Phoebe Farag Mikhail's Blog

Excerpts from the book by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III of Blessed Memory

The following is an edited excerpt from His Holiness Pope Shenouda III of Blessed Memory’s book, The Life of Thanksgiving, pages 9-10 and 43-46. Please note that I have edited the excerpt for readability and clarity. Both free and paid subscribers to my email newsletter will receive links for free access to the full text of this book in pdf, epub and Kindle.

It’s significant for HH Pope Shenouda to write and preach these words, because he lived them. He survived attacks on his life, several years of house arrest, and, towards the end of his life, very difficult health issues, including kidney disease and cancer. So when he writes “If one day you suffered any harm, be sure it is for your benefit and it will end in good, and you will receive a blessing out of it,” he writes these words from a place of experience. To learn more about Pope Shenouda, visit this beautiful slide show here.

Thanksgiving For All Things

The church begins all services with the Prayer of Thanksgiving, even at funerals. The Apostle Paul says, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God” (Colossians 3:17).

“We thank you on every occasion, in every condition and for all things,” the prayer says.

So, it is not only giving thanks always, but also for all things, because God continually does good for us. St. Paul the Apostle said: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28), either in the apparent good or in matters that do not seem good—but in fact are good, and we don’t yet know it.

For this reason, we call God the “Beneficent.” He does not do except good, and the person who believes in this, gladly accepts everything that comes from Him, saying in faith “… All things work together for good,” and gives thanks to God.

However, some might ask and say: we believe without doubt that whatever comes from God is good, but what about that which comes from people and might not all be good?

We say to them, if the posture of people towards us is good, it will reach us as good, but if their posture is not good, God will change it, and it will reach us as good in the end.

The brothers of the righteous Joseph sold him as a slave. Their action was in itself full of evil, treachery, lack of love, cruelty and envy. But God changed that evil into good and Joseph “was made a father to Pharaoh, and Lord of his people.” He was the second in the Kingdom and his stay in Egypt was to preserve life. He told his brothers, “you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, … to save many people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

The children of God are always joyful. They thank Him for all things. And when they thank Him, they do not merely thank Him in compliance to the commandment “Give thanks” as an imposed order. That is because this is not true thanksgiving. Giving thanks is not about saying just words without conviction, as if performing a duty.

The children of God thank God from all their heart and with all confidence. They are completely confident that God will not allow anything bad to happen to them, and being Almighty, He watches all matters occurring to them, and takes a stand in their favor.

For this reason, the life of thanksgiving is bound up in the life of faith, as will be seen when we talk about the virtues relating to thanksgiving.

We can thank God by words, and we can also offer a sacrifice of praise, peace offerings or vows and as the Prophet David said, “I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all people” (Psalm 116:13-14).

The Virtue of Faith

The life of thanksgiving is connected with other virtues that precede and incorporate into it. Faith is among these virtues, and in particular, I mean certain aspects of faith in God, without which we cannot reach the life of thanksgiving.

The first aspect is faith in God as doer of good things, and lover of mankind for all things. He loves you as a person more than you love yourself, and cares for you more than you care for yourself, and therefore He always does you good. As lover of mankind, He must do good for you, even without your asking. He is able to give you all you need, whatever the obstacles.

The second aspect is faith that He is all powerful. He is the Almighty, who watches over everything. “He shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in” (Psalm 121:7-8).

The freedom that God granted man does not mean that He gave up running the universe, leaving everybody to do what they like without control. But God gives freedom, observes, watches over everything and guides the affairs according to His good will. He changes what needs change, suspends some matters, and does not allow others to proceed. All this needs thanksgiving.

Now, you can thank God for His running the universe and preserving you from the wicked. Fear retreats from you and you feel secure with the protection of God because the evil you fear comes to you from one of three sources: evil people, the demons, or yourself—and God the Almighty rules over all these sources. How many times has He blocked evil for your salvation whether you know it or not?

God does not grant absolute freedom to anyone, otherwise the world will perish! Listen to David singing: “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive, when their wrath was kindled against us.” (Psalm 124:2-3).

Therefore, thank God because He preserves you from evil people “… and no one will attack you to hurt you” (Acts 18:10). If one day you suffered any harm, be sure it is for your benefit and it will end in good, and you will receive a blessing out of it. Thank God for all you receive, even the evil, which God will turn to good.

Even the devils are not completely free in what they do. God does not leave them to their pleasure, otherwise they would destroy the whole earth. It is quite clear in the story of Job how the freedom of Satan was limited; he proposed certain things which God allowed, and other things which He denied, imposing limits and restrictions. First, He said to him, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person” (Job 1:12). The second time He allowed him to lay his hand on Job’s body “… but spare his life” (Job 2:6).

Therefore, thank God who restricts Satan’s freedom. This grants you peace of heart so you do not fear Satan or his allies of wicked people. Peace without fear is a blessing for which you can thank God and confidently say, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).Therefore, you live in permanentsecurity, which is also a blessing that needs thanksgiving.

The faithful person lives in peace, security, confidence in God’s work, without fear, and with this faith, his life turns to constant thanks.

This faith that leads to thanksgiving is also a blessing. He sleeps in the bosom of God peacefully, thanking Him for His care, whatever the pressure of the surrounding circumstances.

This is because he constantly turns his sight towards the work of God and not towards the pressing circumstances, and says with David the Prophet in the fullness of faith: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me” (Psalm 23:4).

Our limited human vision might work against this faith, and consequently, it will not allow the existence of thanksgiving. This causes worry, fear and the feeling that divine help is far. Our human vision is short and limited because it only sees the current problems and does not see the coming solutions. It sees the present pain and does not see the future joy.

Therefore, if you live in the problem, you suffer, but if you live in the faith, you will see many solutions, become joyful, and give thanks to God.

There is a big difference between faith and sight. Sight means you see things with your eyes, and you do not give thanks except for the tangible good that your eyes can see. But in faith, you give thanks for the good you cannot see and believe it exists, trusting in the work of God.

Faith sees what the eye cannot see and the senses cannot feel. It sees the work of God and His coming grace and help. Also, it sees the future work of God as if it exists now, rejoices with it and gives thanks for it. The person of faith sees God leading him into green pastures, and preserves his going out and his coming in. Faith says with the Apostle Paul, “All things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28).

Oh, that you learn this verse and put it always in front of you so that it would be a spring of thanksgiving for you! Take note of the phrase, “to those who love God.” Those who love God feel His love and trust His promises, and therefore they are very confident that all things work for them for good because it is under the control of God, lover of mankind.

Accordingly they live in constant joy and thanksgiving in line with their love to God. “…love believes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). They believe that water can come out of the solid rock (Exodus 17:6). They believe that God can make the sea into dry land on which they walk safely, and also believe that God can rain bread from heaven to eat. By faith, they can see God with them in the lion’s den and the fiery furnace.

If you enjoy the articles, essays, and resources I share on this page, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to my email newsletter. Subscriptions help pay for the time and cost of maintaining this website and creating the content. Your subscription also helps me keep as many resources as possible free to all subscribers.

The post The Life of Thanksgiving appeared first on Being In Community.

By Jessica Ryder-Khalil

This year, festivities for the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea are happening all over the world. This month, the World Council of Churches is gathering at St. Bishoy’s Monastery in Wadi el Natroun, Egypt for the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute and then the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt. Today’s guest post by Jessica Ryder-Khalil responds to another such conference earlier this year, in Titusville, Florida. Get updated about new posts at Being in Community by subscribing to my email newsletter.

