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Ideology is the study of ideas, the study of their origin and nature.  In this sense, we should never let our ideology, political or otherwise, become dogmatic.  It should always be careful, considered, skeptical, and open to new ideas.  And as Orthodox Christians, we should model how to hold dogma properly.  Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss this and also how to enter into conversations about today's issues with the proper mindset... and more than that, with perspective.

Did you know that we have a private podcast just for our patrons?  The private setting allows us to engage openly in conversation about all sorts of topics, even the controversial ones.  As a patron, you'll get early access to new episodes, have a platform on which to ask questions and start discussions, and enjoy candid opinions and conversations.  Join us for as little as $3/month, and help us keep this public podcast going!  Sign up at www.patreon.com/enactingthekingdom.

We can be tempted to see our faith as being in competition with other aspects of our life, be that sports, consumerism, politics, theatre or music (among so many others), but that is not the way we are meant to approach life.  We should not artificially divide the sacred and the secular.  We are called to participate in all of these Liturgies of Life, entering into every aspect and sphere of human society, and transform them with God's story, informed by our participation in the Divine Liturgy.  In this series finale, Fr Yuri reflects on what helped him most in this series, and Fr Geoffrey shares what he hopes you, our listeners, will take away from it.  In a word, joy!

Did you know that we have a private podcast just for our patrons?  The private setting allows us to engage openly in conversation about all sorts of topics, even the controversial ones.  As a patron, you'll get early access to new episodes, have a platform on which to ask questions and start discussions, and enjoy candid opinions and conversations.  Join us for as little as $3/month, and help us keep this public podcast going!  Sign up at www.patreon.com/enactingthekingdom.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Before diving into the sayings themselves, today Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri chat about where and when these holy men and women lived, why they lived that way, and why their words continue to come down to us so many centuries later.  These sayings should affect the things we value, the things we choose to do, the very life that we live.

"Give me a word" is a theme of many desert sayings that have been passed down to us, and (let's be honest) the basis of this whole series!  Usually it is a short, pithy piece of advice that the hearer is expected to sit with and ponder.  Whether an encouragement or a challenge, it must always be wrestled with and actually put into practice.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

What do the terms "the head" and "the heart" encompass?  What does it mean to have the head descend into the heart?  Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss desert sayings related to heart-centered spirituality, as well as thoughts, desires and passions.

It's so much easier to numb ourselves to the real work we are called to, with counterfeits that replace what is truly needed - but what comes after the struggle?  Ineffable joy.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore two themes in this fourth episode in our series on the Desert Sayings.  The first is simplicity - the importance of always being a beginner, maintaining humility, practicing restraint and putting things in their proper place.  The second theme is on spiritual elders and soul friends - those relationships where we can be known fully, and trust in each other's unconditional love and acceptance. In this modern world, how do we find someone we can trust and reveal ourselves to, so that we can engage in a relationship this way?

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

In this episode on our series of the Desert Sayings, we touch on two themes: the tears of compunction (are those tears self-centered or Christ-centered?) and the necessity for practice in the spiritual life (and sticking with that practice even when there are no discernible results).

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

As we continue our series on the desert sayings, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore the themes of virtues, charity and services of love, as well as solitude, silence and hesychia.

Today's sayings prove to us again the true meaning of monasticism, which is rooted in monachos - singular focus - which is not the same as being by oneself.  It is rather about the release of all things that get in the way of our capacity to show love.  The singular aim of all that we do is God.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

There are many sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that mention "three essential things" of the spiritual life, and they are incredibly varied and often paradoxical.  Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss these as well as sayings that involve prayer, and the differing gifts of Christians.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

In our final episode on the sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey reflect on the impact these words can have on our modern lives.  Even those sayings that deal with becoming a monastic (which at first may seem too far out of reach) can apply to us who live in the world, as we share a common call to asceticism.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

 We are so excited to begin our new series created just for our patrons, Your Liturgical Bible.  The Scriptures are the source material for our liturgical services, either directly or indirectly.  The goal is to provide our listeners with the tools to read the Scriptures in a way that informs how we experience Liturgy, and then ultimately allows us to bring that Liturgy into our everyday life.

There is another podcast, Bible Project, that does an excellent job of describing certain pillars of biblical literacy that help us approach Scripture properly.   Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey take a look at these pillars from an Orthodox perspective, beginning with Divine and Human Literature, Unified Literature and Messianic Literature.

Check out the Paradigm series here: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/paradigm/ 

"Your Liturgical Bible" is our new series created just for our patrons.  We will be exploring what the bible is - and what it's not.  We will discuss how we're meant to read Scripture, how it connects with Liturgy and our life, and how we can use it to enact the Kingdom.

