Tonight my wife and I will go out for dinner and then a play. We’ll drive home and she and I and the three cats will all tuck in for a winter’s sleep. Together.

Now the origins of this day are the subject of debate and who St. Valentine actually was is shrouded in obscurity but hearts and flowers and dinner are the order for those who share thier life with someone. Those who’ve belonged to each other for years, those who are new at it all, and those who are still trying will all be busy tonight whether the task is making the best impression or the relaxed celebration of the years.

But for some this is the hardest day of all.

For everyone “in the dance’ as it were there are those who sit by themselves on the chairs by the wall. For most its not about being ugly or mean but rather that time and circumstances and the chance winds of life have swept them aside in the waltz of love. Some sit to the side because thier hearts have been broken and the fear of pain’s return is stronger then the hunger for belonging. Others have tried and tried but the fates have weighed against them even as they wait in hope. A few have someone to love but the call of duty has taken them far away so they are alone this day but not forever. Many have belonged at one time, to another, and that belonging has been broken by strife, or hurt, or the too soon arrival of death. They may have the comfort of moments past but the dance goes on without them.

No one on this Earth knows the whys and wherefores of it all, how it is that some are joined and some are alone on this night where everything screams “together” and those who aren’t can be run through with a hundred arrows by the thought of it. If the answers where easy the solace would be as well but as certain as love is in the air this will be a night of tears for some.

For those who have been graced with the presence of someone they love this day reminds us of our fortune and how easily we take it all for granted. We often pass by even those who are intimate with us with a casualness whose effect only occurs to us when they are gone. We too easily ignore and even hurt the ones we love simply because we assume thier presence is a given and so we can treat it like something common and disposable. Today, despite its marketing tackiness, can remind us of the gifts we have been given and those we need to share.

For those who will endure this day with a certain pain of longing a harder calling comes to mind, the task of finding the love of God of which our human loves are a type and shadow without that love being present to show us the way. Human love is a solace, a foretaste of that which God gives, a blessed taste, when it is holy, of that which is to come and those without must transcend the foretaste and discover the substance without the normal direction markers. But God is good and when our love cannot reach up His reaches down and embraces us and carries us through.

Whatever your state this Valentine’s Day, whether everything passes in a blur of events or so slowly you can hear the clock ticking on the wall that highest love remains the greatest of all and those who see even a glimmer of it can make it through the night.

Lent arrives on Monday of this next week and probably not a moment too soon.

As a child growing up in the Plymouth Brethren we had no Lent and only a smattering of holy seasons, or rather holy days like Christmas and Easter. There were, as I remember, times of fasting and prayer where individuals or “assemblies” (what we called parishes) would practice this discipline but no set season as such.

In seminary the ancient flow of the church year, with its cycles of fasting and feasts, was a kind of flavoring added to the eclectic flow of self designed worship. Professors looking to add a dose of depth or flow or novelty to worship would occasionally take snippets of the ancient ordo and attempt to graft them on to whatever form of worship prevailed at the moment. I distinctly remember a class at the Church of the Brethren seminary across from Northern Baptist where we were tasked with designing a worship service and my group grabbed “Jubilate Deo” and stuck it in with a scripture reading and a few other things to make our “service”. If I remember correctly it actually brought out a few tears in those who attended and looking back probably more in some of the Fathers. But we were at least trying to be sincere and for a few of us a taste of those ancient things pushed us to want more and were the first faint impulses of that which brought us to Orthodoxy.

And when one arrives in Orthodoxy there is a fascination with the rubrics of it all, the whys and hows, and what you’re supposed to do and what should be left behind. Having been starved from the richness of all that so many who lived their whole lives in Orthodoxy take for granted the new arrivals often plunge in headfirst and with some passion. There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose, as long as people see that the rubrics and techniques and services are means and not the end in themselves. We don’t fast in Lent just because we want to be in compliance with ancient canons. We fast because we have need of that which it brings us, repentance and a life drawn closer to God.

I need to fast because I have a need to be free from all that is dark and unholy in me, and believe me there’s a lot. I need to fast because in a gluttonous culture I too have become a glutton. I need to fast because more often than I wish I have lost control of my appetites and need to bring them back into thier proper place. I need to fast because I sin and have made myself a captive and wish to be free.

