Make no mistake

People build their lives on a foundation of certainties. They couldn’t live them any other way. Certainties are things they can count on to be there day after day, dependably. They know for sure about these things because over a long period of time, they’ve found them to be true.

Some of these certainties are natural. The sun rises every morning. Their hearts can be depended on to keep beating. They are locked into relationships with family and co-workers. Their cars will probably start up in the morning so they can go to jobs that they will probably still have.

Again, what they consider certainties are based on what they have observed and experienced to be true. As it is with the details of daily life, so it is with matters that have a greater scope, a more enduring nature. These are certainties about one’s self and about others that matter.

Sometimes I say things about myself and others that might seem excessively optimistic, even to the point of boasting, and to many these seem to be beyond certainty. They think in their hearts, ‘How can he say that? Only God can know such things. How can he be so sure of that?’

The truth is, I am no soothsayer, no prophet. Neither am I a man confident of his own virtue. As I see others fall around me, I know I can fall, and sometimes I do fall, yet I say of myself or others, ‘Unbreakable’ and ‘You can trust him. He is faithful. He has never disappointed me.’

Yet to me, these things I say are true. They are words of my testimony. They are the certainties I build my life on. Knowing and depending on them make it possible for me to live day in, day out, despite every challenge that comes against me, every obstacle that tries to block me.

But make no mistake. I know that I can count on myself and on these others whom I call brothers and friends, not only because I have observed their behavior over a long period of time (and sometimes not long) and can depend on them to be and act a certain way.

It is precisely because my confidence is not in myself or in these others, not in our strength or our love or our faithfulness, not in ours but in Christ’s, that I can live on a foundation of such certainty that even the threat of death, let alone lesser fears, cannot dislodge me, or us.

We are not play acting or giving lip service when we exclaim, ‘Not by us, Yahweh, not by us, by You alone is glory deserved! By Your love and Your faithfulness’ (Psalm 115). Brothers, we know whom we have believed in, and we know that it is He who gives us the power to stand, and His sure guarantee.

Ours is the Faithful and the True, the Living One. We know it is not by our own strength that we can be and do everything. It is only He, only He. Thank you, my friends, for sharing this confidence with me, and for walking with me, helping me to follow along behind the flock of His companions, walking behind Jesus.

Saving moments

Psalms for the 6th day were Psalms 30 to 34.

After getting home from work,
I read them and meditated on the meaning they've had for me these many a year. And I spoke them in prayer, and received back, as the Lord never fails me, He's the faithful one.

Hear, Yahweh, take pity on me;
Yahweh, help me! (Psalm 30:10)

Back in 1975, we were still on the trail of that elusive commodity, the "perfect" commune.

Chuck and Tish owned a half section of land on the western slope of a mountain outside of Harrisburg, Oregon, and another half section down in the valley. The upper section was organized as a commune called "Ahimsa" (Sanskrit for "non-violence"), and they had invited us to live there if we could make it work.
They were letting their friends build homes out in the wilds, and the commune was going to be very (as we say in Greek) idio-rhythmic. In other words, people did not share everything in common materially or spiritually. They only shared the land and each other's company. Everyone was expected to have their own income and build themselves a home at their own expense. The ethos of the commune was to be "spiritual", but in the New Age sense—all paths ultimately lead to God.

Before we moved down here, we visited Ahimsa in the spring of 1975. That's when I took the photos that illustrate this post. At that point, I was still a New Age spiritual seeker myself, though Anastasia was a "born again" Christian. We didn't go to church, though, because I had a problem with the hypocrisy I heard tell of. Our visit left us both with a positive impression of the commune, and so we packed up our transportable belongings in about 120 boxes and shipped them via Canadian Freightways to the Portland terminal. Our irreplaceables went into a car carrier that I built out of plywood and mounted to the top of my 1972 Pinto hatch-back. (In the end, we didn't join Ahimsa. Chuck and Tish ended up becoming Mormons. We became Christians. I don't know what became of the others at Ahimsa.)


We arrived in Corvallis the evening of Rosh Hashonah, September 5, 1975, and stayed with a young Jewish couple we had known in Edmonton, Debbie and Harold. (Next morning we drove to Salem with them for our first experience of synagogue worship.)

This is not going to be the story of how I smuggled my wife and child into the U.S., but rather how I found myself, on the Thursday morning of November 6, 1975, ready to meet the Lord.
(Let the reader understand: I'm not now talking about just any Lord.)
Let me cite a verse from the psalms for the 6th day…

Happy the man whose fault is forgiven,
whose sin is blotted out;
happy the man whom Yahweh
accuses of no guilt,
whose spirit is incapable of deceit!

All the time I kept silent, my bones were wasting away
with groans, day in, day out;
day and night Your hand
lay heavy on me;
my heart grew parched as stubble
in summer drought.

At last I admitted to You I had sinned;
no longer concealing my guilt,
I said, "I will go to Yahweh
and confess my fault."
And You, You have forgiven the wrong I did,
have pardoned my sin. (Psalm 32:1-5)

That morning I was at work, a rough sawyer in an old furniture mill in Albany. It was cold outside. The wind was blowing through the cracks in the barn-like plank walls. My fingers were freezing, even though I had gloves on. Behind me, a large planer was roaring. My off-bearer was shivering as he slid the scrap off the saw with one hand into a waste bin, while with the other guiding the good rips onto a cart.
I heard a voice inside my head, "Why do you resist Me…?"

I will instruct you, and teach you the way to go;
I will watch over you and be your advisor.
Do not be like senseless horse or mule
that need bit and bridle to curb their spirit
to let you get near them. (Psalm 32:8-9)

Quickly, I sensed this was not just my imagination. I waved my off-bearer a signal, "Go empty the wood box!" That would take him at least 15 minutes, maybe longer, because it meant dragging a heavy load of wood down to the boiler hut. "He's probably going to want to warm himself there," something in me quipped. As he hauled his heavy load away to be burned, another heavy load was going to be hauled away and burned, one only I and the Off-bearer could see.

