To become theology

True theology is not about doctrines, but doctrines can be a by-product of true theology. Doctrines can also be the product of human thinking, of philosophical speculation. But theology is not about doctrines. Theology is about struggle. It is the result of man struggling with God.

And what of ikons? For those unacquainted with struggle, they are merely pictures to be venerated, doctrinal statements in paint to be affirmed with a kiss. ‘The Bible says this and this, and we’ve painted a picture of it. Here it is. Prove you believe it. Kiss the picture.’

But ikons are images of true theology. They are images of struggle, of man’s encounter with the living God, of what happens when the finite meets the Infinite, the mortal meets the Immortal, the created meets the Uncreated. There is always struggle. There can be nothing else.

‘The hospitality of Abram’ is an example of this. Those depicted do not seem to be struggling, but the formula is there: Man, woman, and unearthly Triad, two serving Three as One. Where is the struggle? Invisible but not inaudible.
She laughed, He heard.
Doubt bears faith, but not without a fight.

An event so completely ikonic as the wrestling of Jacob with the angel of Yahweh, yet we rarely see it. And why not? Can theology so immediate be depicted visually? And if it could be, could we venerate the image without being drawn into its fiery heart? That would be a miraculous ikon.

There is always struggle. There can be nothing else. This is the meaning of our entire existence as humans, else there is no meaning.

The very thought only hints at the reality, but if we run from it, we voluntarily commit ourselves to annihilation. We either face Him—look Him in the eyes—or vanish into His shadow.

A poem I once had memorized but after many years have mostly forgotten ended with the line, ‘for I am man so I must fight, but You are God so You must win.’ The author of this poem, Orthodox presbyter Ihor Kutash, a few years my senior, was the first priest I ever met. I am sure that He wrote what he knew.

There is a single purpose for every man and woman ever created, and that is to become theology. No, I did not say ‘to become a theologian.’ Nobody becomes that, except in name. Go to school and study theology, add letters after your names, and you are no wiser unto God than you were before.

To become theology, to struggle, to fight as befits your nature, to observe the Passover not in word only but in complete and perfect act, to expend yourself, to be consumed in the heat of battle, to be crushed and buried deep underground, to be sacrificed: That is what man is, else he is nothing at all.

‘For I am man so I must fight, but You are God so You must win.’

Glory to Jesus Christ!

The art of things unsaid

One of the pieces of family history that my dad handed over to me was a wonderful black and white photo of my favorite ‘aunt and uncle,’ as we say, that is, Uncle Hank and Aunt Irene (we reverse the order when calling them by name). That's the young couple in the photograph above. On the back of the photograph is neatly handwritten ‘April 16, 1950’ and my guess is, it was taken on the back porch of the second or third floor of a flat in Chicago.

What strikes me instantly and… deeply is the look on my aunt's face, her beautiful face, a look that cannot be put into words, yet I can read it, full of things unsaid. My uncle looks off to his right with his characteristic ‘you can't pull a fast one on me’ face, or maybe it was just the look of ‘no matter what you say or do, I'm here.’ A look of somewhat light-hearted but matter-of-fact faithfulness. But it's Aunt Irene's look that holds me, I can't get away from it. She really loved Hank, and he really loved her. Till death do us part.
(Click the image to enlarge the photograph for a closer look.)

Uncle Hank was 38 and Aunt Irene was half a year from her 39th birthday. They had been married 15 years less one month. They were dairy farmers, running their southern Wisconsin farm at Slades Corners near Genoa City single-handed most of the time. That meant they almost never got away. We had to go and see them. Their farm was where I spent some of my boyhood summers. Aunt Irene was never able to bear children. Uncle Hank never let his disappointment ‘mount as far as his throat’ as the Desert Fathers say. He simply loved his wife and never let anything get in the way of that, not even their childlessness. And what wonderful parents they would have made. Yet, that's not what the Lord wanted for them.

As they had no children, my dad became the inheritor of their few memorabilia, and now he has turned them over to me. I still use Uncle Hank's bulky cast aluminum electric drill—with two handles to hold onto for dear life—probably from the first generation of power tools. But other than a few small artefacts, and some photos, I have little else… except for their official documents, birth, baptism and marriage certificates. It is their marriage certificate in its dusty grey slipcover that I found most interesting when I first inherited it after Aunt Irene reposed (Uncle Hank had pre-deceased her by ten years or so).

Behind the certificate in its tassled cover was another document, titled “How to Perpetuate The Honeymoon.” The credits under the title read, ‘From Home and Health, by permission of W. H. DuPuy, A. M., D. D.’ In that document are given twelve pieces of good advice for keeping a good marriage. Perhaps in another post I will list them all, but the tenth bit of advice caught my attention and I remembered it, and when I first saw the photograph that I've posted above, I thought of it.This is the advice…

Do not allow yourself ever to come to an open rupture.
Things unsaid need less repentance.

The first sentence is boldfaced as the header for what follows, in this case only one more sentence (some of the others have a short paragraph). What follows is the instruction for achieving what the header advises. In only five words, it describes a truth of unlimited application. Another version of the same but less pointed might be an even shorter saying, ‘Silence is golden.’ All of these, of course, come from the Bible, but in 1935, official documents were already trying to avoid bringing that up. Christianity was on its way to being put in the archives. The modern age was about to begin.

