A long weekend...

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for You are with me...

Coming home...

My brother Paul is coming home today.

In the next few hours a plane will land and the trip that started out so routinely and ended so unexpectedly will be complete. The usual hugs and unpacking and catching up that mark the end of a business trip have been replaced by baggage handlers taking his body to a quiet hearse, but more than ever we are glad, in our tears, that our Paul is home.

Some decades ago our parents took a leap of faith and moved the family to Minnesota in pursuit of a better job and a better life. And over the years it has become home, first because our parents were there, and now because it is where we bury our dead. We are fixed to this place by life and death and Wisconsin seems so very distant although the border is an easy day's walk away.

Paul will be buried in the same cemetery as my father on the edge of Mahtomedi. It is a remarkably quiet place that had once been the country cemetery for the city of North St. Paul. Now its a remnant of an earlier time, a place surrounded right to the edges by suburbia yet remarkably calling to mind how this area was once a deep woods and a resort town on the edge of the Twin Cities. The old country road is now a busy four laner but there is still a peace there and a sense of the sacred in the middle of cookie cutter townhomes and conformity.

Our name now joins the list of the familiar Mahtomedi family names who have been gathered in this place. If we were not part of this town in life we are, now, in death part and parcel of its life. Whatever the years bring this small piece of land, more than any houses we buy, will mark us as belonging here.

In my mind as I write this I envision the passage of the years to come, the gentle movement of seasons over the resting places of those we love. I imagine standing by the graves of my father and brother in my old age if God so allows thinking of all that has gone before, all that could have been, and how close and how far away are those I love in a place made holy by thier rest.

The sense of loss will be pronounced, but so will the sense of peace. We spend a few short days wandering this earth in temporary shelter and then, and only, in death do we come to a permanent place, and end to the travels, and where heaven and earth will one day meet we find our home.

A gentle note...

Just a gentle note to all those who seek to be comforters in a time of mourning.

Two things you should always avoid saying.

First never say "It was God's will..." because we simply don't know that with any specificity.

Second avoid saying "It's a blessing..." because it never is. Death is grotesque even at its best and all those who experience it would much rather trade thier "blessing" for whatever your "blessing" is any time.

Now, that being said all of us are grateful for the prayers and letters and calls and emails that have come to us in this time. We literally feel a certain peace and strength in this time because of it. We are humbled, as well, by the outpouring of love and affection for Paul. Our loss is terrible but these things are a sweet balm of healing and we thank you.

It's not God's will...

A short while ago a devout Christian with whom I worked came to comfort me at the loss of my brother.

She's the genuine article, a real person of faith who tries to make it matter in a very confusing world, but something she said took me back. "It's going to be alright" she said "It was God's will". Now I know she meant well but...

No, it was not God's will!

It was not the desire of God's heart that my brother die in a hotel room in Los Angeles. Or that anyone for that matter suffers and dies. If anything it is Satan's desire, with each death and each pain being a way to stick a diabolical finger, as it were, in God's eye.

Yes, but God could have prevented it!

And the answer is yes, God could have, and I don't understand why providence chose this time and place and way for my brother's earthly life to end. I may never. And right now its everything I can do to hold on to the idea of a plan and a guidance to all of this, a meaning that's real but just escapes me at the moment. I trust it all makes sense to my brother already yet it's only honest to say if any belief or faith is present in this time its not rooted in what I see or feel.

Remarkably, in all of this I know in a place beyond my emotions and my logic that God is still working to make all things new and somehow this dreadful thing, this epitome of all that is broken and wrong with humanity, has a place in it all. That is God's will, and somehow my brother leaving this life is part of it.

It makes no sense at all but at the same time it seems very true.

At 2:40 PM...

At 2:40 PM today I have an appointment with my doctor.

I will ask, no even demand, that my heart be checked out and not just with the once over via stethescope.

You see after he died they discovered that my brother had advanced arteriosclerosis, an enlarged heart, and possible evidence of a prior heart attack. He was a non smoker, moderate drinker, golfer, bicycle rider, and not anyone you would have looked at and said "There's a heart attack waiting to happen..." The only symptom that something was wrong was the heart attack that robbed us of his life and made the world poorer by one decent man.

So off to the doctor I go and if you have a history of heart disease in your family (and mine does) or you have those tell tales signs of heart distress don't wait and don't let the doctors use their conventional wisdom and tell you you're too young or its all in your head. Go, get it dealt with, even if you have to cancel that meeting or miss that appointment.

There is so much at stake.

A time to die...

Yesterday, in the early morning, in Los Angeles, my brother Paul died.

Even as I write this it seems unreal and so out of order for the way things should be. And so unfair.

Apparently he, and we, and all of us did not know that his poor heart was fading away even as he seemed to remain so very strong and alive. And while he was talking to his wife on the phone before going off to work it just stopped. Now its our hearts that are broken.

I make no sense of this because in my mind I see none. Nothing about this fits any logic I know and part of me is angry and frustrated in a primal way. I should not be crying with a widow in her early 40's. I should not be trying to help a 12 year old kid make sense of it all. But it is what it is and all hope that this is a bad dream was shattered when I woke up this morning and came to realize that I have been denied the terrible comfort of this all being a nightmare.

Yet I do not fear for his soul as I know he loved the Lord. And even as he will miss in an earthly way all the joys of this life, the graduations, the weddings, the grandchildren, all the things he deserved he will also never grow old, never grow broken and sad and tired as is the lot of all us who remain. Time and its pains have no hold on him anymore, only glory remains and the incredible life of heaven in which we all are what we should be, where we should be, and in the presence of Love in its purest form.

I would be selfish to deny him this.

Yet my pain is so deep that I am nearly unable to function and I cannot imagine that of his wife and children and our mother who now has to face the indescribable task of burying her own child. Faith rises like an instinct and there is a very calm place in the center of things in myself and in all of us despite the intense bitterness of these days but I still hurt in ways I never imagined.

God, the river is deep and cold, the current is swift, and I fear for the crossing. Yet stay with me and I will walk on.

A change in the weather...

The temperature outside is beginning to feel more like autumn although officially its still summer.

Around here we call it "good sleeping weather" when the evening air is cool and the humidity of the summer has passed. You can keep your windows open as the temperature drops in to the 60's (farenheit) and just a light blanket is all you need for a good night's rest.

September is Minnesota's way of apologizing for weather that always seems to be wrong somehow. Too hot, too cold, too rainy, too snowy, too much of something nearly always and its unpredictability has made TV meteorologists stars and the rest of us gripers. But somehow September is different. Everything is basically steady and pleasant as if nature herself has taken a rest from making war on us and we celebrate the truce.

The colors will appear as well. At first they will be just touches of orange and red in the leaves but by the end of the month and the early part of October the hills will seem to be on fire with the glory of fall. The drive to LaCrosse, through the Mississippi River valleys through the bluff country, is particularly remarkable. Tourists come from literally all over the country to see nature's last show before winter. The locals call them "leaf watchers" and they descend on the area with the whirring sounds of cameras and fill the local registers with cash.

