In a few days millions of Americans will travel to their local polling place and vote for those they wish to lead them in these times. Orthodox Christians, too, will join their friends and neighbors, as they should, and make decisions with an impact that can reach forward for generations.
But for too long there seems to have been a silence from those who are trusted to teach the faith as to how to approach our role as citizens and live as Orthodox Christians in the civil environment. In this silence we have abdicated the development of attitudes about politics and the political aspects of culture to the whims of popular culture and their septic mouthpieces in the media, and not by our faith. The result has been a decided lack of understanding about how our Orthodox faith, a faith which claims to touch all of who we are, speaks to the political life.
And perhaps there is where we should start, the idea that Orthodoxy is not simply an addition to life or an accessory but a unified vision, a participation in a reality that touches all of who we are and reaches out to transform the culture as well. We have too often created neat little compartments in our lives, with names like politics, business, religion, and family, and put a wall between them as if they are unconnected from each other. But to be Orthodox is to have all those neat little compartments demolished in favor of a life where all is directed towards Christ and the reality of who he is transforms those parts into a new kind of wholeness. To refuse to talk about faith and politics is to say there are areas in our lives that are off limits to the power of the Gospel, that what we seek to know, proclaim, and live is only for certain small parts of us and not the whole, and that is a small and powerless Gospel.
As Orthodox Christians we live in the hope of a day, we seek the transformation of our selves and the world in the knowledge that all things will be changed. We believe that one day the humble Jesus who came to us as a child in Bethlehem will return as King of Kings and rule the world with perfect justice, peace, and harmony. We believe that one day the government, as the prophet Isaiah said will be “on his shoulders” and our Creed affirms that Jesus will be the one to “judge the living and the dead” the ruler of a Kingdom that will never end, one that even now exists wherever hearts are turned towards him and people worship in spirit and truth. We understand that this rule will be one in which even the natural order itself will be returned to its pristine state and the lion will lay down with the lamb and people will turn their hearts to God and each other and reshape weapons into peaceful implements of agriculture.
Until then we understand that civil government has been given by God to ensure, as best as is possible with fallen humans, the good of all, the restraint of evil, the stewardship of the earth, and as our Founding Fathers would say “the general welfare”. We are called, as Orthodox Christians, to render honor to the state and its officials and live by the laws of whatever land we find ourselves to the extent they do not conflict with the higher moral law of God. We are called, as well, to participate on those same terms in the greater civil life of our country as we can.
In that light we also understand that there is no one form of civil government that can lay exclusive claim to encompassing the fullness of the Kingdom of God. There are better or worse forms, and even evil ones, but they all are shadows and are good only to the extent they reflect the perfect Kingdom of God. We also understand that nations are not permanent entities, but human constructs necessary for civil order but not an end in themselves. Our passports as Orthodox Christians, come from many countries, but our final hope is still in that heavenly country, the new Jerusalem.
So knowing this how do we live and act as Orthodox Christians within the political processes of our times? Here are some practical thoughts.
First and foremost the greatest political act of all is to know and live our faith in the world. Too many Orthodox simply do not know the essentials of their faith or practice them on a continual basis. We are people who have often drunk too deeply at the wells of our culture and occasionally sipped the living waters of Christ and we cannot know what is good and right if we have not sought it out ourselves and the world will not see it if they have no examples to observe. Imagine how different the world would be if just the Orthodox actually practiced Orthodoxy!
We also need to understand that what matters is not so much power or the attaching of ourselves to a single person or party but a commitment to unchanging truths and values.
Political structures change, truth does not, and our involvement in the political process should first and foremost reflect our witness to truth. If we believe that the Christian vision is the first and best destiny for humanity it is to that vision we must be true and understand that political structures are means and not ends. We are to be salt and light seeking the best we can in a world of imperfect structures and people.
Our Orthodox faith also gives us the hope of the Kingdom that is with us and that which is to come and so we have, despite the often chaotic nature of the world, an unchanging hope that should color all we do as Christians in the political world. If one only has this day, this election, or the current politics to provide meaning for their lives a descent into bitterness, anger, and violence will almost always result in the hopeless void that occurs when an election is lost or a process fails. But we have an eternal hope and our welfare can be affected by, but is not forever dependent on, the changing political world. We always keep eternity in mind and if we truly believe that one day Christ will rule with perfection then the anxieties of any given time lose their ability to terrorize us.
Yet we should also be cautious about as people used to say “Being so heavenly minded as to be no earthly good…” It is no act of piety to see the pain and struggles of the world and do nothing, or as some who claim Christianity do even rejoice in the sufferings as some sign of Christ’s return. We must be involved in the world as a sacred duty to serve and heal and witness and call the world to something better. If we do not our Lord will ask us, some day, why we failed to be who we were meant to be and claiming a pious detachment won’t count as an answer to the one who has said “as you have done this to the least of these my brethren you have done it to me…”
So what do we value as Orthodox Christians called to be witnesses in the political arena?
We understand that government should reflect, as best as is possible, the desire of God for the human good, the restraint of evil, the welfare of all, the care of the earth, and the pursuit of justice. In that light we are called to involve ourselves to transform all government forms and structures to those ideals.
We value all of human life from natural conception to natural death and even beyond and have always seen abortion, war, degradation, murder, and the desire of the strong to be predators on the weak as grave moral errors. People are never to be means to an end, are never disposable, and always have a dignity by virtue of being God’s creation.
We see the Earth not as a thing to be exploited but as a gift to be managed. We are all tenants and responsible to preserve and maintain what God has given us to the greatest extent possible.
We desire justice, to see evil restrained, the good promoted, and the power of law used for the greater good and without partiality. We see wealth as a divine call to charity and great power as a call to responsibility.
Our hope is always, first and foremost, for peace and we are called to engage in the destructive use of force always and only as the final option and then and only then with good reason and with mercy always in mind.
We believe morality ensures the well-being of society and that there is a natural order of family that allows for health, stability, and the well being of children. Orthodoxy, despite its accommodation of some divorce as a necessity in a fallen world, affirms only the union of one man and one woman for one lifetime or chastity in singleness as that arrangement desired by God, beneficial to the order of society, and promoting physical health. Orthodoxy would stand against any attempt to experiment with or transform this arrangement as inconsistent with the divine and natural law and the greater good.
Finally we believe that our first and foremost allegiance is to Jesus Christ and that all of our involvement in every part of our culture must be for the purpose of His glory, the salvation of our souls, and the transformation of the world. Power is for service, the ability to rule for the benefit of all, and our involvement in the world as the desire to enter the imperfect and call it to greater things.
That being said I simply ask you to pray always for our leaders, as we do in every liturgy, regardless of their party or whether they reflect your values. I encourage you to be involved as you can in the processes of our civil society with an informed Orthodox Christian mind and the heart of Christ. I ask you to stand, even as imperfect people, for those things that are always good, right, holy and perfect, not in the expectation of never ending success but because it is the good, right, holy, and perfect thing to do.
And in all things may God be glorified.
10/31/06
Some welcome news...
British scientists have created functioning liver cells from stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood. Once again the cures are to be found in science that respects life at all stages.
And therein lies a point. The promise of "embryonic" stem cells has been touted over and over again even though to date I am not aware of a single illness that has been helped, let alone cured, by thier use and there are already documented deadly side affects like cancers. Meanwhile people are being helped on a daily basis by the use of adult stem cells (bone marrow transplants) with other treatments already under way and further research showing real hope.
If this was actually about science the money, the research, and the flow of inquiry would have long ago left the moribund world of embryonic stem cell research to focus on that which has already proved itself, namely umbilical and adult stem cells. But it's not about that at all. There are political elites who fear the humanity of the embryo and fetus because it challenges their world view on so many levels. Many elites in science believe only in science, it is thier religion, and they wish to practice it without moral constraints put on them by people they feel are thier inferiors, especially those who continue to embrace traditional and orthodox faiths.
How ironic that actual science is arguing for morality and against scientists! But why should that be suprising to those who seek the Creator?
And therein lies a point. The promise of "embryonic" stem cells has been touted over and over again even though to date I am not aware of a single illness that has been helped, let alone cured, by thier use and there are already documented deadly side affects like cancers. Meanwhile people are being helped on a daily basis by the use of adult stem cells (bone marrow transplants) with other treatments already under way and further research showing real hope.
If this was actually about science the money, the research, and the flow of inquiry would have long ago left the moribund world of embryonic stem cell research to focus on that which has already proved itself, namely umbilical and adult stem cells. But it's not about that at all. There are political elites who fear the humanity of the embryo and fetus because it challenges their world view on so many levels. Many elites in science believe only in science, it is thier religion, and they wish to practice it without moral constraints put on them by people they feel are thier inferiors, especially those who continue to embrace traditional and orthodox faiths.
How ironic that actual science is arguing for morality and against scientists! But why should that be suprising to those who seek the Creator?
