The Second

I visited Washington DC, the Capitol Building and the monuments associated with it.  The layout is perfect, with the Capitol at the highest point (Capitol Hill), facing East, and the memorials and monuments behind it to the West.  This layout precisely follows key aspects of spatial iconography in Church architecture.  The highest place in the building is where the Eucharist is prepared on the altar, facing East, where the rising sun is the icon of the Rising Light of the Son who is worshipped, the True Light.  Being steeped in this tradition, the layout in Washington DC required no explanation; it was obvious. Even more impressing on me was the cathedral like buildings and the statuary and iconographic paintings representing scenes of the founders, tributes to ideals--persons, or Hellenistic deities as avatars of virtues, of reason, of human achievement, of principles.  Once again, with my being steeped the Sacred iconography of the Church, I recognized immedia...

(This story was publish in God in the Dock , a collection of C. S. Lewis's writings)  XMAS AND CHRISTMAS A Lost Chapter from Herodotus   And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark.   It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north-western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language.   These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs. In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas, and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe.  First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece o...

Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.  (Ecc 5, ESV) I was mute and silent; I held my peace to no avail, and my distress grew worse. My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue: (Ps. 39, ESV) Surely oppression drives the wise into madness,and a bribe corrupts the heart. Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. (Ecc 7, ESV) What I wrote back in March has now seen the maturation of those patterns.  New experience and information has been acquired.  More than ever COVID19 resembles that class of infection we are well acquainted with, and which we call the Flu.  And more than ever we react to it as though it were small pox. Outrage follows outrage....

My motivation to speak had diminished to near-zero, though I believe a more accurate description might rather say that the number of things needing to be said had gone.  If I had something to say I'd have said it, because it helps to have a "thing" in mind when describing it in writing. Well, I must have something now, and it has come through the last 3 weeks of sudden upheaval caused by the reaction to COVID-19, which has reached into my most personal space, my religion.  On March 10th I was content to consider the major reporting outlets as doing what they do best, stoking a wave of panic, and then riding it to the thrill of self-importance.  I could escape that panic because this disease is not a guaranteed death sentence, and seems to resemble the Flu, which we all hate, but put up with year after year (data so far have not killed this hypothesis).  I was content, I say, until the Archbishops modified liturgical behaviors, and then canceled shared meals, and th...

In 1868, in Russia, Dostoyevski published Crime and Punishment , and later in 1880 published The Brothers Karamazov , not long before his death.   In the 1870’s, a continent away in Europe, Nietzsche was developing himself and his philosophy, and it wasn’t until after Dostoyevski’s death that Nietzsche published Thus Spoke Zarathustra , and Beyond Good and Evil .    My experience of these authors, however, was the opposite order.   I first read Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the early 1990’s, and a few years later Crime and Punishment .   There could hardly have been a better parry to “God is Dead” than Dostoyevski’s “If there is no God, everything is permitted,”   and that ended the “debate” for me, for the time.   These many years later I found that both Dostoyevski and Nietzsche were responding to similar philosophies, Dostoyevski to Russian nihilists, Nietzsche to German skeptics.   If you don’t believe in an Evil One who works to deceive th...

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.   Prov. 25:11 NKJV As a golden apple in a small necklace of sardius stone, thus it is to speak a wise word.   Prov. 25:13 SAAS (LXX) I have made a lifelong observational study on what it is to say the right thing at the right time, in the right way.   "A word fitly spoken" has been something of a snipe hunt.   How this became such a quest seems largely the result of contradictions.   From the womb I received, on the one hand, a sensitive nature with which, involuntarily, I readily notice when a self-possessed wise man (or woman) moves through life as though untouched, dispensing golden apples of peace, or of timely goading, or of a blessed aloofness that admonishes without a word.   And on the other hand, I was cursed (also from the womb) with an inability to bring to mind appropriate words in the moment of need.   For it seems that the time required for me to observe and u...

