Ordering the Day: the Uncreated Light Orthodox Christian Student Planner

When Uncut Mountain Press reached out and asked whether we would be interested in reviewing its Uncreated Light Orthodox Christian Student Planner, I was actually rather excited.

Readers of UOJ are probably familiar with my work here and with the Society of Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco. They may be less aware that, on top of all this, I am also enrolled full time in ROCOR's Pastoral School—which recently merged with Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville.

In other words, I am perpetually looking for better ways to structure my day.

Between work, school, parish responsibilities, prayer, reading, deadlines, and the ordinary obligations of life, it is remarkably easy for things to slip through the cracks, or for one part of the day to consume all the others. More importantly, it is easy for the things which ought to order everything else—prayer, fasting, the services of the Church, spiritual reading—to become just one more category competing for space on the calendar.

That is precisely what makes the Uncreated Light planner interesting.

At first glance, it is exactly what one would expect from a quality student planner. There are sections for daily, weekly, and monthly planning, class schedules, assignments, and broader academic goals. Students are encouraged not simply to list their responsibilities, but to reflect upon their goals, recognize shortcomings, and consider where improvement is needed.

But Uncut Mountain Press has gone considerably further.

The planner incorporates the liturgical life of the Church directly into its structure. It contains a liturgical calendar, saints commemorated each day, fasting periods, and dedicated planning around the Nativity Fast and Great Lent. In this way, the ecclesiastical calendar is not treated as supplemental information added onto ordinary life. It becomes part of the framework through which the student plans ordinary life in the first place.

This distinction may seem small, but it is important.

We often talk about living according to the rhythm of the Church. Yet practically speaking, many of us still organize our lives almost entirely according to secular calendars, work schedules, school deadlines, and appointments, occasionally inserting fasting days or services where they fit. A tool that reverses that arrangement—even in a modest way—is worth appreciating.

The 198-page planner is also beautifully produced. As I have come to expect from Uncut Mountain Press, the materials and overall construction are of high quality. The formatting is clean, the drop caps and other design elements are well executed, and the pages are adorned throughout with striking photographs of churches and holy places from across the Orthodox world.

Interspersed throughout are the lives of important young saints and martyrs, reminding students that sanctity is not something reserved for old age or for those removed from the struggles of ordinary life. Each week also contains an edifying quotation from Saint Paisios the Athonite.

The planner contains daily prayers, as well as prayers for various circumstances, along with a preparation for confession designed specifically with students and young adults in mind. This was a particularly thoughtful addition. Academic life has its own temptations—pride, laziness, anxiety, dishonesty, distraction, unhealthy ambition—and encouraging young Orthodox Christians to examine these things spiritually rather than simply as questions of productivity is a worthwhile endeavor.

As I familiarized myself with the planner and began trying to put it to practical use, I repeatedly found myself wondering: Why has no one designed something like this before?

The concept seems obvious once one sees it. We have Orthodox calendars. We have prayer books. We have lives of saints. We have student planners and productivity systems. Yet these things are normally kept separate, leaving the individual to figure out how they are all supposed to fit together—something that can be challenging for a well-formed adult, much more so for younger adults still being formed.

The Uncreated Light planner attempts to place them within a single daily rhythm.

And while it is explicitly designed for students, I am not convinced students are the only people who could benefit from it.

Anyone trying to balance work, family responsibilities, prayer, fasting, spiritual reading, services, and personal goals could find something useful here. Indeed, those of us who struggle simply to remain accountable to the basic requirements of Orthodox Christian life may derive as much benefit from the planner as a high school or college student trying to order their own lives.

There is also something quietly important about teaching young Orthodox Christians to think this way from the beginning: that prayer belongs on the calendar; that fasting affects how we plan our week; that preparation for confession requires intentionality; that our goals should include spiritual goals; and that academic success, while worthwhile, is only a part of becoming the person Christ calls us to be—not the totality of that process.

Modern life is remarkably good at fragmenting us. Work occupies one box, school another, Church another, family another, and somewhere amid them all we attempt to find enough time for God. The Orthodox life demands something different. Christ is not another appointment within the schedule. He is the One around whom the schedule must be ordered.

In producing the Uncreated Light Orthodox Christian Student Planner, Uncut Mountain Press has created a genuinely practical tool to help make that ordering a little easier. For students in particular, I can recommend it without hesitation. But I suspect many Orthodox adults who pick it up will likewise find benefit in its use. To those of us who struggle to keep the ordinary demands of life from crowding out the things that matter most, Uncut Mountain Press has done a tremendous service with this planner.

May God reward them for their efforts.