Anam Cara Dei

Sanctifying Words

2011-11-27T19:03:00.000-05:00

About this time every year the cultural war of the words shifts into high gear. Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays square off in the ring of popular vocabulary. The secularizing elements of our culture ever increasingly seek to suppress Christian religious expression from the public sphere and the response has been to counter with buttons, signs, t-shirts and other marketing strategies to encourage Christians not to give in to such secularizing influences. All well and good. But the war on vocabulary is not confined to the Christmas season. It is ongoing and many who call themselves Christians have already unwittingly allowed their speech to be altered by the forces of secular interest, aka, ‘political correctness’.

How many have autonomically adopted the word gay to describe the homosexual condition? This word – gay – by classical definition has nothing whatever to do with the pathology of homosexuality and we do an unloving dis-service to those thus afflicted by describing their condition with a word that makes it sound happy, natural and non-destructive. Of course it is equally un-loving to use derogatory and inflammatory words as well. People are largely drawn to Christ through the example they see and hear in us. Verbal harshness drives away; verbal acquiescence to particular sensitivities sugarcoats reality. Neither are useful.

How many have defiled their faith by adopting the usage of political and ideological metaphors to describe their Christianity? Is it not sufficient to say I am Orthodox or Catholic or Baptist Christian? Must I also entangle it with the metaphors of worldly vanity such as Conservative and Progressive? There is no purpose served in this except to set people at odds with one another.

Let our ‘yes’ be Yes and our ‘no’ be No. Let our Christianity be simply Christian. Let us re-sanctify the cultural vocabulary.

In some ways this can be accomplished through thoughtful response. In other ways through silence. But never through passionate reaction.

As we begin this holy season of Advent let us keep in the silence of our hearts the words of Isaiah the Prophet: “We all are become as unclean, and all our righteousness is like a filthy rag. We fall off like leaves because of our wrongdoings; thus the wind will carry us away. There is no one who calls upon Your name and who remembers to take hold of You (Is. 64:5).

Thus, with our hearts in the proper state of repentance and humility, our efforts to re-sanctify the cultural vocabulary will meet with greater success.

The secular-minded have succeeded in good measure in convincing Christians that the salutation Happy Holidays is less religious, less spiritual than Merry Christmas and somehow makes God absent. This is a deception. For God is “… everywhere present and filling all things.” Plus, the word holiday is simply a combining of the two words holy day in the same way the word Christmas is a combination of the words Christ Mass. In the old English speaking cultures Christians celebrated the Divine Incarnation by attending the Midnight Mass and bid each other a Merry or Happy Christ-Mass because it was a Holy Day.

In our modern culture when so much of our speech is delivered at light speed, we need to slow down, re-orient our thinking and sanctify our words. Not just in this season, but in every season. We must remember to take hold of Him in our hearts and not be afraid to express what that means in our words and actions, no matter the consequences. Thus manifesting the words of Isaiah:

“The fire shall burn up the adversaries, and the Lord’s Name shall be manifest among the adversaries; and the nations shall be troubled by Your Presence” (Is. 64:1).

If God’s Presence, through our words of simple and peaceful greeting, causes His adversaries to be troubled, how much more will His mercy help and console those who wait for Him?

This season, wish everyone you meet a Merry Christ-Mass and a Happy Holy-Day! Re-sanctify the vocabulary and trouble a few of the Lord’s adversaries!

† † †

The Labour of Prayer

2010-10-03T21:15:00.000-04:00

I recently heard an Orthodox priest tell the following story:

One of my parishioners, a businessman, husband and father of 4, came to me and said, "Father, I need your counsel about my prayer life. I keep all the Divine Offices - Lauds before I leave for work, Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours during the day, I pray Vespers with my wife and children in the evening and I get up at 2am to pray the Night Office - what should I do?" I said to him, Pray...for...me.

A cute story of how we priests and monastics who are supposed to be dedicated to prayer can be trumped by exceptionally devout Christian laypeople. Praise God for them!

What this reveals, however, is the stark reality that many of us who fancy to call ourselves monastics, who stroll around in our Habits and secretly can't help but like those subtle nods of the head and smiles from others whom we think are acknowledging our 'holiness'; who are supposed to be not only devoted to prayer but actively disciplined in it as the preeminent labour of our lives, fall very short of the Apostle's injunction to Pray without ceasing.

As Monastics we are not just expected to be people who pray a lot but are supposed to be people who actually know how to pray without ceasing.

But do we?

St. Augustine gives us great insight into this un-ceasing prayer:

The Apostle Paul had a purpose in saying, ‘Pray without ceasing’. Are we then ceaselessly to bend out knees, to lie prostrate, or to lift up our hands? Is this what is meant in saying, ‘Pray without ceasing’? Even if we admit that we pray in this fashion, I do not believe that we can do so all the time.

Yet there is another, interior kind of prayer without ceasing, namely, the desire of the heart. Whatever else you may be doing, if you but fix your desire on God’s Sabbath rest, your prayer will be ceaseless. Therefore, if you wish to pray without ceasing, do not cease to desire. The constancy of your desire will itself be the ceaseless voice of your prayer. And that voice of your prayer will be silent only when your love ceases.

For the desire of your heart is itself your prayer. And if the desire is constant, so is your prayer.

What then does it mean to fix our desire on God’s Sabbath rest?

The Blessed Augustine gives us a further insight:

You have made us for Yourself, O God, and our souls will never rest until they rest in You.

God Himself is our rest. He Himself is the One upon Whom we must fix our desire.

The world we live in is such that it tempts us to desire many things – some good, some bad. And it is always a relatively easy thing to justify our desires by classifying them as ‘needs’. We often say we ‘need’ this or that or the other. But how often, I wonder, do we openly acknowledge to ourselves and to others our need for God? There is an old hymn that goes:

I need Thee, O I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee.

O Bless me now, my Saviour,

I come to Thee.

This should be the un-ceasing hymn sung from our heart’s desire.

But if our desires are identified as needs and our attention fixed solely on earning a living to pay for our housing, our food, our clothing and all the other things that go along with that, we risk making God the source of our prosperity rather than our Rest. I do not mean to diminish the importance of food, housing, clothing and honest work nor our responsibility in relation to that. We cannot sit in front of our icons, chanting psalms to the exclusion of all else. But we must realize – fully realize – that everything we use, possess and consume is given to us freely by God without our having earned it. Once we come to the fullness of this realization our response should be to offer to God that which is most valuable and pleasing to Him, namely, a sacrifice of thanksgiving of our selves and our time.

The character of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy at one point says to Frodo, “It is for us to decide what to do with the time that has been given to us.” Indeed, the usage of time is often one of the most difficult aspects of the spiritual life, especially for those who are by necessity engaged in worldly obligations. Demands on our time can lead to frustration and anxiety when we want to dedicate time to prayer but know we cannot neglect our husband/wife, family, job, etc. But if we make an honest assessment of how we use our time, God will show us where we can find some for Him. And even in the midst of our occupations and obligations, if our hearts and minds are unified in their constant awareness of and desire for His Presence, we will be in a state of prayer.

The end of the Christian life in general and the monastic life in particular is to be transformed, or deified; to become a person of communion, as we were created to be. But transformation cannot take place without a willingness to change. We did not get to the messed up and spiritually dysfunctional state we are in today overnight and we will not be transformed overnight. God works in our lives only in so much as we submit to Him and allow Him to. As C.S. Lewis put it, “He can never ravish, but only woo.” Sometimes, especially when we are at prayer, we are seeking after the ravishment (or in theological terms, the consolation of the Spirit) but we have been oblivious to the Lord’s wooing all day long.

The complete awareness that God is everywhere Present and filling all things must become the constant of our thinking before we can develop the ceaseless voice of prayer, which is a Grace given in proportion to how much we are willing to change our habits and devote time spent in solitary at the foot of the Cross. Devotion without neglect of our duties is the delicate but essential balance of the spiritual life. But those who seek diligently will find their hiding place in the Lord (Ps. 32).

Toward such an end, St. Theofan the Recluse offers some helpful advice on entering the praying state of mind.

Being a soul’s breath, a prayer is most important in the life of a Christian. The presence of prayer in someone’s life means that the person is spiritually alive, without a prayer a person is dead. Standing in front of icons and bowing is not yet a prayer itself, those are just attributes of prayer. The same can be said about reading a prayer, whether recited by memory or read from a book, it would not be a prayer itself, but merely a means to start it. The main thing in praying is invocation of feelings of reverence to God: devotedness to the Father, gratitude, submission to the Will of God, an aspiration to glorify Him and similar feelings. That is why while praying we should make those feelings permeate ourselves so that our hearts would not be dry. It is only when our hearts appeal to God that our reading prayers (evening or morning praying) becomes a true prayer, otherwise it is not yet a prayer. A prayer, which is an appeal of our heart to God, should be invoked and strengthened; a spirit of intercession should be brought up within us.

The first way to do it is to pray through reading or listening to prayers written in prayer books [this means a book containing prayers composed by the saints, not the proper services of worship]. Read the prayer book or listen to it very attentively and you will certainly incite and strengthen your heart in its ascension to God, which means you would enter the prayerful spirit. In the prayers of holy fathers (printed in prayer books and other church books), a great prayer power is in motion. Who is diligently attending them will through the force of interaction enjoy that power, as the state of mind of a praying person comes closer to the essence of those prayers. In order to turn your intercessions into an effective way of nourishing a prayer, one must do it so that both your mind and heart would perceive the content of the prayers being read.

Here are the three simplest ways to achieve it:

· Do not start a prayer without preparing yourself to it properly.

· Say prayers with feeling and attention but not casually.

· After completing your prayer do not hasten to go back to your everyday cares.

Preparation to Praying:

Before you start a prayer, no matter where it is taking place, stand or sit for a short time and try to sober your mind, relieving it of all irrelevant work and cares. Then give thought to Who is the One you are turning to in prayer and who you are in praying to Him; invoke the appropriate attitude of humility and reverential awe to God. That is the beginning of a prayer and a good beginning is half the success.

The Praying Itself:

Having prepared yourself, stand in front of the icons, make the Sign of the Cross, bow and begin the usual praying. Say the prayer without haste, discerning every word and taking it close to your heart. In other words, you should understand what you are reading and feel what you understood. Make signs of the Cross and bows while praying. This is the essence of reading prayers that are fruitful and God-pleasing. “Thy Will be done” commends your destiny to the Lord completely and wholeheartedly, with readiness to accept gladly whatever He sends you. While reading “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” your soul should forgive everyone of has offended you.

First, set a certain praying rule for yourself; it should not be too lengthy, so you can fulfill it without haste amongst all your daily routine.

Second, in your spare time read through the prayers of your set of prayer (prayer rule) attentively, understanding and perceiving every word so that you can prepare yourself beforehand and learn what feelings and thoughts you need to evoke in your soul to understand and perceive everything easily during your prayers.

Third, if your volatile thoughts would get distracted by other things during your prayer, exert yourself to focus your attention, keeping your mind concentrated on the subject of your prayer. Bring your mind back to it every time it wanders away. Read the prayer again and again until every word of the prayer is said with awareness and feeling. That will rule out your absent-mindedness during prayers.

Fourth, if some word in the prayer touches your soul in a special way, do not proceed with the prayer, but focus on that word or phrase, nourishing your soul with the attention, feeling and thoughts evoked by the word; stick to that state of mind until it fades away. This is a sign of the prayerful spirit beginning to enter you. That state of mind and soul is the most reliable way to cherish and strengthen the prayerful spirit in a person.

What to Do After the Prayer

After finishing your prayer do not hasten to take up your usual chores, but slow down and think at least for a little while about what you felt and to what it obliges you. Try to keep in your mind what impressed you most of all. The nature of the prayer itself is such that after a really good prayer one would not want to switch over to one’s usual things, as those who relished in something sweet do not want anything bitter. Enjoying the sweetness of the praying is in fact the goal of saying prayers, which brings up the prayerful spirit.

Following those simple rules will soon bring results. Any prayerful invocation makes a good impact on the soul, if you stick to those rules, and it deepens the impact, and patience in praying will generate the prayerful mood.

Those are the first steps in bringing up a prayerful spirit in oneself. It is for this purpose that the praying practice is set. Yet, it is not the aim in itself, but just the beginning of gaining mastery in prayer. We have to go on.

