Author: Fr. Barnabas Powell

Don’t you just HATE IT when you’re wrong! I mean really, is there anything so frustrating or even embarrassing as having to admit “I was wrong.” And yet, there is nothing more character building than being able to say that. Stinks, doesn’t it? The very thing my pride fights against is the very thing that is going to make me a better person and, in fact, the very thing that will make…

One of the famous sayings to come from the tragedy of the Russian Revolution was that “religion” was the opiate of the people. The Communist revolutionaries were convinced that the religion of the Russian people were keeping them slaves to the “ruling class” and they wanted to destroy everything that keeped “the people” down. This was a natural outgrowth of the so-called “Enlightenment” that produced our current modernity! Religion was the enemy.…

I failed my first driving test when I went to get my driver’s license as a 16 year old. One of the last remaining “rites of passage” into the world as an adult male, and I failed! Talk about embarrassing, the person who had gone with me had passed their test and they had to drive me home! Oh, the shame! While I did finally pass my driving test, all of us…

“γνωθι σεαυτον” Know Yourself: with these two words ancient philosophers and Christian theologians have wrestled with a fundamental reality – We humans spend a lot of time either hiding from ourselves or narcissistically focused on a false self. But truly knowing who we really are is fundamental to being who we really are! My bishop is fond of asking us to pray for him that he will constantly know himself and not lose…

“You must be born again.” Hey, where I’m from, that scripture is as well worn as John 3:16. In the ’70’s fad of the “Jesus Movement” (anybody who was paying attention at all to the culture of the early ’70’s knows this) being “born again” was all the rage. Billy Graham wrote a book about it and Jimmy Carter, running for President, made being “born again” a household phrase. I remember even…

“Do as I say, not as I do!” I remember thinking “Well, that’s not very convincing.” How can someone who refuses to follow their own advice have any credibility at all? My mom drove that point home to me as I watched her follow her convictions when it would have been temporarily easier for her to “bend” her convictions to bring her some temporary comfort. She just pressed ahead with what she…