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TAW seems to have gone onto minimal life support. The posters who are still here are mostly people who have been in the Church 15 years or more. I don’t think any young ones (relatively new members, ten years or fewer) are left, and those are the ones who make up the demographic you describe.This particular forum continues to appeal more and more to the OrthoBros and tradDox zealots and any moderate voices are thus checking out or going silent. It's not just social media.
Learned something new - I never heard the term OrthoBro before.This particular forum continues to appeal more and more to the OrthoBros and tradDox zealots and any moderate voices are thus checking out or going silent. It's not just social media.
TAW seems to have gone onto minimal life support.
it’s those online, uber opinionated Orthodox laymen. usually really involved in apologetics and such.Learned something new - I never heard the term OrthoBro before.
Like I said, I don’t know what to say. I’ve offered my main contributions, on language, on education, on the situation in Russia, and people have either accepted and acknowledged the value and truth in what I’ve said, or refused to do so and deny it. Most people are going to refuse to believe the schools are deliberately designed to wrest the children from their parents’ views, they are going to continue to talk about a person’s “gender” instead of “sex” and say that people are “gay”, and as many as half are going to deny the general corruption of their favorite Patriarchate while demonizing the one “on the other side”. Some will still think divorce a normal and acceptable option for Orthodox couples who aren’t getting along, though both remain in the Church, some will continue to confuse agendas of this world with the main mission of the Church and promote worldly struggles against climate change or racism in the name of the Church, etc etc etc. Unless someone really doesn’t know what I’ve said over the past twenty years, which has changed almost not at all, the things I think I can comment intelligently on have mostly been said. Or not. I don’t know. Other than anecdotal experience of my new life in the Balkans, which I hope ends soon, I don't have too much to say. I’m falling away and trying not to fall away.Well dang it we need to liven this place up then! It’s dead as a door nail!
God has given me many trials with my health the past five years or so. Insomnia is the worst of them. I’m up now after having only slept two hours. I went to church yesterday driving clear up there on 4 hrs 44 minutes of sleep. I’ve been up reading my kathisma psalter. Miserable. One health trial after another….Like I said, I don’t know what to say. I’ve offered my main contributions, on language, on education, on the situation in Russia, and people have either accepted and acknowledged the value and truth in what I’ve said, or refused to do so and deny it. Most people are going to refuse to believe the schools are deliberately designed to wrest the children from their parents’ views, they are going to continue to talk about a person’s “gender” instead of “sex” and say that people are “gay”, and as many as half are going to deny the general corruption of their favorite Patriarchate while demonizing the one “on the other side”. Some will still think divorce a normal and acceptable option for Orthodox couples who aren’t getting along, though both remain in the Church, some will continue to confuse agendas of this world with the main mission of the Church and promote worldly struggles against climate change or racism in the name of the Church, etc etc etc. Unless someone really doesn’t know what I’ve said over the past twenty years, which has changed almost not at all, the things I think I can comment intelligently on have mostly been said. Or not. I don’t know. Other than anecdotal experience of my new life in the Balkans, which I hope ends soon, I don't have too much to say. I’m falling away and trying not to fall away.
I appreciate that I can still ask for prayers here; I have a number of unresolved situations and have been living on the edge of poverty for a long time now. It’s weird to have an iPad, talk to you guys, and yet struggle to pay the bills. But that’s the crazy world we now live in.
But if anyone ever wants to resurrect those issues, or discover GK Chesterton, the unofficially Orthodox guy keeping me in the Church, I’m still plugged in here.
see what happens when you leave?! you are the life of the NewmaniumWell dang it we need to liven this place up then! It’s dead as a door nail!
Minimal life support is a good way to describe it. I think that TAW is suffering from the same general trend away from internet forums and message boards that has been going on since the dawn of social media. Things that did not help here were the Wikonian Reforms of 2007 and when the former owner changed the name. Both actions push A LOT of people away.TAW seems to have gone onto minimal life support. The posters who are still here are mostly people who have been in the Church 15 years or more. I don’t think any young ones (relatively new members, ten years or fewer) are left, and those are the ones who make up the demographic you describe.
Maybe some definition or clarification might be in order, as we speak of Holy Tradition, and so are all bound to be “traditionalist” in a general sense. We are certainly forbidden to be rebels, disdaining tradition in principle, but I take it you mean the new members who take really obscure Church names just because they are Greek or Russian, immediately grow long beards, try to apply all the canons in Church history to themselves and everybody else, go overboard on fasting and unsustainable prayer rules, and otherwise “overdo it”.
cracked open Orthodoxy for the first time and the insights he has are mind blowing.But if anyone ever wants to resurrect those issues, or discover GK Chesterton, the unofficially Orthodox guy keeping me in the Church, I’m still plugged in here.
This particular forum continues to appeal more and more to the OrthoBros and tradDox zealots and any moderate voices are thus checking out or going silent. It's not just social media.
TAW has generally maintained a peaceful, coffee hour-esque community atmosphere. I stumbled in here months after I became Orthodox at sixteen and frankly the online community helped me stay Orthodox in those early years.
