Redeeming virtue?

My apologies for the incomplete post; I tried to preview my post beginning and accidentally posted it when I meant to preview. At any rate, I would like to talk about what I have looked for in redeeming virtue out of a very rough experience. I meant to start this and complete the post tomorrow, on the feast. (Or rather, after the feast dinner, since liturgically the old style feast day for the Nativity of the Theotokos has begun.) But I don\'t want to leave people hanging. At any rate, it was a very rough experience, and it gave me something to work with ascetically. I\'ve found that when I\'m going through a rough spot I often seek things that are good for me, and when things are easy I often seek things that are more pleasant than good for me. At any rate, I had a really rough time at school, and the official version is that I washed out of a Ph.D. program. (Note: I ranked 7th in the U.S. in a math contest, among other major distinctions. But, officially, I didn\'t cut it in the Ph.D. program, and so far at least, that door is closed.) But there were a couple of things that have come out of that realization. One is that I have wanted to write theology, and being out of academic theology is not a hindrance. And I have been trying, although it seems there are major flaws--[url=http://JonathansCorner.com/writing/grail/]The Sign of the Grail[/url] may register as somewhere between impressive spiritually, and spiritually flawed, and as time has passed I\'ve learned more of my spiritual flaws that bled into that piece. Now I have written a new piece, [url=http://JonathansCorner.com/writing/technonomicon/]Technonomicon: Nature, Technology, Ascesis[/url], which I believe has some strengths, but in some ways can\'t compete with a real discussion about striving with the passions. Maybe it\'s closer to being really theological, though. One point that I realized as I was writing it was that probably my biggest discovery at Fordham was an unpleasant find--of a bad article, with lots of questionable spin doctoring, which seemed to answer something that had been puzzling me: why, on one matter, the Orthodox Church was presented as having a position that didn\'t fit. For a long time, I sat on my find, mainly because I didn\'t see making a big potential controversy as something I should be doing--the probable explanation would be that, like before, I have found what seemed like a reason for a big reform because of my half-baked level of maturity in Orthodoxy. And I expected, \\"I don\'t see why, but I have to be wrong.\\" But what I realized was that what I was trying to write in [url=http://JonathansCorner.com/writing/technonomicon/]Technonomicon[/url] was incomplete without the other piece--[url=http://JonathansCorner.com/writing/contraception/]Orthodoxy and Contraception: A Look at an Influential but Disturbing Article[/url]. In trying to fetch redeeming virtue out of a rough experience--beyond simply that I was struggling to serve the Lord under rougher-than-chemo conditions, which is itself ascesis and theology--[url=http://JonathansCorner.com/writing/contraception/]Orthodoxy and Contraception[/url] is the one thing that I\'d like to find a redeeming virtue in: if [url=http://JonathansCorner.com/writing/contraception/]Orthodoxy and Contraception[/url] helps others hear something the Orthodox Church needs, then maybe there is one thing I accomplished apart from whatever I may gain ascetically from fighting passions under rough times. Please pray for people who will see [url=http://JonathansCorner.com/writing/technonomicon/]Technonomicon[/url] and [url=http://JonathansCorner.com/writing/contraception/]the piece on contraception[/url].