If I’m honest, I have to admit that the word “orthodoxy” makes me nervous.\u00a0 It conjures a long history of violence and oppression — inquisitions, burnings at the stake, religious wars, bonfires of the vanities, anathemas and counter-anathemas, and the more subtle manipulations and exclusions of the various petty tyrants, troglodytes and buffoons who are stock characters in anyone’s experience who has lived in any branch of the Church for a while.<\/p>\n
But if I consider it more carefully, “orthodoxy” in the best sense is like the sea.<\/p>\n
My family has vacationed at the New Jersey shore for over forty-five years.\u00a0 If I stand on the beach, at the edge of the sea, if I breath slowly and deeply, I participate with every sense in the beautiful, untamed life of this amazing planet.\u00a0 Sunlight warms my face and illumines my gaze; sand and water scrub and cool my feet; moist, salty air fills my nose and lungs; the rhythmic surf washes over my ears and stills my mind.\u00a0 I am contented with the givenness of this creaturely space, gazing on its boundless horizon, contemplating its incomprehensible lifespan, participating in the gift of fecund being.<\/p>\n
The same is true if I come to the Creed in wonder, seeking understanding.\u00a0 The reality narrated in the Creed, like the sea, is given, a gift.\u00a0 It provides the grammatic, incarnational structure for contemplation of the incomprehensible Triune God, complete and at peace, creating, self-emptying in incarnation, giving fellowship and community, restoring, healing, re-creating and making things right in love.\u00a0 It summarizes the experience of countless others who have stood at the shore of this magnificent sea, and invites me to participate in the very life of God — where the Father brings life from nothing, the Son speaks Wisdom to chaos, the Spirit hovers over the womb of the world.<\/p>\n
This is why “orthodoxy,” in this best sense — the sense of the heart of a story shaped by the God who gave Himself on the cross — is a gift to be welcomed.\u00a0 Here, I rest, I explore, I marvel, I am freed from my self to find myself in life beyond my self.\u00a0 Here, I glimpse the simple unity of faith, hope, beauty, truth, and love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If I’m honest, I have to admit that the word “orthodoxy” makes me nervous.\u00a0 It conjures a long history of violence and oppression — inquisitions, burnings at the stake, religious wars, bonfires of the vanities, anathemas and counter-anathemas, and the more subtle manipulations and exclusions of the various petty tyrants, troglodytes and buffoons who are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty-of-the-christian-faith","category-spirituality","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-Bz","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}