Faith Encouraged
To The Unknown god!
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Christ is risen! Have you heard about the outrage that’s all the rage nowadays? It’s called “cultural appropriation.” That’s where somebody uses the cherished cultural expressions of another culture. The recent dust up about a young lady wearing a Chinese dress to her prom when she wasn’t Chinese is an example. But what if it was necessary to use the particulars of another culture to communicate Good News to them? Look at…
The Morning Offering
Manifest Destiny
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Versus the true evangelization of the First Nations Manifest destiny was the belief that the United States god-given right was to spread westward from sea to shining sea, spreading American beliefs across the continent. As we all know, the First Nations tribes (Indians) were seen as heathen, and fair game for the advancing peoples of European ancestry. Whole tribes were…
Praying in the Rain
On Remaining Silent
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When you squeeze an orange, you find out what’s in it: sweet, sour, or even sometimes rotten. Stress does the same thing with most people, in my experience. Stress reveals what is in our hearts, and it is usually not nearly as sweet as we thought it would be. But that is a gift. St. Isaac tells us that to know your own heart is a gift greater than the raising of…
A Light So Lovely
Culture During a Time of Quarantine: a Lecture for the Ancient Faith Speaker Series
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Recently I had the pleasure of being one of the featured speakers for the Ancient Faith Speaker Series, offered by the St. Raphael School. It was going to be essentially the same lecture I gave at AFCon last year, but that changed as soon as the world went crazy. So although the bones of the lecture are similar to my lecture on How to Create Christian Culture, it became mostly all about…
Shepherding our Little Flock
Celebrating Christ's Ascension & Leaving Pascha
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In my last post I discussed that we can take this time of less outward distraction (i.e. social distancing and quarantine) to really pay full attention to the rhythm of the Church year and celebrate and anticipate the Great Feasts just as we might have been anticipating the end of the school year or a big community event. My daughter keeps asking me “It is still Easter?!” and I keep smiling and…
No Other Foundation
Unveiling the Scriptures - 1
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Some months ago it was arranged by the good people of the Russian Orthodox diocese of Souroz in Britain that I would give a talk at their diocesan conference at the end of this month entitled Unveiling the Scriptures. That plan came to grief with the coming of the Covid virus which resulted in our government cancelling flights to Britain and the cancellation of the conference itself. But the talk has long…
Faith Encouraged
How To Make Sure Doubt doesn't Become Illness
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Christ is risen! Paul Tillich once said, “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” Interesting! Too many times, moments of doubt are used by the enemy of your soul to cause you to give up or hide in shame. But doubt has never been fatal if it’s dealt with in wisdom and patience. On this day where we recall the ministry of St. John the Baptizer, doubt CAn…
The Morning Offering
Do Not Weep
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We must not surrender to hopelessness and despair I am in Rogue River, Oregon, where I came to serve the Divine Liturgy for my dear friend and concelebrant, Archpriest Seraphim Cardoza. Father Seraphim has been dealing with very serious heart issues, having suffered two heart attacks during the past few weeks. Due to his declining health, he needed me to…
The Morning Offering
Death is Inevitable
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And the clock is ticking At seventy-four years of age I am no spring chicken, as the saying goes, and I’ve been confronted anew about my advanced age as I’ve witnessed my younger brother dealing with serious heart problems, and two aging priest friends facing serious health issues of their own. Although the clock is ticking for all of us,…
Eastern Christian Insights
The Light Shining in the Darkness: Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Pascha, The Sunday of the Blind Man in the Orthodox Church
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Acts 16:16-34; John 9:1-38 Christ is Risen! As we near the end of our celebration of Pascha, the Church directs our attention today to how the brilliant light of our Lord’s glorious resurrection overcomes the darkness of sin and death. The man in our gospel reading whose sight the Lord restored had been blind from birth, having known only darkness throughout his life. He symbolizes us all, for until the light…
Father Bill's Blog
196. Sixth Sunday of Pascha: The Man Born Blind
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Christ is risen! Students, we are now going to play a sort of Third Grade game, but with a serious purpose. So pay attention, and please do what I say. Now: Look around – forward, left, right, up, down – and take in and remember what you see. Next, close your eyes (wait, not yet!) and with your eyes shut do the same: look around – forward, left, right, up, down, and…
The Morning Offering
The Church is Like a Forest
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The Church, like a forest, provides needed oxygen Growing up in Northern Idaho, I was surrounded by mountains and forests. I don’t remember a time when forests did not tug at my heart and fill my imagination with thoughts of adventure. As a small child my parents took my brother Dwayne, and me, on annual camping trips to a state…
Glory to God for All Things
I Can See Clearly Now
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God is in charge of the outcome of history. This simple statement is one way of expressing the Christian doctrine of divine Providence. Perhaps an even more profound way would be a statement that affirms “all things work together for good.” However, no matter how this is said, it is often the least obvious of all Christian doctrines. It is also, I think, among the most necessary of Christian doctrines when it…
Walking an Ancient Path
Contemplatives in Confinement: 3 Lessons Learned While Battling Coronavirus
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I recently achieved the dubious honor of being the only person I know to contract Covid-19. Although mine would be classified a “mild” case—clear lungs, no ER visits, no hospitalization required—I wouldn’t recommend the experience to anyone. If the flu is an uninvited guest that hangs around for three to five days, the coronavirus is a squatter that moves into your home and decides to ransack the place during an extended staycation…
Faith Encouraged
THEY Must Obey the Rules!