Things unsaid need less repentance. I want to keep thinking about this some more. The longer I live, the more value I see in leaving things unsaid.

Why? Not to keep people guessing, not as leverage in a situation, but simply because some things cannot be explained or reported using language. This is where other forms of communication come in, like my aunt's look.

And not everything unsaid that can be passed to others by non-verbal means is meant for everyone in the first place, but like that white stone Jesus promises in the book of Revelation (2:17), it's only readable by the one to whom it is given.

I just wanted to remember my aunt and uncle today, two unsung saints that I was blessed to know, and to hold high their love and faithfulness to each other and to those whom the Lord sent them. Eternal be your memory, beloved Hank and Irene, for you are worthy of blessedness and life in the world to come.

Αιωνία η μνήμη.

In Christ is forgiveness

No, there's nothing we can find to picture this, nothing we can photograph or paint or draw or write poems and songs about, nothing we can fully describe, not even in the deepest and most heartfelt testimony. Still, we try.

One autumn day driving home from work, my heart crushed with sorrow over a broken friendship, I hadn't brought it to mind so intensely before, my soul's lamp was nearly extinguished, and I was very close to weeping, so sorry was I about it all.

And about my life, what a complete disaster, what a catalog of catastrophes and bad judgments, of failure to act when I should have, and of acting when I should have not, speaking up when I should have been silent, being silent when I ought to have shouted.

The thought of my mentor, 32 years my senior, telling me of the misfortunes that not just tainted his life, but ruined it, his reputation, his personal wealth, his family, all affected, and by things outside his control, a pious man whom others judged helpless.

Yes, ‘the victory, the victory is in the Blood.’ He used to tell me, while recounting, almost without intending to, and not complaining or blaming anyone except himself, how his life had turned out. Philip, the pentecostal, unwelcome in his own church.

I didn't see him do it, he would never have let me, but he told me how sometimes he would drive home crying, knowing how he had failed the Lord, failed himself, his son, his wife and daughters, all of whom he loved so much, even though he gave them all he had in him.

As I was close to tears, driving home, feeling sorry for my own failures, my own sins, wishing they could be lifted from me, I thought of him, and his life far worse than mine, and how he never ceased asking the Lord for forgiveness, even knowing it was granted.

I was on the point of crying, but something made me look up. Of course I was watching the road as any driver does, almost in a dream, reaching a destination without remembering the driving. I looked up. In front of me was an SUV with a wide, white sticker on the hatch.

In bold black letters on white, In Christ is forgiveness. That's all it said. There were almost no other stickers on that car, except for one of those crossed stoles that I first remember seeing years ago when they were pink and had something to do with AIDS victims.

Just four words plainly printed, black on white, In Christ is forgiveness. Something we all know, something I believe, yet to see it there on the car right in front of me was like Jesus Himself entering my inner conversation, overturning the sentence against me.

I noticed the license plate as well, 669 ZKR, the three letter root of the Hebrew word for ‘remember,’ zayin, kaf, resh, remember. When I came home I checked to see if there was a 69th verse in Zechariah chapter 6, but there wasn't. Numbers haunt me.

Nothing this side of heaven will ever heal some of our wounds, broken friendships, lost loves, missing children, childhood traumas, compromised marriage beds, untimely deaths. I feel I cannot live, sometimes, knowing what I have done wrong in my life, and I beg for mercy.

Sometimes with words, sometimes with deeds, sometimes by prayer, or reading the psalms, my usual comfort, that mercy comes to me, quiets the grief of my soul, opens my eyes to again see light where I thought all was blackness and idiocy. For that, I thank the Lord.

He knows. He knows us. He knows all about us. He knows what we are, why we are, what we have done or not done, and why. He has been through it with us all millions of times, walking beside us to steady our steps and keep us from falling into the pit where praise is no more.

Forgive your brother who has offended you seven times? ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times,’ says Jesus (Matthew 18:22), who has forgiven and keeps forgiving us seven times to the infinite power, from before time was, until the Day He comes.

Yes, Lord, as we pray on the 19th day, ‘…at the presence of Yahweh, for He comes, He comes to judge the earth, to judge the world with justice and the nations with His truth’ (Psalm 96), we await Your grace and mercy, now in the time of this mortal life.

Grant it to us, Lord and God, who in Christ suffers all, walks in all, healing us of our diseases, giving us sight, and speech, raising us up to walk where our infirmities prevent us. Yes, Lord, grant us Your grace and mercy, for in Christ is forgiveness.

The music of that morning

Midwives Marilyn Milestone (left) and Pamela Truzinski

We had been seeing naturopathic professionals in preparation for the birth of our second son, because as yet we had no medical insurance, and this is what we could afford. As I remember the overall cost was about six hundred dollars. That was in 1983 dollars, of course, but I had at last struck it rich—I had landed a job that paid me seven dollars an hour to start, after having worked previously for no more than about half that much, first as a technician in a plastic container factory in Illinois, then as a lead man in a traditional furniture factory in Portland, Oregon. In the latter position, I didn’t arrive at that three dollar something an hour wage until after working four years.

