Positive Hindrances

But for you who fear my name

2011-02-21T14:19:00.003-05:00

Here is a song The Welcome Wagon's album Welcome to the Welcome Wagon. Originally by Lenny Smith and the prophet Malachi.

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.

The prophet Malachi says a lot of other really amazing things like:

Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar!

and

"For I am a great king,” says the LORD Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations."

Simplicity of soul and a pure eye

2010-03-02T10:31:00.003-05:00

Today's quote from Orthodox Life Tips is fantastic. This is the exact opposite of what the spirit of our culture teaches.

Christians should judge no one, neither an open harlot, nor sinners, nor dissolute people, but should look upon all with simplicity of soul and a pure eye. Purity of heart, indeed, consists in seeing sinful and weak men and having compassion for them and being merciful.
- St. Makarios the Great

Who do you trust for your information?

2010-01-08T17:26:00.001-05:00

Who do you trust for your information?

I’d like to consider myself a well informed person. Anyone reading this who knows me knows that I like to know about as many things as I can, and I’ll bore you to death talking about it.

Only a small part of what any of us knows is first hand knowledge. I know there is a nice sunset happening now because I can look out the window and there it is. The rest of what we know comes from other people in some way. This is a problem. There are lots of different messages out there about all kinds of different topics and many of them do not agree, especially regarding a debatable or hot topic. Who do you trust for your information?

So here are some of my methods. I would love to here how other people approach this.

Everyone is wrong sometimes – more accurately everyone is wrong a lot. When you are wrong, what are you going to do about it? This is one of the many reasons I don’t trust any of the big opinion guys or girls out there with their cable and radio shows. Very rarely, and only when forced to, will they acknowledge the many mistakes they make. Simultaneously, they constantly harp on the errors of others. Bill O’Reilly and Media Matters for America will forever tell us how constantly the other is wrong. I will accept that they are both right on that one point.

Motivation and methods – what is this person’s motivation for “informing” me, and what methods are they using. Getting paid or having something to gain by convincing me does not mean that what you are saying is not true, but it does make me less inclined to listen. Also, please do not try to scare me, and do not manipulate or omit facts.

Rooting for your team – is great for sports. I will root for the Eagles in a completely unbalanced and unfair way. Too many people treat the difficult questions of our world in the same, rooting for you team, way that I treat the Eagles. If someone is happy about a hurtful event because it will help their political team, if someone delights that one of their opponents is wounded or worse, that is someone to whom I do not want to listen.

Past results – are not a guarantee of future performance, but it makes sense to look at what someone has already said and done. What have the results been? So many of the loud voices in our society have a record, not only of being wrong, but of creating rather than combating fear, hatred, and conflict. I think we would do better to pay more attention to the character and past results of the voices we trust.

“Since an overseer is entrusted with God's work, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers…”

Elijah at Mount Carmel

2009-11-02T16:53:00.003-05:00

Let all mortal flesh keep silent, and in fear and trembling stand, pondering nothing earthly-minded. - Liturgy of Saint James

Anyone who went to Sunday school is probably aware of the story of Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. If you want to look it up in the scriptures look in First Kings. Here is the general summary.

Evil king Ahab was in, and he worshiped foreign gods instead of the god of Israel. The prophet Elijah prayed that there would be a drought, and the drought was on. (Is it ok to say it was droughting?) Elijah scheduled a big confrontation on Mount Carmel – Elijah and his god v. the foreign gods and their 450 prophets. Each prepared a sacrifice and called on his god.

The bad guys call on their gods all day while Elijah insulted them. He then poured water all over his sacrifice, prayed, and God sent down fire from heaven that burned up the sacrifice, the altar, and the ground beneath it. Elijah then led the people to kill all the other prophets.

There are lots of great details in the actual text, so don’t skip it.

Now I could be wrong, but I am going to guess that the Christians are not going to go out there and set up showdowns between us, God, and the evils of our society. The extreme extremists are not going to call everyone up to a mountaintop and say, “You gays set up a wedding over there. We’ll set up over here. And we’ll see which couple a voice from heaven marries.”

