USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
One of the most important words I’ve come across lately in my growth as an Orthodox Christian is prelest.
Prelest is spiritual delusion or deception. Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov called it “a wounding of human nature by falsehood,” where we accept a lie as truth, especially about our own spiritual state.
It’s that sneaky pride where we start thinking we’re holier than we are, more “advanced,” or specially enlightened, like maybe after some warm feelings in prayer, a dream, or a sense of God’s presence. We mistake our own emotions or even demonic flattery for true grace. The closer we get to God, the more we see our own sinfulness but in prelest, we flip it and start feeling like saints. True saints always called themselves the greatest sinners.
Fr. Seraphim Rose warned about this a lot, especially how it shows up when folks chase high spiritual experiences without first being purified of passions and staying humble under obedience.
The cure?
Humility, repentance, the Sacraments, and a good spiritual father. Stay sober, keep it simple, and trust the Church’s wisdom over our own opinions.
Y’all, in our Protestant backgrounds, we didn’t have this word or this warning. But the Holy Fathers knew: the enemy loves to disguise himself as an angel of light. Let’s walk in fear of God, not fear of man. Be steady, prayerful, and always remembering we’re works in progress.
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
That heartbeat prayer keeps us grounded.
He who rallies
from the division caused by disobedience
first separates himself from the passions,
then from passionate thoughts,
then from nature and the things of nature,
then from concepts and conceptual knowledge,
and finally, departing
from the multiplicity of thoughts regarding Providence,
he reaches, in a way that transcends knowledge,
the very Word of God Himself.
In such a man,
the mind considers its own stability,
and ‘rejoices with unutterable joy’,
as peace comes from God
which surpasses all understanding,
and which ceaselessly stabilizes the man worthy of it.
St Maximos the Confessor (+662)
THEO VON: “Was there anybody who was immune to COVID-19?”
DR. MCCULLOUGH: “There’s one adult group. You’re going to laugh.”
[Theo Von listens closely for the reveal]
DR. MCCULLOUGH: “Smokers… They got very mild cases. And they don’t get long COVID.”
THEO VON: “Why?”
MCCULLOUGH: “Because smokers maintain a level of nicotine in the bloodstream… Smoking blocks the spike protein. It’s amazing. I thought smokers were going to go down.”
THEO VON: “Do you think that’s a good idea [to use nicotine patches] on a regular basis?”
DR. MCCULLOUGH: “I think [it’s a good idea] if they have long COVID... Nicotine, don’t forget, is a nootropic. A nootropic is a drug that makes the brain function more effectively... It’s addictive, but it’s not harmful to the human body... Nicotine patches are perfectly safe.”
I'm often asked why -- given my study in both the Bible and church history -- I am not Roman Catholic. I recently sat down in front of my camera and outlined some of why that is.
https://t.co/znaCoUysmy
Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”And they [Paul and Silas] said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
@ImperiumFirst Shit take. Massie would be infinitely better than any other potential candidate at this point. Dude is the anti-epstein candidate. It doesn't get more anti-establishment than that.