In this second of half of our series introduction, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore the remaining pillars of biblical literacy which will help us approach Scripture properly: Communal Literature, Ancient Literature, Meditation Literature and Wisdom Literature.

Please reference the Paradigm series by the Bible Project here, to learn more about these pillars: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/paradigm/

 We have now gone through the seven pillars of biblical literacy as outlined by the Bible Project podcast, but there is a pillar that was missed.  This forgotten pillar, or perhaps better called the Pillar of Pillars, is the bible as Liturgical Literature.  

Of course the bible precedes our Divine Liturgy, yet if the Liturgy is understood as the experience of who God is, of being with God and God with us, then we see that it is the very origin of the bible.  Liturgy is the natural home of the bible.  Liturgy is where we go when we want to understand what the bible is all about.  Liturgy is the wrapping around the whole of the Scriptures.

In this episode, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss how the bible requires full and intentional liturgical participation,  exploring a variety of fun metaphors such as Hamlet, car mechanics, Comic-Con and map-reading. 

While the themes of the waters of life and death are intertwined in the Scriptures, in this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore the aspect of water that is life-giving and fruitful.

From the creation account, through the prophets and into the New Testament, the Scriptures are woven through with experiences of living water.  As Orthodox Christians, we enact this story in our liturgies, recalling the creational and healing purposes of water, and understanding that living water is intimately connected with those who are living according to God's purpose and totally dependent on His grace.

Continuing on with the theme of water, in this episode Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri plunge into the Waters of Death - the chaotic, deadly, stagnant waters that are the counterpoint to the lifegiving waters that were explored last episode. 

Throughout the bible, in Genesis, Exodus, the prophets and the gospel accounts, the power of water is revealed.  More than that, the power of the one true God is revealed as the One who can calm the waters, the One who can enter in to the destructive waters and emerge not only unharmed, but having also transformed them into healing waters.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Symbolically, to be on a high place is to be on secure dry land, where creation flourishes and where God dwells among His people in an awesome and awful (or rather awe-full) way.  In this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss the ways mountains appear in the Scriptures, how we understand the meaning of mountains throughout the scriptural story and how they come up in our liturgical life.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

To be human is to experience times of wilderness.  That is, wilderness the way Israelites understood and lived it.  In modern times we tend to think of wilderness as a lush getaway, a place of refuge from our urban environment, but in the Scriptural context it is a place of desolation and lack and need, a place of testing, and a time of drawing nearer to God, learning to be completely and utterly dependent on Him.  

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss how the theme of wilderness appears both in Scriptures and in our liturgical life.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

People are trees!  Except it's a bit more nuanced than that because you need to also keep in mind... trees are people!

Right from the Genesis story, we see that trees (and seeds) feature prominently in the scriptural narrative, and often mirror the human story.  Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri offer tools for your "biblical literacy toolbelt" to help you unpack the full meaning when you come across trees in the liturgy and the bible.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

When we think of fire in the Bible, we may come up with images of hellfire, the judgement of God and a casting away from His presence.  In actuality, fire is used in scripture as a way of God revealing Himself and His holiness.  Fire is God's presence which humans encounter, which refines and purifies - and in this way, it's not wrong to think of fire as being God's judgement.  Could it be that those fires of hell are not a sign of God's absence, but rather of His presence?  In the Orthodox tradition, we reframe our understanding of all fire in light of this.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss this pattern that we see in the Scriptures, and how it is also found within our liturgical services.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Wind, breath and spirit.  In English we have these three words, but there is just one word in the Hebrew (ruach) and the Greek (pneuma).  In fact, there are many more metaphorical applications of this word, such as air, anger, blast, courage, despondency, quick-tempered, inspired, trustworthy and wrath.

This spirit, breath and wind portrays God's action in the world - from the life-giving and animating spirit within all human beings, to the powerful blast that forcefully brings order to chaos.  Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore this scriptural theme and how substituting some of these other words for ruach and pneuma can help us comprehend what it truly means when we pray for the in-dwelling of the Spirit.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Time to get uncomfortable!  Instead of trying to explain away the "lowercase g" gods, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey define what is meant by the "Divine Council", both in common parlance and also within the Orthodox context and understanding.  As we read the scriptures and participate in the liturgy, it's important to understand what monotheism is, and what it isn't, so that we can engage in theosis and answer the invitation to the heavenly realm.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

When we hear the word "ark", many of us think of Noah or Moses (...or perhaps Indiana Jones).  What is an ark?  What are we meant to call to mind when we read about arks in the scriptures, and how does this biblical imagery express itself in our liturgical worship?