At the heart of Lent, of all the seasons of the Church year, is that primal need, the need to be transformed from within and draw close to God. It’s that need that keeps the bars open at night as people seek for a moment or two to be right with the world and know joy, or at least a bit of happiness, and perhaps find a person with whom they may connect. It’s that need that keeps people at thier desks all day pursuing the money and things they feel will fulfill them. But the truth is that only God will do and in a strange twist of logic it is in the giving up of ourselves that we obtain what we need, and in the sacrificing of our desires that we are made whole. It was that need that made the Plymouth Brethren fast, we naive seminarians reach out for some fragment of a Tradition the rejection of which defined our denominations, and calls those who have traveled far to the safe shores of Orthodoxy to realize again the precious gift of Lent. Underneath the history and rubrics of it all is that hunger to be close to God, to be other than the person we see in the morning mirror, and we fortunate ones have been given a means to that end.

So I can’t tell you how this fast, once started, will end. I may make a total mess of it. But I’ve got to try. Something deep inside of me needs to. Bright and early on Pure Monday the struggle begins.

There is a crucial moment in the life of any small group of people, including churches, when time, history, people, and events, align to move that orgnaization from its smaller place to one larger. It’s not unlike those old cartoons where a small snowball tips the crest of a hill and gets larger, every avalanche begins with a snowflake. In the same way there is also a moment when years of an organization wandering, struggling, and drifting tip it finally towards irreversible decline.

A term describing this is “critical mass” borrowed from physics and referring (please understand that I am not a physicist) to the amount of elements required to create change, usuable energy, or an explosion. In every church that is now stable or growing there was a point where it was small but the right people, right events, and right inspiration moved it from its tenuous spot and on to growth.

This idea of “critical mass” is also important in the history of mass movements of people. A Hitler could use the discontent and chaos of his time to create the all encompassing darkness of Nazi Germany and the preaching of even one man, blessed by the Holy Spirit, can bring fresh winds of faith and life to the Church. Every revival in this country was a moment when the people of God, events, and leaders impacted each other to create a time of deepened fervor and faith.

And in the Christian understanding it is the Holy Spirit, the wind that blows without our knowing where He comes from or where He goes, whose presence marks the manifestation of genuine revival over and above just emotional manipulation. Sadly much of what we call “revival” in our culture is just skilled showmanship applied to the parochial setting. Any good preacher can make people cry just like any good movie. But when revival comes the culture is changed because people act differently. In this country if revival comes again we’ll probably notice it not by the people falling out all over the place but rather by the millions who expose their dark sins and refuse to buy into the myths of our consumer culture and the relativistic morality that underlies it.

The hard thing, of course, is that times often have to get very tough before God can get our attention and we have to be faced with threat or famine or chaos or war or some other terrible thing before the layers of indifference are peeled away from us and we fall on our knees in humble prayer.

But if we do…

Tomorrow I go in for a cortisone shot in my hip.

Sometimes I think the chronic pain of the past few months was everything dark and frustrated in me coming out sideways but it appears after years of sports, a motorcycle accident, and only God knows what other abuse the pain in my hip will not go away. At times it has been so difficult that serving the Liturgy became a lesson in endurance, walking with a cane a necessity, and getting out of a car a gradual process of grimace and unfold.

I would like to say the pain comes from a lifetime of ascetic practice and many prostrations but alas it is not so. I am in my middle forties and some things, especially those damaged before, are reminding me again of thier wounds. I would like to have had a miraculous healing with the faith it would inspire and the simple, practical, freedom to sleep through the night but such is not the case.

As I get older I become more and more like the seniors I serve in my “day job” and my empathy for thier various aches and pains increases. Each time I stand I am reminded I am mortal and prone to decay. Each day I learn in this small way, because others suffer at levels which make this pain insignificant, that grace is sufficient for each day.

Now if I can just get myself to the doctor tomorrow…

I remain amazed at the Orthodox Resources out there on the WWW.

Here’s one worth checking out.

It has been almost five months now since my brother, Paul, died.

In our adult life our journeys were often seperate. The life of a minister took me around the country. When Paul moved he literally bought the house across the street. He lived in the suburbs. I chose the city. He navigated corporate waters and I always sailed close to the Church. We each had our friends and the path ahead and behind.

Its popular these days to think of family as whatever you want to make it, a thing to be molded in the shape of your current needs. But the void inside reminds me it is something more. There is something about family that transcends need, and chance, and personal convenience, and legal convention. That something can be stretched, twisted, separated by time and distance, and flower in a thousand ways and yet it still somehow binds.