You, who have seen my wretchedness,
and known the miseries of my soul,
have not handed me over to the enemy,
You have given my feet space and to spare. (Psalm 30:7b-8)

The talk began, slowly at first, then more heatedly. I argued with the voice. Sometimes I seemed to switch sides. I wanted to surrender, but then, I had investments. How could I give these up? Would I get something to replace them? What? How can you bargain with Him? What are you expecting? He's already told you everything, and you know it's all true.

The Word of Yahweh is integrity itself,
all He does is done faithfully;
He loves virtue and justice,
Yahweh's love fills the earth.

By the Word of Yahweh the heavens were made,
their whole array by the breath of His mouth… (Psalm 33:4-6)

My temperature was rising, in spite of the biting cold around me. With every last ounce of my will, my flesh resisted the voice, and I kept feeling hotter. "This can't be happening to me! You know I want to accept You, but I can't, I can't!" Finally, I asked Him to remove what was binding me.

Hear, Yahweh, take pity on me; Yahweh, help me! (Psalm 30:10)

That which I couldn't do of my own power, somehow He called forth from me. "All that I am, and all that I have, I surrender to You, Lord, to You, Jesus. I don't want anything now, nothing but what You want me to be and to have." This was the jist of what came tumbling out of my lips, along with sobs, because by now my face was a liquified mess. A coolness like a stream of icy water flowed over my head and then my body. I don't know what it was, but it pacified me. The planer with its attendee still roared behind me, none hearing or seeing what was happening to me, and me hearing and seeing nothing outside of me.

Every face turned to Him grows brighter
and is never ashamed.
A cry goes up from the poor man, and Yahweh hears,
and helps him in all his troubles.

The angel of Yahweh pitches camp
around those who fear Him; and He keeps them safe.
How good Yahweh is—only taste and see!
Happy the man who takes shelter in Him. (Psalm 34:5-8)

Something that can't be put into words really, yet I've tried on this and other occasions. This time I'm only hinting at it. What is this thing that happens to us? Once I wrote a post, Born again? When? in which I tried to recount what happened to me that morning. That's my testimony, or at least part of it, because the new life in Christ, the birth from above, is really an event in kairós time—though you can sometimes pinpoint it on a calendar, it really encompasses more than a moment. You can't look at it, you can't even remember it, as it really is, was and is to come, because it's hidden with the One who will give it back to you on the last Day.

Our soul awaits Yahweh,
He is our help and shield;
our hearts rejoice in Him,
we trust in His holy Name.

Yahweh, let Your love rest on us
as our hope has rested in You. (Psalm 33:20-22)

Because I am

There are two absolute uniques in my life, and many more that are not quite absolute, but almost.

Unique is the person of Jesus Christ, as the Son of God in the Holy Triad, as living Truth, Teacher, and Savior.

Unique is the Bible as the only (written) expression of the Word of God on earth.

These are my two absolute uniques, from which I cannot budge.

Of course, in a mystery, they are really One unique.

From the time of my adolescence, I was driven to find or make something that was unique, that was true, that could save me. Though I am Greek by faith and even by culture, my family is Polish on both sides, and at least nominally Roman Catholic. I am the only Orthodox member of it.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family with an obsessively religious mother (who nevertheless did not believe in the Catholic church and never attended until she did in her casket at death), and a philosophically leaning non-religious father. His mother tried to make a Catholic out of him, but his skepticism about churchly things was the result of being snagged by the ear and pulled out of a private pew at Saint Hedwig’s parish in Chicago by a priest. He made his mother join a different parish. He’d never set foot in that church again.

We had a bible in the house, a King James version in a dusty, beige cloth cover. The pages were yellow and brittle, the font in two columns too small to read, and the language too archaic to understand. I knew there was something special about this book, but I never saw anyone reading it, or even try to, until I picked it up and tried. Discouraged as a child, I picked it up later and started studying it when I entered high school. It was still mostly unintelligible, but by then I knew I had to have something unique and powerful that I could believe in. I worked my way through Genesis to Proverbs, then skipped over to the Gospels.

In the ninth grade, I began copying sayings from that bible that made sense to me into a notebook, numbered them, and began writing, or at least gathering, my first “scriptures.” At that point, I didn’t think of the bible as unique, but as one of many sources from which I could draw saving knowledge. This mistake came from the fact that my family stopped going to church when I was 8 years old, and from that point on, I was on my own, with whatever tidbits of Polish catholic piety I had absorbed. Truth seemed to be wherever I could find it. Church was a mysterious, dark, fragrant place in my memory.

Little by little the notebook grew, but after doing this for awhile, I gave it up. It was obvious to me that my “scripture” was just a notebook of ideals that I wasn’t able to live up to. I started delving into non-Christian religions and the occult, reading my way through the explosion of New Age literature that was emerging in the 1960’s. There wasn’t an area I didn’t explore. I even bought and read a paperback of the Satanic Bible by LaVey. “What trash!” I thought at the time. I never fell for it, but I was curious. Still, my older sister and my mother believed in the supernatural and E.S.P., and both claimed to have such gifts. I cautiously followed along, sometimes witnessing unexplainable things.

In college, I came into contact with Christian students and for the first time met people of my own age who believed in Jesus in a way I hadn’t encountered before. They seemed to think of Him as a unique person, one like no other. They also not only read the bible but had copies of it in modern English. I didn’t know such people or things existed. To me, Christ was a statue in my grandmother’s living room, His presence or protection over me was a plastic image of the Sacred Heart that had glow-in-the-dark rays coming out of it and hung on the wall above the light switch in my bedroom since I was a little boy. Of course, there was Blessed Mother, who was also a statue. The statues of Jesus and His Mother always had their hearts showing.

I still needed a guide, something that would save me, because now I knew that couldn’t be a person. In college and from reading New Age books, I had found out that Jesus was a good moral teacher, and that everybody was potentially, if not already, God. We were all just little gods trying to find our way back to being the big God. I couldn’t quite figure out what was to happen to us, though, when we got there. Would we really be merged into Him like a drop of water falls into the sea and disappears? Somehow, this thought seemed a bit too simple.

