Audio File Links on the Blogroll

Wanted to draw attention to two excellent sources of catechesis, apologetics, and simple “adult ed” podcast material to load up on your iPod or MP3 player. I should have posted this earlier….not to intimidate or anything… but these podcasts run 1-hour to 1-1/2-hours… so you really DO need to download rather than listen on line… or you’ll be glued to your chair too long.

The first is from Fr. Evan Armatas of the Greek Archdiocese to whom I remain deeply indebted for being able to walk into this Church. Don’t know how I stumbled on his material… seems like an eon ago… but he seemed such a regular, normal guy that when starting to visit Orthodox churches, I made contact with him to ask whether he could recommend one in my area. He wouldn’t settle for email, so through discussion over the phone, he directed some readings on spirituality to complement the all-common, head clogging theological stuff… and kept in-touch through Chrismation and beyond. Can’t thank him enough. Among his many gifts of insight, introspection, humility and humor, he is also prodigious; I highly recommend the materials on the Parables. Good for those Lenten workouts at the gym. Earlier assigned to St. Catherine’s in Denver, Fr. Evan is now building up a new mission at St. Spyridon – where I hope to visit if I ever spend more than a Southwest Air delay in the Mile High City.

The other is Peter Kreeft. He is a professor at Boston College, a place he refers to as “BC for barely catholic”. He is considered by many to be the Roman Catholic church’s answer to C.S. Lewis and a great speaker. He has written extensively on apologetics, and I think some of his material is actually used in many RCIA classes. Whatever you may think of the Catholic Church, it does do a great job teaching… and Professor Kreeft is a good part of that effort – at its very best and most winning. Most of his stuff sticks to the main themes and attests to his admiration for C.S. Lewis in hewing to the “Mere christianity” approach. Particularly recommend his lecture on “Winning the Culture Wars” for its humor, its sanguinity (is that a word?), and its insight. I’ve listened to that over and over… but then, I’m a glutton for these things.

Archbishop Ware’s Recent Address

The good Archbishop Kallistos Ware is again visiting in the US and speaking in many venues. Many of us first re-discovered Orthodoxy through his writings and continue to follow his doings when we can. I had the privilege of listening to him last fall at St. Sophia in Washington, D.C. but this year my schedule restricted the experience to listening on line here. The good Archbishop’s sonorous voice and Oxford cadences are such a pleasure, that just as with James Earle Jones, he could mesmerize audiences reading out of the phonebook. Like a goodly Orthodox Gandalf, the Archbishop has shown a way for many of us into the Church for which we will remain indebted.

The linked lecture addresses the Future of Orthodoxy in America, but perhaps applies more generally. He endeavors to explain in a not-so-roundabout way why Sir Steven Runciman apparently once suggested that the last church standing in England would be an Orthodox Church… and goes from there to discuss the future in general. In particular, his close is strong… and echoes his opening. The opening quotes an Orthodox reply to Pope Pius IXth’s First Vatican Council:

“The defender of the faith is the very Body of the Church… it is the people… it’s not only Patriarchs, Bishops, and Theologians, but every one of the baptised, every one marked and signed by the Holy Chrism.”

And then as sands start to run through the glass he suggests the following (my apologies for the poverty of the transcription):

“Our future depends on the vitality of our parishes, the degree to which parish members receive holy communion with fear of God and faith and love, and the power of inner prayer within our communities.”

“If we are to have a future as Orthodox in the West, then I don’t think our future lies in forming ourselves in to an aggressive and triumphalist Orthodoxy, or… appealing to the splendors of Byzantium or Russia. Our future depends in the West on an Orthodoxy that is humble, gentle and generous, a kenotic Orthodoxy, an Orthodoxy marked by a spirit of self-emptying. A kind of Orthodoxy which has a future in the West is surely the Orthodoxy of the Holy Passion Bearer of Kiev and Rus (Boris and Kle), St. Herman of Alaska, St. Seraphim of Sarov , St. Nektarious of Agaenon, St. Silhouan the Athonite, Fr. Paisios, and Rumanian Fr. Cleopa. They should be our inspiration and our guides when I think of our future.”