People who hate thier families still give witness to the bond. Siblings distant from each other by the miles still sense the presence. We may be as different as night at day and yet there is something that says we still belong together. And when the link is temporarily broken by death the absence is felt not so much in the disappearance of the other but of something of ourself.

There is a picture of the three of us brothers, in better days when cares of health and life were far away from our thoughts, on my office wall. No matter where life takes us and who is standing at the end this is the way it will always be.

We’re family.

A link to a story about how Switzerland, following Holland’s lead, is contemplating allowing the active participation of doctors in ending the lives of the mentally ill.

A question or two arises.

How do we determine the capacity of a mentally ill person to make such a decision? At what point are they sane enough to request death yet mentally ill enough to provide the rationale to end their suffering? Do we treat them until we think they’re sane enough to make a decision for suicide? Perhaps, since it would be hard to determine whether a person with a mental illness has the capacity to request suicide there should be a panel of doctors who determine, based on their diagnosis, which mentally ill person should live and which should be euthanized

At least we have a model for that.

Spent the weekend driving up and down the hills around LaCrosse doing house blessings and surviving, by God’s grace, the cold temps. Right now (Monday morning) its warmed up to a balmy -15 below farenheit.

Ironic, isn’t it that just after a group of scientists sponsored by the UN talk about global warming large sections of the US, and I’ve heard Russia as well, go very cold. A part of me is cynical when all these studies come out. I’ve long ago disabused myself of the notion that scientists are impartial and apolitical sorts who only seek the truth provided by empiricism. Quite frankly, large swathes of the academic world lean to the political left, incestuously relate to each other, and vigorously enforce thier orthodoxies. A Phd in climatological studies means absolutely zero outside of the small world of academics so toe the line or take your degree to McDonalds.

And do you really trust the UN to get anything right?

Some of us who are a little older remember the panic in the seventies about the coming “global ice age.” Those who are a little older yet remember the hysteria about the “population bomb” and how the world would soon be overrun by billions of people and we’d all be reduced to eating grass in a global desert. Various other scientists have predicted all sorts of doomsday scenarios with the fervor of Hal Lindsey all of which have the fact they were wrong in common.

The Psalmist told us long ago to not put our trust in princes or in the sons of men because all humans are fleeting and all our ambitions and fears die with us. We know, as well, that all history is in God’s hands as is the very creation itself. So we need not give in to panic, and should face all attempts to create the same whether they come from crazed preachers, politicians seeking power, or scientists caught up in academic fads, with discernment and without fear. Our faith gives us perspective and allows us to stand back from the ever changing winds of time and see the world in a remarkably different, even eternal way.

As Christians we’ve always known we are caretakers, and not owners of creation. Our faith tells us to exist without extravagance, share our wealth, and live with a minimum impact on what God has made for our sustenance and pleasure. So we need no one to panic us to live with an eye on conservation and care for the Earth. In fact, Christian faith is very much more attuned to the rythm of season and time and nature then much of what science has developed, as helpful as that can be, and if the world needs an ecological handbook they might just try dusting off that Bible in the library.

So who knows what the weather will be like next year? The truth is no one for sure. But come what storms or pleasant breezes our trust in God will carry us through. And to the extent we practice the care of creation in the fullness of the Christian tradition we will always be the gardener priests we were meant to be and our blue island in the depths of space will be preserved.

What does it mean to forgive?

I still struggle with that at times, and I suspect that most of us do as well. We struggle with what the word means, what it calls us to do, and how it changes our lives.

And many of us have vey little knowledge of what forgiveness entails especially when the wounds are deep and the harm catastrophic. Well meaning people talk about “just letting it go” or “moving on” but sometimes its not as simple as that. When we were kids and got into a fight the teacher would make us stop and shake hands but in this broken world people sometimes do great damage and sometimes not by accident yet still we are called to forgive. Many will spend their whole lives learning to forgive.

In our Gospel today we have an example of forgiveness, of a father grieviously wronged by a shallow and selfish son. When this son comes on desperate times he realizes the error of his ways and seeks to return home. A stumbling apology comes out of his mouth, the brokenness pouring from him. Even as he speaks his father embraces him, removes the ragged clothes, and celebrates a feast of joy at his return.

What isn’t in the story is how the father came to the place where he endured the hurt, worked through the insult and the pain, and came to be at a place in his life when the return of the very one who had caused such harm could bring joy.

But the Scriptures give us a clue about how this happens.