Watching the sunrise over the beautiful riverside campus of the St. Stephen Coptic Orthodox Retreat Center in Titusville, FL during the recent Nicaea Today Conference celebrating the 1700th Anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, I wondered if St. Athanasius also took an opportunity for quiet time on the banks of the lake that forms the eastern border of the town of Îznik, Turkey, the site of the ancient city of Nicaea. The recesses between meetings must have been punctuated by the opportunity to look up at the vast expanse of sky and recall His Lord’s instructions in the Sermon on the Mount:

Sunrise over Titusville, FL. Photo (c) Jessica Ryder-Khalil, 2025.

“Do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,  that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good.” (Mt 5:44-45 NKJV)

All these centuries later, it may seem that the Council of Nicaea was the resolution of the Arian conflict and the confirmation of the universal faith. However, what the presenters at the Nicaea Today conference demonstrated was that for St. Athanasius in particular, the Council was the beginning of troubles. It was through the artful combination of his steadfastness in doctrine with his openness to dialogue that we are heirs of St. Athanasius’ legacy. In the words of His Eminence Metropolitan Bishop Youssef, we take “the Creed as our shield and Nicaea as our light.”

 At the behest of His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, the 13 North American Coptic Orthodox bishops gathered in May, along with clergy, scholars and laypeople, to consider the modern impact of Nicaea on the Church, and especially the Council’s role in our understanding of pastoral care issues ranging from education to ecumenical unity. Later this year, the World Council of Churches will host the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order at St. Bishoy Monastery in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt from October 24 to 28th. As reported on the WCC website, this anniversary “offers an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the affirmation of faith in the Nicene Creed, the mission of God’s triune love and the implications this has for the common witness and service of the churches.”

Nicaea’s Byzantine fortifications. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Undoubtedly, St. Athanasius is rejoicing in heaven at the prospect of welcoming Christians from around the world to his beloved homeland of Egypt in honor of the anniversary.The WCC conference will be centered around the key idea of visible unity and it is of the utmost importance that the Nicene confession remains the glue fastening the Christian faithful worldwide to Christ. Again, rather than viewing the Council as a static historical event, Christian unity today depends on seeing the Council as a living expression of faith that codified what the Church was already practicing, evidenced by credal statements found in Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, and that still shapes our biblical exegesis, liturgical practice and pastoral work into a beacon of Christ’s sanctifying light to the world.

At the Nicaea Today conference, His Grace Bishop Kyrillos, Dean of the St. Athanasius and St. Cyril Theological School (ACTS), explained in his Plenary Paper that two of St. Athanasius’ strengths were his coherence of thought and his resilience. It is due to St. Athanasius’ precise methodology of biblical interpretation that Orthodox Christians can succinctly confess that the “Incarnation is consistent with God’s character,” as we cry out to Him as the Good One and Lover of Mankind. Certainty about God’s loving posture towards humanity is the firm ground upon which we stand in front of the challenges of others, just as St. Athanasius did. As HG Bishop Kyrollos shared, St. Athanasius’ ability to direct the Alexandrian church in times of crisis is due to the patriarch finding peace and rest in God, his Father.

Thus, going out into the world as Orthodox Christians, we have the 1700 years of tradition on which to stand, along with the good counsel of our father St. Athanasius the Apostolic. In his presentation on “The Nicaean Legacy in St. Cyril’s Thought,” Fr. Bishoy Wasfi shared that the Alexandrian theology of deification rests on the shoulders of the Nicene Creed as the redemption and salvation of humanity are dependent on the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten Son of God, consubstantial and of one essence with the Father. We cooperate and participate with the Holy Trinity in a sacramental integration of doctrine and ethics, making the Church into “the arena for transformation”. With confidence in our Heavenly Father and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are called to search out and care for the Image of His Son in all those we encounter within the Church and without.

Jessica at the Nicaea Today conference. Photo (c) Jessica Ryder-Khalil, 2025.

With sober and realistic expectations, we first recognize the One Incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, followed by His disciples St. Stephen and St. Athanasius as our models. The Liturgy Gospel reading for Pashons 7, the Feast of the Departure of St. Athanasius, is from John 8:54-59. The Lord Jesus proclaims His unity and co-eternality with the Father in the statement, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” The crowd then proceeds to pick up stones to stone Him. Likewise, St. Stephen stirred the crowds to jealousy when, “they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke” (Acts 6:10 NKJV). Yet, even those complicit in the unjust murder of St. Stephen perceived the light in his face. So too, our father, St. Athanasius the Apostolic, boldly faced his multiple exiles, willing to be stoned with words, evil schemes, hardships, and deprivations for the sake of proclaiming the Light of True Light to the whole world. He withstood this all with the hope that he might reconcile some to the life of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. 

Celebrations surrounding the life of St. Athanasius and the Council of Nicaea will continue throughout the year. Along with the Nicaea Today conference in North America, the concelebrated liturgy on May 17th in St. Mark’s Cathedral, Cairo with the presence of the Coptic patriarch HH Pope Tawadros II, along with his brothers in the apostolic liturgy Syriac patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II and the Armenian patriarch His Holiness Catholicos Aram I is another joyful example of ecclesial unity. HH Pope Tawadros II commented, “What happened 1,700 years ago is alive in our Church today. We gather here in complete love and pray together, lifting our hearts before God in strong faith and unity, which we pray will endure until the end.” The recent processions of our saintly fathers the patriarchs, metropolitans and bishops help us envision what the processions into the imperial chambers temporarily established by Emperor Constantine at Nicaea would have been like, full of hymns of joy and beautiful vestments honoring the shared anticipation of the heavenly banquet in this age and in the age to come.  

In the daily readings of the Coptic Church, the commemoration of the Council is placed on Hator 9 and will be remembered in November. The Psalm reading for that day informs us all about the hopeful posture of the Church, unified in waiting for the King of Glory, “Let Your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let Your saints shout for joy.” With the prayers of St.  Athanasius the Apostolic, may all these gatherings be filled with the fragrant aroma of brotherly love in the bonds of peace  (Psalm 132:9 NKJV).

Jessica Ryder-Khalil  is a frequent contributor to Being in Community. She is a wife and mom of four children between the ages of 17 and 8 years of age.  She is a servant at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Gainesville, FL and is working towards an MTS degree from St. Athanasius & St. Cyril Theological School.  Jessica was baptized into the Coptic Orthodox Church 19 years ago and is a continual learner along the path to Orthodoxy. Before family life took the lead role, Jessica taught English as a Second Language both abroad and in the USA. Her previous posts include What a Feast!, Shortbread Theology, Death, Roses, and Resurrection, An Hour in a Few Minutes, Spiritual Warfare Everywhere, and What My Mom Taught Me About Authenticity. Text © Jessica Ryder-Khalil, 2025.

The post Sunrise for St. Athanasius: A Student’s Response to the Nicaea Today Conference appeared first on Being In Community.

by Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Not many people know that I have been homeschooling my children for the past five years. As our journey comes to a close and my children pursue a different educational path, I am reflecting on those wonderful five years with thanksgiving. I’m sharing those reflections with my Substack paid subscriber-only series about my family’s homeschooling journey. If you would like to subscribe, please click here. All email subscribers (free and paid) are eligible to enter the book giveaway for Homegrown: Guidance and Inspiration for Navigating Your Homeschooling Journey edited by Amber O’Neal Johnston.

Knowing that some of my readers might be considering homeschooling your children, or have friends who are considering it, who are simply curious, or who perhaps don’t know that this is a possible choice for you and your family, this blog post shares the homeschooling mentor resources that helped me along my path. All of these authors have homeschooled multiple children and led homeschool communities, providing amazing resources to other homeschool families.

The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessica Wise. Although I didn’t follow a structured classical education model in the ways described by Bauer and Wise, I learned a lot from this philosophy of education and especially enjoyed the lists of resources for different ages and subjects. This list is available in the Fourth Edition. The “Essentials Edition,” linked below contains the first half of the book, with the updated resource list now available online via an annual subscription. The Well Trained Mind website contains a wealth of resources for homeschool families, and the Well Trained Mind Academy provides live online classes build on the classical education philosophy. I used Bauer’s Story of the World series for history with my children, which I learned about from my brother, a public high school history teacher. Susan Wise Bauer and Susanna Jarrett also run a dynamic podcast on homeschooling that you can listen to here.

