Baiku

Bought a bike this week!

Went for a ride with my son.

He is much more fit...

[wheeze...]

Buried Treasure

I have found a treasure, this morning, tooling around the web waiting for... Godot. I have no idea what I'm waiting for -- I'm probably just being lazy -- and here, I have found a treasure: a web site dedicated to the life and works of the late Metropolitan Anthony Bloom.

When I have said, in other places, that at the time of my conversion to Christianity, in the late 1970's, there were only the works of Fr. Alexander Schmemann and Timothy (now Metropolitan Kallistos) Ware available in English, I had forgotten (to my shame) the books, especially on prayer, written by Metropolitan Anthony.

You should spend your time reading him, rather than me, so go for it! I would highly recommend starting with the essay excerpted on the home page of the site, entitled I Believe In God. You may notice the affinity between his words and those of Fr. John Behr, who is (as of July 1) the incoming Dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary. Metropolitan Anthony heard Fr. John's first confession as a child, and clearly a relationship was formed.

-----

At the risk of having mis-categorized this entry under The Orthodox Church vs. Non Sequitur, let me add that last night, we discovered another treasure: Vienna Teng in concert at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport. The performance was intimate -- the theater seats just 195 -- and truly breathtaking. Now there are three more CDs destined for inclusion in What's on the iPod.

Two Must-Reads!

So, well, it's been a while, I know. My inspiration to write comes and goes -- and sometimes, even when it comes, it's not enough to get me over the speed bump of sloth.

In my defense, I've been reading, and can enthusiastically recommend two books by exceptionally thoughtful and literate converts to the Orthodox faith, similar in quality and character, but distinct enough in the particulars that you'd be happy to read both.

Short Trip to the Edge: Where Earth Meets Heaven--A Pilgrimage, by Scott Cairns, is the story of a university professor's quest for a spiritual life, and his subsequent journeys to the monastic republic of Mt. Athos, where he meets, among others, Fr. Iakovos of Simonos Petra. Fr. Iakovos originally hails from Winthrop, Massachusetts, and on trips home to see his family, has come to visit St. George's in Worcester. I've met him once, and he left a most indelible impression, as did Cairns's very fine book.

A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos is, similarly, a travelogue of sorts, though in this case, the author, BBC journalist Peter France, is not looking for a spiritual life, but finds one courtesy of the many gifts of the Holy Island of Patmos. The connection for me, here, is that France made his first visit to Patmos at the invitation of Kallistos Ware, who was, when I was in the process of converting, one of the few Orthodox writers available in English. Metropolitan Kallistos served at St. Vladimir's Seminary some twenty years ago, at an Orthodox Education Day, and I had the joy of serving with him. (I hope I didn't make too much of a git of myself.) Apparently, he's just been back at St. Vlad's this spring.

The interesting contrast between the two books is that Cairns is a man of deep faith, and out of that faith, seeks to deepen and enrich his prayer life. France, on the other hand, is a man of convinced agnosticism, and out of that agnosticism, finds faith -- not by obtaining knowledge, but by simply opening himself to the possibility of it. That is to say, the one man's journey is enabled by his faith; the other, by his doubt. Both are journeys well worth taking with them.

[GET A SHORT TRIP TO THE EDGE]
[GET A PLACE OF HEALING FOR THE SOUL]

Another Sermon on the Cross

(Or notes on one -- let's pray that this comes out well tomorrow):

You've heard of The Secret -- this book that's apparently a cross between The Da Vinci Code and The Power of Positive Thinking.

Well, I'll tell you two secrets!

The first has to do with a question they've been wrestling with since the middle ages: "Would Christ had become incarnate if there was no Fall?" (Or in other words, "Would there have been a necessity for the Cross if Adam and Eve had not sinned?")

This is our picture of the conversation in Heaven just after the Creation:

"Hey, aren't they awesome, just look at them -- No, wait, stop -- OH RATS!!"

"What are we going to do now?"