There are tangible benefits to being a traveling Priest and this season reminds me of them. Whether I was on the road through the woods to the prairies of North Dakota or along the river to LaCrosse there are moments of beauty in the quiet of the car that are real but cannot be perfectly explained. You just know. I cherish them and look forward to the drive south even now as I am typing this as part of the last details of work before I head out.

This change in the weather also brings out the best in me. I like it cool and wish that September's weather was the standard for the whole year. With all due respect to the Floridians I do like to visit but would probably turn into a maniacal killer if forced to live there all year round. I even like Fargo, high and wide on the North Dakota plains and driven by winds that come unchecked from the steppes of Canada.

With the change in the weather my pace quickens, the sleepy days of summer pass, and the preparations for the winter come in earnest. The church, diminished by the vacations of summer, returns to life again and the horizon expands even as the daylight shrinks away. All in all it is a good time of the year.

And I must be on my way.

On 9-11

I do remember September 11, where I was and what I was doing.

My wife told me on the phone that a plane had struck the World Trade Center and I assumed some crazy pilot had taken his Cessna into one of the buildings. TV coverage would later, grimly, correct that assumption.

I remember, too, watching as the towers fell live on TV. I can't imagine that anyone expected it and the great unblinking electric eye passively observed as 1000's of lives ended in a collapse of steel and fire. The world stood still for a moment and then my thoughts went to the whereabouts of my sister, then living in Connecticut. She was okay. She could see the smoke, but she was okay.

Two days earlier I had flown from Pittsburgh on my way home from the Antiochian Village. I remember joking with an acquaintance named Ibrahim about what trouble I could get in to if I told people my luggage was handled by an Egyptian guy named Ibrahim. We laughed. I presume he made it safely to Los Angeles and then home to Brazil, but I don't know. I do know you can get a nasty body cavity search and maybe a few years in prison for that joke now.

I've not been happy with the world since that time. Its not about fear but more about what the five years since that time have brought out in me and all of us.

I remain disappointed in our leaders for whom this incident continues to evoke not the noblest of the arts of statecraft but a continual and crass game of political advantage. At times it does not seem fair that several thousand innocents were killed while several hundred politicians were spared. And still the actions of the rescuers in New York and the passengers of flight 93 are by far more decent, more noble, more brave, and more pure than anything that has come out of Washington before, during, or since that time, all parties, no exceptions.

I remain puzzled, as well, as to how blind we are to the reality of evil, how desensitized our therapeutic culture has become to the idea of the diabolical. Some things in the world are not about the trauma of youth, or the results of economic disadvantage, or some vague form of improper care but reflect a very dark part of us that is always prone to disorder and violence and needs to remain in check. Even still there are those who cannot understand that there is evil in the hearts of men, an empty hole that cannot be filled with any amount of empathy or understanding.

And finally I mourn the loss of the greatness of the American spirit in all of this. How quickly the kindness, the generosity, the sympathy, and the collective sense of our being a people evaporated. Days, months, weeks?Who knows? But even the sight of thousands of people dying in dire circumstances has done little to change the terminal velocity of our selfishness. We pay official homage but our hearts are no different. We have no time for anything else because our noses are jammed into the trough or obsessed with the idea of how we can get into it.

Yet there is some light. We saw again how short and fragile life is and how the things that have mattered for all of time still do. The people in the collapsing towers and falling airplanes spoke, as much we know of it, little of business or work or deadlines or tasks or politics but rather of love, family, faith, and how to face the end. Thier voices are prophetic although sadly we'll probably need to have a few more doses before the message gets through in a substantial way. And some really did discover faith, either in some final moment or upon reflection of the events. Perhaps some have been freed from the tyranny of the transitory by all of this. Is it worth all the deaths? No. But it may have opened some doors and only God knows where that will lead.

What's inside...

Peace comes from inside.

An external order can aide or hinder that peace but it cannot create it.

People place hopes in some utopian system or structure to create peace but since they are all created or populated by humans they can at best only ensure compliance but not peace.

The Muslims who think there will be a golden age when all the world is forcibly islamicized ignore thier own history of war and chaos and the current slaughter of Muslim against Muslim that is part and parcel of our world. But they aren't alone. Christians living in Christian cultures have killed each other as well.

I think that's why Jesus tells us that he leaves us peace of a kind that the world cannot provide, a kind of kingdom that lives inside of us and from there manifests itself to the world and not something outside that tries to force our life into compliance.

Without that understanding everything will just be endless cycles of darkness punctuated by shadows.

Sad but true...

Our leaders have become children, perhaps were never anything else, and so we must be adults on thier behalf.

4 x 2 = 8

For the past few weeks I've been enjoying a new arrival in my house, an Epiphone Mm20 mandolin.

It's not the fanciest one around, I've seen them on sale for over 20 k but it's good to start and each time I play it I'm reminded of why I purchased it in the first place. Even in the worst practices there are these moments of sweet sound that break through and nothing is as sweet as a mandolin properly caressed.

I've also been scanning all kinds of mandolin websites and even found a site www.live365.com where you can hear all kinds of music on a fast connection and a web station that plays only mandolin so I can hear what's possible and aim high.

Interesting, though, what the mandolin sites have to say about how to develop as a player. Practice every day. Strive to master the basics and then your other skills will come along. Don't forget that the relationship between a player and the mandolin is long term.

Sounds a lot like what Christian discipleship should be.

Amazing that I can grasp that with something made out of wood and wire but forget it so easily when it comes to faith.

Money, money, money...

I don't know if I've adequately explained why it is that I travel back and forth from St. Paul, Minnesota to LaCrosse, Wisconsin every weekend.

Its about money and freedom.

I like our system here in the United States. The government declares no religion to be the State Religion (the real meaning of that often contested phrase "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion...) and each religious body has to thrive on its own, carried only by the support of its adherents. This idea, unique at the time of the founding of this country, is pure genius because it allows for religious diversity and the effect has been that the United States ranks as one of the most religiously observant nations in the Western World even though no person is compelled to directly support a religious body by taxes.

So we have to raise our own money at St. Elias, the goodwill and generosity of the community is all that we have. And for a smaller church that often means making a hard choice between the support of a Priest and other vital ministries. Thankfully most Parishes will scrimp and save and work overtime to afford the costs related to a Priest but then important things that would help the church grow get left behind because all the resources are used to care for the clergy. Its a terrible cycle and can trap a church in a place where it is always spinning its wheels as it were and never moving ahead.

Ideally everyone in a Parish would give very generously and much of this problem would be eliminated. More support for missions and small parishes would be appreciated but quite frankly its just not there. So there is one more way as old as the New Testament. The Apostle Paul, a tentmaker by trade, did just that at various points in his ministry to support himself and build the church as well. Quite literally he had two jobs.

Now if St. Elias is going to make it that seems to be the only way to break out of being trapped by neglecting important ministries to direct resources to the support of a Priest. So I work here in Minnesota and draw a small salary in LaCrosse. The rest of the money goes in to the bank where it is invested for the future. Each dollar given is a little bit of freedom from the tyranny of having to neglect important ministries due to a lack of resources. Some time in the future when the financial padding is thick enough I can move down and not have to worry about our Parish being able to follow the call of God because we don't have the cash.

