St Gregory of Nyssa - pt II Laity

HE CONGREGATION THAT set out to create St Gregory of Nyssa Church (SGN) began its mission with the document called "The Plan for the Mission of St. Gregory of Nyssa". Read through the document. Yes, there are certain protestantisms - a lack of clear use of those ordained to serve God, for example, noting only that "Intrinsically representative functions will be performed by clergy" but SGN didn't (still doesn't) see the ordained as anything other than those "who are precisely the representative members of the congregation." It's not very Orthodox.

SGN's current use of "lay deacons" under the leadership of one ordained to that office belittles the ordained deaconate too, saying that really, there's nothing a deacon does that lay folks can't do. In the absence of an ordained deacon the "lay deacons" were not leaderless - but were usually led by other lay deacons, the "A Team" it was unofficially called. But the lay deaconate - as a liturgical function - is only odd because of its title. And, in Orthodoxy, there are certain things that only those ordained can do. SGN, however, saw the vested ministers as extensions of the parish's hospitality. In that light, most of us Orthodox Converts do, in our better moments, serve as "lay deacons."


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There goes the neighbourhood

PPLE has a 99% rating from Buy Blue which means that 99% of the people who benefit from Apple's largesse meet the approval of the PC Komisars of Blue State America. BestBuy gets a near zero - for supporting too many red state causes. But BestBuy has a special deal to be an Apple reseller. So if I buy from Apple, I support blue states, but if I buy my Apple from Bust Buy, I support both red and blue Americas. Choices. Choices.

I'm sure it drives some folks batty to see my little red scooter with its Apple tag on the back, along with the Orthodox Cross and the Confederate battle flag. Southern Partisan Christians and Blue State Apple just don't mix...

You mightn't believe me, but I read a wide variety of websites on a regular basis. I read news in several locations - including the NY Times and the BBC, as well as Sploid and "My Yahoo". I'm working hard at avoiding the nightmare described in EPIC 2014 - but even that brilliant work of media commentary knows that the real problem is not the producers of media - but the consumers.
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In the News

HE LOCAL did a story on Pascha. All the area clergy got interviewed, as well as two lay folks. Mom and the other regular reader of the Doxos blogs will know both of the laity and one of the clergy...

It should result in some very good PR for the churches here in Asheville and Fletcher as well as ours in Hendersonville.

Oddly enough they decided that "Raphael" was my last name... C'est la via media. Anyway, it's a very good sort of intro article, although it pushes that "after passover thing" that just doesn't hold true this year - and other years. They should have visited the Orthodox Wiki!

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Ouch

HERE IS SUCH a painful irony in this line:

"The church is not free to disregard the standards of justice and inclusiveness that are preached by Jesus Christ ... and are a part of church law."

Of course that doesn't mean that the Church should adhere to God's revelation: which includes justice and mercy and morality. The quote means "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." I'm sure John and Charles are spinning.

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Das Pravda.

ERE'S A DECENT article on Russian WW2 history in the Washington Times. But I can't really believe a word of it because the writer evidently did no research at all as is clear by the following quote:

It was even more unusual because the virgin has never enjoyed the pre-eminence in Russian Orthodox Christianity that she has in the Western Catholic faith. The Orthodox Church has always focused on the grandeur of Kristos Pankrator -- Christ as Cosmic Emperor or Ruler.

It is evident the writer never stood in an Orthodox Church and saw that over every altar... the Virgin. At the left side of every Altar Door... the Virgin. At the foot of nearly every Orthodox Crucifix, the Virgin. At the entrance to many - if not every - Orthodox home, the Virgin. At least once in every home - if not once in every room - the Virgin. At the end of every sequence of hymns - the Virgin. At the end of every litany - the Virgin. At the begining, middle and end of the Divine Liturgy - the Virgin. At the end of every ode in every canon - the Virgin. In the writings of the Saints, the Virgin. In the hymns of the Church, the Virgin...

I love it when non-Christians try to tell me about my faith.

If the writer did no research, how can we trust the story? More...

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Still they ride...

First journaled on 21 July 1998

AVID AND I went to Borders where we participated in Staff Appreciation Day. This involves 40% off every item in the store, including those not normally available for discount. I picked up four CDs, including the one to which I listen as I type: Journey's Greatest Hits.

At this point David becomes nearly apoplectic; reminding me that Journey and Styx, and Springsteen, for that matter, are, shall we say, not our type of music from the 80s - proper examples of which include Erasure and Tears for Fears. (Ironic, of course, because Journey, at least, is from SF.) As far as my attachment to Springsteen, please blame my fraternity. I can't hear enough of the man to this day. Post haste, I'll jump and run if a new release is made available. My biggest disappointment is that I have never attended one of his concerts. A certain fraternity brother can testify to the profound sense of loss we both felt when a certain Mafia don, having promised us tickets to Bruce's concert at the Meadowlands (this was in 1984), found himself arrested by his jogging partner who, it turned out, was an agent of the FBI.

Journey, on the other hand, is linked, along with Styx and Kansas, to a short period in my Senior year in High School, when I became friends with Brian W. Brian and I became very close in 1981, during the summer before my Senior year. He was also friends with my brother, Jimmy. Jimmy and Brian often got in trouble. I, on the other hand, was a good luck charm as far as parents in our small town were concerned.
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The Long Now

Good Friday began, liturgically, earlier today and will end - liturgically - sometime Saturday morning. It's a long day.

During it there will be a number of services starting with the Marathon known as the 12 Gospels (we were in church just slightly short of 3.5 hours), then then rather dinky Royal Hours tomorrow morning. (I'll be sleeping!) There will be the taking down from the cross and then the lamentations around the tomb. And then, Saturday Morning, there will be the Harrowing of Hell and Good Friday shall end with The Holy Sabbath (which is only a couple of hours long, liturgically) and Pascha - which is forever.

Yet it is always now.

Now is when we struggle. Now is when we win or lose our crowns. Now is when we fall into sin or dispair or rise to victory and glory. Now is when we make the choices to stand with good or ill. And now is also the time when we learn which choices to make - which ones are good, which ones are ill.

Now. It is always - liturgically - now.

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It begins...

ES, I KNOW, Holy Week began on Sunday with Palm Sunday. Sunday night was Bridegroom Matins (and again on Monday night and again on Tuesday night). Those three prep services are just "normal" matins services with epscial hymns and special readings - mostly of the parables of Jesus which, as Fr J notes, makes it very clear why the religious and political leaders of the day would have really started to dislike Him.

But this night was something else: the Wednesday night service is the Holy Unction service. It's a Holy Mystery, an annointing with oil that has been blessed with seven epistle readings, seven gospel readings and seven prayers. Wednesday night wehad two priests (Fr J and Fr Henry, a visitor) and they switched back and forth praying and gospeling while Khouria E and I switched back and forth with the Epistles, et al.

Holy Unction is given, of course, to those who are sick - but once a year it's given to the entire Church. I well remember the awe with which I watch the people at the Cathedral in San Francisco press forward in a near-mob on the clergy. Somehow out of the mob, everyone would get annointed. Our parish has only the 20 or so souls, and we do present in an orderly line. But there was something tonight...

As I said, it's the Holy Mystery of annointing the sick. It can be seen as the "Last Rites" as that is the function it serves in the Church - annointing the one about to die. And all Orthodox are, on this Wednesday night, marching with Jesus to Golgotha. We are going, ourselves, to die with Him and praying for the courage to stand steadfast as all Hope ends in the hands of sinners. It is a sombre moment, being annointed for one's death.

Tonight, however, there was joy. Unlike past years, people didn't just leave in silence afterwards. There was talk, planning of the weekend's Paschal joy. There were friends unseen recently, and laughter.

Tonight I learned how to face death - the final enemy of mankind - by laughing at it in the holy un-quiet joy that comes from the Paschal Mystery.

Glory to God for all things!

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Do Not Adjust Your Set

LL OF THE COLOUR has been drained out - except for a slight tint in the icon. Call this style Greyscale.

Next I'm going to work on sepia!

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the iMovie Goodness

T'S a Mac-Produced homage to Philip Glass and the Qatsi movies...

Or else it's insulting derivative trash.

You decided.

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St Gregory of Nyssa - pt 1

HILE MANY of my more-pious Orthoblogging Brethren and Sistren have left the building for the duration of Holy Week I'm still here: working third shift means keeping watch in the middle of the night... and keeping odd hours even when not working. I still get to go to Church, but I just miss sleep to do it.

Hardly a week goes by when I don't receive some report, email or inbound hit from someone asking about my former Episcopal parish, the Church of St Gregory of Nyssa (SGN) in San Francisco. For all that I slam not only SGN, but all of ECUSA for its theological laxity - or outright apostasy - and for all that one can confuse much of SGN liturgy with "playing church", as the saying goes, I've been moved several times this week to say good things about them and, in fact, to think of them fondly.

Most recently in doing a project for Fr J, I came across an OCA parish also dedicated to St Gregory and their history sounded so much like SGN's that I took hope: it is possible to do that (meaning what SGN set out to do) in a Christian context.

So I've been reading the foundational document for SGN. Despite what one of my frequent lurkers might think about "intentional community" and the Church, (Hi, Bob! d-: ) I think that any of us who wish to experiment with living the Orthodox Life in Community would do well to learn from SGN - both their successes and their failures.

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Ewww....

OR ALL THAT some parties are making much of certain religious leaders and the forced activities in their childhood, comments like this from a "freely" elected leader should be terrifying...

The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.
V Putin

Remember, he's saying that about a geopolitical entity that killed 50,000,000 people in the last century. The rest of his presentation, seen in the light of that one comment alone, sounds like Hitler saying "we have no more geographical aspirations in Europe".

The West - and Christians in Russia - still have much to fear from "former" Soviets.

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acronymn

hen
n
eed
on't
pen
orthless
oftware

Sorry, that just came to me.

