Bøger af Horia Ion Groza

Wisconsin is the American Dairyland, a country of corn, potato, cranberry, and ginseng. The bluegrass, the tornadoes and the Northern Lights, together with the singular beauty of the nature and its harsh climate, create a unique philosophy in the Wisconsin people. They have a deep understanding of life, a mind of firm certitudes, a warm heart fed by a family of three to five children, a special sense of humor, and a solid discipline of hard work. Many poems of this book are inspired by my years spent in Wisconsin and I dedicate it to the great hearts of the people that I was blessed to meet there. They became a luminous part of my life. - Horia Ion GrozaHoria Groza is surprising for a plant breeder who by nature ought to be entirely realistic and uncompromising when the issue is beauty, truth, love of little things. DIFFERENT... Horia is DIFFERENT. True, he loves the potato for it is a good thing to love, but he loves also the tender, the small, the seldom seen. This is a blessed state. I shall end there... for the purpose of life of gentles and giants is to arrive at the Blessed State. Poetry is a potato fork. I have several. With a fork you feel the earth, feel gravity, feel the lifting, feel the worms, feel the soil, feel the sweat, feel the tilth. And if you are like Horia and me, feel the godliness of the potato. This book of poems by Horia is not the monster Lenco, instead a potato fork. Poetry equipped with a short handle to feel the gravity of our lives, its worms, its tilth. A forkful at a time, digging is necessary, and in the lifting, to feel the earth's desire. These words of this potato researcher I'm so honored to know and call friend. - Justin Isherwood, Author of Book of Plough, Essays on the Virtue of Farm; of Family & Rural Life; and of Pulse, A Farmer's Take on the Universe.Horia came from the East -- you could say from behind the curtain. He brought passion for freedom and justice emboldened by the belief in higher good. Medicine was not an option so the science of agriculture and potato became his vocational pursuit. In our time to know him, Horia chose to invest uniquely in what he could offer; not limited by distance, living almost nine years more than half a continent away from his beloved Joanna, we learned about the culture and faith that supported Horia as he invested knowledge, sweat and practice into our fledgling program of potato breeding. And there were also the weekly afternoon tennis matches with the club! While the potato program continues on to international recognition, more significant is that we became friends and family and brothers in the faith.- Bryan Bowen, Director of Agronomy, Black Gold Farms; former Associate Researcher at University of Madison-Wisconsin and Superintendent of Rhinelander Agric. Research Station.

Saint Paisius Velichkovsky (1722-1794), also known as Saint Paisius of Neamts, lived a monastic life in Ukraine, Romania and Greece (Mt.Athos). He was a man of fervent prayer, a promoter of Jesus Prayer, an ascetic monk, the author of the first translation of Greek Philokalia, a teacher of spiritual improvement, a great reorganizer of large monastic communities, a wise and loving abbot, and a Saint with many outstanding gifts from God. By his work and writings, he ties in a marvelous manner the heritage of the Holy Fathers of fourth to fifteenth centuries to the three great hesychastic centers of the eighteen century (Mt. Athos, Moldo-Vlachia, Russia) and to the origins of Orthodox Christianity in North America (St. Herman of Alaska). The effect of Paisianism and Post-Paisianism on the spirituality of the monastic and laity life is obvious for the whole period from the eighteenth century until today. Contemporary with the Era of Reason in Western Europe marked by Enlightenment (Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau), Saint Paisius defended an Era of Faith in Eastern Europe, which today gives a firm riposte to the Apostasy so obvious in Occident. This book analyzes Saint Paisius' life and work and also some important Paisian moments from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: in Romania (Saint Callinicus of Chernika and the "Burning Bush" Movement), in Russia (Saint Seraphim of Sarov and Elders of Optina), and in America (Saint Herman of Alaska and Father Seraphim Rose of Platina). Comments are made on the importance of practicing Jesus Prayer in the daily life of every Orthodox Christian.

