Christ is Born! "That boy is so hard headed he wouldn't even notice a rock hitting him between the eyes." My grandmother had a way with words, but I've known people like this; so set in their ways that not even plain evidence would move them to change their ways....
Christ is Born! I'm sitting in my home office on an early morning thinking about the new year right around the corner, and what God has in store for us for this precious gift of time. And my heart can't escape the one example I see in Christ and all...
Christ is born! What a busy time of year! As I was preparing for liturgy this morning, I was contemplating my schedule and caught myself becoming distracted from the time of prayer that the liturgy calls me to embrace. I had to exercise my will to banish this distraction so...
Christ is Born! Glorify Him. With this traditional greeting we Orthodox Christians mark the beginning of the Feast of the Nativity of the Theanthropos (The God-Man) Jesus Christ. God takes His flesh from one of us in the person of the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary, and comes among us as...
As we approach Bethlehem to celebrate, it's time to insist on some heavy theology today. So, let's buckle our proverbial seat beats and do some soul stretching theological work out! Jesus Christ is 100% God and, at the very same time 100% Man. As St. Basil declares "What is not...
Recently, I read an article by Michael Wheeler of Harvard Business School on how to make necessary split second decisions. Interestingly enough, Mr. Wheeler concluded that these kinds of decisions we all face always flow from our life-long and deeply developed character. Dr. Wheeler's article "Marines Don't Do That: Mastering...
It seems we Southerners have an "old saying" for everything. When I was in Boston for seminary, a young man from another part of the country asked me "Barnabas, is there a book I can buy with all these Southern sayings in them?" I laughed and told him "No,...
I love what Mark Twain once said: "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." Yep, I know what he means. I squirm under the light of someone who's life radiates a goodness I so often wish I had and all too...
You weren't made for brokenness and loneliness and isolation. You were made to be in communion. And that's because you are created in God's image. So, that begs the question: How does God "know" Himself? What does it mean to be made in the image of God? God knows Himself...
Statistics are funny things. It seems everyone who wants to sway public opinion will use statistics to bolster their argument. Now, don't get me wrong, I do the same thing, but apparently I've lived to that age in life where the old saying "figures don't lie, but liars figure"...
