Need a new author to read? Take up something by the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

Things proceed apace in Casa Price. My daughter tires of the endless bakery weather of south Texas and will be visiting us in August, and the fatted calf with be slaughtered with great rejoicing. We helped clean out a pole barn as part of helping my Dad and Mom sell property they are no longer interesting in bothering with. I now have to figure out what to do with the first and second series of the American Law Reports, but at a minimum they will offer fine law geek reading in retirement, which [checks mental watch] hopefully is just eight years off.

God willing and the creek don't rise or the 401(k) fall.

In the meantime, I have made the acquaintance of the great Russian-American Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983).

I have yet to read a wasted word from him. Best known as a liturgical scholar, he was also a gifted preacher and became famous (at least behind the Iron Curtain) for his regular broadcasts on Radio Liberty. Thoughts of mortality have crept up on me, and O Death, Where Is Thy Sting? is a superb series of brief meditations on the topic. In it, Schmemann demolishes the secularized look at death and the afterlife, and emphasizes over and over again that Christianity does not have answers for death--Christ is the Answer, full stop. In a society where secularism has turned the worldscape into a "cosmic graveyard" where people scurry about trying to avoid the very thought of death, we must always remember that Christ has triumphed, defeating death by death. 

With that starter in mind, delve into his two volume collection of Radio Liberty talks. Most of them, at least. Others were collected into separate books, depending upon the topic--O Death is one such example. In the Radio Liberty anthology, the timelessness of the topics leap from the page. Which, if you're paying attention, should give you a sense of unease. Much of the West has turned into a funhouse mirror version of the old, materialist, religion-hating Soviet Union, albeit with more food and gadgets in its stores. Consequently, the talks truly are for our time as well.

Finally, there is For the Life of the World, which explains the centrality of liturgy to not only our lives as Christians, but to the cosmos itself. I'm not that far into it, but each chapter offers at least one mental earthquake and helps you to appreciate what worship really should mean.

As I said, not a wasted word. Take and read.