"You want me to do WHAT?"

"And then they're going to WHAT??"

The problem with this is, you have some very important Fathers of the Church saying some very strange things like this:

St. Irenaeus of Lyons: "Since He Who saves already existed, it was necessary that he who would be saved should come into existence, that the One Who saves should not exist in vain."

And St. Maximus the Confessor: Adam fell "together with his coming-into-being", at that very moment!

In fact, there was no time in which man existed and lived before the fall -- and this was God's expectation from the very beginning. The first secret is that conversation in Heaven actually went like this:

"You know what's going to happen?"

"I know."

"You know what you'll have to do?"

"I know."

"You know what this will cost?"

"I know."

"And you still want to go ahead and do this?"

"I do, I do, I do."

Or rather, "Amen, Amen, Amen."

The first secret is that God loves us SO MUCH that with full knowledge of what's going to happen, of what He'll have to do, of what it will cost, He creates us, inscribing the Cross into the very structure of Creation. The Cross is there from the very beginning.

And the second secret has to do with how all of this can manage not to be in vain. The second secret is that “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. [The Savior] did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (St. Mark 2:17)

If we claim to be well, if we set ourselves with the righteous, He won't save us -- we won't be asking Him to! He is the Savior from all eternity, but we will declare that we have no need of one. The second secret is that we have to mean it when we say "I believe, O Lord, and I confess, that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."

And that's what this season of Lent is all about. To take the time, to do the work, to be able not only to say this, but to know this, to believe it and confess it as the deepest reality about ourselves: "I am the chief of sinners. It's my fault all this has happened. You have come to this Cross because of me."

And when we can say this with true conviction -- with our own "Amen, Amen, Amen" -- then He Who Is, the Savior from all eternity, will joyfully do what He took upon Himself to do from before He made us, from the very moment of our creation. He Who Is is He Who Saves. Us.

The Sunday of the Cross

Next Sunday, we will celebrate the Sunday of the Cross. The two Sundays following, we will remember two great Saints: great specifically because they took up their crosses. Saint John of the Ladder, first -- because, of course, the means he describes for attaining the Kingdom of Heaven, the Ladder of Divine Ascent, is the Cross -- and then, Saint Mary of Egypt, about whom we will sing, in her troparion, "In you, O Mother, was carefully preserved what is according to the image, for you took up the Cross and followed Christ." Finally, we will come to Palm Sunday, when the Lord enters Jerusalem for no other reason than to take up His own Cross.

The common thread, then, is the Cross.

“It's all about the Cross”, it appears. But why?

Let me answer by asking you a different question. (Really different!) Your favorite musician these days, whoever it is: how did you get to know them?

You hear a song.

For me, just as an example, it was I Can't Make You Love Me. I heard it on the radio 15 years ago, back in 1991. Had no idea who was singing it; I just knew it affected me, it got to me. It took a while to figure out that it was Bonnie Raitt singing it. So I bought the album it was on, Luck of the Draw. I liked everything on it. So I started buying her older stuff, going back to the beginning, to find out who she was, and what she'd done before.

I didn't meet her “in chronological order.” It started with a powerful encounter in the present: a song on the radio. Only then was there a reason to look back to the beginning. Bonnie Raitt had many albums out before the one with the song I heard. But the history, “the whole story”, as it were, only came later; everything started with what was in front of me, a song on the radio.

It works the very same way with God.

You start with what's in front of you – there is no other way. And what is in front of us is Jesus Christ, crucified and exalted. Listen to how St. Paul delivers the whole gospel message in just a few words:

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8, emphasis mine)

Christ died, He was buried, He rose again according to the Scriptures, and He was seen. This is where we meet Christ -- the only place we can meet Christ: on the Cross, dying for our sins, buried, and risen on the third day. There is no other starting point; and there is no need for anything more:

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:1-2, emphasis mine)

The crucified and exalted Lord is What, or rather, Who we encounter in the Church -- and from that real and powerful encounter, and only from that, can we look backwards, at the "history" of God at work in the world, and forward, to the Kingdom which is to come. Only from that real and powerful encounter can we come to know God.