That was the meat of it, and it almost sounds like a reading list…. hmmmm. And then he closed with another good thought:

“In the words of St. John of Kronstadt: ” The Eucharist is a continual Miracle.” We may add the same about the Church as a eucharistic organism: The Church is a continual miracle. So I ask you this evening, with wonder and gratitude at what God has given us, to open your eyes to the miracle that is the Church, old and venerable, yet always youthful, ever the same and ever new.”

Would encourage you to listen to the whole thing.

A Peace of the Western Rite

The Western Rites in the Orthodox Church get a fair amount of bandwidth here on the net. There are a few boosters, but it largely remains a small movement – amounting to about 10% of the parishes in the Antiochian Archdiocese and a smaller number of folks. Many parishes are new, full of the recently illumined, and struggling to learn the Orthodox faith, life and practice. There are plenty of skeptics, and some quite vocal, though in truth sometimes it is hard to discern whether it is the rite that it is the bother, or the struggles of conversion. Over the whole lies a peace of sorts which I would reinforce.

To begin, within the Western Rite there is probably as much diversity of opinion on the merits and demerits as elsewhere. Folks are no more monolithic here than anywhere else, and people will always have their private opinions, just as they do everywhere else – in every other Rite of every church and jurisdiction on earth. Fact is, the Western Rite probably shouldn’t be the topic of conversation that it is…. it’s just another rite in the Orthodox Church. Yes, it’s not the form of St. John Chrysostom, but neither is that of St. Basil or St. James. And yes, it represents a blessing of an actual historic liturgy (or liturgies) into Orthodox practice… and some things have changed from the form as originally practiced, and yes, these changes challenge certain notions of integrity of the form – and this can present a problem for some.

Yet our bishops say this form is Orthodox… and until further notice to the contrary, that’s good enough for many. In my case as in that of many others, conversion was predicated not on the matters of the rites, but on the matters of the faith and the prayers. In particular, I found conversion “do-able” only after visiting in both rites and feeling that yes, I could pray these prayers – each in their place. And in all honesty, I continue to feel an enormous pull to worship according to the eastern rites, as the music and experience of the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is what thrilled my heart into making the commitment to convert. The opening of these services from “Blessed is the Kingdom…” and the responding “Amens” and “Lord have mercy” in the Litany as it continues cannot be topped, nor can the close: “..for as much as He is good and loveth mankind”.

The fact that the Western Rite is close-to the form followed in my earlier life had less bearing than is often suggested, nor did I find it easier as some would have it. Yes I recognize a few hymns… but there is a lot that is new as well. And when you’re giving up almost all that you’ve known for nearly fifty years for a whole cloth conversion, it’s six of one, half dozen of the other as to where you land… and it’s not about trying to hold on to one thing or another for one’s own sake. The commitment to come into Christ’s Church is clearly not about picking and choosing, but about accepting things as they are and changing one’s self. Rather, if there is any holding on to anything… it is to recognize that there is life and love in all God’s creation… and not to isolate oneself and ignore that which is good elsewhere as if moving simply from one sheltered cocoon to another. Conversion has its rough patches without adding unnecessarily to them – unless it is done with purpose and the care and feeding of one’s spiritual advisor. Instead, I think the choice tends to be resolved on the basis of other matters.

Nevertheless, everybody’s got their view of “what’s wrong with the Western Rite”, and I’m no exception. But again… that’s not the point. Instead, I would suggest that if the rite was once in the Church – and it was – then the rite belongs to the Church, and not to me or someone else or necessarily even to another church. Moreover, while every objection does in fact have some measure of merit, and I have no grounds to doubt the motivations of those that make them, I think that equally the case can be made that the catholicity of the Church should be capable of encompassing approaches to her people that supercede and transform the more limited range of rites practiced within the last 1,000 years – beautiful and complete and wonderful and rich as they are, and reclaim her full breadth by reclaiming her western forms as well.

