His faith was the faith of my childhood, direct, exposited by the verse, and with a kind of severity born of true love. And he did, with all his strengths and weaknesses speak, as he saw it, truth to power for the sake of saving the culture from its own darkness. Because of this he was often pilloried by those who desire in the occasional failings of those seeking righteousness a justification for their own narcissism. People will always disagree on tactics and terms yet this Priest cannot help but at least admire the raw courage it took to be Rev. Jerry Falwell and endure the kind of abuse that comes to those who speak when others are silent from fear or cowering under the need for approval. I hope that this, at least, will be rewarded.

There is a garden I can see through my office window. And while my body is inside my heart is often out there among the living green.

Originally it had been a standard suburban sort of thing with everything in place and hedges to cover where planning had not. It made sense on the architectural drawing but without care and without color it became a kind of designed frenzy and unpleasant to see. Nature has a kind of beauty but not everything natural is automatically beautiful.

Over the years when time allowed and the budget could be nipped and tucked I, and a handful of others, have planted new and colorful, weeded that which existed, and ruthlessly removed the faded and dying. All some gardens need is a hand to pluck weeds and the willingness to prune for the long term. And bit by bit it has become a more habitable place with those who live here now stepping out of thier apartment coccoons and spending time among the flowers.

This is a very noisy world, a place where everything shouts with ear drum breaking effect and there are only a few places where I can find rest and quiet. On my kayak as the sun sets over the lake. On the front porch with my mandolin. In the timeless flow of the Liturgy. And in my gardens.

I was born for Eden, we all were, and destined for now to live outside its gates. Some days everything seems shadows and screaming. But once in a while the fearsome angel stands aside and I can get a glimpse of what could have been, just outside my office window, and I know everything is going to be alright.

Here is a link to the obituary of Dr. Robert Webber who served as a Professor during my time at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. It was his love for things ancient and Christian that planted the seeds of my journey to Orthodoxy.

May his memory be eternal!

A Western Rite in Orthodoxy? Absolutely!

Those who know me personally know I came in to Orthodoxy via the Western Rite a small but significant part of the Antiochian Orthodox Patriarchate and a presence in ROCOR as well. Completely canonically Orthodox, the Western Rite celebrates this faith with the traditional liturgies and ethos of the West, a recovery of those Rites to thier home in the undivided Church. The Western Rite is, like Byzantine Orthodoxy, beautiful, and speaks to the heart, the culture, and the soul of those who have been shaped by Western European culture.

Many, perhaps most in Orthodoxy do not know the Western Rite even exists and some, in a fit of cultural bigotry masked in theological language, have challenged its validity. ( Both our Patriarch and Metropolitan have continued the approval of the Western Rite granted in 1958 in Antioch and in 1870 by the Holy Synod of Moscow). But for those who have found it it has been a well spring of joy and a pearl of great price worthy of sometimes deep sacrifice. Although I serve an Eastern Rite parish there will always be a place in my heart for the Western Rite and before I came to St. Elias we had hoped, alas in vain due to circumstances beyond our control, to form a Western Rite parish in the Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota area.

If you have the least bit of curiousity about the Western Rite in the Antiochian Archdiocese here is a blog you must read. From there you can explore the Orthodoxy who’s heart is ancient and whose voice sings with Gregorian chant! Check it out!

Just a caveat, though, as you search. Please note that just like googling “Eastern Orthodox” will get results ranging from the sublime to the bizarre doing the same for “Western Rite Orthodox” will also be a mixed bag. There are many who use the term “Western Rite Orthodox” for narrow sectarian groups or very bizarre groups who love to add titles to themselves and play church. Only the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese and the small Western Rite presence in ROCOR are actually Orthodox. The rest, despite the icons, beards, and robes, are whatever they are and rarely what they claim to be.

Jesus has already returned, in a reincarnated form of course, according to the followers of this man . But until he dies and comes back again after three days I think I’ll take a pass.

The older I get the more I am convinced that Christianity is the only true counter culture.

I miss my brother tonight. I hope he misses me as well.

