church bell from below

No Other Foundation

Reflections from Fr. Lawrence Farley

Fr. Lawrence Farley

About Fr. Lawrence Farley

Fr. Lawrence serves as Rector Emeritus of St. Herman's Orthodox Church in Langley, BC. He is also author of the Orthodox Bible Companion Series along with a number of other publications.

Girl Boss Self-empowerment and the Song of Songs

Rachel Zegler, God bless her, seems to be the gift that keeps on giving.  She has become almost involuntarily the face of girl boss self-empowerment, the modern woman who denounces patriarchy (that nebulous foe), derides the notion of...
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A Christian Response to War

As a baby boomer child of the 1950s, I was taught to hate war.  For my generation, war was an unmitigated evil (though, happily, this notion did not spill over into hating or disrespecting our soldiers—later described as...
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The Dying of the Light

When I was young, I read a famous poem that I now regard as one of the strangest poems ever written.  It is the one entitled “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas with its repeated refrain “do not go gentle into that...
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Naivety

As a child of the 60s, I freely admit that our generation back then carried in our hearts a not inconsiderable amount of naivety.  For the young’uns among us who cannot remember such ancient history as the 1960s, it was a time of youth...
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The Idolatry of Andrew Innes

Sometimes one comes across a tale so improbable and strange that you feel sure the teller of the tale is making it up—something so bizarre, you feel, it simply cannot be true.  Such is the tale of “Friend Mother” Buchan and the few...
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Surveying the Old Testament

When I was a child in grade five, I was given a New Testament by the Gideon Society, like everyone else in my grade.  Note:  the New Testament, not the entire Bible.  I suspect that the decision to confine the gift to the New Testament...
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Tithing Mint

I am often asked by catechumens questions of basic liturgical etiquette, such as how to enter the church, how to venerate an icon, and when to make the sign of the cross.  I am always happy to explain and (if in church) to demonstrate,...
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All Kinds of Everything

There are, I suggest, two ways to experience the world.  The first is that of the materialist:  the world is all that exists.  The physical world that we see and experience has no real or intrinsic meaning; it just is.  We can, if we...
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I Don’t Believe in Christianity

I recently read in Jaroslav Pelikan’s excellent Jesus Through the Centuries a line from American scholar Arthur O. Lovejoy, who asserted, “The term ‘Christianity’ is not the name for any single unit of the type for which the historian of...
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Arise and Sing!--a collection of akathists

I am happy to report that there is a new book available from me through Amazon entitled Arise and Sing! It is a short collection of akathists that I have written through the past years not previously published and supplementing my...
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The Focus of the Pharisee

If you Google the term “Pharisees” you find the following: “The Pharisees were a Jewish social movement and school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism”.  That definition is historically true, but...
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Losing Your Name, Losing Your Soul

It occurred to me recently that it is significant that the invisible enemy of our souls is called “the Evil One” in both the Lord’s Prayer and in such passages as 1 John 5:19. That is, our adversary is never named, but only referred to...
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The Marian Apparitions

Very occasionally I am asked about what I think about the phenomena occurring in Medjugorje and whether the Orthodox Church believes they are genuine.  Orthodoxy officially has “no comment” about what occurs outside of its own canonical...
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Rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem

From the days of Moses when God made a covenant through him with Israel to come and dwell in their midst, Israel has offered sacrifice to Yahweh their God.  The detailed instructions for offering sacrifices and for the shrine centre...
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