Sunny Banana
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@sanibonani-y2g?si=09LymOLYjP7sE3cY
I am a school chaplain and the content is intended to encourage curiosity about Faith and it's impact on day to day life
The Sunny Banana, is a play upon the Zulu greeting, Sanibonani, meaning I see you.
As tech wrenches us from real life, we are not seeing each other. The Greek word 'idea' means to see. It is as if we have lost the idea of what it means to be human; social, communal, relational. The same word, to see, in Old English is 'seon' which has connotations of understanding.
Let's start seeing each other again, listening, respecting, and understanding each other and ourselves. After all, we are people through other people.
Sunny Banana
I kissed a priest and I liked it
"I kissed a priest and I liked it" – a provocative statement that opens the door to a profound spiritual exploration. This episode takes you on my personal journey from Anglican tradition into Orthodox Christianity, where I encountered the ancient practice of kissing a priest's hand during worship and greeting.
What started as an unfamiliar gesture became a gateway to understanding deeper truths about reverence, symbolism, and our relationship with the divine. In Orthodox tradition, the priest stands as Christ's representative – not to be worshipped himself, but to direct our attention toward something greater. When believers kiss his hand, they participate in a "movement of love" that transcends the physical act.
The gestures we embrace reveal what we truly value. As Scripture tells us, "God is love" – not simply that "love is love." This distinction matters profoundly for how we orient our spiritual lives. When I had the privilege of visiting the Russian Orthodox Cathedral I London and receiving a blessing from Bishop Irenei of London, the experience deepened my appreciation for these symbolic acts that have sustained believers for centuries.
This journey has transformed how I see each person as bearing God's image. If we truly embraced this reality, wouldn't it change how we approach every human interaction? A priest once asked me how I would know if I had truly repented. His answer stays with me: when what you once loved becomes less important, and what you once neglected becomes central. For Christians, Christ became human to sanctify human relationships, making our connections with others a pathway to divine love.
Have you ever considered how physical gestures in worship might redirect your spiritual focus? I invite you to reflect on what you venerate in your own life, and whether it's leading you toward a deeper love of God and neighbor.
I kissed a priest and I liked it. Now that is quite a provocative title for a podcast, but I want to share something with you, my blessed listeners. Thank you for tuning in today to the Sunny Banana. Sunny Bonanni, I see you. It's kind of a follow-on from my last podcast about Charlie Kirk and George Floyd and what we venerate and therefore what we worship and put above all else.
Speaker 1:I have come from an Anglican tradition, a Christian tradition, where our priests well, anglican priests. You can't really say what an Anglican priest wears, as it were, because of the varying degrees of tradition and lack of tradition. However, I would never think of kissing a priest's hand, or I've never considered that, but now lately I've been visiting and worshipping at an Orthodox church and notice how the worshippers and believers and those who come there kiss the priest's hand and throughout the service also the altar servers and deacon kiss the priest's hand when they hand him something or he hands them something. I also had the absolute privilege of going to the russian orthodox cathedral in chiswick on saturday night and bishop erin a, the bishop of london, was there, and well, I could name this also. I kissed a bishop and I liked it, so I kissed his hand after he blessed me with holy oil on my forehead. So obviously, what we kiss should signify what we love. Okay, but again, like following in from my previous podcast, when we kiss people, yes, we are loving that person right in front of us, but we're also elevating our lives to a relationship with love love itself, as the Bible says. God is love itself. As the bible says god is loved. And I unfortunately don't say love is love. Well, I say I unfortunately don't say that I don't agree with love is love, because love can be subverted or misguided. And so it's again with this what do we venerate? What do we venerate and therefore, what do we worship?
Speaker 1:And for the first time, I kissed the priest's hand in this lovely little church I've been worshiping in and in the Orthodox faith, the priest is a stand-in for Jesus Christ. He is a representative, a symbol, and symbolism is very powerful and we need this as human beings. We need each other, we need matter, we need images to remind us and to keep us on the path that we have chosen for something. But me kissing a priest and liking it has just led me to a greater and profound respect for Jesus Christ, if we really believe that each human is the image of God. Well, we would be kissing all of those images, like I would kiss a picture of my child or my wife. It symbolizes a relationship and a movement of love.
Speaker 1:I think I like that, a movement of love and a movement of love. I think I like that, that a movement of love. And although I love the Father, the priest at our Orthodox Church, my love for Christ is what moves me towards and with and through these people that I gather with every Sunday. So, yes, I kissed a priest and I liked it. And if I liked it, it's because I want to move closer to Christ in humility and in love, want to move closer to Christ in humility and in love. And what an honor to experience these wonderful little gestures that we have as human beings and I'd like to leave with us.
Speaker 1:We have levels of veneration and and at the top of that, we should, as orthodox christians, venerate and love god and love our neighbors. And I was asked a question once by a priest how do you know if you've repented? How do you know if you've repented? And I didn't know how to answer that question. But he said to me when all the things that you did love or you liked become repulsive and it wouldn't matter if you didn't have those, and largely speaking about possessions perhaps my car, these kind of things but when it comes to human relationships, because Christ became man, that human relationship is what we should love, what we should move towards, and we can do that through our neighbours. So may we greet each other With that holy kiss, acknowledging the image of God in each of us. And who knows, maybe you might be able to do that and kiss the hand of a priest one day and like it and feel that movement towards God in love. Sani Bunani, I see you and God bless you.