Fairly, the open question remains as to whether it is better to acclimate the eastern forms to the western mind, or endeavor to inculcate the western forms with the eastern mind. Lossky notes these differences, but also notes that for at least 1,000 years, the differences were managed without divergence. These are bigger issues than I have the time or space to address here, but in passing over them, I do not wish to suggest they are without merit. On the contrary, they remain important and for better minds to address. Yet I would wonder that if these problems were deemed insurmountable, that then the premise would have to be that man has changed in the last millennium and cannot regain a breadth once managed but lost. And that such a circumstance should stand in-between him and the aspirations of those institutions of his heart – his churches – seems giving voice to a sad note of despair that seems not quite right.

Perhaps these concerns simply reflect the stresses of a more general transition of the Church towards recovering her commission and baptizing all lands, to reach beyond the traditional geographic boundaries and peoples, to dissolve the notion of a here-and-there, to eliminate temporal distinction between mother church and diaspora, and to free herself from perceptions and limits of the past. For these voices equally are right to recall that just as the church in the West re-asserted itself after the end of the invasions and came to some difficulties in the process, so too we may engender similar risks in our churches and in our time as well. There is merit and caution in these thoughts.

But at the end of the day, I would plead that much in these considerations is simply imponderable and beyond our limited ken to resolve. Old fashioned virtues of stability and patience may go much further and accomplish far more than our palpitating hearts and minds on these matters. And rather than dithering in lost efforts to refine, perfect or improve these rites, we might consider the merits of simply following the earlier decision to let the proof be in the pudding. In a generation or more, if there is still demand for the continuance of the Western Rite, it will grow. If converts come to the Church for our faith and the Western Rite succeeds in this effort, both will grow. If not, the rite will wither whether due to its own merits or that of its people and cease to present a concern. Worrying about a possible fork down the road long before we’re even up, have our shoes on and begun to walk may simply assume more of ourselves than we can handle.

Yet I think we can be absolutely certain of one thing: The people, the priests, and the hierarchs love this ancient Church, its people, its faith, and our Lord and His Revelation brought to us in the fullness of the Orthodox faith, and I have no doubt that they will not settle for less than this fullness in the Western Rite as they do in all of us. And that if we trust in this process, and if we let it happen, it may in fact prove a blessing in untold ways that enriches the Church beyond measure.

Slogans

As long as we’re talking slogans… thought I’d note that while I was in-between my place of origin and Orthodoxy, I started reading the Old Testament… again. Came across a passage in Exodus that gets repeated over and over and then again in Deuteronomy. It sank in. Became my motto… because it seemed to be how it felt to be in-between. It’s awkward… no doubt about it. You feel as if you are bereft of your homeland and seeking a place to worship… not all that unlike a story we already know, huh? Anyway, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s had a favorite passage from scripture or slogan that kept them going. Mine was simply this:

“The Lord took you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.”  – Deuteronomy 4:20 (OSB)

Yeah, I guess it sort of had to the Orthodox Church, huh? Well, I’m curious whether anyone else done been down this road?

Whew! Glad That’s Over!….Isn’t It?

Okay! Managed a few dismal posts. “Didn’t kill me. I’m still alive.”

That’s been the slogan for the Lipitor-free cholesterol fighting diet I’ve been on since before Christmas. This is 10 saturated grams of fat per day together with extra exercise. Hoping it will make a difference in the “readings” on the next blood test. Yes, you do lose weight as part of this, but you also change your taste buds. It’s a conversion of its own and something of the “thrill” of the Lenten diet. Fact is, if I hadn’t gone Ortho last February and gone through the Lenten fast, I don’t think I would have signed up for this. Might have just gone ahead and filled the perscription the doctor mailed. Instead, I asked ’bout the alternative.