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore these questions, and caution that we are not meant to be stuck within an Old Testament understanding of the ark, but rather we are meant to acknowledge its fulfillment in Christ.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Typically, and sadly, when we hear the words "life after death", we think of what happens to our soul after our body dies.  Maybe it even spurs us to make sure that we are doing the proper things, thinking the proper way, checking the right boxes, achieving a spiritual condition that will assure we are on the right side of that equation.

The scriptural narrative of life after death shares a much deeper understanding, one of creation and new creation.  This is not an individual story, but a communal one, and what we do in this world matters.  Everything matters.  As Fr Geoffrey shares from a beautiful Rabbinic tradition, planting a tree matters.  As Fr Yuri shares from personal experience, cleaning the house for your wife matters.  You'll have to listen to see how profound that analogy is. :)

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri also speak about baptism, when we learn to "walk in newness of life", and to participate daily in God's renewal of creation.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

What did Second Temple Jews believe about Sheol, the realm of the dead, and resurrection?  There are resurrection - or bodily resuscitation - accounts throughout the scriptures, so how did the various sects interpret those accounts?  Were they considered symbolic, historic or prophetic, personal or communal?

In this episode of Your Liturgical Bible, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri search the scriptures to better understand how Christ's resurrection is set apart, and how we as Christians are called to proclaim and to live according to this truth - a sign of the new age, a permanent new way of being in creation.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Christians like to tout that the Bible is all about family values, but what do we really mean by that?  In fact, the very first thing that happens in God's plan of salvation is that Abram is told to abandon his family and nation in order to form a new family by which, God promises, all families will be blessed.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss this ambiguity around family that runs right through the Scriptures, the meaning and beauty of being adopted into God's family, and the family values that the Scriptures truly stand behind.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

As we see in the Scriptures, the Israelites had a very mature, deep and rich understanding of what it means to be an image of God.  Interestingly, the word used for being an image of God is also the same word that is used for an idol, showing a duality we need to be cautious of, and the importance of ordering ourselves according to the divine and not according to our own flesh.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri flesh out this idea (please forgive the pun!), as well as show how this biblical imagery is expressed liturgically and enacted in our day to day lives.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

The imagery of land and promised land in the Scriptures can be lost on those of us who live in lands of abundance.  But we must also be careful to understand that the promised land is not merely imagery.  It is a very real parcel of territory from which God's promises are shown to move out into the world.  

There can be a tendency amongst Christian to universalize everything, insisting on symbolism and downplaying the very concrete reality of the promises that were made to Israel.  However, as St Augustine tells us, in order for Christ to be the fulfillment of these promises, it is necessary that they were real in the first place.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

The core theme of the Scriptures could be considered to be the theme of monarchy.  Initially the biblical narrative seems to imply that having a king would be desirable, despite prophetic warnings against, and then we see the kings of Israel fail again and again.  So is it a good idea to have a king, or not?  The fact is, our human expectations of kingship result in kings that fail.  All kings will fall short because our king is meant to be God himself.

As we sing at Saturday vespers, "The Lord is King; He is robed in majesty"!

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

We come to the final episode of our series on Your Liturgical Bible, which has been focused on the pillars of the bible and its narrative themes, connecting what's written in the bible with what we do through ritual. 

We have seen that in the Orthodox church, liturgical worship is the primary way we experience the Scriptures, express our faith and experience our relationship with God.  There is a dynamic relationship between the old and new covenant and our own participation in the Liturgy, a continuous interplay, an eternal present in which God acts.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri draw on a number of themes today, including the prophets Habbakuk and Jonah, comic-con, compost and gardening - it all comes together, trust me!  They also discuss the beauty of reclaiming narrative theology, and whether or not bible study has a place in Orthodoxy.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

We enter into our new series, Narrative Theology, by considering what it means to do the right thing, and by what methods we should discern what the right thing is anyway. Ethics are based on stories such as what a human person is, what the goal of our being is, and what constitutes a good life. As Christians, our ethics are based on the greatest story of all: the story of God.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss the different branches of ethics that many modern-day Christians subscribe to, and the ecclesial ethic that early Christians followed, an ethic which we should strive to return to. It is an ethic that is practiced, like one perfects their craft, until it becomes a habit, and habit becomes character, and character forms us to be people who will respond in any given situation by enacting the Kingdom, God’s shalom, God’s peace, for all of creation.

This series on Narrative Theology will centre around internalizing this ethic so that as the Church we can faithfully encounter every situation, including the situations that we never anticipated, without fear, because we’ll have become the right kind of people. God’s people.