By the way, there is nothing noble about this on my part. The travel is easy, the people of St. Elias are good, and having the "wolf away from the door" also allows me to not have to call the Bishop at some future date and ask for a transfer because there is no support left. Its a win win thing built on the cost of a little fatigue and wear and tear on my car.

Now some people complain, a lot, about thier parish and how they seem to always be asking for money. And some parishes are living in luxury and still find a way to gripe. To the first I can tell you that I know every Bishop or Priest would love to never have to mention money ever again, but that requires people to giving willingly, generously, and without prompts. The laws of economics also apply to the parish and Cadillacs can never be bought at Yugo prices, what services come out are directly related to what resources go in. To the second I would ask you to be thankful and use your wealth as a parish for good things in the world. To whom much is given much is required.

I've seen so much of Interstate 90 in my year as a traveling priest that I can start to tell when the billboards change along the road. The folks at the Microtel Hotel in Onalaska know me by face. The car is coming very close to being able to drive all by itself through sheer repitition.

But the cycle of poverty at St. Elias is also starting to break. A few years from now that will make all the difference.

A good crowd...

For those of you in the United States this isn't big news but there are some who browse this site from other places and so you should know that summer here is about the time between Memorial Day in the end of May and Labor Day in the beginning of September.

I know that officially summer starts and ends later than those dates but between those dates is vacation time and people scatter to the winds on various trips and then reemerge in early September. It's a kind of curious migration.

Churchwise we usually expect the weekend of Labor Day, this past weekend, to be a time of small numbers at church as people get in thier last fling. Ironically if a church is in a vacation area Labor Day weekend marks the last Sunday of good attendance as the vacationers head back to the city and only the locals are around until sometime next May.

Regardless, there was a good number for our little parish on Sunday, almost full, and the choir sang with a certain vigor and even a few new people came to visit. Not bad for a Labor Day weekend Sunday when it normally looks like aliens came from outer space and abducted your parishoners.

The older I get the less I know truly about they whys and wherefores of people. But in a world where people don't always understand who you are and why you do what you do a good crowd on weekend when it isn't supposed to happen is like cool water in the desert for a Priest.

Don't ask why. Just accept.

It's all in your mind...

An article from the UK via the Curt Jester on the debate about whether there is a part of your brain hard wired for God. This time they used Nuns for the test...

BTW one should drop in on the Curt Jester every now and then. It's a good read.

This means war...

One year and change into Priestly life and one thing is certain. It's all about war.

If you want to be a Priest because you crave comfort or appreciation or status or power forget it, there's not enough there to make it worthwhile. You're at war, you're a soldier, and there's no place to rest from the battle.

Frankly I don't recall a year that has been worse for war in my thoughts, war in my soul, war in my body, and spiritual assaults then in this time. The power aligned against any who wish to serve God is formidable, cunning, and relentless and any lull in the action has nothing to do with success and everything to do with your enemy regrouping for another round.

And some blows I can withstand but I also fall more than I should, more than I wish, and always by my own hand.

Every Sunday I stand before an altar I do not deserve attempting to lead a liturgy I am unworthy to partake in and speak messages that spring not from my standing but from my own need. And deep inside I know who I am and how far away I am from being what I am supposed to be and the miles yet to travel.

It's all about war from the time the chrism hits your forehead to the time they put sand and oil on you in the casket. Your enemy, damned as they are, has nothing to lose and everything to gain each time you struggle, each time your faith withers, each time your actions betray your words or your heart.

I'm beginning to understand why great saints who struggled long and hard in the faith had no fear of death.

And I'm just beginning to understand the nature of this fight and why its important to stand even if your heart is pounding, your voice shaking, and everything inside of you says "run".

Second coming hysteria...

Listening to "Relevant Radio" (a local Catholic Radio station) yesterday on the way home I rediscovered an important truth.

I don't know what the future will bring. Are these the last days? I don't know. If the Apostles didn't know then you don't know either.

But if they are there should be joy, not at the troubles of the world because they are a call to action to God's people to reach out and serve and heal and proclaim and work, but rather on the return of the one who loves us and the world and desires that all things be made new.

When I was a child the end of time was often presented in dark and foreboding terms, a eschatalogical hurricane of sorts and our best hope was to be "raptured" out of it all before the storm hit with its full fury. The second coming of Christ was even used as a tool of evangelism, get saved so you can get out before everything hits the fan.

But the biblical images, as stark as they are about the end of time, also speak to the faithful of bridegrooms coming for the bride they love and birth pains before the arrival of life renewed, the return of heaven to earth and earth to heaven, a creation stopped from its groaning, and a great and holy feast in creation transformed.

Should there not be some joy in that?

Should we not also see that as well as the sad state of the world?

I'm trying, Lord knows I'm trying.

A little wisdom from St. Isaac...

Some wisdom from the "Paradosis" blog and St. Isaac

I say, that those who are suffering in hell, are suffering in being scourged by love.... It is totally false to think that the sinners in hell are deprived of God's love. Love is a child of the knowledge of truth, and is unquestionably given commonly to all. But love's power acts in two ways: it torments sinners, while at the same time it delights those who have lived in accord with it.

(Homily 84 of Saint Isaac the Syrian)

A teachable moment...

Was listening to a radio show on the way to work this morning the focus of which was the current administration's failure to put the threat of Islamic Fascism into concrete concepts that ordinary citizens would understand.

Just a thought on that btw. How about just saying that if Osama Bin Laden and the nut case in Iran win there WILL BE NO BEER!

Anyway, whatever the failings of the government in this matter there is a larger failing in the Church. We have simply not explained our faith and why it matters in such a way that people know, in real terms, what the faith is and how it contributes to our well being as a culture and by inference what could be lost if it disappears.

There are millions of people out there, especially in the "West" who are totally ignorant about Christianity and how it has changed their lives and what benefits have come from Christian culture. They have, as well, no ability to critically distinguish between faiths and observe the impact of the faith in the life of a society. That is why they are basically clueless about the potential impact of the ascendancy this dark vision of Islam is having on the cultures where it holds sway (like Saudi Arabia and Iran) and those it threatens (the epidemic of honor killings and rapes in Europe).

The number of clueless Orthodox is especially disturbing. Coming in to Orthodoxy it was revealing to see the significant biblical illiteracy and profound lack of understanding among so many who were raised in the faith. I literally had young people who had no idea where the book of Genesis was in the Bible in one class and others who had lived in Orthodoxy for decades who had no idea at all why we made the sign of the cross as we do. These people can be easy pickings for cults, secularism, and militant faiths promising peace and order at the cost of permanent discrimination.

Whatever the government does the Church itself must see the rise of Fascist Islam in the West and around the world as a clarion call to reteach those within her walls and explain to those without the nature, value, tenets, and worldview of the Faith. We should have been doing it yesterday.

A little wisdom from Mark Steyn...

Here

Now ask yourself "Who would you rather have as your Master?"

Perhaps the best thing about the resurgence of Islam is that people all over the world will get the chance to compare the life and teachings of Jesus and Mohammed and make their choices.

Sad but true...

A link from the Barna organization (the Barna Update is something every serious Pastor should have) reinforcing what many already knew...the events of 9/11 have had no lasting affect on spiritual life in America.

Sadly we're probably too warped by the materialist illusions of American life for something like SINGLE 9/11 to have lasting affect.

