Throughout the past week, my inbox has been bombarded with advertisements relating to Black Friday. There is the Black Friday sale, the pre-Black Friday sale, the early Black Friday specials, and many other advertising catchphrases that point to the same thing: discounted material goods on the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday is not a topic that is commonly discussed among Orthodox Christians. Sadly, in the absence of the Church’s guidance on this holiday, most of – …

+ In a room, at the outskirts of a city, a young woman, 21 years, is giving birth to her first child, her baby girl. Her sisters,  mother, and  female cousins and friends are all around her. They console her, they squeeze her hand, and they also laugh that “knowing laugh”, while she screams in pain. They are all familiar with the joy of motherhood, the joy that comes after the pain. Some of the girls have not yet – …