"Do you pray to Zeus?" What? Yep, the lady was serious when she found out I was a Greek Orthodox priest, she wondered if we prayed to Zeus! Holy Moly! "No, ma'am" I said. "We are lovers of Jesus Christ, and actually we are the first Christians." She was amazed. She said "I've never heard…
It doesn't make sense. Jesus says some difficult things in His teachings and the Church continues this "challenge" to our intellect. The Lord says things like "If you want to be free, be a slave." And "If you want to live, you have to die." And even "If you want to lead, you have to…
Let me state something that may be easily misunderstood, but something I am increasingly convinced has to be said and said often: Jesus Christ left us ONE THING - The Church. The Church IS the Body of Christ and is the continued Physical Presence of Jesus Christ in the earth. God has no "Plan B."…
Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said, “We always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.” I wish I had learned this earlier in my life. I would have avoided some painful idolatries.
But we humans are slow learners. And over and over again we come to the end of what we thought we could not live without…
"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's just no substitute for contemplation. But it seems our modern world is moving at such a break neck speed that contemplation is impossible! That's why authentic faith is the "last, true, rebellion" and the hardest and most rewarding path to being truly human!
Listen to what Abba Evagrius says "A wandering mind is made stable…
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…
