Happy Anniversary to The Orthodox Word

Forty-five years ago today, Eugene (the future Father Seraphim) Rose and Gleb (the future Abbot Herman) Podmoshensky started the journal The Orthodox Word as a work of the Father Herman of Alaska Brotherhood they had formed (which would become the St Herman of Alaska Monastery). On 29 September, for $200, Eugene received the printing press [...]

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Aristotle, Akrasia, the “Practical Syllogism” and Procrastination

The proverbial procrastinators’ dictum runs something like: Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow? Many of us struggle in various ways and at various times with procrastination. Our reasons for procrastinating vary widely. Some of us dread doing a particular task. Others of us just prefer to do the pleasant thing we [...]

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Our Father Among the Saints, Gregory, Illuminator of Armenia

Troparion of St Gregory Tone 3 Thou didst sow the knowledge of God in the hearts of the faithful,/ by cultivating the Faith;/ made radiant by the wounds of martyrdom/ thou didst shed thy light on all./ O Hierarch Gregory, pray to Christ our God to grant us His great mercy. Kontakion of St Gregory [...]

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New School

Her name was Hope, and he loved her because she called him Tiger, and for the way the glasses settled just so as she read the book. She’d read The Mouse and the Motorcycle, complete with motorcycle sounds, and he could close his eyes and see that mouse, the ping-pong ball helmet and the motorcycle [...]

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Your Own Historical Jesus

[Note: On his FB page, AKMA posted about his historical Jesus class, and I was prompted to pull out of the archives this little humorous piece I wrote a few years ago from the inspiration from AKMA's historical Jesus class that I took. You have to know a bit about the "quest for the historical [...]

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Kansas Farmers

By the time a Kansas farmer becomes sag-bellied and stooped, he has learned a thing or two worth telling. Most of the world, of course, passes this by, mostly from indifference, sometimes from derision. But the life of a Kansas farmer is a surprising thing. It is a life of unlooked-for and unrecognized mysticism; a [...]

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Saint Thekla of Iconium, Protomartyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles

Troparion of St Thecla Tone 3 Inspired by the divine teacher’s words/ thou wast inflamed with love for thy Creator./ Thou didst disdain all earthly pleasures/ and endure wild beasts and fire./ O glorious Thecla, companion of Paul,/ entreat thy divine Bridegroom/ to grant us His great mercy. Kontakion of St Thecla Tone 8 Radiant [...]

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The Anniversary of the Arrival of the Valaam Monks in Alaska (1794)

From the OCA website On the anniversary of the arrival of the Russian missionaries in Alaska (1794), we remember the New Martyrs St Peter the Aleut, Protomartyr of America, and St Juvenal. From a bio on St. Herman of Alaska (emphasis added): Saint Herman of Alaska was born in 1756 or 1760 in Serpukhov in [...]

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The Loves of Kansas

There are hills elsewhere, but there is something about the soft waning of the pastel light over the Flint Hills of Kansas that is like nowhere else. There are prairies elsewhere, but there is something about the wide, wide open expanses of western Kansas that invites a man to breathe and expand like nowhere else. [...]

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Kansas and Second Chances

The four seasons are creation’s gospels in Kansas. By them a man may learn a thing or two about his soul. They teach a man law, and consequences. And, if a man has ears to hear, they will whisper the song of second chances to him in the night. Second chances are hard things. They [...]

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