The studies are starting to trickle in and it appears that the Pope, much maligned for his statements about condoms and AIDS prevention, is actually right, they aren’t the panacea the activists would like you to believe.

I went to bed early last night and so I woke up in the wee small hours and decided to do some writing.

Yes, the world is a mess. We’re reaping what we’ve sowed. We’ve wasted our inheritance on riotous living and now the accounts are due and we have no money. We’ve ignored everything that matters for everything that doesn’t and so we’re unable to cope when life turns hard. This is the way it is. Rub your eyes and wake up. The time for dreams is past and the morning is cold, gray, and bitter.

Some say you should plant a garden. Some say you should start storing food now. Some people are picking through Revelation like a fortune teller looking at tea leaves to see wisdom. There are a ton of practical things, I suppose, a person can do as the rules are changing and things are going to be different, but one thing is certainly important. Cling to Christ.

Those who have wisdom in these times will understand that the idea of Faith being a convenience we can indulge as a hobby are over. In the days to come being rooted deeply and firmly in Christ will be among the most practical things we can do, the key to survival in an age of turbulence. It matters to take practical and wise steps for food and housing and all the needs of life but what is more desperately needed is a cohesive framework through which we can understand ourselves, the times, and the future and that comes with drawing our lives and all that we are towards Christ.

Am I a perfect example of this? No. But I do know, if only from my lack, where the substance is. I know from my thirst where water can be found. I know from my struggle where peace is and in moments of despair I have discovered where hope resides. It’s all in Christ and wise people looking for the call of God in these times will understand.

Some time ago I received an invitation to the wedding of one of the young adults I baptized when I was a Baptist pastor. Now there’s a sign you’re getting old!

Anyway, I just had a passing thought of her and hope her life is full of all good things. One of the things about being a Priest is that you have to realize your work is often beyond your horizon. It would be nice to have production reports where you could say “This past year I made so many thousand of this or that” but when you serve the Church its rarely that way. That’s probably why so many Priests focus on numbers and programs, it allows them to think about their own work like most of this culture thinks about theirs.

To be a Priest is to be a link in the chain. You add to what has gone before and someone else adds on to you when you move on. You have no control over the before and after, only your section is as good or strong as you can make it, or better still as God makes it. But I do hope I didn’t let her down, that young woman buried and risen in new life, and that during at least my watch and hopefully all the others she’ll be okay. I’d like to think that if I never meet her again in this lifeat least I’ll meet her in heaven.

So Michelle, if you’re out there know that Pastor, now Father John, remembers you and will say a prayer for you today. I hope everything is okay and that you, now in your 20’s or dare I say early 30’s, are enjoying the bloom of your life. And if you think about me every once and so often I’d appreciate the same. I’m nearly 50 now, with gray hairs coming in but I haven’t forgotten.

I know spring isn’t officially here until later this week and winter here can come back well into April but it was 60 degrees outside today (farenheit) and as I drove north from LaCrosse I saw people emerging from their dens and taking those first few steps into the sunlight.

What a joy to open the windows!

As I’ve pondered what”s been happening in my Archdiocese I’ve noticed something.

On one side there are the official news items about the recent decision returning our diocesan Bishops to auxiliary status, but that process doesn’t work in our 24 hour a day everything always on world of information. So in the absence of official information we the people provide our own content in various on line forums, each of us a pundit, each of us trying to fill the void with our own thoughts.

One of the great things about the www is that the stranglehold of an elite class of professionals called journalists has been broken. Because of this people who are actual experts in their fields and not simply experts at writing or reading copy have a say in a story and often provide valuable insights. But the problem is also that anyone with an axe to grind can broadcast their thoughts to the world even if they have nothing constructive to say at all. That’s the price of freedom I guess.

I think the worst part is the anonymity of the www. It’s not an actual anonymity of course because if I wanted to I could track the IP addresses of everyone who visits this site and any site can do the same and perhaps more. Rather its the perception of anonymity that allows people to speak to each on other online in a way that they would generally not do, at least I hope, in person. That makes problem solving and true consensus difficult because the score is kept not by how you reach insight and consensus through wisdom but on how many cuts your words can inflict on those who disagree with you.

