With the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Nicolae, Archdeacon Adrian Sorin Mihalache, from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Iasi, held several conferences and workshops in the parishes of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia in Texas. The Texas tour began at the Protection of the Mother of God Mission in Houston on Friday, September 9, 2022, with the conference "Great are You, Lord, and wonderful are Your works! The formidable encounter between the patristic reflection of Orthodox Christian theology and recent discoveries in cosmology and neuroscience."
The conference aimed to make us aware of ourselves as God's creatures, created with the intention of sharing in the gifts of creation, without turning the universe around us into a subject of selfish knowledge and, thus, making ourselves unable to reach the knowledge of the Creator. The gift of life received must be explored in depth and we must respond with wonder and thanksgiving. The Church is the best context for sanctifying and multiplying the gifts and teaching about the well-being of the soul seeking God. Recent scientific discoveries speak of man and the universe as part of a complex, ordered plan with laws beyond our understanding that point to God.
A series of questions and answers followed which made the meeting with Father Archdeacon generate the desire for him to return to our community in the near future.
The series of presentations continued at St. John Cassian Parish in San Antonio on Saturday, September 10, with a workshop on cultivating mindfulness. The workshop objectives included strategies for improvement and attention development. The workshop lasted from 9 am to 5 pm with 22 parishioners participating. Attendees explored the relationship between mindfulness and the condition of the heart, discovered the medical aspects of cultivating mindfulness, and learned mechanisms and strategies to help maintain mindfulness.
Living in a world where the brain is constantly bombarded with information and where a person's attention is distributed in many directions, a world where technology is increasingly taking over our lives, Father Deacon offered encouragement to focus our attention more on the present and not on the past and future. Father Deacon went on to explain the relationship between being attentive, being present, and attention. Mind, emotions and body form a trio whose combination creates perfect harmony.
Combining aspects of medicine, theology and psychology, quoting from the Holy Fathers and medical specialists, Father Deacon spoke about "the supervision of attention." He mentioned that it is important to recognize when we lose our attention and to manage to bring it back into our mind and body.
In the words of St. John Climacus, "he who seeks to pray with power must close the door and raise his mind from all that is vain or temporal, sitting in a quiet cell in a secluded corner." (St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, word 27).
Achieving stillness and calmness leads to improved attention. Through prayer, one can rise to the heights of mindfulness where attention prevails.
Archdeacon Sorin Mihalache's last stop was at Nativity of the Mother of God Parish in Austin on Sunday, September 11, 2022. In recent years the Austin community has been blessed with visits from many priests, choral groups and personalities. The city of Austin, being less of an industrial city, but leaning towards IT/tech, means that our church also has many engineers, IT specialists and economists. We believe that Father Sorin managed to capture their hearts by speaking on their wavelength.
The connection presented between theology, psychology and science captivated us all for three and a half hours. In the end, I understood that Father just wanted to open the doors to another world and make us curious so that we could continue our research and finally come closer to God.
The theme of the conference was "Cultivating Multiple Intelligences in Children" and it fit like a glove for everyone. The introduction was about how school made us look at "intelligence" and how it actually works. Then Father introduced us to all 10 types of intelligence, insisting on details, examples, statistics and the results of many experiments. The conclusion of the presentation was that our mission is to find the "intelligence/gifts" we have and cultivate them in balance, as developing only one can affect the others. This day will stay in our hearts as a very special one!
Special thanks are due to Archdeacon Sorin Mihalache for his efforts to visit and lecture at the parishes of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia which are in Texas, as well as for the beautiful ideas that have enriched our minds and souls!
Participants
