We had some family over this past week and their dog ate through the 50 feet or so of cable that went up from my basement to the upstairs and the DSL modem. Time to go wireless and after a few tries, okay more than a few, I’m up and running with my own wireless network in my house. And I remember when someone who had a 14.4 modem thought they had the world by the tail!

Anyway this should be just about the busiest week of my life, so much to do and His Grace Bishop MARK coming on Friday. I’ll be out of circulation for most of this week and blogging on vacation for next, so say a few prayers for us all and I’ll see you on the other side of this week.

Today marks a year and a day since my brother Paul died suddenly while on a business trip in California. And as I type I think.

I’m amazed at how quickly a year goes by these days. I know time is a constant but as I get older it seems to be picking up steam and sometimes I feel like I’m riding a comet through space. The Psalmist’s passages about the temporary nature of human life in the greater expanse of eternity become more real as each day passes.

I’ve seen again the resiliency that faith creates in a person. In the larger scope of things I suppose my brother’s death was just one of who knows how many that occurred that day, just as mine will be. But to those who knew him and cared for him it was like fate sucker punched them and yet those closest to Paul still endure. Faith makes a person resilient, able to flex in the winds of time by virtue of being rooted in something larger. It handles the larger questions of life not so much with answers but rather assurance and hope.

And my faith has not died. To this day I have no answer as why this all happened. There is no logic, no sense, no heavenly vision in which all is explained. I will probably never know anything concrete about this while I still have breath. Yet I’m not angry with God, perplexed sometimes maybe, but not angry for all of this. Perhaps if it had been my wife who passed I would be, I don’t know and there is a certain comfort in whatever distance we have, no matter how small, from hard events. But somewhere inside there is a still and calm place that remains secure in this storm.

My sadness now is mostly not for me but for a future that will be remarkably different and less because of Paul’s passing. Every future wedding, children, events, gatherings, anniversaries, all of it will be a kind of mourning. We”ll say, “If only Paul were here…” or “If only Paul had seen this…” That will be sad but I suppose in a way those yet to be spoken words will also mean that he still matters, is still part of the equation, still loved, and still with us in some way.

A year and a day, oh my!

I took a look at the date of the last post and realized I haven’t done any writing for nearly two weeks. What can I say? I’ve been busy. My boss retired in early August and left me with a job and a half and our Bishop is set to come in two weeks. I hope that the folks who regularly visit here won’t have forgotten about me. Hello? Still there?

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Today the sky was sunny and the temperature about 69 degrees Fahrenheit. Just about a perfect day. The road back north was smooth and the journey uneventful. I think being in the hills and valleys somehow makes the drive more interesting even if you’ve done it literally over a hundred times. I’ve never had a similar experience when I’ve driven through the prairie country. In a few weeks the leaves will begin to change and the drive will become even more pleasant.

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I suspect the next few weeks will be about studying and being very busy at work. Study because every time a Bishop comes everything gets complicated and the choreography, if you will, becomes more complex. Busy because even though the hell month of covering two buildings will officially end tomorrow when the new boss arrives there are still a lot of things that need to be done until she gets up to speed.

In that same vein getting a new boss is sort of like getting your first college roommate. You hope they’re nice, don’t snore, and are reasonably clean. I met her for about 20 seconds when she toured our campus for her second interview and now she and I will be in the same office figuring out how to make it all work out. Hope for the best, do what you can, make it work.

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Oh the joy of being able to sleep with open windows! September is Minnesota’s way of apologizing for the cruddy weather that’s the norm around here. Every state has some part of the weather they do well. Kansas, for example is very hot and dry in the summer with temperatures that often go into the triple digits, but fall is warm and long and spring early. Minnesota only has September and for the rest of the year its too something or another.

A lot of Minnesotans take vacations and get married in September because its the basic window of opportunity climate wise and my wife and I plan to do the same just before October, not get married (although we actually DID get married in September), but take a vacation. In a few weeks I’ll be writing from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where some of the best autumn colors in this neck of the woods can be found even if hardly anyone actually lives there all year round.

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And thank you to all the visitors who’ve kept coming back even when I was tied up.

I was reading an article today from somewhere, probably a link at Relapsed Catholic (an interesting site for social commentary from Canada but like most social comment sites long on critique and short on solutions) and a question from one of the articles popped into my mind.

Why do we let everyone else tell us how to be Christian? I mean activists of all kinds who would fight tooth and nail for the right to be exactly who they claim to be and demand accommodation from the larger culture seem to have no problem demanding that Christians act in whatever way they determine is “christian” even if it has nothing to do with actual Christianity.

You’ve heard it before. “If you were really a Christian you wouldn’t be so judgemental..” (which usually means you should shut up and not say anything about whatever it is they’re doing). To which most Christians seem to say “You’re right, I should be quiet because after all what I believe is private and personal and so on and so on…” Doesn’t anyone ever pause a second and say “Hey, you want me to keep my faith, my ideas, my lifestyle private and personal but you have no problem at all with shouting everything you think and do from every street corner and working hard to enforce your life on me and the whole world and besides all that you have the chutzpah to tell me what it means to be a Christian?”

