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No but I've remixed hexagonal sleeping while playing the fool. Next question?Welcome!
Have you mastered circular breathing when playing the didgeridoo?
I'm not exactly sure how that would help, since Melbourne is 1,706 kilometres from where I live. But if they know some people from this area, then maybe something could be arranged at some point...? I really have no idea what to do with that little bit of info you've given, sorry.
Hmm.... That depends on which "journey" you're speaking of! [lol] Are you asking about my journey towards/into Orthodoxy, or are you just asking about my journey along the path of my life in general? Or a combination of both?
Well, you know, it's kind of funny, but even though I've never even had the opportunity to set foot inside an Orthodox church building, whether it's for Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy, I nevertheless find myself magnetically pulled towards the overall style and expression of the Faith shared by those two.... In spite of the historical rift between them over issues of Christology (or over semantics, depending on how you look at it), I'm drawn to the elements of shared common ground, which is why, in my original post about wanting to meet people in the area where I live who are from either of those branches of Christianity, I didn't make a distinction by choosing one in particular. Of course, having said that, it's obvious from just browsing around online that Eastern Orthodoxy is more popular and widespread, so information about it is much easier to come by. So, beginning sometime around early-to-mid 2011, as I found myself moving further and further away from the Western theology (particularly Reformation stuff and Baptist stuff), I felt myself drawn toward much older forms of Christianity and reading about them and watching videos about them. Initially I found myself leaning towards Catholicism, but it wasn't too long before I found myself looking eastward, and looking toward the practices of the Christian communities in countries where the Faith was first established, because I felt that there was significance in the fact that people in those countries had remained faithful for so many generations. And when I learnt about the levels of horrific persecution that many of them had endured, and that many continue to endure, in some of those places, it struck me as being exceptionally significant, as if the quality of being so heavily persecuted and clinging to the Faith so tenaciously was a hallmark of authenticity, an indicator of God's own approval. So I found myself reading about it and learning about why they believe what they believe and so on. And of course I'm a bit of a "Doubting Thomas" type, plus I sometimes struggle with anything outside of Sola Scriptura because of how heavily I was indoctrinated with it even as a child — even when I read well-written articles refuting Sola Scriptura, I still remain sceptical. Yet on the whole, something has managed to override my scepticism and draw me towards Orthodoxy (particularly Eastern Orthodoxy, since, like I said, there's more information available on it), and so I've found myself frequently doing little things such as going to YouTube to listen to random Orthodox homilies and chanting, and sometimes even buying icons that I can eventually put together in an icon corner in my home. Things like that. I've even taken to crossing myself in the Eastern Orthodox way, often without really thinking beforehand, like an instinctive thing. So that's interesting.
Well, you know, it's kind of funny, but even though I've never even had the opportunity to set foot inside an Orthodox church building, whether it's for Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy, I nevertheless find myself magnetically pulled towards the overall style and expression of the Faith shared by those two.... In spite of the historical rift between them over issues of Christology (or over semantics, depending on how you look at it), I'm drawn to the elements of shared common ground, which is why, in my original post about wanting to meet people in the area where I live who are from either of those branches of Christianity, I didn't make a distinction by choosing one in particular. Of course, having said that, it's obvious from just browsing around online that Eastern Orthodoxy is more popular and widespread, so information about it is much easier to come by. So, beginning sometime around early-to-mid 2011, as I found myself moving further and further away from the Western theology (particularly Reformation stuff and Baptist stuff), I felt myself drawn toward much older forms of Christianity and reading about them and watching videos about them. Initially I found myself leaning towards Catholicism, but it wasn't too long before I found myself looking eastward, and looking toward the practices of the Christian communities in countries where the Faith was first established, because I felt that there was significance in the fact that people in those countries had remained faithful for so many generations. And when I learnt about the levels of horrific persecution that many of them had endured, and that many continue to endure, in some of those places, it struck me as being exceptionally significant, as if the quality of being so heavily persecuted and clinging to the Faith so tenaciously was a hallmark of authenticity, an indicator of God's own approval. So I found myself reading about it and learning about why they believe what they believe and so on. And of course I'm a bit of a "Doubting Thomas" type, plus I sometimes struggle with anything outside of Sola Scriptura because of how heavily I was indoctrinated with it even as a child — even when I read well-written articles refuting Sola Scriptura, I still remain sceptical. Yet on the whole, something has managed to override my scepticism and draw me towards Orthodoxy (particularly Eastern Orthodoxy, since, like I said, there's more information available on it), and so I've found myself frequently doing little things such as going to YouTube to listen to random Orthodox homilies and chanting, and sometimes even buying icons that I can eventually put together in an icon corner in my home. Things like that. I've even taken to crossing myself in the Eastern Orthodox way, often without really thinking beforehand, like an instinctive thing. So that's interesting.
Oh and of course I have a copy of The Orthodox Study Bible, which I purchased online sometime about a year or two ago, because it's important to me to grasp the Faith from the perspective of its traditional interpretations, because I believe that such agreed-upon interpretations carry more weight than just sitting by myself and letting my own feelings dictate the meaning to me. On the other hand, however, I've often found that, when I read certain passages of Scripture, I can have a strong sense of their true meaning, and when I look up the official Orthodox understanding of those passages, I find that it confirms what I already believed. So in a way, it's like it's already written on my heart, or like the Holy Spirit is telling me to go in that direction. It's quite fascinating. I can't think of specific examples off the top of my head because it's happened so often over the years, often in subtle ways. But I definitely take it as a sign of where I should be.
