Daniel Johnson

Orthodox Christian deacon. Husband, dad, cat dad. #Gardening, #hiking, #cooking, #cocktails. Central #NorthCarolina, USA. Occasionally a choral music arranger/composer. English/Spanish bilingual.

If religion offends your sensibilities, may I politely suggest you not follow this profile.

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Last Notes

2025-05-06 13:48:00

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@nprofile…t9gy @nprofile…vm6v @nprofile…d688 Too lazy to figure it out myself... what's the Unicode codepoint for this?

2025-05-05 18:31:43

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@nprofile…h9qy And religious uniform in general, I'd guess.

2025-04-27 13:10:05

This is the Paschal artos. It is a sweet bread baked with spices, and was blessed at the end of the Paschal vigil. It has been sitting in front of the iconostasis all week. Today it will be cut up; each of the faithful will be offered a piece to take home and dry. Whenever we are sick or feeling spiritually oppressed, we eat a bit of it, and remember the joy of the Resurrection.
https://uploads.deacon.social/media_attachments/files/114/410/069/614/905/786/original/33a3a0ff03f19d7e.jpeg

2025-04-24 14:44:42

Speaking of the doors being thrown open wide...
This is an icon of Christ and the angels leading the concentration camp prisoners out of Dachau. The liberation happened on Orthodox Palm Sunday, April 29, 1945, by American soldiers. (Western Easter fell on April 1 that year.)
This icon is over the altar in the Russian Orthodox chapel just outside the walls of the camp, beside the former crematorium.
https://uploads.deacon.social/media_attachments/files/114/393/448/656/793/432/original/cb91e87e979750be.png

2025-04-23 13:59:30

The iconostasis doors were thrown open at the beginning of Paschal Matins, and they remain open for all of Bright Week, reminding us that the Resurrection has opened for us again the gates of the paradise of Eden.
This next Sunday is Thomas Sunday, when that disciple is invited to put his fingers in the nail-holes, and his hand in the pierced side of Christ.
The gospel reading for Thomas Sunday is from John 20, beginning thus:
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
In the Greek tradition, at Saturday evening vespers, at the moment when the words "the doors being shut" are sung in the vesperal hymns, the doors are all swung shut. (In the East-Slavic tradition, they are closed right before vespers begins.) We are reminded that even when the doors of our heart are closed, Christ is able to enter.
https://uploads.deacon.social/media_attachments/files/114/387/587/779/919/965/original/5098fe8aff15ae6f.png

2025-04-21 01:42:02

I wonder how many days it will take for my sleep cycle to return to something vaguely resembling normal.

2025-04-18 22:06:25

Posted by a priest friend on Facebook, and shamelessly stolen:
"This is your Holy Friday reminder that Hades voluntarily brought God into his house. He has no one to blame but himself for what happened next."

2025-04-17 12:46:05

This is the communion bread that is used in the Orthodox Church (note that it is leavened; Jesus Christ himself is the leaven that had been omitted from the first Passover). The inscription IC XC NIKA means “Jesus Christ conquers.”
The priest will select the most perfect of these loaves and cut out the square from the middle to be consecrated. This is called the Lamb. Particles will be taken from the other loaves and placed on the paten in remembrance of the saints and all the living and dead of the parish.
On Great Thursday a second Lamb is also consecrated. After intinction, it is cut into many small pieces and dried. This becomes the Reserved Sacrament for the following year, to be administered to the sick.
https://uploads.deacon.social/media_attachments/files/114/353/365/203/189/373/original/12ceb4eff90a7f84.jpeg

2025-04-09 01:28:58

@nprofile…6g6u I have always been under the impression that it is not a tradition anywhere in Western Christianity to celebrate the raising of Lazarus on the eve of Palm Sunday. If anyone would know, I figure it would be you. What say you?
This is universally celebrated in Eastern Christianity, at least among the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox. I can't speak for the Nestorian churches, though.
(I used to believe that the observance of the baptism of Christ was omitted in Western Christianity as well, but then I discovered that it was celebrated [in a rather minor fashion] on the day after Epiphany.)

