The Precious Blood
"Blood is thicker than water." "He makes my blood boil." We are related by blood." So many sayings about "blood" and so many common sayings from culture to culture. It seems we humans are hard-wired to "know" the importance of the life fluid we call blood. And yet it...
2 Paths; One Good, One Bad
"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence." This quote by Henry David Thoreau is beautiful. But I have a problem with it since it seems to suggest that any path will do as long as it's your own path. In...
Wise Lips and Foolish Sons
My grandmother used to confuse me when she’d comment about a particular friend of my grandfather’s. She’d look at the man as he was driving away from their home after a visit and say “He’s a smart boy but he ain’t got no horse sense.” “Horse sense?” I’d hear that and...
Bring Every Thought Captive to Christ – Sunday’s Homily
On this Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, we are confronted with the mystery of God being BOTH Unknowable AND Knowable, and this mystery invites us to the awesome reality that we can be in true communion with the God Who loves us and comes among us. This spiritual discipline...
Stolen Water, Secret Bread
Oscar Wilde said that "Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes." And yet, we don't seem to learn from our mistakes very often. Over and over again, we revisit some bad choice either until it kills us or we actually learn to stop doing that. I have...
3 Ways to Embrace Wisdom
Whenever you see the term "social justice" you have to realize that this phrase is PACKED with underlying subtext. To ignore this is to be either ignorant or dishonest, neither of which commends itself to being a wise person. Recently there was the usual dust-up over a very public...
4 Traits of True Wisdom
I love this quote from Confucius "A man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life." That's good. You see, it isn't wrong to not know something; it's wrong to not care whether you know or...
Here’s Your Sign
When I was growing up in a small, Pentecostal church in Atlanta, I was amazed at the number of folks in American Christianity really preoccupied with the "signs of the times." It seemed that each event in politics or world events "signaled" the "end times." Fortunately, my pastor was...
The Childish Fantasy of Fairness
I don't believe in "fairness." Really! I really don't believe in it at all. Oh, I get the concept, don't get me wrong, but I simply don't believe humans are capable of it. At least not yet, anyway. In fact, the older I get the more I'm convinced that the...
You Shall See Greater Things – Sunday’s Homily
On this Sunday of Orthodoxy where we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy and the restoration of the Holy Icons, we are invited by Christ to see greater things because God becomes visible for our salvation. Our great Faith is meant to enchant the world with greater things, and we...