Category: Life

Some Thoughts…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

I think it’s a good thing for observant Christians to ask questions of those in public office. The question is always a matter of style. Remember, we need to seek the salvation of every human, even those who would do us harm, and so our approach has to be towards that end. We can state our disagreements. We can argue for our cause. Yet we need to do so in a way that the person we are addressing sees Christ in us. This can be a challenging thing in these times, when everything, including the political discourse, seems crass and confrontational. Yet we as Christians, I believe, need to lead the country to better things and a Christian witness in the public discourse, both in style and substance, is a first step.

It’s True…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

I do talk, and sing, and think, about Jesus. A lot. And I worry sometimes that people around me may not understand.

It’s definitely not about being smug or perfect. I’m not entitled to the first and anyone who’s known me for more than a day or two knows I’m not capable of the latter. Yet it’s not a scheme, either. It’s pretty tough to try to live an authentic Christian life as a get rich quick program or a sure winner for a popularity contest.  More than likely, especially in these days, trying to follow Christ is not going to get you a seat at the best restaurant in town or an invitation to the right party, or even for that matter the Democrat or Republican party,

Although some may think it so, it’s not an obsession. An obsession has pathology about it and if anything my attachment to Christ has made me less pathological, or at least better able to cope with my pathologies. I don’t need Jesus like a junkie needs a fix. Are there needs in my life that Jesus meets? Yes. Yet my walk with Christ is a communion not an addiction, two friends, as it were, walking together down the road.

And frankly I just find Jesus plain old smart. I look at his teachings, his way of life, and his call on humanity and it seems so wise and good. I imagine what the world would be like if everyone lived as Jesus did and when on those occasions I actually succeed in doing so myself I find a deep rest and sense of being a whole person.  If all people are thinking about when they consider Jesus is a way to get “saved” for some future I think they’re missing the great possibilities of life in the present with Jesus. Love God with your whole being. Love your neighbor as yourself. Live at peace, as best you can, with every human being. Don’t be overcome with the desire for wealth but rather share what you have with those who have less. Be captivated by the things that are eternal and be free of the things that never last. Live a moral life, avoiding human excesses like an athlete avoids carrying extra weights during a race. What better life could there be? Even if there were no heaven it would still be a good thing and because there is it’s a taste of that existence here.

Frankly when I see Jesus I want to be like him. It’s not because I hate myself it’s because I see in him the possibility for my best self, my truest humanity. To be a human in this world we need to have teachers and every one of us has them whether we acknowledge them or not. We need a guide to help us in every day of our life and I’m not sure I could find a better teacher than Jesus, or a better example of how to live in this world than him. Of course I don’t always live up to his ideals but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth the effort or that they aren’t good, or right, or true.

We human beings have this amazing power of choice. We’ve been given life and we can choose what we do with it. I like lots of things, gardens, music, sunny days, a good baseball game, the list could go on.  And the choices we make will naturally flow out of our life and into the world. I expect Vikings fans (our local football team) to talk about the Vikings. I expect artists to share their art. Grandmas have pictures of their grandchildren. What’s inside comes out. So it is with Jesus and me.

Again it’s not about being smug or perfect. It’s just my thing. It’s one of my joys. It’s a river of happiness that sometimes overflows its banks. You don’t have to listen or even approve. I hope you’re blessed by it, of course, but people are different and you can do what you want. As for me, I’m just going to keep on walking, and seeking, and pushing on through and stay as close to Jesus as I can.

An Old Friend Visits…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Had a return visit from my old friend, atrial fibrillation, last night. I say “old friend” with a bit of sarcasm yet it also is an old friend in the sense that, while it’s not fatal, feeling your heart go bump in the night does help you sort out the things that matter from those that don’t. Even illness can be a source of blessing for those who let the weakness and struggle draw them away from the things that mean little and towards the things, and the One, that endure.

Of course I wish it was different and I wish it would go away. It’s hard to feel your heart struggle to get back into a normal rhythm. Yet I was born in God’s care, I live my life in God’s care, and I will pass into eternity in God’s care. One day, if the Lord tarries, my body will be a thin line in the ground, earth to earth awaiting the resurrection. So it should be no surprise when, even now, it manifests some of its struggles that will eventually, but temporarily as Christians know, cease its earthly journey.

Until then I plan on living a life as close to the coming eternity as possible and my prayer is that things that, like my heart, sometimes go bump in the night will not draw my away from the narrow but beautiful path. Your prayers would be appreciated as well.

One of the Benefits…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

of these changing times may be the joy of rediscovering our first love. After all, we need to be honest and say that the larger forces in our culture, government, academia, the arts, and media, are largely unsupportive and often hostile to the ideals of Christian life, or at least the ideals as they understand them. Many are troubled. Some are angry. Yet we can be made alive and whole in ways we can’t hardly imagine if we understand.