Purchase the Well-Trained Mind Essentials Edition on The Well Trained Mind | Bookshop | Amazon

The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids by Sarah MacKenzie is the book that officially convinced me that I could homeschool – that even if all I did was read aloud and do some math with my children, I would do well for them. The Read-Aloud Family not only explains why reading aloud to your children (even your teenagers) is so important for them educationally—it is also a wonderful way to forge connections with them through shared experiences and conversation. Before homeschooling, I was already implementing the ideas of this book, and I will continue to do so, even though we are no longer homeschooling. I’m a read aloud enthusiast (also see The Enchanted Hour for more on the importance of reading aloud to children, and my free ebook, a “Guide to Helping Children Love Reading” available to all email subscribers). The Read Aloud Revival website contains curated book lists for all ages and on different topics—I consult this website a lot. I used Read Aloud Revival Premium’s resources for reading and English Language Arts with my children, among other resources. Sarah MacKenzie also runs the Read Aloud Revival podcast.

Purchase The Read Aloud Family on Read Aloud Revival | Bookshop | Amazon

A Place to Belong: Raising Kids to Celebrate Their Heritage, Community, and the World by Amber O’Neal Johnston. I had been following Amber’s Heritage Mom blog and social media pages for several years before she published this important book.  A Place to Belong tells the story of her learning to provide “windows and mirrors” for her black children during their homeschool journey after a rude wakeup call. It also provides tools for families to help their children feel a sense of belonging and pride on their unique heritage. Amber’s website also contains excellent book recommendations for books that feature a diverse array of characters that I have consulted many times. While she doesn’t have her own podcast, you can hear her discussing her books and homeschooling on various podcasts where she has been a guest.

Purchase A Place to Belong on Heritage Mom | Bookshop | Amazon

Amber O’Neal Johnston is also the editor of a new book, Homegrown: Guidance and Inspiration for Navigating Your Homeschooling Journey. This book contains essays from some very well-known and respected leaders in the homeschooling field, making it a great place to start for new homeschoolers. I wish I had this book five years ago! Because of that, I am running a giveaway – one subscriber to my Substack Newsletter will receive a free copy of this book by simply commenting on my newsletter.

Purchase Homegrown on Heritage Mom | Bookshop | Amazon

I am a part of the Amazon Associates program and the Bookshop Affiliates program. Some of the links above are affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase via those links, I will receive a small commission for referring you at no extra cost to you. You are under no obligation to purchase the items through my links, but if you do, you will be helping support the cost of running this blog and providing you with the writing and reviews you enjoy. To continue to support my writing, please consider a paid Substack subscription by clicking here. Your support is much appreciated!

The post My favorite books on homeschooling – with a book giveaway! appeared first on Being In Community.

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

With a new year comes fresh starts, setting goals, and resolutions. To make these happen we need tools – and what better tool than a good book! My book list below is newly updated with fresh reads for 2025. It includes books for using time wisely, achieving goals, building better habits, connecting with family, living more with less stuff, creating justly, and living with more joy.

All email subscribers also get access to my Annual Reflection and Planning printable, a tool many of my readers have found very useful. May you enjoy a joyful and fruitful 2025!

Resolve to live with intention.

In Once a Passenger: A Journey toward Intentional Living by Tina Attalla she shares, in her words, “how I felt like a passenger in my own life and finally got into the driver’s seat, only to give the control back to the Lord. I reveal the dark place of disillusionment I found myself in after having checked all the right boxes of the successful woman and feeling stuck in a vicious cycle of materialism and consumerism.” Learn how you, too, can break the cycle and live with greater intention. Read more about her path to this book here.

Purchase Once a Passenger on Amazon | Kindle

Resolve to create compassionately.

I could not wait to read Mitali Perkins’ forthcoming book Just Making: A Guide for Compassionate Creatives so I got an advance reader copy. It’s the perfect book for me, as someone who writes but also feels like, with so much going wrong in the world, maybe writing isn’t enough or even necessary. Reading this book is like having Mitali by my side, encouraging with her words and offering tools for those of us who are creative and want to make the world a better place, praying that our creativity is a balm.

Pre-order Just Making on Bookshop | Amazon

Resolve to stay inspired.

Dare to Inspire: Sustain the Fire of Inspiration in Work
and Life by Allison Holzer, Sandra Spataro, and Jen Grace Baron explores the lesser researched field of inspiration, and offers ideas for how to engineer inspiration to better serve both work and life. “Simply put, when individuals feel inspired, they are more inclined to build stronger connections and community with others,” write the authors. In addition to numerous examples of how different individuals spark and nurture inspiration, Holzer, Spataro and Baron share eighteen “engines of inspiration” with useful explanations for how to use the one or two that work best for each individual.

Purchase Dare to Inspire on Bookshop | Amazon | Audible.

Resolve to be more productive enjoyably

I read Feel Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal in early 2024 and found it a fresh take on productivity that I enjoyed immensely. I might read it again to remind myself of some of his tips for achieving goals. Most useful to me is the author’s emphasis away from the ubiquitous S.M.A.R.T. goals to N.I.C.E. goals: Near-Term, Input Based, Controllable, Energizing. The audio book, read by the author who also has his own YouTube channel, is also quite enjoyable. Just one note: The author attributes the discovery of the DNA structure to the wrong people – the scientist who discovered it was Rosalind Franklin.

Purchase Feel Good Productivity on Bookshop | Amazon | Audible

Resolve to use time wisely and well.

Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done is my favorite of Laura Vanderkam’s many productivity books (and I’ve read them all), because it drills down to the essence of why we think about using our time in the first place—not just to be more productive, but to use our time to live full and meaningful lives with our loved ones in the limited time we have. Based on a time perception and time diary study Vanderkam did of almost one hundred people who have families with children and who work full time, Vanderkam came up with “the secrets of people who have all the time in the world.” They are: 1-Tend your garden. 2-Make life memorable. 3-Don’t fill time. 4-Linger. 5-Invest in your happiness. 6- Let it go. And 7- People are a good use of time. You can read my full review of Off the Clock here. (Also check out Juliet’s School of Possibilities (reviewed here) and I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time (reviewed here).

Purchase Off the Clock on Bookshop | Amazon | Kindle | Audible

Resolve to achieve your goals.

I extensively reviewed Your Best Year Ever: A Five-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals by Michael Hyatt on this blog post and this one. Your Best Year Ever is a readable and useful book of steps for effectively achieving both personal and professional goals based on some of the latest research on human behavior and motivation. Three of my biggest takeaways was how regret can be a force for change, gratitude can contribute to goal achievement, and working on goals in community helps us to better achieve them.

Purchase Your Best Year Ever on Bookshop | Amazon | Audible

Resolve to build better habits.

In Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, Gretchen Rubin does not take a “one size fits all” approach when it comes to building good habits (and breaking bad ones). She instead describes “Four Tendencies” that people fall under when it comes to keeping habits: obliger, questioner, rebel, and upholder. As a tendency, this means that no one is boxed into any one category, but a general trend towards a certain type of behavior. For people with each of these tendencies, Rubin offers suggestions for how they can harness those tendencies to best build up good habits. Read my full review of the book here.

Purchase Better than Before on Bookshop | Amazon | Audible

Resolve to build stronger connections with family

I knew all about the benefits of reading picture books aloud to young children. But The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie took it to an entirely new level – that the benefits of reading together continue even after children have learned to read on their own. I became a zealot for reading aloud together with my kids as soon as I had finished this book – for all the benefits of reading aloud, the biggest and most important benefit to me, which Mackenzie goes into great detail in The Read-Aloud Family, is the way reading
together builds lasting connections. As a family we have built stronger connections by reading aloud and listening to books together. I highly recommend this book, as well as The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in an Age of Distraction by Meghan Cox Gurdon, which I reviewed
extensively here.

