Author page: Fr. Barnabas Powell

"I need to speak with your supervisor." The customer service lady on the other end of the line could tell I was frustrated. I had already called several times to find out why what I had ordered had not been delivered. First they told me it had been delivered. Then, when they discovered they were…

I remember thinking "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto." It was one of those moments in our journey to Orthodoxy that caused my soul to say "Aha." A point of enlightenment about just how profound our newfound, and ancient faith was going to be for how I thought about faith. Our catechist had just said…

It's true, men don't like following direction. This came home to me the other day as I was assembling a small table for our living room. There weren't that many pieces and the assembly "seemed" straightforward so I dove right in. That is until I had to connect the last piece. It wouldn't work. No…

You see it in every restaurant bathroom you go to: "Employees must wash their hands before returning to work." I've even seen detailed instructions in bathrooms as to how to wash one's hands properly! In 1546 Italian physician and scholar Girolamo Fracastoro first suggested that unseen "germs" were the cause of infectious diseases, and the idea…

There is a story about a great man. He had searched the world over for wisdom. He had gone to gurus, and sought out great religious leaders and learned philosophers. But still, his heart ached for more. Sure, he learned great and awesome ideas and heard wonderful words, but still, he felt empty from the…

My dear bride has a hard and fast rule for my two girls: “Wash your hands!” You see, my wife is a trained elementary school educator and part of that training has to do with hygiene. Teaching children to wash their hands before they eat, after they play, and after their potty breaks is all…