Yes, indeed we have to go on. To the point where the Jesus Prayer is as natural to us as breathing. To the point where we perceive that praying is the most natural labour we do and all else is un-natural.

Only a very few pray perfectly, and those who do will, in their humility, ascribe nothing to themselves and everything to God because they have gone past believing to knowing – knowing their need of God.

Someone has suggested that the Beatitude “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” can be understood as “Blessed are those who know their need of God.”

Blessed are we indeed who pray knowing our need of God, ceaselessly desiring His Presence and delighting to be His labourer.

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Heaven and Hell In The Afterlife

2010-08-27T18:00:00.000-04:00

I would like to draw attention to this wonderful essay:

Heaven and Hell in the Afterlife

Fr. Gregory Blevins of VagantePriest shared this and I for one am profoundly thankful that he did.

This piece rightly stands on its own but is at the same time a worthy companion to The River of Fire (which can be found in the 'Gateway to Other Realms' column of links on this blog).

It is a bit lengthy but most definitely worth the investment of time. It is consistent Orthodox teaching which I heartily reccommend for all who wish to understand the crucial theological (not merely superficial) differences between Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

I hope from this it may be seen why this Order has embraced Orthodoxy.

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Daybreakers and the Dawn From On High

2010-08-24T20:21:00.000-04:00

In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:78-79).

The Benedictus, or Canticle of Zechariah, is well known to those of us who pray the Divine Offices; it is the Gospel Canticle of Morning Prayer.

This portion of the Canticle comes to mind in light of two things I have recently witnessed.

The first was a television news piece about Anne Rice, the author of the famous Vampire Chronicles series of books. In the interview Ms. Rice spoke of her conversion to Roman Catholicism and that she has recently left the Church because of its position on homosexuality; she disclosed that her son was homosexual and she could not be part of a religious institution that taught that her son’s condition was “disordered”. She went on to say that she would miss most the Liturgy, the ritual, but implied that the Church’s position on this issue was tantamount to persecution.

The second was the movie Daybreakers, which turned out to be not at all the usual kind of vampire movie. This was a futuristic world in which all but about 20% of the population were infected with vampirism. The entire governmental and corporate structure of society had been altered to accommodate the special needs of vampires: cars with built-in instant window tinting to block out sunlight; if the car door is opened during daylight, instead of the usual beeps that remind you the keys are still in the ignition or the headlights are on, there’s a computerized voice saying, “UV Warning!” All business and work is done at night and there are public service announcements broadcasted all over to remind everyone how many hours until daylight. The remaining human population is hunted and farmed for blood supply. This naturally is pretty big business. The only problem is the humans are becoming extinct. Blood rationing begins and the breakdown of society follows. Starving vampires begin feeding on each other, which poisons them and turns them into “subsiders” – nasferatu-like creatures, beastly and quite insane. They are shunned and feared and when captured are disposed of by dragging them out in chains into the sunlight – execution by spontaneous combustion. The government and corporations begin research into creating a blood substitute vampires can subsist on, giving the humans time to reproduce. Some vampires are sympathetic to the human condition and want the blood substitute so that humans and vampires can co-exist. This is the position of the main character who wants a real cure and not just a fix. He finds that the cure has indeed been discovered by a group of refugee humans led by a former vampire who has been cured. The cure turns out to be controlled exposure to sunlight in an oxygen-deprived atmospheric chamber, which permits the intensity of the sunlight but reduces the devastating combustive effect. The main character himself is cured and further discovers that when vampires feed on a cured vampire they too are cured, but more than a few have to give their lives in order for the cure to spread.

The real complication to all this, however, is that some of the vampires do not want to be cured. They do not want to become human again and be subject to disease and eventual death. They believed there was nothing wrong with them, there was no way back and it was better to simply solve the food supply problem.

Now what do these two things have in common besides vampires?

The storyline of this movie, in some respects, I believe, can serve as an analogy of sorts to the homosexual condition in our society. That there are people afflicted with a pathological mental disorder, unable to recognize that there is something wrong and therefore do not want to be cured. Instead, they make their illness a social issue of “equality” and “rights” when it is in fact neither. They seek to make a destructive behaviour socially acceptable through means of legal coercion. They are dwelling in the shadow of death, unknowingly.

In the case of Ann Rice, the Dawn from on High has definitely shown upon her but she apparently made the choice of approving her son’s condition (equating that approval with love) over accepting the Truth of the Gospel as taught by the Church (as if there is an absence of love in Truth).

The Church cannot change its teaching in this regard. If it does it ceases to be the Church and becomes instead an apostate to the Christian Faith. The very idea that churches calling themselves Christian can alter a fundamental and salvifically essential moral teaching on the premise that it “discriminates” and/or “persecutes” a specific group of people is outrageously arrogant and a pitiable delusion.

But at the same time we Christians must acknowledge the worthiness of every human person to be loved, and no less those who are infirm of mind or body.

Would it not have been more loving of Ann Rice to tell her son that though he suffers from an illness that he is no less a beautiful person? And offer him the same healing faith that she herself had found?

Would it have been loving on the part of prominent mathematician and Nobel Laureate John Nash’s wife to allow him to continue in his state of schizophrenia, rather than telling him the truth, helping him to realize his sickness and allowing A Beautiful Mind to be healed?

Why do we often show revulsion and hostility to these people (thereby earning the label of “homophobe”) or take the politically correct road of relativism instead of loving them enough to tell them the truth and helping them to see their need of a cure?

There is indeed specific spiritual psychotherapy for the homosexual affliction. And indeed, there will always be some whose minds are so thoroughly overthrown that they will never accept it. But for our part, as Christians, let us learn how to offer consolation instead of condemnation, compassion without giving in to compromise.

Homosexual people are not vampires though some of them have willingly chosen to dwell in darkness. Some who are not so afflicted also dwell in darkness. Even a few who have been enlightened by Faith walk a fine line between darkness and the Light. In every case that line runs directly through the human heart. It can never be entirely removed (at least not in this life) but it can be influenced to go one way or the other; the Way of Light and the way of darkness is always a choice.

Interesting that Our Lord has said His disciples are to be “salt” and “light” – two specific things that are traditionally repulsive to vampires and other such critters. The true meaning of this, of course, is that Christians are to be reflections of the Divine Light and preservers of God’s Covenant in the world.

Perhaps it is possible to think of this in imaginative terms like ‘Daybreakers from on High’?

However we may tend to think of it, we simply must choose to love, that those who are dwelling in their particular kind of darkness may have enough Light to find their way back. There is always a way back: it is Christ.

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The Keening of Mary

2010-08-15T21:25:00.000-04:00

Today we Orthodox celebrate the Dormition (Falling Asleep) of the Most Blessed, Ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God (Theotokos).

Our Roman Catholic brethren celebrate this day as The Assumption, the taking up into heaven of the Blessed Mother.

Either way one prefers to look at it, most of us will assuredly fall asleep one day, but we have the hope of being transitioned, taken up to be with Our Lord. What the Blessed Virgin Mary has become, we also have the hope to become: a Perfected Human Person in Perfect Communion with the Fullness of the Presence of God. Alleluia!

For this occasion, I share here a beautiful poem from the ancient Celtic Christian Tradition:

The Keening of Mary

Mary: O Peter,

O Apostle,

has thou seen

my bright love?

Peter: I saw Him
even now,

in the midst

of His foemen.

Mary: Come hither,

ye two Marys,

and my

bright love be

keening.

The

Two

Marys: If His body be not with us,

sure our keene

had little meaning.

Mary: Who is yonder stately Man

on the Tree

His Passion showing?

Christ: O Mother, thine own son,

can it be
thou art not knowing?

Mary: And is that the little son

whom nine months

I was bearing?

And is that the little son

in the stall

I was a' caring?

And is that the little son

this Mary's breast

was draining?

Christ: Hush thee,

hush thee, Mother,

and be not
so complaining.

Mary:   And is this the very hammer
                 that struck the sharp nails
                                            thro' thee?

And this the very spear

that thy white side pierced

and slew thee?

And is that the crown of thorns

that thy beauteous head

is caging?

Christ: Hush, Mother,

for my sake
thy sorrow be assuaging.

For thy own love's sake

thy cruel sorrow smother!

The women of my keening

are unborn yet,

little Mother!

O woman, why weepest thou

my death that leads to pardon?

Happy hundreds,

today,

shall stray through Paradise Garden.

Hush, O Mother,

and be not sorrowful.

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Identity Crisis

2010-07-22T14:47:00.000-04:00

From time to time it seems prudent to articulate as clearly as possible who we are, what the Order of Celtic Benedictines is, what we are not, what we are trying to become and what our mission is in the world.

It can sometimes be a frustrating and confusing task to identify ourselves to others when we live in a culture in which the average understanding does not comprehend anything that does not fit into accepted stereotypical boxes. In other words, if one does not identify oneself as “Catholic”, “Anglican/Episcopalian”, “Greek/Russian Orthodox”, “Baptist”, “Lutheran”, “Presbyterian”, “Non-Denominational”, etc, then it is very difficult for people to form a concept of exactly what kind of Christian we are claiming to be and how we “fit” into the larger scheme of things.

Of course we want people to be able to understand who we are, we try to fulfill St. Paul’s exhortation to “be all things to all people” that we may save some of them, but this does not mean we alter our charism to conform to someone else’s perception or to be accepted or recognized as “valid” or “legitimate” by any other group or organization. This in itself can be problematic and requires more than a little skill in the field of apologetics, because no matter how much we want to keep things simple, sometimes there is just no simple way of explaining things to the un-initiated. Most times it takes an ongoing conversation and always a continuous example to re-orient the cultural thinking pattern. Coming from the Protestant background that I do I am aware of the difficulty involved in overcoming this obstacle. Therefore, with this in mind, I will attempt to answer the questions I posed above as directly as possible, for the benefit of our members as well as those who may be led by the Spirit to join themselves to us.

Who We Are:

We are Christian Monastics.

What does this mean?

This means we are disciples of Jesus Christ, seeking union – Theosis - with Him by conforming our lives to the example He set and the example of early Christians who rejected the vanity of the world and preferred nothing whatsoever to Christ.

What We Are – What We Are Not:

We are individuals who agree on both common and specific means of achieving this union with Christ and have formed an extended community in order to live out a common devout life in unity.

This means we are a Religious Order not a church.

We are part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, built on the foundation of the Apostles and their Successors, in union with essential Universal and Right-Believing traditions, doctrines and canons. We govern ourselves because we have our own bishop, but for the sake of unity and because we believe that women can be called by the Holy Spirit to serve in sacramental ordained ministry, we are affiliated with the Anglican Communion but are not theologically aligned with it nor canonically dependent upon it.

These are the common means we agree on.

The specific means we agree on for achieving union with Christ our Lord are found in our embracing of the unique cultural heritage of the ancient Celtic Christians and their way of seeing the world around them. For them there was no separation between the spiritual and material realms: “The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness, the world and all who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1) and “Am I a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him? Says the Lord; Do I not fill heaven and earth? Says the Lord.” (Jer. 23:23-24).

This way of seeing the nature of things is profoundly apparent in the traditions of the Anam Cara and the Peregrinatio.

To have an anam cara or “soul friend” was to have a personal spiritual guide that was loved, respected and trusted implicitly and was the means of spiritual mentorship and apprenticeship.

The character and understanding of the peregrinatio is the ideal of the interior journey, the seeking to perceive the Kingdom of God within us and the image of Christ sealed upon the soul; the impulse to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes”.

The Celtic way of the anam cara shapes our relationships; peregrinatio is the framework of our contemplation.

Realizing that union with Christ is at the same time union with the Most Holy Trinity, we know from the example of both Scripture and Tradition that the path of Theosis favours ascetics and solitaries but even these were connected to an ordered community and guided by a rule of spiritual discipline. We choose to follow the example of order set forth by St. Benedict of Nursia. His Rule for monastic life is altogether oriented toward achieving union with Christ and so we identify with that age-old Benedictine tradition.

All that has been set forth above as common and specific means of union with Christ – Catholic, Celtic, Benedictine – are like separate streams of water flowing into one river; this river is Orthodoxy.

