Admittedly I get bored with my blog’s design and change it every so often, well, just because. But I did find this picture of the Great River Bluffs State Park along Highway 61 and I thought to make a masthead of it because it gives you all an idea of the kind of country where LaCrosse, Wisconsin finds itself and the road I travel every weekend. These bluffs along the highway are my companions on every trip and these two in particular I get to visit on my right going south and my left going north.
The drive going south on Highway 52 to Rochester is faster but now you have an idea why I take my time and enjoy Highway 61.

April 6, 2008

There are, among all the prayers of the Gospels, two very poignant prayers spoken from the depths of the heart whose words touch us over the centuries.

The first is the prayer of the blind man, Bartimaeus, from the side of the street in Jericho. Hearing that Jesus was near he shouted with his whole being “Jesus Christ, son of David, have mercy on me!” So fierce was his desire to be heard that his call for help drowned out even the noise of crowd and drew Jesus’ attention as he walked by.

The prayer was short and desperate and filled with both the sadness of years living in darkness and the fire of a slim hope undimmed even by the vulnerability of life without sight. His prayer became the basis for our Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”, our own cry from whatever constitutes our darkness and often filled with the same desperation of its author. When complex thoughts and deep meanings fail us those simple words uttered from our hearts speak paragraphs and verses and chapters.

In the gospel reading for this day we see another kind of prayer, short but full of the pain, struggle and need of a father for his son. “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief…” and like the Jesus Prayer it’s often our own prayer as well.

It’s not difficult for our heart to go out to this father. Who knows how many cures he sought, only to have his hopes dashed each time? What pain must have coursed through his heart, what sense of powerlessness as his son was thrown about by demonically induced seizures? How many times did he ask why? How many conversations did he have with what he must have thought was empty sky?

And after all of this at the moment he faced Jesus he still wished to reach out one more time for something, anything, to make sense of it all, to cure his pain, and heal his son. But all of that hard experience and all the struggle had taken its toll. Faith was hard to come by, skepticism was there in quantity, and all he could do was ask for help to believe, just one more time.

Life can be very difficult sometimes. Often the pieces of the puzzle just don’t seem to fit. Pain and struggle come to us and the meaning of it all is elusive. The search for answers can be long and difficult and sometimes they never come. We try denying our pain, but the feeling pierces through this armor. We hope to anesthetize our struggles with a hundred different things but the anesthesia wears away. On the surface we’ve maintained our composure but underneath there’s a hidden river where faith and doubt, experience and hope,
flow together in a swift current.

There’s no condemnation in this because its our lot as human beings. In our lives we ‘re destined to be a mixture of faith and doubt, hope and despair. Something inside tells us that there is unimaginably more but it’s a kind of perfection that always seems to elude us in the end. Because of this every kind of joy in our life has a certain kind of melancholy in it and every struggle has its hope.

We carry on. And as we live this life we daily make a crucial decision.

We can let all the struggles and fears and pains of life wash over us like a river raging beyond its banks and be swept away in a kind of permanent cynicism and despair. Life can both be hard and make us hard and there are many who have chosen, in their own way, to take the advice of Job’s wife and curse God and die. The world is populated with jagged people, souls as cold as ice, humans who’ve tasted from the cup of struggle and become bitter from its contents.

Or we can, even in the face of intense adversity, see, somewhere in an inexplicable way, a ray of hope, a small bit of whatever it takes to push through dead end after dead end until our journey takes us to Christ. Bloodied, battered, and messed up, still struggling with the accumulated doubts that are the natural children of life’s struggles we can face God honestly, aware of the challenge, aware of the pain, but with just enough faith to reach for the master’s hand.

