An interesting article on how technology actually changes brain chemistry and the way you think.

The www site of Fr. Zakaria Botros a Coptic Priest with a profoundly influential ministry reaching out to Muslims with the truth and love of Christ. It speaks to a profound truth; we cannot change the Islamic world by offering them capitalism, secularism, and consumerism, indeed these in the extremes often practiced in the West are destructive of authentic life, but rather by offering something spiritual, true, and transcendent which can only be found in Christ.

This amazing man has been led to gently and truthfully confront the Islamic world with the reality of its own faith (he was the one, for example, who challenged Islamic scholars in Egypt to justify a hadith that suggested grown men should breastfeed with women so they would be considered “sons” and therefore unavailable as sexual partners ostensibly to get around that religion’s strict rules regarding the mixing of genders) yet lovingly and without rancor provides an invitation to consider the claims of Christ. Thousands have responded.

In this we may have a model for reaching our own culture, stuck in the rigid orthodoxy of secular materialism and suffering from the results of that worldview’s essential illogic. With love and truth we can confront that worldview (also embedded in ourseles) and call people not simply to a religious version of it, but to something better and higher, authentic life in Christ.

An interesting article on Islam written in 1936…

My wife and I are scehduled for vacation time this weekend and we had grand plans. We were hoping to travel to Milwaukee and Chicago to catch a few baseball games. Actually we had hoped to go to Denver for the same reason but the costs was too high, flying, hotel, meals, game, etc..

So we got on the computer and began to attempt reservations. No go for Milwaukee, no go for Chicago. Tickets unavailable for games. We even tried Kansas City because we’ve never been to Kaufmann Stadium (we like to experience new baseball stadiums as we travel). Nothing doing there. So what to do?

From time to time we’ve had these experiences where plans seem to fail and all doors are closed. In this case rather then force the issue we came to the conclusion that for some reason we need to stay here this week. Now we don’t know why, and we certainly hope it isn’t something bad, but it looks like circumstances or fate or perhaps the hand of God have directed us to remain where we are this weekend. So we’ll do a little traveling, catch a Minnesota Twins baseball game and watch events unfold.

Stay tuned…

It’s the first Monday off and we’ll have to see what happens.

For the past several years I would come home on Sunday and simply go to work on Monday through Friday and return to church on Saturday to start the whole thing over again. But a few weeks ago I applied for a reduction in hours and got it sooner then I expected. Be careful what you wish for!

So now I have a whole day with, well, nothing. I don’t doubt that I can fill the time its just that, like a lot of Priests, I’m a workaholic, addicted to the motion if not the substance, of work. Feeling busy makes me feel alive and after a few days of vacation I start itching to get back at it.

One thing that for sure will happen is a lot of home chores will get done. With both my wife and I working and traveling, the home front gets short shrift as we both come home tired. So I’ve got some raking to do and some picking up around the place and maybe a supper to make and given my nature I’ll probably fill the day with different tasks.

I could try resting but that’s just no fun!

I have a new cell phone, a Palm Centro, attached like the last one surgically to my hip. But the old one is still around and I’m not ready to let it go quite yet.

It’s not the phone, that’s just the cheap LG they give you when you sign up for two years. But the phone has a camera and of the pictures taken is one of my brother, Paul, now with God for what seems like forever. The smile is typical, just a slight grin but it was taken in better times, one of those impulses of mine when we were all together. And I can’t let it go.

Of course there are better pictures of Paul that exist but there was something about knowing it was there with me and the possibility of losing it when the signal goes dead that makes all the difference. In our adult life we traveled in two different worlds and this was the memory that was mine, the slight smile at a birthday or some kind of event when we all left our little universes and were a family again, a grainy picture on a cell phone.

I followed the instructions carefully, and sent the message to my new phone. And I will wait until morning to go on line and see if it is where I sent it. And when its firmly mine, and only then, will I take the phone off line. For some odd reason as long as that picture is with me, and no other picture will do, Paul somehow stays real and alive. The whole thing probably sounds stupid and corny but as the years pass and everything changes and we all end up wherever fate takes us I don’t want to forget his face, not now, not ever.

The rain stopped for some hours last night but the wind was cold and raw diving through the river valley and swirling around the church. As the sounds of traffic and wind flowed around us the inside of our little parish was candle lit and warm. A good number for St. Elias were gathered around the bier and we began to sing the ancient songs of lament.

