Praying in the Rain

I have a wonderful ten-year-old boy in our church community named Levi, Levi Matthew.  Levi was born with terrible birth defects, a condition—I don’t know the name of it—that usually limits the life expectancy of children with this condition to six months.  Levi broke the record.   When I first told my spiritual father about Levi, his only response was to be quiet for a moment, shed a tear and eventually say,…

In homily 15, St. Isaac The Syrian speaks of the importance of avoiding monks who are lax and negligent.  This laxity, according to St. Isaac, is manifest chiefly in talkativeness and gluttony.  However, between his discussion of these two passions and the need to avoid monks who are captivated by them, St. Isaac mentions those monks who have a “special affection for youths.” To be clear, St. Isaac says that such “special…

I wrote this to my Church Forgiveness Sunday morning: I got up early this morning to blow the snow off my driveway, but the snow is too wet to blow.  My snow blower is no match for ten inches (24 cm) of wet snow, and my back is no match for more than a few runs at it with a snow shovel.  I will not be able to make it to Church…

Someone wrote me recently about the difference between men and women in the experience of theosis.  This person pointed out that the sources she had read all speak of men experiencing theosis and and experiencing various signs such as seeing or shining with Uncreated Light, miracles, etc.  Here is my response with a few additional sentences. Dear …….. So, to get to your main question: is there a difference between men and…

“When in times of darkness, kneeling [prostrations] is more helpful than anything,” so says St. Isaac the Syrian.  “If our thoughts are cold and murky,” he goes on to say, “we ought to persist in long kneeling [prostrations].”  In fact, he goes so far as to say, “And although our hearts should be dead at those times and we should not even have a prayer or know what we ought to say,…

  Where do we begin in the spiritual life?  Is it best to focus on one or a few virtues and spiritual disciplines?  Should we start with the Jesus Prayer or with the reading of spiritual classics like the Philakalia?  St. John the Dwarf, one of the Egyptian Desert Fathers, compares building the spiritual life with building a house and offers very insightful comments about how this is to be done.   I…

Farming is one of the most concrete examples of faith.  Farmers spend a great deal of money, very often going into debt to buy seed, fertilizer and equipment only to sow the seed and fertilizer into the ground.  The harvest will not come for several months, and there is very little the farmer can do but wait.  Jesus spoke a great deal about sowing and reaping and used it as a metaphor…