6119 songs in iTunes
5000 images in iPhoto
Have I mentioned I love my Mac?

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Lowly and Meek, riding on a...

N THE SUNDAY of the Entrance to Jerusalem Father John McGuckin delivered a sermon. He was contemplating on the means of transportation chosen by Jesus. According to Father John, the ass chosen by Christ would be best equalized in our contemporary transportation to a skateboard. Or better to say, that for the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the first century, seeing the Savior entering the Holy City on the back of the ass would make the same impression as to us seeing a Bishop arriving to the parish on the skateboard. And an "icon" of this event will look approximately like this...

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Furbi et Lorbi?

T IS SNOWING here in Western North Carolina. That's the weather and now here's the news...

Nothing yet on Snopes marking this as an Urban Legend, but it's making the rounds faster than that kid that wants a world record in cookie recipes.

Benedict XVI is a cat lover.

Friends in Rome and in Regensburg, Germany -- where he once taught and still owns a home -- say the pontiff also attracts felines.

"I went with him once" to visit a cemetery behind a church, said Konrad Baumgartner, the head of the theology department at Regensburg University. The graveyard "was full of cats, and when he went out, they all ran to him. They knew him and loved him. He stood there, petting some and talking to them, for quite a long time. His love for cats is quite famous."

He doesn't have a cat, however. And Agnes Heindl, his brother Rev. Georg Ratzinger's housekeeper, doesn't think he can keep a cat in the Vatican.

When the then Cardinal Ratzinger visited Regensburg "he was always content to play with the street cats," she said. "I don't know much about Rome, but I know there's no shortage of cats there."

Roman cats: Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who had worked as Ratzinger's top aide at the Vatican, described how the new pope always paid attention to the street cats around St. Peter's and how they sometimes followed him as he walked to his office. Bertone joked: "One time the Swiss Guards had to intervene: 'Look, your eminence, the cats are laying siege to the Holy See.' "

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Six days before the Passover.

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How His Resurrection is the beginning of a new and bright day in the history of mankind;
2. How His Resurrection is my peace and my strength, and the resurrection of my soul while I am still in the body.

Contemplation for 23 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

HIS TEXT COMES to us on Lazarus Saturday and so, is technically outside of Lent. Still it seems fitting to end this here rather than yestreday for Lazarus Saturday is the Beginning.

Six days before the Passover Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, announcing to all of us the universal Resurrection. Something was coming and in this man Jesus, something new was about to happen.

22 April is a sad day for my family. 22 April of 1982 saw the rape and murder of a close friend and a neighbour of our family. We were the first ones contacted for help by the girl's mom and brother. My mom rushed to their house to get them out, to offer comfort... to call the police, the clergy. A year later in May the girl's brother together with my brother were killed in a motorcycle accident. Spring is never a good time for us as far as memories go.

And yet here is Lazarus Saturday.

At the funeral mass for Shelly, the young girl, the priest asked her to pray for us.

Here is Lazarus Saturday.

We will today celebrate a baptism. My friend and roommate, the Catechumen Michael, will be, before your reading of this most likely, the Newly Illumined Michael. He will enter the waters of baptism and die. And will rise again.

And something new will be born, something holy and eternal. And we shall sing along with all the Saints and Angels, "As many as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ, Alleluia."

And while I know not the plans of God around "ecumenism" and the like, I have lived now under a growing sense of God's mercy for which, knowing I'm not yet destroyed, I am unfeignedly thankful. And in that Mercy I know that the young girl as certainly as Michael, will be shielded in a way that we can not know, that we can not understand. For this is Lazarus Saturday.

The day on which God wept at the horror of human loss.

The day on which God felt the pangs that only the mourning can know.

The day on which God's love for us drove home the destruction of hades.

A friend dies.
A brother is born.

Death is destroyed by death.

There can be nothing worth fearing any more.

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The Saracens' Return

OLLOWING the horrid attacks by Mohammedan extremists on innocent train riders in Spain, the Spanish electorate suddenly decided to oust its pro-America Government and put in the Socialists instead.

A year later, the in-power Socialists are continuing the Islamicists' attack on Europe's failing Christian civilization. The BBC notes,

It is also a dramatic step in the rapid secularisation of what was once one of the most devoutly Roman Catholic countries in Europe.

Perhaps no greater irony than this can show that al anti-Christians have the same goals, no matter what their means and official ends may be.

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Memento Mori

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How by His Resurrection, He justified the faith and hope of mankind in immortality;
2. How by His Resurrection, He destroyed the fear of death in the faithful.

Contemplation for 22 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

ERHAPS I SHOULD have saved yestreday's post for today's contemplation. It would seem equally useful today to be reminded again that "if Christ be not raised" then everything - our faith, our good works, our preaching - is in vain.

One of my favorite writers and post-modern thinkers, Robert Anton Wilson, discusses the human brain in a number of his works. He general follows Dr Timothy Leary's models for understanding the human brain. Most all of Wilson's works have been somewhat of a revelation to me - not because they offered models that were more-right than what I had, but rather because they espoused agnosticism to the nth degree: given what we think we know about the human brain and it's ability to interpret it's environmental experiences, there's nothing - or nearly nothing - that we can say is exactly as we have experienced it. At best we can only say "I think I experienced such and such." Thus (nearly) everything comes with an unstated caveat: "In my experience this is so, your milage may vary, however."

Wilson's theories are, to be certain, a sort of post-modern psychology where nothing is true except the caveat that nothing is true. Still, Wilson lives an honest integrity in his agnosticism. Many moderns and post moderns scoff at the idea of the Resurrection of Jesus. Wilson's response, I think, would note that it's not part of his belief system but who knows? His agnosticism allows for oddities like Rising Rabbis and what he calls a Gaseous Vertebrate of Infinite Heft. (Which, truth be told, is the way most men conceive of God.)

Many who claim the name Christian fail, in our daily lives, to make that allowance.

St Nikolai reminds us that His Resurrection generally (to all people) "justified the faith and hope of mankind in immortality"; and also "destroyed the fear of death in the faithful" (specifically). Many people - Christians and otherwise - believe in immortality. But to us, the faithful, the Resurrection of Christ offers something else: a blatant biting of the thumb at death. Or, failing to communicate with the archaic body language, we may wish to use another finger.

Jesus tried to communicate to us over and over what life not-fearing death would look like: we could love our neighbours as we love ourselves. We could love God fully. We could not worry about bread. Not worry about clothing. We could not worry about evil done to us - but rather forgive. We could sell all we have and give to the poor. We could let the dead bury the dead. We could hunger and thirst after righteousness. We could be meek. We could resist not evil and turn the other cheek.

The Church Fathers, men who lived without the fear of death, show us the lived reality: speaking the Truth of Christ to emperors and guests, to strangers and the poorest of the poor; wildernesses dwelt in without food; water walked upon; passions destroyed and lives healed.

And I'm worried about inviting a coworker to Pascha liturgy?

There is a great gulf fixed between those who simply sing the paschal apolytikion and those who live it. The latter shall not die!

God save me from the fear of death!

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29 Apr 5

HILE IT IS TRUE that the release date for the Hitchhiker Movie is, sadly, still in Holy Week, it does appear that, Post-Pascha, the movie will warrant my first trip to the threatre since, well... mmm, that black and white movie that Frederica loved so much entitled something like "Dr Strangelove Goes back to the Future" or something. Disney's timing is good: I think I'll go on Bright Monday.

Given that it looks like War of the Worlds has been totally re-written by the Space Invaders Cult to support their cosmology, I think I'll skip that little slice of heaven. Equally Matrix-ee, by the way, is The Island. The trailer includes the line "the life you thought you had never happened" although it looks as if, rather than machines, the "bad guys" are just more people. Gnostic Myths writ human-sized. I'll not be going.

Anyway, also in the lineup for this summer is the Willie Wonka movie which looks to be a near-total recreation of that wonderful film from my childhood (AD 1971). I've heard tell that the book is some sort of a Christian allegory. I had no idea. The first movie seemed slightly removed from that level and, I'm certain, the newest one will be even further removed.

But I hope there will be blue midgets.

In the ART category, the Russian film, Nightwatch, (NOCHNOY DOZOR) looks amazingly entertaining - and it's the first of three in a "horror trilogy" although being non-American it seems, at first glance, to have some artistic depth (rather more than, say, Alien Versus Predator). It looks to be a matrix-ee meditation on Good and evil, although I'm often disappointed. Still I've seen it called "Russia's Lord of the Rings" - and it seems to be the only film out in Russia at the moment. Douglas Adams (who wrote Hitchhiker) was an Athiest - and he can come up with some entertaining humour. Perhaps Moscow can do?

Finally, for you Nascar fans, Disney is rereleasing the Love Bug and, in the heart of family smaltz, this looks like it will win. Someone tell me when did Michael Keaton get old?

There you have it, a summer lineup.

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Hehehehe

HE LOCAL RAG carried an AP article today, now sadly missing from their website, that noted that the new Pope of Rome was the theological brain behind the old Pope of Rome's document Dominus Iesus which, according to the paper, "angered protestants, Jews, Muslims, and other non-christians."

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For now is Christ risen

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How when He appeared to the apostles, He appeared to all of us;
2. How His Resurrection is the proof of eternal life and the announcement of eternal life to all of mankind.

Contemplation for 21 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

F CHRIST BE NOT RAISED from the dead," says Saint Paul, "Then our preaching is in vain." I once heard a protestant preacher take that to be a statement of St Paul's ego: "If this Jesus guy isn't raised from the dead then I'm going to look stupid..." Of course, the preacher went on to imply (never outright say) that St Paul really looks stupid to us nowadays, huh?

We've all seen it - for the apostles saw it and they've told two friends, and they've told two friends, and so on and so on... We can either trust the holiest people we know or not. Christianity is based on trust. So, to put it point blank - your friends tell you the good news and you can take it or leave it.