10/30/06
Something to look into...
A few days ago an Orthodox Christian at another parish was speaking about the murder of an Iraqi Christian Priest at the hands of Islamic radicals and wondered why this story hadn't made the major news outlets.
There are a number of reasons, some of which may be as basic as a fear among reporters over antagonizing people who really will cause mayhem and death if they feel insulted, for this lack of coverage but there are sources that do cover the news of the jihad (holy war) that is currently underway in many locations around the world and victimizing people of many religions, including Islam.
Perhaps the best is JihadWatch.org, whose director, Robert Spencer is a scholarly and courageous man committed to providing news, information, and insight on this very real but very under-covered and under-explored aspect of our times. Some caveats, though, are in order.
First while Mr. Spencer himself is very much committed to being scholarly and fair some of those who post comments can be thoughtless. Whatever jihad may mean for the rest of the world "*&%$ the Muslims.." and comments like it are never helpful and frankly give ammunition to those hate.
Second, because the sight focuses exclusively on jihad, the issues behind it, news of it, and examination of its sources one can get overwhelmed and microfocused on this aspect of Islam, which is real, but not the whole of Islam or the whole of Islamic reality. Mr. Spencer, I believe would be the first to admit that but again readers need to take that in to consideration.
Finally be prepared to have some very bright lights shown on the Islamic world and the role of Islam in the history of the world and how this affects the present. For many centuries the Islamic world, and indeed Islam itself, has lived in the West in a shadowy world of scholars and historians and the "laity" as it were have had little knowledge or insight into it all. A visit to JihadWatch.org will change all of that. You may be suprised at what you learn, angry at what has been covered up, and thankful for what you have, sometimes all at the same time.
Above all visit the site and others with the idea of learning, becoming aware, and using what you have come to know to make the world a better place. Knowledge is power.
There are a number of reasons, some of which may be as basic as a fear among reporters over antagonizing people who really will cause mayhem and death if they feel insulted, for this lack of coverage but there are sources that do cover the news of the jihad (holy war) that is currently underway in many locations around the world and victimizing people of many religions, including Islam.
Perhaps the best is JihadWatch.org, whose director, Robert Spencer is a scholarly and courageous man committed to providing news, information, and insight on this very real but very under-covered and under-explored aspect of our times. Some caveats, though, are in order.
First while Mr. Spencer himself is very much committed to being scholarly and fair some of those who post comments can be thoughtless. Whatever jihad may mean for the rest of the world "*&%$ the Muslims.." and comments like it are never helpful and frankly give ammunition to those hate.
Second, because the sight focuses exclusively on jihad, the issues behind it, news of it, and examination of its sources one can get overwhelmed and microfocused on this aspect of Islam, which is real, but not the whole of Islam or the whole of Islamic reality. Mr. Spencer, I believe would be the first to admit that but again readers need to take that in to consideration.
Finally be prepared to have some very bright lights shown on the Islamic world and the role of Islam in the history of the world and how this affects the present. For many centuries the Islamic world, and indeed Islam itself, has lived in the West in a shadowy world of scholars and historians and the "laity" as it were have had little knowledge or insight into it all. A visit to JihadWatch.org will change all of that. You may be suprised at what you learn, angry at what has been covered up, and thankful for what you have, sometimes all at the same time.
Above all visit the site and others with the idea of learning, becoming aware, and using what you have come to know to make the world a better place. Knowledge is power.
A blessed moment...
It's true that as a general rule people shouldn't base thier faith on mystic or emotional experiences. The potential for instability and deception is high and the desire for the experience itself can become a kind of addiction. There are millions of Christians who wander from parish to parish, from one "move of the spirit" to another, like spiritual frat boys seeking the perpetual buzz. When the thrill is gone little is left.
Yet submitted for your inspection is this past Sunday morning.
I woke from a pleasant sleep with a profound sense of the presence of God, a very sweet and restful thing, that brought me to tears. Heaven and earth seemed to be very close and there was a bouyancy in things that followed me all the way through Divine Liturgy and continues today. It's different then just feeling good (which has much to recommend it) because it feels holy as well.
Now I can only guess as to why this happened. But I'll try not to take it for granted. Spiritual and emotional dryness is an occupational hazard in ministry and moments like this are often hard to come by. And perhaps there is no purpose in this at all, just God blessing for its own sake and quite frankly over-analyzing it all would only ruin it. After all the best post mortems require something to die and I want to hang on to this for a while.
But one thing is certain. Even though the substance of faith doesn't lie in the journey from one ecstasy to another my prayer is that others who seek to follow Christ would have, at least once, a precious morning like this last Sunday when it felt like this world and the next had only a step between them and all of life was near to its Source.
Because its true when Jesus said "Come unto me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest..."
Yet submitted for your inspection is this past Sunday morning.
I woke from a pleasant sleep with a profound sense of the presence of God, a very sweet and restful thing, that brought me to tears. Heaven and earth seemed to be very close and there was a bouyancy in things that followed me all the way through Divine Liturgy and continues today. It's different then just feeling good (which has much to recommend it) because it feels holy as well.
Now I can only guess as to why this happened. But I'll try not to take it for granted. Spiritual and emotional dryness is an occupational hazard in ministry and moments like this are often hard to come by. And perhaps there is no purpose in this at all, just God blessing for its own sake and quite frankly over-analyzing it all would only ruin it. After all the best post mortems require something to die and I want to hang on to this for a while.
But one thing is certain. Even though the substance of faith doesn't lie in the journey from one ecstasy to another my prayer is that others who seek to follow Christ would have, at least once, a precious morning like this last Sunday when it felt like this world and the next had only a step between them and all of life was near to its Source.
Because its true when Jesus said "Come unto me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest..."
10/27/06
What can't be taught...
Saturday morning I'll be on the road again. Two days to take care of things and then back home.
I wish it wasn't this way, but the budget numbers don't lie. We've given somewhere just above half of what we need to survive as a parish and by the end of the year the trend should be confirmed. If I had come to live in LaCrosse would there have been enough to keep food on the table or would I be calling the Bishop even now asking for someplace, anyplace, so that my wife and I don't have to eat ramen noodles?
The people of St. Elias are good people, in fact very good people, who have had to endure thier parish being started, abandoned, restarted, and held together by the mighty efforts of a few. Those who desire convenience or need to be carried by others have long since faded away. Being a small parish, like being a family, is sometimes hard work and not for the timid.
So what we have on Sunday morning are the survivors and a few who, swimming against the tide, have made it to our shores. Again, good people all but probably very tired. Only a kind of love keeps them from going down the street to the more glamorous churches with beautiful facilities, hip music, and a ton of programs. My guess is that some of them are also just hanging on.
But I am waiting.
Because everything in the life of the church can be taught except for one thing. There is an intangible move of the Holy Spirit that cannot be finessed, coerced, or manipulated, a move that can only be caught and is essential if tiny churches are ever going to break out to become self-sustaining and then vibrant. If God does not stir hearts then all the programs and appeals and sermons in the world will mean nothing.
If just for one moment the Holy Spirit can find a crack in the accumulated debris of self-doubt, sadness, loss, futility, and struggle that cover the souls of these people and touch the tender part of them that still desires to hope and believe and want something better the world can change. If but for one moment they can have the eyes of faith and see themselves as God sees them and want to be what God wants them to be a fire will start and hell itself will not be able to put it out.
Oh God please...
And until then I will wait.
I wish it wasn't this way, but the budget numbers don't lie. We've given somewhere just above half of what we need to survive as a parish and by the end of the year the trend should be confirmed. If I had come to live in LaCrosse would there have been enough to keep food on the table or would I be calling the Bishop even now asking for someplace, anyplace, so that my wife and I don't have to eat ramen noodles?
The people of St. Elias are good people, in fact very good people, who have had to endure thier parish being started, abandoned, restarted, and held together by the mighty efforts of a few. Those who desire convenience or need to be carried by others have long since faded away. Being a small parish, like being a family, is sometimes hard work and not for the timid.
So what we have on Sunday morning are the survivors and a few who, swimming against the tide, have made it to our shores. Again, good people all but probably very tired. Only a kind of love keeps them from going down the street to the more glamorous churches with beautiful facilities, hip music, and a ton of programs. My guess is that some of them are also just hanging on.
But I am waiting.
Because everything in the life of the church can be taught except for one thing. There is an intangible move of the Holy Spirit that cannot be finessed, coerced, or manipulated, a move that can only be caught and is essential if tiny churches are ever going to break out to become self-sustaining and then vibrant. If God does not stir hearts then all the programs and appeals and sermons in the world will mean nothing.
If just for one moment the Holy Spirit can find a crack in the accumulated debris of self-doubt, sadness, loss, futility, and struggle that cover the souls of these people and touch the tender part of them that still desires to hope and believe and want something better the world can change. If but for one moment they can have the eyes of faith and see themselves as God sees them and want to be what God wants them to be a fire will start and hell itself will not be able to put it out.
