Wednesday, January 24, 2007

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.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

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]

Monday, January 15, 2007

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.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

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!

Saturday, January 13, 2007

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?

Friday, January 12, 2007

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!)