eye open

Lately I’ve been on a kick promoting monasticism on social media.   I got a lot of pushback because of it, and that’s okay.   I think the crux of the matter was that people who were already married or are planning on getting married took it personal when I laid out the argument that monasticism is a higher path than marriage.   Where did I get such a ridiculous idea, anyway?   Allow me to explain. First, I’ll cite a few sources.   I have two books called The Law of God .   One is by the priest Daniel Sysoev who was killed in a church in Moscow by a Muslim man who was angry that he had been converting Muslims to Orthodoxy, and who is generally known for his missionary work in bringing people from other faiths into the true faith.   In the section of his book dedicated to the sacraments of the Church he has a subsection on monasticism.   In this section he cites the apostle Paul who “says that one who remains a virgin is more blessed than one who enters into marriage…This does not mean t

I work as a groundskeeper at a hospital.   I’ve been working there for 18 years.   It’s a four man crew.   I’m the only person in the department who graduated from high school, and sometimes I feel out of place.   When I was in high school I went to class and passed without having to study.   The guys in my department skipped class to smoke cigarettes and joints, probably.   They didn’t study either, probably.   The previous lead of our department also didn’t graduate high school.   He could barely even read or write.   When he would try to write “grounds” (as in “grounds department”) he would spell it “gronds.”   I could just picture him staring into space and trying to pronounce the word phonetically, mouthing the “o” sound, when he figured that one out.   Nobody ever said anything to him because it probably wouldn’t have done any good because he was so hard headed that he was impervious to being told anything.   Also, we thought it was funny.   You can read “gronds” every day and it