So we had decided on midwives to help us deliver our second child. I don’t think we knew its sex, because we had both boy’s and girl’s names picked out. Our first-born, Jacob, was born nine years prior in a hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, because, though we were literally dirt poor—I was earning perhaps two dollars an hour—the province had good medical coverage. Out of pocket charges amounted to literally just a few dollars, if they cost us at all. Besides, after Jacob was born, we received a monthly family allowance check of sixteen dollars to help offset the costs of raising a child. That’s what they paid in those days for an infant, up to a maximum of sixty-four dollars a month for older kids.

When Jacob was barely two years old we returned to the States, lured by the prospect of ‘free land’ and a homestead in a hippie commune in Oregon. The commune was, of course, ‘spiritual,’ but it wasn’t quite what we expected when we visited it. We opted out, unwilling to entrust ourselves to the ‘commune’ of Ahimsa, where anything was permitted, as long as it was ‘spiritual,’ even at the price of losing that ‘free land.’ But that is another story.

Andrew in his baptismal suit

My wife’s pregnancy was going well, nothing abnormal was detected, but we awaited the due date with some trepidation. When you’ve given birth to a child and then waited about nine years, the body parts have gone back almost to their condition before the previous birth. After the birth of our second child, two more followed in the course of five years, and these later births were relatively easy, even though our third son, Johnny, weighing in at eleven pounds fourteen ounces, was the largest infant ever delivered at the Providence Hospital up to that time. We were afraid that giving birth to this next child might be difficult, and as a matter of fact, it was.

It was a frosty October that year, the clear night sky speckled amply with stars. We retired to bed fairly early, darkness falling by eight o’clock, knowing that this might be the day. October the sixth, thirty-one years ago from today as I write this. Our little house was getting chilly as we went to sleep. We had to give up using our furnace for central heating, because it burned oil, and the price of oil was too costly. We used a Fisher wood stove, burning tree prunings and mill ends from the furniture factory when we couldn’t afford to buy a cord of partially split oak or alder for firewood. This year, we were better off. I had landed that seven dollar an hour job and we now could afford to buy real firewood. We even had a car again, after being unwheeled for a year or two when I was still making only half as much.

Andrew (3 mos) and Jacob (9 yrs)

‘Wake up! Norman, wake up! Call the midwives, and then go and start a fire in the woodstove!’ It truly was a wake up call. The house was freezing. Though we always banked the coals in the wood stove, after midnight they emitted barely any heat, and in the morning I usually had to start the fire from scratch. It must have been somewhere between one and two in the morning. I went downstairs—we lived in a small two storey farmhouse on a quarter acre corner lot at the edge of town—and phoned the midwives, Marilyn Milestone, and Pamela Truzinski (memory eternal). They gave me some instructions, and said they would be on their way.

Next, to start a fire. Well, easier said than done, especially when you have only a little bit of split wood in the house. We needed the stove to be good and hot, hotter than usual, and the upstairs bedroom which was going to be someone’s place of birth would only be heated by gravity, the hot air rising and ascending the stairwell and coming up through a grate in the floor. I got my clothes on, and went out to the wood shed to split wood and start a fire. Though I don’t exactly remember when Jacob, up to that night our only son, joined me, whether it was when I was chopping wood and starting a fire in the stove, or later, he was intimately involved in the events of that early pre-dawn, and the sunrise birth.

Going out to the shed, I looked up. The sky was blue black and emblazoned above the house and shed was the constellation Orion, the one that looks like a large ‘X’ or a cross of St Andrew. It may have been that stellar sign that leaned us, when the child came, in the direction of the name he was called. Yes, it was a boy.

The midwives arrived. The house was toasty hot, even up in that second storey bedroom. Jacob was with us there, sitting by the wall next to the big four-poster bed where his pregnant mother lay. Labor was not easy, but not being the mother, I’ve forgotten how hard it was. We had been up all night. Soon pre-dawn purple was showing through the eastward facing windows.

‘Push! Push!’ we urged over and over again. Like every birth, there’s a point where the mother feels she must give up, it’s too hard, and then—he’s out! No, no, not exactly, not this time. A tiny head had appeared at the door of the womb and the midwives massaged it out, and now it hung there, limply, eyes closed. A very scary moment.

Andrew, about age 2 years

‘Push! Push! Push!’ but the body behind that tiny head did not want to come out. Time was ticking tensely. We could all hear our own heartbeats more loudly than the tiny one’s. Daylight was starting to filter into the room, but we didn’t notice. Our eyes were nailed to that tiny, lifeless head, and then someone had an idea. ‘Quickly! Let’s get her off the bed onto the floor, in a squat with her back against the box spring and mattress!’ Awkwardly, but as gently as four people can push a woman in her condition, we pivoted her to the edge of the bed and helped her down and into a squatting position. Four pairs of hands did their work in an automatic movement that was instinctively guided.