News on the Lipitor front isn’t all that great. It was designed for folks (as I read it) to take late in life. Now I’m no spring chicken, but with a possible 30 years or so to go before they rip the chord (yeah, parachutes have “cords”, Orthodox sing everything so it’s “chords”), it looks like anything not on-the-up-and-up will surely have more cumulative chances to surface… so Lipitor’s my current last choice. Message to Pfizer: Book titles like “How I Lost My Mind of Lipitor” don’t exactly sell pills.

So in a sense, one could actually say that the medicine of the Church has done me some practical good. Might be a reach and completely besides the point, but not afraid to say it anyway.

The point is, “Didn’t kill me” is my usual response to a new food that successfully negotiates its way past the gag-reflex button run by my tastebud nose tag-team wrestlers. You don’t want to know what fails. I mean, I remember back when we’d just had kids there was an article on fathers and their experiences in the “birthing rooms”…. and one father wrote that from what he could tell, a new way to take care of convicted killers ought to be to “make’em look at a couple of placentas”. Yep. This stuff fits that category. There is really and truly some awful stuff out there. “How bad is it?” “Looks bad, smells bad, tastes bad and leaves a hole in the trash can when you’re done.”

I try to eat close-to-vegan or vegan two meals a day and save the sat fats for dinner. Sugar’s been cut down, dairy’s vastly reduced, fruit juice (!) darn near eliminated, and alcohol almost gone. None of this was easy because… heck there wasn’t much there! But then the last was hard… (somehow Mexican, Pizza, etc. scream for a complementary beverage!) but PTL that somehow red wine got a “…if you have to…”. I mean stress is an issue in this, too! And you really don’t want to see the stress of a man contemplating Pizza without a Brew-ha-ha.

But breakfast and lunch are two meals that are pretty easy to wiggle around, and reduce the grief caused my poor over-worked, underpaid, but still willing chef. And yes, we ate pretty good and clean before… it’s just that now we’ve taken the next notch. Okay, 3 notches… and only one notch short of “not even squirrels eat this stuff”. Probably only have meat once or twice a week anyway.

The key has really been watching the posted portion control. Always figured these label things were either for technicians somewhere or part of an argument between the foodies and nature. Heck… when you actually read these things… first you’re amazed how little a “portion” can get when you do this, but second you realize how many of these food companies are gaming the system to look twice as good by the fats by cutting the “portion” in half. But I’m a swifty…. and after eating happily a few times, and then eating a few more (just to make sure)…. I got on to them. So besides reading everything closely now, I’ve found the best way to deal with these things is to eat the strongest flavored natural varieties… but in small quantities. This gives the maximum flavor for the minimum fat.

Middle age: Ain’t it great? We first got boring when we got married and started talking appliances. Then we had kids. And you graduated to a new level: “boring without even saying a word”. You’d go to parties and the single girls would take one look at the drooping eyelids as testament to the “married with kids” blazoned on the forehead…. throw their coat at you and keep walking past. Retorting “Yeah? Well, my kid….” doesn’t seem to fix that problem. And it only gets worse. Next you become invisible…. to your kids. Ah, but I digress…

Fact is, one of the OTHER boring things of middle age is that apparently the food just isn’t fun anymore. (Maybe the docs just aren’t intimidated from telling you stuff… but I suspect they’re just the cutting edge of people who will feel similarly entitled to tell us we don’t know what we’re doing – and be right). So it’s small pleasures occassionally. Maybe the de-mystification of food in this way reduces its control over one’s life. You still get a weekly splurge or something out-to-dinner… but being conscious both there and the rest of the time seems to make it a non-issue. I’m sure this is much closer to how most of the rest of the world eats ALL THE TIME – except they don’t get to choose. And since I do, I’m not going to complain that I managed fifty years of mindlessness.

