Four Saints Meme

The Faith and Works post has kept me busy as of late -- read with pleasant surprise that I'd been tagged here by Owen to answer a meme regarding a favorite blessed saint, four favorite saints, and someone I'd like to see glorified as a saint.

1) My favorite blessed saint would be the blessed Augustine of Hippo. This, I know, will scandalize some, but I see in Bl. Augustine a true grasp of divine Justice and Mercy, a love of God's sovereignty and an understanding of the divine humility. In the words of Patrick Barnes, "There is unfortunately within the Orthodox Church a minority of teachers who, in their zeal to guard the Faithful from some of the errors in St. Augustine's teachings, have gone to the extreme of maligning him and impious heresy-hunting. In their often legitimate criticism of the writings of this blessed Church Father from Hippo, they irreverently seek to prove that he was never, nor should be, considered a Saint of the Orthodox Church. They admonish the Faithful to disavow him as a Father. Moreover, they often wrongly attribute heretical teachings of later "Augustinians" to St. Augustine himself. In this way a few of these people even try to show that he was a heretic. This is shocking and absolutely incorrect..."

2a) I must ditto Own here and offer first place among the four saints to the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin, Mary. Not only do I honor her as the new Eve whose "yes" loosed the knot that the first Eve's "no" tied around our race (Saint Irenaeus), but I thank God that she was there--a bit of a shock for me, admittedly--to greet me in the icon you see to your left. The first Divine Liturgy I ever attended was on Sunday, November 21st, 1999 -- a date many will recognize as the Feast of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple. She greeted me on my entrance into one temple on the day she entered another. Her virtue of keeping and cherishing within her heart the amazing story of the angel stands to convict this loquacious rambler, as does her absolute fidelity to Christ when few others remained. May I remain at the foot of the Cross--may I remain on the Cross her Son and our God has given me--even when the sky is dark, the earth quakes, and all seems abandoned. Most holy Theotokos, save us.

2b) Again following Owen's example, my next favorite saint goes to my patron saint, the Prophet David, the holy one for whom I was named by my God-fearing mother and whose name I (re)took upon being tonsured a reader. My birth was two and a half months premature, and happened to be very close to the day David is commemorated in the Church (Sunday after Nativity). I am honored beyond words to read his God-breathed psalms in the Assembly of the faithful. He was called a man after God's own heart -- I'm not sure what else would need to be said about him after that. The man was subject to his passions at times, but knew how to repent, and repent gloriously. The psalm that lauds him most, imo, is Ps. 131 (LXX), and speaks much of the call that we as parents, as those who have been blessed with fruitful marriages, have: The LORD has sworn in truth to David; He will not turn from it: “I will set upon your throne the fruit of your body. If your sons will keep My covenant And My testimony which I shall teach them, their sons also shall sit upon your throne forevermore." Indeed, we are called to pass on the faith to our progeny, so that the humanity we've given them will continue on its path of redemption through incarnation and purification. This is only possible, of course, through the One that came from David's loins: "There I will make the horn of David grow; I will prepare a lamp for My Anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, But upon Himself His crown shall flourish." Holy Prophet, pray for me, a sinner.

2c) Long-time readers of my blog will find the icon to your left very familiar. Said readers will also most likely remember that the name of this blog was not always "Oh Taste and See," but was originally "Stumble on Water," dedicated to my original heavenly patron, the chief of the Apostles, Simon Peter. I find it ironic that this post comes on the heels of a lengthy and much discussed post on faith and works, for, like many Evangelicals looking into Orthodoxy, this was the issue I had so much trouble with in coming to grips with the faith. I still remember the night in the ORU tower dorms when, while walking down the hallway to the elevators that would take me to my room and contemplating the whole faith-and-works issue, I stopped dead in my tracks. I still distinctly remember my mouth falling wide open as something dawned on me: as we seek to exit this sinking world and journey out to where Christ is, we are called to do what is impossible for man to do. For those sharing in a fallen human nature to attempt to undergo self-deification is as futile as said fallen humans attempting to walk on water. We must exit the boat, and yes, we must walk towards Christ, but St. Peter is not known for being someone walking on water under his own power, stumble or no. His cooperation with grace, perfect or not, has served as a literal icon of theosis for me and was an immense help in my embracing of this doctrine he preached.

2d) Finally, there is a saint who exemplifies, in my opinion, all that is good about missionary endeavors. St. Herman, the Wonderworker of Alaska, labored for years in the Kodiak islands, cultivating prayer out of a joyous heart, living a life of radical self-denial, and defending the poor and needy amongst the indigenous Alaskan Aleuts against the indifference of the Russian traders. My favorite story, which is partially quoted on the scroll held by St. Herman on the right, is as follows: "Father Herman gave [all the Russian officers] one general question: 'Gentlemen, What do you love above all, and what will each of you wish for your happiness?' Various answers were offered ... Some desired wealth, others glory, some a beautiful wife, and still others a beautiful ship he would captain; and so forth in the same vein. 'Is it not true,' Father Herman said to them concerning this, 'that all your various wishes can bring us to one conclusion - that each of you desires that which in his own understanding he considers the best, and which is most worthy of his love?' They all answered, 'Yes, that is so!' He then continued, 'Would you not say, Is not that which is best, above all, and surpassing all, and that which by preference is most worthy of love, the Very Lord, our Jesus Christ, who created us, adorned us with such ideals, gave life to all, sustains everything, nurtures and loves all, who is Himself Love and most beautiful of all men? Should we not then love God above every thing, desire Him more than anything, and search Him out?' "

All said, "Why, yes! That's self-evident!" Then the Elder asked, "But do you love God?" They all answered, "Certainly, we love God. How can we not love God?" "And I a sinner have been trying for more than forty years to love God, I cannot say that I love Him completely," Father Herman protested to them. He then began to demonstrate to them the way in which we should love God. "if we love someone," he said, "we always remember them; we try to please them. Day and night our heart is concerned with the subject. Is that the way you gentlemen love God? Do you turn to Him often? Do you always remember Him? Do you always pray to Him and fulfill His holy commandments?" They had to admit that they had not! "For our own good, and for our own fortune," concluded the Elder, "let us at least promise ourselves that from this very minute we will try to love God more than anything and to fulfill His Holy Will!"

3) Finally, there's this man. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, of blessed memory, has done more for Orthodoxy in America and the world, in my opinion, than just about anyone else in recent years (Although honorable mention should go to Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, also of blessed memory, who came in a close second for this spot in my meme). Fr. Alexander's absolute devotion to Christ revealed in sacrament and Eucharist above all else has proven to help make the Body and Blood we're given every Sunday the very center of my life. His adamant belief in frequent communion and confession--indeed, in active and vibrant participation in the whole life of the Church!--is something that was absolutely needed in our day and age...still is in places, sadly...

I've quoted several journal entries from the man -- most notably here w/regard to the "one thing needful," and here regarding Christ as the center of our Faith. A quote from the latter post:

"In our world, any religion without Christ (even Christianity and Orthodoxy) is a negative phenomenon, even frightening. Any contact with such a religion is dangerous. One can study it to better understand Christianity, or Christ. But by itself, it cannot be salvation, however one understands this word.

"For the early Christians, the Body of Christ is on the altar because He is among them. For the contemporary Christians, Christ is here because His Body is on the altar. It seems to be analogous, but in fact, there is an essential difference between the early Christians and us. For them, everything is in knowing Christ, loving Him. For us, everything is in the desire to be enlightened. The early Christians came to Communion to follow Christ, whereas now Christ is not the unique reason for partaking of Communion."

May his memory be eternal.

Whom to tag, whom to tag...Oh, heck, let's just go for broke...Fr. Joseph, Fr. Stephen, Sky, Barnabas, Dixie, Joshua, Mimi, John, Eric, Stacy, and Steven.

Troparion - Tone 3

You were a pillar of Orthodoxy, Hierarch Athanasius,
supporting the Church with divine doctrines;
you proclaimed the Son to be of one Essence with the Father,
putting Arius to shame.
Righteous father, entreat Christ God to grant us His great mercy.