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Christ is risen! “They have to keep the rules, just like us!” Yeah, that’s true. We should all be held to the same standard. But wait a tick, have you kept the “rules” you expect others to keep? I know it’s hard to get your mind to shift from “what should be” to “what is,” but that’s what our lesson requires today. And there’s the rub, dear ones. But what if the…
The Morning Offering
That They Not Suffer Alone
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We must be willing to bear one another’s burdens If we are indeed to love one another we must be willing to suffer with others. The Lord tells us that we must “Bear one another’s burdens, and so be filled with the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). When we learn to love others our compassion is such that we are…
Faith Encouraged
I Was Not Disobedient to That Heavenly Vision
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Christ is risen! “Vision” has been something of a buzz word in the Leadership Training manual for some time. Of course, these Leadership gurus get this foundational principle from the Holy Scriptures when King Solomon declared “Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Proverbs 29:18) I like how that verse is translated elsewhere when it translates “the people perish” as “the people…
The Morning Offering
Marriage
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The essential element for a salvific union of two people The western world has seen a terrible downward trend in the number of couples choosing to get married. Of those couples who do, almost fifty percent of their marriages end in divorce. Those marriages that do last, see only a tiny fraction produce more than one or two children. Many…
Raising Saints
Rooted in Prayer -- Virtual Vacation Church Camp!
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As you likely know, I have been working with Kristina Wenger on a weekly podcast called Tending the Garden of Our Hearts, and through this time of sheltering and quarantine, we have been offering a complete Virtual Sunday School version with videos, printables and ideas. The Sunday School will finish up June 7, on Pentecost. As summer approaches, we’re mourning the fact that our in-person VCC programs will not likely happen, so…
Faith Encouraged
Truth Isn't Up To A Vote!
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Christ is risen! We live in the day and age where most people much prefer to see “gray” everywhere instead of “black and white.” In fact, the very notion that there could be anything that was that clear, that uncomplicated, that cut and dry is a terrifying thought to most. After all, if there are truths that are “black and white” or actual settled wisdom, then that may mean I have to…
The Morning Offering
Love and Mercy
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Through which the temporal and the eternal are connected Our liturgical rites and practices are not ends in themselves, but God-given vehicles by which we enter into a profound relationship with Him, Who is love. The very essence of our Christian faith is love because God Himself is love (1 John 4:8). Thus, our Christian morality, our ethics, and even…
Faith Encouraged
Is Your Life "Crooked" or Straight" Or BOTH?
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Christ is risen! Let’s face it, ideas matter. And the reason they matter is because ideas have consequences. Ideas flow from a mindset, a way of looking at the world and organizing the multitude of stimuli we receive through our senses every day. So, when you have an idea or an attitude or an opinion, it both comes from “someplace” and it is going to have consequences. This matters! It’s why, sometimes,…
The Morning Offering
Confronting Spousal Abuse
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Spousal abuse should never be accepted as normal There are times when distancing yourself from someone who is angry is necessary. There is absolutely no good reason for you to move towards another, when they are being abusive. For the wife of an abuser to remain in danger, in an attempt to transfer love, while receiving abuse, could easily be…
The Whole Counsel Blog
Jephthah's Daughter
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The book of Judges is often seen to be problematic as a whole. Certainly, many elements of it need to be deeply couched in euphemism or omitted entirely if its narratives are going to be discussed in an all-ages environment. While large death tolls are described throughout, the descriptions of this violence become increasingly graphic as the book progresses. By the final chapters, the book has descended headlong into the madness of rape, dismemberment, murder, and civil war. Most works of fiction in various media that contain these same elements would be subject to criticism from the perspective of Christian morality. Yet, the book of Judges is a part of the Holy Scriptures. Understanding the book of Judges as a…
No Other Foundation
Will You Remember Me?
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Lately I was listening to Jann Arden’s poignant song Will You Remember Me? and it occurred to me that in one hundred years from now, no one would. In this I am, of course, hardly unique: in one hundred years from now, no one will remember you either, nor will they remember anyone currently reading this blog. My children will remember me, and my grandchildren after them (though for them grandpa will…
Faith Encouraged
Fr. Barnabas is Speaking this Week in Boston
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Glory to God for All Things
It Is Good to Be Here
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A few days ago, after hearing a very distressing bit of social news, I found myself saying, “I don’t want to be here anymore.” It was a voice of despair and sadness. The occasion had been a public altercation in which a stranger spat at a woman. It was the sort of thing that belongs among the lowest of human actions. But it happened. My topic is my own reaction. I found…