It would be good for all of us to be giants of faith, possessed of the courage of Saints. To struggle for that result is a notable thing. But for most of us the truth is it’s going to be a mixed bag, working our way through life as best we can, sometimes getting it and more often than not stumbling around in the dark. And if the truth was known even the holiest of people have had their moments. How good it is, though, in all of this, that our Lord Jesus still cares for us, still loves us, still embrace us, and still is, as our prayers say “…good and the lover of mankind” and not just when all is well but even in those times when the best we can hope for is a flicker of faith in the valley of darkness and our only prayer is “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief…”

A story from Fox News about a student at Tomah High School who got a “zero” on his art project because it had Christian imagery. Tomah is about an hour from LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

A lawsuit, of course, is pending but I have a greater question. The Tomah school will lose this lawsuit because you cannot ban student artistic expression solely because it has a religious theme. The Courts have reaffirmed these rights hundreds of times in cases all over the country. Why is it, then, that these cases keep happening? Are school board officials, principals, and teachers so utterly unaware of these rulings that they keep on formulating policies destined to be shot down, again and again, in the Courts? Or are they so immeshed in PC they think the rules somewhere else simply don’t apply to them? It’s just frustrating to have to pound on this door over and over again.

Thankfully there are attorneys who will fight these rulings in the courts and preserve the rights of religious believers, especially Christians (and why does it always seem to be about Christians) to express their faith in the public square. We, too, must always be vigilant about these things because if we take our rights for granted they will, sometimes slowly and sometimes in a rush, be taken away.

It’s about ten in the evening here in Minnesota, the last day in March and the snow is piling up outside. They say we’ll get around seven inches before its all over. Its not that much of a problem, though, because these spring snows hit hard and go away fast. Down the river a ways it’s a much bigger deal because that water has to go somewhere and that somewhere eventually is the Mississippi and you can already see the river swell.

Of course its Monday, the day when good Priests are supposed to take off and rest a bit but I have two jobs and so every day is a work day. The boss was sick today and will be tomorrow so it looks like I’ll just keep moving until someone yells “Stop!” Busy is still better than bored.

There are the usual things on my mind, people in the hospital, all the calls I should be making but can’t. This traveling thing has its own tradeoffs. We have more money now then ever and we’re spending it on things that really need to be done but I’m away and so many of the normal pastoral things just fall through the cracks or I try to catch up on Saturday and Sunday if I can. As is usual I’m just plain tired but somehow I find a way to make it through. No complaints, though, because I knew this was how it was going to be when I signed on.

The truth is I have much for which to be thankful. Yes, it would be nice to have the money and people and facilities of a larger church. And for sure it would be great to drive a few minutes rather then a few hours to get home. But the people of St. Elias are good. Sometimes when a parish gets small the people do as well but there are a fair amount of folks at St. Elias who really do want something better for their parish and they’re willing to work hard.

We’re just in the process of refinishing the basement at St. Elias and the members who’ve worked on it have done a magnificent job. Everything up to date, walls fixed, new electrical, the works. I hope this is a more then just a renovation. I hope the people see what they, when they give their hearts to God and their hands to work, can do. There’s more to fix and more to clean but the Ladies Group, just restarted this year, is getting busy on the kitchen and I anticipate this to be a summer of building and growth. Boy would I like to have a benefactor or a lottery win to kick it all into high hear!

My hope is that the people of St. Elias will keep on pushing forward. My fear is that somewhere along the line they’ll lose hope. May angels protect us! Anyway I need to make calls tomorrow and start working on the Liturgy. There will be snow to shovel and lots to do at work. My cat is already asleep on the bed and I should be too.

Lord watch over your flock at St. Elias through this night and in all the days to come. Have mercy on their sinful Priest, and establish us by Your grace.

Good night.

Sunday of the Adoration of the Cross
March 30, 2008

There are crosses, it seems, everywhere in our culture, on the sides of roads, around people’s necks, on bumpers and buildings everywhere. Rock stars wear them as bling, cemeteries have them for hope, and bikers wear them as tattoos. A cross inspires veneration in one and loathing in another. In art they sometimes become masterpieces and other times the visual expression of an artist’s contempt. They are simultaneously present in many places and banished from the public square. They are everywhere found and seldom understood, even by those who claim the faith they symbolize.