Sploosh! With no further coaxing, a final muscular spasm ejected the baby with measured ease, his head cradled and protected as if by angelic hands, as a flood of uterine fluids, clear and dark red, poured onto the floor. The body followed, falling into welcoming, open palms, and then—quickly now!—the team of four, midwives, father and son, divided, again instinctively, into two teams: one lifting the mother back to at least a little comfort on the bed, the other keeping the baby right behind her, anxiously looking for signs of life. The little body was complete, all fingers and toes counted, a perfectly formed male child, but unbreathing. Startled, one of the midwives drew back, while the other gently massaged the tiny chest and puffed air into the little face.

Andrew, Byzantine chanter,
Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church

‘Hhhuhh!’ the baby gasped its first mouthful, lungsful of earthly air with a reflexive jerk, and then began crying. In what order I cannot remember, but I did the fatherly things as prompted by the midwives: clamp the umbilical cord, suction out the fluid from mouth and nostrils, to help breathing. Again, somewhat scary, I had to cut the umbilical cord. It didn’t seem to hurt the baby, but it would be hard to know, because first-born crying has only one dialect. As soon as I had enough wits about me, I looked up and noticed shafts of golden sunlight streaming in through the windows. I went to them, and there, the sun, already golden, was rising over the tree tops. I returned to join my wife and first-born son with their new son and brother. Had the afterbirth come yet? I cannot remember, but at some point, there it was. We gave it to one of the midwives, who wanted to plant it in her garden. Something to do with a tree, she said.

It was time now for the new mother to get up, with the assistance of the midwives, and go to the bath room and get properly cleaned and dressed. The newborn son was placed in my arms, and I quietly whistled like a flute the melody of a Provençal lullaby, as a first offering to welcome my son and give thanks to God for his safe birth and the health of my wife.

Flowers in the meadow softly sway
And all the little birds sing, merry May Day
Rabbits in the orchard sport and play
And all the little creatures smile and are gay

Showing Andrew his apricot tree

My little boy
Sing out your joy
I am near
My darling, do not fear
Love is all around you
Comforting
With gentle lullabies
To make your heart sing

October the seventh, nineteen hundred eighty-three, sometime between seven and eight in the morning, closer to seven, our second-born son, Andrew, was born, humbly and dangerously, at home in the upstairs bedroom with the flowery wallpaper and the four-poster bed, assisted by the eyes, hearts and hands of his father and older brother, two mystical midwives, and of course, his musical mother.

And the music of that morning has never left him.

ごらんなさい 私はすべてを新しくします

Goran nasai. Watashi wa subete o atarashiku shimasu.
Ιδου καινα ποιω πάντα
Behold, I make all things new.
Revelation 21:5 KJV

Naikū 内宮, the great shrine at Ise 伊勢, Japan, is the earthly residence of the sun goddess Amaterasu 天照, who is the divine ancestor of the imperial family.
According to the Nihon shoki 日本書紀, around 2,000 years ago Yamatohime-no-mikoto, daughter of Emperor Suinin, set out from Mt. Miwa in search of a permanent location to worship the goddess Amaterasu, wandering for 20 years through the regions of Ohmi and Mino. Her search eventually brought her to Ise, where she established Naikū after hearing the voice of Amaterasu saying, "Ise is a secluded and pleasant land. In this land I wish to dwell." Previously, Amaterasu had been worshiped at the Imperial residence in Yamato, then briefly at Kasanui in the eastern Nara basin.
Strangely, the traditional establishment date of the shrine is 4 B.C., the same year as Jesus of Nazareth is thought to have been born. The first shrine building at Naikū was erected by Emperor Temmu (678-686), with the first ceremonial rebuilding being carried out by his wife, Empress Jito, in 692. It is the ceremonial rebuilding of the shrine that concerns us. The shrine buildings at Naikū and Gekū, as well as the Uji Bridge, are rebuilt every 20 years as a part of the Shinto belief of the death and renewal of nature and as a way of passing building techniques from one generation to the next. The most recent rebuilding of Ise Shrine occurred in 2013.

The wood to rebuild the shrines comes from a sacred mountain where the gods are supposed to dwell. No one cuts wood there, except to rebuild or repair shrines or the imperial residences. The Japanese emperor is considered divine.

There are always telltale traces of the Gospel truth scattered throughout the religions of mankind, of ancient times as well as those of today. Why is this? In my view, it seems to me that this is part of the preparation of all nations for receiving the Good News of Jesus Christ before He comes to them. Just as satan plants tares among the wheat, so does our God plant wheat among the tares, hints, so to speak. He does this, so that when Jesus Christ the Son of God arrives in a culture, He isn’t a total stranger, and His words are not completely unintelligible. The Good News, in fact, reveals the full significance of the hints planted in each culture, and completes them.

There are many hints in Japanese culture, that Jesus comes to build upon and complete, if we let Him. This rebuilding of temples every generation is not done only to teach carpentry skills and as a symbol of the renewal of nature. Far from it! What this rebuilding demonstrates is the acts of the living and true God, who says, “Behold, I make all things new,” and He not only says it, He does it as well. As followers of Jesus and disciples of the Word of God, we should take this lesson to heart. Even among the ancient myths and customs can be found reminders of, and even correctives to, our faith and works. The Christian world has built mightily and in everlasting stone the temples where we worship, and this may demonstrate some aspect of God’s sovereignty. But if the Church is the people of God, and the Temple of the living One, well, I think we can learn something from the Japanese about the crafting of buildings for worship, don’t you?