Purchase The Read-Aloud Family from Bookshop | Amazon |
Audible

Resolve to focus.

Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal doesn’t parade what is now conventional (though slightly unrealistic) wisdom about social media and phones (such as getting rid of your phone or shutting down all your social media channels). Rather, it provides a framework for how to address the root causes of our seeking out distractions, regardless of the type, and tools for living life with more focus. As someone who fights distraction in many contexts (especially prayer), this book provides some great tools.

Purchase Indistractable from Amazon | Kindle | Audible

Resolve to live with more joy.

Is your word of the year JOY? My own book, Putting Joy into
Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church is the book for you. In it I describe seven practices that help us reorient ourselves to live lives of joy – even in the midst of struggles. Each practice includes stories from church history and contemporary times to connect the concept to living examples, and is followed by specific ways we can integrate it into our lives. So many people who have read the book already have found it helpful. You can learn more about it, watch me speak about it, or listen to audio interviews and podcasts about it here.

Purchase Putting Joy into Practice from Paraclete Press | Bookshop | Amazon | Kindle | Audible

What are you reading to kick off the new year?

SUBSCRIBE TO THE BEING IN COMMUNITY
EMAIL NEWSLETTER HERE

I am a part of the Amazon Associates program and the Bookshop Affiliates program. Some of the links above are affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase via those links, I will receive a small commission for referring you at no extra cost to you. You are under no obligation to purchase the items through my links, but if you do, you will be helping support the cost of running this blog and providing you with the writing and reviews you enjoy. Your support is much appreciated!

The post Books to Keep Up Your New Year’s Goals and Resolutions appeared first on Being In Community.

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Toy catalogues rarely make it into my house. I intercept them at the mailbox and promptly recycle them before my children know they exist. Catalogues are kindling to the fire of consumerism, one that has overtaken all of us. It has especially overtaken our children, who are subjected to more advertising than perhaps anyone in history.

To make things worse, advertising has become more subtle and insidious. Favorite YouTube content creators quietly add product placements in their sponsored posts. Other influencers build a following to sell their own wares. Even paid streaming services now include advertisements.

The end result is an incessant barrage of requests for things—more toys, more clothes, more products—and a recognition of how much easier it is now to obtain these things than it ever was before. “Just get it from online!” my kids will tell me. All you need is a credit card linked to an online store, and your product is a click away, sometimes shipping on the same day.

There is no visible link between the work necessary to pay for the credit used, and no visible link between the availability of the product and the work necessary to create or assemble the product. There is almost no effort, even, to make the purchase. Consumption has been visibly divorced from work. 

So, there’s no need for me to add glossy catalogues full of gorgeous photographs to the mix. I often toss them without a second glance … until I got the Amazon holiday toy gift guide. I stopped when I saw the title: “Share the Joy.”

It’s not the first time Amazon has bandied the word “joy” on their catalogue. I remember being incensed the first time I saw it: “Joy, delivered.” Considering that Amazon has only served to promote our generation’s hyper consumption, how dare it throw around a word like “joy” in its promotional materials? Does Amazon think it can sell us joy?

Overconsumption is one of the “thieves of joy.” It can land us under the passion of gluttony or of greed. Gluttony involves consuming and consuming well beyond what we actually need. Having what we need helps us thrive, but too much stuff adds to our stress. Hence we have a booming economy of decluttering experts, and sometimes even need the support of mental health professionals. A book advocating for an extreme form of decluttering, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo is a bestseller. Our stuff burdens us and even leads us to more consumption to deal with all of it.  

Marie Kondo’s method of dealing with this problem has resonated with many people. In summary, her advice is to touch every item in your possession and only keeping what “sparks joy.” (She also advocates for keeping only fifteen books at one time, which already made her advice suspicious to me.) There is the word “joy” again, used in reference to things we possess. Is it really “joy” that arises when we touch a favorite item of clothing, a toy, or teacup?

Believe it or not, Amazon and Marie Kondo agree. Amazon’s gift catalogue encourages us to “share the joy,” presumably by purchasing the items advertised in the catalogue (in which books are suspiciously absent). Marie Kondo only wants us to keep those items that “spark joy.” In other words, paradoxically, both Marie Kondo and Amazon agree that possessions can be a source of joy.

They might agree, but I disagree. Possessions can spark nostalgia, pleasure, delight, happiness, or comfort in moderation; but they can also spark stress, anxiety, debt, and more in excess. These excesses rob us of joy. Succumbing to desires for too many possessions leads to gluttony. And when we don’t have enough to fulfill our gluttonous passions, we can fall further into the passion of greed. Greed leads us to hoard what others need, perhaps even exploit others for our personal gain, so that we might own more, and more and more, in an effort to satisfy ourselves with things that can never satisfy.

We need moderation to avoid falling into gluttony and greed. But there is no such thing as “moderate” joy. Joy by definition is something more, much more than happiness or pleasure. But more possessions do not lead to more joy. The joyful St. Paul writing epistles in prison assures us that we can have joy even if we own no possessions. Neither Amazon nor Marie Kondo are correct; neither excess nor minimalism can give us joy.  Joy offers us a life of abundance whether we own much or whether we own little.

This year, though, when I received the Amazon catalogue entitled “Share the Joy,” I held on to it for a few minutes. My church’s mom’s group has been reading The Five Love Languages of Children, and “receiving gifts” is one of the five love languages. Giving a gift to someone you love, especially someone whose “primary love language” is receiving gifts, is a powerful way to fill up someone’s “love tank.” And for children, Campbell and Chapman argue that families and caregivers should be offering all five love languages, to ensure that a child feels loved, even if the child has only one or two primary love languages.

And although the visible link between work, creation, and consumption has disappeared, as a parent who works for the income we need to spend on the items we consume, I’m very much aware of the link. When I spend time, energy, and resources or money to give a gift to a loved one, I’m making a sacrifice out of love. “Joy is found in the giving and receiving of sacrificial love,” I write, in my own book about joy.

So, the giving and receiving of a gift, thoughtfully made or purchased, could indeed be a practice of joy. After thumbing through that catalogue before it landed in the recycling bin, I found an excellent gift for one of my children. I saved it to my wish list, and if I don’t find anything better, I’ll be gleeful when it’s opened up Christmas with laughs of surprise and pleasure.

Over time, the items that make up the gifts might eventually be forgotten; they might be repurposed, regifted, damaged, age, or just no longer be useful. What won’t disappear is the joy of my children receiving them as gifts from someone who loves them, who thought about their interests, needs and desires, and who worked to have the income to purchase them. As Chapman and Campbell write,

The giving and receiving of gifts can be a powerful expression of love, at the time they are given and often extending into later years. The most meaningful gifts become symbols of love, and those that truly convey love are part of a love language. Yet for parents to truly speak love language number four—gifts—the child must feel that his parents genuinely care. For this reason, the other love languages must be given along with a gift. The child’s emotional love tank needs to be kept filled in order for the gift to express heartfelt love. This means that parents will use a combination of physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, and service to keep the love tank full (pages 77-78).

The gift catalogue that arrived at my mailbox is only a tool, the items advertised in it mere possessions. Physical objects can only embody joy when they are shared in the context of self-sacrificial love. Otherwise, they are stuff, the catalogue fueling excessive consumption and filling up landfills when we hire consultants to help us declutter.

If I love my children, however, as much as I might want to share this love by showering them with gifts, I also must show them love by teaching them how to be content with what they have, so that they don’t attach joy to their possessions, but to love. Otherwise, they will fall into the same cycle of overconsumption and discontent. And before I teach my children this, I must teach myself. For I, too, can easily succumb to the pleasures of possessing, the hedonistic treadmill pushing me to want more and more.