Actions not speeches declare the content of a soul.   My actions, my way of life has followed a template, on balance, of the decent civilized man.   This is not to say that I am decent in any deep and moral sense.   Rather it means that I can check some boxes on a list of things associated with being civilized and decent.   I have worked in a respectable career—as our society counts respect; have earned money, by which to house my family; raised (or supported my wife’s raising of) civil children; funded some people in charitable work.   I think I’ve tried, and know I’ve fallen short, to do what Jesus and the Apostles taught.   But in the end, I see myself as having a basic civilized decency.   I have tried to repent of my secret sins and weaknesses; tried not to be a slave to my appetites, but with weak, inconsistent effort.   What, in short, is this way of life? If I have accomplished anything, about the best I can say is, I’ve fulfilled my f...

The modern use of “ecumenism” pertains to a narrow problem in a wide swath of differing Christians.   And within that context it’s regarded ambiguously, either with hope or suspicion.    Between these poles sits a taught unspoken proposition that the Church is divided.   Since Christians know that the Church can’t be truly divided, the proposition finds no voice.   Instead ecumenism proposes to solve dividedness.   While it may have some impact on unity as a qualitative experience, ecumenism has offered little with regard to the universality of the unified Church. The very notion of dividedness is ambiguous; just consider the grammar.   “Dividedness” as a noun seems concrete, but its verb root (to divide) already has a standard noun form as “division,” which is the concrete result of dividing a whole.   “Dividedness,” on the other hand, begins with something that has already been divided, abstracts the quality of that division, and then trea...

Brilliant minds chew on the great human questions: how should we find meaning? How should we order our lives together? What are the essential and real qualities of being human, and what does that imply for what we do?   And, although answers vary, one dominant, modern idea informs most of the modern answers: Human beings emerged through time on a continuum with everything else, from non-life to life, from non-consciousness to consciousness, from practical survival behaviors to morality, from awareness to self-awareness, from awe to religion, from irrational to rational.   In short, to say that man evolved from the lower animals is to say something mundane, like saying the earth is round. This now commonplace theory of origins has found renewed energy in the teachings of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, whose essential message is that of acquiring virtue.   Unlike traditional treatments—ancient wisdom, religious teaching and practice—Peterson’s is grounded in a remarkably broad...

Here’s a test.  What is the Gospel message? a)   Jesus died to pay your debt of sin. b)   Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! c)   A word that means “good news” Answer:  b Many years ago, after some years in active rejection of Jesus and all things called by His name, and after the consequent despair arising out of ephemeral alternatives, I returned to Him.  I had become acutely aware of my shortcomings and of my inability to rein them in.  I knew that, although my case was mild, it did not differ in kind from others who drift into more consequential, death inducing, shortcomings. On the cosmic scales of justice I deserved punishment quite as much as they.  It’s not surprising, then, that the Gospel of my Protestant upbringing reached me in a profound place of need.  The Protestant Gospel is answer a), “Jesus died to pay your debt of sin.”  What I needed was forgiveness, and that’s what I got, in spa...

Paradox lies at the heart of the most meaningful truths.   For example, “Pray as though everything depends on God; behave as though everything depends on you.” I’ve seen this attributed to Christian and to Jewish sources, and I dare to think the concept lives in the repositories of wisdom in many other places. It can be helpful to see paradox as lopping off extremes.   For example, part of the above quote warns against using God’s sovereignty as an excuse for indifference.   But it also warns against the opposite extreme of complete self reliance, as though nothing gets done without you!   Cutting those out clears the conceptual stage, creating space that can then be filled with any number of good ways to rely on the Lord proactively. What are some of these ways?   I smile to remember examples that others have shared with me.   Each one that comes to mind can be ambiguously interpreted.   For example, my own history includes three distinct e...

Daily activities, responsibilities, and incidents are enough to wear a person down.   Humor, therefore, brings a little grace into the mix.   It's the proverbial oil that lubricates the machine, preventing it from overheating.   Some humor, like sarcasm, can be more a relief valve than a lubricant.   If a lot of friction has already heated things, a sarcastic expostulation can awaken the need for some needed sympathy, forestalling a meltdown.   So sarcasm is necessary but should be used judiciously.   In other words, not all brands of humor "lubricate the machine."   One in particular actually increases friction, namely mockery, sarcasm’s near cousin. One who easily mocks goes directly to my "do not trust" list.   Mockery is a strong indicator of poor character.   We know it when we see it, parody that highlights what the mocker thinks stupid, weak, or contemptible.   This is such an undignified way on many levels.   For one, ...