Anyway, back to the "icon corner" idea:
Truth be told, I do actually have a problem with nicotine addiction (smoking), which began about 24 years ago when I was almost 14, so I don't take my icons out very often because I don't want them to get all yucky and "smoked out" with nicotine. So I usually keep them in a drawer, though I'll occasionally pull them out and sort of "meditate" on them and kiss them. Things like that. It comes naturally to me, curiously enough..... And so far, attempts to quit using my own willpower to quit smoking have failed abysmally, probably for reasons relating to my mental health, particularly my susceptibility to anxiety, which has always been extremely poor. But I'm trusting in God to help me with that, and I know that, in some way, He will. I don't know when or how He'll help me with it, or even what form the help will take, or what it will entail, because He operates on so many levels and has so many ways of achieving things. But I remain optimistic. I do think that one of the advantages of joining an Orthodox church for me personally, aside from the spiritual edification, would be the fact that the services are generally quite long, so I'd end up smoking less just by attending. However, that's more a case of something I realised after I learnt about it. In other words, a "happy coincidence". Like, I never thought to myself, "I'm going to become Orthodox so I can go to lengthy services and spend a few hours a week away from my cigarettes!", because that would be doing it for the wrong reason — because the reason anyone should choose to become Orthodox is because they're convinced that it's the right thing to do spiritually. Nevertheless, the fact that it would also help me to at least cut back on smoking would make for a happy coincidence. Certainly it would make long-term quitting easier because it would lower the amount of nicotine in my system, making that final leap more tolerable. So that's something I look forward to, if it ends up panning out like that.
Anyway, as for the issue of why I haven't actually joined an Orthodox church yet, in spite of being pretty keen on it for the past few years, it basically comes down to the practical issue of not having my own transport and also not having much money for public transport, along with being on a disability pension for lifelong agoraphobia and extreme difficulties with real-world social interaction and communication. Basically, in real life, I'm very much like the character in the meme "Socially Awkward Penguin", or like what the Japanese refer to as a "hikikomori". Moreover, because my mind often gets very "spacey", it was actually suggested to me by a doctor many years ago that I refrain from taking up driving. But recently I got to thinking: "What if I can find a person in the area who's already a member of an Orthodox congregation, whom I can get along reasonably well with, and who will eventually be willing and able to take me to services and catechism classes, perhaps in return for a bit of money to help cover the extra fuel costs?" So that's how I ended up here, asking about it.
It's really all that simple!
EDIT: I forgot to add a few other minor things, regarding how my life in general is going too. So, well, let's see....
Hmm....
Well, I'm doing okay, but I do have a great uncle, my mother's mother's brother, who basically only has a few weeks to live after a very lengthy battle with bone cancer and a few other things. I'm not really close to him personally, having mostly only seen him a handful of times when I was a child, but my mother would like me to write up some sort of little Gospel type of thing for him, or even find something of that nature online, to print out, to help him and his wife near the end.... So I'm kind of browsing around for something like that. And on a very different note, I've been informed that there's an attractive younger single woman living in the area who's quite interested in me and has heard about my problems and stuff, and she wants to meet me sometime over the next week or so. She initially heard about my from my mother and my mother's boyfriend of the past 24 years, because they were helping her move into a townhouse, like a terraced house, after she had some difficulties in her life recently. So if that goes nicely and her and I can build some sort of rapport then I might end up with someone nice to spend time with, and it could become something positive in my life.
So yeah! That's pretty much it!
Hmm....Hi Mystical Way, welcome to TAW!
One church I know of in the Brisbane area is St. Paul's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Woollongatta. The website is www.stpaulbrisbane.org/stpaulbrisbane.html .
God bless you on your journey towards Holy Orthodoxy.
You never know who is already making that 40-50 minute drive to get to that parish. Where we live in Sydney we are spoilt for choice. We live about 10-15 minutes from a local Greek parish and a Russian Skete (with English liturgy) and we do visit both from time to time, but we prefer to drive around 45 minutes, passing half a dozen other parishes on the way, to another Greek parish where our (now retired) confessor was priestHmm....
Well it's a solid 40 - 50 minute drive from where I live according to a Google search, which might be inconvenient for anyone else involved; I'm hoping for something that's at least on the northern (and eastern!) side of the Brisbane River rather than on the other side, but I guess I can give it a few more weeks and see if anything else comes up. Failing that, I could just email some of them and see what kind of responses I get. But I'll keep that one in mind, seeing as having to travel a bit of an extra distance and fork over a bit of extra money to join a true church is better than compromising, and if God decides to get someone from such a place to help me out then that's the way it's meant to be. So thanks for the info anyway!
Hmm.... Well technically I'm actually on the Redcliffe Peninsula but here there's no Orthodox churches at all, so my next best bet is Brissie. But it needs to be around the north-east of the city because if I'm going to be befriending someone from such a church in order to help me integrate into the community better and also give me a lift to and from the church itself or come over to visit and help me with Orthodoxy-related studies or whatever then I don't want them to have to go out of their way for me too much because I don't like to be a bother. But at the same time I'd want to have a good rapport with them and be able to spend a decent amount of time getting to know them so that I could be sure I wasn't taking a trip to "church" with a dangerous nutter or something, you know. 'cause that's one kind of journey I don't want to take. Besides, if that happened I wouldn't even able to be canonised 'cause you can't very well have a saint who didn't even make it to his first catechism class 'cause he trusted Guido to take him to church and Guido ended up putting him in sandwich bags in a river. [lol]
