Through all of human history, humanity has conceived of the "perfect" society and each time we humans have endeavored to build it, it turned out to either fail or become a nightmare. In 1787, the Founding Fathers of the United States met in Independence Hall in Philadelphia to hammer out the Constitution of the United…
Let's face it; we all have to deal with unpleasant realities. You know the situations I'm talking about: those moments in life when there either a difficult confrontation that has to happen or a struggle with bureaucracy or just a difficult relationship that has to end or change. It's just not fun. It's scary. It's…
I was on Broadway in New York City, and I had tickets to "The Fiddler on the Roof!" And I was as giddy as a school boy. This is one of my favorite plays, mainly because one of the deep vacuums in my life was a sense of rootlessness because I was part of the…
We have over 30 families going through our A Journey to Fullness class at the parish and they keep hearing me say "This is a family, not a corporation or a club." One of the key aspects of Orthodoxy that drew me to the Church was this mindset away from church as a religious club…
We have an annual Greek Festival at our parish that we have done for the past 14 years. It is exhausting and wonderful. When I first came to the parish about 8 years ago, we had to ask our neighboring parishes to send their Greek dancers to our festival so we could showcase this wonderful…
As someone who has spent most of my adult life either as a police officer or in the nonprofit world, I can tell you, generosity is both addictive and life giving. It really is. Studies have shown that there are real psychological changes in someone's behavior and mood when they are generous. And it seems…
I was a nervous wreck! A 15-year-old teenager with his best buddies was sneaking into a movie theater without paying! I can hear the voice of my mother in my head “Young man, you carry your family name. That should make you think twice about doing things you know you shouldn’t!”
We didn’t get caught. We loved…
The word “asceticism” is something of a mystery to our modern way of life. We have lived with such plenty and such amazing comfort and ease for so long that now we assume that all of life is meant to be pain (and even effort) free. Just consider our attitudes towards marriage. We assume that…
Listen to what St. Theophan the Recluse says in his brilliant “Unseen Warfare”: “Refuse to listen to the devil when he whispers to you: give me now, and you will give tomorrow to God. No, no! Spend all the hours of your life in a way pleasing to God; keep in your mind the thought that…