When you don’t recognize anything or anyone as unique,
my goodness, have you got a problem!


In college, and I won’t go into detail, I started writing again, and fadged up a book of “scriptures” far more original and sensational than my little notebook ever was. At the same time, though, I bought my first modern English bible, the New English Bible, and began reading it, starting with the Psalms. After a short time, I bought my first copy of the Jerusalem Bible, and that was the beginning of my conversion to Christ. Starting with the Old Testament, with Genesis, I met in literary form, a new Being, Yahweh, who began following me everywhere and making me see things in a new way. I was sure that He was a unique being, as well as a unique person. It wasn’t long before I was sure that the bible was also something unique.

I’ve given my testimony as to how I came to Christ in other places, so I won’t repeat it here, but my meditations this morning showed me all that I have just written in a flash, and how important, how crucial, it is to know that there are two uniques, Christ as the Only Begotten Son of God, and the Bible as the expression in human language of Who He is. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not leaving out God the Father, or God the Holy Spirit. When we speak of Jesus Christ being unique, we are also speaking of the Father and the Holy Spirit as well, since in essence, in being, the three are One, the Holy Triad. As Christ said, “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father,” and “I will send you another Comforter, who will tell you of Me.”

There, the two uniques, but what of a third? Well, to tell you the truth, there’s more than a third. There’s billions. Those uniques are you and me, and all our fellow creatures who have been created to know, to love and to praise God, as scripture says, “Let all that have breath, praise the Lord.” Made in the image and likeness of the One God, who is unique, more One than even a mathematical unity can express, how can we also, each of us, not be like our Maker? We also are unique. It is understanding this, that you and I are as unique as God is, and that Jesus Christ died for each of us as though we were the only man or woman on earth, that provides the answer for the question of our personal existence. Why are we here?

“You are here,” He responds, “because I am.”

I am with you

The world encounters Orthodox Christianity. People hear about it and become curious, or they see it happening somewhere and maybe they are startled, or even put off. It is not something that one can take in all in an eyeshot, not even really in a panorama, except as one takes in a beautiful photograph or painting. All that can be seen that way is very superficial and almost meaningless, except as beauty has meaning without needing proof.

When they get a little closer to Orthodoxy, they want to hurry up and classify it. They want to ask questions, “Is it Catholic, is it Protestant, is it an Eastern religion, what is it?” but they nearly always want to classify it as a religion. Oddly, sometimes even people within Orthodoxy want to do the same, because they have taken on so many of the world’s expectations of what is needed, what is important. If it can be called a religion, then it can be firmly rejected, or firmly (and fanatically) accepted, and there it is. It’s been identified, pigeonholed, and done. “Yeah, I know what Orthodoxy is.”

But Orthodox Christianity is not a religion, though many of its adherents think of it that way. Orthodoxy is nothing less than the daily proclamation of a profound and powerful mystery—the resurrection of Jesus Christ—and the opening to all mankind, in every place and at every moment of time, the possibility of true brotherhood, and of divine sonship. The life of the Holy Triad is open to us, taking away the purposelessness of life alone in a Godless universe.

Jesus Christ came to pitch His tent among us, not only in His incarnation, but by His life-giving death and resurrection. He is the One who had become dead, and is alive again. He is no mere historical figure to be studied and speculated about. He was, is and is to come, the single most active Person in the history of the human world. He is here now among us.
He is calling us at this very moment, not to religion, but to follow Him.

Who can refuse His call? and why would anyone want to?

ιδου εγω μεθ υμων ειμι
πασας τας ημερας
εως της συντελειας του αιωνος

Behold, I am with you,
every day,
unto the very end of time.
Matthew 28:20

He opens the tombs

When you hear that at that time the Lord freed the souls from hell and the regions of darkness and that He descended into hell and did an amazing work, do not think that this does not have any personal meaning for you.

Man, indeed, can readily accept the evil one. Death has its grip on the children of Adam and their thoughts are imprisoned in darkness. And when you hear mention made of tombs, do not at once think only of visible ones. For your heart is a tomb and a sepulcher. When the prince of evil and his angels have built their nest there and have built roads and highways on which the powers of satan walk about inside your mind and in your thoughts, then really, are you not a hell and a sepulcher and a tomb dead to God?

... But the Lord descends into the souls of those who seek Him. He goes into the depths of the hellish heart and there He commands death, saying, "Release those captive souls that seek after Me, those that you hold by force in bondage." He breaks through the heavy stones that cover the soul. He opens the tombs. He truly raises to life the dead person and leads that captive soul forth out of the dark prison.

Abba Makarios the Great

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Night driver

When I was a young dad with wife and four sons in tow, we used to travel every year, at least once, but sometimes several times, from Portland, Oregon, to Kelowna, British Columbia, usually for a vacation stay at Nana’s house (my mother-in-law) in the summer time, but occasionally even in late autumn with snow already on the roads.

Until my boys grew up, I was the only driver in the family; my wife never learned to drive. The trip was, with two or three rest stops, a twelve to fourteen hour drive each way. When the journey got a late start, it would be dark night near the end of it, and there was always the possibility that I could fall asleep at the wheel. Thank God, that never happened, not even close. But I had a method to keep myself awake on those long drives.

I would alternate the heater with the air conditioner, so that when I began to get drowsy, I’d change from one to the other. The passengers were usually by this time all asleep and didn’t notice or complain about what I was doing. When the heat was on and I got drowsy, I’d switch to the A/C, and when it got so cold in the car I was again beginning to fall asleep, I’d turn the heat on and point the vents at my face. Hot, then cold. Cold, then hot.

Not the heat, not the cold, were what mattered, were what I was all about, but getting my family and myself to our destination, that was the ticket. The alternative to a safe arrival was unthinkable, so whatever it took to get us there, that’s what I did. I think the application of scripture to our lives is something like the heat and the cold, alternating back and forth on our night journey, keeping us awake, so we reach our destination.