St Nikolai asks us to see everything in a new light following the Resurrection and to realise that not only "our preaching" but everything is in vain if Christ be not raised from the dead.

And everything changes when you see it differently.

Of course part of that is communication: we need to hear the message of the Resurrection and understand it with our hearts. It's not an "interesting myth" or a "parable on nature" or even a "good story". This is the Truth - or else it's meaningless and valueless.

It is the proof of eternal life because the Gates of Death, hitherto one way, had suddenly been burst asunder from the inside out.

But have we told anyone - in words or actions? This announcement to "all mankind" is carried by all of us... or not at all. And when you bring the Good News to your neighbours, are you trustworthy?

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Didja ever notice...

OR THE LAST couple of years - especially following the falling asleep of JP2, American were reminded over and over that the vast majority of Christians now are in Africa, Latin America and Asia - and they're far more conservative than Americans. Now the media only want to interview the Liberal Americans about the new pope - and the occasional weeping Bavarian modernist. No mention of the Asians, Africans or Latin Americans who (at least to go by the press a week ago) must be overjoyed.

For the last couple of weeks, Cardinal Ratzinger was on the "medium list" but not on the short list. Then came that sermon at JP2's memorial mass, and suddenly Ratzinger was on the "short list". But look at the reports after his election: it's as if no one ever heard of this "hardliner" who "surprised everyone" be getting elected.

For the last couple of weeks everyone has been filled to overflowing with the SMALTZ that has come out of the MSM about how beautifully wonderful was JP2 - despite the fact that for the last 26 years they've lamented how conservative he was.

Now, given that there will be no change at all in either the deck chair, the band or the waitstaff, everyone is quite ready to complain again, the global all-loving wake and memorial mass never happened.

It took - by my count - almost 15 minutes following the words "habemus papem" - for an email to reach ETWN's live telecast from St Peters that asked about the Nazis. Given Ratzinger's age, I had just assumed such was true, but if JP2 can forgive him... shouldn't the rest of us?

I'm not defending or standing up for B16 here: I'm just noting that I'm blessed to have internet access where I can get a million different points of view and lamenting the fact that a good number of USAmericans seem to depend on the MSM - cuz from out here, you can see the games that get played.

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Do as I say... and Do

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How He, as the Almighty Victor over death, does not seek revenge on His enemies who tortured and crucified Him, but, leaving them to themselves, He sustains His frightened friends;
2. How even today, as in all times, in His innocence and meekness he does not hurry to seek revenge on the unfaithful, but hurries to the aid of the faithful.

Contemplation for 20 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

F COURSE, what His followers do is another story.

In Gathsemene, when Our Lord was walking meekly to His trial, St Peter took a sword and struck off the ear of the servant of the High Priest. Jesus, rather than taking up the sword as well, took up the ear and healed it. He could have called an army of Angels to rescue Him while on the cross - and yet did not. And as St Nikolai points out, even after His rising on the Third Day as God, He did not seek revenge on the faithless but rather sought to care for the remnant of His followers who were hiding in fear.
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Old joke

HE LINE RUNS that Saul was walking up Sandy Row in Belfast when he was jumped by a gang. Pinned to the ground he was asked "Are yeh Cat'lick or Protestant?" Indicating his kippah and his six-pointed pendant he said, "I'm Jewish!" The reply shot back instantly. "Yes, but are yeh a Cat'lick Jew or a Protestant Jew?"

Sometimes we get so bogged down in our version of reality we fail to see that other things don't fit it.

I've been watching a growing backlash against evangelicals from the American left including the media. Take a look at this story about evangelicals at the Air Force Academy. Notice how the article easily switches between "evanglicals", "evangelical Christians" and "Christians". At the end they even lump the evangelicals in with the Romans.

I'm sure the rest of the protestants will get caught in it and, to no small extent, so shall the RCs with their new conservative Pope. The Church will get caught in it too, because, we've not made it clear that that's not us - most people don't know the difference between what they've been handed as "Christianity" by the evangelicals on the one hand and the Faith Once Delivered to the Saints on the other.

It may just be our well-deserved "karma" for trying to blend in.

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Habemus!

S WAS PREDICTED by my roomie only a few days ago, the Cardinals have picked an elder clergyman - meaning perhaps a shorter reign. I'm sure the rainbow sash people and the ladies who use the letter "y" to replace their two Xs will be overjoyed.

The Roman Pontiff noted, one day prior to his election,

Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism," he said Monday. "Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards."

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires..."

One is made to agree... although perhaps not in the meaning the then-Cardinal intended: one wishes and prays the new pontiff will bring the Romans inline with the teachings of the Church instead of being led by the directions of one man's desires.

May his pontificate be God-pleasing and may we all be led to the Truth!

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Lonnie

ETRELIGION has posted a rather interesting article on a movie coming out about Lonnie Frisbee, the 70s evangelist that helped start the whole Hippie Jesus Freak thing. Some readers here will know of my continued fascination with that part of Christian History in this country - closer readers of the blog may see the ties between the Jesus Movement, the AEOM and my own conversion to Orthodoxy via the discovery of a wonderful Christian book from 1970 called Love is Now and a Google on the author, some Jesus Freaky evangelist by the name of Gillquist.

Anyway, the GR article noted a forthcoming movie on the life and death of Lonnie Frisbee... called, happily enough, Frisbee: the Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher. The movie asks the sad question, "What do you do when the Jesus freak who started your church dies from AIDS? Simple. Erase him from history." As you may well guess, with an intro like that I got hooked.

More...

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In my yard - 1

'VE SEEN a lot of cool things in my yard and I've been taking pictures of them - I promise to post 'em. But this was SO CUTE that I had to post it now. Forgive the grainy quality: it's a long-range zoom through a screen.

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ick

NE OF THE MOST annoying lines I used to hear, over and over again, in ECUSA and now am hearing over again in the news covering the conclave... is the youth are the future of the church.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

And a thousand times more.

The youth ARE the Church. Now. Here.

I'm already 40... I ain't youth anymore. But DURN IT ALL folks, those kids there are just as much illumined as you - and sometimes moreso.

Get over your bad - and old - selves and let those members of the Church have some voice, k?

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Habemus...?

HILE THE WORLD'S media mayn't be able to afford 24/7 television coverage of the smokestack above the Vatican... web cams are another story. Mash here if you feel an urge to watch (and listen... so far, coughing, cop radios, crying children... it's a mob, you know).

Here's the daily schedule as posted on the BBC - times are local to Vatican City, so be sure adjust to your local time zone. Also the BBC reports that "white smoke will appear earlier":

0730: Cardinals celebrate Mass in hotel
0900: Morning voting starts
1600: Afternoon voting starts
1200 & 1900: Smoke comes out

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Moo

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How for forty days after the Resurrection he remained on earth, showing Himself to the faithful and strengthening them in the Faith;
2. How, by His forty-day manifestation, He demonstrated that He did not resurrect for his own sake, but for the sake of mankind.

Contemplation for 17 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

OT FOR HIS OWN sake but for the sake of mankind... it's a curious turn of phrase on the part of St Nikolai. Can anything that God has done be considered as done "for His own sake"? Does God need anything?

For Mine are all the beasts of the field, cattle on the mountains, and oxen. I know all the fowls of the air, and with Me is the beauty of the field. If I hunger, not to thee will I tell it; for Mine is the world, and the fullness thereof. Shall I eat of the flesh of bulls? Or the blood of goats, shall I drink it?

So God says in Psalm XLVI: if He were to need anything, we would not know it. So what, if anything of all that God has done be considered as done "for His own sake"?

God is continually pouring Himself forth for us: all things can be said to be for us. Even the very act of creation itself by which the universe was formed, the earth populated and man raised fully formed therefrom was not "for" God. Rather it was all for man - all for us. A line appeared in Touchstone's website which well-noted the self-giving of God, remarking on the depths of space and the darkness of earth and the mysteries of all, created for no more than the joy of wonder for which God formed man from the dust and placed us here exactly to be amazed. Only in our sinfulness do we break open the gift to "see how it works", convincing ourselves thereby that we are wise.

In this season of Lent, we do not fast to appease God, that would not be at all within our power - as King David says in Psalm XLVIII

A brother cannot redeem; shall a man redeem? He shall not give to God a ransom for himself, nor the price of the redemption of his own soul, though he hath laboured for ever, and shall live to the end.

Rather we fast because we wish to be like God - to be purified of our sinful ways, to be raised up to the life of the angels. We fast to become as St Mary of Egypt:

Through thee the divine likeness was securely preserved,
O Mother Mary
for thou didst carry the cross and followed Christ.
By example and precept thou didst teach us to ignore the body
because it is perishable,
and to attend to the concerns of the undying soul.
Therefore, doth thy soul rejoice with the angels.

And so we fast also to be made all the more joyful at the feast of the angels: the Holy Pascha of Our Lord when all earth and heaven rejoices.

But despite all of this... the words of the Psalmist (also in XLVIII) ring true: We close our eyes to God. We celebrate our own mythologies and gnosologies over the Creation of God, saying we are now wiser than our ancestors. We deny the truths He has revealed to us in the Church by belittling her authority and demeaning the saints' self-sacrifice for the resurrected Christ - again saying we are wiser now than they. We follow after our own lusts and prides - still again saying we are wiser now - denying God even the respect one would give an elementary school crossing guard or an elderly maiden aunt at a family dinner. In doing so we deny our own place: for we do not hurt God when we demean Him. He is Risen. Rather we hurt ourselves, cutting ourselves away from the image of God and denying that we are His Children. Despite all that He has done for us, we want to go it alone, thank you very much.

The mindless man and the witless shall perish together, and they shall leave their riches to others. And their graves shall be their houses unto eternity, their dwelling places unto generation and generation, though they have called their lands after their own names. And man, being in honour, did not understand; he is compared to the mindless cattle, and is become like unto them.

