It portrays the Orthodox approach very well, and the idea that we experience God's goodness depending on our spiritual state as either blessings or pain. the idea is that God is Good and He is always and forever Good, unchaning.
Yes, that's pretty much what I took away from it. It used a very sharp knife to separate the differences. I learn more about the differences in theology at the same time I'm learning the similarities in the spirituality. It's an odd feeling.
The article was very interesting to me because the theological points of 'original sin' I hadn't considered much until recently, and I agree with the author's position on the experience of God. Most definitely he's correct on why many in the West have rejected religion and in turn the "God" often taught. This was very similar to my much of my experience growing up.
I came to Catholicism very late in life, so my experience is quite different from people my age who went through Catholic school with the Baltimore Catechism.
From those I talk to, their experiences were widely varied. Theology for a child is often learned by whom they are taught by as much as what they are taught. Not much is really hidden from children. Words don't count for as much, anyway.
The same was true for me growing up Protestant. The closest I came to knowing God from a clergyman as a child was from the pastor at a tiny country Baptist Church when I was eleven. And it wasn't in the theology he tried to teach me - I couldn't tell you a single thing I learned about it.
The Roman Catholic Church is huge - huge in history and depth and breadth. Much of it is in common with the Orthodox, a thousand years of it at least and a thousand years hence. There's lots and lots of room in the Church.
There are those I know with bad experiences of the justice God. Then there are those who spent their time with "He and I" or Merton and "Seeds of Contemplation", The Little Flower, Teresa of Avila… a view of God more in common with the view expressed in the article.
So I have a love-hate relationship with theology. I've been told that one can only know what Orthodoxy is by living it, and I wonder if that's not true of all religion. The differences I see may often be colored by the underlying theology, but it's how it's lived that it can really be known.
I'm just a wee baby in the Church, and everything I say here is just my view through beginner's eyes.
Sorry the length, and thanks again for the article and all the other information you present on these threads.