Be present.   This sage advice saturates the world around me, yet this same world teems with increasingly numerous varieties of distractions and crises.   Countless wonderful people find themselves caught in these chaotic cross currents.   Many ride them with apparent, yet frenetic, ease, turning them to useful outcomes.   Others compartmentalize, carving parts of their lives to enter the flow.   But as good as these strategies are, staying “grounded” proves elusive.   Somewhere along the way you discover voids that have deepened through neglect, neglect reinforced with time spent in the swift currents of distraction.   So, yes, that sage advice reverberates loudly in these empty spaces:   “better not to have yielded to distraction, better to have been present!”   Hopeful as this sounds the idea falls short, being a negation of the unpleasant reality: be not-distracted.   So if distraction has a real antidote, what is its substance? ...

Happy New Year! Let’s begin the year with one of the big questions.   No, not, “Why am I here?”   Instead, “Why am I a Christian?”   I don’t believe I have ever attempted to answer this directly.   At the level of intuition, it’s simple.   But piecing it together, articulating the intuition is too complicated. So, here’s an attempt to go straight to simple. I am a Christian first because I am certain that god exists. That’s half the journey, the smaller half.   From there everything—nature, civilizations, past and present events, human nature, etc.—opens up into one utterly compelling question, “What is god like?”   There is an answer.   God is Personal, Powerful, Good.   Experiencing this answer is why I continue breathing. That’s it.   The rest is details.   A great many details.   All of them amazing.   Some difficult.   Many beautiful.   All incomprehensible.   So much more remains unknown....

On my shelf are many leadership books, which I loved for their emphasis on serving others.  But always I stumbled over the nagging question which came in various forms, "What is your calling?  What is your Vision?"  These questions have the ironic effect of turning a desire to serve others into a desire to aggrandize myself, an endeavor entirely predicated on the thing that drives me .  This is not the fault of the questions, which must be asked, but of the manifold deceptions that turn all things into grist for pride.  So any proper answer to these necessary questions would not center on me and would account for my natural proclivities.  For years no satisfying answer came. Lately, however, one of Fr. Hopko's maxims suggested itself as the answer. Be an ordinary person. The leadership imperative as I have understood it, finding one’s core motivation, bears no relevance to this maxim.  And I've begun to catch a glimpse of what I might lo...

Be careful what you ask for you just might get it .   For many years this has functioned as a warning against frivolous prayer, against treating God as a butler.   Persistence in such requests may invite, rather, a painful object lesson.   But none of these calculations interfered with my decision, soon followed by the action, to ask God regularly to help me be an ordinary person.   My life has had many voices saying that “ordinary” is the way to go.   The message did not connect.   It’s not that I am extraordinary, but that “ordinary” has operated as a term of disdain.   A litany of enticements beckon:   Success, meaning, impact, “make a difference,” “fulfill your potential,” on and on and on.   Naturally this meant that I needed to make everything around me better, and be better than others.   The results?   Failure by an impossible standard.   Bitterness.   Frustration.   A scary enticement to disengage, to ce...

I have reached that age where familiar cultural references aren't so familiar, are, in fact, out dated.   But a good reference is worth referring to despite its new found obsolescence.   There was a song in the 1980’s called Words, by a band called Missing Persons.   It’s a great composition on all counts, with the then automatically recognizable lines: Do you hear me? Do you care? The gist of the song comes in the following verse and chorus: I might as well go up and talk to a wall 'cause all the words are having no effect at all It's a funny thing am I all alone Something has to happen to change the direction What little filters through is giving you the wrong impression It's a sorry state I say to myself    What are words for when no one listens anymore    What are words for when no one listens    What are words for when no one listens it's no use talking at all Back then this sentiment roar...