Is it possible that in these days we are being reminded again that we are a counter-culture and probably always will be if we truly understand who we are and how we relate to the world around us? As the cultural props we counted on fall away we find ourselves as the odd ones out, the worldly power we once thought we had is evaporating and the times are changing. Our comfort levels are being challenged. Things we thought were safe and secure are not longer as we believed. We, as observant Christians, may end up on the very fringes of society.

Yet we are not called on to be fearful, angry, or hateful to the world around us and those who live in it, even if hate is directed at us. God, the Scriptures says, so loved this world that He gave His only begotten Son…, and the world God loved was not some ideal world but the very broken and dirty one that we live in. We are pilgrims and strangers in this world, we should tread here lightly, and perhaps the fact that the larger societal structures are abandoning our understandings, if they ever really held them at all, is a good thing to remind us of where our true priorities, our true home, actually lie. Yet we are a counter-culture of love, that is we seek to change the world, and change ourselves, not for the sake of power or influence in  and of themselves or for the creation of some utopian state, but rather that we would draw others to the love that is Christ.

Perhaps the rediscovery of that love is the key. Authentic Christian love is very different from the world’s definition of love with its emotional, permissive, context. Christian love flows from the character of God and is the will for the betterment of the other. For too long the observant Christians of this country have bought into the idea that the world we seek will be created by its values being part of the structures of power in our society. Such structures are always temporary, changing, and blowing in the winds of time. Love, however,  endures and the change it brings in the one who loves and the object of that love are permanent. If we wish to change the world we must love it as God loves it and enter it for the same reasons He did.

On the surface of things it may seem these are troubled times. Yet perhaps God is using all of this to call us back to that first love, His love, and to rediscover that it is in that love, living in us and shared in the world, that we find our true selves, our true purpose, and our true life. Stripped of any illusion of worldly power it may be the only thing we have left and perhaps because of it God has us right where He wants us to be, where we should have been all along.

 

 

 

 

 

On Marriage…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Both the Bible and the tradition of the church teach that same-sex sexual activity is sinful. It’s not an unforgivable sin or the worst sin, but it is a sin. Therefore, the church asks those who are tempted to such sin to refrain from it and be chaste. In a similar way the church asks those with no same-sex struggles to refrain from heterosexual sexual activity outside of marriage. Chastity is asked from both and it is believed that God can help a person remain chaste.

So in closing, the Orthodox Church is happy to minister to those struggling with homosexuality. Such ministering goes on pretty much everywhere and in most parishes –our people have the same struggles as everyone else does. We certainly have no hatred against people with this struggle and no interest in “gay bashing.”

We will not turn someone away because of a particular sin they struggle with. They are sinners like the rest of us who need God’s forgiveness and help.

But performing or approving of same-sex marriages? No, we can’t do that. That would be saying that what is a sin isn’t a sin. That would be a lie, so we can’t participate or approve.

May God have mercy on all of us sinners and bring us to repent of our sins and bring us all into his heavenly kingdom.

Read the whole article here.

People…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

may wonder why I talk, write, sing, blog, and post so much related to Jesus. You need to know it’s not about you, as if I live on some higher plane, it’s about me.

I need a teacher, we all need a teacher but I do in particular. Life is hard, challenging, sometimes a complete mystery, and more often than not it pins the needle on the perplexing meter. I’m not the smartest person in the world on all of it. There are many who are wiser and better at this whole life thing than I am. Yet I think I’m smart enough to realize that I can’t do it all on my own.

I need not just smarts but real wisdom. I need not just knowledge but truth. I need to see not just the moment but the larger picture. Therefore I need a teacher, someone to stand outside of me and yet be intimately within my life. I need a teacher to keep my vision beyond the moment and to lovingly help me out when I get stuck, which is often. I need a teacher to correct me when I’m wrong, not for the sake of punishment but for my longer term good.

There’s a lot of false in this world, a lot of distractions, deep holes along the way, and blind alleys. I’d like to miss most of them if I could. So I need someone else’s eyes along the path and some kind of light when the darkness comes. What matters and what doesn’t? I don’t always know, so I’ll take as much outside help as I can. Life is precious, and short, so why not get all the stuff you need to live it well?

Among the other things that Jesus is to me, He is my teacher. This doesn’t mean I’m always the best pupil or that I remember all the lessons. Yet since we all have to have a teacher of some sort I believe I’ve got the best there is. So His words, His thoughts, His life, all of them are part of me and everything I do and try to be. Because of that whatever of Him that is in me also flows out of me and you’ll see it here and hopefully in my life as well.

And when the whole thing is done I’d like people to remember, first of all, that I tried to be a Christian. After that everything else, even the best of it, will find its own level.