What Icons Teach Us About Time |  

I was at a flagship fast food restaurant near me, and there was a mural about the history of Texas. There were conquistadors, native people, engineers, political figures, and celebrities all standing next to each other and in the background there were everything from clipper ships to space shuttles, and all 6 flags. I don't think anybody has ever struggled with the fact that it is not a singular moment in time. It is not that alien of a concept.

So glad you clipped this section of Jonathan and I's conversation. The comments here are insightful and excellent.

Icons are a portal into heaven

what a beautiful icon. thank you for the reflection on the meaning. may our journeys lead us to union with God

No one thinks about this too much, but what I find more profound is that the purpose (telos) of life doesn’t have to do so much with where we’re headed, but has more to do with the journey itself. The process, the learning and the unlearning is what life is all about. Otherwise, the approach to life is no different than the common approach of the people who just wanna get to heaven when they die. For those kinds of people, life is about where they’re headed. But at the end of the day, I find that the point of life is simply in the unveiling and the fleshing out of all things. Christ is the Journey as much as He is the Destiny. That being said, I still acknowledge that there is a totality to all things. We just shouldn’t reduce that to just what happens at the end of the story. It’s the story as a whole, as we flip through the pages of this life and eternity, up until the very last page.

7th Ecumenical Council: "Let them who do not venerate the holy and venerable images be anathema! Anathema to those who blaspheme against the honourable and venerable images! To those who dare to attack and blaspheme the venerable images and call them idols, anathema! To the calumniators of Christianity, that is to say the Iconoclasts, anathema! To those who do not diligently teach all the Christ-loving people to venerate and salute the venerable and sacred and honourable images of all the Saints who pleased God in their several generations, anathema! To those who have a doubtful mind and do not confess with their whole hearts that they venerate the sacred images, anathema!"

I think I’m becoming orthodox

The picture also has Moses at the foot of the mountain that is split in two.

Moses received the law by Angels and Christ was received by a virgin....and when Moses obeys he leads the sheep to drink water.

Another connection is to the Transcendentals that Timothy Patitsas expounds upon in The Ethics of Beauty. The different stages of theophany/revelation to Moses correspond to Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, respectively. Moses sees the burning bush as a vision of beauty, he takes off his sandals (in other words, he acts) after receiving revelation as an act of being obedient to the Good, and he receives the tablets as a manifestation of the Truth. I know to some this might seem obvious as it’s the same as the purification, illumination, perfection cycle that many of the Fathers describe, but this simply took me back when it was revealed to me.

Almost like purification, illumination, and deification as well.

Church in a nutshell. In composition that looks little bit like a nutshell.

If you like the cyclical non-time linear style of story telling you should watch the monogatari series….

I like how someone who doesn't understand evolution still tries to make "educational" content about their religion.