PARISH VOICES

I don't remember exactly how, or why, I started doing the following. When our four children were young back in the 1990's, I began tucking them in with a blessing using the sign of the cross. To Orthodox readers, this may not seem out of the ordinary. However, I was Protestant at the time. Making the sign of the cross is not a normal Protestant action. The Lutheran church and other liturgical-based denominations use it during services, performed by the pastor. In the Lutheran

You ever have those moments when you feel stuck and unsure, and then someone shares something seemingly simple and you start crying, look up at the icon of Christ, and think, "Okay Lord… I hear You"? That was me this morning. Fr. Tom told a story about a priest friend who grew up in Greece. He held up a tiny pencil that was barely an inch and a half long. That priest had one pencil for the entire school year. By May, he had to pay attention to every bit of it - how much was

We had an outside dog named Duke on the farm when I was growing up. He had free rein to do as he pleased. He was pretty good at causing mischief and pretty bad at hiding it. A number of times he would approach us in the early morning acting as though nothing was wrong, but it was painfully clear that he had tangled with a skunk overnight. I am sure all of you know that smell, and when it is fresh and on a dog's fur, it's especially pungent. You might also be familiar with som

Sometimes, I listen to the Coffee House channel in the car. I like the softer, ballad and relaxing music for my long commutes when I'm not listening to a favorite podcast. So many times a phrase jumps out at me and touches me with something I need to hear. Now, the whole song may not apply such as unrequited love, a breakup…..you know how it goes with songs. The other day a Colbie Caillat song came on, "Realize," and the phrase "Take time to realize" settled in my mind. Here'

Finishing up this chapter of my life, I've had the great opportunity to shed some retrospect on the past few years. My name is Anthony Sitaras and I just graduated from a public high school here in Shoreline. Throughout my educational career, I put lots of time and focus into my academics, and my musical extracurriculars. As spiritually inclined as I had been up to my Junior year, I decided I wanted to become more involved in the rest of my high school life, and slowly began

Every year around this time, I notice a familiar pattern at work. Annual review season shows up, and people start asking the same questions underneath the formal conversations. Things like: Am I doing okay? Am I growing? What's coming next? They aren't really work questions — they're human questions. They show up whenever life shifts, whether we want it to or not. These questions follow us everywhere. They show up in our families, our routines, and our decisions. They show

I recently saw the movie "The Sheep Detectives," and thoroughly enjoyed it. As I was leaving the theater, I saw a movie poster with the tagline, "Truth. Justice. Whatever." written at the bottom. This is for the upcoming film, "Supergirl," and the tagline is a nod to the old Superman phrase, "Truth, justice, and the American way." I keep thinking about that "Whatever," line. It certainly expresses a youthful angst and a rebellious disillusionment with the world. The image on

When we look at the world around us, it's easy to feel like everything is splitting apart. Institutions we once trusted feel unsteady. Technology is changing faster than our hearts can keep up with. Even our own inner lives feel stretched thin, as if the familiar structures we relied on are cracking. I've felt a lot of this in my own life lately. Most days the pace of change is faster than I can absorb. Things I thought were stable have shifted. Routines I depended on have be

Did you hear the joke about Fr. Tom having a meeting with twenty people from our Church consisting of five women, five men, five kids, and five parish council members? The joke is: how many priests were in that meeting? The answer is twenty-one! I bet that you are not laughing, and you might be thinking, "Do you even know what a joke is, Josh? That isn't a joke!" I agree with you. It is not a joke, so my question is, why do we live like it is a joke? We live like Fr. Tom is t

During Holy Week, Fr. Tom spoke about exploring our inner space — in contrast to the exploration of outer space — as the Artemis II was completing its mission around the moon that week. What is our inner space? How can we access our inner space? What do we find in our inner space? In Orthodox theology, the word nous is often used for what many in the Christian world use for soul or heart. Given that the Greek definitions that come up for nous are "eye of the soul" or the "min