Category: Reflections
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Are You Like Him?
Years ago when I was in seminary, I served a small mission in Chicago. The priest was something of a mentor for me during that time. There was a young girl in the congregation, between two and three years-old. She was convinced that the priest was Jesus. (Well, he was wearing a white robe and…
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Memory Eternal – David Waite
Among our community of commenters, a regular was David Waite. He was a member of my parish here in East Tennessee, a member of the choir, and a retired lawyer. I think of him as one of the “great souls” whom I have known. He was an advocate and friend of the poor, who were…
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Care for the Soul
This article first appeared in 2015. It seems very apropos to our present moment. Glory to God for all things. I do not understand Zombies. When I was a child, Zombie movies were virtually non-existent. The word referred to something like a Golem in Jewish thought – a creature without a soul. It is properly…
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Alone – You Are Not
“Alone – You Are Not” This is not a quote from Yoda. It is a simple statement concerning the nature of our existence. The fullness of existence is only found in communion, a mutual indwelling in which our lives are known and experienced not just in their self-contained form, but in their Interrelation to others…
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Following a Conversation with a Tree
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,while we do not look at the things which are seen,…
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The God Claws – The Therapeutic Work of the Holy Spirit
In a graphic scene of redemption, CS Lewis depicts a young boy who has unfortunately been turned into a dragon. The boy (Eustace) is largely at fault in this transformation – something which brings his life to a miserable and seemingly unsolvable conclusion. He is, however, confronted by God in the figure of Aslan, the…
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The Sweetest Name of Jesus
Some years back, I was given instruction on saying the “Jesus Prayer” by Archimandrite Zacharias of Essex. We spoke about the form of the prayer, and the pace it should be prayed. But it was his final instruction that touched my heart: “Pay particular attention to the Name when you pray it.” It is, after…
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The Sweet Smoke of Prayer
Let my prayer arise in Your sight as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Psalm 141 My parish has a fairly steady stream of visitors from outside the Orthodox experience. Among their first questions are ones concerning the use of incense. There is virtually no Orthodox service that does not…
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What Do We Need? Love Amidst the Clutter
I’ve been slowly making my way through the book, An Empire of Things. It’s subtitle, How We Became a World of Consumers from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Centuries, describes the fascinating journey outlined in the text. It tracks the gradual evolution of the modern world as seen in our acquisition of stuff. The average…
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Mary as the “Secret Joy” of the Church
Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote: …When investigating the history of Mariological piety, one discovers that it is rooted not in any special revelation but, primarily, in the experience of liturgical worship. In other terms, it is not a theological reflection on Mary that gave birth to her veneration: it is the liturgy as the experience of…
I give tours of our Sanctuary rack year during our Lebanese Dinner. It is a unique experience of silence, both…