I cherish Holy Week, always have, even before I was Orthodox and just a guest sitting in the middle of things trying to make sense of it all. There is no feeling like being in the presence of holy things in these holy days and I understand why some Orthodox simply take the whole week off to immerse themselves in it. And to me there is no service to compare to the Lamentations.

It’s technically an Orthos or morning prayer of Saturday and we celebrate it on Friday as the sun sets and liturgical dawn arrives. The melodies are haunting and the words profound as we stand about our little representation of Jesus’ tomb covered in flowers. The cross is empty, the grave, for now is full, and we are carried back to that time of waiting.

One can imagine the pain, the struggle, the unanswered questions that must have filled these hours for those who loved Jesus. The sheer impact of things erasing everything he said about resurrection and hope and replacing it with loss and fear. Doors are locked as they wonder who is next. Women weep together as they gather items for Jesus embalming. If they could not change these events at least there was that one final act. The Virgin Mary, a sword piercing her heart as prophesied, in the care of John but torn by the loss of her only child.

We have the advantage of knowing the rest of the story. Even as we sing we know what is to come and so there is a certain melancholy joy in our voices. But they had no such hindsight, only the swirl of events over which they had no control. How lonely it must have been and how difficult to reach beyond themselves or even remember what Jesus had said. And with what wonder and sadness the angels must have watched these dear to Christ, his followers, as they huddled in the dark.

Yet even at the very moment of their darkness Christ himself was harrowing hell, revealing his glory to those who had died and taking with him all who would respond. Even as the faithful women prepared spices the body of Christ was resting intact because it was not possible, as the liturgy says, for the author of life to be held in corruption. And how different it would have been if they had known that undescribable joy was just two days away?

Beyond the beauty of the hymns that we sang there was a lesson for me. To often in my dark times I see only the darkness and my life becomes focused on just what I see. My vision is limited and because of it my struggle is magnified. If I could have been transported back to those times from the present I would have said to those people hiding behind closed doors, “Remember what Jesus said, he will rise in just a few days, so don’t be afraid.” Yet in the service of Lamentations the saints of those days have come to me, hiding behind my own locked doors, with that very message of hope.

So now on to Pascha.

It’s been raining off and on, mostly on, for the last two days. The services go on but the attendance has been small. Four last night for the Passion Gospels, one left early, and then a handful today for Vespers. A part of me understands because travel can be tricky around here when the rain falls, and fall it has with flood watches up and down the river. A part of me is sad, though, that these wonderful services are being missed. I think and pray and wonder what can be done to help people see the significance of this week and why taking time out for holy things is important.

I have this feeling that if I’d been giving out Packer’s tickets I would’ve had people crawl through ankle deep mud and stand in the rain to get them. Compared to that two hours of Passion Gospels doesn’t seem that exciting. Now I have no intention of jazzing things up a bit, doing one of those rock concert church services, a mile wide and an inch deep with the nurtional value of sugar water, because those things don’t work in the long run. But this Holy Week has helped me understand one thing.

Before we Orthodox can expect people to want what we’ve undeservedly been given we have to want it ourselves. I can remember when the only people outside the chanters at Matins were visitors sitting in a basically empty church. What must be going through their mind as they are searching for a sustenance of soul that even those who “belong” don’t seem to want? If all of this is not important to us why should it be important to them? The sad truth is that many converts come to Orthodoxy not because of but in spite of the lethargy of the Orthodox.

This all, of course, sounds pretty bleak. But I’ve not given up hope. So many Orthodox were horribly catechized and so many have learned the motions of their faith without any of its spirit and joy. They’ve been accustomed to going through the rituals but the spark of life inside is dim. In a small parish that’s spent years in struggle it’s even tougher because one could at least justify on asthetic grounds the value of coming to a full church with a full choir and all the smells and bells. But when the rain falls something else must provide the impetus to slog through the wet to gather with a handful of people. And I believe that something is coming.

I see it in the tiny groups of people who do come. They really do want to be there and to sing and serve and worship. There is, within them, that intangible flame in various degrees that gives them grace and energy and hope. And its what I pray for when I think of St. Elias. Everything a church need to grow can be taught, there are libraries of books on evangelism and outreach and finances and strategy. One thing, though, needs to be caught, that undefined and real presence of God that touches hearts and transforms people from within.

Every Sunday before I leave I ask God for revival in the hearts of the people of St. Elias. That is a gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift given like, as Jesus describes it, the wind which blows from one place to another. All we can be is open to it and ready for its arrival.

Soon, Lord, soon…

Tomorrow I drive south and Holy Week begins in earnest. Busy times ahead.