I wish that weren't true.

Traveling blues...

The past couple of days have been slow and tired.

Although I'm normally immune to large amounts of traveling fatigue the transistion between Sunday and Monday was particularly hard this time, sort of like having the hangover without the party. I guess its all about pacing yourself and seven day work weeks stacked together require some pacing.

But we're making headway.

This past Parish Festival was, by God's grace, the best ever and even though I have real problems with the idea of using the community to pay our bills for the time this is a necessity and the money is being banked and we're on our way to breaking free from an old way of doing business. The people worked hard for the love of thier small parish and our future is one giant step closer.

So if they keep on working as hard as they are and being as generous as they have been then I will be more than happy to endure a few bleary Monday mornings. Just take my advice and buy stock in the company that makes SoBe Energy drinks because I'm single handedly keeping them in business.

Oh, and make sure you tithe on the dividend check!

A blast from the past...

Here's a link from the old days in the Western Rite. An article I wrote entitled "Some Advice to Enquirers" which found its way to a Western Rite Orthodox magazine based in St. Petroc's Monastery in New Zealand.

Ain't the WWW grand?

Things along the way...

It's around about my birthday but I don't feel as old as I thought this would be when I was a kid. If that makes sense.

Regardless, I wish I knew what I know now with an 18 year old body but its not the nature of things. Wisdom comes with an older body. I guess its God's way of balancing things out.

So much has changed and I don't think the world is anything like I imagined it would be when I reached my middle 40's. I was, frankly, hoping for something better, maybe something that looked a lot more like the Jetson's but its not working out that way. Technology changes, people don't, and I'm a person just like everyone else.

And some things remain. I still have music running in, around, and through me. Its been that way since I was a kid. I'm still very curious about things and perfer to know a little about a lot rather than much about just one thing. I look in the mirror and see just about the same person I've always seen even though I've noticed that my face has changed. I still like Jesus and trust that he hasn't grown tired of me.

There's a part of me, as well, that still thinks I haven't quite found my purpose and calling yet, that one thing that I was destined to be. I've done a lot of things, some well, but that sense of being in the right place in the right time eludes me. I get frustrated by that sometimes but it could just as well mean that I'm still a work in progress with things to do or maybe just that somehwere deep inside I know I'm a traveler and part of that is never quite feeling at home until heaven.

These days I find myself caught between things. Part of me regrets how fast time has been moving, all the wonderful things that are yet to be experienced, all the good things that are, and how much I want to have them all. Another part of me counts down the days until I can rest. Right now I'm leaning towards the former but some times I see the benefit of the latter. Perhaps I'm moving towards that place where so many old folks are, a place somewhere between earth and heaven and fearing neither. That would be alright.

But tonight is a baseball night, one of my passions, and then tomorrow St. Elias calls again with a morning tour for some Lutheran ladies interested in Orthodoxy, Vespers, Matins, Divine Liturgy, Parish Council, and then home again.

On second thought, that rest is looking better all the time.

The Light of Christ illumines all...

I've been pondering these troubled times.

And for those who've read other parts of this blog you already know that I think humans have a unique capacity for insanity and too often the animals are our moral superiors. I still believe that. There is a primal chaos afoot, sin, as the Scripture identifies it, and it's got a hold on people high and low with a passion.

But equally true is the grandeur of Christ that shines in all of this.

Sometimes I think the depth of depravity, in the world and myself, is even in itself a witness by contrast to the the matchlessness, the purity, the completeness of Christ. In causal times that can be blurred by the convenience and the freedom from want but when feet are placed in the fire a kind of clarity ensues. Because in times of desperation the comparisons are well defined and stark. And this is such a time when ideologies and the people who idolize them are competing with weapons capable of ending planetary life and ruling the world, or whatever is left of it, as the prize.

Perhaps we Christians need to be threatened with militant Islam and secularism and whatever else is out there on the horizon so we can cut through the fog and come to know, again, what precious things have been given to us and how much is at stake if they are allowed to go away. It's been too easy for us for too long and we've grown flabby around the waist, cold in the heart, and forgetful in the soul. Threatened with the loss of all the benefits that have come to us through Christ perhaps we need now to come to know them, and their Source, again before it is too late.

Packages in the mail...

I still like to get packages in the mail, have since I was a kid.

And an expected package arrived today, a mandolin, not the fanciest, but a nice one and good for beginners with a place in my office already set up for it and a case arriving tomorrow.

But it was broken, a piece of the bridge had come loose in transit and left a half dollar size tear in the sunburst finish marring it beyond repair. The folks at the store tell me they can send one out as soon as the other comes back, by ground, to Kansas City. It looks like the middle of next week anyway. I'm disappointed.

It's not the damage, those things happen, but the loss of time that matters. The mandolin was to be a new adventure, a portable instrument with a lonely soul that I could take on my travels. I had ideas about what we could do together and where we could go and plans to sit on the bluffs outside Taylors Falls and watch the water and play whatever I could just for the trees.

Music has been a kind of sanity for me these past months. I play it constantly on XM while I drive and more often than not I can be found upstairs late at night practicing this instrument or that, my own songs mostly, with no one to listen except the open window. When my prayers go dry the music becomes my prayer. It's a passion with me and had it not been unthinkable when I was younger I could have seen myself trying to make a life of it.

Regardless the mandolin will have to wait. I'll get the case Fed Ex tomorrow and perhaps I'll leave it open and waiting, a kind of symbolic thing I suppose, for the time when the mandolin and the music arrive to fill it. And that's okay because I've already been playing it in my heart.

Why am I a priest...

August 14th has come and past and it has been a year since the Church in a fit of what I call madness decided to make a Priest of me.

More often than not I have wondered why I am a Priest. More than a few times I have felt like letting go of this terrible, holy, joyous burden. In truth I was happier as a Deacon, content to keep candles trim, order supplies, handle censers, and stay in the background. I've been up front before, in the lights. It not what it is cracked up to be. Not by a long shot. And I still dislike people kissing my hand even though I know its not about me.

I think I am a fairly odd choice for a Priest. I can think of dozens who are smarter, better versed in liturgics, holier, and more suited for this work than I am. I often feel out of my league, over my head, and hanging on for the ride. I can't imagine ever getting used to all of this, like it would be something normal or routine. I can't also imagine myself as the Priest in charge of some successful million dollar Parish because I'm too rough around the edges and a sucker for stray cats and stray churches.

All I know is that people need Jesus. The world is absolutely nuts and the only sanity, love, truth, peace, hope, health, and salvation is found in him. Period. My path to all of that is messy as hell but I have some idea of my need and I can think of nothing worse than crawling through this bizarre life chasing after meaningless things only to discover that it's a loss and emptiness that could last forever. That bothers me. But being a Priest allows me to do something about it.

So it's one day at a time, now 366 and counting...

A little comment...

The way the world is has stripped all pretense, politics, religion, science. philosophy, art, and literature from me because there is no ultimate hope in any of it. But it has made Christ, all that he is, all that he teaches, all that he asks for, and all that he calls us to envision, more real in thier absence.

I feel more like a stranger than ever before but closer to home then I ever imagined.

Daughters of Abraham...