Which is, of course, an insult to the cattle.

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Gush

ONE MAJOR Mac gush: I needed to print some stuff for Church this morning. I came home. I plugged up the USB. I clicked print. It printed. No drivers installed. no trip to the LexMark website. No disc. Just print.

[2] comments (524 views) |  link

Next witness!

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How, according to the testimony of St Paul, He appeared alive to five hundred people at once (I Corinthians XVvi);
2. How He appeared to the Apostle James, again, according to the testimony of St. Paul (I Corinthians XVvii);
3. How in the time of the Apostle Paul, even outside the circle of the apostles, many still lived who had seen Him.

Contemplation for 16 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

HE HEADLINES READ "Thousands hallucinate: Millions follow."

Some who would call themselves Christians seem to be made very uncomfortable by "spooks" in the religion. They'd like to edit all the spooky things out because, well, you know, we're modern.

It shouldn't seem strange that these de-spookifying folks are also advocating for warm fuzzy things like women clergy, gay unions and less traditional understandings of things like marriage, divorce and birth control. First, edit God out of the picture, then go right for self-gratification: the exact same pattern we've seen since Eden.

The Church, rather than try to hide the Resurrection, or to downplay it with emphasis on other things, celebrates Pascha every Sunday, but not in a simple "yes, Sunday is like a mini-Easter" kind of thing (which you'll hear even from Jack Spong). The Gospels at matins are all the Resurrection. The hymns at Vespers, Matins and at Liturgy are the Resurrection. We are invited to see again the Risen Lord, to hear again those stories from our ancestors. To know that, in those stories, stands the one thing that woke them out of their slumber to life: the Living Lord Jesus, present with them in the Resurrected Flesh. We prepare for the Presence of the Living Lord coming to us in the Holy Mysteries so that we might better prepare for the Icon of the Living Lord coming to us in the person of our neighbour. And even so we prepare for the Eternal Presence of the Living Lord - and our neighbour - in the Last Day.

The Church relies on the communication of the saints for this: we have the witness of faith, as recording in the scriptures and the teachings of the Church. St Paul says there were folks alive that he knew who had seen Jesus alive and walking on the earth. The witness of others is important for all the actions of God, for God doesn't speak to us, verbally, one on one, but rather to the whole Church. The revelations of God and His love for us are handed down to us and ask our assent. The Resurrection - indeed, any action of God, from Creation to Judgment - forms a foundation for our faith and actions, for our redemption. To edit it out of the picture is to edit some part out of the faith that saves us.

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Paschal Fusion Cooking

AKED EGGS with polenta and bacon... mmmm

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Fair Trade

O MY DENIM jacket is falling apart. Really! I put it in the washer the other day and one of the cuffs nearly came off. The only thing holding it together is the fact that I tend to wear it over my DotCom sweatshirt: it's acting kinda like velcro. It has served me well: I got it at Old Navy five+ years ago, when I was working in DotComuslavia. The idea was just buying something on a whim, just because I wanted it and it was there and it was my luch hour and wouldn't everyone think I was cool if i cam back in that today. My boss agreed. Forgive me but life can be shallow when you make too much money.

Being a scooter rider in the mtns - even the southern mtns - I tend to need a jacket right up until about the time I have to put on long underwear again. But my heart has been pricked by the idea of paying $50 for a jacket made in Cambodia by a woman who might have made $1 off of it. Or, more to the point, my heart has been pricked by the image of hundred of illegal aliens in San Francisco's SoMA district, walking to and from their sweatshops: it's too expensive, you see, to ship the clothes from Cambodia. Much easier to just say "We'll pay you like you're in Cambodia, but we'll do it in the most liberal city in the world."

While my denim jacket lasted more than 5 years, I'd like my next investment to be a little bit more, um, moral. If I'm sounding just a little too blue-state, let me be reality based then: a demin jacked made by Americans paid a decent wage would fit me much better.

On the other hand a denim jacket made by hand in my own sewing room would be worth more.

So, choices. I could go to GoodWill. At least there I know I'm managing to do do some good with my money to people who need good done to them. On the other hand i could just go to Wally World and be reasonably certain I'm doing some bad - as I do with my $10 jeans.

Argh.

The Amish don't have to make these sorts of choices.

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Memeishness

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

15% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Yankee

0% Midwestern

See. Live everywhere, pick up a few words. Soon, only your hairdresser will know where you're really from...

Or a meme.

I was born in the South, and raised by Grandparents from Michigan... but my Step Father is from NY.

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Cead Mile Failte

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How He was concerned about the physical nourishment of His disciples; how He broke and blessed the bread for the disciples in Emmaus;
2. How, by the shore of the lake, He asked His disciples: Have ye any meat? (John XXIv). How, when they answered Him that they had not, He prepared bread and fish and gave it to them.

Contemplation for 15 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

T EMMAUS and on the lake-shore, Our Lord feeds us again - as He had done for the five thousand, for the Jews in the wilderness, for Noah... Our Lord is the source of all life and its sustainer.

Jesus is always feeding us. Beginning in Paradise where He gave us almost everything as food, right up until today. This is why we say grace at every meal, why Orthodox cross themselves before eating or drinking anything: everything is a gift from God. This is why we feed the poor, too: God's gifts are not private property, but are rather intended to be lavishly given around. This is why the stories of the saints are filled with people who shared their last crust of bread with someone who had none - not because of some social reconstruction of society but because the things you have are gifts from God intended for your salvation and the salvation of those around you.
More...

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Transitional

ONEY IS NO object (or at least pretend that is so). You are an expert Mac user and I am not. (No pretending there.) What do I need to know, what software do I need, what tricks/websites/hacks would you in your wisdom pass on to me? No, you don't need to know what I want to do in the long run, b/c I don't know. I may very well not care about the latest release of the Medical Software from MacPractice but someone may.

Feel free to blog on my blog (except for Windows users who want me to switch back): I want to be enlightened.

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VBlog

HAVE NET-related guilty pleasures, sort of like my attachment to butter-pecan malteds, but without the lactose intolerance issues. Most of my guilty pleasures are rather like basil's blog meaning that unlike, say, the The Onion Dome, they make me laugh. I'm rather non-partisan in my GP surfing: I'll click on most anything once.

Today I'd like to send you over to Rocketboom. Amanda's all kinds of cool. A little odd, slightly risque (and yesterday's post was vulgar: you've been warned) and very blue state (she reminds viewers rather well that in addition to picking Hitler and Stalin as men of the year in the last century, Time is off to a good start with Dubya). She is also very beautiful.

It's a video blog. It uses Quicktime, and a lot of bandwidth. I tried last night at work - couldn't even get half of one post down. Don't go there if you are narrowbanding the net: there is no text.

I laughed. I cried. It became a part of me.

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Helloooooooo!

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How He appeared to the disciples on the shore of the lake and addressed them: Children (John XXIv);
2. How He filled their nets again with fish and they knew Him, though none dared ask: Who art Thou? (John XXIxii).

Contemplation for 14 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

F THE SCENE in the garden with Mary is touching, if the scene in the sealed room with Thomas is gory, this scene is spooky. I have a vivid imagination of this text, lakeside in the early morning sunrise. Edenic. The light just so on the cypress, the crisp air of morning, the white robes, the stillness and the bird cries. The lake waves washing on shore, the oars and prows breaking the water. A cry... Do you have any meat, Children?

That the Creator of All the Universe would address us as such shows us he is, first of all, Our Loving Lord, our Elder Brother and our Teacher. But what puzzles me so much is that the disciples - even after seeing Him - still don't recognize Him nor expect Him.

That's where we all are, I think. Our Lord comes to us quietly and with great authority: if we are lucky we see Him.

My sins cover Him up: No matter how often I've met Him at the Holy Doors, I love to make true the line from Psalm IXxi "For he said in his heart: God hath forgotten; He hath turned away His face, that He might not see unto the end." God comes unexpectedly because I've pretended he's not there in order that I might continue to sin - and at least pretend to enjoy it, because otherwise, aware of God's presence, how could I sin?

Many people apostatise from the Church failing to see Jesus, but only seeing what the evil one has thrown up for them: stumbling blocks made of their brothers in Christ. No matter how often Christ has come to them between the Holy Doors in the Mysteries, He is unexpected and they walk away following the false Christ they create in their hearts. They, too, say in their hearts "God hath forgotten... that He might not see unto the end." But they say this, as it were, silently - without even realising they say it. As the Chief of Sinners, I say it out loud to myself near daily, and assent willingly.

Still, God comes calling for His Children. And He offers them what they lack.

Peter leaps out of the boat having been forgiven his sins. Adam hid. Knowing no fear, Peter performs no miracles, only gets wet and maybe splashes Our Lord as he runs up on the shore. Adam hid in fear.

But am I like Adam or like Peter?

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What colour was the first horse?

T HIS IS discomforting (via Yahoo! News):

Scientists around the world were scrambling to prevent the possibility of a pandemic after a nearly 50-year-old killer influenza virus was sent to thousands of labs...

All the science in the world doesn't prevent us from being, basically, idiots who can't be trusted with pet rocks, let alone medicine more advanced than blood-sucking slugs.

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My Lord and My God

Contemplate the resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How, because of Thomas, who was momentarily the only unbelieving one among the disciples, He appeared again in His glorified body;
2. How Thomas placed his finger into the wounds of the all-pure body of the Lord and believed.

Contemplation for 13 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

THOMAS IS ALWAYS CALLED "Doubting Thomas" which is strange because only here and for a moment does he show that emotion. Having seen the Risen Lord, he marches to his martyrdom. According to the GOA website,

The name Thomas means, "twin." He was one of the Twelve, a Galilean by birth. Sophroneus (not the famous Patriarch of Jerusalem [7th Century, celebrated March 11], but a friend of Jerome's), quoted also by Jerome, says that Saint Thomas preached to the Parthians, Pesians, Medes, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and neighbouring nations. According to Heracleon, the Apostle died a natural death; according to other accounts, he was martyred at Meliapur His tomb was known by Saint John Chrysostom to be at Edessa in Syria, to which city his holy relics may have been translated from India in the fourth century.

