David O’Neal

This reflection is excerpted from an essay published on the author’s blog Nonidiomatic in 2017, as he pondered his eventual departure from the Orthodox Church (www.davensati54.blogspot.com/2017/04/heretics-testament.html).

Hers is perhaps the ugliest image in Orthodox iconography. Just about all the other saints, even the serious ascetics, get to shine with ageless, transcendent beauty. But not her. She’s always presented to us as a gaunt, withered old woman, naked but for a borrowed cloak, her skin leatherized from years of exposure to the[…..]

There’s a tradition in Mahayana Buddhism that the Buddha once gave a sermon without uttering a single word. An expectant assembly had gathered around him. Some of them may have sensed from observing him that something remarkable had happened.