Six years ago I reviewed The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture by Haley Stewart. You can read the entire post here. In it she shares the antidote to overconsumption: God, family, connection and community. These fill us in the ways overconsumption never can. These will help prevent us from succumbing to gluttony and greed. More time cultivating our relationship with God, with our families, and with our communities through authentic connection means less time shopping online and exposing ourselves and our children to the onslaught of advertising that wears away our resolve.

More time reading, especially reading books off the internet, and reading with our children, can help us forge those connections. My friend Summer Kinard just opened up an independent bookstore, where she hopes books will help forge connections to her local community as well. It’s not ironic, then, that one of the most common items I encourage readers to buy (or borrow) on this very blog are books.

Even too many books, however, can overwhelm us, and I, a self-professed bibliophile, have on several occasions had to cull our family library for space reasons (and to make room for more books). Books can burden us if they become mere possessions and not used for their purpose—to be read, enjoyed, to build connections with, and to build community.

Perhaps the best thing to do if we have excess possessions is not to touch them and see if they “spark joy,” but look at them honestly and ask ourselves how they serve us. If they don’t serve us, how might they serve others? Can they contribute, in any way, to authentic connection with God, our families, and our communities? And if they don’t serve anyone, how do I work to make sure such things don’t become my possessions in the first place?

A few weeks later I received ANOTHER gift catalogue from Amazon, this one emblazoned with the words, “Unwrap Joy.” This, too, I bristled about, despite the kernel of truth: joy, ultimately, is a gift. It’s not, however, a finite, material gift to be unwrapped, enjoyed for a time, and then disposed of or donated. Theologian Miroslav Volf writes, “Like love, joy is one of the “eternity seeking” emotions. It wills itself as a permanent state.” Joy, given freely to us by the God who gives, grows with time.

If we orient ourselves to receive that gift of joy from God, we’ll be surprised by its abundance. Christ himself tells us. “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11, NIV). God is no minimalist. He gives generously gifts that will last forever.

With discernment, we can certainly buy the gifts and give them as expressions of love. Advertisers can sell us the gifts, but they can’t sell us the love. We’re the ones who can turn mere material objects into symbols of something spiritual and eternal. We can do this with the smallest and simplest of gifts. Let’s not allow the big companies to convince us that they can do this for us. Let’s not allow the big companies to convince us that we are not enough, that we need more and more things to satisfy us. Recycle the catalogue—and share the joy.

Books mentioned in this post:

Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church by Phoebe Farag Mikhail.

Purchase from: Paraclete Press | Bookshop | Amazon

The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture by Haley Stewart. Purchase from Ave Maria Press | Bookshop | Amazon

The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell. Purchase from Amazon

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Purchase from Bookshop | Amazon

Unironically, some of the affiliate links in this post are Amazon affiliate links, and I will receive a small commission if you use them to make a purchase. Even as I wish all of us could purchase our books from local, independent booksellers, the reality is that eighty percent of books are still purchased on Amazon. Amazon did first begin as a bookseller before branching off into selling almost everything. Some links are also Bookshop affiliate links, and sales from Bookshop do support independent booksellers. You are not obligated to make a purchase through these links, but if you do, the small commission I receive helps cover the costs of running this blog and sharing this content with you.

The post Can Joy Be Delivered? appeared first on Being In Community.

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Your vote is important. It matters. But it is not sacred, or as important as prayer, or any other poetic metaphor about voting you might have read on the internet, or heard in a speech or sermon, or read on someone’s law sign. If you are a citizen of this country and you participate in the election process, you are exercising your constitutional right to vote and fulfilling your civic responsibility.

Your vote is not sacred. It is true that blood has been shed in the fight for the right to vote for every citizen of this country. But it is the blood spilled that was sacred. Your vote certainly might honor the blood of those who have fought for your freedom to have it, but your vote itself is not sacred.

Photo © Phoebe Farag Mikhail 2024

Your vote is something you can do once a year, maybe more if you vote in primaries. There are things you can do every day, multiple times a day, however, that are sacred. For starters, you can pray.

Yesterday someone sent me a YouTube link to a sermon by a preacher at a large Protestant mega church. In that sermon he quoted the 19th century English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon as saying “You should give as much attention to your vote as you do your prayers.” I cannot confirm the veracity of this quote – an internet search does not bring up Spurgeon saying any such thing.

Whether Spurgeon said it or not, the idea that one should give as much attention to their vote as they do to their prayers is dead wrong. How tragic for a Christian preacher to say such a thing to a congregation.  

Our prayers are infinitely more important than our votes, and a Christian who believes in the power of prayer, should be “attending” to their prayers with much more attention and care than to their vote. Anything else isn’t Christianity, but some sort of civic piety, perhaps even a form of civic idolatry.

Photo © Phoebe Farag Mikhail

The desert and urban monastics all over the world prayerfully prostrating themselves night and day for the peace of the earth are doing more for the peace of the earth than my vote ever will. Even more importantly, they’re doing much more for their own salvation than voting will ever do for my salvation.

The closest quote I could find about prayers and voting from a preacher came from Georgia Senator and Reverend Raphael Warnock saying, in 2020, “A vote is a prayer for the future. And we must ensure all our prayers are heard.” He’s just as wrong as pseudo Spurgeon. Friends, if we believe in God, we can believe that our prayers are heard when we actually pray. If we think our prayers are heard when election officials count our ballots, we’re not praying to God at all. We’re praying to some civic deity.

But I don’t worship a civic deity. I worship the Living God.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes:

If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilization, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilization, compared with his, is only a moment.

Christians believe that through Christ we can have eternal life. As Lewis observes, even a thousand year civilization, then, pales in importance to an individual who might live eternally. Attending to our eternal lives, then, is much more important, and much more urgent, than the temporal and increasingly fraught action of voting. Let us not mix the two. 

Today I got on a very long voting line, very sure that some people on that line were going to vote differently than I. And while I might disagree with them fundamentally about why and how they voted the way they did, I can agree with them that they voted because they thought the people they were voting for would make our country a better place, or at least, not a worse one. 

But do you know what else can make our country a better place? It’s not something that we can only do once a year, but something we can do every day: Love our neighbor. After we’ve cast our votes, let us put behind us the political division and acrimony and instead look around and see how we can show care and kindness to those in our local and global communities.

“And who is my neighbor?” You might ask, the way the lawyer in the Gospel of Luke asked. If you’re a Christian, you’ll want the answer from Jesus Christ Himself:

A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?

The lawyer said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:29-36 NKJV).

No matter what our roles are in life—whether we work in government and policy making, whether we work in various professions that have nothing to do with governance and policy, or whether we stay at home to care for family—what we do every day to show love for those around us, especially those who are different than us, is infinitely more important to our homes, communities and souls than voting ever can be.

If this election, or any election, has sown disordered passions within us, now is the time to repent. Now is the time to repent of our judgment and condemnation of others. Now is the time to repent of our slander against others, even against famous politicians running for office. Now is the time to repent for our arrogance. Now is the time to repent because we have forgotten that gentleness, kindness and self-control are fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). 

And then, now is the time to look our neighbor in the eye and say, with authenticity and sincerity “I love you as I love myself.” I love you even if the sign on your front lawn is a different color than the sign on mine.

I love you, my neighbor, even if you hate me. 

Image from Axia Women

Yes, if I’m a Christian, that’s my job. We’re supposed to love our enemies, and that includes our political enemies. If we don’t, how different are we from the rest of the world? If we attended to our prayer lives more than we have our votes, we might get the power from God to love our enemies. In the words of Greek Orthodox saint Mother Gavrilia, “God loves your enemies as much as He loves you.”