Oh God please...
And until then I will wait.
10/26/06
A little stem cell wisdom from Michael J Embryo...
An interesting response to the controversial Michael J. Fox political ads...
10/25/06
10/24/06
I was in the Assembly of God once...
A Pew Forum survey of the growth of the Pentecostal / Charismatic movements discovered while reading GetReligion.org .
Bottom line? Pentecostal / Charismatic Christianity will remain a challenge for Orthodoxy to the extent we do not recover the biblical and personal nature of our Faith.
Bottom line? Pentecostal / Charismatic Christianity will remain a challenge for Orthodoxy to the extent we do not recover the biblical and personal nature of our Faith.
I presume there is a plan...
October 27th may be a very hard day.
It would have been my brother Paul's birthday, his 45th, but its been changed into just another painful milestone as we ponder his death and our loss.
I was in my car driving home when I heard that he had died. I had planned to go home, get the keys to St. George Church, and spend some time there in prayer for him (I only knew at the time that there had been an incident and the paramedics were with him). But time had run out. When I called from my car to check on things and all my mother could say was "Paul is with the Lord, and I need to be with his wife..." Then everything faded to black.
Since that time I have been mostly numb, focused on doing the right thing and helping where I could. There are moments, of course, but the whole thing still seems like an illusion. This Friday will remind us all, again, that it isn't so and nothing will be the same again.
And I will light a candle somewhere for him and for me. For Paul it's a sign of the light of Christ which never fades and a kind of existence we can only imagine, a freedom and rest from the struggle that marks this broken world. For me it is a light of hope, that somehow, somewhere this all makes some kind of sense.
I presume there is a plan to this all, that somehow in the eternal scheme of things this must happen and that its effects, so terrible and painful for us, are even now working out some greater but invisible good. But as to the specifics I remain totally and utterly without a clue and probably will for the rest of my life. There's not much I can do about that as I am me and God is God and there are things I will only know when I myself follow my brother.
Until then a candle will have to do.
It would have been my brother Paul's birthday, his 45th, but its been changed into just another painful milestone as we ponder his death and our loss.
I was in my car driving home when I heard that he had died. I had planned to go home, get the keys to St. George Church, and spend some time there in prayer for him (I only knew at the time that there had been an incident and the paramedics were with him). But time had run out. When I called from my car to check on things and all my mother could say was "Paul is with the Lord, and I need to be with his wife..." Then everything faded to black.
Since that time I have been mostly numb, focused on doing the right thing and helping where I could. There are moments, of course, but the whole thing still seems like an illusion. This Friday will remind us all, again, that it isn't so and nothing will be the same again.
And I will light a candle somewhere for him and for me. For Paul it's a sign of the light of Christ which never fades and a kind of existence we can only imagine, a freedom and rest from the struggle that marks this broken world. For me it is a light of hope, that somehow, somewhere this all makes some kind of sense.
I presume there is a plan to this all, that somehow in the eternal scheme of things this must happen and that its effects, so terrible and painful for us, are even now working out some greater but invisible good. But as to the specifics I remain totally and utterly without a clue and probably will for the rest of my life. There's not much I can do about that as I am me and God is God and there are things I will only know when I myself follow my brother.
Until then a candle will have to do.
10/23/06
Welcome news from the Islamic world...
An open letter from senior and prominent Islamic leaders across the world in response to Pope Benedict proclaiming, among other things, the incompatability of terrorism with Islam.
Worth the reading.
10/20/06
Not showing up is not an option...
There is a part of me that hates politics and what has become of the political system in the United States. But I also know that its not holy, or right, or good, to pretend to be above it all and not try to transform even a broken system with whatever goodness is at our command.
There is no political party that encapsulates the Christian vision of a just society, sadly often the Church itself fails to do that. Every politician will be a mixture of things good and bad as we all are and history fluctuates which means nothing human is forever written in stone. We will always be faced with imperfect choices but to not seek to be salt and light because of it is sin.
All across the political spectrum there are people who have good ideas, good positions, and even if they don't have everything we may want they will have some and perhaps more than thier opposition. We must, as people with Christian values, seek these people out and support them wherever we find them. Even if we are distressed at the shape of things we must still make every moral effort we can to make things better. Being sullen, angry, and uninvolved is not an option.
So vote, not as a beholden to one party or person, but as a thoughtful Christian soul seeking to bring out the best in this country even if the best is only a little nudge in the right direction. To despair and withdraw only ensures the triumph of lesser things.
There is no political party that encapsulates the Christian vision of a just society, sadly often the Church itself fails to do that. Every politician will be a mixture of things good and bad as we all are and history fluctuates which means nothing human is forever written in stone. We will always be faced with imperfect choices but to not seek to be salt and light because of it is sin.
All across the political spectrum there are people who have good ideas, good positions, and even if they don't have everything we may want they will have some and perhaps more than thier opposition. We must, as people with Christian values, seek these people out and support them wherever we find them. Even if we are distressed at the shape of things we must still make every moral effort we can to make things better. Being sullen, angry, and uninvolved is not an option.
So vote, not as a beholden to one party or person, but as a thoughtful Christian soul seeking to bring out the best in this country even if the best is only a little nudge in the right direction. To despair and withdraw only ensures the triumph of lesser things.
We are not our sins...
Part of the attraction of Orthodoxy, and why I remain Orthodox, lies in the very real and practical wisdom that flows through this faith like gold threads in a larger and beautiful tapestry. To the unaware all there is ritual and esoteric quotes and a strange attraction to beauty for its own sake that seems so out of sync in a culture which values function above all. But within is wisdom for the very real world of hard choices and human struggle.
These past days have focused my mind on that interweaving of faith, scripture, canon, council, liturgy and thought that is the Tradition and the anthropology of it all as it addresses the way we see ourselves, how we proclaim our identities to the world.
The spokesman for ex-congressman Foley stated what many feel when he identified his client as a gay man and an alcoholic. I'm sure some of it was to garner sympathy for a person disgraced by sending sexual messages to teenage boys, but within this lies a mania of our culture, the identifying of ourselves by our struggles, labeling ourselves by our sins.
To this the Orthodox Tradition points us in a radically different direction because it calls us to see ourselves as we were meant to be by God, not a wildly fluctuating mass of pathologies and misdirected passions but children of God designed for communion, even union, with our Creator. While we certainly acknowledge we sin, and sometimes often and with intent, we are never allowed in Orthodoxy to let those dark parts of us define us and doing that is in itself a kind of darkness. We identify our sins not because they define who we are but because we know what we should be and see our sins as things we must face and overcome to be what we truly are.
Orthodoxy is puzzled when someone would say "I am a gay man" as if that is the center or the focus of identity. There is no such thing as a fornicator among us, or a liar, or a violent man but rather a collection of people struggling to be as we are supposed to be who in our struggles have to face and put to flight enemies within us seeking to destroy the image of God even as we seek its restoration within us and the whole world. Our sins are that which is inauthentic within us, that which is contrary to God's design, that which diverts us and keeps us from fulfilling the destiny implanted in us when God breathed a unique kind of life into us at the dawn of time.
Our sins are never who we are or were meant to be unless we make that choice and its only when we finally and completely give in that we are lost. Until then there is hope.
These past days have focused my mind on that interweaving of faith, scripture, canon, council, liturgy and thought that is the Tradition and the anthropology of it all as it addresses the way we see ourselves, how we proclaim our identities to the world.
The spokesman for ex-congressman Foley stated what many feel when he identified his client as a gay man and an alcoholic. I'm sure some of it was to garner sympathy for a person disgraced by sending sexual messages to teenage boys, but within this lies a mania of our culture, the identifying of ourselves by our struggles, labeling ourselves by our sins.
To this the Orthodox Tradition points us in a radically different direction because it calls us to see ourselves as we were meant to be by God, not a wildly fluctuating mass of pathologies and misdirected passions but children of God designed for communion, even union, with our Creator. While we certainly acknowledge we sin, and sometimes often and with intent, we are never allowed in Orthodoxy to let those dark parts of us define us and doing that is in itself a kind of darkness. We identify our sins not because they define who we are but because we know what we should be and see our sins as things we must face and overcome to be what we truly are.
Orthodoxy is puzzled when someone would say "I am a gay man" as if that is the center or the focus of identity. There is no such thing as a fornicator among us, or a liar, or a violent man but rather a collection of people struggling to be as we are supposed to be who in our struggles have to face and put to flight enemies within us seeking to destroy the image of God even as we seek its restoration within us and the whole world. Our sins are that which is inauthentic within us, that which is contrary to God's design, that which diverts us and keeps us from fulfilling the destiny implanted in us when God breathed a unique kind of life into us at the dawn of time.