One day a daughter of Abraham
will meet another of the same
in some quiet place, away from the noise of life.
And it may be in passing that they catch each other's eye
or perhaps just sitting together waiting for a bus.
And they will talk.

Probably pleasantries at first,
the weather or how the garden is doing,
and then perhaps of children, husbands,
family, and home.
And thier eyes will catch again to see, even for a moment,
a secret thing inside.
And they will talk.

Of how it is to lose the life they gave,
and if it matters at all in the larger shape of things.
How the voices seemed so right at the moment
but now everything just goes on and on and on.
Wondering whether it was worth it to make thier
children pass through the fire of Molech to satisfy
an anger that never changes.
And they will talk.

Until the bus comes, or the phone rings, or some other
noise calls them back to the life they have chosen.
Daughters of Abraham, alone and together, givers of
birth and feeders of the fire. The day moves on but in
a moment it comes to them how strange and close they
are to each other, beyond the noise, waiting for the bus,
or standing in line, or any place they can talk.

Christians and porn...

A link taken from "Relapsed Catholic" regarding Evangelical Christians and pornography.

Note: The numbers are startling but I have no information on the way the poll was conducted. I suspect the Orthodox numbers may be higher than we imagine as well.

Why...?

What would happen if people asked why?

When the government comes and asks us to kill other human beings that simple word "why" cuts through all the patriotic blather and manipulation of baser emotions and asks for a reason, a real reason, why some person must be horribly killed for our convenience.

"Why" requires that those in power show cause, a good cause, a just one, a profoundly necessary one for the killing of others. Surely if the common law says that a person cannot be executed without proof beyond a reasonable doubt it stands to reason that the execution of hundreds, sometimes thousands and millions, should require that same level of conviction.

"Why" is the question that gives people power when asked to kill. Wars cannot be fought by the unwilling and if there is no good answer to the question "why" perhaps there is no good reason to commit to the irreversible action of taking human life, especially when those who are ordering it have taken great pains to immuize themselves from the actual effects of thier decisions.

"Why" requires all of us to really look at the other human being as a person and resist the calls of power to dehumanize the other to such an extent that we feel thier life is expendable because they have determined it to be so.

Now I am not a pacifist. I understand there are times when war happens. But I believe there are too many times when the common people, those asked to kill and be killed, forget to step back before the hostilities commence and simply ask themselves, thier nation, and those in power "Why?". The end result has too often been millions of lives extinguished for silly reasons.

Things will change if people just pause for a moment and ask "Why?"

A different kind of cannibal...

A link to this story documenting the trade in stem cells from aborted fetuses for use as beauty treatements.

Give me a shout...

I have a map at the bottom of this blog's sidebar that tracks the locations of visitors to this site. I frankly amazed at some of the places where this blog has been seen.

I have no idea, of course, about your specific IP address and frankly couldn't care less. But I am interested in knowing, in a casual way, how you found this site and your critique of it's contents would be welcome.

Give me a shout, if you want, via the comments section.

Fr John

Walking forward singing...

My travels take me to Bemidji, Minnesota today for an all class reunion of members of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Bemidji State University.

In the college scene of the 80's , IV, as we called it, was part shelter, part club, part dating service, and part home for Evangelical Christians (mostly) on campus. It was sort of our frat. There were other campus ministries, of course, but in IV there was a distinct shortage of tweedy, elbow patch, fading 60's hipster type ministers and that made it special. Praise songs, Bible study, sharing, and then out from the safe harbor to the bumpy ocean of college.

I suspect that my wife and I may be the only Eastern Orthodox Christians there, although I am prepared to be surprised. We crop up in some very unusual places these days. But my gut tells me we will be quite alone and that's okay. It was worth the journey, every step.

So many times people who come in to Orthodoxy feel they have to throw some level of trash back at wherever it was they came. Perhaps they feel a need to decisively break with the past. Maybe they feel that somehow its required. It could be they really are angry and feel deceived and want some sort of payback. And some really have been ostracized by thier families and friends and have trouble expressing that pain.

I just don't feel that way. Everything I went through was for this time and place and none of it is to be rejected. It was important for me to have been where I was so that I could be in Orthodoxy as I am. Twenty years ago wasn't the right time but seven years ago was. It's all in higher hands than mine.

And someone once gave me some very good advice which I remember to this day. Come in to Orthodoxy walking forward and singing and not walking backward and shouting.

Behold I am making all things new...

A thought on the object of life...

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher, 121-180 A.D.

From an editorial by Tony Blankley in the August 2nd "Washington Times" on the nature of world opinion and the propaganda wars of our time.

Stem Cell Light...

A little light on the stem cell debate.

The older you get...

A little fact of life that's just coming to my attention.

The older you get the less they can take from you.

Think about it for a second, and take courage.

I wonder what I did with my copy of...

An interesting link to "end times" speculators through the ages.

Since the Middle East is in the news again I suspect the usual suspects will be cranking out the prophecies and a little background may be in order.

I wonder what I did with the copy of "89 Reasons why the Rapture will happen in 1989" someone (anonymously) sent me when I was a Baptist Pastor in Milwaukee.

More thoughts on the Middle East...

It's been like living inside a blender these past days when it comes to news from the Middle East.

Everyone has learned to spin. Everyone has compelling video. Everyone has easy answers. How different things would be if munitions were as in short supply as truth in the Middle East.

And it all matters to people for whom I care, souls entrusted to me who are everywhere on the spectrum in these matters."But Father..." they say, "You have to understand..." Little by little I am.

I know that the divide between the white hats and the black hats is not as clear as thier apologists want me to think. Yes, Hezbollah builds hospitals but they have a lot more missiles than your average HMO. And even if they fired the first shot, as it were, of this latest round Israel has had a knack for violating the borders of countries for thier own purposes that can't be excused just by waving a picture of Dachau in the world's face.

I know enough to take every bit of official press with a healthy tablespoon of salt. Hezbollah has pictures of dead babies, sometimes the same baby passed from person to person and presented to the cameras. Israel has pictures of Hezbollah vehicles in the back yards of homes manned by soldiers without uniforms. They say cameras never lie but everyone knows photographers can and do and will. While the battles on the ground rage the battles in cyberspace and inthe press proceed apace. I only know that people are in pain, that death is happening, and pointing fingers at one side or the other means little if you're the one hit by a bomb or mangled by a rocket.

I know that this place, this Middle East, has been a place of war and struggle for millenia. If not Palestinian and Israeli, then Ottoman and British, or Crusader and Muslim, or Hebrew and Philistine, the list is as old as recorded time and I suspect a thousand years from now little will have changed because the people will remain the same.

I know there are people and nations who have no business sticking thier noses in other people's lives playing a larger and more deadly game through these miserable little conflicts. Deranged people, people with agendas, people with grudges so old they can even remember how they started, people with delusions of empire, and people who get off on death and dismemberment like junkies do heroin. A pox on them all.

And a part of me wishes that all these people so keen to kill, so desirous of remembering every last insult, could be sent to an island far away and allowed to do thier dark work with each other, winner take all, blood up to the stirrups, and gorge hell with the corpses. But that isn't how this is done because war and misery love company and so bystanders and people with no part in a matter still suffer and die.