If you haven’t already, and it is your right to do so, today is the day to go out and vote. And then, go back to prayer and loving your neighbor, not just this one day, but every day. Voting is for the here and now. Loving our neighbor is for eternity.

My forthcoming book, Hunger for Righteousness: A Lenten Journey Towards Intimacy with God and Loving Our Neighbor, comes out in January 2025. It is available for pre-order now.

Axia Women is giving away stickers with that beautiful quote by Mother Gavrilia with a donation to their work. Learn more here.

Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. You are not obligated to make a purchase using these links, but using these links gives me a small commission, and this helps support my blog expenses.

The post Your Vote is Not Sacred appeared first on Being In Community.

by Tina Attalla

Today’s post is by my dear friend Tina Atalla, the author of Once a Passenger: A Journey toward Intentional Living, a new book perfect for everyone who wants to get off the hedonistic treadmill and live life with intention. Her book is available in print and ebook on Amazon.com.

“So, how are you?”

What is the hardest thing to say in response to this all-too-common greeting? You guessed it: the truth.

“Actually, things are horrible right now.”

“Actually, I cried myself to sleep again last night.”

“Actually, I’m having a mental health crisis at the moment.”

These replies are certainly the last things we want to say. Part of the reason may very well be that we often ask each other as a matter of habit, a casual manner of greeting to courteously acknowledge someone’s existence. I like to call it “drive-by concern.” Sometimes, however, people genuinely care and want to know how we are, and we find ourselves unable to respond with anything other than, “I’m good, thanks,” while the truth festers like a sore lump in our throats, unable to make its way out into the scary world.

What deters us from sharing our struggles?  It could be the fear that no one will understand, or the fear of publicly falling apart at the mention of what’s bothering us. If you are a member of a Christian community, the fear takes on a different nuance. The fear of judgment looms over our heads like an angry storm cloud. The need for more faith, more gratitude, more trust, more strength, and more prayer are certainly to blame for our unhappiness. Openness and vulnerability can be incredibly terrifying, especially in the face of cultural stigmas.

I am the first person who is guilty of not sharing my struggles with others. As an introverted priest’s wife, I have always preferred to stay away from the spotlight and maintain a high level of privacy, almost to a fault. I’m embarrassed to say that in the large parish where my husband serves as a priest, there are some who still don’t know who I am, much less what I am struggling with. This low-key life has been my safe haven…

Until I wrote and self-published a book.

It only took me seven years to muster the courage! What could have possibly possessed me to come out of hiding and bare my heart and soul in this radical way?  That’s a great question! An act of God, so to speak. I’m not talking about a natural disaster, but rather an unexplained, dramatic, and positively supernatural shift in my desire to remain hidden. I went from keeping my writing a secret from even my own children to gleefully declaring, “I’m writing!” when asked what’s new in my life. In my mind, this complete “180” can only be attributed to the Lord working on my heart and giving me the courage to step outside of my comfort for the benefit of others.

In my book, Once a Passenger: A Journey toward Intentional Living, I share how I felt like a passenger in my own life and finally got into the driver’s seat, only to give the control back to the Lord. I reveal the dark place of disillusionment I found myself in after having checked all the right boxes of the successful woman and feeling stuck in a vicious cycle of materialism and consumerism. I disclose the challenge of discerning my husband’s call to the priesthood, which I was categorically opposed to beforehand. And I divulge my struggles with judgement, pride, entitlement, self-pity, perfectionism and the need for control. For the grand finale, I even touch upon my experience with seasonal depression.

I won’t lie, I wrestled for a very long time with whether or not I should be revealing all of these weaknesses and difficulties as a priest’s wife. I fervently prayed and sought spiritual guidance before taking the leap. And this is what I found: people could relate.

The trouble with keeping our tribulations a secret is very real. For starters, feeling alone only compounds the pain of the struggle itself. If no one knows we are hurting, no one can offer help, support, prayer, and even just compassion. In addition, hiding our struggles may cause others to feel that they are alone in their struggles as well, and that their pain is strange or abnormal.  What a relief it must be to know that everyone, (even the priest’s wife), suffers from the brokenness of being a fallen human being! Praise God, we are all in this mess together, and of course with Him! Even Christ did not hide His suffering, declaring to those closest to Him, that His soul was “exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.” (Matthew 26:38)

Please don’t misunderstand me: it is of utmost importance to practice discernment about what, when, and how much to reveal. Still, by sharing your pain and challenges, people will know you to be a person of safety and comfort. If they can’t relate now, maybe they will relate in another season of their lives and turn to you for solace. Perhaps they know someone who would benefit from connecting with you. It may just be that the person can gain insight, sensitivity, and compassion about the area you are struggling in. And if the only outcome of sharing means that someone is praying for you, then glory to God for this blessing!

The next time someone asks how you are with genuine sincerity, consider a different response, a real one. It can be as simple as, “Actually, I’m going through a rough patch right now. Would you pray for me?” Let’s not give up the little opportunities to make authentic connections and touch the souls of the people God has put in our path. You might be surprised by the ripple effect of your vulnerability. I know I certainly was!

Tina Attalla is passionate about Jesus, her husband, and two children. She thoroughly enjoys reading, writing, coffee, and puzzles! She loves to connect with people one-on-one through deep and meaningful conversations. She thinks of herself as a recovering perfectionist, a hopeless introvert, but more than anything, a beloved daughter of God.

Once a Passenger: A Journey Toward Intentional Living by Tina Attalla is available at:

Amazon US: Paperback | Ebook

Amazon Canada: Paperback | Ebook

Amazon UK: Paperback | Ebook

Amazon Australia: Paperback | Ebook

Amazon Germany: Paperback | Ebook

Amazon Italy: Paperback | Ebook

Some of the links above are affiliate links to Amazon to purchase the books mentioned here. You are under no obligation to make a purchase using these links. However, using these links to make a purchase gives me a small commission, and this helps support my blog expenses. 

The post The Hardest Thing appeared first on Being In Community.

By Jessica Ryder-Khalil

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!  In the Orthodox Church we have recently completed our annual Lenten Fast and Holy Week leading to the Feast of the Resurrection.  Now we enter a new season, a new life.  I love the joyful hymns and processions of this liturgical season.  It is a heart-warming reminder of the great and eternal reconciliation between heaven and earth, God and man when the children carry their banners high singing, “He abolished the gates of brass and broke asunder the bars of iron; and brought out His chosen ones with rejoicing and with joy.”  This is the completion of Christian life- freedom from sin and death and everlasting joy in the victory of Christ our King.   The Holy Fifty Days is a time of joy where the old has been made new.   However, that transition between the Lenten period and the Pentecostal period is one where I personally struggle.  I regularly feel like Lent and Holy Week patch up the cracks and holes in my spiritual boat, only to capsize when the waves change direction.        

Here’s why: as sinners full of passions, everything from vainglory and anger to gluttony and sloth, we spend the weeks of Lent sweeping up our house and putting things in order–only to seemingly let the genie out of the bottle during the Holy Fifty Days.  I fear for my soul that my last condition may be worse than the first.  For whom among us celebrates the Resurrection Feast with calm, sober joy once that table of meats and rich desserts is in front of us?  For whom among us, when we’ve striven to moderate our thoughts and emotions through Lent does not find themselves slipping back into old habits once our guard is down?  We read in the Gospel of St. Matthew, “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.  Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’.” (Matthew 12:43-45)

Yet again, I proclaim “Christ truly is risen” and has given us authority to trample serpents and scorpions, the very personal internal reptiles in the basement of our souls, as described by St. Theresa of Avila in The Interior Castle. She writes of the first or outer mansions of spiritual practice, “The number of snakes, vipers, and venomous reptiles from outside the castle prevent souls entering them from seeing the light. They resemble a person entering a chamber full of brilliant sunshine, with eyes clogged and half closed with dust” (Chapter 2, Paragraph 15).  For St. Theresa, the person who has begun to practice prayer must continue ever onward through the mansions, aware that there will be vipers waiting throughout the chambers. “For the creatures amongst whom we dwell are so venomous, so vicious, and so dangerous, that it is almost impossible to avoid being tripped up by them” (Chap 2, Section 2, Paragraph 4).  Escape from these beasts is possible by heeding the call of the Lord to draw nearer to Him. The blessed mother of nuns describes the Lord as a loving, compassionate Neighbor who never ceases to invite us into His home to enjoy His company and protection.  

