Suggested Advent Reading

A great introduction to the basic theology of the Incarnation and our experience of salvation.

Looking for a book to read this Advent? Look no further! A great introduction to the basic theology of the Incarnation and our experience of salvation, The Early Eastern Orthodox Church: A History (AD 60-1453), provides what you are looking for. Easy-to-read, user-friendly chapters give the background of the great controversies about how divinity and humanity are present in Christ. Excerpts from the leading theologians of the 4th to 7th centuries are given. Their ideas are discussed and explained in language modern readers can easily grasp.

What better way to prepare for Christmas than to spend time with St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Maximus the Confessor in order to better understand the mystery of God becoming human in Christ? The early Christian struggle to understand how Jesus is both 100% divine and 100% human is described. The vital role of Mary–and the importance of her title “Mother of God” as the way to adequately describe who her Son truly is–is the subject of one chapter as is the harmonization of our struggling, combative wills with Christ’s will for us.

Although Jesus is the unique God-made-human whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, we are able to share in His life.

“The Word of God, born once in the flesh (such is His kindness and His goodness), is always willing to be born spiritually in those who desire Him. In them, He is born as an infant as He fashions Himself in them by means of their virtues. He reveals Himself to the extent that He knows someone is capable of receiving Him. He diminishes the revelation of His glory not out of selfishness but because He recognizes the capacity and resources of those who desire to see Him. Yet, in the transcendence of mystery, He always remains invisible to all.” (St. Maximus the Confessor)

Get your copy of The Early Eastern Orthodox Church: A History (AD 60-1453) now and celebrate Christmas with a new or deeper understanding and appreciation for the coming together of humanity and divinity in the manger at Bethlehem.

“Is fiction, which makes fact alive, fact too?”

Alexandra Cheira, a scholar of fairy tales and mythology at the University of Lisbon, recently presented a paper about the Come Hell or High Water trilogy at a conference. Her paper examines the relationship between historical fact and legend in the books; she uses the question Robert Browning asks in The Ring and the Book as the title for her paper (and I use it for the title of this post). Alexandra says that the interplay of fact and fairy tale in trilogy presents “a whole picture of the city, in which well-done research is matched by believable story-telling, so much so that the realistic narrative is interspersed by supernatural occurrences which do not strike even the most skeptical reader as out of character.”

She also writes that “the narrative structure is also well-balanced between realism and fantasy, with the description of the conferences, the delegates and the general camaraderie that accompanies them acting as a down-to-earth catalyst for the supernatural parts. The narrative tone is informed – but never lecturing – and the reader does actually learn a lot on a variety of subjects without realizing it.”

Alexandra concludes, “All in all, Morris has managed to create an urban-historical fantasy which pairs fiction and fact and brings to question what is real and what is imagined. ‘Fiction’ is an aid to ‘fact,’ something that can better a story, so that Morris’s ‘fictional facts’ do indeed ring true in the wider context of the novels.”

I am very happy that Alexandra chose to discuss Come Hell or High Water in her paper at the conference. As with all good critiques, she taught ME something about the books that I had not realized as I was writing them!

Santa Muerte

Santa Muerte? Any relation to “Santa Claus?” Nope! Read on!

The Eric Carter trilogy by Stephen Blackmoore is one of the best series of urban fantasy on par with Dresden Files , by Jim Butcher, in its imaginative use of folklore, myth, and artistic creativity.

Eric Carter, a necromancer who not only sees dead people but can cross back-and-forth between the realm of the living and the dead and can cajole the dead in various ways, flees from Los Angeles to keep his family and friends safe from a gangster who is threatening him through them. But his sister is murdered and he returns to LA to find the killer and bring him (or her?) to justice. Discovering that the murder was not only horrific but magickal as well, Eric is forced to seek the assistance of Santa Muerte, one the goddesses of death. This assistance comes — of course! — with a hefty price tag which comes due in the second book of the series. (Hungry Ghosts, the third and final installment of the series was finally released last month, at the beginning of February. I have been looking forward to it since its original release date, which was scheduled for last July!)

Santa Muerte has been in the news herself recently. The Roman Catholic bishops in US condemned the very popular cult of Santa Muerte, which is growing rapidly and spreading across the southwestern US. Although the goddess has roots in the medieval “art of dying” handbooks that people consulted in order to prepare for a good death or dying in a holy manner, her modern devotees seem to often be drug dealers or paid killers. (The medieval handbooks are still good to consult as we modern folk prepare to face our own mortality. We will all die, although most of us pretend that we will never die. Preparing to face death is better than being surprised; making plans for how we wish to die is a good thing whether we die in the 15th century or the 21st.)