~Apologies to Paul McCartney   Hey Jude, don’t leave her burning Save a lost soul out of the fire Remember, hate the garment spotted with sin Then you’ll begin to make it better Hey Jude, build up your faith You were made to go out and get her In God’s love and in the Spirit pray Then you can say it can be better And any time you feel hope’s gone, hey Jude, keep on

Matthew was only working the system Didn’t make him right or wrong, just smart You know you would have done the same If you had been the one playing his part You’ve got to play by the rules If you want change the game Then the rulemaker came And nothing was the same   Why would the rabbi sit and eat with you? Doesn’t he know you are not a good Jew? Consorting with sinners

“Walking in the desert one day I found the skull of a dead man lying on the ground.  As I was moving it with my stick, the skull spoke to me.  I said to it, ‘Who are you? ‘  The skull replied, ‘I was a high priest of the idols and of the pagans who dwelt in this place; but you are Macarius, the Spirit-hearer.  Whenever you take pity on those who are in torment,

Everything is contained in the crux Alpha and omega, beginning and end Foundation and destruction Shame and glorification Sin and redemption Wrath and love As infinity figure-eights around We get two sides to the story Right and left, down and up Scorn and supplication Sheep and goats Heaven and hell Let’s steal a look at the two thieves Also lifted up on the cross drawing us One on the left hand, on on the right

This could be the sky Jesus flew up through And this could be the ground with the city around Where he left his disciples to wait for him too Because we still stand looking where he went Even though the angel is here we don’t seem to hear That he went away so we could stay and be sent Perhaps we are those same five hundred fed Who want to be given things and make

This weekend, we buried a beloved member of our parish, retired priest Father Gregory Heers. As a member of our burial society, I had the privilege of participating in his preparation. We wash and anoint the body, and dress the reposed, in this case in the vestments he wore in caring for us. It is humbling to be allowed to pay your respects to another member of the body in this way; and, like Lent,

The Eastern Orthodox Church is often criticized for its “lack of emphasis” on evangelism; the Orthodox Church just does not care about “The Great Commission” or spreading the “Gospel” to the world—or so the argument goes. In my experience, the major proponents of this criticism are often low-church evangelicals who define evangelism according to a specifically narrow rubric. Within such communities, buzzwords like “The Great Commission,” “Gospel,” and “Evangelism”—and more recently “building the Kingdom”—are thrown

An essential part of any Orthodox Sunday morning liturgy is the coffee hour. Whether it’s literally just coffee and baked goods, or a full meal, this is where the Church, renewed as Christ’s body through the Eucharist, practices self-care before going out to work in the world. Everything culminates in coffee hour Not that being on time isn’t important, But the Kingdom will be blessed before you’re there Just like the food will be blessed

When you give death its sting And it is finished Nothing left but darkness and torn curtains And a bloody mess You’ve crucified Christ afresh And you’re both hanging dead How do you get to the resurrection? What gets you both down? Joseph and Nicodemus came sorrowful Begging for the body Can you feel that sorrow, too For your Lord’s death for you? When you realize you have killed him And so have no life

The Hart of the Morning – Memories of a Song by the Spectator’s of Christ’s Passion (click to listen) 1 For three long hours a darkness that could be felt pressed down on the land. Those who came only to see what they could see left those who came to love and those whose duty it was to look. The hillside was still as death. From a dying man, the necrotic darkness was ripped in

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, the sinner” + Up early in the morning to pray At the hour we can still half believe Our dreams and that the sun Still comes up after the darkness + Like an invalid by the roadside Almost unable to rise up from bed We grasp our rope to pull ourselves Knowing he’s holding the other end + We sit between the Pharisee and The

The poems below were inspired by the Lenten Triodion readings for each day, which can be found here: http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/prayers/triodion/triodion.html Sunday of Orthodoxy 2016 The first icon was written By the hand of God in red clay And the first kiss it received Was to fill it with breath But the first iconoclast Made the icon just a picture Removing it from the temple And preparing it for the fire And so the prototype came In

For Orthodox Christians, Great Lent began just a little over a week ago. We begin Lent with a service called Forgiveness Vespers, during which we go around and ask each individual for forgiveness for all of our offenses. After this joyful and cathartic service, we call the next week Clean Week. The poems below for Clean Week were inspired by the Lenten Triodion readings for each day, which can be found here: http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/prayers/triodion/triodion.html Forgiveness Sunday

Based on this scripture it would be hard to argue against a day of reckoning—a day when everyone that has ever been born will be required to “give an account” for our lives. But we need to understand that our Lord will not be standing over us and arbitrarily pointing His finger at us. We become our own judge with every thought, with every word,  and with every action. The judgment is simply the presence

The waters of Babylon drip from hanging gardens where All that is beautiful in the world grows down from Heaven The headwaters of the garden river from which life flowed And we sit beside them inspired to refrain from singing Hanging our harps like ripened tears on the weeping trees And cry out for the war-ravaged fatherland we so love We stroke the sweeping willow branches with a rustle Sounding like the spirit of God

We live in a world that has been so radically developed by technology that we can interact with those on the other side of the globe in an instant.  Our cultures have become so amalgamated through the globalizing effect of this technology within the realms of pop culture, social media, consumerist marketing, and the like, that we are able to find much common ground with those who are in a totally different cultural and geographical

Zacchaeus Zacchaeus Put your money down Zacchaeus Zacchaeus Jesus has come to town Zacchaeus Zacchaeus You hope that I’ll see you Zacchaeus Zacchaeus Your old life will be through And though you’re a wee little man Who likes to grasp things in your hand When Jesus goes with you to sup You give all your life up Zacchaeus Zacchaeus Climb up in that tree Zacchaeus Zacchaeus The Lord you’re going to see Zacchaeus Zacchaeus You

In recent times the Lord has increasingly brought to my attention my problem with judging others. It is so very easy to look at the faults and struggles of others and see them as infinitely worse than my own shortcomings. In reading the words of the Church Fathers this seems to be the greatest struggle of the Christian life: to increase in mercy to the extent that we cannot hold anything against our neighbor, seeing

Fasting is easier as a virtue of omission than commission It’s easier to give up meat than to take the meat of the Word It’s easier to lament our sins than to confess them It’s easier to quit wine and whining than to be a blessing   We can save a lot by fasting, including our own souls But it’s much harder to spend ourselves for others I don’t mean alms – giving alms is

Perhaps the greatest excuse given for a Christian’s lack of regular Church attendance and involvement, which I have often heard as an aversion to the liturgical richness of the Orthodox Church, is the repetitive and abysmally boring nature of the services. Why is it that liturgy and repeated traditions are such a difficult obstacle for so many, especially in the modernized West? Why are we made to feel restless and obligated to attend, rather than