In April, 2008, I was in Japan for two full weeks, and Ise was one of the places I visited. What I observed, not at the shrines but in the every day life of the Japanese people, was the pervasive, rampant and hopeless materialism of many of them. I don’t mean that there aren’t spiritual people in Japan. There certainly are those who have leisure and resources to pursue the many historic and artistic traditions that comprise their religious culture. But the majority of people are driven to work hard, almost to knock themselves out achieving, and then trying to fill what little leisure time they have with meaningless pastimes—gambling, drinking or entertainment—and their souls have no real refreshment. Life is accepted with a kind of hopeless fatalism.

Shinto is an animistic religion. Everything in the world, especially in the wild, is inhabited by spirits. The human response to this ranges from superstitious fear to veneration of what they know not, except by traditional myths. Worship consists mostly in asking for favors, and seeking oracles about the future. This goes very deep, much deeper than what we consider “superstition” in the West. We haven’t seen the likes of this in our cultures for a thousand years, and our wiccans and druids are paltry posers compared to the priests of Shinto and the devotees of the shrines. To an ordinary tourist, it adds color and flavor to a visit to Japan. But the Japanese people, who think of themselves as the only divine race and their land as the country of the gods, are in need of salvation as much as anyone. Whether they or we realise it enough, the traditional culture and religion of Japan is very close to spiritual implosion, much as Greco-Roman culture was in the time of Christ.

And our response is…?

My visit was during the Orthodox Easter season, and I attended liturgy at Nagoya’s Annunciation Orthodox church, a very small, humble community meeting in a large converted house. The service was chanted in the archaic form of Japanese that was translated by the original 19th century Russian missionaries. My friend Taka who agreed to come with me is not a Christian, but I had hopes he would hear something in the morning service of Holy Saturday that would confirm my witness to him about Christ’s power over sin and death. He couldn’t understand a thing he heard! It was as meaningless to him as were the Buddhist mantras chanted at the morning service at Kosho-ji temple. Or, perhaps he wasn't really paying attention?

The Orthodox community had purchased land in central Nagoya for the erection of a proper church. I saw the model. It was to be a replica of an 11th century Russian cathedral, an imposing cube with arches along the roof line and covered with numerous domes. This is what the people of Nagoya will see when they pass by—a Russian cultural phenomenon. That is what Christ will be for them. As of today, it appears that the new church has been built and is now in use. The blog that shows it is called Russia Ha Japan. See what I mean?

My mind wanders back to Ise, and the shrines that get torn down and rebuilt of new materials every twenty years. A religion of nature spirits is infused with hints of the Christ who makes all things new, and the faith of Jesus is overlaid with the crust of a thousand years of plaster and gilding.

When witnessing Christ to a nation without tradition, without history or roots, show them the ancient Tree and teach them how to eat of its fruit and live forever.

When witnessing Christ to a nation devoted to tradition, history and the nature gods of its ancient land, show them the living Christ who makes all things new, who empties Hades of its captives, and who walks among them, unhindered by our past, gathering His sheep.

The Message

…nobody wants to hear. No, we simply can’t bear it. Things simply can’t be that bad. God really can’t care about things like that. He’s making it all up. Why does he have to keep raving like he does? Lock him up! Shut him up where we don’t have to hear his raving! Deep, down deep! Let him rant at the stones in the dungeon, yes, in the dark dungeon! What? What did you say? You actually think he’s right? Is that why you won’t let me have him killed? You know we’re living in sin? You really believe that? Is that why you’re always going to listen to his raving at the grate? Is that why you insist on keeping him here?

Herod Antipas kept the prophet and forerunner John the Baptist imprisoned in his dungeon and would not kill him, despite his wife Herodias’ displeasure. Herodias had left her husband, who was Herod Antipas’ brother, to marry him. This was a social climbing marriage for Herodias, kicking her status up another notch in the politics of that day. She wanted to keep up appearances and insisted that John be done away with, since he was defaming her new marriage. She wanted the people to see her and Herod Antipas as Torah-observant Jews who followed the commandments, well, at least the important ones. What did a little history of adultery matter?

So what, if they really were living in sin. They were having a good time, weren’t they? They were successful, they had lots of friends, important and influential ones. They were in the flow of things, they were going the way the world was going. Soon it would all be theirs. But there was that noise again! That persistent, stinging invective, those flaming words, “Did you not know, have you not heard? Was it not told you from the beginning? Have you not understood…” Why couldn’t that voice be silenced? But their party must go on, their celebration of the king’s birthday must go on, something or somebody must silence that voice!

Herod arose from his drunken stupor, casting aside his cup, but he was helpless, a man who couldn’t go forward or back. As a “good” Jew he knew what was right, what Torah required of him as a king and as a man, but he couldn’t do it. He was trapped by his own ambitions, by his own lusts. The world had made him its slave, while he pretended, while he went through the motions of being a king. Ah, but where a man can’t be depended on to do a man’s job, a woman will always step forward. Herodias knew exactly what to do. “Music! Music!” she called out with an allusive smile and a broad sweep of her commanding, graceful arm. The music was jacked up and for a moment they thought they couldn’t hear the Word coming up at them through the pavement, echoing along the walls. They and their guests splashed wine down each others gullets. More and more, soon to drown out that voice with its dreaded Message.