So where am I in all of this?

The older I get the less I am enamored of the human desire to kill each other. It makes us less than the animals who at least kill to eat, it solves little, and has never brought lasting peace. End it in one place and war emerges in another; different faces, different causes, same spirit. I am weary of war, thiers, ours, and everywhere. I also grow weary of the part inside of me, a seed planted by power, to hate and make war. At times it burns within me and its very ugly to look at, even demonic. Eventually it must die, drowned in a sea of prayer or nailed to a cross.

So I hope for something different, a better way of life, a different kingdom, and choose the risk of being called a utopian. I choose to give for the care of the wounded whoever they are. I choose to work and pray for something better even if that vision is never realized in this life. And when people wish to take me under the swirl of thier own sea of mad passions I must choose to reach for the hand of the Master and find a way to walk on the waves and safely to shore.

And always I pray...

Some notes on the Middle East from the OCA...

A well done article on the Middle East from the OCA (Orthodox Church in America) web site.

Also note the response from Metropolitan Herman regarding the current status of the Middle East.

A little grave shopping...

This Saturday my wife and I will be going grave shopping.

No, nothing's up, at least not that I know of.

It's just time, what with all the potential moves we may make and having no children, to take care of these things. Once it's handled it's handled and then we can just get on with life.

We're going to be buried, some day, outside of a little town called Vilard in western Minnesota. Vilard is a few miles from Osakis, Minnesota, where my wife's family is from and by coincidence one of her friend's family has a smal cemetery on a hill by a lake out in the country. The plots are inexpensive, a bonus these days, and the pictures of the site are, well, picturesque.

So off we go this Saturday on a road trip through the prairie to see our new and simultaneously last earthly home. It'll be a whole day thing, seeing the site, seeing the sights, driving past my wife's family farm, and then, perhaps a treat at the Tip Top Dairy Bar in Osakis, one of the last places around these parts to still serve a chocolate and vanilla swirl cone.

Now we never somehow got around to having a family plot. We were busy, and distant, and never that close to each other to ever get together and decide where to be at life's end. So we're on our own for these things. Mom and Dad will be one place, brothers and sister somewhere else, and probably some stranger with a lawn mower to look out after things in the years to come.

In a way that sounds kind of lonely and I think about that sometimes. There is a romantic in me that would wish to have someone come and drop by every once in a while and plant some flowers or say a prayer or light a candle (after all I am Orthodox and we go for that candle thing). That probably won't happen and my guess is that people coming to see thier loved ones will look at our plots and wonder what kind of strangers would pick that place, a town where no one knows thier name, to rest. So I'll probably just sink into the ground with my gravestone following after me and one day the letters will be worn off by the prairie wind and the world will have completely passed me by.

That would be a kind of hell if I didn't believe. But I do and even those moments of reflection where I understand that all things pass, myself included, are somehow changed. I will be apart from friends and family when my time comes and yet I do believe in the communion of saints and the resurrection of the dead and so I also presume some sort of togetherness in that life which is to come and know that wherever I finally rest will be, in eternal terms, just a moment.

So its on to Vilard in just a few days to be with family and friends and buy a pair of graves. Life is full and very busy and I imagine that someday I'll need the rest. And what better place to let the rest of the world go by then out on the Minnesota prairie, on a hill, by a lake, waiting beyond time for an angelic call.

Pray for the peace of Lebanon...

Like many in the Antiochian Archdiocese I have parishoners from Lebanon whose families still live there. For them these are very anxious times. The pictures that look to us like impressive fireworks displays or the pyrotechnics of Rambo movies are thier life and death. Really, as in done and gone and buried and never to return.

War is always an affront to Christianity, to its purposes and its calling. Even as it is sometimes a necessity it is deeply grievous and represents the depths of our brokenness. The Orthodox Church has historically expressed this in many ways not the least of which is to impose a penance, a denial of the Eucharist, to those involved in the taking of human life in war, even those who participated in a lawful, as much as war can be described in such a way, conflict. Priests are held to an even higher standard, a commitment to never take human life, even acidentally.

It is true that war will be the lot of human beings until Christ returns. We're broken and so often unable to settle our differences without trying to extinguish the people that embody them. It is also true that Christian people may need to cross that line and take a stand, even violently, to defend the good because it is not a righteous thing to simply let evil do its work without standing for the victims.

But we need to think first. Think really hard. When wars happen people really die and not just the people we're supposed to hate but others as well, regular folks trying to live thier lives, people with "no dog in the fight". We call it, from the safety of our lives, "collateral damage" but that is small comfort to those get hit. And the world changes, valuable things are lost, relationships between people are permanently scarred, and the fix of war is always only temporary because the cause is deeply entwined with the very core of our being and will always find new ways to mutate.

I'm no utopian. I know bad things happen and, this side of Christ's return, always will. But as much as my country or the media or this side or that wants me and mine to commit to this terrible conflict or that I choose to hope for a better way, to approach it all with seriousness and not simply emotion, to work as hard as I can to still the voices of hate and war inside of me, and always be ready to quickly work for peace and barring that to struggle to heal the wounds, repair the damage, and help find a better path.

So now I pray for the peace of Lebanon...

Baby, it's hot outside...

As I'm writing this the temperature outside is scurrying towards the middle 90's where it's been for most of the last few weeks. And it should be that way for a while yet.

We haven't had a warm one like this for a while but temperatures this high are not unusual here in Minnesota. They were worse in the 30's. Regardless, though, the hysteria is at least as high as the temperature and therein, as they say, lies the rub.

We're different now, we've just gotten so used to having everything air conditioned that temperatures our grandparents simply accomodated are now horrid to us. It causes us panic when we can't live full time in a climate controlled environment and God forbid we would even have to be outside and work in such a world. Simple physical endurance has left us and we've become fragile.

And its at this point where the fear mongers come in, entrance stage left, and start thier path to power via fear.

I remember the 70's and the titles of major magazines breathlessly warning us about the coming global ice age. Ice age you say? Yes, that was the fear back then and now its flopped over to global warming although there are some who have been saying that global warming is responsible for some place's colder winters, unless, of course, the winter is not actually colder and that's also about global warming.

So I'm kind of skeptical about it all because frankly scientists can be just as irrational and political and agenda driven as anyone else. A simple question helps to clarify things. Who is getting what out of the latest claims about the weather? Who gets power? Who gets money? Who gets influence? Who gets control? Ask these things and start following the paper trail. You may be suprised at what you find.

In all of this Christianity presents a remarkably calm and consistent vision, unswayed by the latest sirroco winds. We are called to live simply, naturally, and with a view to stewardship of the Earth because it is God's creation and we are temporary caretakers of it all, born owning nothing, departing the same, and accountable for everything in between.

We are environmentalists not out of fear, unswayed by hysterias, and desiring no power but out of love for the Creator and His handiwork and rejoicing in the priviledge of living on this unique blue orb in the middle of light years of space. Broken as it has been by sin our island home is still full of the presence of God and reflects the unmatched artistry of the One who holds all things together over the eons. To live in harmony with nature as simply as possible, and to return as much as we can is, in its own kind of way, an act of worship, a recognition of the Creator's greatness and our response of gratitude for all this world has given us by its Framer.

