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Letters to My Son: The Islands In Your Mind
My dearest boy, The other day we were building a village in the living room with magnet tiles, and wooden blocks, and boxes. The village was for your toy insects, and the stray elk and tiger, but mostly beetles and millipedes, grasshoppers and praying mantises. I was amazed at your imagination. What I saw as…
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On the (Protestant) Recovery of the Rite of Confession
I grew up as a Dutch Reformed protestant, and as such, never participated in an ecclesiastical rite of confession. My parents were also raised Dutch Reformed protestants, and so they didn’t either. And so on back generations upon generations. However, I wonder if we are missing something central in dropping the tradition of confession, not…
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A Close Encounter of the Divine Kind
I remember the first time I attended an Orthodox Divine Liturgy. Walking in the door was almost overwhelming. The lingering scent of incense was unmistakable, and unlike any olfactory experience I’ve ever had at church. And it was equally visually stunning, being surrounded with iconongraphy: saints, cherubim, biblical scenes, and especially Christ and the Theotokos.…
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On Christian Healing and Curing and Christian Rites
This Sunday, one of my churches will be having a healing service as part of our Sunday liturgy. This has become our practice for the third Sunday of the month, and it has become a meaningful practice. Growing up, “healing services” were things that charismatics did when they pushed people over and other strange things…
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Letters to My Son: If Only I Could Bubble Wrap the World
My dear boy, I still remember when you were first born and I would give you a bath in the little sink bathtub that we had. And I would wash your hair, and I’d always panic when my fingers would accidentally touch your soft spot. If ever I would feel it, I would stop, look…
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Guidance and the Spiritual Life
Almost every explorer who set out into an unknown land was accompanied by a guide. When Hiram Bingham went into the Peruvian jungle to search for a lost city of the Inca, he took Melchor Arteaga with him. When Lewis and Clark set out on their famous expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase (and beyond),…
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Letters to My Son on Life and Faith: Introduction
When we were still anticipating my son, I began writing letters to him. I wrote about the progress we were making on his nursery, how excited we were for his arrival, the hopes that we had with him. And then during his first year, I wrote him a letter once a month. My plan was…
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Leaning into Liminality
On 8 May 2023 I completed my term as President of the Synod of Albany, and as part of that, I presented the annual State of Religion report. While such a thing generally doesn’t sound that interesting, the response from it has been positive, so I thought I would share it. Grace to you and…
Matthew van Maastricht
Shepherd of Souls | Spiritual Director | Psychotherapist
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