Even the Law of God, even the Sabbath, is not more important than the salvation of a single human soul, ‘for the Son of Man is master even of the Sabbath,’ and He has also given us the authority, His authority, to choose what is best, when, why, where and how, so that we reach the place of safety, and joy, that He has gone to prepare for us. The love of God is undoubted, it is His essence. His wrath is what we see when we look at Him without wanting Him.

And it was to want Him, that’s why He created us, so ‘Face could look upon face,’ because He first wanted us.

Righteous, justified by faith

God does not want those whom He will save, who seek His mercy, to be ignoramuses, unmanly, cowardly, or spiritually untested. It is a matter of divine inheritance stored up for experienced Christians. So He places temptations before us so that our obedience to His commandments may be demonstrated. His illumination is within us; knowledge of His will is taught by the Scriptures; furthermore, our conscience guides us like a compass. All of the above enlighten us in the face of temptations. But when evil prevails over our will, we do not obey His commandments.

We were created with free will, and free will cannot be controlled by others. As such, if we feared God, we would not fall into temptation. If we did not love ourselves more than God, we would not tend towards sin. But His goodness did not leave our falls without a rectifying remedy, whereby we return once again and a victory occurs in spite of our fall.

All who compel themselves to be saved, the Scriptures call righteous, justified by faith. God will not let them fall, for they are struggling properly. He will not let them be tempted beyond their strength when they are making every effort to be patient. But when we are cowardly and lukewarm, when we have a slothful will, this constitutes an occasion for a temptation beyond our strength.

Your grumbling is sinful; it is a result of self-love and unmanliness. Have patience in everything; thank God; blame your lukewarmness, and not God, Who was crucified for you and, consequently, must love you. Since He loves you, how can He let you fall into temptation? Seek forgiveness from Him, and secure yourself with patience.

Elder Ephraim of the Holy Mountain (Athos)  

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Acts of mercy

Even the dead sense and know the good deeds that are performed for them. Christians need not have any doubt in this. A good deed spreads through the heavenly world like an electrical current.

An imperial clerk, Magistrian, was sent by the emperor on an important errand. Along the way, Magistrian saw a poor dead man, completely naked. He was moved with pity, removed his shirt, dressed the dead man, and buried him honorably.

After a while, Magistrian had an unfortunate accident: he fell from his horse and broke his leg, and lay sick in bed for a long time. On one occasion, several doctors gathered around him to take counsel concerning his illness. The doctors agreed that his leg would have to be amputated.

That night Magistrian could not sleep, but grieved and wept. At midnight a man suddenly appeared in his room and asked him, ‘Why are you weeping?’

When Magistrian explained his condition, the unknown man then rubbed the infected leg with his hand and the leg was healed. ‘For God's sake, tell me… who are you?’ asked Magistrian.

The unknown man replied, ‘Look at me, and see, is not this your shirt? I am he whom you saw naked and dead, and whom you dressed in this shirt. And behold, for your good deed God has sent me to heal you. Give thanks to God!’

Prologue from Ochrid

October 2nd (New Style) • September 19th (Old Style)

Astonished

I am always astonished whenever I turn back and read the poetry of David Dickens. Poetry as this is true theology, and answers the question posed by C. S. Lewis, ‘Is theology poetry?’ Well, yes, at least it can be. Here are two of my favorites, but there are others, and each becomes my favorite as I read it. These poems are posted at the blog Nothing Hypothetical.


There Will Be No Rain

There will be no rain but by my word
O Man of God have you come to slay my child?
You filled the pitcher, you filled the cruse
Will you not fill my son?

Are you the one troubling Israel?
The land is cursed by dead men
Limping around two altars with two feet
Whom will you follow?

Is he sleeping?
Is he about?
Has he traveled?
Now give a shout?

Nothing but a quiet prayer and a troff
Nothing but faith and eyes aloft
Nothing left of the mountain side
Truly God is God.


From Tyre and Sidon

From Tyre and Sidon my feet have journeyed long
Come to touch the hem, come to be healed

His voice gives to all without ever diminishing
Come all you are weary and rest

The kingdom is for the persecuted
The kingdom is for the rejected in Him
The kingdom is for the crying
The kingdom is for the starving
The kingdom is for the poor

Through the trees the Spirit passes
Bringing all things of Itself
Nothing has ever been said against it
It causes men to lift each other up

The harvest comes with self-control
The harvest moves with gentleness
The harvest is known by its faithfulness
The harvest is seen in its goodness
The harvest is shared in kindness
The harvest has proven its longsuffering
The harvest brings peace
The harvest frees the heart for joy
The harvest is love

Wait! There are more…Were I Lost
Sell All You Have
Don’t Be a Fool
Lord God of Israel, There is None Like You
…and they go on and on!

I am a Christian

Many months ago I noticed a popup on the internet from a group inviting people to 'sign the pledge' and 'boldly proclaim' that 'I am a Christian'. The group is in the name of an evangelist for whom I have always had a lot of respect, namely, Billy Graham. Why do I have a great deal of respect for this evangelist? At one 'crusade' of his that I personally attended in my home town, I noticed that after the 'altar call' those who came forward to be prayed for and counseled were then directed to a local congregation of the church or denomination to which they belonged or formerly belonged. This included Orthodox and Catholic as well as non-Baptist denominations. I assume that, if a person's religious background or affiliation was non-Christian, they were directed to ministries affiliated with or approved by Billy Graham's organization. Somehow, I found this reassuring, that Mr Graham was not promoting his version or anyone's version of Christianity. He was simply doing what he sees Jesus doing, preaching the good news. Another way of putting it, as I often do,
'I witness for Christ, and He witnesses for the Church.'