FWIW, many of the folks familiar with my formerly narrow range of foods have been amazed to see this walk on the wild side, this culinary tour where no man willingly goes: Not Lloyd Bridges, not Jack Lord, not The Duke, not Sylvester Stallone…. okay, that last one got a little skinny sometimes. Nah… no one who was in the “The Mas Macho Contest” downed Soy, Gluten, Tempeh, Tofu… but the truth is, this stuff puts hair on your chest. “Don’t mess with me… I eat Tofu.” “Like what’re you gonna do? Breathe on me?” Sure, there are a lot of weird things that come out of the lab, and a lot of failed experiments. But that’s part of the process. You adjust, you learn to deal with green skin on one side, comb the extra hair growth on your arm, swallow your drool and you move on.

Drew the line at giving up Diet Coke. I mean… hey… you gotta have a break sometime! Speaking of which, this blogging thing… I guess it’s not so hard after all. I’m not dead yet. So we’ll give it a whirl. Maybe if it kills me, then I can have a Krispy Kreme two-ffer?

And now if I could only switch the font size to the usual 8 point type used for disclaimers: Here at the end of a long post, I wish to bury a slight clarification that the spelling of the words in the masthead is exactly correct. Though The Wanderer is indeed Thickheaded, the fact that Jane Austen was not Orthodox and wrote something different has not escaped notice. Maybe if the See of Canterbury had been as wobbly in her days as of late, she might well have seen the light.

Off the Shelf…

FWIW, the combination of these two works provides an enjoyable thematic approach to getting into the new Orthodox Study Bible. Fr. Pat provides a wonderful, personal perspective on the stories and people of the Scriptures. Let me amplify that a bit: Fr. Pat’s writing brings out the persons of the text, gives them dimension, and fleshes out the saintly believers and their lives that rounds them into life when you go back to the text. He gives you something else to read for and appreciate in these stories. And the opportunity to follow his insights by turning directly to the passages and books he cites for reading… especially with a “corrected” Septuagint together with additional text notes of the new OSB addition…. well, it’s a good way to really get familiar with this text… to read in a number of different places… and I highly recommend it as a complement to sequential reading approaches.

 

As to the OSB, I’ve heard some folks comment on the paper. Honestly, I can’t recall the last time I ever read a book for the paper, or stopped reading for the same reason. Maybe next time… in Jerusalem… we can read it on vellum, parchment or in a mosaic. Until then, all I can say is that it is a pleasure to feel as if you’re encountering the same text earlier generations knew. No mumbo jumbo, no alterations to please someone special… no dumbing down for words of one syllable or to make it readable at a speed of Mach 5. In short, no politicking. Just the straight stuff. Thanks to all who worked on this project, to Nelson for publishing it, for Concilliar Press for distributing it and for the supporters in the Church that helped guide and inspire it!

Why Does Anyone Become Orthodox…

One Sunday after Divine Liturgy, we were in the Parish Hall speaking of another’s recent conversion, and the inevitable interest in how it came to pass led to, “Who knows? Why does anyone become Orthodox – by choice?” An excellent question indeed, and about as good a place to approach the subject to the extent that it merits more than a shrug.

Surely many puzzle, shake their heads, laugh, and wonder… both inside the Church and outside at those of us who come to the conclusion that for some reason we simply have to become Orthodox Christians. It surely isn’t the only choice, the easy or popular choice. No doubt many wonder whether we converts haven’t lost our minds, and that like George Constanza in the Seinfeld “Conversion” episode where joining the Latvian Orthodox Church is part of continuing to date his girl friend, these folks suspect our real motivation is something less inspired, and if they press hard enough, like George, we’ll give it up in a moment of not-quite honesty and say, “I’m here for the hats.”

Equally some would suggest that opting to become Orthodox is “as if” to opt for the puzzle of dis-assimilation into the “exotic”, the esoterica of the weird, the plentitude of celebrated but avoided multi-diversity that is today’s American Way… and yet at the same time seen as an American Way that’s maybe just “way out” or “okay for some, but not for us”. The suggestion implies that our enterprise is somehow not quite right, not quite American, and perhaps even not quite Christian. But to their credit, these folks may be precisely on point – only they see us as we begin… and understandably remain skeptical of where we intend to go as anything more than putting on airs.