We know that Jesus told His disciples they should pray to be forgiven as they forgive those who trespassed against the. Sometimes we pray that prayer so casually that we can say it and read a book at the same time, but from it we understand that our own forgiveness is tied to the forgiveness we give others. A sobering thought.

We know that when someone wrongs us they incur a debt to us and that forgiveness is our releasing of that obligation. The sins we all do are not only against God but also each other and when we have wronged we have a moral obligation to make it right and when those who have wronged us seek forgiveness we have a moral obligation to release them.

The Bible teaches us that forgiveness doesn’t mean the wrong that was done never happened or that consequences won’t remain. The prophet and king David was truly forgiven of his rape of Bathsheba and the murder of her husband but the repercussions of it haunted his whole life.

We see numerous examples in the Scripture of the bitterness and pain that was brought into the life of those who held grudges, who clung to the wrongs done to them, and acted in vengeance.

The Scriptures also teach us that forgiveness sometimes takes time. St. Peter asked Jesus “How many times should I forgive a brother who sins against me? And Jesus answer of seventy times seven meant more than just 490 but rather implied that forgiveness may need to be repeated until it takes hold, until the fulness of it has come to pass.

Above all the Scriptures and the Tradition of our Church teach us that forgiveness is among the most prized of virtues. It marks a Christian life, and when practiced brings healing to both the one wronged and the one who offended.

So how are we to become people of forgiveness, people who model God’s own loving forgiveness and in turn receive forgiveness for themselves?

First we must determine in our will that forgiveness will be a part of our life, a value we hold, an act we practice, and a skill we develop. In the same way we grow in all the graces of the Christian life through study, prayer, and practice we should grow in forgiveness as we mature in Christ.

Along with this we must also develop the grace to be a person not easily offended. Sometimes we are full of pride or self justification, quick to take offense, hyper-sensitive, unwilling to listen, and too ready to pick at each other for no good reason. How quickly we look for words that we can single out, or actions for which we can demand redress. How often we desire to score points against another to claim some kind of victory. How many years go by while we still hold grudges often for no good reason at all. A gentle spirit, slow to take offense and slower still to take vengeance is a spirit where forgiveness exists even before the wrongs that may draw on its graces.

But sometimes the wrongs are profound and the wounds authentic and deep and still we must forgive. In these times we come to see that forgiveness is more than an event but rather its a process, an attitude of the heart, a commitment of the will, and a state of the soul. We may need to revisit a deep wrong against us many times, weep over it many times, experiences its pain again and again as we slowly give it to God and purge it from our lives.

We come to terms over time with the reality that our life has changed and that we’ve been damaged. We take care to protect ourselves. Yet there is also a part of us that sees a greater reality that begins to transform what has happened to us. The outworking of God’s grace, even if it takes a lifetime, produces in us both the grace of our own recovery and the hope of the transformation and salvation even of the one who has done us harm. As long as this lives inside of us we are granting forgiveness in a way similar to God and ensure our own forgiveness as well.

Perhaps in this coming Lent the task that will be laid before you will be the challenge of forgiveness. For too long you’ve held on to wrongs done to you or were too quick to imply wrong in others. Somewhere inside you is a hard bitter place full of grudges, offenses, pains, and slights real and imagined. It sits in your soul like a jagged rock. For others it may be a deep and hidden pain, a wrong done that has cast a shadow over all of your life and from which you need to be free. Each of us has our own place of unforgiveness, our place of struggle with hurts inflicted and pains endured.

It makes no difference. You can come to God and lay every dark corner of your life before Him and ask Him for the grace to heal your wounds, and the grace to forgive those who have wounded you. If that is yet still too hard you can just say “God here I am all messed up. Please help me.”

After all what have you got to lose?

“Health officials urge gay men who have unprotected sex with multiple partners, use methamphetamines or have another sexually transmitted disease to get tested for HIV every three months.”

The above was a paragraph from this article in the Seattle Times regarding the emergence of a new strain of drug resistant HIV now appearing in the local gay community.

Here’s what it should have said.

Health officials urge gay men who have unprotected sex with multiple partners, use methamphetamines or have another sexually transmitted disease to have consideration for their lives and the lives of those they could infect and cease their sexual activity while seeking treatment for their addictions.

It’s a sign of the times when the very thing that could make a real difference and heal what has to be a very broken person (how else could anyone rationally describe a person who has numerous anonymous and unprotected sexual encounters while tweaking on speed) cannot be said and the lie that makes it worse gets the offical governmental stamp of approval.

That’s why our message, our Gospel, matters.