What irks me—no, it doesn't irk me, it repels me—is that anyone who professes Jesus Christ and believes in the plain meaning of the Word of God can even say such a thing as 'boldly proclaim' that one is a Christian. When I first saw the ad—and I saw it again today, captured it 'on film' and present it here—it immediately made me think of this scene from the 2009 historical film Agora, which portrays the Christianization of the Roman province of Egypt during the reign of emperor Theodosios II and Alexandrian pope Kyrillos. I know that many will say that this is an anti-Christian propaganda movie coming on the heels of the evidence of contemporary Islamic militancy, as a way to discredit both religious faiths, but I don't see it that way. As a student of history, I know that when one digs more deeply into Christian history, what one finds is fewer and fewer followers of Jesus, and more of those who use Christ and the Christian faith as means to other ends. We see this today. We have seen it happen in recent history. Why should it have been different in the first few centuries of Christianity?



Without making judgments or taking sides, I merely want to present this film clip of the scene where a Christian servant, finding himself in the midst of a sectarian riot and commanded to take part as an assumed pagan against the Christians, kills the pagan who tries to force him to kill, and then, seeing his master watching him, throws out his hands and proclaims, apologetically at first, then with increasing fervor, 'I am a Christian,' as he falls upon his master with a weapon and nearly beats him to death. The servant's life is ended quickly by the rescuing hand of a pagan student of the philosopher Hypatia, who later becomes the Christian prefect of Egypt. All these details are, of course, the work of the screenplay writer, informed by history and his own imagination, but things such as this no doubt have happened, as they continue to do. Though we look upon certain religious faiths as violent and others as pacifistic, most have had a violent aspect at some time or another, and many still do, including Christianity.

No wonder John Lennon wrote in his song Imagine, 'and no religion too,' and in a very ironic way, he was telling the truth.

I love this man

We have to hand it to Christian Orthodoxy for its honest willingness to make room for non-conformity. Unlike other forms of religion, Christian or not, that allow, nay, even demand, that their followers put up with all kinds of immoral and irrational individualism in their midst, Orthodox inclusiveness and its live-and-let-live mentality is not based on ethical, philosophical or dogmatic relativism. Believing themselves to be the heirs and custodians of unchanging truth in their Head and members, they make room for the unlimited personal expression of that truth among them. Any deviation from this practice and principle can be traced to an unconscious adoption of unorthodox attitudes and always results in an alienation from Orthodox identity that, once noted, is just as unconsciously corrected by mass reassertion of Christian liberty.

What's the practical application of the above?
Even geeks can witness.

The painting reproduced above depicts the Russian priest and martyr Pavel Florensky (left) walking with the philosopher Sergei Bulgakov. Although both men are notable for their Christian witness, it's Pavel Florensky, the geek and martyr, that is the subject of this post.

Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky was born in 1882 into a middle class family in western Azerbaijan (Russian Caucasia). After graduating from Moscow State University in 1904, he refused to accept a teaching position at the University. Instead, he proceeded to study theology at the Ecclesiastical Academy in Sergiyev Posad. Together with his fellow students Ern, Svenitsky and Brikhnichev he founded a society, the Christian Struggle Union (Союз Христиaнской Борьбы), with the revolutionary aim of rebuilding Russian society according to the principle of Vladimir Solovyov. Subsequently he was arrested for membership in this society in 1906. However, he later lost his interest in the Radical Christianity movement.

After graduating from the Academy, he taught philosophy there and lived at Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra until 1919. In 1911, he was ordained into the priesthood. In 1914 he wrote his dissertation About Spiritual Truth. During his life he published works on philosophy, theology, art theory, mathematics, and electrodynamics. Those who are interested in finding out more about Pavel Florensky can read the article about him in Wikipedia, but our interest in him is not for his ideology, writings or other accomplishments, but his simple, matter-of-fact Christian lifestyle, which was a potent witness to those around him, and which led to his martyrdom in 1937.

After the Russian Revolution he formulated his position thus:
‘I am of a philosophical and scientific world outlook developed by me, which contradicts the vulgar interpretation of communism... but that does not prevent me from honestly working for the state service.’

Can you tell from this that he was a geek? Well, I can.

After the closing down, by the Bolsheviks, of the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra (1918) and Sergievo-Posad Church (1921) where he was the priest, he moved to Moscow to work on the State Plan for Electrification of Russia (ГОЭЛРО), under the recommendation of Leon Trotsky who strongly believed in Florensky's ability to help the government to electrify rural Russia. According to contemporaries, Florensky in his priest's cassock, working alongside other leaders of a government department, was a remarkable sight.

Can you imagine that? In a country controlled by atheistic, anti-Christian communism, here was a man who was not only a practicing Christian, but an ordained priest, working a secular job, doing his best for bosses who he knew hated everything he believed in and was, dressed in the visible garments of his true profession, and doing his best! And he really was a geek, thinking and knowing things that he could only have learned from his conversations with God, things others can hardly understand to this day. Among other things, for example, he proclaimed that the geometry of imaginary numbers predicted by the theory of relativity for a body moving faster than light is the geometry of the kingdom of God. Somehow, he was even able to publish his books during those awful times.

But there he was, as the record shows, ‘in his priest's cassock, working alongside other [communist] leaders of a government department.’ Even if he didn't witness to them in words (though he probably did), his presence among them was witness enough. And among people, let's remember, who were his declared enemies.

Pavel Florensky is an extreme example, maybe, but the fact of his witness for Christ among his contemporaries is a challenge, and an encouragement, to me every day. Like Christ, he did not run away from the world of sin and death. Instead, again like Christ making His descent into Hades, Florensky descended to the prison of his lost neighbors, at work and in the street, a priest of God without a visible church in a God-hating land.

In 1928 Florensky was arrested and exiled for ‘agitation against the Soviet system and publishing agitation materials against the Soviet system.’ What were these ‘agitation materials’? His monograph about the theory of relativity…

Later, he was moved and served at the Baikal Amur Mainline camp until 1934, when he was moved to Solovki, where he conducted research into producing iodine and agar out of the local seaweed. In 1937 he was transferred to Saint Petersburg (then known as Leningrad) where he was sentenced by an extrajudicial NKVD troika to execution. He was shot immediately after the NKVD troika session in December 1937. Most probably he was executed at the Rzhevsky artillery range and was buried in a secret grave in Koirangakangas near Toksovo together with 30,000 others who were executed by NKVD at the same time.

