Category: Culture
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The Hands of My Father
My father’s hands were always dirty. As an auto mechanic, the grease and grime of a thousand days never quite seemed to be erased. It was under his nails and accented the wrinkles and creases that marked his life of hard work. My mother always kept a number of abrasive and surfactant cleansers crowded on…
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Behold Your Mother
Christ’s words from the Cross to St. John, “Behold your mother,” are both an intimate whisper of a son’s care for his most beloved as well as a cosmic directive to the whole of humanity and creation. This woman is Woman – and her significance abides and will not fade. She points us towards the…
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Blood Brothers of the Incarnation
My childhood in the 1950’s had the innocence of the time, fed by stories of our elders and the clumsy movies. We played soldiers (everyone’s father had been in the Second World War) and “Cowboys and Indians.” Despite the clear bias of the movies and the slanted propaganda that passed for history, almost everyone wanted…
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The Useless God
The statement, “God is useless,” is, undoubtedly, sure to strike someone as an insult, not a statement of a faithful believing Christian (much less, a priest). That reaction tells me much about how we feel about the word, “useless,” rather than how we feel about God. In current American parlance, “useless,” is mostly a term…
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The Tide of Faith
Dover Beach – (Matthew Arnold, 1867) The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from…
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When America Got Sick
It was in the years following the Civil War, America was hard on the path to “becoming great.” The industrial revolution had moved into full swing, railroads criss-crossed the country, immigration was gaining speed, and wealth was accumulating at a rate never seen before. We were slowly moving from our original agrarian economy towards life…
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The Tradition of Being Human
Being human is a cultural event. No one is human by themselves and no one becomes human without the help of those around them. This is so obvious it should not need to be stated, but contemporary human beings often imagine themselves to be their own creation. The exercise of individual freedom is exalted as…
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And They Disappeared – Extreme Humility
Sometime in the year 421 or 530, an utterly obscure woman from Egypt fell asleep in the desert of the Holy Land. Her burial place was intentionally unmarked and remains unknown. However, every year in the Orthodox Church, she is remembered by the name of Mary of Egypt and her life (written by St. Sophronios…
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The Violence of Modernity – And A Way Out
The calm voice at the helm says, “Make it so…” and with it, the mantra of modernity is invoked. The philosophy that governs our culture is rooted in violence, the ability to make things happen and to control the outcome. It is a deeply factual belief. We can indeed make things happen, and, in a…
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The Abyss of Non-Being – And a Cup of Tea
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10 “Stand on the edge of the abyss and when you feel that it is beyond your strength, break off and have a…
Hi Fr. Stephen, Thank you for your writing. I’ve been reading your blog for probably a bit over a year,…