Kontakion - Tone 2

You planted the dogmas of Orthodoxy
and eradicated the thorns of false doctrine;
you propagated the seeds of the Faith watered with the rain of the Spirit.
Therefore, we praise you, Righteous Athanasius.

Holy St. Athanasius, pray to God for us!

Life of St. Athanasius

Faith and Works, Paul and James

Much is made in the literature/blogs/podcasts of Evangelical converts to Orthodoxy about how faith alone does not save, but faith and works does. This catch phrase is usually accompanied by a pseudo "counterattack" of the Evangelical prooftext of Eph. 2:8-9 --

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

-- with corresponding prooftexts from the second chapter of St. James' epistle (vv. 14, 17, 20, and 26, in particular). The resulting fights (for that is what they usually are; few discussions of this topic seldom ascend into the realm of true, civil, reasoned argumentation) rarely amount to anything more than people taking these two supposedly opposing sides and beating each other over the head with the aforementioned prooftexts. My problem with this scenario isn't even in the use of prooftexts (at least not primarily, though I do find the practice abhorrent--context should always be provided, elaboration always made); rather, the problem I have with this technique is how it takes two great saints of our Church and makes them appear to be "versus" one another. My friend and fellow blogger Alan asked me if I would elaborate on the idea that, while both serious Evangelicals and serious Orthodox would agree that it is impossible for apostles of the Lord to be divided dogmatically, differences lie in our understanding of where exactly they harmonize in their doctrine (I agreed to go into that in this post, in the comments). So, without further ado, I shall attempt (that being the key word here) to set forth the Orthodox position on the insanely broad topic of the harmony of Ss. Paul and James in regard to faith and works in our salvation.

I would posit, first of all, that our central point of reference for this topic should be from the third chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Philippians. He opens this chapter with warnings against those who would have the Jewish Christians follow the observance of the Mosaic Law in order to be in good standing before God. He outlines his own credentials within his pre-Christian, Jewish life, then states the following:

"But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (vv. 7-14).

This passage will be referenced in several places in order to clarify the Orthodox position on the role of "faith" and "works" within the works of St. Paul and St. James. Suffice it to say that we believe that both Ss. Paul and James confess that

1. faith in Christ is absolutely necessary for our salvation,
2. the objective establishment of the reality of our salvation rests solely and squarely in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ,
3. the subjective application of that reality to individuals requires effort, within the context of that faith, for as long as God grants the person life, and
   
4. the ultimate state of the believer is not assumed to be one of salvation, as the believer's striving within the grace of God is not yet finished.

The context of St. Paul's epistle to the Christian Hebrews living in Rome is one of contrasting those who seek to be made right before God by the fulfilling of the Mosaic Law with those who seek to be made right before God, or justified, through faith in Christ Jesus. As St. Paul told the Philippians, "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ," and again, "Yet indeed I also count all things [in pre-Christian Judaism] loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith" (3:7-9). The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews--we attribute the epistle to St. Paul along with Romans, so it works out consistently for my purposes here--clearly states that the Mosaic Law is inferior in every way to the coming of the New Adam, Christ (3:5-6). Christ has fulfilled the Old Law in Himself and has brought it to a whole new level of reality; thus, to go back to the old ways--i.e., following the Mosaic Law before the coming of Christ--would be to shun all that was done to usher in this new Kingdom, this new life. St. Paul, then, is dealing with the question of whether works done outside of union with Christ will save you. It is clear that St. Paul believes that, without union with Christ through faith in Him, no man will be saved. Yet, it would be a mistake to say that St. Paul subscribes to "easy believe-ism," or a salvation apart from working out your salvation (Phil. 2:12) in any way.

We are told to "make every effort to enter into the rest" God has prepared for us (Heb. 4:11), or "lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of [us]," as St. Paul told the Philippians, yet while all this is done with the understanding that the grace of God undergirds, surrounds, and permeates all things at all times, we must, within the context of this grace made available to us apart from anything we might have tried to do to deserve it, beat our bodies and make them our slaves so that we will not become disqualified after beginning our life in Christ (1 Cor. 9:27). Again, St. Paul makes his goal knowing Christ "and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." He states that, in his quest to share in the sufferings of Christ and thus apply them to himself towards the reward of the future resurrection, he does not consider himself to "have already attained, or...have apprehended" the objective reality that was established, unshakably, by Christ, but he presses on towards the goal of that union with God. We would say, then, as Orthodox, that St. Paul was not so much preaching against works of any kind as being efficacious in helping us journey further into our salvation, but rather against works apart from union with and faith in Christ Jesus. Such works apart from Christ, in his estimation, were the very works outlined in the Old Testament Law, which had been made null and void, useless to save since the coming of grace in the person of Christ.

This idea--that men must work within the context of their faith in order to perfect it--is perfectly consonant, then, with St. James' injunction that "faith without works is dead." In the context outlined above, where Christ laid the groundwork for our salvation in His crucified, buried and risen flesh, and we then "fill up in [our] flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church" (Col. 1:24), we see that not only is St. James telling us that by our works we will be justified and seen to be holy in the eyes of those around us (an important part of being a light in this world, cf. Matt. 5:16), but that only such a faith that is active will be salvific for the person who has said faith. Indeed, St. James asks rhetorically if faith, apart from any works, will be enough to save the person who claims the faith (2:14). Obviously, St. James says that no man will be justified by faith alone (v. 24), and that faith is made perfect through the works a man does (v. 22). It is not, therefore, a foregone conclusion to St. James that everyone who professes faith in Christ will automatically perform the works appropriate to such faith. There is no direct link between "those who profess faith in Christ" and "those who actually do what is required of them by God." Many may agree with this at first, but this declaration of St. James would have much to say to those who profess to know with assurance, based on their current profession of faith in Christ, that their eternal destiny is secure. Indeed, our Lord showed through the parable of the two sons of the vine dresser (Matt. 21:28-31) that our initial reaction to something can be misleading, for the end result of our response may be totally contrary to said response. Thus, St. James says, we are only fully justified when we act on what we say we believe--otherwise we only have the theology of demons: assent without deeds. This, both Ss. Paul and James affirm, is why it is absolutely essential to "press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me." Christ has laid the groundwork of our salvation out by taking our flesh upon Himself, dying in that flesh, being buried and rising again in that same flesh. The potential to be saved is something no one can take away from us; God's rest spoken of in Hebrews 4 has been forever established, and the apprehension of our race by Christ's victory spoken of in Philippians 3 is now unshakable. Yet it is not enough for that to happen; we must strive to enter the rest, and press on to apprehend the reality which Christ has already made available (but not necessarily actualized) for us.

Let us rejoice, then, in the sure knowledge that heaven has been made available to us, that our path to return to the House of the Father has been cleared, and the doors have been flung open for us. However, "since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of [us] seem to have come short of it." The reality is there, and only by trusting in the steadfastness of that reality fashioned for us by God will we ever be saved, yet an indispensable part of participating in that salvation is our continual response to the grace that makes it so possible. The response is hard, and we are given grace to help in time of need, so that, somehow, we may attain on the last Day to the resurrection of the righteous dead to life everlasting.

(For a more comprehensive analysis of the Orthodox view of asceticism in salvation--one that incorporates the entire New Testament, see Fr. Georges Florovsky's lengthy but excellent essay, "The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament: Reflections on the Critique of the Theology of the Reformation")

Paloozahead...or..."If You've Got Nothing Better to Do..."

And, yes...that's me rockin' in there...


Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com

UPDATE!!! - Here's another one of me -- the decidedly mellower side...

COME!