I love this man.

Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for the eternal life. If a man serves Me, he must follow Me, wherever I am, My servant will be there too.

John 12: 25-26a Jerusalem Bible

What we come up with

Yes, most of the time what we 'come up with' astonishes me.

What we come up with? Yes, I mean, what we Christians come up with, the stuff that we show the world to let them know about us… oops! I mean, about Christ!

Oversimplified, it can be called ‘churchianity.’ Gosh! I wonder sometimes if all words ending in ‘anity’ have a touch of unreality in them. Nothing unique to our day and age. It's a wonder that Christians a thousand years ago didn't trip over the Goddy—read ‘gawdy’—stuff they had hanging from their necks.

What does one convert to, now or in any age of the world? Is it Christ, or Christianity? These seem to be two doors to Somewhere, marked Entrance and Exit Only, like the doors at my local WinCo or Home Depot.

On an old Jesus Freak comic from 1973, the cover shows a cartoon of a city marked City of Peace!

Standing in the doorway is a white-robed cartoon Jesus with His arms outspread in welcome. Beside the door is another sign, Admission Free!!! Meet Receptionist with an arrow pointing back to Jesus.
Click on the image to enlarge it.

Two methods.
(1) Know Jesus first, and then join the Church.
(2) Join the Church first, and then meet Jesus.

As a Catholic Christian, I was processed using the second method. I didn't meet Jesus in the Church, however. I had to go back out and let Jesus find me ‘out there.’ Then, thanks to method 2, I came to know Jesus, and He sent me back to the Church.

It is because of my personal life experience that I prefer method 1. But that method almost always owes its victory to method 2.

My saying (forgive me, I am not the first, I'm sure) is ‘I witness for Christ, and He witnesses for the Church.’ And believe me, when I say ‘witness,’ I don't mean ‘big business’ or anything systematic. I don't have a missionary society or call myself ‘we’ when I outline my beliefs and programme. Why? because my beliefs are unimportant, and I have no programme. And I am not a ‘society.’ It's just me—right now, ‘just another blogger.’

It seems when we witness for the Church, people sometimes respond for the wrong reasons. When we witness for the Church, things can go wrong on both sides, the convert's and the Church's.

When we witness for Christ, if someone responds with a desire for conversion, we can rely on the living God who really is there to deliver that person into the Church. How can He not? for Christ Himself says, ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him.’

No fear for mistaken appearances.
God alone is faithful,
and by His mercy alone,
so are we.

The fall of the Republic

And why must the Republic fall?
For the very same reasons that the original Republic, Rome, fell.

We were founded on virtuous principles, and we flounder on virtual laurels. Rome did the same. Before her, Athens did the same, and ancient Israel, and countless other civilisations known and unknown.

Yet why?
You and I know the answer due to the mercy of our man-loving God, who doesn't hang for long on a cross or sleep long in a tomb, but who once dead lives now and forever.

And we, without the solace of mere myths, do indeed live in our testimony, surrounded by walls the enemy cannot scale or breach; and that City not made with hands cannot fall, now or ever; and that heritage is what was handed over to us, and what we will hand over when our time comes, to our children, yes, but to the King, to whom our Republic and all true cities pointed.

What an honor, indeed, what a blessing, to live in these times, and to share with even one other, and to witness, the end of all things.

For the perfection of humanity is nothing else but to end, end so that it can finally begin. Our Republic existed to await the true King, so that it could die in the establishment of His Kingdom.

Faithfully He brings true justice; He will neither waver, nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth, for the islands are awaiting His law.
Isaiah 42:4 Jerusalem Bible

My child, just read!

This is what Abba Arsenios says about God's Word…

A monk complained to Saint Arsenios that while reading Holy Scripture he did not feel, neither the power of the words read, nor gentleness in his heart. To that the great saint replied to him…


‘My child, just read! 
I heard that the sorcerers of serpents, when they cast a spell upon the serpents, the sorcerers are uttering the words, which they themselves do not understand, but the serpents hearing the spoken words sense their power and become tamed. And so, with us, when we continually hold in our mouths the words of Holy Scripture, but even though we do not feel the power of the words, evil spirits tremble and flee, for they are unable to endure the words of the Holy Spirit.’

‘My child, just read!’ The Holy Spirit Who, through inspired men, wrote these divine words, will hear, will understand, and will hasten to your assistance; and the demons will understand, will sense, and will flee from you. That is, He Whom you invoke for assistance will understand, and those whom you wish to drive away from yourself will understand. And both goals will be achieved.

[Originally posted on May 8, 2009.]

Following You

Numbed and crushed and overcome,
my heart groans, I moan aloud.

Lord, all that I long for is known to You,
my sighing is no secret from You;
my heart is throbbing, my strength deserting me,
the light of my eyes itself has left me.

My friends and my companions shrink from my wounds,
even the dearest of them keep their distance;
men intent on killing me lay snares,
others, hoping to hurt me, threaten my ruin,
hatching treacherous plots all day.

But I am like the deaf, I do not hear,
like the dumb man who does not open his mouth;
I am like the man who, hearing nothing,
gives no sharp answer in return.

For I put my trust in You, Yahweh,
and leave You to answer for me, Lord my God.
Psalm 38

Hide me in Your wounds,
in Your wounds I take refuge,
Lord, hide me,
though I am as the nail
that pierced Your hands and feet,
though I am the cause of Your suffering,
hide me.

Open the gate of Your body, Lord,
open Your side to receive me,
though I am as the lance
whose head tore You,
Lord, receive me.
I am Yours,
save me.

For I put my trust in You, Lord,
and leave You to answer for me.

Lord my God, have mercy.