And oddly empowering as it may equally prove for some to “become one with the otherness of the borg”, or to experience a light jaunt to the unknown, the invisible, the ridiculed, the mocked and derided, and the not spoken of “sub-elites” as if for some entertaining mixer with the lesser lights and non-telegenic, or to vanish into the backdrops reserved for pitiful postcard fundraisers – this is not the attraction either. Conversion really is neither part of an effort garner a touch of the counter-culture chic, nor polish a profile as more serious, devout, and “legit” than we are. Honestly, we’re still just people.

And yet there is indeed something of the wild, unhomogenized and unadulterated in Orthodoxy. But surely it must be unhealthy to see this alone as its virtue. For while it may be common for us as Christians to see ourselves as sojourners in an alien land; there remains a need for a more compelling and balanced vision if we are to ultimately offer hospitality, love, regeneration and so much more to a land and people which has welcomed us, and given us opportunities to worship in our way. Our Orthodoxy should be a gift, rather than a burden to others.

But in the end there is no easy balance to strike, and in part this is certainly why the process of conversion seems so hard. Moreover, if we somehow let the hardness of the journey toughen our hides rather than serve as a sort of purifying fire, then we risk becoming harsher in temperament in ways that just aren’t becoming as a Christian.

Thus it seems from here, that after all the fussing and ranting is done, the reasons we become and remain Orthodox have a lot less to do with the other guy, less to do with whatever place we may have come from, and more to do with what lies within our hearts, what has been planted there, what we fancy might grow, and if we are candid, what we most fear might take hold as well – if we do without this ancient Church.

Indeed, Orthodoxy seems to have less and less to do with who we are and where we’ve been than with what we might become as members of the true, incarnate Body of Christ. This seems less a place or simply a church than a commitment to a way of life that is an emptying of ourselves – and a commitment to keep emptying ourselves – of the stuff that keeps us mired where we are and tied to a past of which we no longer wish to be a part. And yet at the same time, we don’t want to lose our ability to be thankful that our past – rocky though it may have been – is nevertheless the path that brought us here.

In my case much has already passed, and but for the grace of God I would not be here. Where much has been given and the trials have seemed light, it is in truth all too often that blind obliviousness has ruled rather than gratitude. And where the outward measures have seemed “good enough” for a prized sunny disposition, this has been managed alternatively by failing to admit to the darkness that lies beneath, or by ranting to a patient soul unable to find the off button. And yet the self-impression just ain’t what it’s cracked up to be…. and time inevitably catches up with us.

Just as we are often unaware of the deciding impact that shatters a glass – whether a single tremendous blow or a series of smaller, incessant “pingings”, and instead focus on the moment of fracture, so do we also more readily recall the moment we decide to start in a new direction… and often struggle to recall God’s repeated knocking on the door to our hearts. Often our habit of running the other way on hearing these knocks is so ingrained, it becomes automatic and unconscious until that day when we finally allow to our vulnerability. Then if we find ourselves caught-up in the whirlwind in a moment that we do remember, we may find our hearts shattered before the seat of God. And at that point, no matter what sort of Christian we may have fancied ourselves beforehand, from that moment on… we are forever changed.

And yet as sweet as that moment it can be, it is not without pain. For some of us, this is the realization that we have so very little to give, and of that which we have…. we have clung to for some senseless reason. These aren’t big things typically, but all the little things… the precious little things that day by day we come to realize we cherish in those no longer with us. And with our diminished sense for the art of having and what we have or how we have come by it, we realize we have even less of a clue about the art of giving.

