I posted the poster above because in my experience, this has been what happens to little girls and little boys who speak out about sexual abuse. If an adult speaks out about sexual abuse as a child, they are often told that it is over. Why are you bringing it up, they are often told? […]
Archives for 2014
King’s Day 2014
“People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.” – Edmund Burke “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” – John Stuart Mills “Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the […]
Cravats, gentlemen, and steampunk
For those of you who have a certain attraction to steampunk literature and have wondered how to properly tie a gentleman’s cravat, the above photographs are offered as a gentle incentive to do it correctly. It should be mentioned that the helpful aid of either a wife, or—even better—a batman can most certainly improve […]
Gobsmacked about Pope Francis
Pope Francis shook up the scandal-plagued Vatican bank on Wednesday, removing four of five cardinals from an oversight body in a break with the clerical financial establishment he inherited from his predecessor. … The four cardinals were removed just 11 months into their five-year terms as commissioners, which began under former Pope Benedict, who resigned […]
The poor and their view of the rich
From Les Misérables: At the end of the day you’re another day older And that’s all you can say for the life of the poor It’s a struggle, it’s a war And there’s nothing that anyone’s giving One more day, standing about, what is it for? One day less to be living. At the […]
A parent’s prayer
Tonight my wife and I were watching Les Misérables on TV. After we finished crying at the end, we looked up some of the lyrics. One of the lyrics that struck us most was near the end of the movie, when the barricades were being manned. It reads like a parent’s prayer, whether that parent […]
And, sometimes the penny drops
I had one of those, “the penny dropped,” experiences this morning. This morning before the Divine Liturgy, I was frustrated because of an interaction yesterday with a fellow priest in another state. It had to do with matters from at least four years ago. I had obviously been carrying it about because when the proistamenos […]
Religious nuts or devoted believers?
As the cartoon above finishes, “too bad he usually gets religious nuts.” All of us are very aware that religious nuts are much more prominent than fruitful believers. In fact, often it seems (and may very well be) that religious nuts number more than fruitful believers. For me, the problem has often been to […]
The wind of the Spirit?
OK, I found this photograph from back in 2010. So, there is the Patriarch of Moscow, and he does not appear to have any wind touching him. Then, there is the Patriarch of Constantinople, and he looks like he is in a windstorm! Between them is the President of Russia. The side of his coat […]
Kids and other adults
The cartoon above made me laugh in rueful memory. I can remember when our three daughters were teenagers. I can remember the almost inevitable fights that we had back then. They became teenagers in a foreign country and we had hoped that this would mean that they would not be as rebellious as if they […]