How does this work? Listen to how Luke and Cleopas come to know Christ -- which sounds weird, of course, since they were His disciples and, in theory, had known Him for years:

Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him. And He said to them, "What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?"

Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, "Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?"

And He said to them, "What things?"

And they said to Him, "The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see.

They did not recognize Jesus in His resurrected body, that much is obvious. But I would argue that, to this point, for all the time they had been with him during His public ministry, Luke and Cleopas did not know him, they had no clue as to who He really was or what He had really done for them. And I'd be right:

Then He said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, "Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.

And He went in to stay with them. Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?"

So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, "The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread. (Luke 24:13-35)

He was known to them, eucharistically-speaking, in the breaking of His body. He was known to them only on the Cross.

We, too, start with Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and from this alone, from this powerful encounter, everything else proceeds; in His crucifixion and His exaltation, and in this alone, Jesus Christ is revealed as the Lord, risen indeed. It is the only place to start, and it is the ultimate place to start.

For in bearing His Cross, Jesus totally and completely reveals what it means to be God -- and what it means to say that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) In other words, the love of God is fully realized and fully revealed when He takes our sins upon Himself and dies for us, He who was completely without sin, and not subject to death Himself. And Jesus Christ is fully realized and fully revealed as God, Who is love, when He rises from the dead.

In fact, it is our faith that the only way to truly know God and to know God's love is by looking at Jesus Christ crucified, which explains why the Jews, God's chosen and covenanted people, who had the Law and the Prophets – that is to say, they had the whole history -- came so close, but then missed something truly essential:

But their minds were hardened. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. (2 Corinthians 3:14-16)

Why was this so hard for them? Why did they completely pass by the full revelation of God and His love when it was right in front of their eyes?

For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:22-24)

They failed to see, their eyes were veiled, because the Cross was a stumbling block to them. A scandal. An offense.

But not to us. To us the Cross is precious and holy, the treasure of treasures. And we preach Christ crucified, fully realized and fully revealed only when He takes up His Cross: His Cross, which is, therefore, at the center of everything.

And we, as human beings made in His image and likeness, looking upon His Cross, are only fully realized, only fully revealed, when we -- in His image and likeness -- take up our own.

Seems like a bargain to me...

"A major global consulting firm has reviewed Iraq's state-owned enterprises and estimated that it would cost $100 million to restart all of them and employ more than 150,000 Iraqis-$100 million. That's as much money as the American military will spend in Iraq in the next 12 hours."

Read Fareed Zakaria's recent Newsweek column on "The Surge that Might Work". Seems to me that if we left a day early, and used the money we'd save to put 150,000 Iraqis back to work, that would be the very definition of a win-win.

[READ IT]

Orthodox Question of the Day

QOD: Why do we use so many formal prayers? The Lord's Prayer is the only one that I am aware of that Jesus specifically instructed us on. Why do we even use the "prayers of our holy Fathers" in the first place -- why not just our own personal ones? So many of them sound identical, I kind of imagine God thinking "Can't they come up with anything new?" It just seems so, what is the word I am looking for... "scripted"... not personal. Thanks...

AOD: Great question! Jesus, Himself, warned, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation." (Matthew 23:14) And think about how He introduces His (the Lord's) prayer:

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. (etc.) -- St. Matthew 6:7-9

He seems to be warning us precisely against long prayers and repetitions.

But when you look more closely, it's actually hypocritical long prayers made for a pretense, and vain repetitions that He's condemning, not long prayers or repeated prayers themselves. For long prayers, it's hard to beat the "Prayer of Azariah and the Three Young Men" (Daniel 3:24-90, found only in the Greek version of the Old Testament); and for repetitive prayers, Psalm 136 echoes the phrase "For His mercy endures forever!" a total of 26 times. We use both of these prayers liturgically: the former on Holy Saturday (and actually, during every Matins Canon, though you don't usually hear it read), and the latter on the Matins services for feast days, as the "Polyeleos", or hymn of "many mercies". It's actually named (and beloved) for its repetitiveness!

