Category Religion
Why They Call It Good Friday
How is it possible to believe, how can anyone believe without fear and trembling that all of God was present in a man? Who can believe that God incarnate is dying on a cross? No reasonable being can accept such an implausible and frightening revelation, the impact of which always makes one reassess everything. – […]
Behold the Lamb!
I think it is a cake, though I am really not sure. At least it isn’t an Easter egg. Easter is this Sunday, for those who aren’t part of the Orthodox tradition. That means Friday is a holiday. Sunday as well. Monday too in many places. I gather this Easter Lamb is a fairly popular […]
Largely Forgotten
I went for a walk in the neighborhood and got slapped in the face by history. Almost knocked me over. It wasn’t in Sulzburg where history can go back a millennium, but Rome where recorded history can take you back 3,000 years. We were just wandering through the neighborhood where my son and his wife […]
Church Facades
My family tolerates my affinity for church buildings. But they don’t indulge me. In Rome that might be a good thing, given the number of churches in the city – more than 900. If we stopped to check out each one we passed by, we’d never get to our destination. That is because I […]
Death By Stoning
The outrage seems a little contrived to me. Or maybe it was a slow news day The headline said Brunei, a small southeast Asian nation, was implementing the death penalty for those found guilty of committing homosexual sex or adultery. Those convicted would be stoned to death. My first thought was: “Why is this news? […]
Free At Last
I wish him well. Even more, I hope he meets Jesus. A Canadian court Monday determined that Omar Khadr had served his full sentence and was no longer subject to any legal restrictions. He and I now have equal standing before the law. He can apply for a passport, travel and associate with his family. […]
Buyukada Orphanage
I was reading a news report about the possible re-opening of Halki Seminary in Istanbul, which was shuttered by the Turkish government almost 40 years ago, leaving Turkey’s Orthodox church without a seminary to train its priests, when I remembered this post I did four years ago about another Orthodox institution on a neighboring island. […]
Thoughts on the Aftermath
“This is not who we are,” she said. “This act was not a reflection of who we are as a nation.” How many times have you heard that? The speaker changes, the message is the same. This time it was New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern “They (the victims) are us. The person who has […]
More Visions of Fastnacht
I could hear the noise coming from the main street, which is only a block away, but I avoided it completely. Mind you, I broke some rules to do so. It was raining all Sunday morning, and the weather app on my phone said it would continue throughout the afternoon. That made a trip to […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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