Perhaps we thought we knew how to give… but how can we give what we don’t know how to hold? So we give something less. And in this there is little real generosity, and often more motivation for our own sense of comfort in ourselves. It may be a start, but a poor one. For surely we have continued to hold back the one real thing we could offer. Perhaps it’s a risk we thought better avoided. Yet we can come to realize that in not risking this offering of ourselves to God, we have equally not loved others as well as we should… or at least as we think we have. Maybe they haven’t complained, but instead been thankful for the little we have managed… that our hearts at least weren’t stone cold.

And then perhaps we realize we aren’t separate, and that much of what has gone right, has gone right less by our own making than by those about us whose forgiving love is far greater, and asks far less. Here at last we begin to peel the fancy picture off the new mirror and take a look at the real reflection underneath: Maybe not as bad as poor Dorian Gray, but nonetheless a pathetic parody of the self-image in our minds, and no winner of America’s Next Top Model.

So we realize that in our case, whatever it is that is less, whatever it is that is false, whatever it is that is not love or gentleness, whatever it is that is but an idea or carefully measured notion, whatever it is that preens us… it is this and not the core of ourselves that we have offered. We have instead kept the essence of ourselves and the dearness of our person close from ourselves, from our God and from those we profess to love. We may comfort ourselves that we have done no apparent evil nor fallen for a great lie, but these small bedevilling ones are equally death by a thousand cuts. And we can see in this the mean and ungrateful steward who has hidden his master’s treasure in the ground, and know that surely there is a faith, there is a God, there is a worship and life that is worthy of much more.

And because there is still time, even in this eleventh hour we come to this Church in tears to do better… to do what is asked or what is needed but not asked… if we can but yield. We are thankful for the chance… but perhaps still accustomed to our old habits… and only grudgingly and slowly at first, but yielding bit by bit all the same. Surely there might have been some other ways to this end, as indeed many have managed this course without this ancient, crusty church, without the necessity of becoming part of her. Yet many of us could not. And I could not because I simply needed the stronger medicine offered and administered here. I needed her faith, her patience, her steadfastness, silence, prayer and gentle love.

Taking nothing away from those who find their medicine elsewhere, here I find it is deeply personal; here I find it is true and authentic; here all the pieces fit; here the game – if indeed it is a game – remains unnervingly and inexorably the same tall challenge; and here the struggle is enjoined to a broader family incorporating all the fullness of the Church. I don’t know that it will cure in my case, but it seems worth a shot…. if I can but bring myself to do more than aim. And surely it’s reasonable that on the pause where we exhale before pulling the trigger to wonder, “Just what am I doing here in this crazy place?” But I wonder less now. Sure, there are still many wild things in the forest… but there is less fear as well.

In Orthodoxy we are blessed with the confidence of the well worn witness of the saints that this is do-able and worthwhile. We may not be completely free of our doubts, of our “old man”, but this ain’t about something some guy just made up, or something that no one can actually live. And maybe, for once, we won’t be shooting in the dark – as if no one’s ever done it before. Surely we are neither the first, nor the last. But mostly, we know we are not alone. We have the help of all the company of heaven. And maybe with all this, real change and real faith will come and in our time, and we will find peace, love and giving and all the rest.

But sure, in the meantime, I’ll take a funny hat.

Languages Not Spoken… and the Title to this Blog

Awright.. before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me make clear that I don’t know, speak or read Latin or for that matter any other language. I struggled with my disinterest in things scholastic through years of Spanish… and lost. So on a good day, I might be able to figure out what my “Acme School of Truck Driving” diploma actually says… but we won’t go there. Rumor has it I know a few English words, but if you read anything I write much past the opening line or two, you’ll be entitled to question that as well. Let me say that I tried to get some Latin folks to help me with the title, but most were either too busy having fun re-translating the Vulgate, proving their superiority to the Barbarians, or just plain extinct. Personally I don’t understand the extinct part because… I mean… the Latin Lover thing… I mean… isn’t that the point?