If life is a play, indeed a drama, what are our lines?

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore the analogy of God's story as a five act play, where we have intimate knowledge of the three acts that have come before, book-ended by intimate knowledge of the final act, while in the midst of act four.  

As Christians we often look for a script, or mistakenly think we already have and know the script, when in reality this is an unscripted act.  We have to improvise.  With utter fidelity, we must receive the tradition that has been given us (acts 1-3), and honour the telos we are headed towards (act 5).  We must train, so that we instinctively react in the right way when faced with any given situation, to properly enact God's story in the world.

In this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey reflect on a chapter in Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics by Samuel Wells... well, Fr Yuri improvises his part in the reflection (and a good job he does, indeed!).

We make a mistake when we think of ethics as only being issues and struggles that interrupt our "normal life".  In fact, this view is entirely unbiblical and untraditional. We need to think of ethics as the ongoing practice of the Good, so that we have the instincts and habits in order so that we are always acting in accordance with our second nature, a second nature that has been formed by "doing all the drills", living the right way, as children of God being formed increasingly in His likeness.

What are these drills?  What habits do we need to work on?  How do we attain the disponibilité or relaxed awareness, that Sam Wells writes of? Listen in!

"Assessing Status" is a game that improv actors use to develop their skills, and it's also a game that we play daily as we interact with other people.  It's part of the context of every relationship, every encounter.

High and low status are neither good nor bad in and of themselves, but both are assumed as roles and can be used to move the narrative forward.  Status is also complex and is hardly fixed — it shifts backwards and forwards between high and low as we interact with others.

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore examples of this status narrative in the Scriptures and in church history. As we continue on in the fourth act of this five act play, how do we assess and work out what role we as Christians have to address the world and the issues of the day? Spoiler: we don't always have to assume high status!

"I'm not your mom, and you're actually a dog".

A ridiculous reply, without a doubt (especially taken out of context, but you'll have to listen to the podcast for that).  Tragically, the Church sounds precisely like this most of the time.  

A blocking response like this one is based on fear.  Fear that we cannot let go of control of the narrative, fear that the story will not unfold in the right way.  And what does that say about our ultimate trust in God?  

Accepting an offer, and moving the narrative forward, requires a "Yes, and..." response.  Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss how to say "Yes, and..." and also whether there is a place for "no" within the model of accepting offers.

In the previous episode "Accepting & Blocking", we discussed the importance in improv of using the strategy of "Yes, and..." to further the narrative.  Of course, there are multiple ways of saying yes, and often this requires us to question givens.  The givens we assume can imprison the way we think and act, but when we question those givens we can receive them as gifts and re-connect to the wider narrative.

There is ultimately only one unquestionable given: God and His story.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss another maxim of improv theatre, "Don't be bound by your format", and reflect on the current debate in Canada about assisted suicide to illustrate why questioning givens is so vital.

Instead of a binary decision between accepting gifts without discernment, or blocking them without engagement (neither of which would make for good improv theatre), there is also a third option, that of over-accepting, which focuses on the way we receive the gift.  

Rather than focus on what the gift IS, or what the gift is FOR, or even whether it is good or bad, we can focus on what the gift COULD BE.  In the context of narrative theology, how can this gift be understood in a faithful way?  What does the way we accept the gift say about the kind of people that we are and want to be?  What can this gift become in the larger story of God as we move the narrative forward towards the final and fifth act?

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss the idea of "over-accepting", an active way of receiving that allows us to keep our identity and our relevance in the story, while being faithful to the story that has already unfolded and the story that is yet to come. 

Whether through improv, songs or stories, audiences are delighted when the narrative draws to an end and elements that had been seemingly discarded are brought back into play. In fact, "Reincorporating the Lost" is necessary to bring a fulfilling conclusion to any story (just ask a child whose parent has attempted to summarize the ending to a plot!).

As those lost things that we thought had been written out of the story start to re-appear, we must be aware of the final act drawing nearer, and as a church and as individuals joyfully incorporate those things back into the story. Are we listening to those once-silenced voices?  Are we befriending the lost? Are we changing our habits based on the full story instead of just the part of the story we have inherited?

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey reflect on this and discuss ways of practicing "reincorporating the lost" so that it becomes a habit in our lives.

Over the next few episodes, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri will be addressing some of the thorny issues of our modern age, filtering them through the elements of narrative theology that we've been exploring over this series such as forming habits, assessing status, accepting, blocking, etc.

Our patrons chose transhumanism as the first topic: a vision of moving beyond the constraints of mortality, illness and suffering, eradicating poverty and scarcity, and enhancing our condition and current capabilities, through the use of science and technology.

