In this video recording for pemptousia.gr, the actor and musician Jonathan Jackson talks about his conversion to Orthodoxy and shows us why ultimately Orthodoxy is not a religion, but real life…

Jonathan Jackson:
“The tragedy of separating the sacred from the secular is that we stole God away from the world, we took God out of the world and we put Him only in churches. So what happens in society, in America, is people can go to church and they pray and then we can feel holy and feel connected to God and then we go to our work and that has nothing to do with God, that’s work… What does that have to do with God? What does that have to do with prayer? This is my work, this is my family… I think about God when I’m going to church or when I’m doing something religious so we have an intuitive schizophrenia… everything is split, everything is divided and one of the most beautiful things that I learned coming into the Orthodox Church was at the Fathers of the Church taught that the whole world is a sacrament, the whole world is meant to be sanctified and brought into unity and oneness…

Becoming Orthodox has… given me so much more clarity to be able to bring my relationship with God into those into those various moments…

The Jesus prayer is very, very important for that because it’s so beautiful and it’s so simple and that can take place all the time. So weather in preparing for a scene, weather I’m rehearsing or performing, the Jesus prayer is with me…

And also, one of the beautiful things that I discovered in that process was that it can also become a form of of intercession for other people. So, for instance, if I was in a plane with let’s say a heroin addict or someone who is struggling with suicide, that I can make the performance of prayer so that people who are struggling with those things could be released or perhaps prevented from, you know, going in those directions. So, in that way, there was no difference between driving in my car to work and stepping on the stage and performing or being at my house reading a book about Christ… it is a continuous breath of being with God, that’s the goal…

I think so many people never experienced that, particularly in the West and in America, because religion has its own thing. So people say, “I’m not interested in religion”, but ultimately Orthodoxy is not a religion, it’s real life, it’s in the heart and that is a very, very powerful thing.

I’m so thankful to learn from the Fathers of the Church that the world is a sacrament, the whole world is a sacrament and Christ is All and in All.”

via pemptousia.gr

1 COMMENT

  1. Actually, this life is a Sacrament ! The whole Creation of GOD evolves toward the Victory of Life upon death !!! The Victory of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the powers of the darkness, upon the death !!!
    We, the human beings, are called by GOD to be part of His Victory !!! Those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, He will defeat the death from their hearts !!!! And this is the salvation of their soul !!!! CHRIST, THE TRUTH IS ORTHODOX ! BECAUSE THE ORTHODOXY IS THE BELIEF IN THE TRUTH !!!!

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