Our sins are never who we are or were meant to be unless we make that choice and its only when we finally and completely give in that we are lost. Until then there is hope.
10/16/06
Moral people and politics...
The elections are in earnest here in the United States and it looks, for now, that the Republicans may be swept from power in one or both houses of Congress.
When the tally is done the winners will claim a mandate, the losers will lick thier wounds and vow to fight on but the truth is that little will change. "But can't you see the scandals of the Republicans...?" some will say and I will answer, "Of course I can and I'll even vouch for the fact that a party that swept in to power promising to change the status quo has done nothing of the sort and frankly has become the very kind of people they complained about when they were the minority"
And amid all the talk of a "new era for the American people" and the "restoration of the integrity of government" that will flow from Democrats provided they win in November one thing is certain. When they held power they had episodes of corruption and mismanagement that were every bit as bad as anything they pointed out in the Republicans. And after a brief honeymoon where wonderful statements will be made they, too, will return to business as usual except, of course, it will be thier constituencies gaining from the ear marks and back room dealings.
The truth in these things is simple. There will not be a better politics until there are better people.
Toadyism, in dealings, corruption, greed, lust, pride, all are part of human government regardless of its shape and probably always will be. Place people in those positions without a sense of transcendent morals, without a structure for knowing truth and practicing decency and the result will always be the same. A mere change of faces in the halls of power will make not a single difference.
Sadly the one institution with the power to transform people has failed the mark. Either we in the Church have retreated into the pretense of a holy isolation, caved in to our culture's various pathologies and baptized them, or chosen to play the political game and lose ourselves in the process. Our preachers have gone wobbly in the knees, our teachers love the approval of the tweed jacketed more than God, and our leaders desire to rub shoulders with the powerful more than walking with the Crucified.
The good thing in all of this is one day it will get so bad the Church, or what's left of it, will emerge from its addictive daze and begin, again, to be what she was meant to be in the world, real salt, real light, savory and pungent, a yeast whose life transforms what it touches and a mustard seed that grows into a tree of shelter.
If you go to church regularly and don't recognize those images you'll understand why things are the way they are.
When the tally is done the winners will claim a mandate, the losers will lick thier wounds and vow to fight on but the truth is that little will change. "But can't you see the scandals of the Republicans...?" some will say and I will answer, "Of course I can and I'll even vouch for the fact that a party that swept in to power promising to change the status quo has done nothing of the sort and frankly has become the very kind of people they complained about when they were the minority"
And amid all the talk of a "new era for the American people" and the "restoration of the integrity of government" that will flow from Democrats provided they win in November one thing is certain. When they held power they had episodes of corruption and mismanagement that were every bit as bad as anything they pointed out in the Republicans. And after a brief honeymoon where wonderful statements will be made they, too, will return to business as usual except, of course, it will be thier constituencies gaining from the ear marks and back room dealings.
The truth in these things is simple. There will not be a better politics until there are better people.
Toadyism, in dealings, corruption, greed, lust, pride, all are part of human government regardless of its shape and probably always will be. Place people in those positions without a sense of transcendent morals, without a structure for knowing truth and practicing decency and the result will always be the same. A mere change of faces in the halls of power will make not a single difference.
Sadly the one institution with the power to transform people has failed the mark. Either we in the Church have retreated into the pretense of a holy isolation, caved in to our culture's various pathologies and baptized them, or chosen to play the political game and lose ourselves in the process. Our preachers have gone wobbly in the knees, our teachers love the approval of the tweed jacketed more than God, and our leaders desire to rub shoulders with the powerful more than walking with the Crucified.
The good thing in all of this is one day it will get so bad the Church, or what's left of it, will emerge from its addictive daze and begin, again, to be what she was meant to be in the world, real salt, real light, savory and pungent, a yeast whose life transforms what it touches and a mustard seed that grows into a tree of shelter.
If you go to church regularly and don't recognize those images you'll understand why things are the way they are.
10/13/06
Shadows fall...
For most of my life, as I can remember, dysthymia has been my companion, a shadow falling.
Many who know me would be surprised to hear that, those who know me well are not. Over the years I have become skilled in living with shadows, a skill developed in years of experience matching depression move for move, thrust, parry, retreat, and attack. I can smile when I need to, engage when I must, and you'd never know. Only those who see me in an unguarded time are aware of it. Until now.
There are many different kinds of depression and many causes and thankfully most will never have more than an occasional bout of the blues once in a while. Dysthymia is a chronic low grade depression that presents itself in my life in somewhat predictable fashion (usually at the end of summer, around Nativity, and sometimes in early spring) and sometimes just appears. Years of practice have allowed me to know when I am sliding in to what I call a "trough" and the feelings of loss, frustration, and hopelessness of one kind or another begin to emerge. It's hard to sleep but the hardest thing is the feeling of being abandoned by God, the cruelest trick of all because it strikes at my very heart.
This is such a time.
But I'm not asking for pity. I have no idea why, outside of the medical facts, this is happening to me but I've long ago stopped asking the questions as anything other than a symptom. I rarely ever speak of it because I don't want people to see me as my condition, don't want to have to constantly explain things, don't need to have people define me as that "depressed" guy. I refuse to allow this thing, this illness, this struggle, to become me.
And that's why I'm breaking the silence.
I was cautioned by the well meaning to avoid talking about this. What would people think of a Priest who is damaged, somehow less than perfect? How would they handle my secret? What would they do when they discovered there are moments when I am weak? How would they cope with knowing there's a soft spot under my black shirted armor?
But something else matters more.
In the Church right now are many more like me, people who have lived with this quiet pain, these shadows falling, for decades. They have endured. They have cried alone in bed late at night. They have encountered countless well wishers who don't understand. They have moments of profound aloneness, days when they feel God has abandoned them and salvation is lost. They've been shamed into silence by the nature of thier struggle and wonder what it must be like to be a normal person.
In this moment when I feel the night settling in and know the fight is on all I wish to say is "Do not be afraid..." Your mind will tell you that God has left but it is not so. The dark will seem like forever but the weeping of the night does pass. A part of you will wish for death but you must not succumb. Fight for this day, for this minute if you have to. A little while is all you need, one moment to get some help, to take those damned pills, to run for whatever light you see even if the devil himself is trying to pull you down. Go to Liturgy even if every part of you wants to stay at home in bed. Let His precious Body and Blood work it's silent graces. Weep if you must, but never surrender to the fictions in your mind. When morning comes, and morning is more precious to us, rejoice and let God's sun warm your face and dry your tears.
And know that you are not alone.
Many who know me would be surprised to hear that, those who know me well are not. Over the years I have become skilled in living with shadows, a skill developed in years of experience matching depression move for move, thrust, parry, retreat, and attack. I can smile when I need to, engage when I must, and you'd never know. Only those who see me in an unguarded time are aware of it. Until now.
There are many different kinds of depression and many causes and thankfully most will never have more than an occasional bout of the blues once in a while. Dysthymia is a chronic low grade depression that presents itself in my life in somewhat predictable fashion (usually at the end of summer, around Nativity, and sometimes in early spring) and sometimes just appears. Years of practice have allowed me to know when I am sliding in to what I call a "trough" and the feelings of loss, frustration, and hopelessness of one kind or another begin to emerge. It's hard to sleep but the hardest thing is the feeling of being abandoned by God, the cruelest trick of all because it strikes at my very heart.
This is such a time.
But I'm not asking for pity. I have no idea why, outside of the medical facts, this is happening to me but I've long ago stopped asking the questions as anything other than a symptom. I rarely ever speak of it because I don't want people to see me as my condition, don't want to have to constantly explain things, don't need to have people define me as that "depressed" guy. I refuse to allow this thing, this illness, this struggle, to become me.
And that's why I'm breaking the silence.
I was cautioned by the well meaning to avoid talking about this. What would people think of a Priest who is damaged, somehow less than perfect? How would they handle my secret? What would they do when they discovered there are moments when I am weak? How would they cope with knowing there's a soft spot under my black shirted armor?
But something else matters more.
In the Church right now are many more like me, people who have lived with this quiet pain, these shadows falling, for decades. They have endured. They have cried alone in bed late at night. They have encountered countless well wishers who don't understand. They have moments of profound aloneness, days when they feel God has abandoned them and salvation is lost. They've been shamed into silence by the nature of thier struggle and wonder what it must be like to be a normal person.
In this moment when I feel the night settling in and know the fight is on all I wish to say is "Do not be afraid..." Your mind will tell you that God has left but it is not so. The dark will seem like forever but the weeping of the night does pass. A part of you will wish for death but you must not succumb. Fight for this day, for this minute if you have to. A little while is all you need, one moment to get some help, to take those damned pills, to run for whatever light you see even if the devil himself is trying to pull you down. Go to Liturgy even if every part of you wants to stay at home in bed. Let His precious Body and Blood work it's silent graces. Weep if you must, but never surrender to the fictions in your mind. When morning comes, and morning is more precious to us, rejoice and let God's sun warm your face and dry your tears.