So, it sounds like there was one moment of doubt followed by a lifetime of activity.

To remind us of yestreday's meditation - one doesn't preach "to the Parthians, Pesians, Medes, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and neighbouring nations" based on fond memories of the dead guy. In fact, were that the case, rather than "doubting" I'd say "dopy".

Now, yes, the world does laugh at the disciples - and yes, most folks thing they're insane. But here's the point: to go from a group of 12 dopy men in dusty back-roads Judea and Galilee to a world-wide religion in 100 years with no swords, no money and no sense of nationalism (all of which, for example, the Mohammedans had) ... that faithfulness and growth shows either divine grace or demonic insanity.

The thing is we have to pick which one it was and decide to live our lives accordingly. It may be called to preach "to the Parthians, Pesians, Medes, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and neighbouring nations". But be it that or not it will always be a martyrdom - be that a "white" martyrdom, living our life dead to the world around us, or a "red" one dyed in the very blood of our faith - life in the living Christ is ever a living death - a martyrdom of Bright Sadness. That is the meaning of Thomas' cry: "My Lord and my God." Here is the very Living Life so much pouring forth that all else - even the very commands of that Life Himself - require death.

How do you want to die today?

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Petrol-pocalypse

A PIECE of bread could buy a bag of gold", runs a line in Larry Norman's old rapture song, I wish we'd all been ready.

The line is following on Apocalypse VIvi:

Then I heard something like a voice among the four living creatures say, "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine!"

If my memory is any good, the "penny" in the text refers to a denarius - that is a day's wages.

It is interesting, I think, that the verse discusses the rider of the black horse - always understood as famine. First there is war (the red horse) then famine. But the text doesn't say anything about war and famine: the red horse's rider is given the power to take peace from all the earth. The rider of the black horse is give the power to up the price of food.

A black horse...

The cost of gas in San Francisco is currently $2.99 for a gallon of regular. The national average is $2.28. I know this is nothing compared to Europe where you can pay $5.00 for a Litre of the stuff (ie $10 a gal) but prices in Europe are held aloft by a hard tax structure. Prices here are held down by that same gov't interference.

What will become of the price of bread - or milk, or houses or books or whatever - when the cost of gas on the national average has gone so far up as to be rather European?

The image of a man riding a black horse and thus raising prices make rather a bit more sense.

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locked up

Contemplate the Resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How He entered among His disciples through closed doors and gave them peace;
2. How there were no material obstacles to His appearing in His glorified body wherever He wanted.

Contemplation for 12 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

WHY ARE THE doors locked? For fear "of the Jews" says the scripture. Nowadays that is not a fear we suffer (save Palestinian Christians living in the Holy Land). But what fears do we have that keep the doors locked?

Our sins, our pasts, our neighbours, our coworkers, our jobs. Our Blogs? Our fame, our infamy. Our fun? Our Friends? Our position as ecumenists, as scientists, as writers, as lovers, as partyers? Our hobbies. Afraid of losing any of them we lock the doors and keep Jesus out.

But Our Lord comes anyway.

What do we do?

The easy thing is despair. It is harder to give all our worldly and private and cultural loves and hates to Christ. That is the place where our offerings can be transubstantiated... Where we can kneel with Thomas and say, "My Lord and my God."

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New Hardware

Point of fact: I don't know diddly about iPhoto yet, but I was able to crop the file and resize it :-)

[2] comments (544 views) |  link

The Chief of Romeos

Contemplate the Resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How Simon Peter and the other disciple ran quickly to the tomb to confirm the news of the Resurrection;
2. How one after the other entered the tomb and saw the linen clothes and the napkin;
3. How they both saw and believed, and then witnessed; and how, for their witness, they died.

Contemplation for 11 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

F ORGIVE THE lateness of this posting. I've been thinking about this since late last night when I fell asleep watching Baz Lurhmann's Romeo+Juliet.

Peter and John run to the tomb. They find it empty. Later they see the Risen Lord in person. Giving up everything they have ever known, they become messengers of the Good News. They die for their faith.

More...

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Memory Eternal!

A RCHBISHOP IAKOVOS has reposed in the Lord at the age of 93. As leader of the GOA he was what Theodosius was to the OCA and Philip to the AOA. Yet as the news item noted, "He was apparently forced out over his support for the idea of uniting the various Eastern Orthodox branches in a single American church."

May his memory be eternal and may he pray for us to be united.

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Blogging from a Mac

F OLLOWING the advent, a year ago or so, of pMpost, I knew I wanted to use a mac for my blogging. Lo, here I am, using a Mac for my blogging. How cool is that?

With the help of Todd, I've spent a portion of my day transferring files and learning about things like internet connexion sharing via Airport cards (this is especially useful at work where we have only a dialup service), building computer-to-PC net works and finding things like ftp. I've also utilized three of my Mac Lifelines - calling the expert, polling the audience and taking a wild guess.

Oddly enough all sorts and conditions of things have worked with nary a glitch - and even in several places where we expected a glitch, it was fine. Mind you, I still don't know how to FTP. But then ok. I can live.

All-in-all this has been a good experience: even the call to my dial up ISP - where I discovered that nearly *no* tech support exists on any ISP for macs - was a real learning experience.

I've got a weekend ahead of me following Liturgy in the AM, and I'm looking forward to (mac)Geeking out.

Thanks to everyone for your encouragement! Pictures forthcoming.

[5] comments (490 views) |  link

A respite

Contemplate the Resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How He appeared to two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they did not recognise Him;
2. How the hearts of these two disciples burned within them when He spoke to them, and how they recognised Him noly when He blessed and broke bread for them;
3. How the Lord suddenly disappeared before their eyes.

Contemplation for 10 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

B E PRESENT with us, as Thou wert with Thy disciples and be known to us in the Breaking of the Bread. So runs a prayer that I remember from my Anglican days. As in yestreday's meditation, so in today's, Christ's presence is hidden, even though He is standing before His disciples. They can not see Him for all their grief. Yet even then "their hearts burn" and, like the wind that blows where it will, they feel His touch - not yet knowing from whence it comes.

I love the Orthros Gospel that tells this story. The Road to Emmaus is very much the road for all of us. We walk, covered in our grief or our joys, or just our boredom, moving from our past to what we think of as our destination - home or work or just the next point on the road. And somehow we are "contacted" - God reaches us even if we can not yet define Him as our goal.

I found an old photograph of myself with some friends. We were at a place that I wouldn't go to now. Standing around smiling. The younger me there would never imagine where I am now - let alone imagine that he would be me writing this. Yet, if you look closely, around my left wrist you'll see a prayer rope. At that time it was just a thing, you know. It was a toy, if you'll pardon the word, in my "exploring spirituality". But God is more faithful than that: and he takes what little we have and gives more.

In the middle of Lent, when things of devotion become rote, the Church in her wisdom has given us the Gospel today as the lesson that some demons can only be cast out with prayer and fasting. We get tired: the struggle is hard, the road is long, the jihad takes its toll on even the daily functions of life. But that little, that tiny bit we have to offer is enough - not to finally undo our hold on sin, but rather to draw us closer. We don't seek a victory that can be won right here and right now: rather we seek to press on towards the goal. And in the pressing on - grief stricken, ladened with passions, Christ comes to us in the breaking of the bread.

Our hearts are set afire again, thanks be to God who giveth us the victory in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Due Date

A CCORDING to the shipment tracking software, the Mac is on the truck, out for delivery as of 0730 today. I'd love to say the excitement is killing me and I'm walking the floor, but I just walked in after my 3rd shift... we've church tonight... and then another 3rd shift. Begging the suffering of all and sundry, I'm going to bed. (There's a note on the door inviting the FedEx man to wake me up.)

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Not playing well with others.

T HE MISSION of the Orthodox Church, as the authentic Church of the New Testament, is to make our country an Orthodox nation.

I found the above words on the Antiochian Website. I thought it worth the blog. (Found on the page of the Western Rite folks... with a typo no less.)

[4] comments (483 views) |  link

In grief.

Contemplate the Resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. How he appeared to Mary Magdalene in the Garden and, at first glance, Mary did not recognise Him;
2. How He tenderheartedly addressed Mary, and how Mary then recognised Him and rejoiced in Him, and imparted her joy to the disciples.

Contemplation for 9 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

T HE SCENE in the garden is one of the most tender in all of scripture. Our Lord in His love for us calling out to us. The faithful disciple, destroyed, mourning, unable to see the Truth. Our Lord in His love calling out again...

God calls to us over and over: until we see Him before us, despite our sadness, despite our grief.

Lent is hard: all the best intentions of the Publican turn into the prayers of the Pharisee overnight. Fasting turns into a diet as we stop eating meat and begin eating each other. Grief and despair are born when we see it happening: when we realise that, before the cock crows on the day of Crucifixion we have denied Him repeatedly.

Yet there He is, standing before us, to comfort us and remind us of His love.

If we will only open our eyes.

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Take me to your leader.

H ATE TO BE a party pooper (well, not really) but in the recent kadoo about the passing of the Pope one thing was made very very clear: Roman Catholicism has a leader - one man who runs the show and, hint, it's not Jesus. This is one of the major differences between Roman Catholicism and the Church. In fact, this is one thing a convert from Roman Catholicism has to promise, coming into the Church:

Dost thou renounce the erroneous belief that it doth not suffice to confess our Lord Jesus Christ as the head of the Universal Church; and that a man, to wit, the Bishop of Rome, can be the head of Christ's Body, that is to say, of the whole Church?