It kind of reminds me of that story when the town did not welcome Jesus, and his disciples asked him if they should call down fire from heaven and destroy it. He said no.

But at least they asked. At least they recognized that Jesus was the person who had the right to decide such things. Jesus did not kick them off of his team for asking a dumb question.

So maybe when we see big confrontations with the evils around us - not necessarily of the Mount Carmel fire from heaven type, but more of the fight to the bitter end, this is where I draw the line, muster all of our resources type – maybe we should just ask, “is this what you want me to do?” After asking a question such as that it would probably be wise to wait in silence.

Then God might say yes.

Then again he might say no.

He also might say nothing, and we would be left to spend our lives in silence, waiting.

And thus find ourselves on a useful path, one followed by many of the saints. Speaking the name of God and then being silent.

Mayer Hawthorne - The Ills

2009-10-21T12:05:00.002-04:00

On a lighter note, I heard this song this morning on XPN, and thought I'd let my wide readership know about it. Sounds good to me.

Martyrdom ...

2009-10-13T16:37:00.002-04:00

… does not sound very fun. So it is not something you are very likely to hear about in church on Sunday morning. I think this is a big big problem. We are ignoring an important part of who we are as Christians, and we are leaving people unprepared for a path that many of us are going to go down.

That is right. I said many of us are going to go down the path of martyrdom. This is not an exaggeration or a rhetorical point. Many of us are going to be called to be martyrs. Some would say all of us are called to be martyrs. We should be praying, teaching, and understanding this so that we can serve God faithfully.

Jesus said:

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

“Whoever loses his life for me…” That sounds like martyrdom to me. So what kind of martyrdom am I talking about? Whenever this passage comes up in church it is usually spiritualized, looked at as losing the worldly self we would have been without Jesus. I agree, that is a form of losing your life for Jesus, but martyrdom is experienced in many forms.

Saint Cyprian of Carthage describes martyrdom as red or white. Red being the shedding of blood during persecution, and white being self-sacrificing compassion and charity during peace. There is an Irish tradition of red, white, and green martyrdom. Red is shedding your blood for Jesus. White is abandoning everything you love for God’s sake. Green is laboring and fasting to be free from evil desires.

I think the color thing is interesting, but there are some specific things today that I think are martyrdom even though they are not often taught as such.

Martyrdom in Illness – Many faithful people are struck by disease, mental illness, paralysis, or loss of limbs. I believe this is a type of martyrdom. There is a strong pull of doubt and a temptation to reject God in these circumstances. To me faithfulness through this type of suffering is just as powerful a testimony of faith as any tortured, persecuted martyr.

Martyrdom of Loneliness – How painful is it for someone who so badly wants to be in deep friendship or marriage to be alone. And how strong the temptation to seek the worldly comforts. Only the Holy Spirit of the martyrs can bring someone through this with victory.

There are others. The important thing is that we understand that martyrdom is a fundamental part of the church today. We should teach it, prepare ourselves, and enter into it with praise. We are often baffled by the question of why are we suffering. Understanding that we are suffering along with all the saints and martyrs can free us from confusion and doubt and help us play our part in advancing the work of the kingdom of God.

The books you read in school

2009-10-12T17:13:00.002-04:00

There were a bunch of books I was assigned to read in high school English. At the time, I read most of them, or at least read most of most of them. Not many of them were very enjoyable. Granted, at the time I did not enjoy reading as much as I do now.

Here are the books I can remember broken down by what I thought of them then.

Young me didn’t like:
The Red Badge of Courage
The Scarlet Letter
O Pioneers
Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet
MacBeth
Candide
The Great Gatsby
The Catcher in the Rye
Jane Eyre

Young me liked:
A Separate Peace
Lord of the Flies
Madame Bovary
The Stranger
Catch 22

Young me didn’t read:
Mayor of Casterbridge
Picture of Dorian Grey
Heart of Darkness
The Sun Also Rises

I have to say, young me had ok taste. Now I would move The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye to the I liked category, and I would be willing to read The Sun Also Rises.

What books did you have to read in high school and are there any of the ones I disliked then that I should give a second chance?