The point of using these prayers -- and other long, complex, and formal prayers -- is, first of all, to take advantage of "best practices". They are magnificent, beautiful, and compelling, and obviously they worked (i.e., God took notice of them), or nobody would have bothered writing them down for posterity! We use these prayers for the same reason that we read classic literature: there is a timeless beauty and value to them such that they survived the Darwinian process of history -- survival of the fittest.

But we also use them to teach us how and for what we should pray. That is precisely the purpose of beginning our services with "The Great Litany", which is a grand survey of all the things we should be including in our own prayers. By putting great examples in front of us in the services, by nourishing us with good and healthy prayers in the public assembly, when we go into our rooms and shut our doors -- as Jesus taught,

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. --St. Matthew 6:6,

we will be able to draw from the treasury of the Church's great prayers to inspire our own. We won't have to wing it.

Of course, there are times when the Spirit fills our hearts and the prayers just come, but this doesn't happen (for most of us) all the time. We need help getting started, and we can draw on so many of the "formal" prayers to put into words what we only wish we could come up with ourselves. It's like a lovesick teenager quoting Shakespeare to his beloved when he finds his own poetry wanting. He may have moments of inspiration, but when the well runs dry, he can always turn to Romeo and Juliet for help.

Like so many aspects of the faith, when you look at "scripted" formal prayers, and our own intensely personal ones, it's not either/or -- it's both/and.

Make sense?

ds

Orthodox Question of the Day

One of my parishioners at St. George's always asks the best questions, often in person, but sometimes by e-mail. I got her permission to post the questions and answers in the hope that they're more broadly useful. Keep in mind that these are e-mail dialogues, not doctoral dissertations, so I'll ask your forgiveness in advance for the occasional imprecision and a total lack of footnotes.

Q.O.D.: With all of our icons, how do we know that the people depicted look like they do -- in terms of physical appearance? Did someone paint pictures of Jesus that got passed on through time, or of Mary or the Apostles...?

A.O.D.: The thing to remember about icons is that they're not intended to be photographic. They are meant to depict a spiritual rather than a physical reality. So over time, as the Church comes to understand the spiritual characteristics of a given saint, they are "canonized" in the forms of biography (the saint's life), hymnography (the various services to them), and iconography. Just as there are "canonical" forms for the biographies and hymnographies, there are also canonical forms for the icons. A martyr always holds a small cross. A healer, a small bottle of medicine. The Theotokos is always depicted in the same sorts of attire, always (with the exception of deisis icons, which are always done in a series centered on Christ) with Christ, never alone. She always looks the same -- i.e., you'll never see a blonde Theotokos, or a black Theotokos. It's not about making her relevant to the "artist", nor about giving flight to his or her creative fancies about the subject. It's about soberly, traditionally, and canonically expressing the spiritual realities about her in parallel with the scriptural realities, the liturgical realities, etc.

That being said, in the case of modern saints (for example, St. Raphael of Brooklyn) where we have photographs, there is usually a reasonable resemblance between the icon and the subject. In the case of more ancient saints, perhaps the original iconographers knew the person, and the icon bore a reasonable resemblance. But fairly quickly, the icon of that saint became enshrined in its own tradition, so that an icon of St. Nicholas is always recognizable as St. Nicholas, 1700 years later.

Regarding Jesus in particular, there is the tradition that He left an impression of His face in "the holy napkin". Regarding the Theotokos in particular, there is the tradition that St. Luke painted three icons of her, which established the canonical traditions about her appearance in icons.

If these traditions are historically accurate, you could say that the resulting icons are accurate depictions. But again, this is very secondary in importance to the spiritual accuracy.

