There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings. -Goethe

A parishioner sent me an article this week from the Wall Street Journal titled ‘Eastern Orthodoxy Gains New Followers in America,’ which traces a small but growing trend of those with no ethnic ties joining Eastern Orthodox church like ours. The reasons for this, I believe, can be captured in one word from our introductory quote from German renaissance man Goethe: Roots. In an increasingly rootless America, where we move around so often that family and communal ties no longer connect us, people are searching for roots.