While the streams represent a universal yet distinct heritage and tradition, they all find their source and ultimate identity in the ancient Orthodox Christian Faith. All of these elements relate to and inform each other so perfectly it is as if several styles of Icons had been written by the hand of a single iconographer.

And what we are trying to become is that singular Icon of Christ written by the loving hand of the Holy Spirit upon our hearts.

Our Mission in the World:

Our mission is, first and foremost, to pray – communally, privately and liturgically - for all people - believers and unbelievers that all may be saved.

Secondly, our mission is to worship – liturgically; and no matter the richness or poverty of the setting, to help others experience and embrace the Fullness of the ancient Faith and the richness of the Mysteries of God’s Grace.

Lastly, our mission is to be “Windows to Holiness” that others may see what the love of God and complete devotion to Him looks like and to teach by word and example the transforming power of the Gospel and living Orthodoxy.

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Cultivating Happiness

2010-05-12T19:52:00.000-04:00

This from our friend, The Desert Pilgrim:

The Undying Flame (from "The Battle for Life")

p. 9---

"It is the testimony of an unfailing life, an undying life, an all-sufficient life; the testimony of a life which is not an abstract, which is not something stored up, but something which is coming all the time from an inexhaustible stream; a mighty, glorious life. As the light burns, it is a constant declaration of victory, and that a victory over death, death which would seek to quench the light, quench the flame, smother it. It burns in the mist of surrounding death, a continuous declaration that death has no power to quench it."

This is very timely and speaks to me in a deep way.

Throughout our (almost) 15 year marriage, my husband and his mother frequently say and tell others that I am "one of the happy people".

Since both of them suffer with certain mild forms of depression, I usually make a little joke about it by saying that God had to make "happy people" in order to keep the depressed people from killing themselves!

They think it is an exceptional quality and I can appreciate and be grateful for their sentiment but I try to explain to them that whatever it is they perceive in me, it is not my own doing. I have simply always been aware of a disposition within myself that tends to always see the positive and the good and the potential for positive good.

I count it as a gift from God. But as is the case with many of God's Gifts, it is not a gift that does not require cultivation.

Hence, over the years, my husband and mother-in-law have come to, not just tolerate, but respect what I have to do to cultivate that gift.

Perhaps they don't fully understand but they do know that it effects them and they seem to benefit from the effect.

So this speaks to me now, the "necessity" and "continual need for oil."

Because without it, there can be no "constant declaration of victory."

And for me, in my situation, that means I cannot continue to meet every challenge, every problem that lack of money gives rise to, every temptation to feel offended by a passing word spoken out of aggravation, frustration or pain.

I cannot meet that with only the strength of my 'natural' disposition, however powerful it may indeed be of itself.

I need the continual flow of oil from the Word, from keeping the Commandments, from keeping the Sabbath, from keeping the Divine Office, from serving the Divine Liturgy, from watchfulness and the constant remembrance of the Holy Name.

I think this just constitutes a "Eucharistic awareness", the Sacramental Principle in application. In short, the Orthodox Way of life, or as the Protestants might say, "Walking in the Spirit."

But this way of life will also bring a type of alienation from those who do not or are not willing to understand. And that is a cross to bear, because it facilitates a certain isolation. The isolation that comes from the sudden and un chosen realization that there are moments within and brought on by events that one deeply feels the need to share with another who has similar understanding but there is no one to be found save Christ our Lord Himself.

This is a burden of the Interior Life.

But He is Sufficient and the burden is light as long as the oil is continual and fresh.

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Strange Notions - Or Not!

2010-04-25T20:59:00.000-04:00

There are some really strange notions and ideas to found on the net. Some are so strange they actually make a bit of sense.

For the record, I will state that I am not an anarchist nor am I a Libertarian (though I happen to agree with a few points of their platform, but by no means all). I simply found this to be rather intriguing.

The following is taken from a 2001 lecture by Roderick T. Long, a teacher of Philosophy at Auburn University.

Given the vast inequality in authority between the state apparatus and its subjects — given, for that matter, the vast socioeconomic inequality between them — how is it that so many who think of themselves as dedicated above all to human equality so readily become apologists for the state?

... how those who appear so sensitive to constraints on choice, and to differences in bargaining power, when these derive from market factors, become so amazingly oblivious to the constraint on choice, and differential bargaining power, represented by the armed might of the state, empowered to enforce its demands by legalized violence.

The fifth-century B.C. Chinese philosopher Mo-tzu once remarked that if someone can recognize an act of unjust aggression when it is perpetrated by one individual against another, but not when the same act is perpetrated by an organized group of individuals, such a person must be confused about right and wrong.

Socioeconomic egalitarians, then, must likewise be under some sort of confusion. But what, and why?

A cynic might respond that socioeconomic egalitarians are not confused at all; their supposed devotion to equality is simply a disguise for powerlust, and they exempt the state from their criticisms because they plan to wield its reins, or at least to get in good with those who do. This strikes me as a fair analysis of some, but only some, socioeconomic egalitarians. Most of the socioeconomic egalitarians I know personally are sincere in their egalitarianism and well-meaning in their statism.

I don't mean by this that they are entirely innocent; after all, an innocent statist would have to be one who says: "I recognize—as who could not?—that the coercive subordination of individuals to the state by the means of systematic legalized violence and the threat thereof is a great evil. But this evil is, unfortunately, necessary in order to prevent evils still greater." A statist who took this point of view could not be cheerful about her statism, but on the contrary would have to conduct herself with the tragic solemnity of Agamemenon sacrificing his daughter to save the fleet.

The innocent statist, too, could hardly permit herself to reach this grim conclusion without first investigating possible alternatives—which, for a statist in the academy, would have to involve carefully researching and trying to refute (and desperately hoping to be unable to refute) the wealth of libertarian literature arguing that most of the other evils she cites can be prevented through nonstatist means. By these criteria, few statists qualify as innocent. To seek for alternatives to inequality in authority would be to acknowledge that statism involves such inequality before ascertaining that alternatives are available, and this would force upon the statist an unpleasant choice she prefers to avoid. Hence I regard statism as being, at least in most cases, a moral vice, rather than a mere cognitive mistake, in much the same way that racism and sexism are moral vices, not mere cognitive mistakes.

But, again like racism and sexism, statism is the kind of moral vice that tends to enter the soul through self-deception, semi-conscious osmosis, and a kind of Arendtian banality, rather than through a forthright embrace; it is a form of spiritual blindness that can, and does, infect even those who are largely sincere and well-meaning.

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Eternal Memory or Eternal Life

2010-04-24T23:04:00.004-04:00

Having just seen the movie Avatar (I rarely see movies at the cinema house anymore), I have to say it is one of the most amazing films I have ever seen. Visually stunning, thrilling and a timeless story: an indigenous, holistic, technologically primitive people rising up to defend and preserve their way of life against a technologically advanced aggressor. That would be us, by the way (humankind, that is). This is what we have been doing to ourselves since the Fall. One person or a community of persons who are not able to defend what they have will have it taken from them by the stronger. This is a simple and unavoidable fact. It may not be right but it nevertheless happens.

The most fascinating thing here, however, is the concept of transference of human consciousness into a genetically compatible alternate body. This is an age-old concept that has been presented in many varieties of science fiction, from the old TV series The Twilight Zone to Star Trek and many others. It is a very exciting and attractive concept, considering that many of us (who are willing to admit it) are not very happy with the bodies we have been given; we would much prefer to be some one or some thing – other. Hence we have movies, video games, the Society for Creative Anachronism, etc, all of which are avatars of a sort that provides temporary means of escape from reality.

I understand the desire for this all too well. I have never had much liking for my own reality. I would much prefer to live in the Shire with the Hobbits, with the Elves in Rivendell or on one of the Jedi worlds. Not because I consider these to be utopian worlds but because life there would have a different character, based on a different dynamic, or so I imagine. So while we fantasaical-minded folks have to live in this reality, we ignore as much of it as possible, allowing our fantasies to translate our lives into a manner of perceiving that views this reality as highly abstract. In other words, we don’t belong here.

Of course this reality and our fantasy world both share a common element that is inescapable and cannot be ignored no matter how much we want to: the reality that all things die. Death is the hardest and most frightening reality we face and we either face it with hope or we face it with dread. But our technology is advancing so much (along with our immorality and arrogance) that the idea of a constructed immortality is no longer confined to the realm of science-fiction fantasy. To wit:

An Introduction to Transhumanism

Attempting to Make a New Type of Person

By E. Christian Brugger

WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 21, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The ideas of the young international movement known as "transhumanism" are beginning to characterize the thinking of an increasing number of clinicians and bioethicists. I thought therefore that our readers might profit from a brief introduction to them.

Transhumanism is really a set of ideas that has developed in response to the rapid advance of biotechnology in the past 20 years (that is, technology capable of and aimed at manipulating the physical, mental and emotional condition of human beings). Conventional medicine has traditionally aimed at overcoming disorders that afflict the human condition; it has prescribed leeching, cauterizing, amputating, medicating, operating and relocating to dryer climates, all in order to facilitate health and militate against disease and degeneration; in other words, the purpose has been to heal (i.e., has been broadly therapeutic).

Technology is now making possible interventions that in addition to a therapeutic aim are intended to augment healthy human capacities. There is a gradual but steady enlargement-taking place in medical ideals from simply healing to healing and enhancement. We are all too familiar with "performance enhancing drugs" in professional sports. But biotechnology promises to make possible forms of enhancement that go far beyond muscle augmentation.

Germ-line gene therapy, for example, still in its infancy, aims to genetically modify human "germ cells" (i.e., sperm and eggs) in order to introduce desirable intellectual, physical and emotional characteristics and exclude undesirable ones. Since the modifications are made to cells in the "germ line," the traits would be heritable and passed on to subsequent generations. Drugs to improve mental function such as Ritalin and Adderall are increasingly being used by the healthy in order to enhance cognitive abilities. One study has shown that close to 7% of students at U.S. universities have used prescription stimulants for enhancement purposes. [1] That number appears only to be increasing.

Research is rapidly progressing on advanced technologies such as direct brain-computer interfacing (BCI), micro mechanical implants, nanotechnologies, retinal, neuromuscular and cortical prostheses, and so-called "telepathy chips." While it is true that each of these technologies may play a role in transforming the lives of disabled patients to enable them better to communicate, manipulate computers, see, walk, move their limbs and recover from degenerative diseases; transhumanism sees them as potential instruments for transforming human nature. The 2002 version of the Transhumanist Declaration states: "Humanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parameters as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet earth."[2]

Their most radical proposal is to overcome death. Although the aim sounds fanciful, there are influential scientists and philosophers committed to it. The prominent transhumanist scientist and inventor, Dr. Ray Kurzweil, argues that for most of human history death was tolerated because there was nothing we could do about it. But a time is rapidly approaching where we will be able to isolate the genes and proteins that cause our cells to degenerate and reprogram them. The assumption of death's inevitability is no longer credible and ought to be retired [3]. Michael West, the CEO of one of the largest biotech companies in the U.S., Advanced Cell Technology, agrees. He argues that "love and compassion for our fellow human being will ultimately lead us to the conclusion that we have to do everything we can to eliminate aging and death."[4]

Although I think the majority of people in the Western world do not yet share transhumanism's more radical ideas, the assumption concerning human autonomy that underlies the transhumanist philosophy is practically universal in secular medicine and bioethics today. Living wills enshrining people's right to refuse life-sustaining treatment for practically any reason, even if they are not dying, are becoming as routine in our hospitals as informed consent forms. Oregon, Washington and Montana have legalized physician assisted suicide each using as a rhetorical bludgeon the argument that autonomy guarantees a person's right to exercise self-determination not only over his life but also over his death. If autonomy extends to these things, then surely it guarantees the liberty to enhance my capacities.

I fear that the only thing presently preventing wide-scale affirmation of the transhumanist imperative is an emotional "yuck" factor, which we can be sure will gradually subside under the gentle and inexorable prodding of secular opinion. When it does, our rationality insulated by this extreme notion of autonomy will find itself helpless against the technological imperative which says: if we can design our perfect child [5], if we can be smarter, stronger, and more beautiful [6], if we can extend human life indefinitely [7], then we should do it. If embryos are sacrificed through the experimental process required to perfect this technology, or if inequalities are introduced to the advantage of some and disadvantage of others; these are the costs of progress!

