My Lenten Reading

Well, for my lenten reading, I'm taking up a double-edged sword:
Dostoyevsky and St. Theophan the Recluse.

I've log been a fan of Dostoyevsky. I belive I've read all of his fiction at least once through all ready and important works like Brother's Karamazov and The Idiot I've read at least twice. Through my lenten Pilgrimage this year I plan to take in "Byessi" (which means "Demons" but is usually translated into English for some reason as "The Possessed") and then start The Idiot - my favorite Dostoyevskyian work.

St. Theophan, I'm reading "The Path to Salvation" - something I've read bits and pieces of before, but this will be my first time through it.

I remember that I promised to post something here to the tune of "What would an Christian (Orthodox) Country look like?" - and I really cannot do that without looking one more time into Russia, because I really and truly believe that, for all it's faults, Russia remains the sole example after the 13th century of an Christian Country.

There are aspects of Russian culture that are so in tune to Christian living that even to this day, the Russian Peasant (even when he is an atheist) remains one of the most Christian of peoples in the world.

Well, all of this with a particular twist: I am dabbling in bits and pieces of Dostoyevsky in the original for my own mental stimulation, and also to try to re-activate the Russian tongue prior to the arrival of our exchange student this summer.

Regards!
Basil

So, it's not okay for us unbelievers to so much as get a speck of dust on their "holy" book, but it's okay for them to blow them up...

From:
http://news.yahoo.com/