It’s Thanksgiving, that time of year when we are reminded to be thankful for all of the good things in our life - family, health, a job, freedom...to be thankful, in short, that our lives are not like those of so many others. “There but for the grace of God go I,”we sometimes say, looking at the misfortunes of others. But, of course, that begs the question, what if our life were to become like those poor unfortunates who, according to this calculus, have nothing to be thankfu

I had a vision a few weeks ago. I don't mean a full-fledged, “pull back the curtain, transported to Heaven” vision. But I did have a sort of vision a few weeks ago when I was visiting Dormition Monastery in Michigan. It was a vision of something that is always happening, that is always true, but for a moment I was able to see it. As I was standing in the altar of the beautiful monastery church, and later while I was preaching, suddenly the faithful gathered there that morning

We spend much of our childhood, and particularly our teenage years, waiting impatiently to grow up. Observing the privileges and liberties of grownups, we simply cannot wait to join their ranks and leave behind the seeming confines of childhood and youth with all of its rules and boundaries. Looking back, of course, we laugh at our naivety and wish perhaps with a bit of nostalgia for that more innocent time of childhood. Not that we want to go back, really, but we do long for