Come, O true light!
Come, O eternal life!
Come, O hidden mystery!
Come, O indescribable treasure!
Come, O ineffable thing!
Come, O inconceivable person!
Come, O endless delight!
Come, O unsetting light!
Come, O true and fervent expectation
of all those who will be saved!
Come, O rising of those who lie down!
Come, O resurrection of the dead!
Come, O powerful one,
who always creates and re-creates and transforms
by your will alone!
Come, O invisible and totally intangible and untouchable!
Come, O you who always remain immobile
and at each moment move all,
and come to us, who lie in hades,
you who are above all heavens.
Come, O desirable and legendary name,
which is completely impossible for us
to express what you are or to know your nature.
Come, O eternal joy!
Come, O unwithering wreath!
Come, O purple of the great king our God!
Come, O crystalline cincture,
studded with precious stones!
Come, O inaccessible sandal!
Come, O royal robe
and truly imperial right hand!
Come, you whom my wretched soul
has desired and does desire!
Come, you who alone go to the lonely
for as you see I am lonely!
Come, you who have separated me from everything
and made me solitary in this world!
Come, you who have become yourself desire in me,
who have made me desire you,
the absolutely inaccessible one!
Come, O my breath and life!
Come, O consolation of my humble soul!
Come, O my joy, my glory, and my endless delight!
I thank you that you have become one spirit with me,
without confusion, without mutation,
without transformation, you the God of all;
and that you have become everything for me,
inexpressible and perfectly gratuitous nourishment,
which ever flows to the lips of my soul
and gushes out into the fountain of my heart,
dazzling garment which burns the demons,
purification which bathes me
with these imperishable and holy tears,
that your presence brings to those whom you visit.
I give you thanks that for me
you have become unsetting light
and non-declining sun;
for you who fill the universe with your glory
have nowhere to hide yourself.
No, you have never hidden yourself from anyone
but we are the ones who always hide from you,
by refusing to go to you;
but then, where would you hide,
you who nowhere find the place of your repose?
Why would you hide,
you who do not turn away from a single creature,
who do not reject a single one?
Today, then, O Master,
come pitch your tent with me;
until the end, make your home
and live continually, inseparably within me,
your slave, O most-kind one,
that I also may find myself again in you,
at my departure from this world
and after my departure may I reign with you,
O God who are above everything.
O Master, stay and do not leave me alone,
so that my enemies,
arriving unexpectedly,
they who are always seeking to devour my soul,
may find you living within me
and that they may take flight,
in defeat, powerless against me,
seeing you, O more powerful than everything,
installed interiorly in the home of my poor soul.
Yea, O Master, just as you remembered me,
when I was in the world
and, in the midst of my ignorance,
you chose me and separated me from this world
and set me before your glorious face,
so now keep me interiorly,
by your dwelling within me,
forever upright, resolute;
that by perpetually seeing you,
I, the corpse, may live;
that by possessing you,
I, the beggar, may always be rich,
richer than kings;
that by eating you and by drinking you,
by putting you on at each moment,
I go from delight to delight
in inexpressible blessings;
for it is You, who are all good and
all glory and all delight
and it is to you,
holy, consubstantial, and life-creating Trinity
that the glory belongs,
you whom all faithful venerate, confess, adore, and serve
in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Saint Symeon The New Theologian (949- 1022)

Stuff to Read, Stuff to Listen to

My sidebar changed a little bit ago; you can read some other stuff I wrote during Lent (it was published on the OC.net forum) on baptism; another one is due to be published either this weekend or early next week on sola scriptura. Check it out if you like.

The Our Life in Christ boys, Steve and Bill, have put up parts one and two of a yet-to-be-finished series on prayer (specifically the Jesus Prayer), which is mostly a lengthy interview Steve did with Fr. Jonah (Paffhausen) of St. John's Monastery in Manton, CA.

Good interviews, imo.

And, yes, before you ask, I AM fond of the hyperlink function, thankyouverymuch...

Bright is the New Clean

The glow of Bright Week--the week following Pascha--has receded; the regular cycles of the Church have resumed (though, mercifully and gloriously, the refrains of "Christ is risen!" still punctuate our liturgical conversations)...'twas strange indeed, after so seemingly long a time, to actually fast on a Wednesday...and not even a total fast, which would hearken even further back to the weeks in which we did so in preparation for reception of the Presanctified Gifts, but rather the "plain," three-squares-of-grains-fruits-and-veggies that mark our weeks during the rest of the year.

And then Vespers tonight...(on a random note, met John's son, which was an unexpected treat)...All of it seems to be settling in to the part of the year that is, ironically enough, actually referred to often as "Ordinary," while still retaining the echoes gleaned from the walls of an empty Tomb. Last week I was wanting to blog about the subject in the title--Bright Week functioning as Clean Week--but was detained...end of grading period, business at home, general feeling of "not now; not yet"...I always tend to think of that "forced silence" as a mercy. Perhaps I should dread the fact that I'm up typing now, but things seem more "open" I suppose...Lord, have mercy...

Clean Week is interesting, because it offers us a chance to engage, wholeheartedly (wholebodily?) in the sweeping clean of the body of the rule of the passions. It's often marked by the total absence of food in monasteries (Monday-Wed. night, at least ime), a bodily discipline which takes away the compliance with the demand of the belly for food, and thus makes us aware of the food the world knows not of: doing the will of our Father in Heaven. Yet, as one is sanctified, so one must be glorified, else a vacuum of sorts is left in place; the cleansing or purging of Clean Week would not only be useless, but even dangerous (I would even go so far as to say demonic) were it not filled and fulfilled with the glory found in the Resurrection of Christ, wherein we wait for our (final) adoption as sons, the redemption of OUR bodies. Fasting without this hope, without this contact with the risen, immortal, God-man, still-circumscribed yet seated at the Father's right hand--such a "fasting" is little more than starvation, and in its weakening of the flesh nothing more than a door for the enemy.

Indeed, they come out not only by fasting, but by prayer and fasting--the former being communion with the One who is risen. Our cries of "Let begin the fast with joy; let us prepare ourselves for spiritual effort. Let us purify our soul and cleanse our flesh; let us abstain from passion as we abstain from food" are effectual because they are done in relation to our desire and need "to see the solemn Passion of Christ our God, and with great spiritual gladness to behold His holy Pascha.”

And so comes Bright Week--the Bridegroom is still with us in these 40 Days!--and the grasping at the mere hem of His garment yields nonetheless the Power that is within Him; our feeble obedience ("When you fast...") meets the harbinger of what will fill the space we clear for Him, and a joy that truly is inexpressible and full of glory (yet not what I'd call emotional) truly is there, a taste of love that makes the darkness of this deathly world the foil it must be seen as, rather than the foreground it's often made out to be. St. Maximos the Confessor said once that this life is a clash of loves; how wonderful that, here in Bright Week we have a divine eros in our incorruptible Bridegroom that is sufficient to clash (and prevail) against the eros of this world.

One last anecdote that will bring this rambling and most likely hopelessly naïve and triumphalistic post to a close: Fr. Tom Hopko once mentioned a young lady who was a member of his parish and confided in him that, at one point while she was away (I think at college?), she was on the verge of engaging in some form of immorality. She refrained from doing so, yet (so she told Father Tom), the reason she refrained was not because she remembered that "The Church said 'no'," or that "The Seventh Commandment said, 'no'," or whatever else...the image that stopped her--and I love the fact that it was a mental icon that did it--was her remembrance of Fr. Tom on Pascha night crying out, "Christ is risen!" At that moment, the pull of what she knew to be darkness and death was too weak to topple the purity, the piercing reality of the blessed cleansing that is the risen Christ.

Prayers for me during this Paschal season are appreciated.

Christ is risen!

Fr. Tom Ponders the Scriptures

Fr. Thomas Hopko, one of my favorite voices in the Church today (if not the favorite), was interviewed (and answered excellently, imo) here about the Church, the Scriptures, Orthodox and Evangelical interaction...good stuff.

Thanks to the newly-illumined Jacob for the heads-up.

¡Cristo ha Resucitado!

The gates of death opened to You from fear, O Lord!
When the guards of hell saw You they were afraid,
for You demolished the gates of brass and smashed the iron chains!
You have led us from the darkness and the shadows of death, and have broken our bonds!

¡Cristo ha resucitado de entre los muertos,
La muerte por la muerte pisoteando,
Y a los que yacían en los sepulcros,
Otorgando la vida!

Following Nonsense

I truly wanted to get the previous post up before Lent, yet I think, as Benjamin of "Unmitigated Nonsense" has done, I will take my leave of absence from the blogosphere a bit earlier than anticipated. Your prayers are most appreciated. A blessed fast to all.

