I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten a candy cane. I tried one once, and it was way too sweet. We have about a dozen of them in the house. We use them for tree ornaments. They are like family heirlooms; I’m pretty sure I got them from my mom. She probably got them from […]
Day Thirty-two – Blogger’s Choice (Homily on Ephesians 4:1-6)
December 15, 2013 By
Homily on Ephesians 4:1-6 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just […]
Day Thirty – S’Mores
December 13, 2013 By
S’Mores are so over the top sweet that no one in my family can eat more than a bite before we get too yucked out to eat any more. Despite that, when we mention a campfire to our kids, they can’t think of anything else! They start dancing around and singing in a celebration that […]
An Introduction to Vocations I: Every soldier is a rifleman…
December 13, 2013 By
An Introduction to Vocations, Part One; Every soldier is a rifleman; every clergyman is a Christian I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who […]
Day Twenty-nine – Saint Herman of Alaska
December 12, 2013 By
God is glorified in His saints! Along with a prayer book, one of the immediate blessings becoming an Orthodox catechumen brought me was bringing the saints into my life, mainly in the form of a used copy of The Prologue from Ochrid. I love that book. The new version is even better than the last; not […]
Day Twenty-Eight – Monastics
December 12, 2013 By
Monastics are the institutional and spiritual heart of Orthodoxy. I had a wonderful interview with Priest-monk Peter Preble yesterday. One of the things we agreed on was that we need to do a better job making monasticism real to our parishioners. This would provide a net benefit to everyone involved; monks, laity, calibates, parishes, and […]
Day Twenty-five – The Snowflake
December 9, 2013 By
We woke up to first covering of snow this morning. It’s funny how different the reactions in our house were: Our middle children: yippee there’s snow! (this would have been followed by the words; “do we have school today?!”, except that we homeschool) Our toddler: ” ‘now, Daddy! ‘now! See ‘now, Daddy? ‘now!” (I reckon […]
Day Twenty-one – Gift Giving (Bah Humbug)
December 5, 2013 By
Dave Ramsey likes to joke that Americans need to stop spending money they don’t have buying people gifts that they don’t need. He’s right. The Christmas “gift-giving” season is one of those things that outsiders must look at and just scratch their heads. It’s out of control and it’s doing real damage to us and […]
Day Twenty – Incense
December 4, 2013 By
The smell of incense is so much a part of our experience of worship that the smell – smell is one of the strongest triggers of memory for the brain – automatically calms us and moves us towards prayer. Low-church Christians are often uncomfortable with incense in part because it is used in pagan […]
Day Nineteen – Handel’s Messiah
December 3, 2013 By
I love Handel’s Messiah. I play it – and especially the pre-Nativity portions – this time of year. It is so much better than the Holiday schlock that they play on the radio. Every year, we used to sing it, complete with pit orchestra. In Charlottesville, there is a sing a long where everyone who […]
