War analogies can go too far. However great the rivalry between the righteous Packers and the minions of Halas called the Bears, it is not the equivalent of war. Nothing is. We are in a real battle, but the battle is not against flesh and blood. No human is so depraved he justifies a Christian’s hatred and no nation consists of orcs that we can simply despise. My Dad tells me, with shame, that in our just war against Imperial... Read more

This is the day that the LORD has made;let us rejoice and be glad in it. We sang this as a bouncy chorus once too often when I was a little boy and only recently have I been able to experience this truth again. This is not an injunction to ignore injustice, to pretend there are no problems, or to plaster a smiley face sticker over a gaping wound. That this is the Day of the Lord  is a truth and the Psalm... Read more

  Avoid working for the White Star Line and signing up for the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic. If despite your best efforts, you end up on your own equivalent to Titanic, act sensibly. Income Tax Day in the United States is also the day when the survivors of the Titanic were picked up and had to face life after RMS Titanic. Supposing you survive your near-death encounter with your metaphorical North Atlantic, what should a survivor do? Determine what... Read more

If despite your best efforts you wake up one morning to discover you are on RMS Titanic (or your real life equivalent), then what do you do? Of course, if  you wake up on the actual Titanic, go back to sleep and try waking up again. Good people look at the world, try to choose wisely, and still end up in businesses, organizations, or communities that end with the band playing Nearer My God to Thee. If you haven’t been there, avoid... Read more

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the sinking of the great liner RMS Titanic. We have always marked this ceremony with a series of traditions in our household, but one of the best is drawing conclusions from the disaster. The greatest lesson is (perhaps): Do not fight with an iceberg for an iceberg does not mind a collision and you do.  Beyond this we have been inspired by the heroism of some of the passengers and all the crew of the great... Read more

Easter is here . . .again. An advantage to being a member of the Orthodox Church is while the rest of Christendom has Easter, we can wish them joy in Christ. Beyond getting heavy discounts on Easter candy, advantages multiply though the reality is these advantages are available every Sunday to every human being. Every Sunday is a little Easter. Every Sunday is a reminder that life conquers death. The basic script options for life are two: tragedy or comedy.... Read more

You can go a long time and go very far believing falsehoods and ignoring reality, something I assume my philosophical critics think is true of me. And if only for that reason, they should hear this truth: you should never ignore reality, but you can for a bit. If a man is very unlucky, he can even ignore it for his entire life. You can even make scientific progress based on a falsehood. When best theorizing shifted from an Earth-centered... Read more

Walter Scott is dead. This is not just an individual evil, but part of a pattern of police brutality that African-Americans know exists in much of the United States.  Our Republic cannot stand half terrorized and half free. Citizens of this nation get up and go about their business knowing that their local police treat them unjustly based on the color of their skin. This is intolerable and it is not new. The problem is racism. What is to be... Read more

2016 will come as certainly as the sun rising and having a Presidential election in the United States of America is more certain than the Cubs failing to win the World Series in 2016. One is highly likely, the other is possible, but not likely at all. This is very good news because in most places at most times free elections where people have a say in choosing the head of government have been as rare as Cub’s championships in... Read more

Train up your children in the way they should go and when they are older they will teach you things you should know. So it is with my daughter Mary Kate who suggested I read Jane Kenyon. What follows is not scholarly or based on knowledge, but the emotional reaction of a man loving poetry by a poet that is new to him. If this does nothing else for you, perhaps you will find her poems and love them too.... Read more