At any rate, the task of coming up with a variation on Julius’s famous quotation for my blog title was respectfully (and unrespectfully!) declined. Instead, I was left dangerously to my own devices…. and one of those language translation webtools. I think Dell’s outsourced “engineers” use these to come up with their winning ways; so my expectations for how this has worked in my case probably deserve about as good a reception! And lest we get off on the wrong foot, let me say up front that the title is supposed to translate “I came, I saw, I believed”. Modernists would add “I whatevered” but given that I don’t think that’s a verb yet.. I left that part out.

Needless to say, I’m prepared for some rather rude suprises. Then again, my readership of four frogs, a couple of toads, a hungry but toothless gator, and some others hasn’t complained so far. Then again, left-over stuffed animals usually don’t. Maybe they’re not exactly my target audience, but then I’m not sure who or what is a target audience in these blog things. Okay then, the title’s either a bit pretentious or a bit trite or both. As a geezer, these things are in the water…and it’s that kind of territory… where the walls talk. Flee while you still can! And anyway, maybe pretentious is under-rated, and trite unfairly maligned. Heck, we’re gonna get a lot that these days and call it inspired in an election year! So why get hung up about it? Fact is, we puzzled, bewildered, huddled masses find comfort in the trite but true. That’s to be read as in: “I trite to practice my piano lessons…. but my fingers were on vacation.” As the Duke said after he put down the basketball in his first Blue Devil flick, “A man could go there.” Where? “I dunno…. Down by the river.” No, I meant on vacaction. “Yeah, winter’ll do that to a man.” I always liked folks who were tall and could get away with talking like there was somebody else in the room. (Put that down as another ambition for this blog? Sure, let’s get tall.)

And We’re (Slightly) Off…

Not exactly sure where we’re headed… but we’ll know when we get there. The back seat is already asking the front seat; the right side is already wondering why the GPS isn’t on, and the left side is busy punching too many buttons… all of which are more easily managed when we’re stopped. Of course… we’re not. We’re hurtling down the road well past youth, past parenthood, and on into the glories of middle age. Okay… someone in the back seat suggested we might face the fact that 50 is closer to old age… but for now, we’re going to pretend we didn’t hear it. So it is this perspective of entry into middle age, entry into empty nesting, and entry into contemplation of the moving road ahead (maybe I just need new glasses?) that found a way to meander into the smokey incense of the Ancient Church… that offered hospitality, a life, and a place to stay. Of course… they haven’t gotten to know me yet… and that tends to change everything! But for now there is hope that this will lead somewhere… if not simply downstairs to a cup of coffee and bite to eat.

One of the places I hope this will lead is to a little clarity about where we are, why we’re here, and what it means. Do we just back the car up and drive on? Do we get out and have coffee? or What do we do? Frankly, I’ve written too many words on the websites of other folks about these things. And it seems time to get beyond burning the goodwill and bandwidth of other bloggers’s sites and let them work their magic without my “contributions” clogging up the ‘net. Instead, the process of wading through the muck of my own mind might actually yield a little more direct progress through a little direct accountability. Seems worth a gamble. So either I’ll figure it out somewhere, or we’ll follow the motto of a “Young Nashvillian” who was disconcerted to find herself repeating the refrain, “Take a hike, buddy!” far too often to the unwelcome advances of her legion of admirers…. and we’ll simply fade into the night, mumbling obliviously. Since lengthy passages often amount to the same thing, I vow as well to endeavor to hold these mumblings to short, even if infrequent installments.

My other ambition is to explore the creative aspects as they bear on our faith. I am intrigued by the implications and parallels between our understanding of the creative processes of the mind and our translation of these into the physical realm about us in art, action and artifact as well as our very lives – and the admonition that we come to Christ as children. Children can and often do figure their way through things while we adults are still puzzling over them. Sometimes we adults persist in demanding answers where there are none, and action is more clearly the only “answer”. Hard as it is to put one foot behind the other and walk, sometimes its the only language we know that says what we really feel. So where the opportunity presents itself, it will be followed.