The 2008 Vatican Instruction on bioethics, "Dignitas Personae," addressing the use of biotechnology "to introduce alterations with the presumed aim of improving and strengthening the gene pool," strongly cautions against the "eugenic mentality" that such manipulation would promote. The mentality likely would stigmatize features of hereditary imperfection generating unfair biases against people who possess them and privileging those who possess putatively desirable qualities.

The instruction concludes saying: "It must also be noted that in the attempt to create a new type of human being one can recognize an ideological element in which man tries to take the place of his Creator" (No. 27).

Endeavoring to manipulate human nature in this way "would end […] by harming the common good" (No. 27).

This is nothing short of a new manifestation of The Great Lie first told in the Garden of Eden – ‘You don’t need God; you can become a god without God.’

Or at least, you can become immortal.

The quest for immortality has been active since we lost it in the Garden. We comfort ourselves in this quest for the unobtainable with the idea that we live on in the memories of those who love us. In other words, no one ever really dies as long as someone remembers him or her. This idea is not necessarily and entirely false. Our remembering surely does count for something. But keeping someone alive in our memory is not the same thing as actual eternal life.

God’s remembering causes existence.

Our remembering does not.

We want to be immortal but we are not, so modern man has put his faith in science and technology to achieve this ‘pearl of great price’. We desperately want eternal life but we want it on our terms and under our control, not according to God’s conditions. We reject God’s conditions not because they are harsh or beyond our capacity but because they require an absolute answer to the question: Who do you say I am? Many have turned to science simply because it does not ask this question and accepts all answers.

Seeking the answer to that question will always lead one into a confrontation with Religion (usually within the meaning of institution not of virtue). That confrontation produces more questions: Which one is right? And which sect within which one is right? Some grow weary of trying to figure it out and opt to create their own. Others let the answer be relative to each one’s perception. Both cases allow us to imagine ourselves as masters of our own destinies and agents of our own change, enabled by the attitude, which says, “I refuse to be led around by the nose by dogma!” I wonder if they realize they are indeed being led around by the nose – by the arrogance of their own opinion, which they value more than truth (and we know who’s holding the stick with the carrot).

The character of Dr. Walter Bishop on the TV series Fringe said, “All destinies lead to the same destination.” In a certain sense that could actually be true but that is not to say that free will is an illusion. We are all destined to stand before the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ but the willful choices we make on that journey determines if it will be a judgment of condemnation or of absolution; a resurrection to eternal endurance or of enduring Communion.

This is our ultimate destination. Whether we be in the Shire, in Rivendell or on Pandora; whether we be a Jedi or in the body of our avatar, and we had best be ready to give an answer to Him who is Uncreated Reality.

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The Power to Tax

2010-04-16T19:39:00.005-04:00

The following is taken from a recent essay by Mark Alexander, Editor of The Patriot Post.

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." --John Marshall

On December 16th, 1773, "radicals" from Boston, members of a secret organization of American Patriots called the Sons of Liberty, boarded three East India Company ships and threw into Boston Harbor 342 chests of tea.

This iconic event, in protest of oppressive British taxation and tyrannical rule, became known as the Boston Tea Party.

Resistance to the Crown had been mounting over enforcement of the 1764 Sugar Act, 1765 Stamp Act and 1767 Townshend Act, which led to the Boston Massacre and gave rise to the slogan, "No taxation without representation."

The 1773 Tea Act and resulting Tea Party protest galvanized the Colonial movement opposing British parliamentary acts, which violated the natural, charter and constitutional rights of the colonists.

In response to the rebellion, the British enacted additional punitive measures, labeled the "Intolerable Acts," in hopes of suppressing the burgeoning insurrection. Far from accomplishing their desired outcome, however, the Crown's countermeasures led colonists to convene the First Continental Congress on September 5th, 1774, in Philadelphia.

Near midnight on April 18th, 1775, Paul Revere departed Charlestown (near Boston) for Lexington and Concord in order to warn John Hancock, Samuel Adams and other Sons of Liberty that the British army was marching to arrest them and seize their weapons caches. While Revere was captured after reaching Lexington, his friend, Samuel Prescott, was able to evade the Red Coats and took word to the militiamen at Concord.

In the early dawn of that first Patriots' Day, April 19th, Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington militia, ordered, "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they want a war let it begin here." That it did -- American Minutemen fired the "shot heard round the world," as immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting British Regulars on Lexington Green and at Concord's Old North Bridge.

Thus, by the time the Second Continental Congress convened on May 10th, 1775, the young nation was in open war for liberty and independence, which would not be won until a full decade later.

Today, the tax burden borne by most Americans, even those who pay no direct federal taxes but at the least pay a great hidden cost in federal regulation, is far greater than that which incited our Founders to revolution.

Thus, some 221 years after the ratification of our Constitution, Americans are once again at a crossroads with oppressive centralized government -- a point at which we must choose to turn up toward liberty or down toward tyranny and anarchy.

Those at the helm of the federal government, by way of generations of overreaching executive orders, legislative malfeasance and judicial diktat, have abandoned their sacred oaths to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same."

Although our Constitution provides the People with an authentic means for amendment as prescribed in Article V, successive generations of leftists have, by way of legislation, regulation and activist courts, altered that august founding convention well beyond any semblance of its original intent.

Consequently, they have undermined constitutional Rule of Law, supplanting it with the rule of men.

They have done so in order to win the allegiance of special interest constituencies, which then ensure perpetual re-election of their sponsors in return for political and economic agendas structured on Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collectivism.

How have leftist politicians succeeded in this assault?

They accomplished this through direct taxation on an ever-smaller number of Americans for the benefit of an ever-larger number of Americans -- "progressive taxation" and "social justice" as the Left so self-righteously calls it.

So, shouldn't those who have more give to those who have less?

Well, yes, in my humble opinion, but individuals should rightly be left to decide how best to use their resources for the benefit of others. And in this respect, Americans are the most generous people on earth and from any time of human history.

However, Barack Hussein Obama believes that government should be the ultimate arbiter for the redistribution of wealth. Indeed, he said as much on the campaign trail in 2008.

Obama claims our economy is "out of balance," and our tax policies "badly skewed."

To resolve this, he says we need a "tax policy making sure that everybody benefits, fair distribution, a restoration of balance in our tax code, money allocated fairly..."

"Fair distribution"?

By this, of course, he means "redistribution."

It's not enough that 20 percent of Americans are already forced to fund 80 percent of the cost of bloated government largess; if Obama can saddle them with 100 percent of this cost, then he could anoint himself king.

Never mind that progressive taxation constitutes, in effect, a "Bill of Attainder" as outlawed by Article I, Section 9, of our Constitution. Who in Washington these days pays that venerable old parchment any mind?

As devoted socialist George Bernard Shaw acknowledged, "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," which is the template for a bloodless socialist revolution.

The current debacle of progressive taxation is the result of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's class-warfare decree: "Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle."

We beg to differ. Roosevelt's "principle" was no more American than Obama's. Roosevelt was merely paraphrasing Karl Marx, whose maxim declared, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

At the time Marx was formulating his collectivist manifesto, classical liberal Claude Frederic Bastiat, a prominent 19th-century political economist, wrote, "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. ... Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another... Then abolish that law without delay; No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic."

Now, according to Heritage Foundation's , The 2009 Index of Dependence on Government | The Heritage Foundation "Despite the famed 1996 Welfare Reform Act and the more recent welfare adjustments in 2006, 60.8 million Americans remain dependent on the government for their daily housing, food, and health care. Starting in 2016, Social Security will not collect enough in taxes to pay all of the promised benefits -- which is a problem for all workers, but especially for the roughly half of the American workforce that has no other retirement program. Add in spiraling academic grants, flat-out farm socialism, and the swelling ranks of Americans who believe themselves entitled to public-sector benefits for which they pay few or no taxes -- and Americans must ask themselves whether they are near a tipping point in the nature of their government." (See Tax Day or Payday? How the Tax Code Is Expanding Government and Dependency | The Heritage Foundation)

Perversely, almost half of all American workers pay no income tax per the current tax code scheme, though under the Obama plot many now qualify for a tax refund.

Once a majority of Americans can be "protected" from a tax burden, they will ignore the constitutional, moral and civic implications of "progressive taxation."

The fact is that the only way to ensure fiscal accountability at the federal level is to directly spread the cost of government to a much broader number of taxpayers so all Americans "feel the pain." Of course, the Left understands that in order to escape any fiscal accountability, they need only ensure that the cost of government is borne by a targeted minority of income earners.

Obama is now poised to propose the implementation of a supplemental value-added tax, a national sales tax. Though this would seemingly spread the cost of government to all Americans (precisely what liberals want to avoid), Obama's VAT coupled with the myriad proposed exempt products and "rebates" to the "poor," would most assuredly be yet another avenue for the central government to use the tax code to bludgeon a minority of consumers in order to expand its authority and constituencies.

Vladimir Lenin asserted, "The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation."

And that is precisely Obama's political model.

But the problem with the socialist model is, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher aptly noted, "they always run out of other people's money."

If I could emphasize but one point, it would be this: The Left has bankrupted the nation and the bill for freeloading on others is coming due. It will most certainly be paid back in the currency of liberty.

The time is at hand when we must inquire with a unified voice: "If there is no constitutional authority for most laws and regulations enacted by Congress and enforced by the central government, then by what authority do those entities lay and collect taxes to fund such laws and regulations?" (See The Patriot Declaration - PatriotPost.US)

Further, as Alexander Hamilton made clear in Federalist No. 81, "[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution...."

Much less so is there any provision for the Executive or Legislative branches to rely upon interpretation of such language as that in the "Commerce Clause" to justify all manner of government intrusion, such as the newly implemented nationalization of health care.

James Madison, author of our Constitution, wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents... If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one... The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. ... There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

Similarly, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore ... never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market. ... [W]hen all government ... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another. ... Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."

So, to all my fellow Americans who have been blessed with work, success and wealth ... do please remember to pay your taxes so that all those on the government dole can continue to receive free food, free housing, free utilities, free phone service, free healthcare, and anything else that falls out of Big Brother's goodie bag. And when you inevitabley run out of money take comfort in the thought that we shall all be finally equal.

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Not So Far-Fetched Anymore

2010-04-12T16:23:00.001-04:00

A good friend brought this great old gem to my attention.
More relevent now than it was sixty-odd years ago.

Does Christianity Have Anything New to Say?

2010-04-08T22:13:00.000-04:00

Christ Is Risen! Alleluia!

I have to wonder just how many ways this central and penultimate Truth of our Christian Faith will be proclaimed in cathedrals, temples, sacred places and sanctified spaces all over the world today. I wonder how many will struggle to say something new about it; to put a fresh perspective on it. It is, after all, a two thousand year old message that never changes. Indeed, it cannot change. Because everything revolves around it and depends on it. The entirety of the Bible is focused on it. If one were to summarize the Old Testament in one sentence it could be: 'The Lord is God.' If one were to likewise summarize the New Testament in one sentence, it could be: 'Jesus Christ is Lord.' Similarly, perhaps the entire message of Pascha could be summarized thus: 'This I have accomplished because I love you and I want you to live in communion with me eternally.'

The singular event that effects all human history is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which we celebrate today. Some may not believe that, but non-belief does not make Truth not true. Jesus Christ is real and His Resurrection is real.

So in essence we're really not saying anything new today. We may have newer methods of expressing it, but the message is the same. It must be the same else we are experiencing not salvation but delusion. If the message needs to be infused with clever sayings of Buddha, highlighted with analogies and similarities to the Koran to make it seem as though Christianity and Islam share a lot in common (we don't), altered with inclusive language so as not to offend certain sensitivities ... then it would seem there is something lacking in the message itself, and this is most certainly not so. Communities and churches who do this sort of thing and call themselves Christian are not. It is simply an attempt, in most cases, to make a (seemingly) old Story more exciting and/or more 'relevent'.

It has been said that Orthodoxy never says anything new. We don't need to. The Beautiful Story of the Resurrection is all-sufficient.

The Story that begins in Genesis, which means 'origin', comes full circle in Revelation, which means 'to reveal' (sometimes Revelation is also referred to as The Apocalypse which means 'to uncover').