So it is with the world. When it can’t bear to hear the Message any longer, it cranks up the music, adds more lighting, wears fancier clothes and better perfumes, it wigs up and makes a bigger pitch for the audience’s attentions, promising ever greater rewards, if only that voice would stop raving, if only that Message would go away and stop spoiling the fun…

Who now are the big players on stage?
Who are the actors? Who has written today's script? Who has the Message and who is proclaiming it, and who is pretending to be Torah-observant so they can continue reigning on earth? It doesn’t matter that it’s not the real Torah but only a replica, only a man-made concoction of the latest platitudes and politically correct mantras. Add more wine to the party, add more inebriants, more medication, let the death-dealers come in too, there’s nothing wrong with bringing a little bit of hard, cold reality into the party, and death on demand would be a perfect ending to a perfect life, for some people.

Brethren, the time is close, very close now. Yet we do not proclaim the salvation of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. We play juggler with His words, we pantomime Him ceremoniously, we make converts to ethnic festivals, we educate with museums, make our people culturally aware. The Message? What’s that? Oh, is that what you’re talking about? Nobody wants to hear stuff like that. It spoils the fun we’re having. ‘I don’t think we should have dogs in our church!’ as a woman was heard to bark at someone who was actually witnessing for Christ at the Greek Festival a couple of years ago. We want the world to see that we’re observant like they are, that we’re educated, not like those others who keep raving about some Message or other.

Not only the Gadarenes, once having heard and seen what Jesus does, have implored Him to leave their neighborhood, or their world.

Start with the absolutes

Witnessing Christ to the world is a major goal of the Christian. Wonderful is the testimony of the second mile. The first mile may be obligatory, and often a matter of formality as it restrains us to travel its path. However, to go the second mile displays assurance of love and likeness. Going the first mile is compulsion; going the second mile is dedication and loyalty. Christ went the second mile:
He emptied Hades.

I don’t wish to inaugurate a dialog or try to convince anyone that leaving Christianity because it doesn’t satisfy one’s idea of fairness towards non-Christians is a bad idea; but I think it’s a move that most people make with insufficient—actually, irrelevant—evidence.

Some realities are absolutes, and if you started with them and worked your way backwards, the outcome would be different.

Start with Christ’s own words. He is pretty specific, and He doesn’t throw curses and threats around. His language to us is reasonable but demands personal (1) obedience and (2) faith (or trust). If you want to be a Christian at all, you have to accept what He says. Watch His actions, too, in the Gospels. This is what I would call the first absolute.

The second absolute, again working backwards from Christ Himself, is what the holy apostles wrote, and how the Church lived right from the beginning. Again, you must return to the New Testament as primary source book, but again, you do not find curses and threats being thrown around (though you do find some specific exclusions in some of the language). I would call the apostles (what they wrote, not what later authorities have said about what they wrote) the second absolute.

We are still very far from having to believe that four-fifths of humanity is going to hell because they haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.

The third absolute, I’m afraid, would have to be something you’re not prepared to accept: the faith of the Orthodox which, following the first two absolutes, also does not lump humanity into the saved minority (only themselves) and the wicked and lost majority (everyone else). It’s not quite so easy to get at this third absolute: it’s nothing so easy as reading the Bible; it’s using the first two absolutes as the raw data for producing the third absolute. How? By living according to those first two absolutes. Where is that possible? In the Orthodox community. Why there? Because it hasn’t compromised those first two absolutes. It hasn’t attached human speculation and guesswork to them, or erected systems of anti-contamination and quarantine to them, making it all but impossible to even hear, let alone believe and practice, authentic Christianity.

You have left Christianity, but what if what you thought was Christianity was just a mirage? What if Christianity from Christ’s point of view were absolutely different from what you rejected? What if you found out that you agreed with ‘the unknown God’ and that history really did have a surprise ending, that the Christians you heard tell of an unhappy ending (as if they knew all about it) didn’t really know what they were talking about?

These are just some thoughts I wanted to share with you.

What have you rejected, the real or the counterfeit?
If the former, so be it, but what if it’s the latter?
Even one person was worth dying for, so
maybe even one person is

worth waiting for.

He wasn’t kidding when He said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ and if He is who He said He was, then His Father will grant His prayer, not just this one, but all of them.
Start with the absolutes, and think again.

Barbarians

Sóson Kýrie ton laón Sou
Kai evlóghison tin klironomían Sou
Níkas tis vasiléfsi katá varváron dhoroúmenos
Kai to son filáton dhía tu Stavroú Sou politévma

Save, O Lord, your people
And bless Your inheritance
Grant victory to the princes
Against the barbarians
And protect Your commonwealth
By Your Cross

‘Contemporary’ translations of this, one of my favorite Greek hymns, the hymn of the Holy Cross, changes ‘the princes’ to ‘the faithful’, ‘the barbarians’ to ‘the adversaries of the faith’, and ‘Your commonwealth’ to ‘Your people’. There is actually another entirely different wording altogether which was pushed on my local parish for four years by the then ‘proistámenos’ who has now been removed and is no longer a presbyter in the Church. Thankfully, we're back to using the version of the hymn quoted above, and sometimes we even sing the correct translation, but there is still a tendency to sing the modern paraphrase. It all depends on who's leading the choir. I sing only in Greek anyway.