Hope this helps!

ds

Sunday of Orthodoxy at St. George Cathedral

From the Worcester Telegram & Gazette: Celebrating St. Basil the Great’s liturgy

WORCESTER — Twelve priests and five deacons from different churches participate in the Sunday of Orthodoxy Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great at St. George Cathedral yesterday. The Sunday of Orthodoxy has been observed by Orthodox Christians on the first Sunday in Lent since A.D. 842. Following the tradition, members of the 12 Orthodox churches that make up the Council of Eastern Orthodox Churches of Central Massachusetts celebrate the event together.

[Okay, really there were just three deacons -- maybe they were counting the two sub-deacons? But I thought a sub-deacon only counted as half a deacon? (Two thirds, tops, if he's good...) Or maybe the Archdeacon counted for three. Where are the Latins when you need them?!]

Wesa Ticked!!

Saturday morning, not much going on. So I turned on the tube, and found a re-run of Return of the Jedi on one of the cable channels.

As I watched, I saw details that I hadn't noticed my first six hundred times through. Kind of like spotting a second nose on my wife after so many years of being married to her.

Most extreme: at the end of the flick, after the rebels are victorious over the religious right (sorry, couldn't help myself there!), we see scenes of celebration taking place in the cities of the second trilogy, cities which we had not seen in any of the original episodes. On the planet Naboo, Gungans are shouting "Wesa free!" as breakfast rises in the back of my throat.

And if that weren't much, much more than enough, when the spirit of Anakin Skywalker shows up with those of Obi Wan and Yoda for a big old High Five, it's Hayden Christensen smirking at me, instead of the kindly old fella who looked like Uncle Fester under the Darth Vader suit.

Hayden Christensen.

Hayden Christensen.

What happened?

Blasphemy!

The only thing I liked about it is that, compared with Jar Jar Binks, the Ewoks were down right tolerable.

"Yub yub," I say.

That's Ewok for "Off with their heads!"...

---

Postscript: Chris Gould was kind enough to have cataloged and illustrated most, if not all, of the "improvements" to the original versions. You can find them here:

• CHANGES TO EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE
• CHANGES TO EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
• CHANGES TO EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI

And on the topic of "all these changes and you couldn't erase Jar Jar Bloody Binks!!??",

• CHANGES TO EPISODES I, II AND III

And NOW, a word from Fr. Paul!

Fr. Mark Doku was kind enough to send me a copy of Fr. Paul Lazor's warm and "Personal Memoir" of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, delivered as this year's Father Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture at St. Vladimir's Seminary on January 28.

Fr. Paul is most dear to me and Marta since he (her confessor) and Fr. Tom Hopko (mine) married us back in... never mind.

Fr. Alexander, well, his were the first books I read (along with Fr. Timothy/Bishop Kallistos Ware's), borrowed from the Wellesley College Library, in my search for the faith in and around 1979. And it was his mid-Lent visit to Holy Trinity Cathedral in Boston, two years later, which "sealed the deal" for me. I was chrismated just weeks after that, and enrolled at St. Vladimir's a year and a half later, just as Fr. Alexander's cancer was being diagnosed. Thank God, he was with us for the first half of my three years at St. Vlad's, and as the Dean, he blessed me and Marta to get married. My mom and my aunt were in the Chapel the following Pascha, Fr. Alexander's last, and there's a great story there -- but for another time.

For now, read what Fr. Paul wrote from his heart, and get to know two of the most noble priests I have or will ever know.

[READ IT]

Munich

So, I'm home after a week of travel, not wanting to leave my warm house, not wanting to start my taxes. And Munich is on HBO.

While it was not epic in the sense of The Godfather trilogy (or the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- what is it about trilogies?), and while it was not platitudinous in delivering its message, its message was clear.

Violence begets violence. Revenge begets revenge. Blood cries out from the very earth. And the end result is not justice, is not righteousness, is not -- cannot be -- peace. Rather, it is destruction of the self, sacrifice of ones own soul.

