Category: Culture
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A Modern Lent
Few things are as difficult in the modern world as fasting. It is not simply the action of changing our eating habits that we find problematic – it’s the whole concept of fasting and what it truly entails. It comes from another world. We understand dieting – changing how we eat in order to improve…
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Adam’s Sin and the Sin of All
I saw this quote from St. Sophrony of Essex posted on Facebook yesterday. It speaks to the heart of our life and the mystery of sin and forgiveness. It is a theme that is common in the Fathers: “Many of us cannot, or do not want to, accept and suffer of our own free will…
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The Good That Lies Within
There is this famous quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn: The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by…
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A Law for All Seasons
From the screenplay of A Man for all Seasons: William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that! Sir…
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Screwtape and the Wisdom of a Four-Year-Old Boy
When my son was four, he wrote a prayer to St. Michael. We had placed a small statue of St. Michael on his chest-of-drawers. It was classic: St. Michael in Roman soldier’s outfit with a drawn sword, and the devil beneath his foot. It seemed to have made a strong impression on my son. His…
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Hiding in Plain Sight
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. (Wisdom 3:7) ____ The story is told of St. Macarius that he was falsely accused of fathering a child by a young woman in the village. After being beaten and humiliated by the people there, he returned…
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I’ll Be Small for Christmas
Children today are raised with dreams of greatness. Cultural affirmations of our limitless potential, well-intentioned, have not produced a generation of over-achievers, but have indeed brought forth hordes of great dreams. This is nothing new in American culture. We are the world’s longest sustained pep-talk. Ronald Reagan loved to quote the 1945 Johnny Mercer hit:…
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A Faith You Can Sink Your Teeth Into
In a now-famous experiment, volunteers were fitted with inverting lenses, such that everything they saw appeared upside-down. In a few days their brains adjusted and what they saw appeared correctly. When the lenses were removed, their naked eyes now saw things inverted, though again, after a few days their vision returned to normal. We are…
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To Sing Like a River
Article from October, 2016 We stood looking out at a river rushing past the rocks – a brisk morning in the North Carolina mountains, a rare setting for the Divine Liturgy. The tradition of the Church generally holds that services such as the Divine Liturgy are to be held indoors, in the Church. There are…
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Marriage as a Lifetime of Suffering
This article first appeared in 2015. I have thought it worth re-publishing in honor of mine and my wife’s celebration of 50 years of marriage, joined this past weekend by my children and grandchildren and a host of friends. The service (a molieben with additional prayers appropriate to the occasion) had many of the prayers…
I may be simplifying things way too much, but all this talk about suffering and the role it plays in…