It just seems odd that we let folks who don’t like us, don’t know about us, or sometimes are very hostile to us define how it is that we should be “christian”. No, we don’t have to be a pain in the posterior but at the same time we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of either. The life that is offered in Christianity is good and right and healthy and makes things better for people and for societies that embrace its ideals. And we have every right to say “You know what, I’m not going to let you tell me how I have to be a Christian. I’m not going to give you the power to define my faith for me or tell me how I should act in the world because, quite frankly, you have no interest in my being a better Christian at all, you just want me to accommodate whatever it is you’re up to and you hope you can shame or silence me.”

It’s called back bone folks.

A man went to a Green Bay Packer football game with a friend and noticed that the seat next to him was empty, a rare things since games are usually sold out years in advance. He asked the person on the other side of the empty seat why no one was there. He said the seat had been his wife’s but she passed away. The man, feeling a sense of pity, asked “Isn’t there any one else you know who could go to the game with you?” “No”, he said, “They’re all at the funeral.”

That one is for my uncle who postponed his wedding date to make the Packer game…

There are more Christian contemporary artists out there then you can shake a stick at and yet the man who pulled the load, endured the harsh critique of unthinking minds, and tried to reach people for Jesus by using music they would listen to is still at 60 (?) the best…

Thanks Larry.

From time to time one hears in Orthodox circles that dreaded word “convert”. Usually its used an adjective to describe a person in the Church for example “So and so is a convert Priest…”

In some ways its sad the whole idea of people coming in to Orthodoxy by conversion is still so unusual in many places that a term has come to be used to describe those who do. It’s not unlike a scientist naming a new species. Yet I’ve never heard, for example, someone described as a “convert” to the Assembly of God, or a Baptist Church. While people in those communities and others like them are sometimes referred to as a “former” this or that I believe the lack of the word “convert” comes from the understanding that someone coming from the outside into a community of faith is normal operating procedure and so there is no need to use a special adjective to describe them.

Regardless, two things need to be said.

First, all Orthodox are converts. Having generations of family within the Church is a blessing but it means nothing for salvation if the person does not themselves embrace the faith. There are no grandparents in Orthodoxy, no special privileges based on heritage, and no guarantees that come with simply being part of a family or culture with a long history in Orthodoxy. Each person must believe. Each person must work out their salvation. No extra credit is given for simply being born into an Orthodox family whether that family has been Orthodox for centuries or months.

Second, when people come in to Orthodoxy from wherever they originate they are real Orthodox, as Orthodox as anyone who’s family has been in the faith for centuries. There is no two tiered system based on longevity or ethnicity. Faithfulness matters. Longevity helps because it gives time to develop faithfulness, but it carries no value in itself and ethnicity can be valuable in the sense that a person lives with the advantages of Orthodox culture but without true faith it means nothing.

Some day, I hope, the word “convert” to describe certain people coming into Orthodoxy will simply fade away. One day we’ll realize that Orthodoxy is a faith, a way of life and transcends all cultures, a universal thing possessed by all who embrace it and not limited to any group or nation, in fact it is the one lasting nation and people, the Kingdom of God. One day we’ll return to our original missionary vision and see people coming into the Faith as the most normal of things, as normal as a tin of warm baklava. Some day no one will stare when new people walk in our door or find their way home in our parishes.

Until then we have this teaching moment, a window into the truth of our Faith in these matters thrown open by those who come in to our Parishes seeking that very faith and by doing so help us to grow in ours as well.

After a long period of hot, dry, weather the rains have come, several showers and then a whole weekend of near constant rain.

Driving down Highway 61 in the early hours of the morning I was just south of Rollingstone, Minnesota and headed towards Winona when firefighters and their equipment filled the southbound lanes. No one was getting through. Nearly a foot of rain coursing through the steep valleys had rendered many roads impassible and towns like Stockton and Minnesota City were flooded.

Seeking an alternate route I drove through Rollingstone to Altura and then south, essentially attempting a loop around the flooded area. Traveling on Winona County highway 33 I came up over a hill and discovered the road below flooded with a torrent of water the color of coffee with cream, depth unknown, and cascading into the valley like a small water fall. Back in Altura they told me there was no place to go, the roads were closed.

I decided to head back towards Highway 61 and hopefully go north to Wabasha and then cross over and travel down the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River to LaCrosse. A stop again in Rollingstone confirmed, though, that a small road, Winona County 25, was still open. Steep and winding it had not yet been flooded and following it I could make it south to Interstate 90 and then east to LaCrosse. My car, which whatever flaws it may have is a champion in foul weather, climbed the winding route out of the coulee to the top of the bluff. Police in Lewiston just north of the Interstate guided us through a a road still under construction and then on to the highway.

