Looking Like Christmas
Read more: Looking Like ChristmasOne of the most striking features of the Gospels is the frequent response of the Disciples after the resurrection of Christ: doubt. I have always been sympathetic to the doubts and hesitations that accompanied the Disciples’ experience during the ministry of Christ. They are almost endearing in their inability to grasp what Christ is all […]
The Christmas Play
Read more: The Christmas PlayI was sick last week (stomach bug – my least favorite illness). It cost me a trip to Memphis where we were to spend a few days with family and the joy of watching two of my daughters singing in an Advent Festival. My many years of ministry have put me in some diverse places […]
When Your Ancestors Came to Church
Read more: When Your Ancestors Came to ChurchHuman beings carry within them a burden of time. We are not “fresh starts” as we come into existence. There is an inheritance that seems to carry even more than our genes. Some few years ago, I visited with my father’s oldest surviving cousin. She had known both of my parents across the years, and […]
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The Life of the Cosmos
Read more: The Life of the CosmosThis is a reprint from 2016. I ran across it this morning and found it speaking very much of where my mind and heart have been of late. May it be of use to you. What does it mean to be alive? This is a question whose answer would seem so obvious that it is […]
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The Gratuitous Wonder of Unbounded Joy
Read more: The Gratuitous Wonder of Unbounded JoyAny number of Orthodox conversations turn around the topic of “theosis” (to become “like God”). I’m never quite sure what people have in mind when they invoke the term. Do they imagine divine power or a transfiguration in divine light? In a culture marked by success stories, it’s easy to imagine theosis as just that. […]
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The Communion of Giving Thanks
Read more: The Communion of Giving ThanksWhom should I thank? The question is normally a matter of polite acknowledgement. A gift was given and received. Who gave it? Whom should I thank? It is inherently the nature of giving thanks that thanks must be given to someone. I cannot give thanks to nothing or no one. As such, the giving of […]
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The Secular Mind Versus the Whole Heart
Read more: The Secular Mind Versus the Whole HeartThinking is among the most misleading things in the modern world, or, to be more precise, thinking about thinking is misleading. For a culture that puts such a great emphasis on materiality, our thinking about thought is decidedly spooky. The philosophy underlying our strangely-constructed modernity is called nominalism (of which there are many formal varieties). Its imaginary […]
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A Faith You Can Sink Your Teeth Into
Read more: A Faith You Can Sink Your Teeth IntoIn a now-famous experiment, volunteers were fitted with inverting lenses, such that everything they saw appeared upside-down. In a few days their brains adjusted and what they saw appeared correctly. When the lenses were removed, their naked eyes now saw things inverted, though again, after a few days their vision returned to normal. We are […]
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To Sing Like a River
Read more: To Sing Like a RiverArticle from October, 2016 We stood looking out at a river rushing past the rocks – a brisk morning in the North Carolina mountains, a rare setting for the Divine Liturgy. The tradition of the Church generally holds that services such as the Divine Liturgy are to be held indoors, in the Church. There are […]
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The Abbreviated God
Read more: The Abbreviated GodWhen an Orthodox Christian is asked questions about the faith, there is often a hesitation. The questions that come to mind (for me) are: “Where do I begin?” and “How much do I try and tell them?” For, in many ways, the amount of information includes about 2,000 years of history and an encyclopedia’s worth […]
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