The role religion plays in America and the world has been a well-kept secret in most of the nation’s newsrooms. While reporters chase the latest stories in politics, sports, business, education and other subjects, the billions of dollars and hours Americans invest in religious activities receive minimal attention. Religion news is usually pushed into a tiny Saturday ghetto labeled “church news.”
When news events escape the church page they are often covered by reporters with little interest in religion and little education in the style and language of religious leaders and organizations. Religion has almost been ignored by radio and television. …
The major reason few American newspapers and radio and television stations cover religion is simple. Few of the people who decide what news is care about religion.
Read more here.
Author: Fr. John Chagnon
Worth Discovering…
The Orthodox Christian Network.
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It’s a Saturday of Souls…
the time when we remember in Liturgy those who have left this life, and among the greatest gifts of Orthodoxy was the return of people I loved who’ve traveled ahead. No longer were they gone until “some day”. No longer did they become strangers to me simply because they had gone to be with Christ. Those precious people who had walked with me in life also, in a special and unique way, continued to be my companions.
It’s as simple, really, as Moses and Elijah appearing with Jesus at the Transfiguration and speaking about what was to come. It was apparent as the rich man, who even in his lonely and doomed state, had the capacity to care for his still living brothers. It came to mind when God was called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the living. It was in the prayer of the martyrs around the throne, alive, awake, aware, and asking God for justice in the world that violently expelled them.
Somewhere, just beyond my vision, are those who have fallen asleep in the Lord, alive, conscious, and mystically able to remember those who are still running the race. They are the great cloud of witnesses and how could they be witnesses if they could not somehow, by the grace of God, see, understand, and remember us? No, they are not mediators, there is only one, Christ. Yet they are friends and even death cannot stop them from being my brothers and sisters in Jesus. Even death cannot keep them from praying for me and me praying for them.
Where is the sting of death, ultimately, when those who rest in Christ are so near? Where is loneliness when even those who have left us for a little while still remember as we remember? Those who loved me love me still. Those who have passed away remain my family. Those who live in the nearer presence of Christ have not forgotten me, or you, or the world. Until, and after, the day I join them I will have this gift, this comfort, a never ending Saturday of Souls.
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Someone Once Said…
“Enter into Orthodoxy walking forward and singing and not walking backward and shouting.”
I’ve been many places on my way to Orthodoxy and all of them, even the crazy ones, were a necessary part of the journey. The people who were there, the people who mentored me, who cared for me, who taught me, all of them were part of the plan. Even the mistakes I made were steps along the way. When I made it through the gates of Orthodoxy there was no reason to vilify everything that had gone before or the people who were along the path. After all, they helped me get where I am and for that I am grateful.
So, if you’re somewhere along the way cherish each moment and each person. For the present they may not be traveling on the same road but they are now and always will be a part of your life. Its the same with the places and parishes along the way. You don’t have to prove you’re Orthodox by flinging curses on your own history. Thank God for where you are, pray for everyone, and enter the gates with joy.
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Wisdom from St. John of Kronstadt…
With death all will be taken from us, all earthly goods, riches, beauty of body and raiment, spacious dwellings, etc., but the virtue of the soul, that incorruptible raiment, shall remain with us eternally.
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I’ve Been Pondering…
the story of the prodigal son and it occurred to me that the man returned was, at one time, part of the family. Perhaps the story is less about the “unsaved” , in some ways, than it is a call to those of us who have wandered from the faith, forgotten our priorities, and left, through a myriad of ways, our home in the Faith to return home. In these times, especially, perhaps one of the most important things is for people who identify as Christians to come to their senses, cease their wanderings, and return to what they had left.
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Scripture Verses and the Media…
See this article for a perspective.
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Wise Thoughts…
Give me ears to hear Thee, eyes to see Thee, taste to partake of Thee, sense of smell to inhale Thee. Give me feet to walk unto Thee; lips to speak of Thee, heart to fear and love Thee. Teach me Thy ways, O Lord, and I shall walk in Thy truth. For Thou art the way, the truth and the life.
-St. Tikhon of Voronezh
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A Must Read…
article on how the media can’t seem to get the Pope’s resignation right. Worth the read.
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On Forgiveness…
Following a wrong against us a crucial part of the recovery is the attempt to make sense of what has happened, to provide an explanation for the vulnerability and pain we’ve experienced. We see ourselves with all our complexities, our history, the interwoven moments of our life and within that fabric we see the damage done. We look for an explanation and simple ones are easy to find. Among them is to see the one who we believe has wronged us in one dimensional, cartoonish, form. We are a tapestry full of subtleties but the person who has hurt us is a piece of cardboard, simply and easily defined by what they did to us. The story we seek to construct to help us move through our experience of hurt and pain is made so much easier if the good guys are completely good and the bad guys completely evil, especially if we are the good guy. Yet this won’t suffice when it comes to forgiveness.
The person we believe hurt us is, like us, multidimensional, a person with complexities, a story, a history before they encountered us and a lived experience after us. Part of the process of forgiveness, and it is often a process more than a moment, is to become aware of the larger story, the context of the person who has harmed us. Doing us forces us to humanize them, to see them as more than a simple villian. To forgive a stereotype we have created can sometimes be no forgiveness at all and even a kind of revenge. Our pride, wounded, strikes back at the evil done by making the one who harmed us something less than a person and our words of forgiveness an act of reasserting power over them and keeping them in a place of perpetual obligation to us. Forgiveness is much deeper and harder than this.
Forgiveness, in its most authentic sense, requires us, over time, to rediscover and uphold the image of God which is present even in the most evil of people. This is not about excusing actions but rather about seeing the larger context, the humanity of the person who has wronged us and and hoping, if at all possible, that our refusal to destroy in return even if it is warranted will somehow, some way, help restore the person whose evil against us is a symptom of our shared human frailty, illness, and mortality. This is difficult and the greater the amount of harm that is done to does only increases the difficulty. Yet it is even in this great difficulty that we ourselves are restored and healed. It is in this great struggle that we discover the depths of the love and grace of God for us and the whole world even as we ourselves become partakers of it as well.
The Beautiful Path 