Seek His face

“Seek His face.” 
Psalm 27:8 Jerusalem Bible

Psalms for the 5th Day:
Psalms 24 ~ 29

The psalms of the fifth day include many, many prayers. Reading them this evening ushered me into my prayer room like a welcoming old friend. Let me share some of the verses from this evening…

Who has the right to climb the mountain of Yahweh,
who the right to stand in His holy place?
He whose hands are clean, whose heart is pure,
whose soul does not pay homage to worthless things
and who never swears to a lie. 
Psalm 24: 3-4 JB

The next verses form the text of the consecration service of an Orthodox house of worship. The epískopos raps the butt of his staff against the closed western doors reciting the first part. A voice from within asks the question. The epískopos answers. This is done three times, and then the doors swing open, and the congregation, waiting outside, enters the newly consecrated temple.

Gates, raise your arches,
rise you ancient doors,
let the King of Glory in!

Who is this King of Glory?
Yahweh the strong, the valiant,
Yahweh valiant in battle!

Gates, raise your arches,
rise you ancient doors,
let the King of Glory in!

Who is this King of Glory?
He is Yahweh Sabaoth,
King of Glory, He!
Psalm 24:7-10 JB

Psalms 25 to 28 are full of prayers.
These are some that speak for me…

Yahweh, make Your ways known to me,
teach me Your paths.
Set me in the way of Your Truth, and teach me,
for You are the God who saves me.
Psalm 25:4-5 JB

Do not remember the sins of my youth;
but rather, with Your love, remember me.
Psalm 25:7 JB

Let innocence and integrity be my protection,
since my hope is in You, Yahweh.
Psalm 25: 21 JB

Test me, Yahweh, and probe me,
put me to trial, loins and heart;
for Your love is before my eyes,
and I live my life in loyalty to You.
Psalm 26:2-3 JB

One thing I ask of Yahweh,
one thing I seek:
to live in the House of Yahweh
all the days of my life,
to enjoy the sweetness of Yahweh
and to consult Him in His temple.
Psalm 27:4 JB

Yahweh, hear my voice as I cry!
Pity me! Answer me!
My heart has said of You,
“Seek His face.”
Yahweh, I do seek Your face;
do not hide Your face from me.
Psalm 27:7-9a JB

This I believe: I shall see the goodness of Yahweh
in the land of the living.
Put your hope in Yahweh, be strong, let your heart be bold,
put your hope in Yahweh.
Psalm 27:13-14 JB

Yahweh is my strength, my shield,
my heart puts its trust in Him;
I have been helped, my flesh has bloomed again,
I thank Him with all my heart.

Yahweh is the strength of His people,
a saving fortress for His anointed.
Save Your people! Bless Your heritage!
Shepherd them; carry them forever!
Psalm 28:7-9 JB

The last verse above, ‘Save Your people…’ I remember well the beautiful roar of song that the mighty man of God, bishop Anthony, let out when he was with us at Aghía Triás, blessing us with this verse, in English and in the original Greek, ‘…και ευλογησον την κληρονομιαν σου.’ Though he has gone to be with his Lord, I can hear him singing still…


The last psalm for the fifth day, Psalm 29, didn't have the meaning it has for me today, until I heard the Jews at the Sephardi synagogue of Ahavath Achim, ‘brotherly love’, singing it, in Hebrew of course, during the Shabbat evening service. Since then, I have also taken to reading and praying the psalms in Hebrew at home from my copy of the Tehillim. You can read it, and even hear it being read, in Hebrew at my Tehillim blog, here.

Pay tribute to Yahweh, you sons of God,
tribute to Yahweh of glory and power,
tribute to Yahweh of the glory of His name,
worship Yahweh in His sacred court.

The voice of Yahweh over the waters!
Yahweh over the multitudinous waters!
The voice of Yahweh in power!
The voice of Yahweh in splendour!

The voice of Yahweh shatters the cedars,
Yahweh shatters the cedars of Lebanon,
making Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild bull.

The voice of Yahweh sharpens lightning shafts!

The voice of Yahweh sets the wilderness shaking.
Yahweh shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
The voice of Yahweh sets the terebinths shuddering,
stripping the forests bare.

The God of Glory thunders.
In His palace everything cries, “Glory!”
Yahweh sat enthroned for the Flood,
Yahweh sits enthroned as a King for ever.

Yahweh gives strength to His people,
Yahweh blesses His people with peace.
Psalm 29 JB

End of the Psalms for the 5th Day.

Truly merciful and loving

If we as followers of Christ are willing to lay down our lives for each other, what is it to us to lay down mere material things in order to share in the sufferings of our brothers?

It's easy to share in someone's joy, to party with him, to enjoy his company and stay with him when he seems to have everything, every blessing.

And what of the opposite?
Is it easy to share in someone's pain, sadness or loss?
Well, yes, it is, it has to be.

Help me, Lord!
I want to live my life as John of Kronstadt lived his. I want that kind of life in me, the life that Father John and others have received from their Father, their only Father. 

Listen to what John of Kronstadt says…

He truly gives charity who gives from his heart, and with a loving heart. He is truly merciful who converses with everyone heartily, and not only with the intellect and lips, but who renders sincere, hearty respect to everyone; in a word, he who embraces all and carries all in his heart by love, despising everything material that may become a hindrance to love between himself and his neighbor; such a one is truly merciful and loving.

— Fr. John of Kronstadt

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

What would happen?

Jakarta skyline

Why must we always be checking and examining each other, to make sure that we are all ‘on the same page’ and believing everything in exactly the same way, so that we can feel safe, so that things seem to be ‘in control’?

When encountering another Christian who does not confess the ‘Orthodox faith’ it doesn’t really matter if I agree or disagree with him. It isn’t like I am calling him forth into a new ‘nameless non-denomination’ if I try to share some fellowship with him ‘outside of’ confessional boundaries. He can stay whatever he is, and I will remain Greek Orthodox, but in Christ our unity goes beyond labels or concepts like ‘catholic’ or ‘orthodox’ which were never spoken by the Lord Himself. 

Our unity in Christ isn’t affected by our formal theologies, which can do nothing, nothing! Salvation is through knowing only Christ, not by what we believe about Him, all of which pales when compared to our knowing Him and His knowing us. That is ‘the one thing needful.’