Judgement

I've mentioned before how amazingly spoiled/blessed I am to conduct a church school class of such bright, insightful young people. This past Saturday, I got to (as opposed to "had to") teach a combined class of Jr. High/Sr. High kids, due to the absence of the Sr. High teacher. The topic was appropriate--the Last Judgement--seeing as how yesterday was the day we commemorated it...

"When You, O God, shall come to earth with glory,
all things shall tremble
and the river of fire shall flow before Your judgement seat;
the books shall be opened and the hidden things disclosed!
Then deliver me from the unquenchable fire,
and make me worthy to stand at Your right hand, righteous Judge!

Hardly "God made you special and He loves you very much" subject matter.

We read the gospel reading for the next day (along with this for comparison regarding what "the work of the Lord" is that the sheep will accomplish, as well as the surprised attitude and identity of both the sheep and the goats), and the sense of "the least of these" came out--the poor, the homeless, the sick, the hungry/thirsty, the lonely, the incarcerated--and ideas came up of visiting the sick in our parish, as well as carrying around food or gift cards to restaruants--the latter prompted by a quote from the Didache which speaks of those who take alms without need, how God is mindful of this, and how, to paraphrase Rich M., God hasn't called us to be saviors; He's merely called us to be lovers, regardless of the response of the beloved.

(Funny moment worth mentioning: when I asked, after reading the Didache quote, "Who do you think is a group in society that might take alms without needing them?" I was expecting the automatic answer to be "the homeless/beggars, etc." One young man, however, immediately chimed in with "Televangelists!" Like I said, these kids are insightful, and their comments often poignant...)

Talk of the Resurrection--as we lived, so shall we be judged: in the body. All those impulses which our bodies gave into, nurtured, became enslaved to, will be present with us on the Judgement Day if not put in submission to Christ beforehand. Thus we saw the nature of the Great Fast--"Let us abstain from passions as we abstain from food...let us purify our souls and cleanse our flesh"--which is the calming of our impulses, the breaking of the enslavement thereto, and the attaining of the freedom to approach our God passionlessly (dare I say "apathetically?"), in silence, stillness and worship.

Read the vesperal hymns from the Triodion (the liturgical book containing all the Orthodox songs of Lent) that we would be hearing that night; you can find them in this Word Document, with everything marked with (from the Lenten Triodion) as one of the hymns discussed. I asked them why the tone was so dark, why we should insist on praying in this manner, when the A of G, CofC, etc congregations which were a stone's throw away were so much more "celebratory" and "hopeful"? To prompt some thought, I threw out Our Lord's parable given to the well-to-do invitees at a party (I have to wonder where the Lord sat as He told this). They immediately picked up on the fact that worship, recognizing our individual (and corporate!) sinfulness, as well as our inability to determine, ultimately, whether we will be accounted as a sheep or a goat, (per the two readings linked above), should prompt us to "take the low seat"--presuming nothing, asking only that our Lord have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and loves mankind, and were we to be condemned, it would, we know, be just, if unexpected and tragic. How much better is this mindset that the presumption that one will "be in that number" followed by the literally "rude awakening" that the Universal Resurrection and Judgement will be.

We ended with the corresponding section of the truly extraordinary seasonal standard Great Lent by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, wherein we saw in the Saturday of Souls commemoration of all the departed and its juxtaposition to the Sunday of the Last Judgement an act of love par excellence: that of the connectedness of the Body in its concern one for another--both those in this life and those departed from it--and for said members' growth in grace and ultimate union with God, to be accomplished, finally, before the Great White Throne. Also noted was the difference between the Christian's care for the poor as illustrated in the Sunday Gospel as opposed to our culture's social activism:

"The parable answers: love--not a mere humanitarian concern for abstract justice and the anonymous "poor," but concrete and personal love for the human person, any human person, that God makes me encounter in my life...To a "social activist" the object of love is not "person" but man, an abstract unit of a not less abstract "humanity." But for Christianity, man is "loveable" because he is person."

Our committment to prayer, fasting and almsgiving (an oft-forgotten third aspect of Great Lent), then, is put in stark relief on this much-needed Lord's Day and (I hope) taken to heart by those wonderful youth.

Lord, that we would all take it to heart...

Random Rock: Pachelbel's Canon

Not much to say as of late, so this one's for all my fellow guitar lovers...this kid's got talent.

¡Es Otra Niña! ¡Te Esperamos a Ti, También, Cielo!

Long time readers will remember that title from a few years back....

Got my first good look at my second daughter today--God, what a thing!--I can't believe it's almost been two years since the last "ultrasound encounter." It's my pleasure to introduce all of you to Katherine Ruth Wooten, our secondborn (God willing) daughter. If ultrasound behavior is any indication of post-birth personality (and it was with Hope--very active and all over the place), this one seems more subdued, calmly letting the nurse probe around her soft, perfect parts and resting comfortably as she grows. Time will tell. Sepa Dios.

One of my favorite psalms is 131 (132 if you're reading it in a Protestant Bible); as I read it tonight in Evening Prayers, things so obvious and so elementary, so basic leapt out at me...

"Remember, O Lord, David and all his meekness. How he made an oath unto the Lord, and vowed unto the God of Jacob: I shall not go into the dwelling of my house, I shall not ascend upon the bed of my couch, I shall not give sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eyelids, nor rest to my temples, Until I find a place for the Lord, a habitation for the God of Jacob. Lo, we have heard of it in Ephratha, we have found it in the plains of the wood. Let us go forth into His tabernacles, let us worship at the place where His feet have stood."

Hope's godfather and I once noted that, in reflecting upon our respective upbringings, one of the key characteristics we could point to that our parents exemplified (at least in the area of faith) was consistency. Would that Hope and Katherine both see their father putting prayer even before sleep, putting the remembrance of God before all, preparing his own heart to be a place for the mighty One of Jacob, standing reverently and regularly before the altar to whence He has descended in invisible, solemn glory. It is this regularity and consistency regarding the things of God that does the most to impress the reality of faith upon a child.

"The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David, and He will not annul it: Of the fruit of thy loins will I set upon thy throne. If thy sons keep My covenant and these testimonies which I will teach them, Their sons also shall sit for ever on thy throne."

Indeed, Christ has come from the line of David's seed: Praise be to the Holy One of Israel. Yet tonight there was, I think, an understanding of the Incarnation that only the newly fused flesh and bone, soul and spirit of a new "you" can bring; the glory of the Lord is not to be kept in the ethereal realms of hidden knowledge or transcendental meditation, escaping from the world and whatnot. Rather, the glory of the Lord--the crowning achievement of His love for man--the glory and treasure of God dwelling with and in man, is to be carried in and delivered to humanity through the earthen vessels of human bodies. Tonight as we kiss the image of the Christ, we glory in the knowledge that His flesh communes us to eternal life, His blood satiates our thirst for the eternal--and by honoring the image of this fleshy Savior, we affirm that it is indeed His being as flesh--as opposed to merely a philosophy or series of doctrines He might propose or teach (though this is included)--that saves us. We kiss the images of the Theotokos and all the saints because they are truly bearers of God, full of the Holy Spirit by God's grace and, in kissing their images, we affirm that they are by God's grace what Christ was in His very nature: communicators of the presence of God (the definition of Grace for us Orthodox) specifically through and in their physical bodies (and not in spite of them). They labor and serve, love, work, sweat and pray for the salvation of mankind, and we kiss the hardworking flesh that has glory running through its veins. God is with us and in us. May my two daughters grow to sit with Him in glory--healed in spirit, soul and body--as the Psalm says.

"For the Lord hath elected Sion, He hath chosen her to be a habitation for Himself. This is My rest for ever and ever; here will I dwell, for I have chosen her...There will I make to spring forth a horn for David, I have prepared a lamp for My Christ."

May our home acknowledge Christ as King that He may abide here. Thanks be to God for His (second!) indescribeable gift.

The Satisfaction of the Cross

An article of mine on a forum I frequent was published by the admins and can be read here.