So what is originated? The Truth that the Lord is God.

What is uncovered and revealed?

The Truth that Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead and He is Lord!

What we celebrate today is the Triumph of Truth and the Reality of the Resurrection.

We celebrate today, in time, that which transcends time - the origin and uncovering of all things, the Beginning and Ending of all things.

This should be utterly astounding! It should arouse in us wonderment and awe!

Christ is Risen! Alleluia! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

Christ is Risen and we are risen with Him! Alleluia!

Our hearts should be overflowing with joy! Not necessarily an emotional high, but joy!

But what has happened? We hear the Resurrection Story and respond as if it were commonplace. We hear the same thing year after year. Nothing new.

We seem to be afflicted with an insatiable need for the next new thing:

"My phone works fine on the 3G network but now there's a 4G - gotta have it!"

"The computer I have is old and slow; I want a newer and faster one!"

"My car runs pretty good and gets me where I need to go ... but wouldn't it be sweet to have one of those hot new Mustangs!"

"The church I go to now is ok but I want to try this other church cause I hear they have this great musical program that will get you all pumped up!"

The awesome Mystery that is revealed here at this Altar and is lived out and proclaimed in the Liturgical life of the Church should enliven our hearts with love and cause tears of joy to flood our eyes. But we are dull. Why? Because the reality of the Resurrection is simply not as real to us as the reality we experience every day in our lives.

Our experience of God tends to be more virtual than reality. Of course we would very much prefer our pain and suffering to be virtual and that's understandable. I do not believe that anyone in a sound state of mind would actually want to be in a situation where they are liable to be shot, slashed or blown to pieces - but we'll watch it on TV!

We try to avoid actual contact with death and destruction but we pay to see movies that depict death and destruction - often quite realistically.

We would never (hopefully never) think of committing adultery but we simply must watch and find out who ends up in whose bed on Days of Our Lives!

At the same time we avoid coming to Confession we post our deep, dark secrets on Facebook and Twitter!

We have created our own personal virtual world that distracts us from the reality of God.

And we are very comfortable but we were not meant to live in these virtual worlds. God is Real and He alone is the Author of reality. He has come down to us and become one of us, taking us by the hand and pulling us out of the graves of our virtual worlds.

You may remember some years back, the myriad reports of repentance and conversion that took place after The Passion of the Christ came out. Ever wonder why that movie had such an effect on people? Because we have all been given a measure of faith and those whose hearts needed only a catalyst to initiate metanoia (change of mind), that film acted as the catalyst that enabled awareness of the reality of Christ and all that He did to save us. Whatever one may think of Mel Gibson, he did a good thing in making that movie.

Jesus Christ is real! He really suffered. He really died. He really lives!

He is really Present to us at all times but it is a struggle for us to be present to Him. Sometimes in the midst of that struggle we mistake emotion for awareness. Our emotions are God-given but to believe our relationship with Christ is deficient if there is not regular manifestations of emotional excitement is false. God is everywhere present and filling all things, no matter how, what or if we feel and we are invited to participate in an ancient mystery that is ever new ... because He Lives!

So, does Christianity really have anything new to say?

Early Christians, in some places of the ancient Roman Empire, called the Sunday of the Resurrection the Day of the Sun. The pagans used the term too but with a different meaning, obviously.

May our Risen Saviour grant us Grace to live the reality of the Resurrection - which is nothing short of our life hidden with Christ in God - and make each day hereafter our own personal Day of the Son. Then we shall never have to seek after anything new to say for we shall have become something new.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

The Thin Time of Emptiness

2010-04-03T17:56:00.000-04:00

In a time of quiet reflection now, after having served the Liturgy of Good Friday with our local community, it occurs to me that I probably have not kept the discipline of Lent very well. At least, that's the way it feels. Looking back over these last forty days I not only wonder where did the time go, but also am made aware that my attempts at ascesis were a woeful failure. I do not 'give up' things like certain types of food during Lent because none of that seems like very much of a sacrifice. Even the traditional fish on Wednesdays and Fridays really does not provide much of a hardship, so rather than give up a certain food I prefer to try and add something to my daily activities - extra prayers, extra kneeling - something like that. There should have been more of these 'extras' than there was.

One traditional monastic discipline I truly wanted to observe with integrity was the 'Grand Silence' - no speaking for a prescribed period of time each day. A worthy spiritual discipline, not terribly difficult. That is, if you don't have lots of cats.

I have lots of cats and I was amazed to discover just how difficult it is to remember not to talk to them. Cats (and dogs too, I imagine) will have their presence acknowledged in some way or another. A stroke on the head here and a hug there will suffice for a short time but when they realize you are not talking to them, then it begins: everything they can possibly do to irritate you enough to yell at them. So my attempts at Grand Silence turned out to be decidedly not so grand. But I will keep trying.

Perhaps the one thing I had hoped to grasp hold of more firmly in my heart was the emptiness of Christ: Though He was in the form of God, Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave ...

I am still overwhelmed at the very thought of a Love that empties itself, pours itself out, dosen't seek equality or rights or honour and ultimately lays down its life.

I am still not able to absorb this Truth, not fully. I know what it looks like, but at the same time, I know how very far from it I am. Lord, have mercy!

In days of ancient Celtic yore, times that were frought with distress, death and mourning were called the 'thin' times.

Given that the entire season of Lent engages us in a spiritual thin time, it seems the Easter Triduum takes us beyond thin-ness into emptiness. Within this emptiness, to whatever degree one is experiencing salvation, our temptations and delusions become a bit clearer to us and we awake, like a sleeper, to the voice of Christ saying, Come forth! as He pulls us out of the depths that we didn't even realize we were in.

Out of the depths I cry to You, Lord, hear my prayer.

The road to Pascha must include a measure of emptiness, I think (at least it should), else how would we have room for the fullness of Pascha?

Pascha is the super-abundant fullness of Christ's Victory and the measure we receive of it depends on how well we have prepared our hearts. I know I have not prepared my heart as well as I should have or possibly could have and I am not worthy to celebrate the joyous fullness of Pascha. Christ has descended to the depths; can I descend with Him a little? Is there still time?

Now is the time of salvation.

Can I empty a little bit more of myself in some small way? When can I confidently proclaim:

My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready ... ?

Transform my heart, I pray, O King of Glory, and make it ready for Thyself!

Then ...

I will sing, I will sing Your praise.

Awake, my soul, awake lyre and harp. I will awake the dawn.

O God, arise above the heavens; may Your glory shine on earth (Psalm 57).

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A Daughter of Charity

2010-03-15T18:07:00.006-04:00

Today is the Feast Day of my Patron, Saint Louise de Marillac. co-Founder of the religious society known as The Daughters of Charity.

She was quite a lady and one who loved God. She has been an influence in my Religious life as well as the life and vision of our Order, particularly in our focus on the Divine Incarnation.

St. Louise embraced the Incarnation as the most wonderful work of God in salvation history. She admired the humility of God-made-Flesh. Christ came, "as humbly as can be imagined so that we might be more free to approach Him". She experienced the whole life of Jesus as a manifestation of the fullness of His love and His pilgrimage on earth as a model for all of us to imitate. For those who don't know much about her I would encourage getting to know her.

Today also marks the 15 year anniversary of my priestly ordination.

Reflecting on this I note that I am still a most unprofitable servant.

But today I take to heart the encouraging words of St. Louise:

"Do not be upset if things are not as you would want them to be for a long time to come. Do the little you can very peacefully and calmly so as to allow room for the guidance of God in your lives. Do not worry about the rest".

Indeed, she has much to say to us today:

"It seems to me that our interior conversation with God should consist in the continuous remembrance of His holy Presence. We must adore Him every hour and make acts of love for His Goodness ... We should raise our minds to God and depend only on Him, remembering that, from all eternity, He has been and is sufficient to Himself; consequently, He can and should be sufficient for us ... It is your prayers... which attract from the Goodness of God all His Graces".

Happy Heavenly Birthday, dear Mother Louise! May your prayer be our prayer as well:

"May my life be solely for Jesus and my neighbor so that, by means of this unifying love, I may love all that Jesus loves, and through the power of this love which has as its center the eternal Love of God for His creatures, I may obtain from His Goodness the graces which His Mercy wills to bestow upon me".

Amen.

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Sadness and Joy

2010-03-15T17:32:00.003-04:00

I received word today that Jay King, known as The Pious Subdeacon Eremya, of the Antiochian Catholic Church in America, has fallen asleep in the Lord after a lengthy illness.

I want to remember him here because he touched my heart from the moment I met him.

He was indeed pious and a kindly, loving and humble soul.

Our first meeting was at the ACCA Convocation in 2007 and when we were preparing to leave I heard him running up from behind saying, "Oh no you don't! You are not getting away from here without me getting a chance to kiss your ring again!" The hug I got from him after that was far more valuable to me than the ring-kissing.

I was blessed to attend the Convocation again in 2009 and Eremya and I talked again. I had to excuse myself from him for a moment but then he called me back and said, "I need another hug from you before I have to go."

Eremya, we know you had to go and we are sad because we miss you, but where you have gone we hope to follow and there is great joy in that Hope.

Please remember us as we remember you.

Please pray for us.

Please pray for such a sinner as me.

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The Question of Lent

2010-02-26T21:25:00.004-05:00

For some the season of Lent might mean a time of lamentation and deprivation. For others it has little or no significance except that it precedes Pascha (Easter).
For me, it is a time of deep reflection, the opportunity each year for renewal and ultimately of joy.

It is the time when we can (and should) examine ourselves and ask serious questions. Most especially to ask ourselves, "Am I being saved?" Not, "Am I saved?" but "Am I being saved?"
We know our salvation is not a one-time event but an ongoing conversion - a progression of being transformed and perfected in the Image and Likeness of Christ.

Do we reflect the manners of Christ in our mannerisms? Or do we treat others as obstacles to getting what we want? The kindness of Christ in our speaking? Or do we talk trash? The Face of Christ in our faces? Or do we walk around with a scowl? Are we so sensitive to offense that our conversation with our husband/wife/close friends is a monologue of the indignities we had to endure throughout a given day?

We often get pulled in so many directions throughout our daily activities that we struggle with remembering all the things we are supposed to do so we carry day planners and set alarms and ringtones on our cell phones to notify us of various appointments. I wonder how it would work if we set our cell phones to tone and display a note saying, "Be still, be silent, remember God and give Him your loving attention for the next 5 minutes."

I have said before that I am not a fan of resolutions because they are usually of a selfish nature and are rarely kept. I stand by that statement. However, if one is determined to make a ‘resolution’ Lent, it seems to me, is the better time to do it than New Year’s.
But in either case, we should use caution in deciding on these ‘resolutions’. We should be cautious in resolving to do something that we do not have some realistic notion of being able to carry through. This is often why we seem to fail. We set the bar too high. Most often, however, the things we seem to pick to ‘give up’ for Lent also just so happens to have ‘self-improvement’ qualities as well. We ‘give up’ sweets and desserts and it also helps us to lose weight. Convenient.
Are we really giving up the sweets and desserts for the sake of disciplining our appetites to encourage a greater hunger for God’s Presence? Or are we giving these up so we can say we gave something up for Lent and because we think we might be able to drop a few pounds and look better in our new Easter Sunday Best clothes?

We should examine our intent.

Many years ago I heard an Orthodox bishop tell a story during his homily. Perhaps it is a well-known story, perhaps not, I do not know. But I do know it made an impact on me at the time such that I have never forgotten it. The story goes that a young soldier in the army of Alexander the Great was accused of desertion in the face of the enemy during a campaign. The young soldier was caught by his superior officers and brought before the king. The young man was ashamed and afraid for his life and so kept his head bowed and stared at the ground. The king asked the young man his name. There was no answer. The king asked the same question several times with no answer and became angry. He got up, stood before the young man and drew his sword and asked once more, “What is your name?”
The quivering young man finally looked up and fearfully whispered, “My name is Alexander.” The king looked at him sternly, sheathed his sword and said to the youth, “Change your conduct or change your name.”

Although repentance is not confined to one season of the year, Lent is, for Christians, the time of opportunity to change our conduct, for we dare not change our name. Not if we want to live.