I cannot help but be reminded of this passage from Genesis:

Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.” And Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.” And the LORD said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him. (Genesis 4:8-15)

It is alienation: from ones home, from ones people, from God Himself -- and should retribution be taken on such a one so alienated, sevenfold vengeance would be the only result. The absolute entropy, the very metastasis of evil.

The most chilling moment of the whole movie was the final scene: Avner refuses to return to his homeland; Ephraim refuses to break bread with Avner, the simplest affirmation of his humanity; and in the background, tall but achingly vulnerable, the twin towers stand.

But even more chilling than that, scary as hell: when I sat down here, immediately after, to type this out, the headline from my comcast.net home page: Suicide Bomber Kills 121 in Baghdad.

[VIEW TRAILER]
[GET IT]

On the Horns of a Dilemma

So, on the one hand, if we "stay the course" in Iraq, "surging" the number of troops on the ground, we simply (continue to) try to put out the fire by pouring gasoline on it. The Iraqis don't want us there, they regard us as an occupying rather than a liberating force, and our very presence is incendiary. A bigger presence only fuels a bigger flame.

On the other hand, we can't just walk away. "You break it, you bought it" applies here as it does in a china shop. We can't break their country, destroy the institutions and the infrastructure, and leave with nary an "Oops, my bad."

So here's a modest proposal to unstick us from the horns of this dilemma:

1. Get out, as quickly as possible. ("Leave now, and never come back!")
   
2. Apologize for our mistakes. (I'm not saying removing Saddam Hussein from power was necessarily a mistake, but going in with no idea of what to do next, and subsequently destroying the country, was one for the record books. "Here's yer sign.")
3. Give all the money we're spending on the war to the United Nations, and commit to doing so for the next 20 years, so that they can do whatever they have to do to put the pieces back together. ("Ouch, baby! Very ouch..." -- but we would be paying that price, and so much more, if we stay.)
   

Not so coincidentally, this approach has all the elements of the Roman Catholic Act of Contrition:

O MY GOD,
I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins,
because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell;
but most of all because they offend Thee, my God,
Who art all-good and deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace,
to confess my sins, to do penance,
and to amend my life.
Amen.

We apologize.
We confess.
We do penance.
And we change our life.

I'll bet it works for countries as well as it does for people.

The History of Our Salvation: Reading the Old Testament During Lent and Holy Week

So, while we just left the leave-taking of Theophany last Sunday, Zacchaeus comes to us this Sunday, and in just over a week, we crack open the Lenten Triodion and begin the long journey to Pascha.
Every year, I think of posting the article I wrote five years ago on The History of Our Salvation: Reading the Old Testament During Lent and Holy Week -- usually I think of it during Holy Week.
This year, I figured I'd get a jump on it. Better late than never -- but better early than late!
I hope you enjoy and find it useful. I seem to recall, just after I'd written it, noticing that I'd left a couple of services/readings out. If you find something missing, please let me know, and I'll update the paper and credit you as a contributor!

A blessed Pre-Lent to you all --

---

The History of Our Salvation: Reading the Old Testament During Lent and Holy Week

O almighty Master, who hast made all creation and by thine inexpressible providence and great goodness hast brought us to these all-revered days, for the purification of soul and body, for the controlling of passions and for hope of resurrection, who, during the forty days didst give into the hands of thy servant Moses the tablets of the Law in characters divinely traced by thee: Enable us also, O good One, to fight the good fight, to complete the course of the fast, to preserve inviolate the faith, to crush under foot the heads of invisible serpents, to be accounted victors over sin; and, uncondemned, to attain unto and worship the holy resurrection. For blessed and glorified is thine all-honorable and majestic name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.
-- Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, The Liturgikon: The Book of Divine Services for the Priest and Deacon (Englewood, New Jersey: Antakya Press, 1989), pp. 370-371.

