Festival of Orthodoxy

Heard Fr. Peter Gilquist speak tonight at the North Texas Festival of Orthodoxy. He spoke on "Finding the New Testament Church"; it was good to hear someone go back over "the basics" of why I converted to Orthodoxy: sacraments, liturgy, hierarchy, the nature of salvation and relation of one man to another...very comforting. It's hard to keep that in mind and, at the same time, keep in mind the fact that I'm supposed to lose sight of the familiar shore of "why I converted" in order to sail out to "where I'm supposed to be." I think there comes a time when, although we remember our overwhelming initial days of everything from romances to religious conversions, there comes a time (or there should) when we cease to identify our walk with Christ along those lines. That time is slowly coming; when folks ask me why I'm Orthodox, I no longer instinctively say, "Because of the doctrinal and hierarchical continuity it shares with the first Christians." Though that was and still is an important reason for being Orthodox, I have (thank God!) moved on to an answer along the lines of, "Because this is how the first Christians experienced and lived Christ, and these guys are still doing that, and I want that."