Family Archives — Page 3 of 4 — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

Is Your Name on Your Headstone? The Remembrance of Death

October 3, 2014 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

Seeing my father’s name on this stone next to my recently departed mother’s reminds me that I used to be horrified at the morbid idea of having a tombstone with the name of a living person on it. It just didn’t seem right to be reminded of one’s death so baldly, literally to set up a monument to a future loss of life. But…

Eulogy for My Mother

August 29, 2014October 3, 2014 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

This eulogy was written for my mother’s funeral on August 29, 2014. A few months before, she was diagnosed with a Class 4 glioblastoma (brain cancer) which ultimately claimed her life. A somewhat shorter version of this text was delivered at the funeral service. Funeral Service of Sandy Damick, August 29, 2014 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick Colorado Springs, Colorado In the name of…

Raising Authentically Christian Children: Good News and Bad News

April 8, 2014 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

My friend Seraphim Danckaert published an article today on the O&H site that I think every Christian (Orthodox or not) should read: Losing our Religion: On “Retaining” Young People in the Orthodox Church. Why? Almost every kind of church throughout America is losing kids. So read it first before reading the rest of this. Okay, done? First, some bad news: If you’re counting on…

A Decade that Belongs

August 17, 2013 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

Ten years ago today, Nicole Ann Boury married me. After ten years, I’m still not entirely sure why she did it. I know I haven’t always made her happy. I know I’ve many times made her unhappy. But even through all the uncertainty and instability of the past ten years—which is not very much for some, but is for us—we still belong. Over this…

Rootedness and Uprootedness: A Lament

August 13, 2013 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

In the past few weeks, I’ve learned of impending relocations of more relatives west of the Mississippi River, including one family that has been in the same state for decades and one elderly relative who has even been in the same house since the mid-1960s. One by one or in clumps, over the past several years it seems that both sides of my family…

A Firm Foothold

June 14, 2012 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again. —Frodo Baggins I happened upon this quotation again yesterday evening, while I was reading my daughter The Lord of the Rings. It seems a dauntingly long tome…

Saving the World from Suicide: Localism, Christian Evangelism and the Culture War

May 21, 2012 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

The world is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time; so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and to save the world from suicide. —T. S. Eliot, “Thoughts After…

Bright Week Debrief

April 20, 2012 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

Like most of the rest of the Orthodox Christian presbytery this time of year, I am currently in post-Paschal recovery mode. Lent, Holy Week and Pascha always take a lot out of us Orthodox Christians, and the clergy stand at the center of the liturgical, spiritual and emotional maelstrom that this season swirls us through. But I quote a certain theologian and philosopher when…