2025-04-08 21:01:13

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@nprofile…sldm Declined languages can eliminate some or all prepositions, though, making for greater efficiency, and also making word order much less important.
If I have a text in Greek, and I need to make it fit to a particular melody in English, it's far easier to use Jacobean English, which has many more vestiges of declension, than to use modern English. I would imagine it would be even easier if our nouns had ever been fully declined.

2025-04-08 21:01:13

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2025-03-23 00:15:59

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@nprofile…h9qy Those exist. They are called tapped coils. Not too many pickup manufacturers bother, because there is little demand.

2025-03-14 13:23:38

"Lord, save us from fools, somehow!"
— St. Sophrony of Essex (d. 1993)

2025-02-24 15:53:31

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@nprofile…h9qy HHS.gov actively links to archive-it for archival documents rather than using the Wayback Machine. I suspect that they may have a deal with them for taking down “naughty” content, but I can’t be sure.

2025-02-18 15:18:53

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@nprofile…2ygq It isn't freedom from this life. It's freedom within this life, starting here and now and extending into eternal life. Jesus spends remarkably little time (though not none!) on the hereafter; he is concerned about the now. When Zaccheus repents, Jesus says, "*TODAY* salvation has come to this house."
I have been saved; I am being saved; I will be saved. It's a continuous thing, including this exact moment. That's the message of the Gospel.

2024-12-24 23:14:55

I have gotten a blessing to stay home from the Nativity vigil tonight to take care of my sick family. I am feeling pretty close to burnout. My house is a trash heap, the Christmas tree never got decorated, and presents are not yet wrapped.

2024-12-22 12:28:26

“Let no one say, ‘I have committed many sins; there can be no forgiveness for me.’ He who says this does not know that God is the God of the penitent.”
— St. Ephraim the Syrian

2024-12-21 20:19:22

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@nprofile…328c This one's got to be in the running. Apologies for injecting politics into anyone's lighthearted timeline.
https://www.mind-war.com/p/wheres-president-musks-birth-certificate

2024-12-20 01:32:11

#CatsOfMastodon
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2024-12-18 17:14:32

The Tree of Jesse, showing the righteous ones from the Old Testament who either prophesied or prefigured the Virgin Birth. Clockwise from lower left: David, Zechariah, Gideon, Jeremiah, Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Aaron, Joel, Jacob, Daniel, Solomon.
https://uploads.deacon.social/media_attachments/files/113/674/693/086/382/395/original/4dc8c9691596b986.png

2024-12-04 19:15:38

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@nprofile…s8ac Entirely uninterested in crypto. Thanks though.

2024-12-04 14:43:43

Today we remember three great saints:
1. St. Barbara the Great-Martyr.
2. St. John of Damascus, who codified the system of eight modes for church music.
3. St. Alexander Hotovitzky, who served as a Russian Orthodox priest in the USA, then returned to Russia, where he was executed by the Bolsheviks.

2024-11-17 14:34:17

Before I left home for church this morning, I made a batch of rumanniyeh for coffee hour. This is a Palestinian eggplant and lentil stew. #vegan
https://uploads.deacon.social/media_attachments/files/113/498/783/598/590/654/original/51683f88c6ba1819.jpeg

2024-11-12 19:17:54

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@npub1mmp…c7ad It is impossible as a translator to approach a text without an agenda. If you think you are doing so, you just aren’t aware of your agenda yet. 😄
Proof of this is the NIV’s approach to the Greek word (which is escaping me at the moment) which, when used in the pejorative, is translated as “traditions,” and when used in the positive as “teachings.”

2024-10-18 17:50:20

Mother Gavrilia (Papayannis), on prayer without love.
https://uploads.deacon.social/media_attachments/files/113/329/675/614/974/722/original/bc4e13768ed86add.jpeg

2024-08-17 18:02:17

We are facing dark times, but you will be the light in the darkness, the light of love. So I tell you: if you are silent, be silent for the sake of love. If you speak, speak for love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. If you forgive, forgive for love. May there always be a root of love in you, because only from this root good can grow.
— St Augustine of Hippo

2024-02-23 17:53:54

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