via Byzantine, Texas. Worth reading.
St. John the Forerunner…
is a small church in rural Wisconsin, the oldest Orthodox parish in the state and if no one told you where it was you’d probably not find it. Still there was a joy there this morning, the joy of people who come from miles away to worship and keep this venerable parish alive.
Yes, there are fancy parishes all over the large cities, parishes with every convenience. Yet, in Huron, Wisconsin, truly a wide spot in the road, it costs something to attend liturgy. Mileage, time, convenience. it all adds up. The people who were there this morning had to want to be there. God knows the reasons but there was effort involved.
I think God remembers such things and perhaps one day this tiny parish will flourish again, so full of people, as one of the regulars said, that they worried about the choir loft collapsing under their weight. Until that day the bell rings, everyone who can tries to sing, and God is glorified in this little temple where the farms start to give way to the northern forests.
May all the good that comes from God be with them. I hope to be back some day.
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More Wise Words…
“The whole concept of sanity in a society where spiritual values have lost their meaning is itself meaningless…” – Thomas Merton
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Researchers are looking…
for a genetic cause relating to the recent school shooting in Connecticut. They will examine the DNA of the gunman to see if there is any abnormality. Who knows if they find some sort of illness or psychological problem related to a genetic cause? Yet, in the end, the problem is deeper than just a gene or two out of place. We understand, as Christians, that there is a primal mortality at work in us, a twisting and distortion of who we were meant to be beyond our genetics. It would be good to explore the deepest parts of our physicality to see if there is the potential to heal what is broken. Yet the basic human abnormality will always be beyond the care of science.
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A Thought for the Way…
Although it may appear outwardly that we make our way toward God,
the joyful and wonderful truth is that it is God who comes to us….
Matthew the Poor
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To Cut Corners…
shade truths, round off the challenging edges, and live without thought of eternity is most always, in the short term, easier than following the higher calling. Yet there is a quality of being alive that belongs only to those who take a step away from easy compromise. The higher calling can be a very narrow road, traveled only by a few. Those few, however, seek and find life.
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Christianity Close to Extinction…
in the Middle East?
The “lion’s share” of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries where Islam is the dominant faith, the report says, quoting estimates that between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the region or been killed in the past century.
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Acoustic Hot Tuna…
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There are some things…
that will not be explained. This is a difficult thing because no matter how old we get there is part of us that remains a child asking “Why?” When the answers we want don’t come in the way we want them there is a choice between despair and leaning into the depths of God’s mercy and love. I ponder, sometimes, whether God allows unanswered questions for the greater good of discovering these depths. Sometimes it seems that this is all there is.
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Third Prayer by the Lake…
Are there days gone by, O man, to which you would wish to return? They all attracted you like silk, and now remain behind you like a cobweb. Like honey they greeted you, like stench you bade them farewell. All were totally filled with illusion. See how all the pools of water in the moonlight resemble mirrors; and how all the days that were lit up with your levity resemble mirrors. But as you stepped from one day to the next, the false mirrors cracked like thin ice, and you waded through the water and mud. Can a day that has a morning and an evening as doorways be a day?
O luminous Lord, my soul is burdened with illusions and longs for one day—for the day without doorways, the day from which my soul has departed and sunk into the shifting shadows—for Your day, which I used to call my day, when I was one with You. Is there any happiness gone by, O man, to which you would wish to return?
Of two morsels of the same sweetness the second is the more trite. You would turn your head away in boredom from yesterday’s happiness, if it were set out on today’s table.Moments of happiness are given to you only in order to leave you longing for true happiness in the bosom of the ever happy Lord; and ages of unhappiness are given to you, to waken you out of the drowsy dream of illusions. O Lord, Lord, my only happiness, will You provide shelter for Your injured pilgrim? O Lord, my ageless youth, my eyes shall bathe in You and shine more radiantly than the sun. You carefully collect the tears of the righteous, and with them You rejuvenate worlds.
