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Drought and redemption – The Lessons of Global Warming

 

“And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” (Isaiah 58:11)

October 2010 to July 2011 was the driest of any 10-month period on record for Texas. Scorching heat, wildfires, crops destroyed, cattle herds relocated seem to be the new norm for the Lone Star state. But we are not the only ones suffering this, Asia, Africa are also experiencing similar weather patterns, bringing millions to the brink of starvation.

Who is to blame? Some say the global warming, others argue that is a natural variation of… Continue reading

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Spiritual Ground Zero

Many people would agree that the September 11 terrorist attacks changed not only New York, not only America, but most of the world in many ways. We are involved in a 10 years war in which countless people have lost their lives, soldiers and civilians together; our travel experience hase deteriorated tremendously; our watchfulness level has been raised to paranoid heights; even some people report that church attendance, at least in the United States, might have slightly increased as a result.

The main reason for all this change is that the horrible events in New York shook us all to the core and inflicted a wound that cannot be healed without a visible scar. From an emotional point of… Continue reading

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Always forward looking

One of the issues that philosophy has spent a lot of ink on is the answer to the question: who we are? Many thinkers have tried to give a proper answer to this basic question, and yet , despite their efforts, the world is confronted with a huge identity crisis with profound effects at all levels of our society.

In Christianity however, this question is already answered and answered in a very fulfilling way. We know who we are: the Creation of the Most High, fashioned out of His boundless love. Our origin is in Him and this suffices for us. The more important question, as Christians, should be however:  where are we going?

The human life should… Continue reading

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My summertime with God

Time is a very precious asset. As a priest, in Confession one of the most common sins I hear is the lack of time for prayer. The majority of the people realize that their prayer life lacks the breadth and the depth it should have and yet over and over they repeat the same mistake. I know very well out of personal experience what a busy schedule looks like, so I generally have a lot of compassion in this respect.

The other day however I read an interesting survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics regarding how the average Americans spend their time, and my sympathetic mindset has been severely shook.

Here is the daily schedule of… Continue reading

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The chronicle of a social death foretold

A friend of mine died yesterday. He made a public announcement about it and then he committed suicide. Not physically, spare the thought, but for all practical purposes he is now dead to the world. How did it happen? Well, he officially announced that he is quitting Facebook for good, and, with this, his life has ended; no one will even remember that he ever was; he has passed into the World Wide Web oblivion.

He is not the only one to end like this. Today, if you do not have an electronic presence, you are a nobody to the world. If all your friends do not know what time you woke up and what you ate for breakfast… Continue reading

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Credo ergo sum – I believe therefore I am

Last year there were rumors that the tomb of Jesus was found. The other day some claimed to have found the nails that were used to crucify Christ. More and more news like this surface today and, although most of them prove to be untrue, the people avidly read them because we, even as Christians, are not happy anymore with what the Holy Tradition has passed unto us for centuries and we want new proof for everything. We have ceased to believe in the catholicity of the Church, in the universal truth shared in the community of the ecclesia for generations and we trust more the intellect of man, despite its shortcomings, ignoring the divine Sophia, the Wisdom of God… Continue reading

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Lent as transforming expectation

But we all, with our face having been unveiled, having beheld the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord Spirit. (2Co 3:18)
Coming back home the other day, I observed with great joy that some trees on my street started to blossom. I was immediately moved to think: the winter is over, spring is here! All the cold weather, all the snow and the ice is gone. But, the thought continued, if we won’t pass through winter we couldn’t appreciate spring in its fullness.

One the most beautiful celebrations in Japan is the cherry blossom festival. People gather from afar to be… Continue reading

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Christian love and human eros on Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is a big deal in America and I am not going to try to diminish that. Even though trying to trace back the roots of this tradition is a very convoluted task, at this point in time it really doesn’t matter to any one where it all started it doesn’t matter if the real St. Valentine existed or not, or if the romancing stories around him are truth or pure fiction, people celebrate it unconditionally. Out of this mess one thing is sure: if you fail to buy chocolate and/or flowers on this day you are toast… Continue reading

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Reedeming the Time

One year ends another one starts, second after second, since the beginning of the world, the clock is ticking. What is the significance of time? Why are we so obsessed with it and why we celebrate again and again the passing of another year with parties and fireworks?

One explanation may be that the New Year that comes brings with it a wind of hope, a belief that maybe we’ll do better than in the year past. Resolutions are a must at the bridge between years, but most of them are trivial things like loosing weight or stop smoking, nothing substantial. We see clearly however that after a certain age new year celebrations and particularly birthdays become a bitter-sweet… Continue reading

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Work hard – Pray hard – Changing the paradigm

The  slogan “Work hard, play hard” has been in iconic standard for corporate culture for years. It initially meant to be as involved in your daily work as you are in your extra-curricular activities, but was rapidly transformed into a great excuse for irrational and destructive behavior in the after hours like alcohol abuse, recreational drugs, heavy partying etc.  More so the idea has infiltrated from the initial corporate environment to our homes rendering even our everyday life into a two dimensional universe of work and play; everything we do falls into one of these two buckets.

The Holy Grail of a happy life becomes therefore finding the balance between carrier and leisure. A plethora of… Continue reading