UPDATE: I had submitted a second, longer article that "piggybacks" on "Satisfaction," and I just saw that it's been published, as well. It's here.

The Ark

The Ark, the third venture of Orthodox Christians into online, 24-hour radio broadcasting, is set to be unveiled tomorrow. Look for the link to appear in what's now just a picture in my sidebar. Barnabas has blogged about it here--as well he should, seeing as how he's the development director for it--it will feature contemporary Orthodox musicians (!), something which I'm rather undecided on, for two reasons:

1) I have been, by and large, disillusioned by CCM during my days as an Evangelical. Either it's "Jesus is my boy/girlfriend" stuff or (musically speaking) cheap knockoffs of non-religious stuff with sub-par, canned lyrics. Blecchh.

2) I'm not sure what contemporary Orthodox music would be like. Yes, I've heard of Arvo Part, though I've not looked up any of his stuff. I've heard mixed reviews of him anyways...and St. Romanos Records has some audio clips of some of the artists, but, without naming names...well...perhaps they could have (I certainly hope they COULD, in fact, have) done a better job in choosing which songs they highlighted for certain artists. I hope my fears will be joyously proven wrong.

I certainly want to think that the Ark will provide us with quality, thoughtful, creatively-composed music with poetic lyrics that lift us up through (and thereby baptizing) the medium of our culture's contemporary musical expressions. May God grant this.

UPDATE: The link for Come Receive the Light is now OCN -- The Orthodox Christian Network, and that page now includes both CRtL and The Ark. Let me know what y'all think! I'm listening now...

World's Smallest Political Quiz

No clue how scientific and/or accurate it is. Put me right where I anticipated being though, so could be fun for y'all. Click here to take it. I am a...

CENTRIST

CENTRISTS espouse a "middle ground" regarding government

control of the economy and personal behavior. Depending on

the issue, they sometimes favor government intervention

and sometimes support individual freedom of choice.

Centrists pride themselves on keeping an open mind,

tend to oppose "political extremes," and emphasize what

they describe as "practical" solutions to problems.

The RED DOT on the Chart shows where you fit on the political map.

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 80%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 50%.
(Please note: Scores falling on the Centrist border are counted as Centrist.)

Unity in Diversity

In response to the "Forever and Now" post, a friend of mine asked a question in regard to Fr. Oliver's comment on women's ordination. Fr. Oliver's comment, cited in part, is as follows:

"David, it is an open question but I think only in the sense that we have not held a council on it. I do not at all think it open theologically. The answer is no. I am friends with at least one person who thinks otherwise, who is Orthodox, and I really respect some of her work on other areas of Orthodox patristics and theology, but on this issue we part."

My friend, a devout Evangelical, asked two questions regarding this--"How is that not the same thing as what I do among fellow Protestants? Thus, how is that unity not the same as I have w/ other Protestants?"--referring to the accusation often hurled at Protestants by Catholics and Orthodox of a pseudo-unity betrayed by a reality of doctrinal diversity. I thought it would be prudent to respond here, as my friend's objections are understandable, but only to a degree. I see a couple of differences in the comparison that might have escaped my friend.

First of all, there's merit in pointing out an apparent similarity of approach. It's similar to what one Baptist might encounter when disagreeing with another Baptist, since the two can disagree on a given, non-doctrinal point and still remain in good standing as Baptists, as there's no clear teaching on subject x within the Baptist convention. In like manner, there's quite a lot--much more than an Evangelical might suspect, actually--within the Orthodox Church that is not a non-negotiable matter of Church doctrine, and which can fall under the category of theologoumenon, or pious or theological opinion. So I can understand how an accusation like the one I framed above would ring hypocritical at first glance.

As to the issue of whether or not women could be priests, it's not immediately and automatically struck down as heresy because such questions have only now arisen in so conservative a communion and because they have been, until recently, unthinkable. Because of this, the Church has never fleshed out and universally declared--not even in or via the writings of St. Paul-- a couple of things:

1) exactly why a women can't teach or exercise authority over a man, and
2) in what context that applies to the Orthodox Church.

(As Frederica Mathewes-Green pointed out, "we have women saints who were missionary evangelists, church-planters, teachers, healers, preachers, apologists, spiritual mothers, counselors, miracle-workers, martyrs, iconographers, hymnographers, and theologians," and the Scriptures point out those women who were deaconesses and prophetesses. So exactly what constitutes a male-only role seems to be restricted, at least at this point in this dialogue, to the sacramental priesthood. Most Orthodox, myself included, are happy with this traditional stance. My thanks to EYTYXOC for the link.)

Back to the main point, however: I hold that the Orthodox position, which allows us on many issues to agree to disagree, is still fundamentally different from that of sola scriptura Protestant groups due both to the nature of the issues on which we as Orthodox agree and disagree, as well as the nature of that which binds us--the latter being, namely, communion with a recognized Orthodox bishop.

To the first point: I see the nature of unity of doctrine and teaching within the Orthodox Church as being fundamentally different from the supposed unity of the many Evangelical, sola-scriptura confessions because of the nature of the specific doctrines upon which the respective groups agree and disagree. While the Orthodox Church has always--I repeat, always--had to deal with differing schools of thought on many issues (Calendar, reception of converts, etc), "the difference"--and here I quote from an old post of mine--"between the more ancient confessions and the more recent Protestant groups lies in Hebrews 6:1-2:

"'Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.'

"In our view, the conflicts that Protestant groups have with each other stem from those things we would define as 'elementary principles'--the nature of faith and works, the nature of baptism, the nature of the laying on of hands, of the end times, as the passage indicates--while those that the Catholics and the Orthodox have each within their respective communions are much more recent...I would rather have merely the problems of today and know that the problems of the apostolic age are settled, so we don't have to go back and re-search the Scriptures in every generation to see if we've got something as basic as baptism right."

To the second point: For Orthodox Christians, our point of unity is not only a common reverence for and submission to the Holy Scriptures, but also a union with a recognized Orthodox bishop. The former has its difficulties, since people can profess the same loyalty to the Scriptures in an abstraction and come up with (as is often the case) diametrically opposed views of some of the most basic of Christian beliefs. Recognition of bishops, of course, can also be problematic, as there have been times when the idea of "who's in and who's out" hasn't always been cut and dry. Nevertheless, the fact that I can walk into almost any Eastern Orthodox Church in the world, mention Archbishop +DMITRI, and be admitted to the chalice is a pretty good indicator that mine is one such recognized bishop. Orthodox bishops have authoritatively recognized one another (as well as the faithful under each respective bishop) as holding to the Orthodox dogmas, so all included in this recognition are invited to the Eucharistic banquet. Thus, the fact that many sola scriptura groups still remain separate bodies and close off communion from one another is telling, being the most glaring example, in our eyes, of real separation and disunity.

In Orthodoxy, the bishop is the recipient of the sacramental grace given to the Apostles by Christ Himself and, as such, is the one who unifies those he receives into the Church via that grace. This point of union, far from being an abstract, immaterial one of thought, is something that transcends the confines of both our rational capabilities and our individualistic tendencies and unites us in a tangible, corporate, and, yeah, even mystical union through the Chalice, which is ever guarded by the bishop, surrounded by the presbyters and communed by the faithful.

Remembrance

Jan. 19 -- Texas Confederate Heroes Day
Why We Remember

EDIT: Since the writing of this post, I have since come to hold a different opinion than the one expressed in this post. While it is still true that the Civil War was about many different issues, none of these issues would have been issues sufficient to start a war in the first place had chattel slavery not been in place.

Yes, it concerned the right to secede. Yes, it concerned the issue of states' sovereignty vs. federal centralization. But, in 1860, what it meant to be concerned about those issues was that you desired to secede and exercise states' rights in order to keep other human beings in bondage. Thus, while the issues of states' rights and secession continue to be viable political issues in some (small) corners of the country today, one should not and must not cite the CSA as some sort of heroic precedent regarding these issues; such a citation would and does only lead to an implicit, if not explicit, excusing of chattel slavery, which is now exclusively a moral issue in today's society, not a primarily economic one, as it was in that of the 1860s. Such a position is inexcusable in today's world.