Like the Word of God, I believe our ancient Greek hymns should not be politically or culturally updated, but translated as they are. Better yet, people could, if they wanted to, enter into the real meaning of the Word of God and the hymns if they tried to understand Greek, but I won't push this. To each what his heart desires.

Back to the topic, barbarians.

An Orthodox priest, Fr Gregory Jensen (OCA) recently wrote,

According to the PEW survey, the majority of Orthodox laity agree that abortion and gay marriage should be legal. It may surprise you, then, that the problem isn’t Schaeffer – it’s us; specifically, it’s the clergy. For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, we clergy are not effectively communicating the moral tradition of the Church to the laity. Or, if we are, the laity aren’t listening—which would imply that the clergy are willing to tolerate the laity ignoring the Gospel.

We see the same prevalence of pro-choice, pro-gay marriage positions among Orthodox politicians. This kind of a consistent pattern of belief does not just happen. As in the Catholic Church, we see in the Orthodox Church evidence of a significant pastoral failing. This appears to be more than just a widespread lack of sound moral education for the faithful. It appears to be an embrace of, or at least resignation to, the influence of secularism in our parishes.

This is a very serious problem. This isn’t a debate about the practices of potentially faithful followers—as can be the case when addressing, say, Old Calendar or New Calendar, or the issue of women wearing headscarves, or whether priests should have beards and wear cassocks, or whether we have pews or not, or whether to use an organ to lead the choir. This goes much deeper—to the heart of Christian discipleship. It seems that we have simply lost sight of the beauty and power of Christian virtue; perhaps worse, it seems that we have given over leadership to moral barbarians.

I know that sounds like a harsh judgment, but what else can one call it? A barbarian isn’t a bad person. A barbarian isn’t likely to love his wife and children any less than you or I. He isn’t necessarily an atheist or polytheist. In fact, many barbarians believed—and believe—in Christ, though for the same reason that they believed in the old gods: to secure power for their people.

John Courtney Murray writes in his introduction to The Civilization of the Pluralist Society that “the barbarian need not appear in bearskins with a club in hand.” Instead he……may wear a Brooks Brothers suit and carry a ball-point pen with which to write his advertising copy. In fact, even beneath the academic gown there may lurk a child of the wilderness, untutored in the high tradition of civility, who goes busily and happily about his work, a domesticated and law-abiding man, engaged in the construction of a philosophy to put an end to all philosophy, and thus put an end to the possibility of a vital consensus and to civility itself.

In Murray’s view, the perennial “work of the barbarian” is “to undermine rational standards of judgment, to corrupt the inherited intuitive wisdom by which the people have always lived.” He does this not “by spreading new beliefs” but…

…by creating a climate of doubt and bewilderment in which clarity about the larger aims of life is dimmed and the self-confidence of the people is destroyed, so that finally what you have is the impotent nihilism of the “generation of the third eye,” now presently appearing on our university campuses. [This was written in 1958!] (One is, I take it, on the brink of impotence and nihilism when one begins to be aware of one’s own awareness of what one is doing, saying, thinking. This is the paralysis of all serious thought; it is likewise the destruction of all the spontaneities of love.)

In the modern world, then, “the barbarian is the man who makes open and explicit rejection of the traditional role of reason and logic in human affairs. He is the man who reduces all spiritual and moral questions to the test of practical results or to an analysis of language or to decision in terms of individual subjective feeling.” By these criteria, it seems that we live in an increasingly barbarian world—even in our own parishes.

Yes, save, O Lord, your people and bless Your inheritance.
Grant victory to the princes against the barbarians and protect Your commonwealth by Your Cross.

Till the end of the age

There are few things I am as certain of, as I am certain of the loving-kindness and the mercy of God, toward mankind, and toward every creature.

I was standing in the narthex (inner porch) of my parish church as an usher and interpreter during our annual Greek Festival. It was the evening, and one of our deacons, the former history teacher, was engaging a small audience in the rear of the nave (the worship hall) in his usual three hour long question and answer session. His audience was spellbound. The deacon was ‘on a roll’ as they say. I was ushering the occasional sight-seers into the nave through the side entrances, letting them know it was permitted to walk around the temple while the talk was going on, and to photograph anything they liked.

At one point I noticed a clutch of teenagers standing together at the front of the temple near the pulpit, and on the right side of the fence that defines the soléa (the steps leading to the altar) two young girls ‘occupying’ themselves in front of a stand of seven-day votive lights. Near them, leaning against the end of the front right pew, was a young woman. I had no misgivings about the group of youth. They seemed quietly engaged in discussing the ikonostasis (icon wall separating the nave from the altar area, which is not visible to the people except through the central gateway, when it’s open). But the young girls.

