The Christmas Tales
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: C.J.S. Hayward Publications; C.J.S. Hayward
Published: May 05, 2008
Place of publication: Wheaton
Format: Jacket hardcover
Number of pages: 144
ISBN-13: 9780615193632
First sentence: The Confused Person's Guide to Being Even More Confused About Orthodoxy: Eastern Orthodoxy is exactly like Roman Catholicism, except that it is Oriental and exotic.
Description: This volume offers Eastern Orthodox Christian mystical theology for the Western reader. It has different kinds of spiritual writing, treating the realities of the knowledge that drinks in the realities it knows, wisdom from the timeless desert, living the life of Heaven here on earth, symbols that manifest what they represent, the inner world of spiritualities that is no one's merely private possession, a fairy tale pouring forth a wilder reality, shadow and reality, shadowy treasure on earth and real treasures in Heaven, and the God who became man that men might become god.

A quote:

    The Icon was an Icon the color of sunrise--or was it sunset? Then he saw something he hadn't seen before, even though this was one of his favorite Icons. It was an Icon of the Crucifixion, and he saw Christ at the center with rocks below--obedience in a garden of desolation had answered disobedience in a garden of delights--and beyond the rocks, the Holy City, and beyond the Holy City a sky with bands and whorls of light the color of sunrise. Now he saw for the first time that where Christ's body met the sky there was a band of purest light around it. Christ had a halo that was white at the center and orange and red at the sides--fitting for the Christ who passed through the earth like a flame.
Notes: Author site at http://CJSHayward.com/ ; the book homepage is at http://CJSHayward.com/books/the-christmas-tales/ and The Christmas Tales can be read online from its homepage.
Table of contents: title: 1054 and All That, a not-quite-accurate historical parody.; title: Stephanos, a story of the worlds to be seen in Orthodox icons.; title: Jobs for Theologians, a lighter look at the kinds of jobs that are available to theologians.; title: Plato: The Allegory of the... Flickering Screen?, a present-day tribute that looks at the most famous allegory in Plato's writing.; title: Two Decisive Moments, a look at one momentous moment in the past and one in the present.; title: A Glimpse into Eastern Orthodoxy, a document about Eastern Orthodox Christianity in aspects that can be harder for Western Christians to pick up.; title: An Orthodox Looks at a Calvinist Looking at Orthodoxy, which looks more specifically at how a Calvinist impression of Orthodoxy appears to Orthodox.; title: Money, a look at how much more there is to life than money.; title: The Christmas Tales, a collection of vignettes, each of which is meant to provide a little taste of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.