Posts

Haphazard Reminiscence and Gratitude

Forgive me a bit of rambling reminiscence and reflection, if you don’t mind. I guess this is one of the hazards of committing to blogging every day for forty days. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been remembering some things from more than twenty years ago lately, from shortly after my family moved to North Carolina, three weeks after I graduated from high school…

Processing the Death of my Mother

Today is six months since my mother’s passing on August 24 from a suddenly appearing aggressive brain cancer. I normally wouldn’t focus on stuff here that’s so personal, but perhaps my working out of some of these things may be helpful to folks in similar situations or who know people affected in this way. Even though it’s been half a year, it’s still hard…

The Gift of the Cross

He could not have known. In the joy only a 21-month-old is capable of at successfully worming his way into papa’s inner sanctum, he began to explore its secrets and soon made his way to that low table that had so many wonderful things lying on it. Amid the prayerbooks, candles and even a brass hand censer was a ceramic Celtic standing cross papa…

12 Reasons Why I Became and/or Remain an Orthodox Christian

Lists like this are usually so much clickbait, I know, but I thought it was nevertheless worthwhile to compile a list of most of the reasons why I became and/or remain an Orthodox Christian. Some of these things were not really on my radar when I became Orthodox in 1998, but they are part of the reason why I genuinely do love belonging to…

Priest vs. Machine: Dollar Rent A Car as an Emblem of Bureaucratic Nihilism

I offer up the following experience as a data point along the continuum into deeper inhumanity because of the too-big-to-care nature of much of corporate and government life in these latter days: I recently had the misfortune of renting a car from Dollar Rent A Car at the Atlanta airport. The original estimate for the rental was $93.50 for three days’ use. But in…