Nevertheless, I am keeping the words up for posterity; I do hope that those who find resonance with what I wrote below would stop, reflect, and reconsider what waving the Stars and Bars, however culturally one might feel about it, says today.

I continue to recognize that those who fought for the South (my paternal great-great-grandfathers included) did so mostly in a short-sighted attempt to defend their parcel of land and their immediate families, which they were told were being threatened by "Damn Yankees." Hence, the desire to honor their service to protect those dear to them first and foremost.

Though many of them did not own slaves (mine did at some point, I believe), and many willingly manumitted they once they saw that they could fight like the men that they were and are, such is nevertheless a context wholly different from our own. Let us draw from it those lessons we can and should, without the unfortunate wholesale adoption of its truly lost cause, as many misguidedly do today. May God truly bless and save the South, and the North, and all mankind. ~ Fr. David Wooten, Sept. 7, 2012.

"After the Chrism Dries: Some Pitfalls Awaiting Converts to the Orthodox Church"

Published by AGAIN, May 4, 2003

By David Tillman
Reprinted from AGAIN MAGAZINE, Volume 21, Number 1 - Winter 1999

May 4, 2003 (AGAIN) -- "Our merciful Lord says, Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13, 14)

Coming into Orthodoxy may look like the end of a long journey home, but on another plane it is just the beginning of another journey - the journey into the Kingdom of heaven. This pilgrimage is the hard way, the way of the Cross, and it is fraught with dangers and pitfalls.

There is a steady stream of souls coming into the Orthodox Church, but, alas, there is also a persistent trickle of those going out. Some are scandalized, disillusioned, and heartbroken; some are rebellious, defiant, and - may God rescue them and us - perhaps lost forever. Joy comes only through the Cross, and all are tempted to flee from it. Let us take refuge in the divinely inspired promise of the Holy Apostle John that as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name (John 1:12).

Let's get some basic doctrine down before we have a sober look at the journey after the chrism dries and the baptismal garment is folded and put away. I believe in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and the Orthodox Church is it. What the Orthodox Church has received from the Lord (the prayers, the liturgies, the Bible, the Mysteries, the Councils, the Fathers, the icons, the canons - in sum, the entire Tradition) is absolutely trustworthy. To reject these things in their proper place and order in the Church is to reject Christ as Head of the Church. To gain these things through Jesus in the communion of the Orthodox Church is worth every sacrifice.

The Pitfall of Expecting Sinless People

What we have received is absolutely trustworthy. The way we incarnate it in this world as individuals, parishes, dioceses, and the like can be an affront to God. If one flees to the Orthodox Church never expecting to encounter sinners again, one is deluded. Sinners are to be found in abundance not only among the laity, but among the clergy as well. St. John Chrysostom taught that the roads of hell are paved with the skulls of erring Orthodox priests, and erring Orthodox bishops are the lampposts!

In fact, even whole churches can fall into sin. The current Bishop of Corinth is reputed to say often that his church has not improved that much since the Apostle Paul left. And we must never forget that the seven churches described in St. John's Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation) were Orthodox churches! They're gone now. Their lampstands may well have been removed forever. Whether this is due to the vicissitudes of Greco-Turkish politics or to a deeper cause, we know that God preserves the Orthodox Church where she is faithful.

There are real live sinners in the Orthodox Church, and anyone that enters thinking to escape them will be terribly disappointed. He might have better luck entering a hospital in order to avoid sick folks.

One escapes nothing by coming into the Orthodox Church. What happens is that everything is intensified, but with a new clarity. The late Flannery O'Connor (a Roman Catholic writer of the first rank and native of the Deep South) was once asked why her stories, and those of so many Southerners, were peopled by such freaks. She replied to the effect that perhaps the Southerner's advantage is that he can still recognize a freak. The Orthodox Christian's advantage is that he can still recognize sin when most of the world would like to deny its existence. There are sinners pedestrian and venal in the Orthodox Church. There are sinners who have damaged and torn lives and consciences. There are sinners intellectual and simple. One healthy sign amidst so much that is unhealthy, even dangerous, is that there is an unchangeable vocabulary of sin, repentance, accountability, and God's coming judgment in Orthodoxy. One can hide from it, but one cannot escape it. The Orthodox Church still recognizes sin and celebrates virtue, even to the judgment and condemnation of some who would count themselves members in good standing, with medals and citations to prove it.

The Pitfall of Magical Thinking

Many come to the Orthodox Church with impossibly high expectations of her. Some of these expectations are quasi-magical. One can be baptized, chrismated, and communed with utmost care in Orthodoxy and still go to hell. The Holy Mysteries grant us an encounter with the Most Holy Trinity; they are not magic. They cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. A sinner who will not cooperate with this grace will be condemned by it.

Many a recovering drunk will say of his recovery program, It works if you work it! The Mysteries of the Church (which is itself the Great Mystery) work if you work them. One can be baptized in the deepest font made and be held under a good long time in each immersion and still end up in hell, for the lack of daily trying to die to self so that one can truly die with Christ and rise with Him. So many fixate on the outer form to the exclusion of the very presence of God in the Mysteries. The Lord is present to empower us to be faithful, not to magically transform us into lovers of Himself and our neighbors without struggle on our part. We must make the effort to lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us (Hebrews 12:1).

An excessive fixation on the ultra-correct celebration of the services of the Church can be the result of this magical thinking. Some seem to be thinking that if the services are just done right (and there are wildly divergent definitions of done right) then the struggles will be over. Magic lusts after mere power. Alas, many prefer magic to grace and are disappointed that Simon the Magician was never canonized in the Orthodox Church! So they leave, or worse, stay and drive off the weaker brethren. It is heartbreaking to see people scandalized by the sins of others and/or their own sins and struggles. The antidote to this in faith is the foundational virtue of humility. When all is said and done, all that is wrong with the Church in her earthly pilgrimage (remember, there's nothing wrong with her Head) can be discovered by looking in a mirror.

Every Orthodox Christian from the Apostolic Age until today must say at every Divine Liturgy that he himself is the chief of sinners. After many years of saying it, many come to believe it. Of those who believe it, many begin to do something about it. It is at this point that one begins to see and experience the Messianic miracles in abundance. At least on the moral plane one begins to witness, if not personally experience, the disfigured lepers being clean sed, the lame walking, the blind seeing, the dumb speaking, the demons being banished, and the dead being raised.

Yet some persist in wanting - may we say lusting for - a guaranteed magic rather than grace. Those healed by the Lord had to get up, get to work, and get home. Who are we to demand more? Jesus gives us His grace, the presence of the Holy Spirit, to walk the narrow way. He doesn't send a taxi to get us!

The Pitfall of Losing Our Balance

Being faithful is a struggle on both the individual and the corporate levels. Some give up the battle and settle for a worldly comfort. This is true for individual souls, parishes, dioceses, and patriarchates. None of us is immune to the desire to take the rest appointed for the Last Day right now. North Americans and Western Europeans have a great struggle with the devil's most subtle weapon: prosperity. Again on every level, there are those of us so seduced by prosperity that we create a huge stumbling block to many souls. Worldly prosperity and numerical growth are not always signs of spiritual growth. After all, cancer cells grow much faster than normal cells.

The antidote to the comfy poison of prosperity is ascetic effort. Ascetic effort is the directed and controlled violence of war against the passions. Ascetic effort can be derailed by pride, publicity, and legalism. There are times we Orthodox, again on both the individual and corporate levels, can simultaneously make the Pharisee blush and the publican despair. There are some who deny the centrality of ascetic effort, especially fasting. There are others who can keep a Lenten kitchen more fastidiously than any scribe or lawyer of old could ever have hoped to keep Kosher. Where humility and mercy are lacking, God is banished in the name of Orthodoxy, and souls are led astray.

The Lord grants us grace step by step so that we can walk a balanced walk. When we are confronted with fellow sinners, we need not
despair and begin looking for a Church more Orthodox than God. This is a temptation. Neither do we need to say, "Well, no one else is fighting sin in his life, so I am off the hook." In balance we can be grateful to God that He brought us to the Orthodox Church, but we need not have any illusions that the Church would be diminished without us or is enriched by us. With sobriety we can do what grace makes possible and bless the Lord.