To isolate and focus on one particular aspect of our thinking or doing and to offer just that for God to change according to His Will may not seem very notable but it is the little things that so often cause us to stumble. “The devil belittles small sins; otherwise he cannot lead us into greater ones” (St. Mark the Ascetic).

These little things become like signposts pointing the way to the answer of “Am I being saved?”
The activity of Grace in our lives and the progress we think should ensue often seems to happen very slowly or in ways that are seemingly insignificant. The Holy Trinity is always working. Christ is ever working, drawing us to the Father through Himself and in the Holy Spirit but it is we who resist. We resist in ways we don’t even realize and so it takes some effort on our part to cooperate with Grace. That cooperation often takes some not so pleasant forms. It may take the form of simply remaining silent when someone offends us. Or it may take the form of doing something even when we don’t feel like it. I suspect there are many opportunities of Grace that I have missed out on simply because, when it came to being somewhere or doing some thing, I didn’t feel like it. Our Christian lives are not based on how we feel. How we feel has nothing to do with Am I being saved?
We may not feel like going to church or participating in the Liturgy at any given time, but are we being saved when we don’t?

A change of heart (metanoia) is the essence of repentance and should be a continuing condition. Our conduct and attitude is a reflection of this inner state of our heart and the disposition of our heart is, in turn, influenced by our thinking and doing. As Fr. Stephen has profoundly noted: “The heart changes in the crucible of our actions. Generosity and kindness are begotten of generosity and kindness”.

But our actions are always preceded by thoughts, as St. Mark the Ascetic affirms: “When you sin, blame your thought, not your action. For had your intellect not run ahead, your body would not have followed.”

We should discriminate in what we give our attention to.

Feeding the intellect a steady diet of gratuitous violence, horror, bloodshed, sex, greed and hypocrisy and calling it ‘entertainment’ will certainly beget something in us but it most likely will not be generosity, kindness or humility. Or love.
I tend to think there is a lot more to that old cartoon of the three monkeys with their hands over their eyes, ears and mouth – See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil – than many of us would care to admit.

Are we being saved?
Are we being saved in our marriage relationship? In our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ? In our church? In our monastic community? In our Vows?
These are hard questions that cannot be answered with excuses.

Christ emptied Himself that we may receive His Fullness. He continues to empty Himself and we are not worthy of His Emptiness nor His Fullness. We are not worthy of such a Saviour, of such a King … of such a God!
May our journey through Lent prepare our hearts to meet the Answer.

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Not Exactly A Follow-Up

2010-02-24T19:26:00.003-05:00

In my three previous Speech Therapy posts, I made passing references to Multiculturism and Political Correctness, (both of which I hold in utter contempt). I did not expound on these in depth, largely because I recognize my own lack of ability to do so. Happily, I discovered this wonderful piece which expounds on these topics quite well.

Frank Ellis -- Multiculturalism and Marxism

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Speech Therapy - End Game.

2010-02-15T20:16:00.007-05:00

"As a result you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of all human feelings. []
The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say 'I'm as good as you'. []
The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid resounding lie. []
No man who says 'I'm as good as you' believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholor to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. []
Now this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to the humans for thousands of years."

--- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.

Mister Clive Staples Lewis was translated from this life in 1963. He did not live in this life long enough to witness the full onslought and subsequent effects of the 'sexual revolution', feminism, multiculturism, globalism, political correctness and the like. But he certainly, so it seems to me, saw the beginnings of these things which is apparent in his writings, particularly the work I have quoted from in these three posts. I tend to think he was gifted with a certain prophetic insight.

I have focused in these three posts on the corruption of our common vernacular in the hopes of arousing awareness of the types of words and phrases in common use and to inspire, perhaps, a greater caution in what we say and how we say it.

The state of our current society makes it a rather difficult task to simply not participate in what is regarded as acceptable terminology; simply not participating is a little harder than yielding to the urge to correct someone else's way of speaking. It's always easier to correct someone else than to correct ourselves but with ourselves we must start. A heightened sense of awareness of the changeable nature of things comes, first and foremost, by Grace but we also must cooperate with that Grace in order that it might become active within us. The guarding of the heart and the spiritual intellect against the constant bombardment of the senses by the hypocrisy, disinformation and moral degenerateness disseminated through various media forms challenges us to be very discriminating in what we give our attention to - and why.
Most of us (including myself) have probably given little thought to the subliminal messages we receive through our favorite television programs and other forms of 'entertainment'. We have unknowingly become catechumens of the doctrines of political correctness and multiculturism which influences our way of thinking, speaking and in some cases, behaving.

We have become overtly sensitive to things that (in the End) will not matter and desensitized to the things that do and will matter. It is no longer enough to "... let your 'yes' be yes and your 'no' be no"; we have to 'qualify' everything we say simply because no one (except perhaps those somewhat perfected in humility) are ever willing to accept a direct statement or answer they do not agree with - even if it is the truth. To give a simple and direct response is to most often be continually coerced to qualify every aspect of a given statement, resulting in the statement being dissipated into subjectiveness and rendered meaningless.

The late comedian George Carlin, (upon whom be Peace) notwithstanding his usual habit of flagrant vulgarity, had an amusing observation in one of his routines when he noted that we can no longer refer to a person as "fat" - they are "gravitationally enhanced", nor "short" just "vertically challenged", not "ignorant" but "intellectually deficient". Amusing but absurd, which was his point. Where have all the adulterers and fornicators gone? They're still here, we just call them 'polyamorous' now.

There is a women's clothing store in my area by the name of "Catherine's Plus Sizes" which has been in business for many years. I can remember back when the original name of it was "Catherine's Stout Shop". 'Stout' gave way to 'Plus', no doubt due to someone thinking their business would benefit from a word adjustment that does not draw strict attention to the simple reality that overweight women need larger size clothing. Or perhaps someone suddenly realized that the word 'stout' classically means 1): proud, fierce, brave; strong in body or build or 2): strong beer. Plus, using the word 'plus' gives the nicer connotation of something being added to something else, something being gained. This is quite clever since it vaguely conveys truth at the same time it does not offend vanity. This kind of word-play is what passes for "truth in advertising". There are many such examples. Vanity and Envy are kissing cousins and their song is "I'm as good as you".

It is also interesting to note an example of the vocabulary of de-sensitization.
Realizing that science has, over the course of time, developed and assigned specific clinical terms to specific things for specific reasons, one still has to wonder what exactly was going on in the room when they came up with some of these words.
An article on human reproduction offers the following:

"A genetically unique entity is formed shortly after conception, called a zygote."

"5 days or so after conception: The grouping of cells are now called a blastocyst."

"13-14 days after conception ... now referred to as an embryo."

"10 weeks it becomes a fetus."

These terms, in their original clinical context, are probably harmless.
Where they have done great harm, I think, is in using them to avoid referring to a human baby as a human baby. It is far more palatable to say we are going to aspirate the zygote/blastocyst/embryo or abort the fetus than it is to say we are going to murder your baby (at whatever stage of development it may be).
I believe these words have been deliberately employed by the abortion industry to de-sensitize people and lead them to believe that what they are destroying is something less than human.
It is shameful.

Just as shameful (if not more so) is how the word "God" is used with such flippancy.
"Oh-My-G*d" has become a popular exclamation and along with the age-old favorite has become the habitual methods of taking the Lord's Name in vain.
God is not an exclamation, a curse or the distributor of damnation.
God is Person and Presence. He is Beauty and Love and Goodness. "I AM God", He says, and there is no other." Someone might contend that the word "god" (especially with a small "g") is not, according to English grammar, a proper name. Perhaps that's true. But what then do we mean when we say it? Are we invoking a "god"? Cursing a "god"? What are we thinking? Obviously we are not thinking. We are reacting - badly. We have heard these expressions (and even used them ourselves) so much for so long we have become anesthetized to blasphemy.
Old Uncle Screwtape and company must be overjoyed. They are most surely not offended.

Now wheresoever Envy and Vanity doth go, the child called Offense surely follows and the "I'm as good as you" chorus reaches its crescendo.
It seems we get offended by a great many things, some more so than others. Some folks carry around so much emotional and/or ideological baggage that one is hard-pressed to come up with anything to say that will not cause sadness or anger. As far as it depends on me I try diligently to never offend anyone but inevitably it happens. When it does and I am made aware of it I ask forgiveness. If we do not love and forgive each other everything falls apart.
It is good to be sensitive to causing offense if Christ's humility is the motivation. If, on the other hand, the motivation is fear of retaliation or litigation, it is vanity.

I am entirely responsible for what I say and what I do.
I am not responsible for how someone perceives what I say or do.

Offense is a choice.

I always have the choice of whether or not I am offended by some one or some thing.
If I can remember this by keeping a constant awareness of God's loving Presence, then so many, many things that trouble me are revealed for what they are - vanity - and they no longer hold power over me.
Taking offense at social, religious, national or historic symbols; colloquial, ethnic or political terms and other such things, more often than not (if one is really honest with oneself), springs from the ground of Envy and Vanity. Whatever we say on such occasions, however we react, is usually just another form or way of saying "I'm as good as you."

There are forces at work in this world whose sole ambition is to create and maintain a fertile breeding ground for Envy, Vanity and Offense.

Some (I do not say all) who have appointed themselves as champions of the proverbial ‘plight of the poor’ really do not care all that much about the poor or their condition. They use their Christianity as a means to an end. At the core of the thrust behind the attitude and agenda of “soaking the rich”, “spreading the wealth around”, “affirmative action” “gay rights”, "universal healthcare", the "Green" movement, "Global Warming", etc, is the basic feeling of --- “I’m as good as you.”

Uncle Screwtape (that crafty old demon) really had it pinned down when he said, “… We do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything --- even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. ‘Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.’ That’s the game”.

I believe it is time to stop playing the game.
Stop playing the game of class (and every other form of) envy.
Stop playing the game of “I’m as good as you” vanity.
Stop playing the game of offense and instead be grateful.

“Hold on to what is good. Return no one evil for evil. Strengthen the fainthearted. Support the weak. Help the suffering”.

But let us do these things ourselves, personally, as much as we are able, motivated by the joy of the Holy Spirit. This will change the world more effectively than any government program or legislation.

I am not as good as you and I don’t have to be, because I know God and love Him and am loved by Him. And that’s all that really matters.

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Speech Therapy - Part Two

2010-02-01T19:28:00.022-05:00

"You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. [] As a result you can use the word ... to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of all human feelings. You can get him to practice, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided."

--- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.

Lewis' focus in this passage was on the word democracy but the implications here go far beyond that. The types and choices of words we use in speaking has been subtly manipulated by political, academic and media elites to the point of creating a universal assumption. This same assumption is continually perpetuated by the same elites and we buy into it without question. Why? Well, it must be true of course. After all, the politicians talk that way (they never answer a direct question directly so they must be really smart). Those college and university professors, doctors and lawyers with all the MD's and DD's and PhD's after their names talk that way cause they're experts don't you know! Besides, they're on TV so they must be important.

My intent is most certainly not to disparage academic disciplines nor the people who practice them nor do I mean to suggest that all politicians are wicked or that all news journalists are dishonest. My intent is to point out that linguistic development over the last fifty or so years has taken a definite turn for the worse and our thinking and behaving is following suit.

Under the guise of 'political correctness' (the abominable spawn of the equally abominable 'multiculturism') we have been duped into accepting (even if subliminally) ideas, lifestyles and behaviours that, were it not for the introduction or manipulation of certain 'magic' words might have remained universally derided and modestly hidden.

Gay and Gender - two words that have morphed into something totally other than their original meanings and enthroned themselves with their morphed meanings into common speech to the point that no one hardly gives it a second thought.

Gay, by classical definition means, "mirthful, merry; bright-coloured, showy".

Likewise, Gender, classically has never had any other application outside of it's grammatical context: "kind, sort; any of the three 'kinds', masculine, feminine and neuter, of nouns, adjectives and pronouns".

