“What you don’t know won’t hurt you!” Really? I’ve found that, sometimes, what I don’t know hurts me pretty bad. But what’s worse is misunderstanding what I actually do know. In fact, I have misunderstood some things I thought I knew so bad that I might as well not...
“Father, you simply have to MOVE!” With that, my doctor, who was in the Marines as a young man, made it clear I had to change my sedentary lifestyle if I was to be healthy. In other words, if I didn’t start moving and exercising, I was going to...
Both of my daughters are really different. But, to their credit, I really do like them as persons. I find their differences endearing and fascinating. One daughter is most at home on stage. She really shines when she’s performing or dancing. She’s very good at it. My youngest is...
Ideas have consequences. If the underlying philosophy of a society is flawed, the effects are real and, if the flaws are bad enough, they spell destruction for that society. When the structure is unsound, the people are unsafe. And the whole purpose of the Faith is to be the...
What’s the difference between Inspiration and Motivation? Well, Inspiration usually comes from the outside. I’m inspired by that act of charity, or that life well lived. Motivations, however, are usually internal; that set of desires and drives that either keep me on track or send my life down a...
Listen to this quote from St. Symeon the New Theologian: “In the future life the Christian is not examined if he has renounced the whole world for Christ’s love, or if he has distributed his riches to the poor or if he fasted or kept vigil or prayed, or...
Isaac Newton once said, “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” How I resonate with that. Simplicity is the enemy of confusion and chaos. I’ll never forget the story of a Third world visitor to the US being overwhelmed...
It’s one of (if not the) fastest growing forms of Christianity in the world, and it’s the movement I came from when I converted to Orthodoxy so many years ago. I’m talking about the Pentecostal movement. And one of the most distinctive aspects of Pentecostalism is something called “speaking...
“Oh, come on. You know good and well I didn’t mean that the way you are taking it!” Frankly, I couldn’t get over that this person so misunderstood me. It almost felt like it was on purpose to discredit what I was saying. After a few deep breaths, and...
Ask any police officer or investigator and they will tell you having an eyewitness to an event is great, and not so great. The reason is eyewitnesses are notorious for filtering what they see through what they think they remember. So, we were trained how to weed out what...