And know that you are not alone.
10/12/06
Just the gears I need...
This past Saturday was the usual trip to LaCrosse and St. Elias, with a twist.
Coming in to LaCrosse and traveling over the Mississippi river I attempted to downshift and discovered that 4th gear was missing, gone, not there, vanished. Turns out 2nd and reverse were also missing which made for quite a scene when I later backed my car out of a hotel parking lot using my foot for a motor (sort of like Fred Flinstone).
Now my car, which usually has been remarkably reliable, had some transmission problems which the dealer fixed and were, thank God, covered by the warranty. But this was new and visions of my being stuck somewhere out in the country with an immovable hunk of metal under me caused a certain amount of concern.
What to do?
There was no way to drive it back to the dealer before closing and it was too much of a trip to have someone pick me up. So the die was cast and all interested parties back home were informed of the situation and preapred to pick me up when I returned on Sunday. As to the car, who knows?
Sprinkled with holy water and blessed by the prayers of the faithful of St. Elias the adventure home began after Liturgy. First challenge, climbing the bluffs to the prairies above, then getting to Rochester, and then making it to the dealer where my wife would be waiting so I could leave the car and get home.
Needless to say it was a prayerful trip with XM radio football scores to fill in the gaps. It turned out to be a minor part that could be fixed in less than an hour.
A day of two later it occurred to me, broken as the car was I had been given all the gears I needed to make it safely home.
I'm still working out the lesson for me in all of that.
Coming in to LaCrosse and traveling over the Mississippi river I attempted to downshift and discovered that 4th gear was missing, gone, not there, vanished. Turns out 2nd and reverse were also missing which made for quite a scene when I later backed my car out of a hotel parking lot using my foot for a motor (sort of like Fred Flinstone).
Now my car, which usually has been remarkably reliable, had some transmission problems which the dealer fixed and were, thank God, covered by the warranty. But this was new and visions of my being stuck somewhere out in the country with an immovable hunk of metal under me caused a certain amount of concern.
What to do?
There was no way to drive it back to the dealer before closing and it was too much of a trip to have someone pick me up. So the die was cast and all interested parties back home were informed of the situation and preapred to pick me up when I returned on Sunday. As to the car, who knows?
Sprinkled with holy water and blessed by the prayers of the faithful of St. Elias the adventure home began after Liturgy. First challenge, climbing the bluffs to the prairies above, then getting to Rochester, and then making it to the dealer where my wife would be waiting so I could leave the car and get home.
Needless to say it was a prayerful trip with XM radio football scores to fill in the gaps. It turned out to be a minor part that could be fixed in less than an hour.
A day of two later it occurred to me, broken as the car was I had been given all the gears I needed to make it safely home.
I'm still working out the lesson for me in all of that.
10/11/06
The light shines...
In the furnace of these times lesser things are being burned away and a pure focus is emerging.
It's not about a desire for, or a glee at, the shape of things. I look at the world and feel mostly sadness and a certain sense of having the normalcy of the world taken from me by the winds of culture. Rather something is happening, a change is coming, and glimpses of it are already present.
The times are rousing me from my sleepy state, that sense of just flowing with things in the space between awake and dreams. I am more alert, more aware, more alive, then I have been in a long time. To use a biblical image the scales are falling off my eyes and vision is beginning to return.
I'm seeing the world more clearly in this time when all seems to be shadows, but more importantly I am starting to see Jesus with greater clarity as well. He stands out more as the darkness seems to grow and glows with a fiery intensity as night falls. It something I missed when my delusions led me to believe that all was well or at least tolerable.
Now I'm certainly no saint. My life is cancerous with sin in ways I don't even know. But I'm beginning, just beginning to see, and what it is I'm coming to know is deep and real and beautiful and right. If I can have just a taste of it I will leave this world a happy man and there is a radiance in it all that cuts through this gray rainy day with the light of a million suns.
As a child I remember the bible camp that filled our summers and the chapel on the grounds with the words on the wall that said "We would see Jesus..." Can it be that after all those decades I finally am? And what I'm starting to see, even in fragments, is so amazing that I can only begin to wonder at it all and barely stand in the face of it.
The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overpowered it...
It's not about a desire for, or a glee at, the shape of things. I look at the world and feel mostly sadness and a certain sense of having the normalcy of the world taken from me by the winds of culture. Rather something is happening, a change is coming, and glimpses of it are already present.
The times are rousing me from my sleepy state, that sense of just flowing with things in the space between awake and dreams. I am more alert, more aware, more alive, then I have been in a long time. To use a biblical image the scales are falling off my eyes and vision is beginning to return.
I'm seeing the world more clearly in this time when all seems to be shadows, but more importantly I am starting to see Jesus with greater clarity as well. He stands out more as the darkness seems to grow and glows with a fiery intensity as night falls. It something I missed when my delusions led me to believe that all was well or at least tolerable.
Now I'm certainly no saint. My life is cancerous with sin in ways I don't even know. But I'm beginning, just beginning to see, and what it is I'm coming to know is deep and real and beautiful and right. If I can have just a taste of it I will leave this world a happy man and there is a radiance in it all that cuts through this gray rainy day with the light of a million suns.
As a child I remember the bible camp that filled our summers and the chapel on the grounds with the words on the wall that said "We would see Jesus..." Can it be that after all those decades I finally am? And what I'm starting to see, even in fragments, is so amazing that I can only begin to wonder at it all and barely stand in the face of it.
The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overpowered it...
Some wisdom from George Washington...
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure – reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
– George Washington, Farewell Address, Sept. 19, 1796
– George Washington, Farewell Address, Sept. 19, 1796
10/10/06
On the one month anniversary...
On the one month anniversary of my brother Paul's falling asleep in the Lord a copy of the eulogy...
I find myself, with all of us gathered here, in a sad, strange, disconcerting, yet holy and profound place.
I am speaking at my brother’s funeral with the task of trying to capture in small and inadequate words the whole of a life. Thoughts have become elusive in mourning and there are pictures and images and flashes of him circling just outside my grasp. Words fail. How to speak? What to say? What could do justice to this moment? To him?
Yet for the sake of love I will read on.
Paul came in to life too early and left the same way but how remarkably different and better we are because of it all. While for most of us it is the nature of things to live out our lives in a kind of anonymity his was pregnant with good things. Family, friends, faith, love, laughter, some crazy times, and a natural kind of attractiveness that drew people to him and made him the captain of the team on and off the court.
Those of you who only knew Paul as an adult, as an athlete, a project manager, your friend at the campfire, or the tall guy in front of you at church may find it strange to believe he was a preemie when he arrived in the fall of 1961. He was our tiny little brother and we called him "Pauly Mouse" because of his size and quiet demeanor. Our Pauly was a well liked kid, and even as his grade school classmates chose him for a School Safety Patrol trip to Washington DC he was not the first one you’d pick when choosing up sides for neighborhood football games. But something happened about the time we moved to Minnesota in 1975 and while the boyish good looks stayed on he stopped being the size of a kicker and started being the size of a tight end. Our Pauly Mouse became Pauly Moose.
Yet whatever size package he was, he remained a favorite. There was a natural charm and grace that allowed him to easily make friends and keep them as the years moved on. Neighbors from his earliest years as a child in Wausau have called this past week with fond memories and high school buddies who turned into golf partners and compatriots are gathered here. The loss that family, friends, co-workers, and brothers and sisters in Christ feel in this time is real because the attachment was as well.
As a child Paul won a plaque in Sunday School that quoted the scripture "Be ye kind one to another…" It was his favorite, not, as we found out because of the quality of the plaque itself but because he thought, even as a child, that being kind was a good idea. He was a kid in a popular crowd in high school, but it never changed him. He was strong but never a bully. He experienced success in the rough and tumble of corporate life but never succumbed to the predatorial desire to win and take all. What tales could we tell of kindness, of decency, of considerations given in his unsung way. How the child’s thought shaped the man. Some day we’ll sit by a fire, like he used to, and tell the stories and laugh, and cry, and realize that the recollections of these things bless us still.
Yes there were times of sadness and anger and loss and frustration and hurt. No one lives beyond the sad domains of life. But more and above there was an abiding presence of good will, of quiet steadiness, of good humor, of simple yet profound faith, and easy companionship that mark our experience of Paul. Paul was our calm center, our quiet champion, a natural born dad, and all around good guy. In a world of untruths we who knew him could easily and without contradiction say he was a decent man. A high compliment in these times.
Two things yet need to be said.
