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| Wassily Kandinsky, Autumn in Murnau, the cover photo on Seraphim Sigrist's Facebook page. |
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... [T]he gifts of the Holy Spirit are revealed in community. As such, they are for all the community, and so one gift does not quench the others, even when, as happens often, they are opposite. So the analytical does not quench the emotional, the gift of tears does not quench that of laughter, the gift of the spiritual elder does not contradict that of the psychologist, the gift of ecstasy does not stand in disharmony with that of calm.
—Bishop Seraphim Sigrist, A Life Together: Wisdom of Community from the Christian East.
Bishop Seraphim Sigrist (Orthodox Church in America) died last Saturday morning. There must be many people all over the world who are going through what I'm feeling now. Yes, it's true that we believe that "he fell asleep in the Lord," but he gave us so much wisdom and care and sheer fun that I, for one, can't help feeling sad and very sorry for us.
I never met him in person. The closest we came to meeting each other was when I visited the Pleasantville campus of Pace University to conduct marketing interviews at a time when he was working in the library. We actually met through a Facebook chat when he contacted me to consider joining an ecumenical fellowship that, during the peak COVID years, was meeting online. That invitation led to, among other things, five years of correspondence that I'm very grateful to be able to revisit anytime. We chatted about Japan (where he served as Bishop of East Japan, and where my mother was born and raised), our experiences of Russia, several mutual friends there, the intersections of Eastern Orthodox and Quaker Christianity, authors and artists we both admired, and the joys and puzzles of ecumenical life. We sent each other many links over the years; it was he who told me that Friends Journal had published an interview with the Norwegian author Jon Fosse, whom he was reading at the time.
Looking over that correspondence, I am amazed at my own openness with him in writing about my family and early life. I've no doubt that many others found him to be a person of surpassing empathy as I did. And some of you lucky people knew him for far longer than my five years.
His scope of knowledge, interests, sympathies, and ability to detect unexpected affinities and hidden kinships across all those fields was amazing. And he frequently made those connections with gentle playfulness.
In his positive review of Bishop Seraphim's book Theology of Wonder, the Christian Reformed scholar James Peyton wrote words that ring very true, more generally, of what I came to know and love about our friend. In the Calvin Theological Journal, pages 479-481) Peyton wrote,
There is no question that the author is a gifted theologian: It is clear that Bishop Seraphim is well-acquainted with a wide spectrum of views and controversies, both among Christians of various stripes and with the views of practitioners of other faith traditions throughout the world. However, he never makes such familiarity the point of his presentation or of any of the sections; indeed, he wears his extensive learning lightly. he is not concerned to show us how much he knows, although he knows a great deal: He refers deftly to the understandings current among Hasidic Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and various kinds of Muslims. He cites with considerable dexterity literary figures from various cultures, across many centuries, and in a host of genres. Unostentatiously, the author weaves these all into a seamless tapestry that invites readers to appreciate that "all things (considered in their depth) led into eluctable mystery" (93): Bishop Seraphim is concerned to show us how much he does not understand—or, better put, what no one can comprehend. In the best traditions of the rich Eastern Orthodox tradition in which he stands, this little book offers a contemporary—and very accessible—mystical theology.
Theology of Wonder is available from St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.
Eternal memory!
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| Source: LiveJournal |
Seraphim in his own words, over the years: his LiveJournal.
The fourth Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI) in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt—an Eastern Orthodox perspective. (How I wish I could talk about this report with Eden Grace!)
Micah Bales asks a key question: Who is in charge here?
You've heard of virtue-signalling. Now we have vice-signalling and vitriol-signalling.... (Skip these links if you want to stay on the sunny side of the street.)
Kristin Du Mez, Bruce Berglund, and the Moscow Playbook.
Writer and poet Nancy Thomas on the writing vocation, technological interruptions, and ... what rhymes with Forsythe?
Yougov statistics: Super Bowl vs Winter Olympics, and how book-reading is faring in the USA (not well!).
This time, our "Baby Scratch My Back" version comes from Otis Redding (audio only with slideshow). It's probably my favorite version strictly for vocal performance.
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