The saint featured in my “Daily Lives and Wisdom” book today was New Martyr Hilarion of Crete, who died in 1804.
Sometimes the hagiographies of the new martyrs are more of a shock to read than the ones of the early Church. They don’t seem like stylized stories that belong to the same world as the […]

I’m grateful to Jim for pointing the way to this site where one can find a word from the desert fathers. Does anything run more counter-current to the world than thoughts like this from Abba Sisoes:
Let yourself be despised, cast your own will behind your back, and you will be free from care and at […]

I had lots of plans of what I was going to do today, but they all more or less disappeared when I got a call from my goddaughter about the latest goings-on at my old church, which I’ve been calling St. Nicholas just to give it a name.

Just like old times. Another day of the […]

This week’s “Weekly Standard” had the best sum-up of the recent misbegotten anti-Bush counteroffensive in a three-word headline: Ready, Fire, Aim.
Sometimes I actually like journalists.

I’m with Fr. Joseph on his opinion of the redoubtable Dan Rather — my husband will tell you that Rather is in the number two position for Newsperson I Want to Kick (right behind Geraldo “The Mustache” Rivera) and moving up fast.
And I’m just mulling over the idea that CBS was had by clever operatives, […]

… for I have tried to like Monastery Blend coffee, but lo, I cannot (tho’ Deacon’s Decaf only have I sampled. Mayhap another order might prove more pleasing?)
Yea, I also tried to like Trappist Preserves, but them I deem (in the Glengarry Glen Ross sense) “store”.
I fear to purchase a puppy from the New Skete […]

I didn’t expect to have any kind of thoughts worth putting down about 9/11. The minutes when planes hit and buildings went down came and went. I knew that somewhere tributes were being paid and silence was being observed. But I was just quiet with my own recollections, and chose to keep them vague. It’s […]

Erica’s post about not being angst-ridden enough for Biola made me start reflecting on the Protestant problem with happiness. I should be more honest — it’s more my problem with their perspective. They don’t think they have a problem — but I think that’s what made Erica’s professor lecture a class full of young Christians […]

Clementine the coonhound and I had a bad night’s sleep. That is, I had the bad night and she was forced to share it by virtue of our occasional sleeping-in-the-bed dispensation. Consequently, she’s a little stranger than usual this morning.

All the same, I was surprised not to see her when I exited the bathroom after […]

Since I had to pass along some sadness in the “Troparion of the day” post, I thought it was the least I could do to tack on a happy addendum.
When I got back from vacation yesterday, an e-mail was waiting for me from the choir director at what will be my new church:
“… I think […]