What a marvelous trio of readings today, and how impossible to do justice to all three in a few paragraphs: Genesis 1:24-2:3; Isaiah 2:3-11; Proverbs 2:1-22. The Proverbs reading contains basic truth for believers in God: Receive wisdom by following God's commandments. Nothing profound or radical, but who doesn't want what verse 10 promises: "For wisdom will come into your …
Waiting for Humans
The story of creation continues in today's reading from Genesis 1:14-23. Everything is now almost ready for the appearance of human beings. I say "almost" because the "fifth day" of creation only brought into being the living creatures of the air and the waters. Land animals will appear on the sixth day, on the same "day" as humans! …
The Word and my words
And so we begin. During the weekdays of Lent, the Orthodox Church reads from the Old Testament instead of the Gospels and the Letters of Paul. And three books of the Old Testament in particular are read on a daily basis: Genesis, Isaiah and Proverbs. Today, it's the beginning of each of those three books: …
The Last Party
My hometown Patra is best known for its Carnival. On the last weekend before Lent (Feb 21-22 this year), Patra hosts the biggest party in Greece. I loved the Carnival parade when I was a boy growing up in Patra. I especially loved all the chocolate they used to throw from the floats. Perhaps that's …
Lessons for Lent
In an interview several years ago, the famous German conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89), was talking about his early years as a musician. He made this remarkable statement: "Then came the decisive day when I discovered that my two hands weren’t enough to express what I wanted to express.” His two hands were not enough to …
Learning to be human
I had a few hours of newsletter work to do this afternoon, and I chose to do it while listening to the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms, performed by the greatest conductor of all, Wilhelm Furtwängler, in live recordings made in 1948-1952. Brahms, the most humane of the major composers, and Furtwängler, the most humane of all the …
An Open Ending
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is, in my opinion, the greatest of all the parables told by Jesus. Not only the greatest parable, but it is a genuine short story. It has more dialogue than any other parable that I can think of and fully developed characters that evolve in the process of the …
Lessons from a hero
Where do people earn the Per Capita Income? More than one poor starving soul would like to know. In our countries, numbers live better than people. How many people prosper in times of prosperity? How many people find their lives developed by development? Eduardo Galeano, quoted in Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader, …
Thanks to a Martyr
I often wonder that we have too many monks in the Orthodox Church and not enough martyrs - martyrs who had a voice in shaping our liturgical tradition, that is; martyres, witnesses, to faithful living in the midst of a complex world. Then perhaps we might have more readings like today's Epistle reading from Romans. The …
“You should never be a bystander”
While all the American "news channels" spent the morning covering the non-blizzard of New York-New Jersey, BBC World News immersed the viewer in complete live coverage of the Auschwitz ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of that awful death camp by the Soviet army. Several survivors spoke, including Roman Kent who spoke passionately …
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