I fail to see where this has any relation whatever to those afflicted with the desire to practice sodomy. In fact, according to R.V. Young, Professor of English at North Carolina State University:

"This English word [homosexual] is itself a very recent coinage. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, both “homosexual” and “homosexuality” first appeared in English in 1892, along with “heterosexual” and “heterosexuality,” in an English translation of Richard von Kraft-Ebing’s Psychopathologia Sexualis (1886) and turn up again five years later in Havelock Ellis’s Studies in the Psychology of Sex.
In other words, only in the late nineteenth century, when physicians began discussing sexual perversion as a medical rather than a moral problem in Latin treatises intended only for the learned and required a neutral, clinical term, was there a perceived need to refer to “homosexuality.” Moreover, it is not at all clear that the originators of the term had precisely in mind what is usually meant by “homosexuality” in contemporary parlance.

Yet, our contemporary parlance has universally adopted these words with their morphed meanings. Gender has come to mean the distinction between male and female and the word sex has become an action. Professor Young goes on to explain:

"The imposition upon an ingenuous public of the terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual” required a prior bit of linguistic legerdemain, namely, the redefinition of “sex” and the displacement of its principal original function by the term “gender.”
Latin provides the root (sexus or secus, probably from “cut” or “sever,” but more pertinently to “divide” or “halve”) for the English word “sex” and for its Romance language equivalents. Since the twentieth century, the word “sex” first evokes the specific notion of sexual intercourse and everything associated with it rather than the simple division of a species into male and female, or the division of humanity into men and women. “Sex” now means primarily an activity rather than a state of being, as in the awkward and ugly, but ubiquitous, phrase, “having sex” (of which the OED attributes the first usage to D. H. Lawrence in 1929).
Once “sex” had acquired this new semantic profile, it became easier to substitute “gender” for “sex” as the denomination of the difference between male and female, man and woman. If the first change, however, was the gradual result of recreation replacing reproduction as the principal association of “sex” in Western culture, the introduction of “gender” as the differentiating term was deliberate and fraught with ideological baggage." []

"Before the sixties, “gender” was largely confined to marking the distinctions between “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neuter” nouns and pronouns in various languages. The gender of a noun is quite often purely arbitrary or, if you will, “socially constructed”; that is, there is no particular reason why the Spanish word for pen (la pluma) is “feminine” while a pencil (el lápiz) is “masculine.” Or why in Latin, French, and Spanish the hand (manus, la main, la mano) is “feminine,” while the foot (pes, le pied, el pie) is “masculine.”
The application of the term “gender” to the difference between men and women thus implies, without the argument ever being made, that the differential roles of men and women in family and society are as arbitrary as the gender of nouns. The routine use of “gender” to identify as men or women, test-takers, applicants for driver’s licenses and insurance policies, and virtually all those who fill out almost any kind of document marks the bureaucratic imposition of the feminist view of the sexes on society as a whole."

Part of the tragedy of this imposition, so it seems to me, is the upheaval it has brought about within Christianity concerning the role of women in the Church. Some say women can serve as ministers/pastors/priests, some say no. Theological arguments and theoretical cases both for and against abound but my point here is not to make a case either for or against women's ordination. My point is to draw attention to how two separate issues - women's ordination and approval of the sodomitical lifestyle in the Church - has become, in a Siamese twin-like relationship, a single issue. If one makes an in-depth search of the myriad churches/religious organizations calling themselves Christian who permit or approve of women's ordination, one will find that nine out of ten times the same group will also approve/accept/ordain sodomites (although there are a few exceptions). Accompanied by the magic words of "social justice", "inclusiveness", "equality", the sodomite ideological agenda has attached itself to the feminist ideological agenda and the two are happily causing chaos across the ecclesiological board.

This need not be so. These are two separate issues and should be treated as such. One is essential to salvation and the other is not. As a priest whom I know and love once remarked, "It is entirely possible to be a practicing woman and be without sin". I personally know and believe that there are many orthodox Christian women who have a valid priestly vocation. Whether they act on this or not depends on their own decision to pursue it and finding an orthodox Christian jurisdiction that has a need for such ministry and willing to permit it but without the ideological baggage. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of public example that gives reason for the scepticism surrounding the women's ordination issue but there are good examples also, perhaps just not as public. Let each case be treated on its own merits and without universal assumptions predicated on "linguistic legerdemain".

Professor Young again: The words in which we express our ideas have consequences. To insist that words be used rationally and consistently is a first small step toward recovering moral reason. We should, therefore, refuse to accept “gender” as a relativistic substitute for the fundamental difference indicated by “sex,” while the latter term is expropriated to mean any kind of physical coupling. Above all, we should not acquiesce in the labels “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” when we are referring to men and women.
To concede the validity of such linguistic novelties is to allow the ideologues of the sexual revolution to control the terms of the debate. “Male” and “female,” “masculine” and “feminine,” designate normative components of actual human nature: anatomical, physiological, affective, and rational. []

"No really existing class of persons of a specific, distinct nature corresponds to the word “homosexual” in the way that men and women are distinct, complementary kinds of human being. A claim for specific “homosexual rights” is, therefore, frivolous, and the word is merely an ideological construct aimed at undermining the sexual norms inscribed in human nature".

We Christians should be acutely aware of the words and phrases we use to communicate - verbal and written - and especially in everyday conversation. To commonly use such terms as 'gay', 'lesbian', 'transgender' and even 'homosexual' in their modern socially constructed meanings is the same as granting credibility, acknowledgement and (implied) acceptance of modern immoral social constructs. We simply do not have to play this game.

Now some may contend that this is unrealistic, especially in the context of the modern workplace. I do not think so. And I certainly do not advocate the usage of vulgar, slang or otherwise unkind words when referring to anyone, no matter who or what they are. Nor do I mean to suggest useless chatter filled with pointless platitudes (although in some situations this may actually be useful if not the safest thing to do). But in all cases let us choose words of love, words of mercy and words that heal and let our silence speak to the rest.

"It is better to remain silent and to be than to talk and not be. Teaching is good if the teacher also acts. Now there was one Teacher Who 'spoke and it was made', and even what He did in silence is worthy of the Father. He who has the word of Jesus can truly listen also to His silence, in order to be perfect, that he may act through his speech and be known by his silence." ---

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians.

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The full text of R.V. Young's article may be found here:

Touchstone Archives: The Gay Invention

Speech Therapy - Part One

2010-01-29T21:34:00.012-05:00

The good work our philological experts have already done in the corruption of human language makes it unnecessary to warn you that they should never be allowed to give [a] word a clear and definable meaning.

-- C.S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters.

A recent re-reading of portions of this wonderful work of C.S. Lewis reminds me just how delightfully entertaining it is and how much wisdom hiding beneath the surface can yet be discovered.

One thing that came back to mind was my initial reaction to the above notation: how our language has indeed been corrupted. I do not mean just common foul slang and vulgarity - obviously there is that! But more to the point of perfectly good words and phrases, some of which have been around a very long time, whose classical definitions have been perverted, degraded or stripped from them altogether and if used in context with their classical meanings would now cause serious confusion if not outright hostility in some cases.

I am certainly and by no means a linguistic scholar but I find it so dreadful to observe how modernity can usurp otherwise perfectly legitimate words (or phrases) and distort them into meanings they never originally had and we just march right along with it off a verbal cliff like linguistic lemmings.

Take first, for example, the words conservative and liberal.

The word 'conservative' is pretty simple - to conserve or preserve something, or one who seeks to conserve or preserve something. For the most part, that simple meaning is still somewhat in place but unfortunately has also been married to other words that do not necessarily belong to it, such as right-wing, etc. These types of word compounds can tend to take on any meaning the speaker wishes to assign to them in any given context and the result is what the speaker intends and what the hearer perceives most often are two different things.

Much the same can be said for the word liberal, and I was happily surprised to find one classical meaning to be "pertaining to the arts, considered worthy of a free man".
How delightful! And how very sad that we predominately don't use it with that meaning anymore. The use of these two words now in our common PC vernacular serves only to promote a connotation of contention. And yet they fly through our airwaves like fiery darts setting people at odds with one another - even in the Church.

Perhaps we ought to pick better words and start over.

Although it would seem some have already tried by labeling themselves progressive.

I suspect this usage has come into play in order to imply some sort of distancing from the negatively employed usage of "liberal". Honestly I don't know what it's supposed to mean in PC-speak; progressing towards ... what?

I read the definition as "onward march; forward movement". Simple enough.

Someone wants to move forward and another wants to conserve. In the context of the Church it is entirely possible to do both but in terms of modern American politics I suspect the real problem lies in the recognition of the reality that one is usually always going to overide the other. Thus it becomes a competition, a power struggle, which is anything but what it ought to be.

There is a significant scene in the movie Star Wars-Revenge of the Sith where the young Anakin Skywalker is talking with Senator Palpetine (who is really the Sith Lord and becomes the Emporer). The Senator is drawing Anakin closer to the Dark side of the Force by suggesting there is a secret knowledge available there that he cannot learn from the Jedi because they suppress the Sith ideology. Anakin says that the Jedi use their power only for good to which Palpetine responds, "All who gain power fear to lose it - even the Jedi."

Replace the word Jedi with the name of any political party, corporation or "religious" institution and the statement still holds true.
We would do well to remember this, especially when we vote.

Another word, a beautiful word - Religion.

This is a word that carries both a classical and a theological definition.

The theological meaning is simple and can be found concisely in the Letter of the Blessed Apostle James chapter 1 verse 27. From this it should be clear (and so say the Church Fathers) that Religion is a Virtue and has always been regarded as such, which even the classical definition reinforces: "state of life (as of monks) bound by vows and a rule; religious order or rule".

This is simple and non-problematic.

The problem, so it seems, emanates from the latter portion of the classical definition: "system of faith in and worship of a divine power". From this (unfortunately) has emerged the modern consensus of Religion as an institution. There are most certainly other contributions to this mis-conception as well, not the least of which is the distortion of Christian ecclesiology (especially since the Reformation).

The descent of Religion as virtue to Religion as institution has continued for so long unanswered that now the word itself evokes negative responses from both Christians and non-Christians alike. For some (predominently the atheist sort) it is responsible for wars, terrorism and needless suffering and should therefore be eradicated or at least controlled and concealed. Others (predominently the Evangelical Christian sort) see it as an impediment to true spirituality. I cringe when I hear good-natured, well-meaning Christians blurt out, "I don't have a religion, I have a relationship!" If only they understood what they were really saying they wouldn't really say it. At least I hope they wouldn't.

Likewise, those who are quick to say, "I don't like organized religion" whenever the subject comes up are, I suspect, really using the statement to avoid revealing the state of their own heart which has more than likely been wounded in some way by involvement or encounter with some institutional 'church' or group that has perhaps failed to show the Face of Christ adequately. In all such cases the Body of Christ - the Family of God is diminished. And this is a great sadness.

Religion is a Virtue not an institution.

It is an operative Grace given by God in our state of life as monastics but is not necessarily restricted to a monastic state of life. God does not withold virtues from those who seek
to cultivate them but we must be willing to exorcise this modern myth of religion as institution from our thinking and begin to live what has been revealed to us.

May God give us Wisdom to un-learn what we think we mean.

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Essentials For the Journey

2010-01-21T17:45:00.000-05:00

I want to draw attention to this most wonderful essay by Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America:

http://www.monasteryofstjohn.org/abbatialessays/Do_not_react.pdf

I believe the spiritual principles he expounds on herein are absolutely essential to our monastic life.

The absolute Spiritual Truth is plainly seen.

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Challenging Enough and More

2010-01-16T17:35:00.000-05:00

Pastor John Roop, whose sermon writing I admire and enjoy tremendously, has posted a most wonderful, inspiring and challenging piece on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord:

euangelion: Family Matters: Sermon on the Baptism of our Lord

I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically agree with what he has said about the good folks at St. Demetrios! I love them dearly! They are themselves a Theophany in place and time.

I heartily recommend the reading of it in it's entirety.

Now some might think that I would disagree with certain points presented in Pastor Roop's post. I do not.

In fact, it stirs to mind some additional points I would like to offer, perhaps as challenging:

Can a Christian support government actions or policies that effectively results in the extortion of the property/possessions of another against their will, be they known to be a fellow Christian or not?

Can a member of the Family of God, knowingly and deliberately, vote for a political candidate who has by their own public admission and record demonstrated their support of and intent to implement policies that undermines the integrity and sanctity of marriage and erodes the foundation of the traditional family by granting special "rights" and/or priviledges to homosexuals?

