It's like coffee...

Inane Analogies to Orthodoxy Part I:

Today's rambling rumination...

In the build-up to my exam last night in regressional analysis, I went through my standard routine of reading while gorging myself with cup after cup of coffee. Whether I'm studying or not, I enjoy the act of drinking fine coffee while doing my reading. So over the course of the past few days, I had coffee from the Rutgers Busch Student Center (think gas station brand), Dunkin Donuts, and my own personal supply of coffee, which I grind from the bean and brew myself.

Coffee was meant to be bitter and strong; to have a particular striking taste and effect. Gas station coffee keeps you awake, but tastes watered down and uninteresting. Dunkin Donuts coffee no doubt tastes good, but seems so focused on being palatable and sweet, that the taste is not really what coffee is intended to taste like. Good coffee, the kind you grind and brew at home, from the real non-artificially flavored beans, is coffee as it was intended to be. Taken with all the intricasies of its taste, in such a way as the acidity, aroma, and texture all work in a particular and distinct balance, good coffee, perhaps an aquired taste, actually tastes like coffee. You may get the same caffeine kick from the gas station coffee, and you may find the dunkin donuts coffee to be more "sugary," but for a pure and untampered coffee drinking experience, coffee must be fresh and barely altered.

So, analogously...
I find Orthodox Christianity to offer a certain continuity in worship which is as worship was intended to be. While I'm sure that other forms of worship may have their merits , I feel that our worship has the "taste" and "texture" of a continuous and legitimate "classical" Christian experience.
~Steve