why the Orthodox church is so firm on proper order and decorum in worship. The video below is of a “clown mass” and yes its real and while its extreme it’s an example of what can happen when people decide the Liturgy is about them and not about God and abandon the time tested forms.

to be in the area of LaCrosse, WI, today or Saturday consider dropping in to our first annual Rummage Sale at the Church. Like they say, one person’s trash is another’s treasure (although we’ve taken care to not have actual trash in our sale).

On August 18th the Vikings signed Brett Favre. The next two days were marked by tornadoes and torrential rain in the Twin Cities. Coincidence? I think not!

so are the days of our lives. I just received an email from an old acquaintance in high school who announced that she’s going to be a grandmother.

Brett Favre became a Viking, and on my birthday yet.

I miss the era of heroes even if it was all a myth. Thank goodness there is still Nitschke.

that a handful of seminarians from the Antiochian Archdiocese have been moved from the OCA related seminaries they were about to attend and transferred, through the Archdiocesan offices, to Holy Cross Seminary in Boston. The presumption is that this is a protest against the OCA not silencing the blogger responsible for ocanews.org which has printed articles and information regarding the Archdiocese and our recent struggles.

My sadness is simply this. The very first experience of “ministry” these men, and their families, will have is this event. Yes, serving the Church sometimes means long hours and sacrifice, but there are also many beautiful and wonderful things about it that make it worthwhile and good. Men and families come to seminary with a certain kind of idealism and yes, future events will temper that but the desire to serve, that love of God will also be the fuel that keeps them going when the days are long and the troubles many.

Presuming that the accounts are true this action says to these men and their families “You are a cog in the machine, a piece in the larger game that can be moved for other’s reasons.” There is a certain truth in that, we do serve our Church but we also serve its Bishops, yet I hope these events will not dampen the fire that brought these men, their wives, and families to this place. I hope they can see beyond the moment and realize the value of what they are called to do and be even if those who are charged with their pastoral care sometimes forget.

Axios and may God grant each of them and their families many years,

or at least it should if the normal maturing processes are in place and running. The sadness of age is the physical changes but its glory is perspective. Having just been around and living life has its own way of burning off the impurities, buffing the rough edges, and rubbing off the burrs. Youth is whiskey, straight from the still, age is bourbon charred with the ashes inside its barrel, the price of mellowing.

High school football captains grow gray, teenage beauty queens sag because gravity will not be denied. Whiz kids cannot escape time despite their calculations, and strong and weak change with the ebbs and flows of fate. Such is the nature of life and the only way to understand this is to live it with your eyes, heart, and soul wide open.

And its the way I wish things to be. No pining for a mythical yesterday. No pondering a still to be discovered future. Just alive and awake in this moment.

Of course I wouldn’t mind my hair coming back but, oh well…