Some Christians accept this without reservation as a rather hopeful vision of what's possible for humanity and other Christians move to block transhumanism immediately as incompatible and even Satanic.  What does it look like to over-accept instead, re-framing it within the fuller story of God?

In this episode, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri tackle the topic "Sex & Gender" as they continue to run the issues chosen by our patrons through the improvisation model we've explored in this series.  This method allows us to take on a certain way of being in which we faithfully, in every moment, live the fullness of the tradition we have received in the first three acts and which directs us towards the fifth and final act.

When it comes to sex and gender, there are so many offers on the table, with unclear and changing definitions, and no scientific or sociological consensus, never mind a theological one.  Ultimately, however, every single one of those offers should be capable of being received and framed in the story of God.

The offer on the table today is: "Men and women, although biologically different, should not be constrained by gendered roles in society or expectations of behaviour and personality."  Most today would accept and agree with this egalitarian view, although many Christians would block in favour of a complementarian view.  How then do we move to over-accept this offer in light of what we have received from the first three acts and with the knowledge of what is to come?

And we're back!  We continue our series on Narrative Theology, looking at transgenderism within the improvisation model of Christian ethics.  There are again so many offers on the table, and many more nuanced ways of accepting and blocking these offers, but how do we move to over-accept, wrapping this story up within the greater story of God?  

In both accepting and blocking, it is taken as a given that one's biological sex predetermines what our gender role will be, and that in order to take on different gender roles, along with the accompanying psycho-social-cultural expectations, norms and behaviours, one must fight against nature.  It's time to question those givens!  

In fact, what we call gender, the church calls us to transcend.  As we hear from many of the Fathers, becoming properly human in the fullest sense means that we will no longer be male and female.  The challenge lies on us - we must question the ways we have essentialized sex and gender and return to the story we should have been telling all along.

Uniquely among the topics we've addressed so far in this series, wealth and accumulation has been an issue that humans have struggled with for all of history.  There's nothing new here.  There are many biblical examples of what it looks like to block, accept and over-accept into the wider story of God, throughout the Old Testament and also through the words of our Lord himself.

The fact that it is still considered an issue is suggestive of how pervasive and insidious this narrative and its givens are in our culture, and how incredibly difficult it is to separate ourselves from it.  We may think that we are not just accepting (prosperity gospel!) or blocking (all materialism is evil!), but how are we actually living our lives?  What daily habits are we participating in that are forming us and our actions in the world?

As Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey look at wealth through the lens of narrative theology, we see how if we move to over-accept in the way Christ teaches us, questioning the givens and re-defining wealth, we will transform our perspective and focus and ultimately orient ourselves according to the Kingdom.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri wrap up our series on Narrative Theology and the discussion of Samuel Wells' book "Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics" with an overview of what we've learned and how we should move forward with this knowledge.

While we navigate and improvise the fourth act of this five act play, we must remain faithful to the first three acts as we move the story forward.  As the church we can find ourselves safeguarding what we have inherited, neither adding nor subtracting from it, so that when the fifth act comes, Christ will find His church preserved intact.  Yet are we not warned in the Parable of the Talents that this is not how we are meant to behave?

We need to be willing to "risk it", to act freely not through innovation but through a faithful renewal, anticipating already what God will reveal in the final act, to live and enact the Kingdom with confidence instead of fear.  Ultimately, living this way is not a risk at all, since our trust in God is complete, and the fifth act has already been secured.

The average Orthodox Christian does not actually pray the services of the church at home, the continuing cycle of prayers that Christians have been praying since the early days of the church, but rather prays the morning and evening prayers prescribed in prayer books. This has created a disconnect between the individualized and privatized prayer life that we experience at home and the communal prayer we experience in the church.

In this new series, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri plan to confront this disconnect and encourage us to renew our participation in the cycle of prayer that is already present and ongoing within the church. The liturgy of the hours is a beautiful collection of hymnody and psalmody, containing a narrative deeply connected to the scriptures and the wider story of God, comprised of seven services within the day - but wait! Before you say, "Seven services a day?! Nope! Sorry!", the purpose of this series is NOT to insist on adherence to overwhelmingly impossible standards, but to equip our listeners with the tools to flexibly and joyfully immerse themselves into the various cycles (daily, weekly, eight-weekly, annual and festal).

Enjoy it. Connect with it. It will be transformative!

View/download the PDF document that Fr Yuri prepared for catechumens interested in starting small with these services, which he wanted to share with our patrons. We hope that you will find it useful as you follow along through this series.