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“Elder Paisios must have called you here.” During evening prayer, we entered a dark, candlelit church—no power, just the light of oil candles. I took my new prayer rope in hand and repeated the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Over and over. But my thoughts kept […]

“The problem wasn’t the Holy Mountain. The problem was inside of me.” Morning prayers on the Holy Mountain begin at 4 a.m. We arrived around 6 a.m.—just in time for the end of morning prayer and the beginning of Holy Communion. We’d woken up sticky and sweaty in a room that felt just as hot

“Peace without struggle isn’t peace. A pilgrimage without struggle is just a vacation.” We left Simonopetra filled with excitement. We had felt such great warmth, hospitality, and welcome — surely, we thought, this is what Mount Athos is all about. Before we departed, we were invited into the church to see the relics: the hand

Mount Athos Pilgrimage – Episode 1 “This is not a train station. This is Mount Athos. You are human. Take your time.” We landed in Thessaloniki on a Thursday evening. As we got into a taxi to head toward Ouranoupoli—the gateway to the Holy Mountain—I noticed our driver had an icon on his dash: Elder

Western thinking often believes it can solve any problem — New party. New policy. New philosophy. But the truth is, most of our problems are self-made. And under it all is the obsession with progress and prosperity. Build more roads. Add more programs. Bring in outside solutions. Fly in food. Build clinics. Open colleges. Since

The Church has once again failed, and it breaks my heart. This week alone, I’ve had four conversations with people I never would’ve thought of as “church people.” They haven’t attended in years. They’re often critical. But when I share the Gospel — not politics, not platitudes, but the actual Word of God — they

The key to unity is unity in prayer. But somehow, in the Church, we are so close and yet so far. One of the great beauties of Anglicanism is the Book of Common Prayer — and, strangely, one of its failures too. Rooted in the ancient prayers of the Church and structured much like the

The Book of Common Prayer offers two options for praying the Psalms: the 30-Day Psalter and the 60-Day Psalter. Both follow the same rhythm — a set of psalms in the morning, a set in the evening — either cycling through all 150 psalms every 30 days or every 60. I’ll admit it — I

This morning’s sermon started off strong. The preacher made the point that we all belong to groups — sports teams, political parties, national identities — and that this is fine until those identities take priority over Christ. At that point, it becomes idolatry. I was hooked. That’s exactly the kind of challenge we need to

An elder once said to me, “When I was growing up, it was -40 and cold inside the house. But life was simpler, and we were happy.” We call new technologies and systems progress—things like online orders, high-speed internet, regular flight routes, and paved roads. But is it really progress? Is life really simpler when