Unbalanced enthusiasm is another pitfall.

One of the finest teachers in the North American Church tells the story of his enthusiasm in his first assignment as a parish priest. At one point his bishop reminded him, Father, the Church saves you. You don't save the Church. This is a saving balance and sobriety in the Christian walk. There is nothing extreme in it. Passionate and intemperate enthusiasm can be purified and tamed to become patient and long-suffering zeal. Being on fire with love for the Lord is absolutely necessary, but it must be a controlled burn.

The Pitfall of Ingratitude

One of the signs that we are getting off the narrow way of the Cross is ingratitude toward or condemnation of our origins. For those of us who came to Orthodoxy from the Western denominations, this is a major and serious temptation. One must enter Orthodoxy walking forward singing, not retreating backward shouting. It is the height of ingratitude to be without at least a prayer for the folks that taught one to call on the name of Jesus.

In the entryways of many an ancient church building (called the exonarthex) one could see pictures of Plato and Aristotle. The Church knew that the philosophies of the pagan Greeks were inadequate to the mystery of faith in Christ. The Church knew that too many had attempted to subordinate the Tradition to pagan categories and had been lost because of it. Despite all of this she allowed a beautiful expression of gratitude to Plato and Aristotle as seekers of Truth, sometimes even referring to them as the Moseses of the [pagan] Greeks. In this we see sober, open-eyed, and Christ-enlightened gratitude.

Truth is truth wherever it is found, and it always has some relationship to Jesus, who is, of course, the Truth Incarnate. Ingratitude for whatever glimmer of truth came to us from even the most doubtful of sources is a singularly evil symptom of profound spiritual malaise. From the denominational perspective, there are few bodies more inadequate than the snake-handling sects, but their call for total commitment and focus is laudatory. On Judgment Day one can speculate that a rattlesnake-handling sect may fare better because of its hundred-percent commitment, albeit in ignorance, than an Orthodox parish that has it all, at least on paper, but is only thirty percent committed. Where ingratitude is found, judgments abound, and presumption cannot be far behind.

Having said these things, we must be careful not to teeter off the other side of the narrow way by saying, It does not matter what you believe as long as you are sincere and committed. Although God is everywhere present and fills all things (as we say in our opening invocation to the Holy Spirit before nearly every private or public prayer of the Orthodox Church), He condescended to be objective - describable, touchable, knowable - in the Incarnation. The Faith has an objective content.

The Lord did not come to give us mere propositions. He came to restore our relationship to Him by freeing us from the tyranny of sin, decay, and death. Nevertheless, this relationship can be described accurately in ways He chose. There is right theology with attendant right practice. The Lord entrusts us with the Faith to equip us to walk the narrow way He pioneered. When we treat the Faith in presumption as our right, we distort it and disfigure it. The light in us becomes darkness, and we cause scandal and harm even though we may be members in good standing of the Orthodox Church.

A Bridge over Pitfalls - the Cross

What should be said in conclusion? Simply this: The Lord came to save us from the reality of rebellion, sin, death, and decay in every facet of our being. The only way to be saved is to take up our cross and follow Him in obedient death to self and sin. If, in reality, our following Him is a charade, then all the tools and arsenal the Lord has provided for our salvation and sanctification will condemn us. Coming into the Orthodox Church does not take away the necessity of genuine repentance. It s a matter of grace, not magic.

In reality, if we have not died with Christ and risen with Him, we will find the Marriage Supper of the Lamb intolerable. The real God makes real repentance possible so that people can enter into the real Kingdom of heaven. It requires a genuine walk in faith with the power of our God, who cannot be fooled. The journey is not over yet.

Forever and Now, Culture and Incarnation

(Warning: The following is quite long and, most likely, will be somewhat incoherent at times. Forgive me.)

Tonight, an unexpected Vespers service--unexpected for me, that is, as my wife and child both felt like staying in on what would have been "her night" to attend services--and what would amount to the longest (and best) theological discussion I'd had in months following said service.

Being the "Church geek" that I am--insert comment about being "Geek Orthodox" here--it is difficult to describe the sheer joy it brings me when I am with those of like mind and temperment (in this case, a seminarian; a well-read and newly-converted--as in, still literally oily behind the ears--young man; and our thoughtful, gracious parish priest) and can spend two hours going over everything from biblical text comparison to the identity of "the Jews" in light of the Church to intertestamental liturgical continuity to incarnational anthropology/ecclesiology to convert baggage (both conservative and liberal, both Protestant and Catholic). We could have easily gone 'till two in the morning; the enthusiasm was wonderful.

Regarding the last two topics--the effects of the Incarnation on our beliefs of man and the Church, and the nature of different types of converts...

The "still-oily brother" asked me, the only other former-Protestant in the group, whether or not I thought we converts from Evangelicalism had "so much more" to get over to come into Orthodoxy. I mentioned that we more than likely had no more and no less to get over upon coming to the Church; our baggage, though a matching set, is not so much greater is it is simply different from that of a convert from Roman Catholicism or paganism or secularism or whatever. I mentioned that many books written by converts are geared towards the Evangelical and, thus, have little if anything to say to the inquiring Roman Catholic. A dear friend whose sponsor I was honored to be came in from Catholicism and, mentioning this book in particular, first voiced this sentiment to me and said that books written by former Catholics for Catholic inquirers could "get in the kitchen" of those inquirers in a way that Carlton, Schaeffer, and Gallatin perhaps never could.

That being said, what did seem particular to us Evangelicals was the complete upheaval of our approach to all things Christian when the Incarnation was allowed to fully blossom, all of its implications pervading every aspect of how we saw ourselves as human beings, and how the Church connected us to Christ. Events in the life of Christ which, as far as we could tell, had no practical application to us here and now--as opposed to the "sweet by and by"--were brought dizzyingly to vibrant, tangible, tasty life, the Eternal Now of the Banquet Feast of the Lamb made present for us in the Assembly of the New Jerusalem, the entire Advent of Christ made for the believer "everywhere present and filling all things," with His flesh--which is the flesh of His mother, which is ultimately our shared flesh--being taken from the Theotokos and brought into the world through Nativity; washed and joined with the world and cosmos in the murky waters of the Jordan; emblazoned with piercing, uncreated glory on Mount Tabor; split, torn, impaled and suffocated on a Roman cross; raised in immortal glory in the Resurrection on the third day and seated--this is my favorite part!--seated at the right Hand of God the Father Himself at the Ascension...and our real, physical participation in baptism, chrismation, Eucharist, confession, prayer, fasting, et al, allows the Flesh that is, forever and now, seated at the right hand of Power to join with our feeble bodies, the Blood that is laid before the Almighty to flow--actually and physically flow!--through our fragile veins...such a flesh-to-flesh, blood-to-blood encounter is well beyond the scope of the camps from whence we came, yet familiar territory to those who walked with the Twelve...

Also discussed were the fears that some--namely, theological conservatives who, at least in part, were fleeing from confessions more liberal than they instead of entirely to a Church that transcends and rejects all these labels categorically--bring to their conversion processes and, in the midst of said process, latch on to a seemingly conservative stance on an issue and posit it as the Orthodox stance, usually doing so through a knee-jerk reaction in order to avoid at all costs even the appearance of the chaos and controversies in their former confessions. Father stated that, really, said converts can and must learn to relax, for it's a reality that the chaos arose from the simple fact that those places from whence they came were not the Church and, having now come to the Church, where Truth reigns as a Person, dialogue and inquiry need not be feared, and walls need not be built up prematurely (or, ideally, at all).