From the first Presanctified Liturgy of the Lenten season, the Old Testament is offered to us for instruction and inspiration, and revealed to us as our guide through the forty days-those forty days which we keep in memory of Moses' sojourn on Mount Sinai, during which God gave into the hands of His servant the tablets of the Law in characters which He Himself divinely traced. This is, of course, a reference from the Book of Exodus. The second Old Testament citation in this prayer hearkens from the earliest chapters of the Book of Genesis, in which God curses the serpent who has just led Adam and Eve into temptation:

On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.

And on Holy Saturday itself-the final day of Holy Week and the very eve of Pascha-at Lauds and again at the Vesperal Liturgy, it is "The Great" Moses himself, the central figure of the Old Testament, who reveals to us the meaning of this great day, as we sing in the doxastikon:

Moses the great mystically prefigured this present day, saying: "And God blessed the seventh day." For this is the blessed Sabbath, this is the day of rest, on which the only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works. Suffering death in accordance with the plan of salvation, He kept the Sabbath in the flesh; and returning once again to what He was, through His Resurrection He has granted us eternal life, For He alone is good and loves mankind.
-- Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, translators, The Lenten Triodion (London, England: Faber and Faber, 1978), pp. 652-653, 656.

It is no accident that the central figure of the Old Testament, Moses, and the central events of the Old Testament, the exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai, and the Israelites' forty year pilgrimage in the desert, frame for us our forty day pilgrimage to Pascha.
Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia describes Great Lent as "an annual return to our Biblical roots. It is, more specifically, a return to our roots in the Old Testament; for during Lent, to a far greater degree than at any other time of the year, the Scriptural readings are taken from the Old Testament rather than the New." (Ibid., p. 38.)
Alexander Schmemann, of thrice-blessed memory, goes even further:

One can say that the forty days of Lent are, in a way, the return of the Church into the spiritual situation of the Old Testament-the time before Christ, the time of repentance and expectation, the time of the "history of salvation" moving toward its fulfillment in Christ. This return is necessary because even though we belong to the time after Christ, and know Him and have been "baptized into Him," we constantly fall away from the new life received from Him, and this means lapse again into the "old" time. The Church, on the one hand, is already "at home" for she is the "grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit"; yet, on the other hand, she is also "on her way" as the pilgrimage-long and difficult-toward the fulfillment of all things in God, the return of Christ and the end of all time.
Great Lent is the season when this second aspect of the Church, of her life as expectation and journey, is being actualized. It is here, therefore, that the Old Testament acquires its whole significance: as the book not only of the prophecies which have been fulfilled, but of man and the entire creation "on their way" to the Kingdom of God
-- Schmemann, Alexander, Great Lent (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), pp. 38-39.

And so as we go on our way to the great feast of Pascha, the Old Testament is our book, our guide, and our constant companion.
[READ IT ALL]

Yer Cheatin' Heart

I have a theory that there are a fixed (and small) number of prototypes out there from which all Country songs are derived. One of them, clearly, expresses the "You cheated on me and God help you now" motif.

Two of my favorite instances are Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats", and Sara Evans' "Cheatin'".

Listen in, man friends, to what would be in store for you if you were to step out on one of the above-mentioned ladies.

Sara would sit back and enjoy the karmic dope slap the universe would deliver to a lowlife like... you:

How do you like that furnished room, the bed, the chair, the table?
The TV picture comes and goes, too bad you don't have cable --
How do you like that paper plate, and those pork-n-beans you're eatin'?
Maybe you should have thought about that,
When you were cheatin'.

How do you like that beat-up car, I think it's fair we traded;
Your pickup truck is running fine, it's a cozy ride for datin' --
Yes, I've been out a time or two, and found the comfort I been needin';
Maybe you should have thought about that,
When you were cheatin'.

You made your bed, and you're out of mine --
You lie awake, and I sleep just fine.
You've done your sowing, now you can do the reaping;
Maybe you should have thought about that,
When you were cheatin'.

