The story goes like this: A young man sees a beautiful woman and he desires to make her his wife. All the while, his best friend from childhood, the little girl next door, secretly has grown to love her clueless neighbor. As she watches him not see her as...
"Oh NO! Not the family tree scriptures again!" I can almost hear the congregation thinking out loud when we come to portions of the scriptures that have "and so and so begat so and so, and he begat so and so, and ..." I've even been asked "why is...
In his "must read" book "On The Incarnation" St. Athanasius said "“Even on the cross He did not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness to the presence of its Maker.” Think of that, The Creator insisted in making visible the Invisible, and to make accessible...
“It is a great achievement not to be attracted by things. But it is a far greater achievement to remain dispassionate in the face both of things and of the conceptual images we derive from them.” St. Maximos the Confessor Isn’t that great? The ability to be free from a...
mother scolds her child One of the most difficult realities I’ve had to face as an adult, as a priest, as a husband, and as a father is waking up to the reality of the complexity of each human person I encounter, including myself. This continuous process of discovery has...
“There’s no time like the present.” This and many other “time” quotes really get to a central wisdom we humans have learned: Timing is everything. I have a dear couple who are dating. And, on top of that, they are exploring becoming Orthodox. Talk about a double whammy! Their relationship...
Sometimes, the scriptures say things that really unsettle me. But I’ve learned when that happens, that’s a clue that I am approaching a place in my own heart that needs attention. And it’s beginning to dawn on me that most of the time I am unsettled by the wisdom...
"Until you have eradicated the evils in your heart, do not obey it, because the heart seeks to increase what it already has stored inside." St Mark the Ascetic, On the Spiritual Law We prideful humans can't understand the power of this wisdom without the "foolishness" of the Cross of...
In our nihilistic age, with all the turmoil of our society from pandemics to politics to violence in the streets, we moderns seem to be having a crisis of purpose! I was having a conversation the other day with a dear, educated man, who also happens to be an...
The famous author J.K. Rowling once said: “I’m interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society. We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it’s quite a satisfying thing to do, isn’t it?” And she’s...