While I think ecumenism in terms of formal practice and worship is actually really bad, I think as a spirit of loving other heterodox Christians and being friendly with them to be very good. In short, the doctrinal differences really, really matter, but you are totally right about Christian love. My favorite writers are not Orthodox. I read the wise sayings of the saints and appreciate them, and try to apply them to my life, but it’s those pesky English apologists that have forced me to see that there is nowhere else to go. if I was ecumenist, I would really think there was somewhere else to go. But I’m not, and there isn’t. So I'll keep my Catholic and Protestant friends, though I am not going to play at being in communion with them.I don’t think I could be considered much of an OrthoBro or tradDox or Hyperdox Herman particularly considering my extremely pro-ecumenical views, especially regarding the Oriental Orthodox (which were in my case related to the reason I joined the Orthodox Church, that being the persecution of the Antiochian and Syriac Orthodox Christians in Syria which I became aware of when both Metropolitan Peter Yazigi of the Antiochian Orthodox church, the brother of Patriarch John X Yazigi, who i greatly admire, and Archbishop Gregorios of the Syriac Orthodox church, were abducted while traveling by car together to Aleppo, and to this date no one knows what happened to them, but the two churches prayed for each other in their liturgies, and also have an ecumenical agreement from the early 90s which I really like.
I also support efforts at ecumenical reconciliation with the Roman Catholics contingent on their overcoming the current liberal trend, but if fiducia supplicans is not reversed then we should have nothing to do with them at all.
So at any rate that makes me a hardened ecumenist; I also have a very negative opinion of the schismatic Old Calendarists, although conversely I love ROCOR and the Serbian, Georgian and Hagopolitan churches which use the Old Calendar, and I regard it as technically preferable to the revised Julian Calendar not on theological grounds, but because the revised Julian Calendar makes it impossible for a Kyriopascha to be celebrated, and also results in the Apostles’ Fast not happening in some years, while also creating an excess number of Sundays between the Epiphany and the start of Great Lent. But this is purely a technical preference on my part.
I’ve also been Orthodox for over a decade now, whereas some Hyperdox Herman types tend to burn themselves out while still neophytes. The mistake I think they make is forgetting the centrality of love to the Orthodox faith. We are called to love our neighbor, like the Holy Trinity. In their zeal for doctrinal purity they forget that; they proclaim “death to the world!” but fail to understand what the phrase means, which is really “death to the world of worldliness and hatefulness and self-centeredness, and life to the world to come, of infinite love and charity and mercy, through prayer.”
Thus we should pray for them. I think that view should be less controversial I hope than my admittedly controversial support for ecumenism (and I have great respect for many people who are opposed to ecumenical reconciliation, and indeed desire to see Fr. Seraphim Rose glorified as a saint and regard his concerns about ecumenism as prophetic with regards to the increasing conglomeration of the liberal mainline churches, which I think we probably have too much dialogue with at present.
Speaking of which, I wish everyone on the Julian Calendar a blessed Nativity! My current parish does not use it, but there are nearby parishes which do.
I take this stuff called Donormyl. Not every night, but it's really effective, at least in helping me get back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night. I manage 5 or six hours of sleep with it.God has given me many trials with my health the past five years or so. Insomnia is the worst of them. I’m up now after having only slept two hours. I went to church yesterday driving clear up there on 4 hrs 44 minutes of sleep. I’ve been up reading my kathisma psalter. Miserable. One health trial after another….
I've got a copy of Chesterton's Orthodoxy sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. I haven't read any of Chesterton myself, but my Latin teacher in high school spoke very highly of him, and I've been wanting to get started reading his works. Right now my hands are full with a couple of books my priest has recommended, The Pilgrim Continues On His Way and St. Cyril of Jerusalem's Catechetical Homilies.But if anyone ever wants to resurrect those issues, or discover GK Chesterton, the unofficially Orthodox guy keeping me in the Church, I’m still plugged in here.
Years ago, when my friends in college found out that I was interested in Orthodoxy, they bought my the book “Orthodoxy” by GK Chesterton. Great book!cracked open Orthodoxy for the first time and the insights he has are mind blowing.
I personally found "Orthodoxy" a bit difficult to read, but as someone else used to say, "I am a bear of very little brain".I've got a copy of Chesterton's Orthodoxy sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. I haven't read any of Chesterton myself, but my Latin teacher in high school spoke very highly of him, and I've been wanting to get started reading his works. Right now my hands are full with a couple of books my priest has recommended, The Pilgrim Continues On His Way and St. Cyril of Jerusalem's Catechetical Homilies.
I take this stuff called Donormyl. Not every night, but it's really effective, at least in helping me get back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night. I manage 5 or six hours of sleep with it.
niceYears ago, when my friends in college found out that I was interested in Orthodoxy, they bought my the book “Orthodoxy” by GK Chesterton. Great book!
Yes Doxlamine will make you groggy for awhile next dayDoxylamine. Doxylamine Succinate is also found in NyQuil and is sold under a sleep aid Unisom. This is not medical advice, but rather a personal note, in my experience this stuff tends to linger, as it stays on board much longer than, for example, diphenhydramine (which I can’t tolerate; it makes my heart race) and as a result using it nightly can create increasing fatigue if one is not careful. What I have found it useful for in the form of Nyquil, which has a decongestant and sometimes a marginal supposed cough suppressant, is when I have a bad cold as a means of sleeping through the period where the symptoms are at their worst in terms of a runny nose and sore throat, which cause intolerable pain. Every year since 2022 I’ve had flu shots and by being extremely reclusive i’ve been blessed to avoid a cold or major sore throat in the past two years; prayers that I continue to avoid it are appreciated because when it does happen, combined with the other hereditary symptoms my doctor is trying to reduce, it just takes me offline.
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