Driving on the freeway in Tulsa a few years back, I saw a billboard advertising a wildly popular church in the area. The ad featured a photo taken from behind the pastor who was looking out on the congregation. The pastor had both fists in the air as if celebrating a touchdown. The caption read:…
First off, show up. Don’t ask permission, just show up. It’s always difficult to know just what to say when a friend or loved one tells you of a personal tragedy. The usual responses of “I’m so sorry,” or “what can I do?” are often not helpful. Both of these, though usually coming from a…
“Can you think of anything more frightful,” writes Kierkegaard, “than that it might end with your nature being resolved into a multiplicity, that you really might become many, become, like those unhappy demoniacs, a legion, and you thus would have lost the inmost and holiest thing of all in a man, the unifying power of…
It’s another Monday morning at Hodges Bend. The coffee is more chocolate tasting than usual, maybe it’s just because I didn’t drown it in cream this time. The usual good music has been replaced by an odd and uninspiring band. It’s one of those technically talented bands that tries too hard to prove itself with…
Fight your feelings if you want, but you will lose. You will lose because that small domain occupied by your conscious self is no match for the far larger more powerful unconscious self. The good news is that one’s unconscious mind does not desire a fight, but rather peace. The trouble is that it is…
Friday has become the best day of my week. I’m finally self-employed again, which means I can schedule a half-day of work followed by a half-day of reflection over cigars and Guinness whenever I want. I look forward to it like a 7-year-old looks forward to Disneyland, only I don’t wind up screaming and crying…
Anyone with a penchant for Greek mythology has undoubtedly encountered the bit about Hercules donning women’s clothing for a three-year period while in servitude to Omphale, daughter of the queen of Lydia. The legend recounts how Hercules—yes Hercules, slayer of giants, decapitator of the Hydra, destroyer of the hounds of hell—became “voluptuous and effeminate” sporting…
Transitioning from Protestantism to the Orthodox Church a bit over a decade ago was for me a fairly seamless one. I was already well versed in the different theological positions and met the cultural surprises through research prior to my first visit to an actual church; however, I definitely got hung up on the Church’s…
I grew up in churches that preached victory in everything, at every moment. There was no room for the tragic passing of a loved one; no room for financial devastation; no room for psychological illness; no room for difficulties in marriage; no room for real life. Most of my friends that grew up in the…
This morning I opened to a passage from St. Palamas which seemed eerily perfect for this first day of Great Lent. He writes of God’s “incomparable grandeur of compassion,” in that He promises to give us the reward of eternal life for us simply “toiling on our own behalf.” Using a well worn Christian analogy, we…
The following piece was written a little over a year ago, but for some reason never made it to my blog. Reading it over again brought back some insights that I wanted to share with my readers. My hope is that it finds its way to people working through similar issues who might need a…
In a previous article I vented many of my pent-up frustrations with the attack on men in our culture. The article wrestled with the recently invented social category, “toxic masculinity,” and how the phrase not only fails to capture the real problem with men, but adds to the confusion. With this article I want to…
I stumbled across an untitled “hymn of praise” in St. Nikolai’s Prologue of Ohrid,* last week which pulled me out of a funk, the type of funk I get into only when I pay too much attention to the news. I’ve never been into religious hymns, per se, even Orthodox Christian ones, but this one…
“What do you seek?” (John 1:37). These are the first words from Christ to those who would become disciples; a question as simple as they come, and no less profound. I often ask my clients in therapy, “what do you want?” And I leave the question there, hanging in ambiguity. The usual reply is,…
The primordial man says of his wife, “This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.” (Gen 2:23) St. Nikolai of Ohrid on this verse repeats a familiar consensus of the church saying, “this is the foundation and reason for the mysterious attraction and unity of husband and wife.” As with…
I’ve loved Kierkegaard for 2 decades and have managed to read nearly everything he wrote, many two or three times. Yesterday during my second run through of The Concept of Anxiety I was struck by a passage that spells out the task of psychology in a way I’ve never heard it; something that I apparently…
"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced" -Kierkegaard
Doctrine Matters
Neither polemic nor compromise, but engagement
