Thoughts and Happenings (11/16/25 - 11/22/25)

I thought I would try something new with this website, which was actually my original idea for it, and offer a few of my thoughts on something that happened on a particular day, or an experience I had, or just an idea, story or opinion on a given matter, to supplement some of my other work. Since I don't like using social media, this platform would suit me better for these things. My hope is to at least write something two or three times a week and put it out once a week.

11/16/25 -Sunday

It was a chilly afternoon when I pulled over my car to the side of a road in Allston to pick someone up at their apartment. Two young women, around college age, were walking on the sidewalk and came over to the passenger side of my vehicle. Upon rolling my window down to see what they wanted, one of them very pleasantly said, "Hi, I just wanted to invite you to come to our church." The invitation caught me off guard. It's not often you get invited to come to church by strangers while sitting in your car minding your own business, especially in a city like Boston, where religion is usually held to be a private matter. My immediate response to the young ladies was "Oh, thank you; actually I do go to church." They both seemed to be pleasantly surprised by my response, looked at each other with a smile, and after saying "Okay, great!" they both walked away. 

In hindsight, I wish I hadn't responded so quickly, maybe at least asked them what church they were inviting me to, perhaps tell them what church I go to, though I would have really been interested in finding out how successful they were inviting strangers on the road to church, especially in a city like Boston, but the encounter, like I said, caught me off guard, and the person I was waiting for was making their way to my car. It was hard not to admire the courage it takes to do what they did.

11/17/25 -Monday

I overheard an interesting conversation today, once again from two college aged girls, both students at Boston College, presumably Catholic. One of them was talking about her boyfriend, who was causing her a lot of stress and trauma. As she described her situation, she said that her boyfriend six months ago was an atheist, who in his sophomore year (last year, I think) had tried to kill himself, but failed. Recognizing that he had been raised in a non-religious home and he didn't have tools to deal with his depression, when they started dating she urged him to read the New Testament. According to her, after he read the New Testament, he became a completely different person. He stopped drinking, doing drugs, and began attending church every Sunday, giving his life to Christ. As she described him, he is literally a saint in every possible way, but she didn't know how to handle such a complete change. Before I wasn't able to overhear their conversation anymore, the last thing I heard was that the experience has traumatized her.

It was difficult to hear how much pain she was in because of this change in her boyfriend, and I certainly didn't know enough of the story to really understand what was going on, but between what happened yesterday and what happened today, I find the juxtaposition of stories quite interesting.

 

Highlights of My Recent Trip to Spain

On September 28th I arrived in Madrid, Spain for my first vacation since 2018. The reason I went to Madrid was because my mother, who is a hair stylist for a prestigious salon, goes on an annual work trip this time of year to different cities around the world, and this year she invited myself and my two older sisters along with my aunt (her sister) to join her. The plan was to stay in Madrid from Sunday September 28th till Thursday October 2nd, after completing her scheduled work appearances, then we would all go to Barcelona via train to enjoy a few days there until Sunday October 5th. Usually when I go on trips I like to constantly move and take in as much as possible in the few days I have, but since I was with others I had to slow my pace a bit, though I still was able to see a lot.

Sunday and Monday I focused on touring Madrid with my oldest sister Anastasia and my mom as much as she was able to join us. In Madrid I did the typical tourist things, including eating at historic restaurants over a century old, touring the Royal Palace, enjoying a Flamenco show, walking the historic streets, and visiting a few noteworthy churches, including the oldest active church in the city and all of Spain which is dedicated to Saint Nicholas from the early 13th century. 

How Witch Hunts End

Beverly is a town just across the river from Salem, Massachusetts. I attended an event in Beverly today and decided to do some sightseeing afterward. About 20 years ago, I worked an outside sales job whose main office was in Beverly, so I would spend a lot of time there. For this job, we were often paired with another salesperson and go out and do 2 to 3 hour presentations daily, usually twice a day, in people's homes. By far the best salesman was a very odd 21 year old who lived in Beverly, who usually kept to himself and was sometimes privately mocked by others, but he made a lot of money and we all would hope to be paired with him, because of the greater chances of our making money.

One day I was paired with him and we went on an assignment at 7pm, and after making the sale we left by 10pm. We were talking after for about an hour, and we ended up getting along very well and became friends. One thing he liked to do was hunt game and do taxidermy, so that night he told me to follow him in his car to his house. We arrived, went inside, and his very welcoming family received me and gave me a tour. There were literally hundreds of animal heads, mainly deer, on the wall covering every room. I felt like I was in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house. It made me wonder for a second, should I be fearing for my life? But my new friend and his family were the nicest most hospitable people, so I was able to quickly dispel such thoughts.

A Few Words About My Time With My Former Patristics Professor, Dr. George Bebis

I was sad to hear of the passing a few days ago of Dr. George Bebis, Professor Emeritus of Patristics at Holy Cross School of Theology.

For many years I had seen Dr. Bebis around campus when I was a student there, beginning in 1994 when I arrived, but I never actually got to have conversations with him until 2004, during my last year for the Masters of Theological Studies program. It was then that I was in need of credits to finish the program, but since I had taken every class offered at Holy Cross, and I maxed all the courses I could take in other theological institutions in the Boston area, I was required to approach the various professors on campus and ask them if they would allow me to take a special course with one of them not offered in the program. Since I was most interested in patristics and never had the opportunity to take a course with Dr. Bebis, who was mostly retired at the time and because Fr. George Dragas was the formal Patristics professor, I approached him and asked him if he would allow me to take a course with him that he had written a syllabus for but had yet to really teach, which was basically an advanced patristics course that was to cover all the Greek Fathers of the Church from after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the present. The reason he never really got to teach it was because his requirement was that the entire course had to be in Greek, and most students at Holy Cross didn't know enough Greek to take this course except the students who had actually come from Greece. For me, this was a welcome change and I actually preferred a course all in Greek, even though it is my second language. Having thus agreed, he told me to come to his office once a week at which time over the course of three hours the both of us would discuss the various Greek Fathers from 1453 to the present.

Killed by Indifference: A Challenge to our Collective Conscience

It was my last day in Paris in October of 2016, and before I left for the airport to return home to Boston, it was my goal to walk from my hotel across the street from Sorbornne University to the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont Church near the Pantheon in order to venerate the relics of Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. I had to leave early in the morning if I was to make it on time. By my calculations, it should have taken around 10 minutes to walk, but I didn't take into account that most of the walking would be uphill. And another surprise awaited me that early Tuesday morning. Along my path I had to walk over the bodies of a family of sleeping refugees or homeless people (husband, wife and two children). The busy street was too narrow to walk without risk, so when I saw this family sleeping on the sidewalk, I had no choice but to walk over them to arrive at my destination. For all I knew they could have been dead, they were so motionless and spread out over the sidewalk. But assuming they were sleeping, I walked on, and decided that upon my return I would drop off whatever euros I had to spare before my European departure. I arrived at the church, venerated the relics, and when I returned to the spot where the homeless family was, they were gone. At least I knew they were alive.