Funeral Yesterday: Mildred N. Baker

Yesterday, Anna, Sofie and I spent all day in downstate Illinois near Lincoln. One of our “adopted grandparents” died this past weekend, and we went to the funeral.
Glenn and Mildred Baker lived across the street from us in the small town where I last pastored. They were Presbyterians, but since the church were [...]

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The Apodosis of the Feast of the Elevation of the Holy and Life-giving Cross: Celebrating Thirty-Six Years in the Midst of the Saints

Thirty-six years ago, at about 11:09 a.m., on a Thursday in southcentral Kansas, I entered the world some weeks early. Weighing in at only a bit over five pounds, and only fifteen inches long, my early birth coincided with not-fully-developed lungs, so I was in the hospital for another two weeks, on oxygen. [...]

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The Fatherhood Chronicles XVIII

These needed to be posted. (I’m not blogging. Really.)

Here’s Anna and Sofie on a recent visit to the library. (Library. She’s such a Healy.)

Same Sofie. Same lap. Same visit.

Not sure what’s going on here. But, dang she’s cute!

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Study Carrel Sanctification

So, I arrived early yesterday morning to the library, and headed downstairs to my study carrel. I had with me my vial of holy water and the icons which had been blessed the day before. Standing outside the door to my carrel, I sprinkled the entrance and prayed:
Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, [...]

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The Feast of the Elevation of the Holy and Life-giving Cross

Today was the first occasion I can recall in which I have a very conscious memory of celebrating an Orthodox feast two years in row. I’m sure my sometimes sporadic attendance has spanned similar feasts, though most likely one of the lesser ones. But I recall exactly one year ago today attending the [...]

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A Decade with the Missus

Today is the tenth anniversary of the covenant Anna and I made to God and one another at about 11:00 a.m., one Saturday morning in Joplin, Missouri at the Blendville Christian Church. My mentors and friends, Kyle Gardner and J K Jones, were celebrants. Today is the more special because it is shared [...]

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Sexuality, Free Will and Determinism

There are essentially three positions on whether human actions are wholly determined by antecedent causes and whether free will is compatible with that determinism. Soft determinism affirms that actions are wholly determined by antecedent causes yet that free will is somehow compatible with this determinism. Hard determinism affirms that actions are wholly determined [...]

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Overheard in Philosophy 120 Section 023: Platonic Knowing Meets Gen Y Relativism

Okay, so I’m minding my own business, working my way diligently through Plato’s Republic, when we come to the end of Book V and what knowledge, ignorance and opinion are. Quite simply, knowledge is knowing those things that are completely (e. g., the ideas); ignorance is not knowing those things that are not; and [...]

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The Forefeast of the Nativity of the Theotokos: The Sunday before the Feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross

Thursday, Tripp and I lit out and headed up to Evanston (as he noted), where I went to the seminary bookstore and purchased two icons for Sofie’s room (aka the Nursery): one of the Theotokos and another of the guardian angel. Although I’ve been exhausted and slept past time to leave for the Divine [...]

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Allegations of Platonic Dualism: Or the Relation of Soul and Body in Plato’s Republic

It has long been a perception that Plato offers what is termed a dualistic conception of the human person; which is to say that humans are the combination (at least) of soul and body. In fact, it seems the Cartesian dualism found in the Meditations on First Philosophy and the Discourse on Method (not [...]

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