So what is a cross?

In its origins the cross was a tool of execution used by cultures before them but perfected by the Romans. It was a junction of two pieces of wood roughly in the shape of the letter “t” designed to promote a lingering death by torture and asphyxiation with a maximum amount of public spectacle for those sentenced to die under Roman law. Its effect as propaganda was immense because it displayed Roman authority and the consequences of rebellion and this is probably why the title “King of The Jews” was written over Jesus’ head in all the common languages of the region as a reminder of what would happen to those who defied Caesar. The savagery of this method of execution was so profound that it was inflicted only on foreigners, Roman citizens like St. Paul, no matter how great their alleged crime, were executed by a swift beheading.

And it was because of Jesus’ death on such a device that representations of it became the predominant symbol of Christian faith. To the early Christians the meaning of what occurred in that death transformed what the larger culture certainly saw as a representation of a dishonorable life and end into a symbol of victory, life, and hope. Although the earliest Christians already possessed an iconography of various symbols, lambs, fish, the good shepherd, none had both the power and depth of the simple representation of two lines crossed. We Orthodox continue this veneration of the cross because we see what the Romans had perfected for torture as the very place where our Lord voluntarily gave up his life and in doing so broke the ultimate power of sin and death and in doing so provided a way for us to be restored to union with God.

The cross for us, as Orthodox is not a place of punishment where an angry God, offended by our sins receives a sacrifice sufficient enough to turn away his wrath. The cross is not the place where Jesus stepped in to deflect the angry blows of God directed towards us. These images are understandable because this is what the Romans designed the cross to be; an instrument of punishment, but it is not our Orthodox understanding.

When you see a cross in the Orthodox setting you see Jesus, not flayed and tortured like in the movie “The Passion of the Christ” but already dead, peaceful, and remaining full of grace and power. Certainly the sufferings of Jesus were real but we, as Orthodox, already see beyond them as Jesus did and we are aware of the timeless significance of those hours on the cross even as we see Jesus’ body at rest.

We know that where others see defeat and death we see victory and life. Where some may see another triumph of the Roman empire and the religious leaders who brought Jesus to trial we see the King of Kings and Lord of Lords in the aftermath of conquering everything that has kept we humans broken and apart from God. Even as Jesus’ lifeless body is on the cross he is entering the realm of death and pillaging it, removing all who would respond from the grip of hades. The thief is already in paradise and hell shudders.

The world sees powerlessness but we see the most amazing display of power. The world sees brokenness but we understand that healing has come. The world sees the strength of darkness, but we know that in three days time a light will come that can never be overtaken by the night. In that cross we already see the seeds of the resurrection and so even in the middle of this disfiguring moment there is hope.

And from all of that a well of gratitude should spring up in us. God in love entered our world to teach us how to live and out of love voluntarily allowed himself to endure suffering and death so that its ultimate power could be broken and we could be restored. Even sin and pain and death are not so powerful that they could not be swallowed up in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. One day we will know this for ourselves because in union with Him even death can never have the final word on our destiny.

In this middle of Lent, when the novelty of the fast has grown cold and when, if we are facing our sins a kind of weariness may set in, we have this day to look into the distance and see the cross, the tree of life, and take hope. In a few short weeks we will be singing “Christ has risen from the dead trampling down death by death…” and knowing that alone you will understand the cross we venerate today.

Anti-war protestors interrupt an Easter Mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago by yelling and spilling stage blood on the nave and worshippers. Catholic churches have experienced any number of such assaults by activists of various kinds and as you watch the video note that the Cathedral, perhaps from past experience, had hired private security guards anticipating just such a possibility.

