For those of you in the United States this isn’t big news but there are some who browse this site from other places and so you should know that summer here is about the time between Memorial Day in the end of May and Labor Day in the beginning of September.

I know that officially summer starts and ends later than those dates but between those dates is vacation time and people scatter to the winds on various trips and then reemerge in early September. It’s a kind of curious migration.

Churchwise we usually expect the weekend of Labor Day, this past weekend, to be a time of small numbers at church as people get in thier last fling. Ironically if a church is in a vacation area Labor Day weekend marks the last Sunday of good attendance as the vacationers head back to the city and only the locals are around until sometime next May.

Regardless, there was a good number for our little parish on Sunday, almost full, and the choir sang with a certain vigor and even a few new people came to visit. Not bad for a Labor Day weekend Sunday when it normally looks like aliens came from outer space and abducted your parishoners.

The older I get the less I know truly about they whys and wherefores of people. But in a world where people don’t always understand who you are and why you do what you do a good crowd on weekend when it isn’t supposed to happen is like cool water in the desert for a Priest.

Don’t ask why. Just accept.

An article from the UK via the Curt Jester on the debate about whether there is a part of your brain hard wired for God. This time they used Nuns for the test…

BTW one should drop in on the Curt Jester every now and then. It’s a good read.

One year and change into Priestly life and one thing is certain. It’s all about war.

If you want to be a Priest because you crave comfort or appreciation or status or power forget it, there’s not enough there to make it worthwhile. You’re at war, you’re a soldier, and there’s no place to rest from the battle.

Frankly I don’t recall a year that has been worse for war in my thoughts, war in my soul, war in my body, and spiritual assaults then in this time. The power aligned against any who wish to serve God is formidable, cunning, and relentless and any lull in the action has nothing to do with success and everything to do with your enemy regrouping for another round.

And some blows I can withstand but I also fall more than I should, more than I wish, and always by my own hand.

Every Sunday I stand before an altar I do not deserve attempting to lead a liturgy I am unworthy to partake in and speak messages that spring not from my standing but from my own need. And deep inside I know who I am and how far away I am from being what I am supposed to be and the miles yet to travel.

It’s all about war from the time the chrism hits your forehead to the time they put sand and oil on you in the casket. Your enemy, damned as they are, has nothing to lose and everything to gain each time you struggle, each time your faith withers, each time your actions betray your words or your heart.

I’m beginning to understand why great saints who struggled long and hard in the faith had no fear of death.

And I’m just beginning to understand the nature of this fight and why its important to stand even if your heart is pounding, your voice shaking, and everything inside of you says “run”.

Listening to “Relevant Radio” (a local Catholic Radio station) yesterday on the way home I rediscovered an important truth.

I don’t know what the future will bring. Are these the last days? I don’t know. If the Apostles didn’t know then you don’t know either.

But if they are there should be joy, not at the troubles of the world because they are a call to action to God’s people to reach out and serve and heal and proclaim and work, but rather on the return of the one who loves us and the world and desires that all things be made new.

When I was a child the end of time was often presented in dark and foreboding terms, a eschatalogical hurricane of sorts and our best hope was to be “raptured” out of it all before the storm hit with its full fury. The second coming of Christ was even used as a tool of evangelism, get saved so you can get out before everything hits the fan.

But the biblical images, as stark as they are about the end of time, also speak to the faithful of bridegrooms coming for the bride they love and birth pains before the arrival of life renewed, the return of heaven to earth and earth to heaven, a creation stopped from its groaning, and a great and holy feast in creation transformed.

Should there not be some joy in that?

Should we not also see that as well as the sad state of the world?

I’m trying, Lord knows I’m trying.

Some wisdom from the “Paradosis” blog and St. Isaac

I say, that those who are suffering in hell, are suffering in being scourged by love…. It is totally false to think that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is a child of the knowledge of truth, and is unquestionably given commonly to all. But love’s power acts in two ways: it torments sinners, while at the same time it delights those who have lived in accord with it.

(Homily 84 of Saint Isaac the Syrian)

Was listening to a radio show on the way to work this morning the focus of which was the current administration’s failure to put the threat of Islamic Fascism into concrete concepts that ordinary citizens would understand.

Just a thought on that btw. How about just saying that if Osama Bin Laden and the nut case in Iran win there WILL BE NO BEER!

Anyway, whatever the failings of the government in this matter there is a larger failing in the Church. We have simply not explained our faith and why it matters in such a way that people know, in real terms, what the faith is and how it contributes to our well being as a culture and by inference what could be lost if it disappears.

There are millions of people out there, especially in the “West” who are totally ignorant about Christianity and how it has changed their lives and what benefits have come from Christian culture. They have, as well, no ability to critically distinguish between faiths and observe the impact of the faith in the life of a society. That is why they are basically clueless about the potential impact of the ascendancy this dark vision of Islam is having on the cultures where it holds sway (like Saudi Arabia and Iran) and those it threatens (the epidemic of honor killings and rapes in Europe).

The number of clueless Orthodox is especially disturbing. Coming in to Orthodoxy it was revealing to see the significant biblical illiteracy and profound lack of understanding among so many who were raised in the faith. I literally had young people who had no idea where the book of Genesis was in the Bible in one class and others who had lived in Orthodoxy for decades who had no idea at all why we made the sign of the cross as we do. These people can be easy pickings for cults, secularism, and militant faiths promising peace and order at the cost of permanent discrimination.

Whatever the government does the Church itself must see the rise of Fascist Islam in the West and around the world as a clarion call to reteach those within her walls and explain to those without the nature, value, tenets, and worldview of the Faith. We should have been doing it yesterday.

Here

Now ask yourself “Who would you rather have as your Master?”

Perhaps the best thing about the resurgence of Islam is that people all over the world will get the chance to compare the life and teachings of Jesus and Mohammed and make their choices.

A link from the Barna organization (the Barna Update is something every serious Pastor should have) reinforcing what many already knew…the events of 9/11 have had no lasting affect on spiritual life in America.

Sadly we’re probably too warped by the materialist illusions of American life for something like SINGLE 9/11 to have lasting affect.

I wish that weren’t true.

The past couple of days have been slow and tired.

Although I’m normally immune to large amounts of traveling fatigue the transistion between Sunday and Monday was particularly hard this time, sort of like having the hangover without the party. I guess its all about pacing yourself and seven day work weeks stacked together require some pacing.

But we’re making headway.

This past Parish Festival was, by God’s grace, the best ever and even though I have real problems with the idea of using the community to pay our bills for the time this is a necessity and the money is being banked and we’re on our way to breaking free from an old way of doing business. The people worked hard for the love of thier small parish and our future is one giant step closer.

So if they keep on working as hard as they are and being as generous as they have been then I will be more than happy to endure a few bleary Monday mornings. Just take my advice and buy stock in the company that makes SoBe Energy drinks because I’m single handedly keeping them in business.

Oh, and make sure you tithe on the dividend check!

Here’s a link from the old days in the Western Rite. An article I wrote entitled “Some Advice to Enquirers” which found its way to a Western Rite Orthodox magazine based in St. Petroc’s Monastery in New Zealand.

Ain’t the WWW grand?