Traveling along the Interstate through the rain and fog I could see the trees in the ditch. Trees have this amazing ability to cling to the sides of bluffs at times sticking out nearly horizontally. But the constant rain had loosened their grip on the thin soil and once loosened gravity did its worked and took them, and any stone they held in place, to the side of the road. They really mean it when they put “Beware of fallen rock” signs on this stretch of the road.

Arriving in LaCrosse behind schedule I discovered the power was out, but the people still came and we served the Liturgy “old school” just candles and no way to heat the water. The fervor of faith was in our hearts. With Liturgy completed I returned on the Wisconsin side crossing over to Wabasha in Minnesota and on to home. For my part all was well but at least four people had died, washed away in their cars.

And its still raining.

Another good reason to visit Jihad Watch, perhap the best site on the net for news and analysis of the ongoing efforts of some Muslims and Muslim groups to establish, by many means, a global Islamic culture. Jihad Watch is probably the only place where you can get news from around the world on this topic, links to resources, and scholarly analysis.

There is a caveat, of course. Comments are often unmoderated (there are so many and it would be impossible to handle them all) so there are folks who really are “____ the towelhead” types and they should be ignored not only for their factual ignorance, (the majority of Muslims are not Arabs and not all Arabs are Muslims), but also for their attitude which is not Christian. We are called, as Christians, to pray even for those people who would violently challenge us and perhaps condemn us to life as second class human beings and racism or hate denigrates who we should be.

That being said the site is a real eye opener and a treasure house of much needed information that has often not been found in the mainstream media for many reasons. We need to face the threat of an armed and militant Islam with knowledge, wisdom, and a commitment to our values and this site gives us not simply news but also scholarly insight into the history and teachings of Islam that is sorely needed.

Yesterday as I concelebrated the Divine Liturgy at St. George Church I also marked the second year anniversary of my ordination as an Orthodox Priest.

In one way its not important at all. It’s not that the grace of being a Priest is unimportant but rather that I was not a person who absolutely, positively, had to be a Priest and would hold my breath and turn blue if it didn’t happen. The truth is that I was very happy as a Deacon and if tomorrow my Bishop chose to laicize me I would simply go back to my local Orthodox church as a layman and find a way to serve. Being a Priest is a great gift but it was never a necessary thing for me to serve or minister. If for some reason I couldn’t have or chose not to be a Priest I would have just done something else so in that sense its not that important.

The truth is that being a Priest is more about having tools to serve in a way that I couldn’t without those graces. That’s what makes the difference. Grace has been given to me that I can, in fact that I must, share and so I can, for example, travel to Fargo, North Dakota and baptize and go to LaCrosse to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in ways that I couldn’t as a layman or even a Deacon. Whatever I’ve been given is so it can be shared and if, for lack of a better term “more” is given then the potential for service expands. While that makes it sound like I view the whole thing in a sort of utilitarian way it would be good to read between the lines and know that to serve requires a certain sense of passion for it all and that flame still flickers inside even on the days when I am most tired and the road wears long. I believe that what I’ve been given matters and that often makes all the difference.

That being said the hardest thing about being a Priest is internal. The calling is so high and I am very aware of the myriad of ways that I don’t measure up. People say nice things about me and kiss my hand but many times I think “If they only knew…” No I haven’t killed anyone or run off with the choir director but to be in the presence of holy things is like shining a huge flashlight into every dark corner of my soul, the places where the dirt gets swept just out of sight of most people. I cannot claim blissful ignorance and I know how far I have to go. That is disconcerting.

The best things about being a Priest are the moments that touch your soul. Standing in the presence of holy things can be powerfully convicting but at the same time there are moments of great peace and heavenly calm in the beauty of the liturgy. There are, too, those unscripted moments of interaction with people in which they minister to you and express their gratitude for what you have shared with them. A few days ago I was speaking with a parishioner and they told me how they were making the letters for our outside sign. I said “If you want why not just buy the letters commercially” but they said that when they make the letters by hand (and this person is skilled in craftwork) they pray for me. I can go for days sustained only by words like those.

It’s good, too, to see those moments when people “get it” and start to make sense of things or themselves or the world. I believe that Jesus is who He said He was and that he offers the only real sanity and salvation in the world. I believe that people will not just be fit for heaven by encountering Him but also live a better life in the present. When they see that, when they understand that and the “lights go on” it makes the hours and travel and such worth every bit of it. The world can be crazy and dark but the light is never overpowered by the night, never, not now or ever,

Sometimes I wish I’d get a phone call from the Bishop saying “Fr John, I’ve decided to return you to the Diaconate…” But that’s mostly just my fatigue coming out, my body and soul saying I need a vacation (and one is coming in late September). On the whole its been a good thing and I’m glad that I circled the altar even as I am amazed at how quickly time has passed. I’m grateful for the prayers that have been offered on my behalf and the patience that people have shown me as I learn my craft and perfect my calling. I look forward to the day when my travels end even as I am convinced that they were and are what is needed for my parish to become what God would have it to be. The vestments still sometimes seem to weigh on my shoulders like a ton of bricks but my heart is often light. One step at a time I’ll just keep walking…