First on behalf of all the Chagnon family we wish to express our deep gratitude to Jeanine. From that little apartment in Minneapolis and everything that has been to this moment and beyond you gave our brother the greatest human gift of all, a life of love and happiness beyond measure. It is the nature of things that a man and woman should leave their families, the gift of each to the other, and be joined together by God and become something new and more. In the crucible of this time we have seen a depth, grace, and beauty in you in the face of crushing events and we are reminded again why he loved you so and how much we are in your debt for the love you returned.
In the same manner we see that love and faith you shared continue on in Lindsay, Alyssa, and Danny. A man as good as Paul deserves to have his life continue for generations and although you are very much your own personalities we are deeply comforted to know that some of him will live on, and live on well, in each of you. A part of the sadness of this time is the thought of those lost days yet to come, the events that mark the celebrations of life and from which it appears Paul will be absent. But you carry him literally inside you, in how you look, how you feel, how you believe, how you think, how you care, and in your very soul. The years will take you away from this moment and him from your sight but in truth he will never be far away from you. He will always be as close as a thought, as near as a prayer, and you will see his face in your children as we see his in you. And there will be comfort.
And finally we need to be reminded that these few, short, and inadequate words are by no means the end of the story. In the summer of 1967, in a cramped cabin where we spent parts of our summer as bible camp workers, an incredible transformation began when a young boy named Paul placed his life in the hands of his Savior. That moment has permeated everything from that time on, touched his life with joy at the faith and baptisms of his children, gave him grace to face the hard times, nourished the life within, and allowed him to live strong to the end. Even now it fills this room with an incredible sweetness and peace that defies the pain of this day.
It also means Paul’s story is not finished, and in fact will never be finished. Greater and more beautiful chapters are being written even as we speak and the tale of his life continues just out of our sight but as real, even more real, than anything we can imagine. This small chapter is closed and tucked away in our hearts but by eternity’s reckoning in just a short while we will come to know the rest.
So to all of you in your remaining days love God, live well, embrace faith, choose joy, take care of those you love, strive for Christ’s "well done" and cherish each fleeting moment. It all matters. And as you do the memories stirred in these moments, and all of Paul that has touched your life, will transcend time and space and perhaps, even for a moment, touch the very doors of heaven.
Rest now Pauly, and we’ll see you in the morning.
I find myself, with all of us gathered here, in a sad, strange, disconcerting, yet holy and profound place.
I am speaking at my brother’s funeral with the task of trying to capture in small and inadequate words the whole of a life. Thoughts have become elusive in mourning and there are pictures and images and flashes of him circling just outside my grasp. Words fail. How to speak? What to say? What could do justice to this moment? To him?
Yet for the sake of love I will read on.
Paul came in to life too early and left the same way but how remarkably different and better we are because of it all. While for most of us it is the nature of things to live out our lives in a kind of anonymity his was pregnant with good things. Family, friends, faith, love, laughter, some crazy times, and a natural kind of attractiveness that drew people to him and made him the captain of the team on and off the court.
Those of you who only knew Paul as an adult, as an athlete, a project manager, your friend at the campfire, or the tall guy in front of you at church may find it strange to believe he was a preemie when he arrived in the fall of 1961. He was our tiny little brother and we called him "Pauly Mouse" because of his size and quiet demeanor. Our Pauly was a well liked kid, and even as his grade school classmates chose him for a School Safety Patrol trip to Washington DC he was not the first one you’d pick when choosing up sides for neighborhood football games. But something happened about the time we moved to Minnesota in 1975 and while the boyish good looks stayed on he stopped being the size of a kicker and started being the size of a tight end. Our Pauly Mouse became Pauly Moose.
Yet whatever size package he was, he remained a favorite. There was a natural charm and grace that allowed him to easily make friends and keep them as the years moved on. Neighbors from his earliest years as a child in Wausau have called this past week with fond memories and high school buddies who turned into golf partners and compatriots are gathered here. The loss that family, friends, co-workers, and brothers and sisters in Christ feel in this time is real because the attachment was as well.
As a child Paul won a plaque in Sunday School that quoted the scripture "Be ye kind one to another…" It was his favorite, not, as we found out because of the quality of the plaque itself but because he thought, even as a child, that being kind was a good idea. He was a kid in a popular crowd in high school, but it never changed him. He was strong but never a bully. He experienced success in the rough and tumble of corporate life but never succumbed to the predatorial desire to win and take all. What tales could we tell of kindness, of decency, of considerations given in his unsung way. How the child’s thought shaped the man. Some day we’ll sit by a fire, like he used to, and tell the stories and laugh, and cry, and realize that the recollections of these things bless us still.
Yes there were times of sadness and anger and loss and frustration and hurt. No one lives beyond the sad domains of life. But more and above there was an abiding presence of good will, of quiet steadiness, of good humor, of simple yet profound faith, and easy companionship that mark our experience of Paul. Paul was our calm center, our quiet champion, a natural born dad, and all around good guy. In a world of untruths we who knew him could easily and without contradiction say he was a decent man. A high compliment in these times.
Two things yet need to be said.
First on behalf of all the Chagnon family we wish to express our deep gratitude to Jeanine. From that little apartment in Minneapolis and everything that has been to this moment and beyond you gave our brother the greatest human gift of all, a life of love and happiness beyond measure. It is the nature of things that a man and woman should leave their families, the gift of each to the other, and be joined together by God and become something new and more. In the crucible of this time we have seen a depth, grace, and beauty in you in the face of crushing events and we are reminded again why he loved you so and how much we are in your debt for the love you returned.
In the same manner we see that love and faith you shared continue on in Lindsay, Alyssa, and Danny. A man as good as Paul deserves to have his life continue for generations and although you are very much your own personalities we are deeply comforted to know that some of him will live on, and live on well, in each of you. A part of the sadness of this time is the thought of those lost days yet to come, the events that mark the celebrations of life and from which it appears Paul will be absent. But you carry him literally inside you, in how you look, how you feel, how you believe, how you think, how you care, and in your very soul. The years will take you away from this moment and him from your sight but in truth he will never be far away from you. He will always be as close as a thought, as near as a prayer, and you will see his face in your children as we see his in you. And there will be comfort.
And finally we need to be reminded that these few, short, and inadequate words are by no means the end of the story. In the summer of 1967, in a cramped cabin where we spent parts of our summer as bible camp workers, an incredible transformation began when a young boy named Paul placed his life in the hands of his Savior. That moment has permeated everything from that time on, touched his life with joy at the faith and baptisms of his children, gave him grace to face the hard times, nourished the life within, and allowed him to live strong to the end. Even now it fills this room with an incredible sweetness and peace that defies the pain of this day.
It also means Paul’s story is not finished, and in fact will never be finished. Greater and more beautiful chapters are being written even as we speak and the tale of his life continues just out of our sight but as real, even more real, than anything we can imagine. This small chapter is closed and tucked away in our hearts but by eternity’s reckoning in just a short while we will come to know the rest.
So to all of you in your remaining days love God, live well, embrace faith, choose joy, take care of those you love, strive for Christ’s "well done" and cherish each fleeting moment. It all matters. And as you do the memories stirred in these moments, and all of Paul that has touched your life, will transcend time and space and perhaps, even for a moment, touch the very doors of heaven.
Rest now Pauly, and we’ll see you in the morning.
Recipe for a school shooter...
Take one person, marinade for years in a culture of entitlement, consumption, and violence.
Remove transcendent moral values.
Add emotional instability.
Let simmer until ready...
Remove transcendent moral values.
Add emotional instability.
Let simmer until ready...
10/5/06
If the people will lead...
Occasionally on my travels I'll listen to the news, but not much anymore because it grows more and more like an excercise in futility with truth as the first casualty.
But the news seems to be teaching one thing. The generation leading us now is a generation of style over substance, emotion over intellect, and selfishness over the common good. They are locked in a permanent childhood and have yet to, and probably never will, transcend themselves. And we're stuck with them.
Until the time the generation that came of age in the 60's passes this Earth and sanity returns we cannot depend on them to morally or spiritually lead us and should not trust thier opinions on anything of substance, and a lot of other stuff as well. The best, perhaps, we can do is pray they will not do so much damage that the years of repair will seem overwhelming.
For now we have to begin to build a new order of life rooted in the very things the hippies turned senators reject, the idea of transcendent truth and unchanging goodness. It will be hard at first because the amoral but powerful have no problem with using force to achieve thier ends when people refuse to bow to thier gods. We'll have to be second class citizens for a while, absorb thier fury, and quietly build behind the scenes and wait.
The demographics are on our side. And so is truth. Already we see the absurdity of a philosophy (if it can be called that) rooted only in the satisfaction of urges. As time goes on the disastrous results we already see will become more acute and the emptiness of people's lives will bear stark witness to the failure of an idea.
When that time comes, and it appears to be soon, there will be something there, deeply defined and already in practice to breathe new life into the corpse of our culture. And it will be beyond mere politics or economics or any of the ways power is manipulated, even thought it will transform them all, because it will be a revolution of the spirit, a reconnection with the wisdom of faith over time, a change in the very heart of people and not just thier environment.