Let a man say Christ is not con-substantial with the Father, and ‘I don't believe in the Trinity.’ Let him even say that Jesus is a man.
He is ignorant, that’s all. But if he confesses Christ as Lord, believes in His resurrection as the Bible plainly describes, and fulfills His commandments, is an ignorant man to be denied salvation in Christ? And who would keep him out? You and me, who know so much about Him? Everything we know about Christ, think about Christ, believe about Christ is nothing compared to what He is, and what He does for us, here and now, and in the world to come.

Let’s tear off the costumes we wear in front of each other as we go into battle. Why? Because our battle has thus far been against each other, and not against ‘the powers of wickedness in the heavens,’ as it should be. If we want to fight each other, let’s strip ourselves of our defenses and see what is under them—Look! We’re all the same after all!

Then, let’s put on the only garment worth having, because He gives it to all who believe in Him, His own skin! ‘All who have been baptized have put on Christ,’ as the scriptures say. And what baptism is that? Being buried with Christ in His death, so as to rise with Him in His glorious resurrection.

As for me, I’m trying to move beyond thinking about God, so I can just live in Him. I’m trying to untie for me, and maybe for you, the knots of tangled lore that have kept us encamped on the devil’s playground so long, fighting each other.

Just imagine the following scenario…

What would happen if, suddenly, the various Christian missions and denominations in a majority Muslim country like Indonesia or Malaysia—which still allow the existence of Christianity—suddenly were seen to absolutely and without reserve support each other in everything, and without coalescing into one uniform institution?

Everything that they disagreed about, they would agree to just pray and ask the Lord to intercede for each other’s folly, and then, with that out of the way, they would just ‘go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.’

Hey! But what if they can’t agree on how and whom to baptize, and when? Well, that’s just some more pieces of folly, to ask the Lord to forgive and correct. Meanwhile...

Let’s all just go into the harvest field, and work, because ‘night is coming when no one can work,’ and because ‘the time is close.’

Yes, what would happen?

Let us also go

It’s really quite impossible to save a man. It takes all that God can do to deliver him. Everything that a man’s neighbors do to try to save him is really of no help. As well-intentioned as they are, when mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, friends, neighbors, teachers, pastors, co-workers, psychiatrists and social workers try to save a man, they can do little more than alter his outward complexion, and that’s the best they can do. The worst they can do is push him to profound despair and death, and this despite their good intentions.

But how then can a man be saved?

It’s certainly not by his own efforts, nor is it by the will of the people around him, but it is by God alone. All that is needed on his side is to keep saying ‘yes’ to whatever God asks of him.

How does He ask?
It is by His acts, what He send us, the people, the situations and circumstances that He places in our path. Knowing that God uses everything that happens to us to be for our benefit, regardless of appearances and human judgment, we can rely on Him to save us, unconditionally. This is true, whether we trust God or not, He is out to save us. When we say ‘yes’ to what He sends us, we let Him save us. When we say ‘no’ to what He sends us, we don’t trust Him, we tell Him in effect that we know best, that we can save ourselves—an impossibility.

This seems to be a hard road and, yes, it is the way of the Cross, and following it, as did Mary the Lord’s mother, we are led to a place where the unthinkable happens—the betrayal and sacrificial death of the Good—but that which is beyond all thought and imagination, that which we can only hear told with wonder, happens to us. We are saved. Yes, by His stripes we are healed, and saved. We believed His Word, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’ and when He asked us, by these acts in our lives, ‘Do you believe this?’ our response was, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.’

‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’
John 11:16 NIV

We are set free

‘Words… words, Bernardo!
There was a time when I believed in words!’

Francesco di Bernardone, in the cold of a snowy winter morning standing barefoot atop the stone wall of the ancient, consecrated ruin of San Damiano church, where he was carefully placing stones to rebuild it, responded to his sincere but confused best friend, Bernardo da Quintavalle, a knight just returned home from the Crusades, who had ambiguously offered, ‘I want to help you,’ without really understanding what that help would mean.

What started out as a vague offer of help spoken out of sympathy, in the end became a life-long devotion not only to his friend, but to a life of poverty and chastity, following the example of Jesus Christ.

How little we know what the words we think and say really mean. We live in mental and emotional worlds whose boundaries and rules are maintained by words that we have established by repeated use, half the time knowing that they were never intentional, never what we really wanted to say or think, but were forced to, by words coming at us like an armed assault by others. An army of words can capture whole nations to harness them for good or evil.

A most difficult word is ‘love’, because to say it unhinges huge doors and evokes from ourselves and others immense commitments, most of which we do not understand and cannot truly fulfill. When this becomes clear to us, gradually, we find ourselves saying ‘love’ with new meaning, or even with no meaning at all. The doors we removed from the walls of our hearts, once doorways lavished with garlands, become gaping holes resulting from bombardment.

Technically, our words can be quite specific when we speak of concrete things. It’s when we use them to express immaterial things that we get into trouble. Yet social life, even inner life, without them is impossible. It is here that words can become means of unity or division, both resulting from their vagueness and liquidity. Here words are either symbolic, bringing together, or diabolic, splitting apart, ‘a time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them up’ (Ecclesiastes 3:5).

Hence we have to call the confession of the Christian faith the ‘symbol’ of Nicaea, not the ‘creed’ as many others do. It is not the Truth, but speaking its words unites us to the Truth in a way that mouthing the words of a mere belief system cannot do. We needn’t have to call upon God to distract us from building heaven-reaching towers by dividing our tongues as at Babel. It is obvious that we have already divided our own tongues. That’s why He reverses our work with the Nicene symbol.

So we are captive to the words we speak whether in knowledge or ignorance, whether in clarity or cloud, and what results from our captivity is either heaven on earth, or hell, but mostly in between. The Lord says openly, ‘So I tell you this, that for every unfounded word men utter they will answer on Judgment Day, since it is by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words condemned’ (Matthew 12:37). Calling the Word of God to mind, in fact living in Him, from captivity we are set free.