It’s 19 degrees outside and the rode is covered with ice as a light rain / sleet is falling from the sky. Would somebody please remind me why I live here?

December 13, 2008

When we Orthodox come to a funeral we understand two things at once.

First we see in vivid detail the fleeting nature of life and the sin with its mortality that touches us all. Even the best of us, the most sainted, must die and every work of our hands is slated to pass away. We all, as our funeral prayers say, will be one day “bereft of form, disfigured…lying in a tomb.” We discover again in moments like these that truly “All things are but feeble shadows; all things are most deluding dreams; yet in one moment only, and Death shall supplant them all.”

For the Orthodox Christian death is not a natural thing, it was not something we were designed to experience but rather something we chose when we rejected the life God had for us. Death is the separation of the soul from the body and comes to us in trauma or sickness, by stealth or after long struggle but none of us would prefer it if we had the choice and always within us, no matter how hard we rationalize it, is the nagging sense that this mortality in our bodies, this aging, sickness, struggle and the end of our life is not how we were meant to be and none of the formidable skills of our morticians can change it. An Orthodox monk once said that all of us should keep a jar of dirt with us in our home or office so we remember what we will one day be.

And so we mourn for the passing of life, for the loss we feel, for the presence of one we loved that is taken from us. Our hearts are broken for the good things lost, and the emptiness of a future absent from the ones who shared this short journey we call life. Our love reaches out to the object of our affection and because it is gone our heart feels empty and our feelings become tears. This has been the lot of every human from the mists of time and in this moment we experience it again.

Yet it is not, for we who are Orthodox, the completion of the story. Death is real and we feel its sting but even as the pain flows through us so do the still small voices of hope. We have no life in ourselves but we understand that the God who gave us life came to us in our Lord Jesus Christ and took on every bit of pain and darkness there is in the world, including the greatest of them all, death, and in doing so broke their ultimate power.

This, for Orthodox Christians, is also real, and even more real because at a day of God’s choosing it will have the last word. We do not put those we love to rest in the ground merely for sentiment and a place to visit in the days to come but rather we commit them to their grave with an intense and real hope. We believe, always have, in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. We believe that when God is ready our graves will be emptied, our mortal remains transformed into immortality, and the fullness of who we are, body and soul, will enjoy the presence of God forever. We believe that the faithful enjoy a taste of this glorious reality already. We believe this not out of wishful thinking or our own fears but rather because we have the fact of Our Lord’s own resurrection as the pledge of ours and the validity of all that He is as the proof of his promise.

So truly we see death here but the discerning eye, the eye of faith, will also see something greater. For now we cry but the tears will not have the best of us. For now we will mourn but we will not be forever in despair. On this day we will place the mortal remains of the one we love in the earth not as a permanent fact but rather as a place of rest until the angels call out “Arise!”

Comfort each other with the pleasant memories. Call to mind the good deeds she did while she was with us in this life and better yet emulate them. Be together as family and friends and keep the bonds strong. Knowing that life, even the longest one, is short in the greater flow of history resolve not to live in fear but to live well, cherishing and doing those things that truly matter. Remember her and each other in your prayers.

But more than that direct your hearts, your mind, your souls, and your lives to God in this time and always. Seek refuge in Him. Find rest in His presence. The world is often uncertain, but God remains sure and steady. All things and every one of us will pass away, but God remains. A life lived in God endures beyond time, a hope in God reaches out and grasps eternity, and those who truly journey with God, will always find their way home.

From time to time as I commute to work I listen to the local radio station, they call themselves “Relevant Radio”, broadcasting Roman Catholic programming. More often then not I want to hear something at least reasonably uplifting, something somewhere between the intelligence insulting hijinks of morning FM radio and the cheery pop music gospel of the local evangelical station. The folks at South Park were dead on right when they lampooned Christian contemporary music by having the characters form a Christian band that wrote songs by simply replacing the word “baby” from current pop songs with the word “Jesus”.

Anyways, I enjoy the alternative Relevant Radio provides, although I, of course, have disagreements about some of the theological underpinnings. What I enjoy about it is the practicality. People can call up on the phone and get answers for real questions rooted in the Roman Catholic tradition. Again, I don’t always agree with the answers but I do agree with the idea that the faith should speak to not just some theoretical world but rather the world, for better or worse, that most people inhabit.

