Category: Union with God

  • You’re Not Doing Better

    “I’m doing better.” Over the years I’m sure I’ve heard this many times in confession. I’ve also heard, “I’m not doing so well.” These are timely updates, personal measures and reports on the state of spiritual lives. And they are wrong. You are not doing better. You are not doing worse. In truth, we don’t…

  • Fasting from the Sentiments of the Feast

    I have a favorite Joni Mitchell song. In her very mournful style she sings about the season before Christmas: It’s comin’ on Christmas, They’re cuttin’ down trees, They’re puttin’ up reindeer and singin’ songs of joy and peace. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on…I would teach my feet to…

  • Singing the Lord’s Song

    In my first parish as an Anglican priest, I approached my first Midnight Mass with eager anticipation. I was trained “High Church,” with a very traditional liturgical emphasis – but I was serving in a “Low Church” parish. I was the first priest in their history to wear Eucharistic vestments as a normal practice. But…

  • Suffering and a Good Death

    I read recently that people with ADD were far more likely to develop dementia in their old age. I read a few days later that people who had taken a certain medication for longer than a short period were far more likely to develop Alzheimers. I was on the medication for 12 years (and I…

  • The Earth Stood Still

    Orthodox Christians commemorate the death (Dormition) of the Virgin Mary during the month of August (New Calendar, the 15th, Old Calendar, the 28th). For those for whom such feasts are foreign, it is easy to misunderstand what the Orthodox are about – and to assume that this is simply a feast to Mary because we…

  • Comfort One Another

    A Meditation on a Conversation My wife and I had opportunity for a morning’s conversation with Archimandrite Zacharias of St. John’s Monastery in Essex during our recent trip to England. The conversation ranged from the general to the private. One segment has been a constant meditation for me since that morning. It concerned comfort. Fr.…

  • The Moral Disease

    Despite what most people think, the modern age is perhaps the most moral of all periods of history. There are competing moralities which creates a sort of moral confusion – but we certainly have no lack of morality. But, as described in this article, morality itself is part of the problem.  Is it possible to…

  • The Human Project

    “Becoming human” is a baffling phrase. Surely we are simply born as human beings. Of course this is true, but the nature of the modern world allows us to configure our lives in ways that can be described as “less than human.” When we visit a zoo and see a tiger pacing in its cage,…

  • Everything Is In Motion

    For years I have been told that the meaning of the word hamartia (translated “sin”) means “to miss the mark.” This is certainly accurate. However, the image I have always had in mind has been an arrow aimed at a target and missing the bull’s eye. Thus I have thought of my life as a moral effort…

  • Saintless Christianity

    What would Christianity mean if there were no saints? To rephrase the question: What would be the meaning of the Christian gospel if there were no wonderworkers, no people who had been transfigured with the Divine Light, no clairvoyant prophets, no healers, no people who had raised the dead, no ascetics living alone in the…


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