Sports is a multi-billion dollar business in this society. It reflects our fascination with the ideas of achievement, dedication, and excellence. All of that is good for a society. Until it isn’t. Recently the discussion has been renewed to start paying college athletes. Major universities in this country make millions of dollars from their sports programs and there has always been something of a underground economy for “boosters” at different schools to…

There is a story about this ant colony that had sprung up in a fallow field on a farm. During the time the field was “resting” from planting season, the ant colony thrived. But one day the Farmer walked out into his fallow field and determined it was time to plant that part of the farm again. The timing was right for the field to be plowed. The soil was rested. The…

All of us have seen the signs of the fringe, so-called, Christian group that protest at military funerals. They seem to have the belief that they know exactly who God hates. Ridiculous! As if all the sins and mistakes of all the people in the world who have ever lived all combined together and multiplied by a thousand plus ten could overpower God’s love and peace! Really, God’s peace and God’s love…

You’ve heard the old joke about the man who bought a horse from a very religious owner. The horse didn’t respond to the normal commands like “giddiup” for “go” and “whoa” for “stop.” The religious man who had trained the horse taught him to “go” at the word “hallelujah” and the “stop” command was “praise the Lord.” So, the gentleman bought the horse and started his ride. He said “hallelujah” and the…

Ah, the joys of sibling rivalry! My daughters (I am a dad who has all girls. After all, why mess with perfection!) are a joy to watch. As my older daughter recites her activities of her day, my three year old immediately pipes up with the accusatory question: “What about me?” She simply cannot allow big sister to suck up all the attention. To watch siblings simultaneously love and compete with each…

In his famous book, “Rules for Radicals,” Saul Alinsky states ““Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his…

Poor Juliet struggles as she wrestles with the fact that her new-found love is for a hated Montague. Romeo listens as she says her famous line “‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? that which…

I recently bought a copy of the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek for each member of our parish council. My main motivation is to drive home a fundamental point and a fundamental danger to any community or association: If you forget why you do what you do, you will soon stop doing what you do! As a further consequence of this foundational amnesia, you will also not be able to…

Robert Louis Stevenson once said “Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.” And this is precisely why it is always so corrosive to a person, to a community, and to a society, to blindly chart a course of actions that ignore the consequences of our choices. Truth be told, the ignoring of consequences or the attempts to avoid or mitigate consequences to “free” myself to do whatever I…

“Vain repetition, that’s all it is!” My friend was absolutely horrified by my shift from my Pentecostal roots to the Greek Orthodox Church. He came to a service where I was presiding as priest and he simply shook his head in disbelief. “How could you do this?” he wondered to me afterwards. All the ritual and read prayers and prescribed movements were seen by him as nothing more that the empty “traditions”…