Often the secular media try to project the "Roman Model" on the Orthodox Church in referring to the EP as "our leader" - and we just kind of shrug and know they got it wrong - but in these last few days it became very evident that the Pope of Rome really is the leader of the Romans. The night of his repose Fox mentioned the "Pope's followers worldwide". I'm certain they know themselves to be followers of Jesus - but no one Roman layman or theologian told the media otherwise. These last few days it's been nearly cult like.

Finally, this AM on EWTN I heard otherwise: a woman called in to ask if, since the Holy Father was certainly in Heaven, would all the prayers and masses being offered be "credited to the souls in purgatory". (There's an inter-religious dialogue waiting to happen!) The priest hosting the show corrected the caller by offering for the first and only time since the Pope's passing the official church teaching that we can't know: we pray for the dead because they need our prayers and John Paul, no more nor no less than the rest of us, was a sinner who, having died, needs our prayers. I felt like calling in to the show and giving the priest a hug for his sanity.

Yes, the Church is rather like a large, sadly dysfunctional family. At some times it is even more sadly dysfunctional than at others. In America it tops the big old dysfunctional cake with sparklers and lets showgirls jump out of it in celebration of our madness. But we don't have a leader. (One is tempted to cite the Monty Python Sketch ending "Help! Help, I'm being oppressed." One puts the temptation aside.)

When Rome returns to the Church and the Patriarch of Rome become, again, primus inter pares among the Patriarchs who have maintained the Catholic Faith for these centuries it will be a glorious day. But, Fr J's post aside, there's a lot of deprogramming that will have to be done among the rank and file before that day will ever really happen.

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Appalachian spring

T HE SNOW came for possibly the last time this past weekend and decked out the mountain sides in white while still leaving the valleys in their early spring. When the snow melts the Mountains are brown until the sun hits them just right and suddenly there is a green haze generated by millions of buds on twig tips: tiny points of green otherwise lost in the grey of a spring rain. The warm air is muggy at times - and at other times so moist as to chill one to the bone.

The town has filled up with flowers - daffodils and forsythia and crocuses and clover. Dogwood hasn't yet begun to bloom as, of course, nature uses the Orthodox paschalion and it's not time for it. The air is filled with the light scent of bradford pears.

I can tell it's spring even in the dark by the number of bugs that try to fly into my mouth as I ride Traveller around.

Yesterday and today I've slept with the window open. The songbirds are deafening. The fan was on today.

Tis a gift to be simple
tis a gift to be free
tis a gift to come down
where we ought to be

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But, well.... HOW?

Contemplate the Resurrected Lord Jesus:

1. In an earthly body before the Resurrection, in a body susceptible to hunger, pain and death;
2. In a heavenly body after the Resurrection, in a body not susceptible to hunger, pain and death.

Contemplation for 8 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

A HOMILY ON the resurrection of the dead:

But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? I Corinthians XVxxxv

The Apostle Paul knows in advance the objections that the unbelievers will make concerning the resurrection from the dead, and he rejects them in advance. Even today, the non-believers - who have not seen with physical eyes the miracle of the resurrection in nature, much less the spiritual resurrection - ask: "How will the dead be raised?" Thou fool! continues the Apostle, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die (I Corinthians XVxxxvi). Unless the seed dies in the ground, the plant will not grow; in other words, something totally different from the seed will sprout up. THe unbelievers see through their eyes yet do not see, but ask: "How will a dead man resurrect?" How? In the same way that Christ resurrected. He went down lifeless into the tomb, and rose alive. Even nature manifests resurrection from the dead; but more strongly than nature, it is manifested by the resurrected Lord. In order to make it easier for us to believe and to home - to believe in the resurrection in general and to have home in our own resurrection - He Himself resurrected from the grave and, prior to that, resurrected Lazarus the four-days-dead, the son of the window of Nain, and the daughter of Jairus.

The Unbelievers ask: "With what kind of body will the dead rise?" In whatever kind of body God wills. With God there are many kinds of bodies. The Apostle Paul divides all bodies into two groups: earthly bodies and heavenly bodies. Therefore, they who have died in earthly bodies will be clothed with heavenly bodies: the incorruptible will replace the corruptible; the immortal will replace the mortal; the beautiful will replace the ugly. In the heavenly body, man will also recognise himself and others around him, just as man recognises himself when he is clothed in beggar's rags and when he is clothed in royal purple.

Lord, Most-rich, do not give us over to eternal corruption but clothe us as royal sons in the garment of immortality.

To Thee be glory and praise forever.

Amen.

Homily for 8 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)

Note: forgive the lack of "creativity" on my part in today's Contemplation. But St Nikolai's Homily for today seemed a perfect reply to the points in his contemplation.

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S'praznikum!

T he Feast of St Tikhon, the Enlightener of America.

Having taught the True Faith to the Americas, he was elected Patriarch of Russia where he served during the Communist Revolution and the beginings of their persecutions of the Church. The following quote from him is as valid a command for us today when our enemy is even more vicious.

Devote all your energy to preaching the word of God and the truth of Christ, especially today, when unbelief and atheism are audaciously attacking the Church of Christ. May the God of peace and love be with all of you!

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Tabloids...

N ORMALLY, the New York Post wins in the Headlines Category. But in the unemployed absence of the Blogosphere's #1 Headline Writer their "Stuff" has gone downhill. And nothing - and I mean nothing - will ever top the legendary Headless Body Found in Topless Bar except for the pulled-because-it-offended-the-hispanics front page about the death of two Puerto Rican children in the Bronx Zoo: The Polarbear Who Liked Salsa. (It was pulled so fast that not even my fraternity brother at the City Desk could get me a copy of it...)

Still, this'un from the NY Daily News is quite the stopper.

Hog-tied corpse horror

New York New York, the city so nice they named it twice.

If you like this sort of news - and I do, in text then may I suggest a new website: Sploid. It's news with a decidely NY Post Twist.

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Pearl Casting

Contemplate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus:

1. How the Myrrh-Bearing Women, with myrrh and aloes, approached the tomb to anoint the One Who is the sweet-smelling savor of heaven and earth;
2. How the angel announces the Resurrection of Our Lord to them wit the Words: Why seek ye the living among the dead? (Luke 24:5).

Contemplation for 7 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

T HE HOLY Myrrh-Bearers, of course, went to the tomb expecting to anoint a dead body. Yes, Our Lord had told them to expect His Rising, but I think, given the situation, it is understandable they went to the tomb. They are greeted with a joyful message that should echo as joy through the ages: Why seek ye the living among the dead?. But it comes as reproach to us here - joy has turned to our shame. Indeed we need often to be pointed at and mocked for our constant repetition. Indeed, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

We turn to the bones buried in the earth instead of seeking out answers from God - Why seek ye the living among the dead? We place Christ among the "good men" of the past as a "great teacher" that need not offend anyone. Why seek ye the living among the dead? We turn again and again to our own willfulness and try to box Christ into a pattern like ourselves. Why seek ye the living among the dead?

Instead of being like the Myrrh-Bearing Women who. coming to honour the dead, found Him Alive - we seek rather to once again entomb Christ for, by our lights, He's better off dead. Instead of seeking to follow the Living Voices of Christ and His Saints, we seek rather to stultify the Church by cross breeding her with the philosophies of "good men" from our history - politics, "science", economics, "psychology", Women's Lib, gay rights, pop music - forgetting the morality or heresy for a moment, it matters not what it is but if it's popular or faddish, someone will try to weave it into the fabric of the Church. Why seek ye the living among the dead?

Equally we seek to enshrine as holy sacred customs of "the motherland" that none of us have ever visited or lived in - trying to make ourselves Greek instead of Christian - or else we seek to change the rules of our faith to allow our own, unorthodox culture to be treated as equal along side those ancient traditions that arose among the faithful in Orthodox lands, thus trying to make the Church "American" instead of making America Christian. Why seek ye the living among the dead?

"But thanks be to God Who givest us the victory in Our Lord Jesus Christ": for we can rest assured that, like it or not, Jesus will shine "brighter than all our faded joy and crowns." The living will out from among the dead, to call to us and beg us to rise with Him. The question is, Will there be anything left living within my heart to reply?.

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Getting Out Just in Time

S EEMS THAT Big Brother Microsoft has decided that I can no longer say "no" to its "security" update, SP2. Oddly enough it was the "features" of SP2 that first caused me to opt for a new computer and OS. Now, with that new computer only a couple of days away, thanks be to God, I'm reading that...

(on) April 12, Microsoft will discontinue a feature that allows users to block the downloading of its Service Pack 2 (SP2) security update for Windows XP. Microsoft's Service Pack 2 released last September to bolster Windows XP security features will be considered a critical upgrade by the company.

You know, every friend I know who has installed SP2 - coworkers, family, etc - has had bad luck with it. Now, starting 12 April, MS is going to force it on you all.

Good luck.

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I miss my cat

I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat.

No. Really. I miss my cat.

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It only seems so

Contemplate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus:

1. How the stone on the tomb did not split, neither was the seal on it broken;
2. How the All-powerful and meek Lord did not damage the tomb during His Resurrection, as the Virgin's womb was not harmed in His birth.

Contemplation for 6 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

O UR LORD rose from the tomb without braking the seal that had been set. His body was no longer a prisoner held by time and space. He could appear through locked doors and sealed rooms. He left the tomb intact, as it had been. From the outside nothing had changed. But on the inside, everything had changed.

So it was with Our Lord's miraculous conception and birth. He passed into the Mother's womb without violating it and so passed out of it again, as our Church teaches (despite what a certain former dean of a modernist seminary opines), with the Mother not feeling pain or corruption. From the outside, nothing has changed. From the inside everything has changed.

