www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall What Are Your Passions, Hobbies Etc ?

Mine are playing guitar and mandolin, local history (I spent a few hours Sunday after liturgy, trespassing in several areas, so I could look at sections of the disused Illinois and Michigan Canal, and I'm a hardcore crime buff.

I love to write. I think I've started (and stopped) about 10 different books in about 7 years. I also love history. I'm a huge fan of medieval Spanish and Tudor Era British history. I also enjoy playing my guitar and playing golf and other sports like football, softball and volleyball. I'm also a movie junkie.

History/nostalgia, languages (I know four, two of them related), pop culture, music (not an expert), architecture (same), 'Law & Order'... usually in summer I ride my bicycle a lot.

Great choices Katie ! I'm a big 16th century fan myself. The three best books I've read on that era are the following

Henry VIII:The Politics Of Tyranny by Jasper Ridley
Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
Bloody Mary by Carolly Erickson

I could go on awhile here.

I'm a ham radio operator (just like Roger Cardinal Mahoney! )! I also scuba dive.

Hi all ... I guess my top favorite thing is reading ... to me, a book, a nice chair, and a cup o' tea makes for a perfect afternoon. Also, I do love whitewater rafting .... but, alas, at this point in my life, none of my friends are willing to go with me ... they seem to have physical issues which prevent them from doing it. I also love watching bluebird's and their boxes, feeding birds, walking in the woods, and just "sitting and being" somewhere, alone, preferably in the mountains.
abby
<*)))><

I am an all-time Star Wars Fan. I like TV and movies in general.

On TV, I'm currently following: Grey's Anatomy (GREAT episode last night), Desperate Housewives, Two and a Half Men, The Big-Bang Theory.

Of course, Battlestar Galactica just finished. Fantastic show!

Recent movies I liked: Slumdog Millionare, Under the Same Moon, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Dark Night, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Milk, What Happens in Vegas, 21.

I also like to read, but these days all my reading time goes to my assignments for the Diaconate Formation program, so they do not count as hobbies.

I am becoming addicted to Sudoku.

Shalom,
Memo

Mine are pretty generic, but I do love history (mostly pre-Enlightenment European history and Classic European and Near Eastern civilizations), and traveling (biased to Europe again!).

I also really like maps. I could stare at a city, county, state, or country map for hours...but the more specific, the better. I love finding "short cuts" to go anywhere, even if they're not really shorter. I love exploring the lay out of a city by traveling off the beaten path. It's something I've inherited from my mother.

I lived and breathed tennis for a few years growing up, but since coming to college I don't play nearly as much. Still follow it extremely closely, though.

Alexis

Fly fishing, cigar & pipe smoking, good beer & spirits, rib's & steaks, JRR Tolkein, and the Bawston Red Sox...

Theology, history, travel, classical music.

Two comments:

1. Being that this is an Eastern forum, one can be misled by the title of 'What are your passions'!!!

In the lingo of the Church Fathers, the 'passions' are those various sinful vices our human natures struggle with...so one might half expect to come to this thread to read about everyone's particular sin that they struggle with! *EEK*

(wouldn't Jerry Springer like that one?!?) LOL

2. I haven't seen listing the 'Byzcath.org' forum as anybody's passion or hobby!!

Alice

Alice

you said
It's not a hobby - it's our life !!

Passions I save for confession.

My hobbies that I am very serious about are photography and videography. The evolution in both of these areas in the past 35 years (since I was a teen) is amazing.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

History we have in common. I also like L&O. I used to really like L&O SUV until it started being about Elliot & Olivia's personal lives and jumped the shark.

I'm into folklore and urban legends. Of course 5 dogs keep me busy too!

I share your love for maps. I've always loved them. If you ever get a chance to visit the Vatican museums, they have a map room that is absolutely entrancing to a map lover. I spent hours there. In fact, that is where I became pretty sure that I was going to marry the man who is now my husband. If he could stare at maps with me for 3 1/2 hours and be excited, too, we were a pretty good match.

Elizabeth

Christ is Risen!!

My interests are learning and growing from that learning. My passion, my thirst, has been the Church, her teachings, her history, and living the life of Christ. I've been particularly interested in seeing the world through the eyes of those who are completely different from me, my particular frame of reference, and my own world. The realization that people can exist in groups and structures without any relation to any group or structures that I have been living in fascinates me. My first experience of the Orthodox Church, for example, immersed me in this realization. Here were people with a deep love of Christ, a profound sense of the reverence for God, His Church, and the Eucharist, who had no need of anything I'd learned or been part of to live as committed Christians. And unlike the many Protestants I'd encountered, they didn't seem to need to define themselves in terms of being anti-Roman; many were simply indifferent.

Another focus of mine is attempting to reconcile people in many situations I find myself in. It comes from a profound sense of the brevity of life. I lost a favorite student when I did my practice teaching and I often wonder what he would have made of himself. So the pitched battles we all get involved in and spend so much energy on seem like such small matters that when I'm asked to take sides I think I'd rather try to bridge the gap. Families and death and long-standing familial battles give me plenty of practice.

BOB

Here's my list:


Biomedical Engineering
Fishing
Eastern European History
Current Events
Gangster Movies
Jazz Music
Watching Cleveland sports teams break my heart

I'm also a map fanatic. I've got maps of numerous cities. A friend and I often go looking for anything that remains of creeks that are no longer running in the Chicago area. We use old maps and then look for telltale signs of where the creeks ran. I really love all history in all time periods, but with local, you can go out to look at something almost anytime you want.