There are a growing number of people who feel it’s their right to protest larger social issues or individual items of church policy or doctrine by using worship services as stages for their grievances. Interestingly this seems to be a phenomena, at least in this country, directed almost entirely at Christian churches. I’ve not heard of a story where a group of protestors, for example, stand up and interrupt Muslim prayers to make a point. Perhaps it feels “edgy” to invade a parish and desecrate the service (especially knowing the congregants aren’t likely to fight back) or maybe these are just folks who see themselves as above the rights of others because of of their perception of the righteousness of their cause. Certainly there is a double standard at work. Imagine the outrage if a group of observant Christians stood up in the middle of a service of the Metropolitan Community Church and protested in the same way as the Rainbow Sash folks do every year in your local Catholic parish!

Regardless, we Orthodox should not expect that we’ll be immune from these attacks and desecrations. We live in an amoral time when the basic common sense rules of decency don’t seem to apply from Congress to classrooms so why should a parish be immune? The truth is that one day our own vision of faith and its implications for people’s lives and the greater society, hidden for decades under our ethnic cloak, will become known and we will be a target as well.

Expect it but don’t be afraid. Attacks like these indicate the desperateness of the attackers. Having failed to convince people, and sometimes themselves, by rational argument they seek ever more dramatic measures to make their point. Why would a mature, self confident, gay person feel the need to wear a rainbow colored sash and disrupt a worship service? Why would people supposedly arguing for peace feel the need to harrass the very people they are trying to convince? In that uncertainty action replaces introspection and inflicting onself on others becomes a form of validation when the normal channels are insufficient.

It may also be that God is allowing a little fire to come our way to burn away the flabbiness and help us to be who we were meant to be. Having been given all the priviledges of American law and society it is safe to say that we American Christians, certainly we Orthodox, have accomplished only a tiny fragment of what we should have with all our blessings. We, and I, remain self absorbed and in many ways identical to the larger materialistic culture around us. Perhaps we need some pressure, certainly I know I do, to help us put aside lesser things and direct our lives to things higher. In an off beat way these sad, desperate folks interrupting services may be a kind of prophet, their own actions and character warning us of things to come and calling us back to that which matters.

What do you think?

Some of you of my vintage may remember Ken Curtis who played the nasally deputy Festus to Matt Dillon in TV’s “Gunsmoke”. Well, that man had pipes and worked as a singing cowboy in the movies, with the Sons of the Pioneers, and as a solo. He’s passed on now, but if you like cowboy music take a listen. By the way, are you as shocked to discover this as I am? The best equivalent I can remember is the magnificent voice that came out of Jim Nabors who played the nerdy hick “Gomer Pyle” on The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle USMC.

Frank Marino, Mahogany Rush, Psychedelic Rock, Orthodox Christian.

Extremely cool.

What binds the religious right and left in America is a sense of utopianism, the belief that the Kingdom of God, as each defines it, can be established in law before it is established in hearts. And although they would claim to disagree with each other on issues they are amazingly congruent with each other in principles and the means to the ends they seek.

It’s Good Friday in the West and the news on the radio this morning began with “In the Philipines the event is marked by people nailing themselves to crosses and flogging themselves…” or some such twist.

For the most part I am appalled at media’s coverage of religion. There are few reporters willing to do the leg work to go beyond the stereotypes and many who seem to approach the topic the same way a child approaches a plate of brussel sprouts. The complaints, especially from the religiously observant, about bias and incompetence in the media regarding religion are mostly true.

This story is an example of that, although the ABC radio journalist did mention after the fact that the Catholic Church frowns on the practice of self crucifixion. What was important was not how many millions around the world were commemorating the death of Jesus but rather what kind of bloody freak show they could dig up combining both an attempt to snare the gullible into listening while also conveying contempt for Christianity. If you have the patience don’t be suprised if a story like this leads the news next year as well.

That kind of shoddy work is why I almost always start my day with a quick peek at www.getreligion.org , perhaps the single best www site out there examining the way the media covers, or fails to cover, religious news. GetReligion asks the important questions and evaluates the data in a professional and thoroughgoing way and especially now in the Lenten season when mainstream media outlets deliberately seek out controversy, sideshows, and heretics to cover it can be a most valuable place to get some focus.