New Skete Monasteries News

  By Brother Marc Oak survivor I often do errands in Albany or Clifton Park but drive through the gentle hills and farmland south of New Skete rather than taking any major routes. It seems like I’m traveling on top of the world there, and both land and sky are fully visible from the road. The colorful rural scenery changes dramatically through all four seasons. A stark remnant of a magnificent old oak tree pictured here oversees the newly plowed slopes near where some of our chapel community members live. I imagine it is the last remnant of a great oak woodlot. Last year’s storms broke a huge limb from it, but the farmer-owner of the surrounding cornfield trimmed and saved the rest. This year most of the tree was damaged. I was saddened at the loss; the brave trunk is still a striking landmark even though it is probably not on the National Register of Champion Trees. Tiger swallowtail butterfly on Korean lilac Years ago, we planted a miniature Korean lilac bush near our now sixty...

  Najmah, Bishop Howard’s (The Episcopal Diocese of Florida) constant companion and pet, died on Tuesday, June 1, 2021.  Najmah was bred by the New Skete Monks of Cambridge, NY, and was ten and half years old. A letter from Bishop Howard to New Skete: You may recall that Najmah was fifteen months old or so when Marie and I visited New Skete and she came home with us.  We were told that she had spent many of her days at New Skete in the gift shop, and I’m sure that the socialization and exposure to strangers there helped lay the foundation for her ministry with me.  She never met a stranger (except for a few cats and an occasional squirrel!).   The warmth and attachment between us was immediate, and it only grew over the years of our life together.  The unhappiest moments of her life were when I would have to break the news to her that, for some reason, she could not accompany me to my office or to church on Sunday.  The happiest moments...

  By Brother Stavros   I had a dream some months ago. It began when I viewed the scene from some heights. A bit like the opening of American Beauty , or more like riding a drone. I saw an immense crowd of refugees slowly trudging towards a distant town along a serpentine road. After a few minutes I found myself among them in the same wretched state: my clothes in tatters, my feet black from mud and feces that constituted the boulevard of misery. People of every race and state were moving against the human current, begging for food or a sip of water. A welling sigh turned into a crescendo of a pitiless moan as people looked up and saw thick, writhing bands of locusts provoking a premature dusk. They descended, leaving no place to run. They crawled over the human tide, small enough to search every inch of flesh, every fold of tunic or dress, every veil and turban. Someone pulled me by the arm off the road and up the rise of a hill. It was a farmer. He wanted me to witnes...

  By Brother Gregory   “What would you like to be when you grow up?” I often heard this question when I was a child. I had no idea how to answer, being a little child, and I would shout out, “a teacher!” In grade school my role models were many teachers, and on Sundays my role models were priests and nuns in full habits. Other role models in my early childhood were police officers, firemen, Post Office workers, and more. These were the professions that my neighbors practiced when I was growing up. Then came high school graduation, and I had to decide where I was going. I went to college expecting to become a teacher, but the word got around that there were too many teachers, and I decided to change my major to sociology. After graduation in 1974, I entered the world of social work, and that was a good choice because all my role models had been people who helped others as teachers, police officers, firemen, Post Office workers, and more.   Going to the local Cathol...

  By Ida Williams   Have you ever been called to do something that is out of your comfort zone?   Something that you think about over and over again, wondering if you made the right decision?   This happened to me recently, and I am very happy that because of my faith, and a shining example from Sister Cecelia and Kenneth, I stepped out of my boat of fear. Last fall I received an email from Sister Cecelia letting me know that I was going to receive a letter from a young man named Kenneth: a person with justice system involvement, who is currently incarcerated.   She went on to tell me it was up to me if I decided to correspond with this young man. The letter arrived, and it was well written, many pages long, and contained questions about my job.   He had read my article “ The Faces of Dog Training at New Skete. ”   He also included information about himself, never speaking of the crime he was incarcerated for, but giving a glimpse into his life...

  By Kenneth, guest writer Hi. My name is Kenneth.   I truly appreciate the loving and caring people at the New Skete Monastery.             I am incarcerated in Columbia Correctional Institution and have been since I was 18 years old.   I was wrongfully convicted of an armed robbery in 2015 for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.   In this incident no one was hurt, and I had nothing to do with this [crime], but being from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and not being able to pay a lawyer’s fees to adequately defend myself, I lost my freedom to the prison system.   I was and still am distraught after this incident. This is my first adult case in my life!   I was so depressed and grief-stricken, to the point where I did not want to live any more, at all.   I tried suicide three times.   I thought it was the end for me...until one day while in segregation, where I was separated from everyone...

Science and the Christian Faith: A Guide for the Perplexed by Christopher C. Knight, PhD (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2021, 232 pages) The subtitle, “A Guide for the Perplexed,” piqued my interest in the ad one morning a few months ago. The author is an Orthodox priest who started out as an astrophysicist. He is a Senior Research Associate of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England. The book is part of the Foundations Series put out by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. While I don’t see myself as perplexed, I do have a lot of questions in view of the world-wide scientific knowledge concerning creation that exists today. What light, if any, could Christopher C. Knight shine on how to understand our views of God’s immanence in our world today? A large thrust of the book is the attempt to understand some of the controversy over miracles. Do they happen now, and did they ever happen? Would science be able to explain them?       ...