This book is addressed to contemporary Christians. They are under a continuous attack from many unbelieving scientists and from the so-called "free" thinkers. I think religion provides the spinal column of the ethics of a society and therefore it is necessary more now than in previous times. If we may paraphrase the historian of religions Mircea Eliade's terms, we might say that, for a person with faith in God, there are two kinds of time: sacred time and profane time. The sacred time is the time of God, of the Creator; it is chairos and it is eternal. The profane time is the historical time, the time of the creation, of man and of all living creatures; it is chronos, the quotidian time that flows unceasingly without repeating itself. Our soul is immortal and its time, since we were conceived, is eternal. Our body is perishable and its time is transitory. Therefore, a Christian is called to discover the ever-living time of his soul, and especially the sacred aspect of it. This book is a continuation of a previous volume, "Discovering the Sacred Time of Our Life," which pleaded for the necessity of realizing the profound eternity, proper to God and our soul, that hides like an invisible, long and uninterrupted shadow behind all our daily events. This second volume talks about the actual "living the sacred time of our life". It discusses the principles of a Christian life in relation to personal, family, and societal necessities. It refers to the Sunday and Feast readings in Church. The book invites to a higher receptivity to the miracles, the language of God, especially the little miracles which occur all the time around us, inspiring our souls and strengthening us in our daily trials. The book brings suggestions applied directly to the specificity of a Christian life in our American society and supplies less accessible information from the spiritual teachings of the Eastern European Fathers, including Romanian Elders. Romania is a country where Holy Apostle Andrew evangelized, martyrs suffered for their faith since the third century, and the monastic life reached a peak of outstanding hesychastic wisdom, becoming in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a center of Christian spirituality as strong as Mount Sinai was in the sixth century and Mount Athos was in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries.About the authorThe essayist, poet and novel writer Horia Ion Groza (born in Romania and established in USA in 1986), has a PhD in plant genetics and breeding and he worked 40 years in the latter domain of scientific research. He authored eleven books from which five are about Christian faith and tradition. For his Romanian publications he was awarded the LiterArt XXI Prize for journalism (1999) and for essays (2002).

The author, Horia Ion Groza (born in Romania and established in USA in 1986), has a PhD in plant genetics and breeding. He worked 40 years in this domain of scientific research, at a plant research institute, for several bioengineering companies and for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also an essayist, poet and novel writer and has authored three books of essays on philosophical and social themes, three books on Christian faith and tradition, one volume of poems, one novel and one book of literature critique. All of them have been published in Romanian and were very well received. He was awarded the LiterArt XXI Prize for journalism (1999) and for essays (2002). The present book offers a lesser known perspective from the Eastern European millenary Christianity. It is largely based on the teachings and the exemplary existence of spiritually enhanced Fathers that produced a profound revelation to the contemporary Orthodox American world, such as several Romanian Fathers and Elders. Their suffering under forty years of atheistic communist regime provided more strength to their life of prayer and helped them reach new and precious insight for the soul of man in the modern era. The book is an invitation to make life richer and much fuller of sense. This can be accomplished by discovering the eternal, sacred meaning that is hidden behind the temporary, perishable one whose minutes we consume with our chores, efforts, troubles, and worries. We are called to discover the peace God's presence offers beyond the ordinary drama of our existence, a peace and understanding that our souls long for, yet we ignore. The book begins with questions like "Should we believe in God? Is there meaning to our daily life? Why should we live in faith?" It continues with what it actually implies to live a Christian life, and touches on themes such as the goal of a Christian life and the labor within that involves dispassion, virtues, fasting, vigil and prayers. The book ends with the joy of discovering the sacred essence of being: the Holy Trinity above us and its beneficial attributes as it relates to us. Here are some subtitles: "God is Light, He brings sacred existence," "God is Love, He did not create evil," "God is Truth, He is the Savior." Such books are welcome in today's society and their message of love for God and one's neighbor could bring moral improvement, peace and harmony to our vastly troubled world. "It gives me great joy to see that Horia is publishing his reflections on the spiritual life in a form accessible to English readers. Many conversations and reflections through the years have gone into this book. It stands in continuity with the writings of the great fathers, through the experience of the Romanian elders, into the modern Orthodox spiritual intellectual tradition. I advise the reader not to be misled by the straightforward simplicity of this work. We live in a chaotic and impulsive age that claims to be spiritual without discipline and intellectual without logic. We are not used to systematic, authentic, philosophical reflection. This is the work of a patient thinker, who is first and foremost an Orthodox believer. Horia started this work with the passionate desire to pass on to his family, and then to a world in need, the great treasure he has received. Anyone who desires to approach the spiritual life with sincerity will find treasure here." Rt.Rev.Arch. Mark Melone, St. Joseph Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Lawrence, Massachusetts

Viata Maicii Doumnului, asa cum este cunoscuta in traditia bisericii ortodoxe. Scrisa intr-o frumoasa, calda si limpede curgatoare limba romaneasca cartea este deschisa tuturor si povesteste cele mai importante momente din viata Maicii Domnului (nasterea, intrarea in templu, bunavestire, nasterea Domnului, momente traite alaturi de Fiul sau dumnezeiesc si de patimile Lui, adormirea). Fiecare moment este insotit de un tropar, un condac si un irmos, ceea ce face posibila, pentru cei doritori de mai multa liniste sufleteasca, incheierea lecturii fiecarui capitol in meditatie si reculegere. Cartea mai cuprinde un capitol despre Praznicul Acoperamantului Maicii Domnului, invataturi despre tainele icoanei Maicii Domnului, cele mai cunoscute rugaciuni catre Sfanta Fecioara care pot fi memorate si folosite ca hrana de toate zilele a sufletului si cuvintele unui frumos cantec vechi romanesc. Prezentata intr-o foarte ingrijita tinuta grafica cu minunate icoane pe cele doua coperti, cartea poate fi un pretios dar pentru fiecare crestin de orice varsta.