Next year, perhaps, there will be a new set of headlines warning of this or that new potential catastrophe. But in the end it will be the memory of Eden and that primal call to care for this garden that will endure and we who have been given that vision would be wise to remember it always.

You didn't see this one coming...

Thanks to getreligion.org/ here's a link to a story in USA Today about a woman who claims she is a living descendant of the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

She doesn't have any actual hard evidence of course, either about Jesus being married or her actually being a grandchild many generations out of such a union but she has had some visions and her publisher (I bet you were surprised she's writing a book!) believes her.

That a lot of other people will believe her as well gives us an idea of how much work we in the Church still have ahead of us.

Thankfully we can settle this, except for the hard cores, in about a week or so with a DNA test.

Quotes and Such...

"Dorothy Sayers, the great English writer, said it best: 'In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.'"

Good stuff from Relapsed Catholic

It's all about the benjamins...

A most interesting phone call last night from a political party.

It seems they want me to file as a candidate for the State House of Representatives in my district. They tell me that there is a pool of money waiting for someone to step in and take but if I don't the other party will get the money and they wouldn't like to see that happen. They tell me that someone recommended me for the job. They didn't say who.

Now the opposite party has controlled this district for years, in fact they basically have run St. Paul for decades. And the election is only a few months away and how do they think that a person who has never run for office can prepare and effectively present themselves to the 36 thousand plus people in the district (yes I did check the demographics) in a few months.

That's not to say I haven't ever thought about politics. I most certainly have. There is a great need for change and a greater need for a new mentality in the arena of government. There are many of us who are sick of the baby boomer selfishness and perpetual adolescence that has come to dominate the political discourse of this time. The 60's generation is fighting all their old battles again and this time THEY are in charge and have all the money. Quite frankly the results are, in my opinion, extraordinarily poor and too many people go to vote with the same feelings they have when they are told to schedule a colonoscopy...and the same results.

And that mentality showed itself in the call. It was not about running to make things better, or running to serve the people, or running to bring new ideas and energy into government. It was about running so even if I lost, and I almost certainly would given the time to prepare, the other side wouldn't get their hands on that pot of money.

Oh boy, what a motivation, I can hardly wait.

That can be my campaign slogan "Show me the money..."

Only sadness remains...

There is no joy in reading the headlines coming out of the convention of the Episcopal Church.Only sadness remains.

In my painful departure from the Baptist world I found rest, peace, and a place of healing in a local Episcopal Church, the Church of the Messiah. Evangelical, liturgical, charismatic, it was a haven for us and allowed us time to recover after the vivesection of life as a Baptist pastor.

But it was not to last.

For a while everyone could pretend and stay sheltered in the cool comfort of Messiah's walls. Yes we knew that there were problems in the larger church, serious problems, but we were here
and they were there and can't we all just get along. Yet the sad empty feeling grew stronger as each day the realization that the wolves were at the door and they played for keeps increased. The claimants of diversity and tolerance would brook no dissent and had no problem with silencing those who strayed from the new order.

It was time to go.

Now some can say that the Episcopal Church is just reaping the seeds it has sown. After all a good argument can be made that the chaos of American mainline Protestant life is simply the completion of the process set loose when the Reformation detached a whole section of Christianity even further from its roots. The gap between there being no Pope to everyone being their own Pope is not that far at all.

But it doesn't make it any easier.

A great community of faith has been desecrated at its very core and no longer can seriously claim to be Christian in any historic sense of the word. It has de-evolved into a society of people ruled by their feelings and understanding the life, the faith, the sacraments, the dogma, and the rituals of Christian life as a means to the satisfaction of their urges and not the upward lift of man to God. Bluntly it is a church ruled by its crotch.

And time will take care of the situation. Some day in the near future when the endowments run out and the membership rolls sink even further the problems will be solved by the extinction of the organization that nurtures them. After all if a church proclaims that it really doesn't matter what you believe or do (except for some vague kind of social work) people will get the hints and decide to do something else besides hear a well dressed pagan tell them what they already believe. Its already happening.

But what a cost. What a loss of good that could be done. What souls will find no rest either in this life or the one to come! And for what? A fleeting passion? A passing urge? The worship of the moment? So much is being given away for so little in return.

And that is why, in the end, only sadness remains.

You say you want a revolution...?

Tired of the craziness of things?

Had enough?

Realized that just voting Republican is meaningless? Or Democrat for that matter?

Learn you Faith. Live your Faith. Be your Faith.

And let the revolution begin.

On collars and holding hands...

It's an interesting thing to show up at an event or place in my clerical gear (you know the black suit and collar thing) and holding hands with my wife.

I love to do it not just because holding hands is a good thing if you're married but sometimes I like the reaction. Most people aren't quite sure what to do with the guy in the collar and the woman. Am I some Roman Catholic guy running amok? Is there some kind of wierd fetish thing going on? Some of it surely must be the fact that the media portrays clergy as old, sort of shriveled, smiling placidly, and in some sort of asexual netherworld. So the sight of a Priest holding hands with a, gasp, woman must be quite a sight. Actually my wife, raised a Roman Catholic, felt that way too and for some time would not kiss me if I was wearing my collar! That's changed of course, thank God, but the illusion does run deep.

I am glad that Orthodoxy allows its clergy the natural and sanctified life of marriage. I would be a horrible celibate and its not about the sex at all. Its about having a companion, a complement, a partner, a confidant, a soul mate, a love, a wife. Although I respect the Roman Catholic ideal in these matters there is a sadness inside of me that good men would have to choose between Christian marriage and Christian ministry. With all its challenges I would still prefer to live on the edge and balance between them. Being husband and Priest enhances both and love for one increases love for the other and service to one increases service to the other.

I would be lost without my wife and all that we share together. It would be like half my body and soul were removed. I can endure because of her and wherever the twists and turns of life take me it will be okay as long as she is near. Such a great gift has been given to me and from that gift comes a stability, strength, humility, and love that allows me to flourish in my service in ways I could not if I were alone.

And its just nice to have somebody to hold hands with too!

Romeing around...

Every once in a while you will see something Roman Catholic on this blog, some content, or perhaps a link or two.

Why?

Well for one thing there are some really great sites and blogs out there from the Catholic perspective that are worth reading. Especially on the traditional end of things the web has given
well read, technically skilled, extraordinarily bright, and sometimes very funny people a voice they would never have in the "normal" media.

You should read www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester and www.relapsedcatholic.com because they are just plain good and link you to a whole world of high quality stuff from the intellectually stimulating world of the observant Catholic blogosphere. There are important things being said that Orthodox Christians need to hear and signs of a resurgent life that defy the stock media headlines about wacko nuns and fringe groups portraying themselves at the heart of Catholicism.

And while we Orthodox do have legitimate differences with Roman Catholics we need also to understand that they remain our closest allies and we share much and can do much together even as we seek to deal with the big issues, like the Creed, that continue to keep us apart. We Orthodox sometimes gloat over the struggles of the Catholic Church but that is hardly Orthodox in either spirit or letter and is basically no practical good as well. If you do not grieve over the chasm between East and West the heart of the Faith is still distant from you.

