Sad but true...

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

4 x 2 = 8

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

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

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

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

Sounds a lot like what Christian discipleship should be.

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

Money, money, money...

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

Its about money and freedom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A good crowd...

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

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

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

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

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

Don't ask why. Just accept.

It's all in your mind...

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

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

This means war...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Second coming hysteria...

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

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

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

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

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

Should there not be some joy in that?

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

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

A little wisdom from St. Isaac...

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

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

(Homily 84 of Saint Isaac the Syrian)

A teachable moment...

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

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

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

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

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

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

A little wisdom from Mark Steyn...

Here

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

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

Sad but true...

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

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

I wish that weren't true.

Traveling blues...

The past couple of days have been slow and tired.

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

But we're making headway.

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

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

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

A blast from the past...

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

Ain't the WWW grand?

Things along the way...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Light of Christ illumines all...

I've been pondering these troubled times.

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

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

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

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

Packages in the mail...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why am I a priest...

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

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

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

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

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

A little comment...

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

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

Daughters of Abraham...

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

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

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

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

Christians and porn...

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

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