Trip to CHOP

2009-10-08T18:44:00.002-04:00

We had a visit to the Childrens' Hospital of Philadelphia today to take our daughter to the pediatric neuro-ophthalmologist. The visit was good news.

While in the waiting room I saw a familiar face across the room that turned out to be a friend from high school that I hadn't seen since graduation day. That's about 13 years, but who's counting? It was good to see him and meet his family, but what do you say? We did the usual where are you living, what kind of work are you doing thing. It was fine given the environment and the surprise, but wouldn't it have been great to have something really interesting to say? I guess I could have gone with the old, "Dude... remember that time..."

The Secret Sits

2009-10-02T17:02:00.001-04:00

The Secret Sits
by Robert Frost

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

Screens

2009-10-02T10:18:00.006-04:00

"Stay away from screens."
-Wendell Berry from the poem, How to be a Poet

So I went to the gym before work this morning. I'm hoping to form a habit of going then, since I've been having trouble getting myself there at lunch time. The morning people there are different than the lunch people. The biggest difference I noticed was the texting (note to the people at google, add the word texting to your spell check dictionary) or blackberrying or whatever. My gym says that you should go into the locker room or step outside to talk on the cell phone, and I think that is a great rule, but the morning people at the gym text between exercises.

I haven't gotten into texting. I am happy that texting is not a part of my life, but I also feel slightly disconnected from my peers who are into it. I'm like your grandma who uses a computer but never quite got the hang of when to single click and when to attempt a double click. It's ok though. You're grandma is probably pretty awesome in other ways.

So here comes the part where I start trying to fish for comments. Who writes on the internet and doesn't hunger deep in their gut for precious comments? Do you think my gym should ban texting in the workout area? Personally I'd rather they go all the way and get rid of the big screens from the walls too. And we could just recite poetry to one another and fortify our souls like in the old days. Ok settle down now grandma.

Swine Flu

2009-10-01T16:51:00.003-04:00

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the swine flu comes around. It will be interesting to see who responds with fear and who responds with confidence. I hope it will be a chance for the church to show some risky kinds of love. Be not afraid, right?

Selling Our Souls to the Devil

2009-09-29T20:52:00.008-04:00

"Hot damn son! I believe you did sell your soul to the devil."

Ulysses Everett McGill

That's from the great movie, O Brother Where Art Thou, in which the character Tommy Johnson sold his soul to the devil to learn to play the guitar. Tommy is made in the image of the eponymous bluesman who is said to have gone to the crossroads to make a similar deal.

So would you sell your soul to the devil? For how much or what?

I don't find the idea of people selling their souls to the devil to be necessarily confined to the world of books and movies. Purchase could be the most common means by which the devil acquires souls. What I believe is fictional is the notion that any of us would hold out for such a high price. Maybe one man in one hundred thousand values his soul so highly that the devil would have to make even a mildly impressive offer. The soul selling business is instead a strange economy where the devil is more likely shopping to find a soul with a high enough asking price to be worth the effort of the negotiation.

What might the devil use to buy a soul. Someone might sell his soul for money. How many people are losing their souls at work for bad to mediocre pay? Souls for sex? Why bother when fake pictures of fake sex mutilate 1.2 million souls per minute. (rough estimate) The scriptures say that Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would bow down and worship him. Jesus sent Satan away. What great power and authority have we been given in exchange for our prostration. We have the power to push buttons and from all the way across the room turn on flashing lights and raise or lower the volume of the accompanying electro-noises.

I think of Saint Mary of Egypt. Who compared herself unfavorably to prostitutes for giving herself away without demanding payment.

I also think of those referred to in the scriptures who did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. There is a working definition of selling your soul to the devil for a low price. And we see what it means all around us to invent new ways of doing evil.

In the kingdom of God we're going to have to get wise to this soul selling business and relearn the idea of resisting the devil. It is an issue of seeing things clearly.

Listening to Music and Not Doing Anything Else at the Same Time

2009-09-29T16:41:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to get back into the habit of listening to music and not doing anything else at the same time. If music is worth anything, it should be worth listening to. That's the whole point of it after all.