Quo vadis?

As the New Year approaches, many of us think about what is lacking in our lives and what we want to change. One of the most common attempts of resolving the dissonance between our real life and the one we want to have consists of the so-called New Year’s resolutions. These resolutions are notoriously broken and abandoned in the very first weeks of January, but this points to flaws in their implementation, rather than in the idea itself. The main idea—namely, that if one wants to change something in one’s life, one must do something about it—is very much correct. This idea is both intuitive and supported by life experience. If, for example, I want to leave the room, I must get up from my chair and begin to make steps toward the door—one step at a time. If I stay the course, it is guaranteed that I will make my way to the door and, in fact, leave the room.

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A Brief Note on Fasting and How Christianity May Have Influenced Our Relationship with Meat

While many Orthodox Christians have already celebrated the birth of Christ on December 25 along with Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians, by most estimates, many more Orthodox around the world (most, in fact) continue to observe the Nativity fast in preparation for the Christmas celebration on January 7. And by most estimates, the Orthodox of any calendar persuasion fast for more than two hundred days each year.