On some of the blogs discussing the recent decision from the Holy Synod of Antioch that spirit was very much alive. There were a lot of people calling each other names, demanding that someone repent, calling for Priests to be deposed, and saying things about fellow Christians that were just plain nasty. I know the www can be rough sometimes but I was disappointed that things could sink that fast in forums discussing an issue in the life of the Church. I understand it, there’s a part of me that can fall into the trap of thirsting for verbal combat and the power it can give me when I strike a verbal blow, but I know, as well, that if we’re going to live together we have to be temperate with each other or risk adding the hurt of words to the process of coming to agreement.

So I hope if anything else happens in all of this we’ll come to the realization we need to keep things Christian in all of this. Yes we can disagree. Yes we can make our points. Yes we can present our information. But everything should be done with a mind to the fact that the person across from us, whether they are in person or across the world typing into their computer is a person for whom Christ came to earth. I think we’ll get to where we need to be faster if we do.

In late February a decision came down from the Holy Synod of Antioch regarding the status of all Bishops in the Patriarchate. The effect of that decision has been to reduce every Bishop not currently a Metropolitan to “auxiliary” status. This largely affects the Bishops in the United States, who, according to the agreement for self rule, had been enthroned as diocesan Bishops and now are faced with returning to the status of being functionaries for our Metropolitan.

The fallout has been passionate where discussion is occurring and there are many questions being asked as people are trying to make sense of the implications of this with little official information to use as sources. Some deep disagreements have been exposed. Personal issues that have simmered for some time are bubbling to the surface. And there are lot of anonymous www posts floating through the blogosphere. Feelings are hurt and people are confused. It may be a rough few months before the Archdiocesan Convention this summer and the convention itself, who knows?

The hardest part for me is that I still don’t have something I can tell my people that has any substance. I know what happened but I don’t know why. There seems to be a fog of byzantine intrigue in all of this and some cryptic statements neither of which help when I want to guide my own heart and those I care for through these times. It matters when you change the structure of a whole archdiocese and I wish I knew the facts behind the actions from an official source and didn’t have to get information from blogs and personal contacts.

That being said it looks like I’ll just have to sort it out like everyone else. One thing is certain, I’m not letting this stop me from being Orthodox. I’m here for the long haul and if things get nasty in the Antiochian Archdiocese I’m not giving up my Faith. I’m going to pray always, take a stand when I need to, take my hits if I have to, and ride it out. If you’re Antiochian and you’re reading this I encourage you to do the same. Scars may come be we will make it through.

A scientist has apparently found the answer to belly button lint…

Hey, folks, that’s why I put the word “miscellania” in the header!

President Obama has been working behind the scenes to revoke the legal protection for health care professionals who refuse to perform or assist in abortion as a matter of religious conscience.

The plan is in, massive government spending, unimaginable deficits, and a debt that our grandchildren will have to pay if the whole house of cards doesn’t collapse before then. After all, you can’t get blood from a turnip. All of it is about avoiding the pain our lifestyle is causing us, the consequences of our “who cares about tomorrow, swipe the card today” mentality.

I doubt it will work because in truth its more of the same.

The cure is harder, we don’t need a better government or certainly not a bigger one, we need to be better people and until that happens none of the rest will follow. The primary cause of this current financial crisis is moral, people with power and wealth who didn’t have the inner fabric to reign in their own desires and a lot of us further down the financial food chain who played the game in the same, but a more limited way. Every day when we go to the bathroom we see the face of this crisis in the mirror.

Of course we probably won’t see our politicians calling for a time of repentance at least not in a way that would come close to a call to spiritual and moral renewal. That’s for a day long ago, the times are different, change the government and the world will change except that it won’t and never has and we’re the crazies who think we can do the same thing over and over again but this time get it right. Reckoning is on its way and we are very much less then ready. Our world is still the world of dreams.

I presume, though, that some will sit up in their beds with a start and realize the nightmare which woke them up. And as they rub their eyes and come to their senses they’ll think, “That was crazy…” and when they do they’ll start on the path to a better way.