Clik here to view.
Our life and death
Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ. – Abba Anthony the Great It is proper that the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Nagasaki Smile
I saw this photo of a survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki on Twitter today. It struck me. A smile in the midst of destruction and death – what a metaphor for love and life in the midst of suffering.
View ArticleClik here to view.
The mother of all passions
Abba Agathon said, “No passion is worse than an uncontrolled tongue, for it is the mother of all passions.” All I can say about this one are the words of Saint James. So the tongue is a little member...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Moon in the desert
The desert is anyplace where we go to find ourselves. Thomas Merton writes: The desert was created simply to be itself, not to be transformed by men into something else. So too the mountain and the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A reflection on gratitude
Gratitude therefore, takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful man knows that God is good, not by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A dog is better than I am
A dog is better than I am, for he has love, and he does not judge. – Abba Xanthias This is one of my favorites from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, because we all know how true it is. Dogs are far...
View ArticleClik here to view.
God was dead
Sometimes words, or truths that have been right in front of you will just hit you out of nowhere. In the Hymn or “Blessing” sung at the Matins service, the first verse is The assembly of angels was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Gospel According to Dorian Gray
We cannot wait to grow up. Then all of our adult lives we covet youthfulness. We long to go back to what we were. We know we cannot yet we wish it anyway. To struggle against age, time and death is to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stoking up the New Year
What a pleasant surprise it was this morning to find the embers of last night’s fire still smoldering. I gathered some bark and leaves and kindled the fire back to life with almost no effort. Since I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
First, clean the inside
Regular readers of this blog know that I often write about spiritual metaphors I run across or think of during the day. Today I was cleaning the windows in my house, which happen to be double hung so...
View Article