It was his picture that brought this all to mind, a slight smile with his hand on his chin that graced the cover of his funeral service bulletin. It was a photo from better times yet it called to mind the worst time of all, the sucker punch of a phone call that told me he had died.

Too soon, too young, too much left to do, none of it made sense. It still doesn’t. Probably never will. The medical facts wash right over me. The larger meaning eludes me. A bitter part of me could write a list of all kinds of people who should have died instead of Paul. Go figure.

And although I’m very sure it happened it all seems still to be unreal to me. My brain knows it but everything else is numb. I’m suspended in some kind of emotional, intellectual, and spiritual stasis. All I can do is ponder the mystery with a complete silence, the kind that comes with having the wind knocked out of you.

Yet remarkably my faith hasn’t gone away. I am totally and utterly without explanation for what happened and at a loss for any answer and yet somehow I believe. I suppose it could be a delusion, the only medicine for a sickness like this. I have trouble seeing it as some level of my maturity because I know myself better then that. Perhaps God is just holding me far enough away from the reality of things to keep my soul from shattering like a glass thrown in an angry fight.

No reasons for it all on the horizon I am left with the simple fact of his absence. Admittedly our lives took very different courses as adults and so we weren’t with each other day in and out like many friends and some brothers, yet he mattered to me in that unique way only explained by the connection of family, of the similar flesh, of the shared struggle to life, of the soulishness shaped in a common womb. And when he died a part of me died as well because of it.

So tonight I see his picture and it all comes to mind again. I pray for him in the small hours of the night when I’m too restless to sleep and hope he prays for me too as I crawl along through this world, my journey still incomplete. For some reason all this had to be and I wish I had some clue because if I did I’m sure I wouldn’t feel quite as alone as I do right now.

Made it back from Branson, Missouri, last night and all is reasonably well.

Some time last fall we promised my mother in law that we would take her to Branson for a birthday gift and we knew she liked Branson. I like it too, not because I’m necessarily a fan of a city where “Hee Haw” is a 24/7 way of life, but rather because the Ozarks have a kind of charm and natural beauty that feels like a lonesome banjo sounds.

But Branson is definitely another world. If Las Vegas is America’s raunchy old uncle Branson is our spinster aunt, neatly groomed, sitting on her front porch with a Bible in her lap and an old photo of her brother who died in WW2 over the mantlepiece. Branson is up, clean, a perpetual Bible camp with very good performers, the best sound and light systems available, and a kind of patriotism that would make a President blush.

Branson is politically the reddest area in the United States and culturally the most white. Somewhere there must be someone drinking or smoking or cussing or doing something bad with thier neighbor’s wife but if they are they’ve found a way to keep it all under wraps. You can leave your car open in Branson and your 80 plus mother in law has nothing to fear except the people trying to sell timeshares. I’ve been there twice and have yet to see a bar.

But lest one thinks this is all about good attitudes it should also be known that Branson is a huge apparatus designed to separate visitors from their money in return for a few days of being in a place where Jesus matters, America is always good, and Veterans get a standing ovation at the end of every show. There is big business behind the comedians with buck teeth, the skinny polished girl singers, and the endless stores. But if Las Vegas leaves you feeling broke and whored out at least Branson takes your money and leaves you with some hope.

There’s one other side benefit, if you’re in the 40’s Branson will make you feel positively young. I’m 46 and I can assure you I was the kid on the block, the young man in a sea of gray heads. Every one my age was working somewhere and my wife and I may have been the only tourists in town without an AARP card.

And the music, the music is really good. In a world where everything is synthesized, rapped out, and karaoked there are people in Branson who can really play thier instruments and if you have a taste for bluegrass or country some of the best working pickers around. Top tier musicians tired of the road often retreat to Branson to ply thier craft in a place where they can go home at night so don’t try getting a job here unless you can really sing or play or dance or tell a joke. The image is hokey but the show is all business and when the sidemen get set loose to show thier stuff the music is glorious.

That all being said I don’t know when or if I’ll be back. At a two show a day clip I’m kind of hillbillied out at the moment and four days was enough. It was good to be there, especially with my mother in law but I like home too and I could use a little rest.