August 14th has come and past and it has been a year since the Church in a fit of what I call madness decided to make a Priest of me.

More often than not I have wondered why I am a Priest. More than a few times I have felt like letting go of this terrible, holy, joyous burden. In truth I was happier as a Deacon, content to keep candles trim, order supplies, handle censers, and stay in the background. I’ve been up front before, in the lights. It not what it is cracked up to be. Not by a long shot. And I still dislike people kissing my hand even though I know its not about me.

I think I am a fairly odd choice for a Priest. I can think of dozens who are smarter, better versed in liturgics, holier, and more suited for this work than I am. I often feel out of my league, over my head, and hanging on for the ride. I can’t imagine ever getting used to all of this, like it would be something normal or routine. I can’t also imagine myself as the Priest in charge of some successful million dollar Parish because I’m too rough around the edges and a sucker for stray cats and stray churches.

All I know is that people need Jesus. The world is absolutely nuts and the only sanity, love, truth, peace, hope, health, and salvation is found in him. Period. My path to all of that is messy as hell but I have some idea of my need and I can think of nothing worse than crawling through this bizarre life chasing after meaningless things only to discover that it’s a loss and emptiness that could last forever. That bothers me. But being a Priest allows me to do something about it.

So it’s one day at a time, now 366 and counting…

The way the world is has stripped all pretense, politics, religion, science. philosophy, art, and literature from me because there is no ultimate hope in any of it. But it has made Christ, all that he is, all that he teaches, all that he asks for, and all that he calls us to envision, more real in thier absence.

I feel more like a stranger than ever before but closer to home then I ever imagined.

One day a daughter of Abraham
will meet another of the same
in some quiet place, away from the noise of life.
And it may be in passing that they catch each other’s eye
or perhaps just sitting together waiting for a bus.
And they will talk.

Probably pleasantries at first,
the weather or how the garden is doing,
and then perhaps of children, husbands,
family, and home.
And thier eyes will catch again to see, even for a moment,
a secret thing inside.
And they will talk.

Of how it is to lose the life they gave,
and if it matters at all in the larger shape of things.
How the voices seemed so right at the moment
but now everything just goes on and on and on.
Wondering whether it was worth it to make thier
children pass through the fire of Molech to satisfy
an anger that never changes.
And they will talk.

Until the bus comes, or the phone rings, or some other
noise calls them back to the life they have chosen.
Daughters of Abraham, alone and together, givers of
birth and feeders of the fire. The day moves on but in
a moment it comes to them how strange and close they
are to each other, beyond the noise, waiting for the bus,
or standing in line, or any place they can talk.

A link taken from “Relapsed Catholic” regarding Evangelical Christians and pornography.

Note: The numbers are startling but I have no information on the way the poll was conducted. I suspect the Orthodox numbers may be higher than we imagine as well.

What would happen if people asked why?

When the government comes and asks us to kill other human beings that simple word “why” cuts through all the patriotic blather and manipulation of baser emotions and asks for a reason, a real reason, why some person must be horribly killed for our convenience.

“Why” requires that those in power show cause, a good cause, a just one, a profoundly necessary one for the killing of others. Surely if the common law says that a person cannot be executed without proof beyond a reasonable doubt it stands to reason that the execution of hundreds, sometimes thousands and millions, should require that same level of conviction.

“Why” is the question that gives people power when asked to kill. Wars cannot be fought by the unwilling and if there is no good answer to the question “why” perhaps there is no good reason to commit to the irreversible action of taking human life, especially when those who are ordering it have taken great pains to immuize themselves from the actual effects of thier decisions.

“Why” requires all of us to really look at the other human being as a person and resist the calls of power to dehumanize the other to such an extent that we feel thier life is expendable because they have determined it to be so.

Now I am not a pacifist. I understand there are times when war happens. But I believe there are too many times when the common people, those asked to kill and be killed, forget to step back before the hostilities commence and simply ask themselves, thier nation, and those in power “Why?”. The end result has too often been millions of lives extinguished for silly reasons.

Things will change if people just pause for a moment and ask “Why?”

A link to this story documenting the trade in stem cells from aborted fetuses for use as beauty treatements.

I have a map at the bottom of this blog’s sidebar that tracks the locations of visitors to this site. I frankly amazed at some of the places where this blog has been seen.

I have no idea, of course, about your specific IP address and frankly couldn’t care less. But I am interested in knowing, in a casual way, how you found this site and your critique of it’s contents would be welcome.

Give me a shout, if you want, via the comments section.

Fr John

My travels take me to Bemidji, Minnesota today for an all class reunion of members of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Bemidji State University.

In the college scene of the 80’s , IV, as we called it, was part shelter, part club, part dating service, and part home for Evangelical Christians (mostly) on campus. It was sort of our frat. There were other campus ministries, of course, but in IV there was a distinct shortage of tweedy, elbow patch, fading 60’s hipster type ministers and that made it special. Praise songs, Bible study, sharing, and then out from the safe harbor to the bumpy ocean of college.

I suspect that my wife and I may be the only Eastern Orthodox Christians there, although I am prepared to be surprised. We crop up in some very unusual places these days. But my gut tells me we will be quite alone and that’s okay. It was worth the journey, every step.

So many times people who come in to Orthodoxy feel they have to throw some level of trash back at wherever it was they came. Perhaps they feel a need to decisively break with the past. Maybe they feel that somehow its required. It could be they really are angry and feel deceived and want some sort of payback. And some really have been ostracized by thier families and friends and have trouble expressing that pain.

I just don’t feel that way. Everything I went through was for this time and place and none of it is to be rejected. It was important for me to have been where I was so that I could be in Orthodoxy as I am. Twenty years ago wasn’t the right time but seven years ago was. It’s all in higher hands than mine.

And someone once gave me some very good advice which I remember to this day. Come in to Orthodoxy walking forward and singing and not walking backward and shouting.

Behold I am making all things new…

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher, 121-180 A.D.

From an editorial by Tony Blankley in the August 2nd “Washington Times” on the nature of world opinion and the propaganda wars of our time.

A little light on the stem cell debate.