Of course I’ve made the usual mental checklists. Book? Candles? Vestments? Anyone I need to call? But the truth is this week takes on a life of its own and carries you, like the Liturgy, by the sheer power of momentum. Whether every “i” is dotted and “t” crossed, whether we sing well or just get by, or whether every rubric is met with perfection matters, but not all that much in the larger scheme of things. We’re together to pray through this Holy Week and celebrate the joy of Pascha when most of the rest of the world is still asleep.

It’s been a fidgety Lent, one where I never seemed to quite get in the flow. Like New Year’s I always seem to start out with a list of resolutions that somewhere along the line don’t get met, at least not in their entirety. There are always things in Lent that are left undone and part of me would like to, just once, have a “perfect” Lent, whatever that is. Maybe, though, that’s the point, there is no perfect Lent, just me trying to wade through a lot of stuff to get some place closer to Christ.

The good thing, of course, is that Lent is a concentrated form of what we should always be doing, living a life of repentance. If I didn’t do everything I thought I need to in Lent I still have a new chance every day to get back on track. We Orthodox seem to be people who have the sheet music in front of us, know the tune in our head, but continually struggle to get our voice to match the notes. When we do its beautiful. Lately my voice has been, as they say on American Idol, “pitchy”.

However, I hope to finish strong, serve well, and if I have not run the race with skill at least cross the finish line. I look forward to the days ahead when all the world seems filled with hymns and smells of incense. I love those services in the dark full of anticipation’s light. I cherish that time when all is said and done we gather together with our little church is full of joyful conversation, the smell of food, and hope. And yes, that wonderful tired sleep of Bright Monday when everything seems new, that, too, is one of life’s pleasures.

As you browse through this blog I hope that your Holy Week is blessed and you would find new joy, faith, and strength in the risen Lord Jesus. Time may not permit me to blog until all is done so until then may your Holy Week and Pascha be filled with grace.

There was a reunion in LaCrosse yesterday and like so many it was a reunion at a funeral.

For the largest part of its existence St. Elias has had no resident Priest. Although founded by Saint Raphael of Brooklyn, the parish of Middle Eastern and Greek immigrants in the early 1900’s never seemed to be able to take the leap from mission to church and the small body of believers sank into that horrible catch 22 where there was no support from outside to help them obtain a Priest and so no Priest could help them stabilize and since they were not stable they could not get a Priest…

In those days mission policy seemed to be all about gathering a group of people from the old country, sending them a Priest, and then stepping back to see if they sank or swam. St. George in St. Paul, Minnesota had the people to swim. Down river in the much smaller LaCrosse, they sank.
For decades after the founding of the church the only services at St. Elias were whatever could be provided by traveling Priests serving an occasional liturgy, celebrating marriages, and burying the dead. It was often too much for the small group of Orthodox to endure. Numbers dwindled.

Many of St. Elias first American born generation became Episcopalians. Before the ravaging flames of heresy burned through the Episcopal Church it was not uncommon for Orthodox to, in the absence of a local Parish, seek some sustenance from the Episcopal Church. And many of the first generation of American born Orthodox at St. Elias attended and then joined the Episcopal Church. It would be hard to blame them. People need a regular church life and there was none to be had at St. Elias. Had there been a plan. Had there been outside support to help the mission along in its earlier years. Would have, could have, should have.

And so now we have reunions at funerals, reunions where the scattered children of St. Elias come together, people from the same town, with the same names, and often the same baptism but a community sundered apart by the ravages of neglect. My heart aches. It aches for what could have been if just one person or group of people or Hierarch would have said “We need to make this Parish work, we need to help, we need to find a way.” At every funeral I meet dozens of people who had been part of St. Elias but who are now lost to us, perhaps forever, and their children, because there was little for them in the years that followed the Parish’s founding.

To the extent my heart aches for what could have been I admire the people who stuck it out, those who stayed Orthodox through it all. The people that restarted the Parish in the middle 1970’s are warriors although they would probably not describe themselves that way, and martyrs of a kind, bearing witness to the Faith alone on the far edge of the diocese sustained only by faithful Priests who took precious time from their overwhelming schedules to bring life giving sacraments. May their memory, if just for that, be eternal!

And what can we do? For some the mission field is a far off land where people have never heard the Gospel but one part of our mission at St. Elias is to pray for and reach out to, those, who for whatever reason, have been lost to us over time. They are many and there will be things that cannot be undone. But in a way they are still a part of us, dear to our hearts, near to our prayers, our own flesh and blood.

Who knows what can happen in God’s timing and will?