(I’ve started reading “The Diary of a Russian Priest,” a collection of short excerpts from the diary of Fr. Alexander Elchaninov, who emigrated out of Russia during the Revolution and died in 1934. I find his writings to be the best of both worlds. He has the wide perspective of Church Fathers who seem to […]

My priest, Fr. Elias, sent out this article in an e-mail two days ago, and it’s been on my mind since then. (Talking about it means that there are some grim details, so let the reader be aware.)
Iraqi kidnappers who abducted a Syrian Orthodox priest three days ago left his beheaded corpse in an outlying […]

We went to Branson, Missouri for a quick trip last week, and when I came back a friend asked what it was like. It doesn’t turn out to be all that easy to describe, so if I’m going to do it, I figured I might as well turn it into a blog entry in case […]

I’m home today with a late October sinus-flu-whoknowswhat bug, so it’s a good time to catch up on my reading. I’m not able to hold terribly complex thoughts for long, so I’m pleasantly sort of in and out mentally as I try to figure out my own question about the all-consuming pursuit of spice.

This is […]

Really, they’re just being difficult.

Christianity is not merely what a man does with his solitude. It is not even what God does with His solitude. It tells of God descending into the coarse publicity of history and there enacting what can — and must — be talked about.
– C. S. Lewis

He who truly wishes to believe in God must be lifted above himself, his mind, and even the whole world. … The reward of faith is God.
– Matthew the Poor

As the elections draw closer I think a lot of Christians are occupied as I am with trying to sift the chaff out of the wheat, trying to take the political leanings, outside opinions and personal biases from whatever discernment and moral judgment their Maker has graced them with. This is an exercise that goes […]

Well, what do you know about that? Rod Dreher, who wrote “The Crunchy Conservative”, converted to Orthodoxy (HERE). As I recall, there were some other Ortho-bloggers who really related to that book, so I thought you’d like to know. (The book is on my Christmas list — I’m terribly backlogged on my reading.)
His article on […]

This wasn’t something I meant to write about, but it’s Greg’s fault for sending me this great article from Peggy Noonan. The topic is a growing inability by some — I might almost say “by the usual suspects” to live with the idea of free speech:
On Oct. 2, on Katie Couric’s “CBS Evening News,” in […]