Now we’re getting better at this in Orthodoxy, largely, I think because we’ve had such an influx of people from outside of Orthodoxy who take the idea that faith should matter for everyday life as normal. But we have a long way to go. We have to face the fact that our people, about ninety nine percent of them, are never going to be monastics and that the information, the truth, the help they need is not so much going to be about how to live in the desert for decades but rather how to survive in their ethically challenged cubicle farm today.

That would seem simple enough, take people where you find them and help them become what God would want them to be. But it seems to elude us because we want not just to have answers but to also control the kinds of questions we face as well. The result is that too often we talk right past people and use high sounding words that manage to completely avoid dealing with what really matters to those in our embrace. Out of politeness, or habit, or loyalty they will travel with us for a while but on that one occasion someone pays attention they’ll be out the door.

The truth is that we don’t necessarily need more dissections of the Fathers, more papers on so and so and their relationship to the post modern dynamic. Those things are not bad in themselves but we should always ask “To what end?” What our Orthodox people need are answers to questions like “How do I talk to my kids about sex?” and “How can my faith help me in my job as a plumber?” Now we as Orthodox have, in my opinion, the best resources around to draw on for answers to such questions. But they need to be in language people can understand, milk first then meat.

The folks at Relevant Radio are at least making an attempt to do this. Now it’s our turn.

Some insights from Stanley Kurtz.

The truth is I sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the technology out there and lately I just turn it off so I can be in a more natural mode, but its not all bad. Yesterday I went to the dollar store and purchased an audio CD of the entire New Testament which I just now put on my iPod for future use.

And when I was a kid I thought owning a transistor radio was a big deal!

This past Sunday one of the ladies at St. Elias told me she had a conversation with a few people who had been to my presentation to an ecumenical gathering in LaCrosse related to the Year of St. Paul. Apparently they, whoever that mysterious “they are, thought I was attempting to draw people to Orthodoxy.

Well, duh! Smile.

Now the presentation wasn’t specifically evangelistic in content, I merely presented the history of St. Elias and a broad strokes painting of Orthodox Faith to people who I presumed knew little about it. Then I followed with a number of points about St. Paul. You can read it if you scroll down or head to the archives. There was no altar call, no debate, just information. But I suppose its “feel” was unusual. Imagine that, an Orthodox Priest presenting Orthodoxy to others as if he actually believes it! I guess its the spirit of this age, calculated (and self promoting) doubt as a sign of enlightenment.

If that’s the case it won’t be the only time I fail to live up to expectations.

Dear Friends,

The days are filled with snow and cold as fall turns into winter and the season moves towards Christmas. We spend more time in our living room after work, providing rotating laps for our cats, and hibernating in that way that only those who’ve lived up here know.

This year has been marked by routine. We still make the trips to LaCrosse on the weekend to take care of St. Elias and Jane and I often commute together to work at Parkshore Senior Campus. Our days are filled with work and rest, church and home. The normal patterns of life prevail but there’s a blessing in that kind of ordinariness, especially in these interesting times.

We have jobs. We have a warm house. We have friends and family. We have, outside of the normal colds and such, good health. I still engage myself with music, writing (travelingpriest.blogspot.com), and study, and Jane has her books, computer games, and trips to the health club. As I write this I have a cat keeping watch over me and grooming my arm. Of course it would be great, I suppose, to tell you that we had won the lottery or that our careers were on the fast track to that corner office but these simple things are treasures in their own right and for this moment they’re all we need.

Our hope is that you experience all the enduring riches of life in these days and always. There will always be change in this life but some things endure over time. May you discover and cherish them in this holy season and always.

Always, John, Jane, Kahless, and Kira, Chagnon

Here’s the website keeping track of Abe Vigoda.

Orthodox in Russia have written an open letter to the King of Saudi Arabia suggesting that if he and his government build a mosque in Moscow, Orthodox should be allowed to build a church in Saudi Arabia!

We’ll await his majesty’s reply but I wouldn’t suggest holding your breath.