By sharing this reflection, I admit that I barely have passed from St. Theresa’s first mansion to the second.  Barely a beginner in spiritual practice is one who is so easily shaken by a plate of food or other worldly pleasure.  Fortunately, I found sound advice about benefiting from the flow of liturgical seasons from fasting to feasting by reading The Festal Letters of St. Athanasius and, praise be to God, I might be beginning to see through the glass darkly.   A key to reading the letters announcing the dates for the Great Lent, Holy Week, and the Resurrection Feast is to realize that the Alexandrian patriarchs sent out these encyclicals to give greetings for the feast before the fast had even begun.  Therefore, we enter the Great Lent in expectation of the joy of the feast, and we celebrate the Resurrection Feast being tempered and recreated by the fast.    

Just as we still call the Passion Week the Pascha or Passover, St. Athanasius’ thought regarding the forty-day fast and Holy Week is intimately tied to the passage from 1 Corinthians 5:7-8:  “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.  Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

St. Athanasius provides a thorough treatment of the Exodus typology, as about a quarter of the Festal Letters make reference to the transformation of the Jewish Passover into the redemptive Passion of Jesus Christ. In Letter XIV, he writes, “Therefore, let us too, when we come to the feast…let us hasten as if to the Lord, for the feast is ready, not thinking of it as pleasure and enjoyment for the belly, but as a manifestation of virtue.”  St. Athanasius continues with the Pauline thought that our spiritual food is virtuous action and sincere worship.  That is our feast- rejoicing in the presence of the Lord, honoring Him with righteous living empowered by the grace of His Spirit. As the faithful move toward Him through their inclination towards virtue, He Himself can “walk among us and eat with us the Passover while also promising us the true Passover and the joy in heaven with the saints” (Letter XIV). 

As much as I participate in the fast and subsequent feast of Passover, I also receive the blessing of new life both now and in anticipation of the age to come, walking in blameless and righteous joy. In this search for joy, I’m so thankful for Phoebe’s audiobook edition of Putting Joy into Practice because I regularly need the reminder that the Holy Fifty Days is best expressed in sharing the joy of the Resurrection with others through prayer, praise, and acts of service.   Phoebe writes, “Our joy will be complete when we ask from him all we need to live the joy of the Resurrection.” The Great Lent helps us put off worldly cares and the joy of the Holy Fifty Days fills that newly created space in our hearts with the love of God.  This ebb and flow of the liturgical seasons is to be embraced and relaxed into like floating on water, buoyed by the waves, shaped by the living water.      

Life returns to normal after Holy Week, a week where more time is spent at church than at home.  Everything was put on hold so that our family could walk to the Cross with Christ, descend to Hades with Him on Bright Saturday and be resurrected with Him on the Feast. The aftermath of breaking from our daily routines is apparent as I open the front door of our home and reality hits. The children must go back to school. My husband must go to work. There are six or seven loads of laundry and a sink overflowing with dishes waiting for me. The heaviness of the world comes crashing in with all its force. Illness and death do not stop. Suffering and difficulty do not stop. My unruly passions do not stop. 

But they are transformed, and we need to grasp onto that definitive change just as St. Thomas needed to see the Lord.  So on the Eighth Day, I will return to the blessed altar and confess, “I believe, I believe, I believe!” As St. Athanasius writes in Letter VI, “The entire creation keeps the feast, my brethren… on account of the enemies’ destruction, and of our salvation.  And rightly so: For if there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, what would there not be over the abolition of sin and the resurrection of the dead?  What a feast! And how great heaven’s joy!”

*The author quotes from an edition of the Festal Letters of St. Athanasius recently translated by David Brakke and David Gwynn. A free version of the Festal Letters in an older translation can also be accessed here.

Jessica Ryder-Khalil  is a frequent contributor to Being in Community. She is a wife and mom of four children between the ages of 16 and 7 years of age.  She is a servant at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Gainesville, FL and is working towards an MTS degree from St. Athanasius & St. Cyril Theological School.  Jessica was baptized into the Coptic Orthodox Church 18 years ago and is a continual learner along the path to Orthodoxy. Before family life took the lead role, Jessica taught English as a Second Language both abroad and in the USA. Her previous posts include Shortbread Theology, Death, Roses, and Resurrection, An Hour in a Few Minutes, Spiritual Warfare Everywhere, and What My Mom Taught Me About Authenticity. Text © Jessica Ryder-Khalil, 2024.

Some of the links above are affiliate links to Amazon.com to purchase the books mentioned in the post. Using these links gives me a small commission if you make a purchase, and this helps support my blog expenses. Some of these books can be found at an even lower price used. If you use my Thriftbooks referral link, you and I will get a promotional code for a free book if you spend $30 or more.

Subscribe to Phoebe Farag Mikhail’s newsletter to be the first to find out about new posts on Being in Community and other news!

SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER

The post What a Feast! appeared first on Being In Community.

by Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Like so many people across North America, today my family and I got to witness the solar eclipse. As we waited for almost totality with our solar glasses on, my husband noted that a solar eclipse is recorded in the Coptic Orthodox Synaxarium as a miracle, and we chuckled about it. Yet what we now know of as a natural phenomenon was, for most ancient people, an understandably frightening experience. The account in the Synaxarium tells us how the people of Egypt reacted to a total solar eclipse in 1242 AD:

The sun became gradually dark until darkness spread everywhere and the stars were seen in the daytime. People lit lamps and were struck with great fear. They cried out to God the Almighty with all their hearts, asking for His compassion and mercy. The Lord had mercy upon them, removed their fear and the darkness was lifted all at once and the sun appeared to light up the world, and the lamps were extinguished. That occurred from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. The people glorified God who was long suffering towards them and did not deal with them according to their sins but according to His mercy and patience.

https://st-takla.org/books/en/church/synaxarium/02-babah/09-baba-eclipse.html

We laughed about this, knowing what actually happened: the moon moved into their line of sight, blocked the sun for a time causing the earth to darken, and then continued to move along its path, bringing light to the world again. When I found the entry in the Synaxarium to show my children, one of them wondered if it should be removed, knowing what we now know: that the eclipse is not a sign of God’s wrath upon us, nor is its ending a sign of God’s mercy on us.

But that’s if the miracle we are reading has to do with the eclipse. There is another miracle in this story: it’s the miracle of God’s people turning to Him when something incomprehensible and frightening was happening to them. Light became darkness, and so they turned to God. And when the light returned, they thanked Him, seeing its return as God’s loving mercy and patience towards them.

The miracle is repentance. And the result of repentance is that darkness turns to light. If it happens naturally, it’s because that is God’s nature: compassionate, merciful, long-suffering. For those thirteenth century Egyptians, the world for an hour seemed overshadowed with darkness, but behind that darkness was always the bright, shining light of the sun. When eclipses happen now, we look towards the sun in awe, but rarely in repentance. We take it for granted, now, that the sun shines there behind the darkness. Those thirteenth century Egyptians might inspire us, then, not to take this grace for granted. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15)

Image credit: NASA (https://science.nasa.gov/gallery/ecli...)

The post Behind the Darkness, Light appeared first on Being In Community.

By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

If you’re an email newsletter subscriber, you’ve already gotten a sneak peak at some of the books on my annual Lent reading list when I sent it out on Ash Wednesday a few weeks ago. Want to join the list? Click here.