My list:
American history (Civil War, Rev. War)
Carmelite spirituality and the study of the Carmelite Doctors.
Sitting in the gardens and reading while drinking iced tea.
Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies
Growing more and more each day in the Way of Union (Nowhere even close as yet!) Still learning to pray.
Watching and feeding all sorts of birds that come to visit.

Silouan

My list:

The Holy Church and her teachings and history
Liturgy of all rites
evangilization
History
scouting
serving Mass
camping
friends

For me - though not necessarily in the order listed - they are....

TV and Movies - History Channel, Discovery Channel, TLC (The Learning Channel), etc. I love shows about history and technology (History's Mysteries, Modern Marvels) I love sci-fi and action movies (looking forward to seeing Star Trek on the big screen) and comedies, but also love old, classic movies like Citizen Kane, Magnificent Ambersons, How Green Was My Valley, etc.

Cars, planes, trains and ships - Reading and watching programs about these and any other mechanical things and how they work. I subscribe to Car and Driver for my new car fix, but also subscribe to Classic Car for my vintage / classic car fix.

Architecture, structural and civil engineering - Reading about and watching programs about architectural history as well as current and future building projects (the Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) is under construction and will eventually top out at least twice as tall (over 2,100 ft.) as the Twin Towers of the WTC were and reading about it is fascinating - though also kinda creepy since I have an intense fear of heights - to me).

Reading about / studying Eastern Christianity (Catholic or Orthodox) and theology and spirituality as well as its art and architecture. (I tell people that if I won the lottery I'd commission the design and construction of a historically-authentic temple in the Russian Orthodox style for our little Byzantine Catholic Mission of St. Athanasius in Tulsa. I'd love to worship in a temple like the one at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jourdanvile, NY)

P.S. - Sorry for the long-winded spiel, but guess you can tell by it that I enjoy expressing myself in the written word, too!!

I have really enjoyed reading about the family of byzcath.


As a teen I use to love to walk the canals in South Carolina until I sunk into a hole, a bit startled, I got out and looked back. There was a tiny little tombstone, long forgotten. Well, that kind of did my desire in for walking along the old canals.

May all the souls of the faithful departed lost in those times and forgotten, rest where the just repose.

Our granbabies, some loom knitting, reading, Bible Study. I use to love to sew, I am so supprised I have not made any baby clothes, I use to make everything for our kids. Posting on the forums. I have a huge collection of teas - need to send some off to work with my daughter for they gym. My daughter says my hobby is 'twenty questions'. Some swimming, more theraputic, than hobby.

I love to share God's love and his Word with people. Scripture says to be ready, I guess that is my greatest hobby, and love.

OLS is right, byzcath is the first address on my address bar

I like languages,besides High School French,I've studied Finnish,Greek,Hungarian and Irish(I count only those which I've taken an actual class in),but I grieve to say that I'm not fluent in any non-Slavic tongue,except English.I'm a big Railfan also,but only "real" trains and railroad history,also history in general,Eastern Europe in particular,also about the Celtic peoples.Music and literature,I prefer Dickens and Dostoyevsky and have a weakness for Harry Turtledove's Alternate History novels.I'm definitly a coffee enthusiast and on occasion,the distilled spirits of Scotland and Ireland.

Black & White photography would be a passion.

Chipcarving would be a hobby.

Glory to God for all!

I have too many interests for the time available to me but I see that's true of most of my fellow forumites .

In no particular order - except that I'd have to say that creating the on-line EC/OC parish directory is presently my consuming passion - these would be the most important to me:

Eastern & Oriental Churches, Catholic and Orthodox;
iconographic styles and media;
Old Believers and the myriad sects contemporaneous to them;
Old Catholic Churches;
independent and vagante Churches and bishops;
Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, Shakers, all the Utopian sects;
reading - of all sorts;
philately (stamp collecting);
model trains (American Flyer);
depression glass (as well as the related types - carnival, etc);
Romany (Gypsies);
Celtic history;
folklore, fairytales, classical fantasy, mythology, legends;
photography;
genealogy;
writing/editing - language generally, particularly styling and etymology.

Many years,

Neil

Reading, piano, cooking, and gardening (right now I am growing hot pepers, culinary gingers, basils, mints, and a long white eggplant).

OK our brother Marian, enlighten this southern gal from the USA and claify what is 'chipcarving'. THANKS!

Chip carving, also sometimes called spoon carving, is a style of wood carving in which knives are used to remove small chips of wood from the project surface in a single piece. Chip carvings have two planes: the wood surface and the point beneath the surface where the cuts intersect. Patterns can be free form style or based on geometric figures. The projects are created primarily using chip carving knives upon basswood, butternut, pine, or mahogany.

Tools
Chip carving knives can also be used for whittling, cabinetry, and general workbench purposes.

Christ is Risen!

Like this:

[Linked Image]

Exquisite, my friend! Is this one that you carved?

Many years,

Neil

No, my brother. For now I just sharpen my skills using practice boards of lindenwood.

However, from years I like to do little wooden crosses and offer them as gifts.

The above cross needs practice. For now I do items like this, I did not take photos yet of mine:

[Linked Image]

It is named pristornic, at the the bottom there is the name of our Lord, IC XC NI KA. The women use to apply this bottom of cross on the bread in Church.

[Linked Image]

So beautiful. It is not a chance that bread is in connection with our Lord.

God have mercy upon our souls.