Have you ever heard of “thin places”? The idea is that there are places where the barrier between our world and another are so thin as to allow us to sense its presense. Mythology is full of stories about “normal people’ finding adventure (and often doom!) by slipping into places like fairyland and the […]
Day Thirty-three – Nog, Glog & Grog
December 17, 2013 By
Nog, Glog, and Grog are awesome words. They sound like the names Tolkien would haven given to a trio of orcs or each of the heads of a three-headed giant. Speaking of which, have you heard of an ettin? What’s neat about this kind of giant is that each of its heads has a […]
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-one – Idolatry
December 15, 2013 By
This may come as a shock to some folks, but Christians generally accept the notion that there are many gods. In the Hebrew Old Testament, the Hebrew word “elohim“ is used to represent the One True God, angels, the sons of God, the gods of foreign nations, the good and bad gods of the […]
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 […]
Press Release
December 13, 2013 By
PRESS RELEASE: Fr. Anthony Perkins, Vocations Director of the UOC-USA, is the new webmaster of “Good Guys Wear Black”, the premier website on Orthodox Christian Vocations Fr. John Peck, the creator of the “Good Guys Wear Black“(GGWB) website, recently turned the management of the site over to Fr. Anthony Perkins. Fr. Anthony is excited […]
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-seven – Deborah, Judge of Israel
December 12, 2013 By
Deborah was a hero. A bit of historical context: Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. As preparation for leading them into the Promised Land of Canaan, he sent twelve spies into Canaan to find out the enemy’s disposition. Of the twelve, ten came back and told how great the land was, but tried to […]
