Generations I can barely count how many times I have muttered to myself about the generations of kids and early twenty-somethings, “These kids don’t care about anything. They’re zombies, zoned-out, beyond apathetic.” But why is this? What has happened to this generation of kids, and why have they demonstrated the apathy and idleness that they are so often accused of? Certainly, every generation is annoyed by the one preceding it. Each new trend or zeitgeist amongst the next generation is viewed as inexplicable or as somehow more self-indulgent and sinful than the ones we ourselves fell into. Those born in the 60’s (like my parents) seemed to me to be…

Many of us come to Orthodoxy broken and wounded – having lived in the world as prodigals outside of the house of God, we indulged in all kinds of sin, went down any and every dead-end searching for something that would point to some kind of meaning. In Orthodoxy we find the healing for these scars and wounds that we have accumulated. Christ the Saviour says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). As a former Seventh-Day Adventist, I was overwhelmed with the excessive legalism inherent to it; when I became a Roman Catholic, there too I felt lost…

The other day, I found these sobering words from St. Feofil, Hieroschemamonk of the Kiev-Caves Lavra. I was completely struck. I wish to share with all readers these same words that affected me so much. May they be a preservation against falling into the vain things of this world, and a sure guide along the narrow path. “Leave the vanity of this world for its wells are useless, they cannot hold within themselves saving water. Yesterday, my eyes saw, my ears heard, my lips spoke, and my body moved. But the spirit of life has left it and what is now before you? And so remember, my friend, to live…

“‘I seek for truth.’  Happy is he who places the accent on the last word: ‘Truth.’  It is far worse with those who proudly emphasize the word ‘seek,’ and are full of vanity because of their position among those continually tending towards truth – ‘Ever learning and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth.'” (2 Tim. 3:7) +Fr. Alexander Yelchaninov, Fragments of a Diary My journey to Orthodox Christianity was, like many, a painful one. Growing up in the sheltered world of Seventh-Day Adventism in a tiny school of 30 kids, I often rejected and rebelled against the evangelicalism of my youth. After my parents split up when I…