Because of my book deadline for my forthcoming book (also about Lent!) I ran a little late on posting my complete book list for this year. Ash Wednesday was on February 14th, and my church has already started fasting this past Monday. So if you were waiting on this list to make a choice, please forgive me!

My Lent reading list this year is also unusually long because I’m writing a book, and when writing a nonfiction book, you often need to read a lot, too. God willing, by next year, my Lent 2025 reading list will include my next book, Hunger for Righteousness: A Lenten Journey Towards Intimacy with God and Loving Our Neighbors from Paraclete Press. Until then, please enjoy this year’s list, which includes a book giveaway! To enter the giveaway for a copy of Reading for the Love of God, subscribe to my email newsletter, then make a comment with your Lent reading this year.

During a season when many people choose to read for spiritual growth, Jessica Hooten Wilson’s book, Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice is a wonderful place to begin. This isn’t just a book about reading edifying books, but it’s a book about how to read almost any good book as a spiritual practice. “For the spiritual reader,” Hooten Wilson writes, “reading may be a practice that increases our capacity to love.” A spiritual reader is not just someone who reads religious or spiritual books, but someone who reads books of any kind with the purpose of growing in virtue. Thus, a great novel or an authentically written memoir, regardless of the author’s own religious background, could be spiritual reading if read with this purpose. One of my favorite aspects of this book are Hooten Wilson’s “Bookmarks,” profiles of spiritual readers as models for us, including Augustine of Hippo, Julian of Norwich, Fredrick Douglass, and Dorothy Sayers.

I have one copy of Reading for the Love of God to give away to one of my newsletter subscribers (to enter, subscribe and share your Lent reading in the newsletter chat. Giveaway period ends at 11:59 pm on March 17, 2024).

Purchase Reading for the Love of God from  Baker Books  |  Bookshop  |  Amazon

If you live in the United States you may have noticed that this year, 2024, is a presidential election year, and the news cycle will not let us forget it. When that happens, it makes it easy for us to get caught in political discussions and ideologies, sometimes at the expense of our faith. Michael Wear’s book, The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life is the perfect antidote. In this book, Wear asks some very important questions we should all be asking ourselves:

“How many of us would say we’d prefer to lose in our political ambitions if it meant others might draw closer to Jesus? How many of us would say we’d prefer to sacrifice political advantage if it meant we might draw closer to Jesus?”

I’m excited to read more and learn from Wear’s practical thoughtfulness on this topic as we navigate another contentious election season.

Purchase The Spirit of Our Politics from Bookshop | Amazon

Lent is not just a time for fasting and prayer, but also for giving. In the Coptic Orthodox Church, our Lenten refrain during communion says “Blessed are those who have mercy/who give to the poor and fast and pray.” During Lent, mercy and giving come before fasting and prayer. So the publication of When You Give: Ancient Answers and Contemporary Questions by L. Joseph Letendre last year comes at a good time for Lent this year. This is a short but nonetheless useful book for refocusing us on this important discipline for Lent and for our lives more generally. The first sentence states it clearly: “Even a quick and casual reader of the four Gospels could not miss that giving to the poor, helping those in need, and serving others constitute a defining part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.”

Purchase When You Give from Ancient Faith Publishing | Bookshop | Amazon

With a blog entitled “Being in Community,” I could not turn down the offer to review one of Plough publications latest releases, the second edition of Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People. In 2022, I included another collection from Plough, Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together, on my Lent reading list, and I have dipped in and out of that book many times since. Called to Community looks like another book I’ll be visiting many times over. Organized by different topics related to living in community, each topic includes selections from various Christian authors of many different traditions. Considering the topic, this collection surprisingly has fewer selections from the Church Fathers and Mothers than Following the Call. St. Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory of Nyssa, the Desert Fathers, and the Pachomian Koinonia most certainly have important writings to contribute to the topic of community; still, but the passages and topics chosen for this book are still enlightening. This passage on hospitality by Catholic writer Kathleen Norris tells a beautiful story:

“Not long ago I heard a novice speak of a nun with Alzheimer’s in her community, who every day insists on being placed in her wheelchair at the entrance to the monastery’s nursing home wing so that she can greet everyone who comes. ‘She is no longer certain what she is welcoming people to,’ the younger woman explained, ‘but hospitality is so deeply ingrained in her that it has become her whole life.’”

Purchase Called to Community from Plough | Bookshop | Amazon

My word of the year this year is “Create,” and I’m learning from Cal Newport’s book Deep Work that real creative flow comes from, well, longer periods of focus without distraction. Cue this new/old book out from Princeton University Press, How to Focus: A Monastic Guide in an Age of Distraction by St. John Cassian. As translator Jamie Kreiner notes, distraction is not a new struggle for human beings, but an aspect of the human condition.

Purchase How to Focus from  Princeton University Press  |  Bookshop  |  Amazon

Deep Work has also led me to another book about focus and attention. Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by behavioral scientist Winifred Gallagher is the chronicle of how she rearranged her life after a cancer diagnosis to change what she paid attention to, and making some important discoveries about the good life in the process. In her words, “Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.”

Purchase Rapt from Bookshop | Amazon

Speaking of focus and St. John Cassian, Park End Books has a new children’s board book out based on his spiritual classic, The Ladder of Divine Ascent. It is called Little Steps: Climbing the Ladder for Little Ones by Kathryn Reetzke and illustrated by Yostina Kaoud, and it is just lovely in its depth and simplicity.

Purchase Little Steps from  Park End Books  |  Draw Near Designs

My fiction choice for this Lent is a new book (that will begin a series!) by Sarah Arthur, Once a Queen. This book has gotten amazing reviews and I can’t wait to dive in, especially considering what I have learned from Reading for the Love of God. You can listen to an interview with Sarah Arthur on the Read-Aloud Revival Podcast here.

Purchase Once a Queen from:  Waterbrook  |  Bookshop  |  Amazon

For Our Salvation: Lectures and Readings on Holy Week in the Coptic Tradition by Fr. Arsenius Mikhail (no relation) from ACTS Press looks like excellent preparation for Holy Week. Fr. Arsenius is a scholar of liturgy so I am excited to learn a lot from this book.

Purchase For Our Salvation from: ACTS Press | Amazon

On a slightly more scholarly note, I’ll also be reading Dr. Youhanna Nessim Youssef’s new book The History of the Rite of Holy Week in the Coptic Orthodox Church. This book, also written by a longtime scholar of liturgy, provides some important historical context for the way we celebrate Holy Week in the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Purchase The History of the Rite of Holy Week from: St. Shenouda Press | Bookshop | Amazon

Don’t forget! You can enter the giveaway for Jessica Hooten Wilson’s book, Reading for the Love of God, by subscribing to my email newsletter, then commenting on the latest newsletter with the book you plan on reading for Lent.

What are you reading this Lent? What will you be reading with your kids? Will you choose something from this list? Please share in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe to the Being in Community email list to get access to the Great Lent Picture Book Guide, a Guide to Helping Children Love Reading, AND a spiritual reading reflection guide! May God accept our fast this Lent as we look forward to the Holy Resurrection.

Looking for other Lenten spiritual reading ideas? Check out my book lists for 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017. 

Need ideas to find time for reading, to start a reading habit, or get back into one? Check out my posts:

Building a reading habit and finding time to read

How I read 230 books in 2019

Some of the links above are affiliate links to Bookshop and Amazon to purchase the books suggested here. Using these links gives me a small commission, and this helps support my blog expenses. Purchasing books on Bookshop also helps local independent bookstores. Some of these books can be found at an even lower price used. If you use my  Thriftbooks referral link , you and I will get a promotional code for a free book if you spend $30 or more.

The post What I’m Reading this Lent (2024 edition) appeared first on Being In Community.