he refused. He had to insist on an epidural, which he had before and it worked great. My son had his wisdom teeth out and they would not take no for an answer - they insisted he take it in case he changed his mind so "the doctor wouldn't have to get a weekend call to prescribe it". So we accepted it then tore it up. They didn't like it. But they push it on people around here. We have a family member who got addicted to a narcotic after neck pain and ruined her life and her husband's and children's lives too. It has a valid purpose, but it is so unbelievably over-prescribed here, it is crazy. Why try to push it on us when we are saying our pain is manageable? The doctor with my neck injury argued with me about my own pain! I just wanted a prescription for physical therapy.
If it were my mother, I would try a different pharmacy - they all have different rules. I hope she gets the relief she needs. It's a crazy world...