Piggybacking on this premise, the "hot topic" of women's ordination to the priesthood--coupled as it always is with the issue of the condoning and/or ordination of practicing homosexuals--was brought forth. Father pointed out that, in many mainline denominations, straight women and gays are often dealt with as one issue largely because they are both classified (tragically) by these confessions as historically oppressed political minorities. Recognized though women and gays may have been by our contemporary secular societies, the confessions which nonetheless allow themselves to use said recognition as their touchstone of "relevance" and interaction with the world inevitably must include the latter in their candidates for the priesthood if they are to be consistent after having included the former. On the other end of the spectrum, conservative Evangelicals are bound (and happily and, to a degree, admirably so) by the New-Testament era prohibition against both women ministers and practicing gay...well...anythings...so their consistency is easy to maintain, if a bit blind to cultural norms throughout the ages...

...and it is this phrase--cultural norms--which terrifies those converts coming from groups such as the Methodists, the ELCA, PCUSA, ECUSA et al, which gratefully has no effect whatsoever on the Orthodox Church...or, at least, it shouldn't, so long as we keep to our incarnational moorings... For, after all, reason these reactionary, conservative converts, if we allow for "changing cultural norms" to be our benchmark for allowing women to be priests, what is to stop us from citing those same norms for changing the Church's stance towards practicing, unrepentant homosexuals? Two things surface as an answer.

Firstly: "Changing cultural norms" is not a "benchmark" for any decision we would make. The Church's understanding of christology and what it means to the human race has undergone an astounding process of development that spans several hundred years and, while preserving the core intact, has expanded and articulated it in a way that has shown all the facets of its glory that its primitive, seed version did not reveal. While I am not going to advocate for women's ordination--and I think it incredibly unlikely that this debate will happen among the bishops of this Church within my lifetime--if said ordination were to be allowed, it would only be because the Church was now ready to apply St. Paul's "neither male nor female" clause to the priesthood, and not only to the believer's admission to and participation in the Body of Christ. It would not be because the surrounding culture demanded that we be "fair," "equal," or "same."

Secondly: Were the above to happen, the door to acceptance of the practicing homosexual lifestyle--much less ordination--would still be closed, for the touchstone of the Church regarding the identity of humankind--male and female included--is not the world's culture of minority oppression and victimhood, but Christ, the theanthropos, or God-Man. God's incarnation in Christ results in a human nature shared by men and women, so there is nothing sinful or fallen merely in being female. This revealed nature of humanity, however--male and female, created to be fruitful and multiply--precludes the pseudo-union of those in homosexual relationships: the issue of gender has been assumed and healed by Christ; the issue of sexual orientation remains a cross in this fallen world. As a conclusion, we all reasoned that the christic anthropology of gender inclusion in the Kingdom of God did not necessarily, in and of itself, pave the way for equal access to ordination. We took comfort, however, in the fact that, as with our Eternal Rest seated at the right hand of Glory, the secure foundation of our lives was the Mystery of the divine made visible--the Church made real in flesh and spirit through Her Bridegroom made manifest in Creation--holding, protecting, nourishing and raising us to perfection in all things through He who Was and Is incarnate for our sakes.

More Theophany Stuff

Flinging around memory can be read here.

An all-sensory description of the revelation of God in the Jordan can be read--and simultaneously listened to--here and here, respectively.

Kudos to those mentioned both in this post and the former whose gifts surpass my own in conveying the one thing needful.

Feastday Reading

Our resident Ochlophobe has treated us to another apologia post here. Particularly pertinent to this day in the Church is this passage:

"In the opening lines of Genesis God moves above the waters, in Matthew chapter 3 God is below the waters. For there to be the new creation that is humanity healed, God must enter the water. When God is seen above the waters the veil remains intact. When God is seen below the waters the Trinity is revealed...In Genesis the waters which the spirit of God moves above are chaos and death, tohu-wabohu (תוֹהוּ־וַבוֹהוּ). After dividing light and dark God divides the waters, thereby dividing the heavens from the earth. But, of course, with God's creative divisions there is order and unity and compatibility. Our sin will disrupt that cosmic order. In Matthew 3 the God who goes under the waters reunites heaven and earth which was falsely (re)divided by man in his sinful rebellion. Theophany is not just soteriologically important for man, it is soteriologically important for the cosmos. At Theophany the God of Genesis does not simply hover above tohu-wabohu. Jesus at Jordan does not divide the waters. He plunges into them. And as he rises, chaos ends."

Happy Theophany, y'all.

Stillness

I'm not sure why I'm drawn to it. Every morning, when I'm milling around the bedroom and half-bath, a certain icon of the Theotokos and Child on the wall between the two rooms (see right) catches my eye. It was given to me after an outdoor Paschal Vespers--I believe right after my chrismation--yet the attachment isn't due to any person associated with the icon. I think what always strikes me is how very still she looks.

Icons, being pictures, are of course going to be stationary. But there's more to it than that. She, being the one whose pure womb, as we sing, became more spacious than the heavens, whose "yes" to the angel loosed the knot that Eve's "no" had tied around us, from whose body came everything our Maker was, humanly speaking--she seems to be the ultimate victor, the blessed and most glorious white martyr, giving her life not in a gory spectacle to the jaws of lions but in a bloodless battle over the temptations and passions that beset her throughout her life, ...

How can this be? For I am a virgin...

...My Son, they have run out of wine...

...Yea, and a sword shall pierce thine own soul, also...

...Woman, behold, thy son...

...Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?...

The anxieties of her life, the sidelong glances of those who suspected she'd been nothing more than a whore whose one-night fling with some Roman soldier had put the horns on her aged fool of a husband, the murmurs and sneers directed at her Boy, the news of whose arrival she'd held precious in her heart ever since that day her messenger came...all of these lay conquered, resolved, dead at the feet of this Lady who, having forfeited all she had (even down to the dignity she might have held in the eyes of men) now holds the Pearl of Great Price in her hands--a pearl she once held in her womb. And this is enough; she rests, satisfied, tranquil, the cry of the victor not being a bloodsoaked shriek of vengeance over ones foes, but rather, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced..."

My soul doth magnify...

She is what man must be: one who is so enamored with the "one thing needful" that no earthly care can move her. Our minds, on the other hand, roll out of our dreams and right into the tune that's been stuck in our heads since yesterday, and from said tune to the forehead-smacking faux pas at the restaurant last night, and from said blunder to the sexy young thing at the water cooler, and from all the unmentionable things that she brings up to the stiffening, sickening rememberance of the rumor that the company will be downsizing soon, to that bill that got ignored, that phone number that got misplaced, that deadline...all of these thoughts bombard our minds and, unable to stop the juggernaut, we can just feel our soul already tightening miserly around whatever resources, whatever savvy, whatever coping mechanisms might lie within that turnip of a heart that's looking drier with each care that occupies it. The Theotokos, on the other hand, is calm and still.

...and my spirit hath rejoiced...

She is calm not because she is so devoid of worries and cares--a perusal of the gospels and a read-through of the Holy Week lamentations will assure you to the contrary--but because she has discovered that holding all things with an open hand has led her into the reality where Christ reigns, where the Kingdom principle of death leading to resurrection is true, even down to the marrow of our insecurities. She has come to live out that great truth which says that the pulls of passions which our souls and minds feel--the pulls which tell us, as did C.S. Lewis' lizard in The Great Divorce, that we cannot, in fact live without fearing and submitting to that pull--are no match, in the end, for that serene magnifying and rejoicing that makes us human, that giving of glory and thanks that unites us to the divine.

Prayers by the Lake

Check the (recently streamlined) sidebar for St. Nikolai Velimirovic's collection of 100 almost always desperate prayers.

This man is a saint for a reason.

New Life

Congratulations to my dear friend Alan on the birth of his daughter, Nadia Elauren.

May God grant them many years.

Happy New Year...

...and feast(s) day...





THE CIRCUMCISION OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST







St. Basil the Great the Archbishop of Caesarea, in Cappadocia

Baby Veneration

My daughter is one enthusiastic pray-er. At the end of each pre-communion prayer (and going well into the next one), she yells "Ahhhhhhh-men! Ahhhhhhh-men! Ahhhhhhh-men!"

Tonight, after evening prayers, instead of merely kissing the icons as per her normal custom, both the Lord Jesus and the Mother of God Mary got several enthusiastic "YAAAAAAAY!!"s.

Like a child, indeed...