Icons from Sinai- the DVD

Free DVD on the icons from the monastery of St. Catherine's on Sinai!

The Good Samaritan...

The gospel reading for today was the Good Samaritan. Fr. pointed out at some point during theology 101 that Christ calls us to love our brothers. And who is/are our brothers? EVERYONE! I find that Christians (all Christians... Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) can be very judgmental (including myself). And if we are truly loving our brothers, we would not be judging our brothers. I'm not a very good writer, so I'm not sure if I am conveying the AHA! moment I had today, but there it is...

I should love everyone because everyone is my brother. And I know that I have probably heard this a million times, but today I heard it not with my ears, but with my heart:)

So, in the end, it takes a million and one times for me to hear something before it actually sinks in...

The true test is to see if it stays in my heart...

For the Love of the Game...

In the car I either listent to NPR or listen to music tapes. This morning, on the way to school, there was a short piece honoring Johnny Unitas. Now, I am not a big sports person. And, in fact, I pretty much despise most professional sports because it seems like the athletes have too much money and do not care/understand that young people idolize them. I know that I am speaking in generalizations but it really irks me when you see a talented athlete become very wealthy and then start switching teams in order to make more money. And to also not realize that their lives have become a fishbowl and to watch their behavior.

Anyway, the point of all this is the piece honoring Johnny Unitas which you can listen to here. And what struck me about him (and the other football players of that era) was that they had to hold down other jobs in addition to playing football. Even working during the season. Johnny U was a paint salesman. The piece talks about how a teammate bought a row house and how the entire team pitched in to repair and clean it (with Johhny laying down the new kitchen floor). Talk about playing a sport because you really love the game! How many of our professional athletes would work an additional outside job and play football at the same time? Thank you, Johnny U, for being an example of loving the game (and it doesn't hurt that he was Greek, too:)

Happy November 1st!

Anyone else think that time is just going by way too quickly?!?!

Last night was our annual All Saints Eve party at church. At first (two weeks ago) Pavlos didn't want to dress up at all. Then I showed him pictures of the different Saints from years past that he had dressed up as (see last years post). And he decided to go as St. Nektarios, again. That was fine with me because I didn't need to make a new costume:) Paul was unable to come to the party so it fell on me to videotape each child saying who they were dressed as and what that saint did. So while I was busy videotaping, yiayia and pappous took care of Pavlos. Needless to say, I never took a picture of Pavlos in his costume! So here is another picture from last year as St. Nektarios. Well, nevermind that, blogger is being a stinker and not letting me upload a photo.

In other news... Petros is almost crawling. AAAGGGHHH! That's all I have to say about that.

I have a ton of blogs that I read through bloglines, but then I end up not commenting on your blogs... know that I am reading, and I enjoy reading what is happening in your lives:)