Apparently one of my writings made the bulletin of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Mentor, Ohio.

I’m rapidly becoming an underground sensation. Smile.

Richard Dawkins, among the world’s most famous atheists, allows for the possibility…

This was surely remarkable. Here was the arch-apostle of atheism, whose whole case is based on the assertion that believing in a creator of the universe is no different from believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden, saying that a serious case can be made for the idea that the universe was brought into being by some kind of purposeful force. A creator. True, he was not saying he was now a deist; on the contrary, he still didn’t believe in such a purposeful founding intelligence, and he was certainly still saying that belief in the personal God of the Bible was just like believing in fairies. Nevertheless, to acknowledge that ‘a serious case could be made for a deistic god’ is to undermine his previous categorical assertion that

…all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all ‘design’ anywhere in the universe is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection…Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.

hat tip to mindful hack

If you depreciate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage, not just as a bond between two people but as a bond between those two people and their forebears, their children, and their neighbors, then you have prepared the way for an epidemic of divorce, child neglect, community ruin, and loneliness. If you destroy the economies of household and community, then you destroy the bonds of mutual usefulness and practical dependence without which the other bonds will not hold.

Read the whole article here…

From Len Jones…

See the rest of the Reverend Fun collection here…

Alert readers have asked the question as to whether the votive is of St. Martin De Porres or Senator Obama. Here is a larger picture. Here is a link to a site offering Obama votives. Here is a link to an artist who has constructed a statue of Sen. Obama as a saint/messiah. Here is the link to the Obama Messiah blog.

Here is a picture of St. Martin from St. Martin of Porres School

Perhaps someone noticed the similarity and superimposed the Senator’s face on St. Martin’s body? They say that everyone has a double, perhaps Sen. Obama’s is St. Martin? Interesting to note as well that his day is November 3rd, one day before election day.

It should also be noted that a fair number of folks have put the Senator’s face on religious gear as part of their critique of what they believe to be his overarching sense of himself.

10 important questions on the recent Wall Street bailout…

Read, discuss, and if you’d like pass it on.

Hat tip to Rod Dreher

Click the link here for the story of the Obama votive candle, with the Senator in the guise of a saint.

Some of you may wonder why I keep an eye on the Obama as “messiah” thing. I find it curious for two reasons. First it shows that some people, even people who would probably reject Christ, still have an innate need for a savior, a desire for saints, and the belief there is something greater then themselves to which they can be vicariously attached. Second it shows these folks are willing to use historic and traditional trappings to understand their sensibilities. The votive candle with Senator Obama on it uses very traditional Catholic imagery and there may be an icon of the Senator somewhere even now.

Some will dismiss this all as well, “That’s just San Francisco…” but whether we agree with the politics of the Senator or not his presence has brought out a hunger for a savior in many people a hunger sometimes expressed in Christian traditional language and images. It will be interesting to see, of course, how these people react when they discover their saint and savior is just a human being but discerning Orthodox will see in these demonstrations of a secular piety a kind of opening through which we can present an authentic Savior and an authentic faith.

No other question cuts so close to the heart of the culture wars as the question of abortion. The abortion debate is about more than abortion. It is about the nature of human life and community. It is about whether rights are the product of human assertion or the gift of “Nature and Nature’s God.” It is about euthanasia, eugenic engineering, and the protection of the radically handicapped. But the abortion debate is most inescapably about abortion. In that debate, the Supreme Court has again and again, beginning with the Roe and Doe decisions of 1973, gambled its authority, and with it our constitutional order, by coming down on one side.

Thoughtful and insightful. Read more here…

October 19, 2008

As I grow older I have come to realize that I don’t belong in this world and probably never will.

It’s a feeling like knowing the girl you’re dating, as pleasant as she may be, is not the one and sooner or later you’ll have to move on. I find myself looking at the world as if I’m present but not attached, observing everything and even taking part but knowing I was designed for something else, somewhere else.

I watch the world and its troubles and I care, and I try to do what I can to make things better, but I know this is just a place in the timeline and eternity is what ultimately matters. There is something else and as I move closer to the horizon I realize that something else is what this part of the journey is all about.

That’s the gift of traumatic times, they provide that most precious commodity, focus, the ability to see clearly unencumbered by the distortions of comfort and success. They strip away pretense and level all false gods at the knees. Those who understand this rise above and those who can’t or won’t are condemned to the panic of the herd.

The pundits ask what these times are all about, the confusion, the strength of the rich and powerful being flexed against the weak, the shallow moral waters, and the sense of foreboding that permeates throughout. They wonder what it means but those of us who follow Christ already understand.

Nothing of this world lasts forever. Every house, save one, is made of sand and every dream is twisted by mortality before it closes its eyes in death. Everyone seems to be shouting all at once but the discerning, the illumined, will understand.

It is not for us to make this world, its life, its values, and its impermanence, our final destination. We are here, for sure, called to live in and among and do our best to be light and salt and yeast for the sake of love but we belong, as the Scriptures says, to a city whose foundation is built by God, a new Jerusalem where the tree of life, uprooted in Eden, again yields its leaves for the healing of the nations. Wherever we may find ourselves here we belong to a place where God dwells with us and every human tear is wiped from our faces.

Knowing that we can live in the present and for whatever future may come and live fully, truly, and with purpose. Those things a passing world values may elude us but we never ultimately belonged here in the first place. We can have a true sense of things because while we care for this place and this moment we realize there is more and we live with that more present in our hearts.

That is what I wish for you today, a spark of something that reminds you not be troubled. Our Lord has gone before us, to, as the Scriptures say, prepare a place for us and every day we’re closer to home. The world has many troubles, Jesus told his followers, but he wanted them to understand that he had overcome them so they would not lose hope.

Open your eyes and see. Open your heart and receive. It’s glorious and when you do, nothing, not even this world, will ever be the same.