Already every painful headline shouts out the death of an old way of being and a call to something, to Someone who will make all things new.
Take a minute to turn off your TV and you'll understand.
But the news seems to be teaching one thing. The generation leading us now is a generation of style over substance, emotion over intellect, and selfishness over the common good. They are locked in a permanent childhood and have yet to, and probably never will, transcend themselves. And we're stuck with them.
Until the time the generation that came of age in the 60's passes this Earth and sanity returns we cannot depend on them to morally or spiritually lead us and should not trust thier opinions on anything of substance, and a lot of other stuff as well. The best, perhaps, we can do is pray they will not do so much damage that the years of repair will seem overwhelming.
For now we have to begin to build a new order of life rooted in the very things the hippies turned senators reject, the idea of transcendent truth and unchanging goodness. It will be hard at first because the amoral but powerful have no problem with using force to achieve thier ends when people refuse to bow to thier gods. We'll have to be second class citizens for a while, absorb thier fury, and quietly build behind the scenes and wait.
The demographics are on our side. And so is truth. Already we see the absurdity of a philosophy (if it can be called that) rooted only in the satisfaction of urges. As time goes on the disastrous results we already see will become more acute and the emptiness of people's lives will bear stark witness to the failure of an idea.
When that time comes, and it appears to be soon, there will be something there, deeply defined and already in practice to breathe new life into the corpse of our culture. And it will be beyond mere politics or economics or any of the ways power is manipulated, even thought it will transform them all, because it will be a revolution of the spirit, a reconnection with the wisdom of faith over time, a change in the very heart of people and not just thier environment.
Already every painful headline shouts out the death of an old way of being and a call to something, to Someone who will make all things new.
Take a minute to turn off your TV and you'll understand.
10/4/06
An awkward time...
Occasionally I will get a person or two coming in to my office to talk about the recent loss of my brother. Invariably it's a very awkward conversation.
First there's the initial expression of condolences and a pause followed by whatever seems to be on the top of the comforter's head about death. They had an uncle who died just like my brother, they may say, or they want a detailed report on all of the events. I stare blankly ahead, thank them for thier thoughts and just wait for the spool to unwind.
They mean well but what can they really say? It's the tragic part of dying suddenly and young, the loss of the usual comforting words. They want to help, to make it all go away, but how? It's done, there is no going back and nothing of what brought us to this point can be changed.
Yet the awkward words, the tales of how death touched them, or the need to know all the small details has within its rough shell a seed of good will, of kinship in the face of the mystery of death, and a desire for connection. Even the most eloquent among us are left stammering at the reality of it all so why expect more from the regular folks?
So please don't be disappointed if I don't react to your words in any way you think I should, or in any way at all. Truthfully I've heard it all before so the words themselves are meaningless, the voice of Charlie Brown's teacher. But I will remember that you thought enough to drop in, and that is what matters most. It's so precious to me that I'll even try to pay attention to the story of how your cousin died so you'll know that beyond the words I'm trying to share something with you as well.
First there's the initial expression of condolences and a pause followed by whatever seems to be on the top of the comforter's head about death. They had an uncle who died just like my brother, they may say, or they want a detailed report on all of the events. I stare blankly ahead, thank them for thier thoughts and just wait for the spool to unwind.
They mean well but what can they really say? It's the tragic part of dying suddenly and young, the loss of the usual comforting words. They want to help, to make it all go away, but how? It's done, there is no going back and nothing of what brought us to this point can be changed.
Yet the awkward words, the tales of how death touched them, or the need to know all the small details has within its rough shell a seed of good will, of kinship in the face of the mystery of death, and a desire for connection. Even the most eloquent among us are left stammering at the reality of it all so why expect more from the regular folks?
So please don't be disappointed if I don't react to your words in any way you think I should, or in any way at all. Truthfully I've heard it all before so the words themselves are meaningless, the voice of Charlie Brown's teacher. But I will remember that you thought enough to drop in, and that is what matters most. It's so precious to me that I'll even try to pay attention to the story of how your cousin died so you'll know that beyond the words I'm trying to share something with you as well.
Knowledge from adversity...
Whenever you manage to get the carrot there will always be another, on a longer stick.
Count on it.
Count on it.
10/3/06
The new campus rebels...
An article from Terry Mattingly about a campus rebellion still mostly under the radar; young women, Christian and others, speaking out against the party til you puke then hook up realities of college life.
It's well worth the reading.
It's well worth the reading.
Sometimes I wonder...
Everyone has a thing or two that make them wonder.
Recently, and that means within the past few years, something has stuck in my thoughts like a missed fish bone. Something about the finite nature of humanity and the infinity of God.
The world has always been a kind of insanity and the present is certainly no less than the past. Its what you get when limited beings, and the longer I live the more limited people (myself included) seem, are in charge of anything. In the cosmic state of things we are, even the best of us, amoebas swimming about in a sea of emotion, sin, illogic, and animal instincts while charged with the task of caring for this blue dot in space and finding a way to share a common existence.
Frankly, we've screwed it up and the whole of human history is a chain of mistakes strung together with a moment or two of where the soulish beauty of our design shines through. All the poetry on the exalted state of man is a dream at best, a dream that tortures us with the reality of our actual state, and a deceit at worst.
And God knows it.
The Psalmist says of God "He knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust..." (Psalm 103). And it is there that I wonder about things.
I wonder why we humans, who are the scourge of this planet and so very mortal and limited, have been allowed to sink this far this fast. Our leaders and all who follow seem demented on a primal level. We are violent and brutish and given to things that even the animals, who are often our moral superiors, cannot comprehend. What kind of being decapitates another on television or builds a bomb capable of snuffing out all existence?
Recently, and that means within the past few years, something has stuck in my thoughts like a missed fish bone. Something about the finite nature of humanity and the infinity of God.
The world has always been a kind of insanity and the present is certainly no less than the past. Its what you get when limited beings, and the longer I live the more limited people (myself included) seem, are in charge of anything. In the cosmic state of things we are, even the best of us, amoebas swimming about in a sea of emotion, sin, illogic, and animal instincts while charged with the task of caring for this blue dot in space and finding a way to share a common existence.
Frankly, we've screwed it up and the whole of human history is a chain of mistakes strung together with a moment or two of where the soulish beauty of our design shines through. All the poetry on the exalted state of man is a dream at best, a dream that tortures us with the reality of our actual state, and a deceit at worst.
And God knows it.
The Psalmist says of God "He knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust..." (Psalm 103). And it is there that I wonder about things.
I wonder why we humans, who are the scourge of this planet and so very mortal and limited, have been allowed to sink this far this fast. Our leaders and all who follow seem demented on a primal level. We are violent and brutish and given to things that even the animals, who are often our moral superiors, cannot comprehend. What kind of being decapitates another on television or builds a bomb capable of snuffing out all existence?
And I wonder why God doesn't stop all of this, an act requiring a twitch of his will. We need to be protected from ourselves, from the cesspool of our imaginations and the will to evil that pervades our lives. We tiny, finite, beings, so small and yet so filled with darkness are helpless in the face of ourselves. Why does God not choose to keep us from that in the same way a humane person seeks to ease the suffering of an incomprehending animal?
They say it is all about choice and freedom, the desire of God to be in loving relationship with beings capable of deciding for that union. But when is it enough? When will this power, this freedom, have done so much damage that God has to intervene in the same way a parent tries to keep thier addled child from continuously pulling the boiling water on the stove over thier head?
Sometimes I wonder.
10/1/06
There is a place...
There is a place, when your journeys take you into northern Minnesota, where it feels like you've really made the break with the ant hill world of cities and arrived safely on a shore beautiful and foreign because it is so unlike the world you inhabit for most of your days.
Its not a geographical marker, like a dot on the map, but rather a moment when you realize the quality of things have changed, that which is around you and that which is in your heart and soul. Perhaps its putting the suburban mess in your rear view mirror. Maybe its just passing through a small town in that sweet place between farm and lake. A bird in the sky may mark the spot, but so may the first real clump of flaming birches. You just know it when you feel it.
And when we arrive there are moments when time seems to stop and all we know is the sun and sky and the sound of the water and the wind blowing through the trees. A silence is there even if we are surrounded by people, a silence inside rooted in all things properly alligned. It is like a moment of Eden.
What pushes us to leave such a place, to abandon such a state for something we know deep inside is less? The whirling world where all is competition and the beginnings of ulcers. What drags us from the simplicity, the silence, the sounds of wind and water, the voices of children, and the calls of birds unanswered?
Perhaps the angel of that first Eden, the one with a flaming sword guarding its gates and keeping the guilty away from paradise, is also within us. So we feel compelled, by some force, to leave the beautiful, the sublime, the holy, and those moments when all things seem one for the world of cars and sirens and mindless scurrying, and things for the sake of things.
