A Sound of Sheer Silence

No one will ever mistake me for a ladies' man, or some sort of Cassanova.  My track record with women has been, on the whole, not very successful.  I am 36 years old, and I am still single.  I would like to think that, in general, I am OK with this reality, but the truth is that I sometimes struggle coming to terms with this.  Despite the fact that I have wonderful friends and an amazing family, there are definitely times that I feel lonely.  There are also times when I look at being single as a failure, a black mark, a sign that I am somehow flawed and broken and defective.  That is not a pleasant feeling. Before he ended the lives of six people on Friday, Elliott Rodger took to Youtube and posted a video manifesto.  I won't link to it, because I am uncomfortable with supporting in any way what he did.  But I read a transcript of what he said in the video.  He basically claims that he is going to shoot a bunch of people, especially women...

My youngest sister graduated from college last weekend.  She's really an amazing person.  She has a job doing international development work, with a focus on Africa.  She is incredibly smart and passionate, and is a dynamic and self-assured person.  She's really special.  I'm very proud of her. This weekend saw a new hashtag campaign, #yesallwomen.  I missed the beginning of this movement, but I gather it was prompted by the shooting in Santa Barbara, California  on Saturday.  Apparently, the shooter left a manifesto that blamed his deeds on the fact that women have rejected him, and the loathsome and brain-dead Men's Right's Advocate (MRA) community took to Twitter to blame women generally for this shooting.  #yesallwomen was a series of stories from women about the kinds of experiences that women deal with on a daily basis from men.  The thread running through many of these stories is men who believe that women have a one-way obligat...

Readings (Catholic) Acts 8: 5-8, 14-17 Psalm 66 1 Peter 3: 15-18 John 14: 15-21 Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you Christianity is a religion of hope.  The Scriptures, and ultimately Jesus himself, makes promises to us about this life and the life to come.  In other words, we receive the Good News.  We cannot prove, at least in a scientific way, that this Good News is real.  All we can do is hope in those promises.

One of the experiences of studying to be a priest is that you get to see priests in their private lives, without the public face on and without the filter on what they say.  Sometimes, this is not a pretty experience.  I remember one such incident on Thanksgiving in Denver, during my novitiate.  As, perhaps unfortunately, tends to happen at such events, the brothers had had a few drinks, and people felt free to speak candidly.  One priest, who was quite elderly (and now deceased, so I will not name him), was beginning to get riled up about how great everything was in Catholicism in the 70s, and how everything had gone to pot since them.  He finished it off, however, with a single comment: "I wish that Turkish guy had finished him (Pope John Paul II) off."  I was horrified, and too stunned to say anything.  But, I should have.  No matter what disagreements one has with someone, it is never, never OK to wish death upon anyone, especially if you are...

The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is one of the largest Eastern Orthodox Church bodies in North America.  It comes out the Russian Church, and has a complex and rather interesting history.  But, as with Orthodox Christianity in general on this side of the Atlantic, the OCA mostly kept a low profile in the religious landscape. In 2006, a blog representing a group called "Orthodox Christians for Accountability" appeared on the internet.  This blog, which was later revealed to be run by an Orthodox Christian lay person named Mark Stokoe, made allegations that senior officials of the OCA had been involved in financial improprieties.  Later, the allegations expanded to include claims that those financial issues were tied in with sexual behavior by high ranking clergy.  The blog did not simply make allegations, however; it included documents that supported the claims.  These allegations ultimately led to the resignation of the head bishop of the OCA and a ...