All of the Mysteries are like this. Communion still looks like bread and wine. Even though we don't define it down to the Nth degree of the Romans, we do believe in Transubstantiation some of our theologians even use the very word: the bread and the wine only look like bread and wine - they are the actual Body and Blood of Christ. Outside, nothing changed. Only inside. Confession - only on the inside. Matrimony - the real valid changes happen on the inside: the same is true in Holy Orders.

God willing I will witness a baptism at our parish one Lazarus Saturday. (It's currently Marked on our Schedule of Services for the month of April.) Once again, from the outside, nothing will have changed.

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Who read blogs?

I F I say "I'm letting this pass without comment" does that mean I'm making a comment?

The survey found that gay people read blogs more often than their non-gay counterparts, with 27% of GLB adults frequently or occasionally seek out blogs versus 18% of heterosexual adults, and only 44% of GLB adults stating that they never read blogs as compared to 59% of heterosexual adults.

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Guarded by their Array

Contemplate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus:

1. How the earth quaked at His return to the body, as it had at His separation from the body;
2. How the angels descended into the tomb to serve Him, as they always served Him when He allowed them to do so.

Contemplation for 5 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

A S ABOVE so below runs a line from the Emerald Tablet that medieval occultists ascribed to the Greek's Hermes. It's a truth they stole from the Christians, of course. Our Lord is often described with the words "He became as we are that we may become as He is." As above, so below. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As above so below: it's not a true statement because of the fall, but rather we pray it may be made true. And here, in this contemplation, we see again how Our Lord is fully man - and yet more than man. What is true of Our Lord is, also, to a degree true of us.

Both the separation and the return of Our Lord's spirit to His body is announced by an earthquake. This is because the separation of the soul from the body is not natural.

I had an on-going discussion with an Episcopal seminarian (with whom i used to work - this was 10 or 15 years ago) about the unnaturalness of death. Death isn't what God would have for us - "Life and more abundantly" is the plan, but because of our sin, death - the dissolution of the unity between spirit and body - is our fate. God weeps when He sees this in His friends.

It is natural that when the Spirit of Christ is torn from His own body at His own death, that all creation should shudder.

But now, when He returns - when all of creation has changed, when death is no more something to be feared, when life is not ended but only changed: now we fall asleep. Hades is empty. The earth quakes again. St Matthew records that many of the dead saints appeared from their graves, walking around Jerusalem after His Resurrection.

As above so below... I love the image of the Angels ministering to Our Lord "as they always served Him when He allowed them to do so." I note in the sentence much about Our Lord's deep humility, and about His unwillingness to get an "unfair advantage" over those of us who live on this world, nor to, as he noted to the evil one, "tempt the Lord your God." Yet again, As above so below - our lives are surrounded by Angels as Elisha knew: "They that are with us are more than they that are with them." (IV Kings VIxvi)

Like Our Lord, however, they only minister to us when we let them. But lo, we don't often let them - for our sins, our pride, our willfulness to do it alone, our willingness to listen rather to the thoughts of the evil one rather than our Guardian Angels. How many times I've heard my Guardian Angel and I've said, "Shut up! I want to do this now..." where "this" is in fact some sinful thing.

But when we let them, they are there, protecting, guarding us and guiding us to the unity of the faith as the liturgy of the hours says, and to the knowledge of God's unapproachable glory.

The return of Our Lord to His body opens the say for all of that: He restores in Himself the fullness of creation and for those who are in Him, the creation is restored.

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We like the boom.

I T MAY COME as a huge shock.... but I love electronic music - rave, trance, house, ambient, Walter Wendy Carlos... I love it all - and can listen to most of it without stoping for hours on end. It all stems, I think, from the fact that I was the only student who could program and play the Moog Sonic Six in Jr High School. (I got to solo the thing in the 8th grade because I could make it sound like Star Wars lasers during the band concert.) Anyway I was looking for sample tracks of this style of Electronica called "Onkyo" from Japan (don't ask, I can't find out a thing) when I stumbled across a website called Electromancer - free unsigned MP3s to download (or listen to online) all sorted by genre. Woots: it's awesome!

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And so it begins

J PII has not even entered into the crypt below St Peter's, yet the media began to encourage people who have departed from Rome's teaching to voice their opposition to her right after his death. Today, the obvious "democratic" critique of anything we dislike or fail to understand: a poll

WASHINGTON - Most Americans -- Catholics and non-Catholics alike -- want the next pope to allow priests to marry and women to join the priesthood, a major break from church rules and the judgment of Pope John Paul II, according to an Associated Press poll.

As if majority rule should have anything to do with any religion other than the evil one. Look at what good it's done protestantism.

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Fasting - Corn Bread

• 2 Cups Self-rising Cornmeal
  
• 1 Cup Self-rising flour
  
• 3 tsp pepper
  
• 1.5 tsp of egg replacer powder
  
• 1 tsp salt
  
  
• 2 Cups minus 2 Tbl soy milk
  
• 2 Tbl white vinegar
  
  
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  

More...

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WOOTS

M Y MAC just shipped!

Update: What in Taur-nu-fuin to do you mean I have to wait until the 9th?!?!?!?! Now, sweetie. Now!

I'm better now. I can wait.

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Fasting - Sweet and Sour Seitan

1 lb Seitan cut into bite-sized bits
1 can Contadina or LaChoy Sweet and Sour Sauce
1 small onion cut in a large dice
1 green pepper cut in a large dice
1 1/4 cup water
1 cup Bisquick
3 tsp egg replacer powder
1 tsp salt

Canola or Vegetable Oil for frying. Steamed rice for serving.

More...

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Habbemus Arinze!

A S SILLY as it sounds, I have a fave in the College of Cardinals: Francis Cardinal Arinze - and I heard something about him on Fox which only furthers my respect for him.

When, in May of 2003, the Cardinal spoke at Georgetown - a Catholic university, mind you, run by the Jesuits - he managed to cause a protest by "offended" faculty and students when he taught Catholic doctrine on sex, sexuality and the family. (See here and here). For that alone - offending American Liberals - I think he should be made Pope, but that he did it (and continues to do it) while being a "PC Icon" (An African Man in charge of interreligious dialogue) only furthers the cry.

From the secular side, the Romans could use the boost in Africa - there are Orthodox Christians and Prot groups as well as African Tribal Religions and Muslims trying to get people to join their faiths. An African Pope would be quite the feather in the bonnet for Rome.

Which brings me to the new thing I heard on Fox. It seems that Cardinal was born pagan. He left his idolatry of his own will, hearing the teachings of Rome. In and of itself, this seems to me to be amazing. That means he would be able to sit down to "interreligious dialogue" without the least confusion about "we all teach the same thing" because he knows there is light and dark in the world. BeliefNet reports that

Born into Nigeria's proud Ibo tribe, Arinze became a Christian at age 9. He was baptized by his mentor and teacher, the Rev. Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi, an Irish missionary who later became Nigeria's first candidate for sainthood... The young Arinze's decision disappointed his parents, practitioners of the traditional animist religion of the area. But they had made the decision to send him to Catholic schools and accepted his decision to convert. Later, in 1958, after their son was ordained a priest, they, too, became Catholics.

Finally, an African Pope would be a powerful draw here in the US where social conservatives yet fiscal liberals among the African American Community may be drawn into the Roman Church because it, too, is (John Kerry aside) Socially Conservative and Fiscally Liberal. All those conservative African Americans could get liberated from the Feminist and Gay-Rights lobbies by making common cause with the other really oppressed humans in this country: Christians and the Unborn.

I don't know if Arinze would lead Rome back to a restoration of her unity with the Church. I don't know if - as some speculate - he's "not really conservative but just showing off for his boss" (ie, JPII, of blessed memory). But still, he's got cojones - even in his interfaith dialogue he's teaches Sola Christe.

No, I'd not become Roman Catholic just because of Arinze becomeing Pope, but I can imagine that it would be Good News nonetheless.

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Something Else...

Contemplate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus:

1. How His soul returned again from hades into His body;
2. How He, through His divine power, by which He had resurrected other dead bodies, resurrected His own body.

Contemplation for 4 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

By way of intro, excuse the lack of posting yesterday. I left work at 8AM after working 12 days in a row with only one day off (which isn't really 12 days in a row, I know, but it was exhausting, nonetheless).

I LOVE Holy Cross Sunday (which was yesterday). Yes, the service is great, the veneration of the Cross is wonderful. But suddenly the Hymns take this sharp turn from repentance as the main theme to Pascha Victory as the Main Theme. St Nikolai's contemplations follow this year by coincidentally making the transition from "Jesus in Hades" to "Resurrection of Jesus" at this time of Holy Cross.

We are reminded, right up front, that Jesus is God.

I think my view of the Resurrection tends to be "automatic". Rather like a toaster or the prot hymn "Up from the Grave He Arose (He Arose)". It's kinda like Dead Jesus. POP! Live Jesus.

The Church reminds us that Jesus is God. That He may have been in the grave, bodily, but He is still God. He is still active and very much Alive. He enters hades and frees Adam and Eve and the Other Righteous Ones. He binds the enemy "for a thousand years". He opens the portals to paradise. And when He is done - and not until so - He returns to His Body and raises that as well.

It's Lent. Look at my sins. I wrestle with sin. I fail daily. I attempt my prayer rule. I fail daily. I try to be just a littl ebit more human, I fail daily. It can bring about despair, I admit. I stumble and fall so many times that i wonder if I really need to, ever, take a bath or wash my clothes. Mud is such a good colour on me. More importantly, it's Lent. Look at my sins. Lent can be a time, because I'm human, when, sadly I focus more on me than ever.

But the Church knows I can't hold that focus for very long. Yes, I need to see it often - daily even - but to make it my 100% focus is, well... dangerous.

So there are other things, too. Things to celebrate. God, in His Justice is also Merciful. There is nothing I can do to earn God's favour and that includes even confessing my sins. My struggle to win my salvation is not to "make my self get into heaven easier" but, really, to make myself want to be there when I get there: if I don't want to be there, it will be hell, otherwise.