And we hardly ever ask why.
Its not a geographical marker, like a dot on the map, but rather a moment when you realize the quality of things have changed, that which is around you and that which is in your heart and soul. Perhaps its putting the suburban mess in your rear view mirror. Maybe its just passing through a small town in that sweet place between farm and lake. A bird in the sky may mark the spot, but so may the first real clump of flaming birches. You just know it when you feel it.
And when we arrive there are moments when time seems to stop and all we know is the sun and sky and the sound of the water and the wind blowing through the trees. A silence is there even if we are surrounded by people, a silence inside rooted in all things properly alligned. It is like a moment of Eden.
What pushes us to leave such a place, to abandon such a state for something we know deep inside is less? The whirling world where all is competition and the beginnings of ulcers. What drags us from the simplicity, the silence, the sounds of wind and water, the voices of children, and the calls of birds unanswered?
Perhaps the angel of that first Eden, the one with a flaming sword guarding its gates and keeping the guilty away from paradise, is also within us. So we feel compelled, by some force, to leave the beautiful, the sublime, the holy, and those moments when all things seem one for the world of cars and sirens and mindless scurrying, and things for the sake of things.
And we hardly ever ask why.
9/27/06
9/25/06
The strongest man inthe world...
It just may be possible that in a world where politicians and clerics seem engaged in a perverse contest to see who can bow the lowest before the latest self appointed Sultan the strongest man in the world could be the one in a white cassock and armed only with faith, conviction, and a keen intellect.
Love him, hate him, or somewhere in between, one thing is certain. Pope Benedict has more courage than any leader in the western world at the moment, more than spineless western politicians deluded with utopian political correctness, and certainly more than any of the screaming fanatics burning his effigy.
How I wish we had his like among the Orthodox!
Love him, hate him, or somewhere in between, one thing is certain. Pope Benedict has more courage than any leader in the western world at the moment, more than spineless western politicians deluded with utopian political correctness, and certainly more than any of the screaming fanatics burning his effigy.
How I wish we had his like among the Orthodox!
On the shady side...
It was good to take the "shady side" on the way back from LaCrosse this past Sunday.
Let me explain.
There are three major ways back to St. Paul from LaCrosse. The first is the open road on the open prairie, interestate 90 and highway 52. It's fast but in the late afternoon the sun beats down mercilessly on the left side of your face and rolling down your window only makes a small difference. On the Wisconsin side there is highway 35 which snakes along the Mississippi river and is astoundingly scenic, a road with twists and turns and small towns clinging to the sides of the bluffs. Between them is highway 61. It, too follows the river on the Minnesota side but it doesn't have as many twists and turns. Best of all, on a hot fall day it offers the cool mottled sunshine of a mountain valley as it meanders under the bluffs on its way north.
Sometimes people think all the driving bothers me but, in truth, I enjoy the time in my car. There is a peace there, the sense that the world can only come in as far as I let it. I often turn my XM radio on to channel 14, "Bluegrass Junction", and spend a few hours drifting with the music through the valleys and small towns.
Once in a while I listen to baseball, the one game that just can't be rushed yet remains full of poetry and drama.
I suspect that refuge is in short supply these days. We've created a world where words and images are being constantly dropped on us, a never ending blitz of pandering chasing exhibition that at its best leaves us exhausted. We've become caught somewhere between our inability to live without it all and our deep yearning for a moment of peace and quiet. Even when we go on vacation we bring a laptop along.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if everyone in the world would simply take a day off from it all. Turn off the TV, unplug the computer, leave the cell phone at home and the car in the garage. Listen only to beautiful music, or better yet just the sounds that nature provides. Perhaps read a book, not a stupid trashy one but something classic, something that makes you think.
Either we would probably all go nuts or a revolution of the best kind would break out in a planetary scale.
Let me explain.
There are three major ways back to St. Paul from LaCrosse. The first is the open road on the open prairie, interestate 90 and highway 52. It's fast but in the late afternoon the sun beats down mercilessly on the left side of your face and rolling down your window only makes a small difference. On the Wisconsin side there is highway 35 which snakes along the Mississippi river and is astoundingly scenic, a road with twists and turns and small towns clinging to the sides of the bluffs. Between them is highway 61. It, too follows the river on the Minnesota side but it doesn't have as many twists and turns. Best of all, on a hot fall day it offers the cool mottled sunshine of a mountain valley as it meanders under the bluffs on its way north.
Sometimes people think all the driving bothers me but, in truth, I enjoy the time in my car. There is a peace there, the sense that the world can only come in as far as I let it. I often turn my XM radio on to channel 14, "Bluegrass Junction", and spend a few hours drifting with the music through the valleys and small towns.
Once in a while I listen to baseball, the one game that just can't be rushed yet remains full of poetry and drama.
I suspect that refuge is in short supply these days. We've created a world where words and images are being constantly dropped on us, a never ending blitz of pandering chasing exhibition that at its best leaves us exhausted. We've become caught somewhere between our inability to live without it all and our deep yearning for a moment of peace and quiet. Even when we go on vacation we bring a laptop along.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if everyone in the world would simply take a day off from it all. Turn off the TV, unplug the computer, leave the cell phone at home and the car in the garage. Listen only to beautiful music, or better yet just the sounds that nature provides. Perhaps read a book, not a stupid trashy one but something classic, something that makes you think.
Either we would probably all go nuts or a revolution of the best kind would break out in a planetary scale.
9/21/06
A funeral...
There was an enormous visitation and funeral for my brother Paul.
The ironic thing is the younger you are the more folks there are who know you, remember you, or simply are alive to attend your funeral. Whole high school gymnasiums are full for victims of tragic teenage car crashes and grand old people who lived long and done much are sometimes attended by only those who've been hired to carry the pall.
My brother was somewhere in between.
We're grateful for it all, that wave of care and support and kind words and fond memories that washed over us again and again. Even though standing under it exhausted us it left an indelible imprint on us, an image that we can draw on again and again when the harder times, the questioning times, come.
And they will.
I suspect that one day it will hit me, the randomness of it all, how unfair it seemed, the struggle of what lies ahead for his wife and children. And God and I will talk. Actually we'll argue, or rather I will. I will shout and cry and pound my feet on the floor because I am finite in the face of infinity. I will lose the battle, I certainly hope to, but I will make my stand anyway.
Until that time I will rest and try to get my soul untangled from it all. People are counting on me and that gives me a framework from which I can hang the threads of my life. I plan to take the weekend after next off and a quiet lake, a mandolin, and the cool fall winds will be restorative.
I suspect, too, that my own life will change in all of this. Not simply the obvious loss but rather the trajectory of things will be different. I want to write more. I have new responsibilities. Old ideas about what I wanted to be when I grew up have an increased urgency. What it means to be part of my family has changed.
Death takes away and adds in a curious arithmetic.
The ironic thing is the younger you are the more folks there are who know you, remember you, or simply are alive to attend your funeral. Whole high school gymnasiums are full for victims of tragic teenage car crashes and grand old people who lived long and done much are sometimes attended by only those who've been hired to carry the pall.
My brother was somewhere in between.
We're grateful for it all, that wave of care and support and kind words and fond memories that washed over us again and again. Even though standing under it exhausted us it left an indelible imprint on us, an image that we can draw on again and again when the harder times, the questioning times, come.
And they will.
I suspect that one day it will hit me, the randomness of it all, how unfair it seemed, the struggle of what lies ahead for his wife and children. And God and I will talk. Actually we'll argue, or rather I will. I will shout and cry and pound my feet on the floor because I am finite in the face of infinity. I will lose the battle, I certainly hope to, but I will make my stand anyway.
Until that time I will rest and try to get my soul untangled from it all. People are counting on me and that gives me a framework from which I can hang the threads of my life. I plan to take the weekend after next off and a quiet lake, a mandolin, and the cool fall winds will be restorative.
I suspect, too, that my own life will change in all of this. Not simply the obvious loss but rather the trajectory of things will be different. I want to write more. I have new responsibilities. Old ideas about what I wanted to be when I grew up have an increased urgency. What it means to be part of my family has changed.
Death takes away and adds in a curious arithmetic.
Something about time...
The thing about time is when you're in any moment time appears to be moving at a variety of speeds rooted in a host of variables. But when you look back time always seems to be going fast.
9/15/06
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...
9/14/06
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.
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.
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.
9/13/06
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.
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.
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.
9/12/06
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.
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.
9/9/06
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.
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.
9/8/06
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.
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.
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.
9/7/06
Sad but true...
Our leaders have become children, perhaps were never anything else, and so we must be adults on thier behalf.
9/6/06
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.
9/5/06
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.
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.
9/4/06
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.
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.
9/1/06
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.
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".
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.
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)
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)
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