I am at home in Eastern Orthodox Christianity in a way that I have never been in any other community of Christians. But I do, from my experience of the stories of searchers like myself who chose to become Catholics, understand that the hunger that led me East leads others West and is a point of contact for both as we reach across history and misconceptions and just plain stereotypes to honestly and truthfully relate to each other in a world where are finding out how much we, despite our real differences, need to know and care for each other.

Everyone but Jesus is Insane...

When I was a kid I don't hink I ever could have imagined the world that has been given to me now that I am in my middle 40's.

Just today there was a picture of two men holding hands on the front page of the St. Paul Pioneer Press with the usual gushing comments on the annual Gay Pride Parade. Further along in the paper there were the usual bits of rage and darkness and exploitation and fluff. In my weaker moments I can see why some folks are all worked up about the end of the world. It has been the end of the world I expected for some time now.

And just when you think it can't get any lower someone take's out a shovel and begins to dig. Why is Paris Hilton a celebrity and why is it important that I watch her every move on TV?
And I think that if I see one more ad for a medicine to cure erectile dysfunction I'll vomit.

Some mornings I wake up and think that aliens have come and stolen by body and placed me in a weird world where nothing makes sense as some sort of sick experiment. Other times I pray that this is all a dream and I wake up back in Wausau and I'm still 12 years old. I'd almost be willing to redo adolescence just for that to be true.

But sadly none of it is. I'm here, this is real, and there's no way to go around it, above it, or below it; only through it. And because of this I have come to the conclusion that on some level the world is insane and always has been and it seems worse now because the insanity has 24 hour television networks and PR guys, and marketing folks, and a desire to out its every nuance into everyone's face all the time.

And I grown more convinced that Jesus was the only sane person who ever lived, the only one who could see through the BS, read between the lines, get the big picture, and not be touched by it all except once and then only because it was necessary to bring the whole thing crashing to the ground for the sake of love.

If I'm going to be even anywhere near sane I'm going to need to find a way to hold tight, stick close, become like, and hang around Christ. Period. End of sentence. Otherwise its just a matter of going from hell to hell and that's a fate worse than death.

Bad news, time is on our side...

Time is on our side and that's bad news in the sexual revolution.

Its not hard to surmise that we live in a culture where any urge becomes a need and then a civil right and an obligation on society to accomodate and promote the fulfilling of it. Perhaps no place has this mentality taken hold in a greater way then sexuality.

In some places the "shock troops" of this mentality have been the crusaders for gay marriage which isn't about marriage at all but rather about the state intervening in the greater culture and making the sexuality that drives it the legal equivalent of all others with the potential for sanctioning in law those who in conscience disagree. But its bigger than that.

Nothing of gay marriage could have any kind of momentum at all if the larger culture had not already come to the conclusion that sexuality is a consumer product, a "thing" that as long as it involves another or more who consent is a thing like anything else. One can pick and choose among the sexualities one has a right to and under the guise of privacy the larger culture and especially those who may disagree with one's choices have no right to interfere.

But the reality is that sexuality is more than a consumer choice, and act in a moment between people who agree to participate. Sexuality has repercussion for the greater whole and we are slowly beginning to face them.

Disease related to sexuality are skyrocketing. Relationships are collapsing. Families are dislocated. Hearts are broken. People are dying. All facts still under the media's radar screen but soon too large even for the proponents of this new order to ignore.

Some day people will embrace a traditional Christian sexual morality not because they want to but because they have to or they will get sick and die. While some may shout "Yes!" that's actually a sad thing because it will be a matter of desperation and not choice, an embrace built of pain and not love.

Along the way to that time there will be more pain, more suffering, more dislocation, more thinking that we exist above the laws of nature with the resulting death. No Christian should have joy in that, especially those of us who have been rescued from our own selves and know these things in a way the innocent (thank God) will never have to face.

In this all we discover that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, as the Apostle Paul says, but against the greater forces, the demonic ones, that trap people in an endless cycle of searching for a pleasure that never comes and robs its victims not only of their bodies but their souls as well.

Until sanity returns that is where we must stand and fight.

On the death of Zarqawi...

I have to say that when the news of the bombs falling on Zarqawi and his spiritual advisor and companions hits the news part of me immediately said "Alllllllright, couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy!"

I'm a product of my culture and he and his compatriots represented evil acts of a kind that civilization simply can't tolerate (It has been reported that he took more than five minutes to sever one victim's head). It is true that his being gone will probably make the world a better place.

But then my second thought came, a kind of sorrow over the human condition in general that from among us such a person would spring and also the sense of what awaits him in the eternity to come.

Barring some kind of last minute transformation our Christian world view says that a perpetuity of time in complete brokenness from God awaits the unrepentant. We call it "hell" and the picture images of the Scriptures and Tradition paint a very bleak picture of it. It is not my task to assign final destinies but if such is the state of Zarqawi there is the double pain of betrayal by his belief and facing the consequences of that betrayal. Surely this would be a profoundly horrible thing.

So while his passing into death sadly makes a positive difference inthe world I still mourn, not him, not his terrible acts, but the deep broken state of a world that could produce, and still produces, such people. I pray to God, as well, that I never become such a man myself.

Posted on 6/06/06...

So today is 6/06/06, you know the day of the 666 of legend and lore and the book of Revelation and all that.

I grew up with the people who invented that most tiresome of heresies "dispensationalism" and although there were, and are, many admirable qualities of the Plymouth Brethren that was not one of them.

Utterly unhinged from anything like the historic faith of the Church "dispensationalism" has been the bane of modern Evangelical Protestant life, its proponents doing more damage to the life and faith of Christians than any secular conspiracy could have ever accomplished.

Some of it is bizarre like the obsession with 666 and the identity of the "beast" the "anti-christ" mentioned in a single verse of Revelation. Who is he? What is he? The theories abound and ranged from the reasonable, like Adolph Hitler, to the absolutely wierd like Ronald Wilson Reagan (notice the six letters in each of his names?).

But the worst damage is this.By getting Christians to focus so intently on eschatology (the study of the end of history) they fail to take care of the here and now and miss innumberable opportunities to make the world better and minister to humanity in the name of Christ. Suffering in the world? Hooray it must be the time of tribulations before the "rapture"! Stewardship of the earth? Who cares it's all gonna burn anyway. The needs of souls? Not important because I'm going to hunker down and keep what I have for me and mine and you're on your own. Besides come the "rapture" I'm out of here.

Dispensationalism doesn't edify Christians, it panics them. It doesn't make them mature but rather focuses them on endless speculations while they ignore the very real things outside their own front door. It makes Christians fearful of what should be the most glorious time of the world, the return of Christ, and worst of all it divides Christians from each other through quarrels started about things that even the Apostles did not know.

On this 6/06/06 day it needs to be restated loudly and clearly that the book of Revelation is about hope and triumph and the Lordship of Christ even in the darkest of times. It starts with admonitions to faithfulness and ends with the vision of the glorious city, the way the world will one day be when evil is vanquished and God once again dwells, like in Eden, with His people. As terrible as the beast or the antichrist or whatever or whoever he or it may be it will not stand in the light of the glory of the One who sits on the throne and in the end is as meaningless as the hysteria about this date and that number.