Second Thoughts

Having started down a path toward Orthodoxy, you’re now having “second thoughts” and are thinking instead of a return to Islam. Do I know of any “similar cases”? It’s a strange coincidence—or so it would seem from our...

Too Much Perennialism

Word is that administrators at La Trobe University in Australia have decided to scrap their thriving program in perennialist and traditionalist studies. Harry Oldmeadow, author of Traditionalism: Religion in Light of the Perennial Philosophy as well as a number of...

Downsizing the Ego

What you describe is entirely normal, and your way of describing it is accurate, if a bit casual! The ego is indeed fighting against being “downsized”. Longer, more discursive prayers give the ego a certain amount of elbow room, as it were; we can...

Fond and Fearful Memories

Believe me, I’m keenly aware of the problems you’re facing, and I thank God every day I’m not just starting out, as you are, in the college teaching business. May Heaven guard and defend you. For “business” is precisely what it’s...