Can any Christian with an informed conscience, knowingly and deliberately, vote for a political candidate who has by their own public admission and record demonstrated their support of and intent to implement policies that promote, sanction and allow greater access to abortion and the allocation of public funds for the use thereof?

Pastor Roop goes on to say,

The family of God doesn’t really acknowledge separation of church and state.

I am delighted at such a statement!
Because the current understanding of that small phrase is a contrived interpretation of Thomas Jefferson's usage, given legal import by those who would reduce the U.S. Constitution to some sort of "living" document that can be distorted by popular opinion instead of the foundation for Rule of Law that it was written to be.

The Second Century Letter to Diognetus states, "Christians dwell in the world but do not belong to the world."

I don't think it takes a theologian to understand what "dwell in the world" means; we do it every day, we are faced with the circumstances and stresses of it every day.
But to not "belong to the world" is a bit more vague. Or is it?
I think Pastor Roop used the best and right word - loyalty.

Are we loyal to Christian morals or political correctness?
Are we loyal to the Kingdom and Family of God or do we belong to the world of ideology?
I do not think we can be both at the same time. Not without something being compromised.

Our vocation is lived out in the world but let's make sure we take our shoes off before we step onto Holy Ground.

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When the Christmas Lights Go Out

2010-01-11T17:46:00.000-05:00

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, in the liturgical cycle of the Divine Office, officially brings the Christmas Season to a close.
Among many things, here at the Abbey, this means the Christmas lights and decorations are taken down and packed away for another year.
We are always the last ones on the street and even the entire area to still have the lights going a week after New Years.

I always feel a bit sad having to turn off the Christmas lights.
It always looks so dark afterwards.
It's almost as if, for a few weeks once a year, even those of little faith or not of the Faith unwittingly participate in displaying the Light of Christ, even if only through otherwise secular and commercial means.

In my area, the inflatable yard decorations are the popular thing - eight foot tall Santas, snowmen, nutcrackers, Nativitys, Charlie Brown & Peanuts characters and the Grinch - abound.
Some folks display their Christian Faith more profoundly with lights that spell out "Happy Birthday Jesus".

It's a lot of fun and pretty to look at.
Lights shining in the darkness.
And then they all go out.
And the houses and the streets are dark once again.

Of course the Christmas Cards we send and receive encourage us with sentiments of keeping the Spirit of Christmas alive in our hearts throughout the year.
I wonder how many of us actually do that.
More often than not, I suspect most of us give no further thought to Christmas or any spirit thereof until we see the Christmas decorations go up on display in the retail stores after the Halloween decorations come down.

That's the consumer trend.

The Christian 'trend' is different.
Especially if one participates in the liturgical cycle of the Church.
We move with Christ from His Birth to His Baptism, from the Manger to the waters of Jordan, to the first miracle at the Wedding in Cana, the beginning of His earthly ministry, and on to the season of Lent and Pascha.

The sanctification of time.

Even in the in-between seasons called 'Ordinary Time', there is always something happening because Christ's life is always happening in us and through us. We eat His Flesh and drink His Blood as often as we do and we have His Life within us in every season and at all times.
The Christmas lights may go out but His Light in us never goes out.
And we need to make sure (as far as it depends on us) this Light is visible and perceptible.
Christ's Incarnation, Birth, Baptism, every event and season of His Life as well as those who shared in it - our Lady Theotokas, His Mother and our Mother - the Apostles, disciples and Saints, His brothers and friends - our brothers and friends.
All of this Life and Light has happened, is happening, and we must remember and keep it ever in mind, while driving to work or shopping in Walmart.

Christians should never be people who need retail reminders.
We should not be people who say, "I’m so glad Christmas is over".
Nothing is over. It is ever beginning, ever continuing. Never ending.

"Christ is bathed in light" writes St. Gregory of Nazianzus, "let us also be bathed in light.
Christ is baptized; let us also go down with Him and rise with Him.
Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom His every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the light of Him Who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received - though not in its fullness - a ray of its splendour, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen."

The Christmas lights have been turned off but we have been bathed in the light of the Incarnation.
The Christmas tree ornaments have been packed away but we are decorated with a ray of Theophany.
We’ve stopped singing Christmas Carols but we must never stop singing ‘Glory to God in the Highest’.

Keep shining!
Keep singing!
The darkness can’t stand it!

StartUp and An Answer

2010-01-02T18:29:00.000-05:00

I had anticipated something a bit different for the first posting of this blog but will just kick things off with New Year's Blessings to all members and friends of the OCB.

At the same time, I would like to offer this response to a query posed by my dear friend, Fr. Gregory, on his blog ( VagantePriest: A Question... ) some time back.
Though a little less than timely, I hope it is still somewhat relevant.

Why is it that we cannot, in all good conscience, say with St. Paul, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ"?

Initially this brings to mind something from the Fathers I read about the advice an old abbot gave the new abbot of a community. When the younger asked how he should guide the brothers, the old abbot said, "Be their example, not their legislator."

As one who occupies such a position, I can definitely attest that it is much easier to legislate than to be an example.

But it is not nearly as effective.

I think perhaps there are a variety of reasons why we do not in good conscience say this with the Great Apostle. And I say do not rather than can not because I think the lack of saying it is born more of fear than of inability.

One reason that comes to mind is that we (clergy), in a constant effort of pretended humility, are so busy reminding people that we are not superhuman, we are not sinless, we are not perfected, etc, that we inadvertantly stifle the mystery and power of the Grace the indelible mark has imprinted upon us.

"Now to Him Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Eph. 3:20-21).

I believe we are exhorted to "fan into flame" the gift bestowed on us through the laying-on-of-hands, not to stifle.

To fully acknowledge what we know we are without pretense or excuse while at the same time not being afraid to speak and act with the absolute power of conviction is a delicate balance and an Apostolic characteristic - one that has been diminished over time.It has not gone away entirely (God forbid!) but it has been diminished, to the degree that the empowerment manifested in the Holy Apostle Peter saying to the lame man, "Look at us ... in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk" (Acts 3:4,6) is in our times rarely to be found and if it is found it is immediately rendered suspect.

Similarly, "Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you ... [ ] Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say." (Philemon 8: 21).

Many deacons, priests and bishops have forgotten the mystery, power, responsibility and authority of their vocation.

We have forgotten a lot of other things too, I think.
And all of these things are simple things, which is exactly why we forgot them.
We either fear simplicity or we mistakenly equate it with reductionism.
"Imitate me as I imitate Christ" is simple, but we do not say it because we have forgotten what it means out of fear for what it means.
It's so much easier to distract ourselves with imitating other things.

Of these other things, there are a few I can readily posit as decidedly distracting if not outright delusional.

Many clergy, especially those of us of the vagante sort, fall into the materialism trap because we allow ourselves to believe that people will not come to our Service/Mass/Liturgy unless there is a climate controlled building with a parking lot and bright, shiny, pretty things to look at. If these things are missing then we are not legitimate clergy in the eyes of the world. So by default we are a church based on whatever passes as the model in public opinion.As someone has already pointed out, ours is a society that values opinion more than truth.
But it is Truth, Love and Goodness from the heart of imitating Christ that will draw people to the church of our presence and His Presence.
If we proclaim the reality of our Baptism and live the Liturgy of our First Love, the need for actual words will become less and less.

Idealism can be a clever trap for many of us - myself included.I should say I refer more to a mis-directed idealism because there is no problem in the tendency to envision things in an ideal form or to regard the ideas of truth, right, goodness, beauty, as attributes and active energies of God. But there is a real and present danger for clergy when one's idealism marries itself to a particular ideology, makes the leap to social activism and directs its energies towards effecting what it idealizes.I say this is a trap because once one makes that leap it becomes all too easy to justify each move - compromise a little principle here, overlook a little there - as long as the subjective 'greater good' is served. And the 'greater good' is always subjective - it is subject to the particular ideology of which it is the end.
The result is that one becomes enmeshed in a virtual web of grey areas where the lines are blurred and simple things are obscured in complexities.
Any ideology, social teaching, personal opinion, etc, religious or secular, that creates an atmosphere or allows for eminent Christian moral principles to be compromised for the sake of the possibility of achieving some perceived 'greater good' is delusion.

As Fr. Jonathan of Second Terrace has brilliantly noted:

"Every modern battle (i.e., fought for policy or ideology instead of morals) is really an incantation."

Too many Christians and clergy alike have allowed themselves (perhaps unwittingly) to imitate an ideology in the name of Christ rather than Christ Himself.

I think now of a profound statement I heard from an Anglican bishop from Kenya (his accent was very thick so please forgive my typing it as I heard him say it): "We hear and speak of this culture and that culture; of diverse cultures and multi cultures and how we must respect these things ... but I say to you ... we are Christians! For us there is only one culture and that is Christianity ... that is our culture."
The good bishop's words positively resonated with me; they resonated with absolute conviction and apostolic authority; as one who has a firm grasp of his unique and authentic Christian cultural identity.

I think also of David Barton, a notable American historian who has remarked on many occasions that Americans do not know their own history - specifically the role Judeo-Christian tenets and values played in its foundation - and that what is being taught in modern schools is largely revisionist. I have only to recall the comment of my 18 year old nephew at Thanksgiving dinner who said he thought the greatest thing about America was it's technology, to agree with Mr. Barton's assessment.

America, through complacency and ignorance, no longer recognizes what has always made it unique so it has bought into the lie that it can imitate every other thing and ought to become just like everything else; "The grass is always greener over the septic tank" syndrome.

Christianity, to a great degree, has followed the same pattern: sacrificing its own unique cultural identity by meddling in worldly schemes and trying to effect the outcome of history under the guise of implementing a perceived "Christian" goal.
Whatever perceived leveling effect on the playing field this may have is imaginary and one loses a little of one's Christian identity in the process.
Active involvement in all this multi-culturalism/ socio-political/ideology mishmash malarky only serves to put one Grand Inquisitor after another in the seat of Caesar.

I do not suggest that we not be informed or that we cannot have a particular set of opinions (is it even possible not to have a particular set of opinions?)
But there is a fine line between this and allowing oneself to be reduced to a receptacle for modernity.

I believe the old adage, 'Shepherds don't make sheep; sheep make sheep' is a true one.
We shepherds must be willing to let go of all that distracts us from He Who is our Life, our identity. We must be willing to allow Him Who is our Peace give us peace amidst all those social problems that trouble so many.

Do we Christians care about the poor? Of course we do.
Do we care about justice? Of course we do.
Do we care about the country we live in? I should hope so.
What, then, is our response?
Fr. Stephen remarks, "... the Christian response is not a response to the actions of man; it is a response to the actions of God."
"God matters and what matters to God matters. [ ]
There are many things that do not matter - because they do not matter to God. Knowing the difference between the two - what matters to God and what does not requires that we know God. And this is theology - to know God."

St. John of Damaskos writes: "All human affairs, all that does not exist after death, are vanity." (Philokalia Vol. 3).

It is vanity, folly and arrogance to be so sensitive to social symbols and "issues" such that it colours our theology and degrades our conduct.
If we cannot maintain a balance and a clear distinction between our opinions and our doctrine, between modern social constructs and authentic Christian Tradition, we risk becoming harbingers of sentimentality rather than heralds of the Gospel.

If the shepherds do not stay the course, maintaining a certain distance - a certain detachment from social affairs, the sheep will not be able to distinguish what exactly it is they are expected to imitate and will go astray, as indeed they are doing and have already done.

We shepherds are human indeed. And we are weak.
But we are not spiritually disabled nor unable to reflect something that can be imitated.
In fact, I believe we are imitated, more than we would care to admit and such that it renders the question of actually saying it with St. Paul, somewhat moot.
People will imitate what they recognize about us as reflecting qualities of Christ, whether we are aware of this or not. They will also imitate our less than desirable qualities.
It behooves us, therefore, to be attentive to how we reflect Christ and make sure, inasmuch as it depends on us, that we do not taint that reflection with vain ideologies and agendas, be they 'progressive' or 'conservative'.

I am not an advocate of 'resolutions' because they are usually of a selfish nature and are rarely kept, but if I had one it might be this:

Be True - to our Faith and our origins;

Be Simple - it's easier to imitate;

Be Real rather than correct.

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