So we turn a corner. By your prayers and God's mercy, I continue to struggle against my sins. But there is, for creatures trapped in time, another way for us to focus now as well.

Thanks be to God.

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Dear Bill

Y OU KNOW, I've been a faithful customer for quite some time. I loved 3.1 because it was fun to work with. I didn't sign up for Win95, but that was wise because Win98 kicked butt. WinXP, Win2K... I enjoyed all of these. Yes, they were glitchy, but hey, what isn't?

But you know, despite my faithfulness, you never trusted me. You constantly accused me of stealing your software. You worried that I was stealing documents and email. You made a security net that checked up on me nearly constantly - but let in hackers and virii at every turn. You never once sent me a note saying "we're sorry we made such a mess..." while any time I turned around you wanted to charge me $400 for some new software that wasn't backward compatible. You demanded I spend a lot of time in dial up downloading really urgent security updates - that only opened up more holes. DRM...

And we won't even talk about that ad that took the crosses off the Orthodox Churches of Moscow.

So, enough is enough. Tonight, just after midnight, I sat me down and ordered myself one of these. Gonna have to wait for a little while to order the iSight and the iWork (I'm guessing only another month given the amount of overtime i've wracked up). But there will be no more "MSOffice" and there will be no more Outlook and, thank God, no more IE.

Yes, I know any change takes getting used to. Yes, I know you won't even notice I'm gone. Yes, I know it's been a while coming, but, you know, it's time to make the switch. I'm looking forward to being just a little happier with my hardware and my software.

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Consumatus Est

Contemplate the Lord Jesus in hades:

1. How He descended into hades with great power, at which hades trembled;
2. How the evil spirits, who were then lords of hades, fled before His face;
3. How the souls of the righteous ancestors and prophets overwhelmingly rejoiced at His coming.

Contemplation for 3 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

K EITH Green - The Victor

Swallowed into Earth's dark womb,
Death has triumphed, that's what they say,
But try to hold Him in the tomb,
The Son of Life, rose on the third day.

Just look, the gates of hell, they're falling,
Crumbling from the inside out,
He's bursting through the walls with laughter,
Listen to the Angels shout!
It is finished, He has done it,
Life conquered death, Jesus Christ, has won it!

His plan of battle, you know, it fooled them all,
They led Him off to prison to die,
But as He entered Hades Hall,
He broke those hellish chains with a cry.
Just listen to those demons screaming,
See Him bruise the serpent's head,
The prisoners of Hell, He's redeeming,
All the power of death is dead!

It is finished, He has done it,
Life conquered death, Jesus Christ, has won it!
Just look, the gates of hell, they're falling,
Crumbling from the inside out,
He's bursting through the walls with laughter,
Listen to the Angels shout!
It is finished, He has done it,
Life conquered death, Jesus Christ, has won it!

(I blog this song at least once a year... forgive me, but it is one of the most poweful contemporary meditations on Christus Victor I know.)

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Life in the Mountains

T HE LOCAL Weather via Yahoo!:

Tonight: Windy with rain showers early then precipitation changing to a mix of rain and snow overnight. Low around 35F. Winds NW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of precip 80%. Winds could occasionally gust over 50 mph.

Tomorrow: Sunny and windy. High around 60F. Winds NW at 20 to 30 mph.

Tomorrow night: Clear skies. Low 39F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.

Monday: Mainly sunny. High 68F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.

Tuesday: Partly cloudy. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the upper 40s.

There will be snow on Saturday and it will be in the low seventies by Tuesday. That is life in the Mountains in the Spring. We're going through quite the cold snap just now. It's been warmish most of the winter (barring a few sudden snowstorms in the driveways of coworkers just as they were due to come to work). But suddenly, riding Traveller this AM it was biting cold - in fact it felt colder than it had been on the scooter at all this winter - although the windchill was aggravated by the humidity, I'm sure.

It's my last work day in a long cycle: 12 days with only one day off. I calculated something like 30 hours overtime last week. It will be a nice paycheck. This weather probably means some more unpredicted snow storms in the driveways of coworkers, however - most likely the last one of the season.

Despite my comments to friends earlier today, it's too early for either of those romantic, Southern seasons, Dogwood Winter or Blackberry Winter. This is still just regular ordinary winter.

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Soon to faithful warriors cometh rest

T HE NEWS early this morning was that the Pope had begun losing consciousness. He may well have reposed by the time this is posted, or by the time you are reading it. (Update... He has. May he Rest in Peace!) With his passing and the passing of President Reagan, two of the three warriors of the West against communism have fallen asleep: the third being Lady Thatcher, and, to judge from her appearance at the President's funeral, I don't think we'll have long to wait there either.

The Pope did so much more than devoutly and prayerfully work to end the greatest scourge on humanity in the last century. Others will document more graciously than I his attempts to bring Rome back to communion with the Church as well as his reaching out to the other separated brethren. I can't say much about him other than like the other two world leaders mentioned in this post, for most of their time I was on the wrong side, disagreeing with their every move and policy. Only age shows how wrong I was, how wrong many of my cohort still are.

There are several directions now for Rome. I have my own prayers and hopes and biases, of course, but all things could happen. Here's my Church Geek analysis of the situation.

Not probable but possible (a 3 out of 10): a return to the loosy goosy Catholics of Vatican II. Personally this would be the most disastrous and would undo much of what John Paul II has done. It would please - to know end - the silly witches and lesbians at WyMineChyrch or WemoanChurch or whatever. It would excite people like Jack Spong and sundry American Clergy. It would, however, result in the Roman version of the ECUSA schism: the "Global South" etc, against the US and Europe.

For a 4 out of 10, we have the reverse: a cardinal so conservative as to drive the schism into reality anyway. It would still split the South from the white folks, but it may also cause the Americans at least to join up with their sundered brethren, ECUSA. If you can tell the difference between the theology of a John Kerry and a Jack Spong, I'll toast you soundly at my next dinner party. Or it could be a carbon copy of JPII, but with more cojones: one willing to tell the rainbow sash folks and the Wymyns and the "we want married priests" people where to go sit on some doctrine (sitting on it may be the quickest route to their brains - sitting and spinning may be even faster).

7 out of ten - a short pontificate with a really old replacement that is about like JPII but in his dotage already. Many folks have known no other Pope. Getting them used to the idea that they do, normally die every once in a while may be a good idea. I've lived through three pontificates: Paul VI, JP-I and JP-II Here's for a shout of Habemus Grandpa!

1 out of 10 possibility for my personal favourite: a Pope more conservative and with cojones, who brings back the full tridentine Mass (Latin an option in countries where they speak Latin) and puts the Romans in communion with the Church thus restoring the Roman Pontiff to his place as the Patriarch of the West and primus inter pares among the many Patriarchs (there's far more than the five minus Rome now).

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Encompassing

Contemplate the Lord Jesus in hades:

1. How His plan for salvation is all-abundant, encompassing all generations and all ages from beginning to end;
2. How He came to earth in the flesh, not only for the sake of those who lived on earth then and for the sake of those who would live, but also for those who had already lived;
3. How He, while His lifeless body lay in the tomb, descended into hades with His soul and announce salvation and redemption to the fettered.

Contemplation for 2 April from The Prologue of Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovic (© 2002 Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America)
St Nikolai, Pray to God for us!

A LL-ABUNDANT leaves one without words. Jesus, the Word, leaves one without words. His plan is, in truth, all-encompassing and yet we are free to participate or not. Our freedom is part of the plan.

To some non-Christians this seems to diminish the God that Christians worship. Pagans believe in things called "Destiny" and a "plan" that over-rules all things that man might do. But God, rather, gives us freedom. And yet God comes to us in our arrogance and in our pride as One humble and lowly. So lowly, in fact, that we killed Him not even thinking He was terribly important.

Yet that, too, was part of His plan, known from before time.

All-Adundant. Some would see it as a rushing river or, more to the point, a fire-hose that no one can resist. Once turned on one it knocks one over, pushes one back. It leaves one bruised and battered. Violated.

But rather it is like the ocean - calming, calling, a soothing presence in our dreams, a quiet voice of lapping waves on a summer evening, reminding us that Grace is here for our participation.

The ancient Pagans offered us astrology that we could not escape. The Old Law was rules and regulations that had to be followed - and repayment if they were broken. The modern pagans offer us a sort of combo: a karmic deity with no appeasement. God offers us Love instead. He announces salvation to the fettered: but He won't yank off their chains without their permission.

Those who have (and who still do) follow this other deity are doing so of their own choice, and for their own pride, of course: we who are "chosen" well, hey, ain't we cool. We who have the stars on our side, well, you know, I didn't do anything to get here, but, well. Dig Me!. Those of us with Good Karma didn't do anything in this life... but we'd sure like to say thank you to our past selves.

Any deity that diminishes mankind also diminishes Jesus - who was perfect man. Mankind's freedom if not found in me is not found in Him: all heresy is, at heart, a Christological heresy. To posit karma or the stars or even "God's Will" as over-ruling the gift of God's Freedom given to man is to make some part of Christ's actions a mere charade. If his Perfect Manhood, if His human will was not free to pick, well then, neither an I. But her freely gave His will over to the Father: and so are we called to do - to find our fullest freedom in God.

For these other things - ie to freely reject God - do not result in real freedom, but rather enslavement, addiction, oppression and finally death. These are our available choices. And every action we make is a choice embodied: we are responsible for our choices.

A God who lets us freely choose to "go it alone" or to "go it with Him" may seem too easy, and too much of the universe would be our own fault then. We have to accept the fact that it may not be "God's Will" for "the last tree to be felled" nor for the poor to be poor on our doorstep. We need to accept that our choices have consequences and our lives are lived as free radicals, bouncing around the universe and doing damage - or else doing good. That might be too scary.

Far better to belive in Fate or Karma, Predestination or the Stars.

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