O Lord my God, I will sing to You a funeral hymn, a song at Your burial; for by Your burial You have opened for me the gates of life and by Your death You have slain death and hell. -Synaxarion The sun may rise first in the East, but Easter (Pascha) almost always comes later for the faithful who live in the area where Jesus lived. Every Friday is a little Holy Friday for all Christians, just as each... Read more
Music always matters. When our souls need medicine, music is one tonic that is good for our souls. This is not a new idea. The Pythagoreans believed music held the cosmos together. The “music of the spheres” was the force that we could not hear, this was the background sound that made our hearing, our very being possible. Plato picked up on the importance of music in his writing as did Christian philosophers. Music as an act of worship was... Read more
Christ’s church is one. The Creed affirms: I believe in one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic church. The idea of catholicity is easily misunderstood. Often we are told that this means “universal” and that is true, but can be misleading. The church is not an aggregate of all the faithful. The church does not get larger when a soul is converted, the soul grows larger! Instead, the church is whole when Jesus enters the person. Jesus is the head of His church,... Read more
Prudence is the virtue needed in a crisis. So old stories teach us. The crisis has come and the old tales should be recollected. Each year our family has recollected the sinking of the great liner RMS Titanic. I am not sure why, only that the story moves us and encourages us to be better people. A story like that can save us if we come to understand it. However one begins the story of the good ship, the iceberg... Read more
Once there was a little boy who imagined himself a warrior. He loved swords and always was ready to challenge Dad, Grandpapa, and any visitor to a fight. If facing a giant, six foot seven or so, he was fearless. He would lay about with his sword even when being twirled through the air. His victories were real, because he was brave, even if the situations, battles, and victories he imagined were not. He thought they were and so they were... Read more
Sharona or Natalie? This question haunts our popular culture, but before turning to the deep things of Television, you will have to go rewind the clever television series Monk. Is there any better show for our time than comfort television centered in a germaphobic detective? Monk, the title character, has more than a few phobias and what might be terrifically offensive is pulled off by the underrated actor Tony Shaloub. (Watch his star turn in Galaxy Quest. In fact, if geek-like, stop... Read more
The beauty of the moon last night reminded me of the goodness of the world. When I walked over to the gardens, fields, and copse of trees behind the College and School, I saw beauty, design, and transcendence. I did not bring the glory to nature, God did and nature still reflects that glory well. We do not listen or we could hear the song of creation. When I walk to work (now sadly empty of folks), I can take joy... Read more
Past performance, infomercials remind us at the very end, with hasty voiceover, is no guarantee of future performance. Now in this pandemic, like any other difficult time, things seem as if they are some new normal and that nothing will ever be the same. This is true and very false. True enough that our experiences are changing us, culture, and even nature. Once the virus had not spread through the world, confined to some animal, but now things are different... Read more
Saint Basil read Homer and the Greek philosophers, but he was captivated by Jesus. If you grew up a fundamentalist, then the fact that fiercely learned Basil encouraged reading Greek literature is a great relief. Nobody made Basil a saint, because he was a first-rate scholar, though he was, but because he was transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. Saint Basil did not need Homer or Plato, he valued the virtue that could be found in them. His motivation for saving... Read more
Mary of Egypt spent forty-five years in prayer, exiled from the Church. In Soviet times, Russians sometimes had no close working church. Our bishops, for good or ill, are asking us to stay home this Holy Season. We can endure and the decision as Henry V points out is on the leaders, not the faithful. The Church has endured worse problems, more difficult decisions by leaders, and endured, because Jesus is here. He is alive and all the ceremonies, history, creeds,... Read more
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