Now, what became of what's her name, after she spent all your money?
Did she leave you just like you left me, well sometimes life is funny!
Yes, I'll be glad to take you back, just as soon as I stop breathin' --
Maybe you should have thought about that,
Oh, maybe you should have thought about that,
Maybe you should have thought about that,
When you were cheatin',
When you were cheatin'.

Carrie, on the other hand, would deliver the goods herself:

I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats;
I took a Louisville Slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all four tires --
And maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.

Decisions, decisions...

(My wife is a Bosnian Serb, and more important, I love her dearly, so this has never been a consideration for me.)

Of course, the real proof that what I am asserting is true is that if you go to gracenote.com and search for a song with "Cheatin" in the title, it returns with " Displaying Disc 1-10 of 1343 matching CDs".

Case closed.

Okay, which is it?

Last year, during Hurricane Katrina, heroic efforts resulted in 1,400 frozen embryos being rescued from a flooded hospital.

But every day, embryos are destroyed in terminated pregnancies. Others are discarded by fertility clinics (like the one from which the New Orleans embryos were rescued) when the prospective parents no longer need them. These same unwanted embryos are, of course, the ones so highly prized by medical researchers for the stem cells they contain.

Some of these embryos, implanted after being rescued, are about to make their first public appearance as children, to the delight not only of their parents, but of their rescuers as well. “One of these embryos could be the next president,” noted one of them.

So... are they just a bunch of cells, to be used or discarded as someone sees fit -- or human beings (possibly even the future leader of the free world!) worthy of heroic efforts to save?

We can't have it both ways!

Sunday, January 14

Sunday mornings during the school year, I open the Church School session with the Trisagion Prayers and a brief talk.

Tomorrow, I plan to tell the children about St. Nina, Equal to the Apostles and Enlightener of Georgia. (The country, not the state!) Hers is quite a story, with interesting connections both to our patron St. George the Trophy-Bearer, as well as to the Patriarchate of Antioch.

I'm also slated to talk to the first grade class about the body of Christ, which is the theme of this summer's Diocesan Parish Life Conferences: "Building up the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith..." (Ephesians 4:12-13)

As I thought about it this week, it seemed to me that there were four aspects to the body of Christ that should be mentioned:

1. The body which Christ took from His mother Mary, identical to ours and "capable of death", per St. Athanasius, as Christ is "of one essence with us", per the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council


2. The body in which He was raised from the dead, identical to what ours will be in the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:35-49, Philippians 3:17-21)


3. The body of Christ in the Eucharist


4. The body of Christ which is the Church

Of course, if I don't get to bed, I won't be able to talk to anybody about anything in the morning!

Mull-et tu, Brutus?

Okay, since we last talked, I've gone through some changes.

I listen to Country Music. All the time. (Way behind on the CD reviews, sorry!)

I am transfixed by pro football. This weekend, it's me, my Zero Gravity Perfect Chair, and four playoff games, including the Patriots' game tomorrow afternoon. I am in heaven, and am already dreading in anticipation (one of my specialties) the end of the post-season.

I'm even fantasizing about a pickup truck.

What has become of me? Is this some cracker mid-life crisis I'm going through? (I thought I went through my mid-life crisis in 1999 when I bought the convertible!)

Ah, well, I'd like to keep talking, but halftime is over, and the Colts are back on the field. I like these guys, and New Orleans, and Pittsburgh (I'm from Pittsburgh). I like Carolina, 'cause I work for a company based in Charlotte. But should any of them wind up going against Tom Brady and the Patriots, I will be rooting for them to be sacked like Rome under the Goths du jure.

But before I go, I could really use your advice: F150, Silverado, Avalanche, Ram, Titan, Tundra or... Ridgeline?

He's back?

Well, dipping a toe back in the water, I've set up space on blogspot.com -- have been thinking about re-opening the Blogoslovi conversation for some time now.

Who knows what will happen?

(Not me!)