I thought I had better take a look. It’s common during the festival for visitors, even sometimes adults, to linger at the various candle-stands and sandboxes (where we offer tapers by sticking them upright in the sand, to mark our presence in the temple, or an intercession) in various states of confusion or curiosity. Unfamiliar with our customs, the adults sometimes need to be instructed where to get fresh candles (often they see us drop candle remainders in the little cans below the sandboxes and think that’s where you get a candle to light). Children like to linger at the votives, and light as many of them as they can.

Lit candles, especially in colored glass containers, are so pretty. I made my way to where the two girls were ‘experimenting’ with the seven-day votives. I watched them for a second or two and then asked the young woman, ‘Are these two girls with you?’ She responded that they weren’t. So, I spoke to the girls, ‘Excuse me, but you really are not supposed to be lighting these candles,’ and then, as they were old enough to understand, I explained in a mild voice that these candles are lit by people who are praying ‘really hard and long’ for some special need, and so we shouldn’t light them as a decoration.

‘Nothing you see in this church is just for a decoration, or just to make it pretty,’ I said. ‘Everything here has a purpose. Nothing is done just for show.’ The girls seemed to understand, and apologized. Mission accomplished. I find that if you approach everyone who is visiting the temple as a tourist but doing something inappropriate, assuming they are not trying to be offensive (even when they obviously are) it helps keep the peace in a friendly way, and sometimes leads you into another encounter. And as we believe, every encounter is from Christ. Everyone is sent. He sends them to us, and us to them.

So it happens, dependably. The young woman turned to me in the moment after the girls left and asked, ‘What is behind those doors?’ pointing to the closed evangelist doors of the Beautiful Gate in the center of the icon wall. ‘A free standing altar embedded with the relics of saints, and behind that an empty throne in which no one but the Emperor can sit and, when there is no Emperor, only Christ Himself.’ Then we continued a quiet dialog about the visual elements at the front of the church, while the teaching deacon kept up his pace at the opposite end of the nave.

At one point the young woman looked at me and said, ‘I am interested in learning about this church as part of the heritage of my family. You see, I am Greek by nationality.’ I asked her if she was an Orthodox Christian or unchurched, and she startled me when she responded, ‘I am LDS.’ At first I almost didn’t know what to say, but the direction of the encounter definitely took a sharp curve. I revealed to her that I had studied Mormon beliefs, read and even studied all their scriptures when I was in college, where my best friend gently tried to convert me to his faith. When I mentioned he was RLDS, she looked disgusted.

RLDS is a denomination (now called Community of Christ) to which the family members of the original Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr. continue to belong, and for which they at first provided leadership. They had not followed Brigham Young and the majority of the LDS (Latter-Day Saints) to Utah. I mentioned that I had traveled with my friend to Independence, Missouri, the LDS ‘centerplace’ and even met Joseph Smith III, the grandson of the original prophet. Her look and voice barely concealed her disdain as she responded, ‘We don’t have anything to do with them.’ I realized then my mistake.

So, we talked a little more about the features of the Orthodox faith expressed in the church surroundings. I told her that I had given the Mormon religion as serious a consideration as I had ever given any proposition put before me, but that I could not square its view of Church history with the facts of that history as recorded in the books, both the Holy Bible and the works of historians of the Christian era. My testimony was that the Jesus Christ that I know by personal experience conforms to what I find taught about Him in biblical, that is, Orthodox, Christianity. I asked her forgiveness, as I did not mean to offend her faith.

She said she wasn’t offended, and offered her testimony. Then she told me that the only way a person can know the truth about anything is to ask the Holy Spirit to personally teach them, point by point, and that if they do this, they will arrive at the same absolute certainty that she has about the truth of the Mormon prophet and religion. I responded that I believe something similar with regard to Christ, whom we call ‘the only Teacher of mankind,’ and that by living my life in Him I also have reached a point of absolute certainty in my faith as an Orthodox Christian.

Our encounter ending peaceably enough, she identified some members of my parish that were co-workers of hers and who had invited her to church to experience the Orthodox faith for herself. She said she wanted to do that to try to understand what her ancestors had believed, but I could tell she was definitely looking at this prospect as simply an historical enquiry. She had the last word by inviting me to watch a movie soon to be released in the theatres, ‘Meet the Mormons.’ She said I was sure to enjoy it, and that she was planning to see it also. She left the temple, and I, silence in my heart, went back to my duties.

How little we notice Christ standing in our midst, silent, maybe invisible to most, offering Himself for us, His life for us, and for the world He came to save! We occupy ourselves, like those young girls, innocent perhaps of the great import of the beauty with which He surrounds us, signs of His permanent and persistent loving presence, and without meaning to offend Him, simply amuse ourselves in unknowing unbelief. Or like the young woman, whom His love has been carrying, protecting, instructing in truth, while her mind orbits human fallacies passed as revelations, unwilling to acknowledge He has been faithful to our race in His promise, ‘Lo, I am with you till the end of the age.’

Christianity as religious artifact

The Portland Greek Festival will be happening this weekend. This is an annual event at Aghía Triás (Holy Trinity) Church in Portland, Oregon, that began the year I was born. It's been going on for sixty-three years! I've heard that it was the first of its kind in America, and that all other Greek Festivals stem from ours. Who knows if that's true, or just part of tradition. I've been "working" at the festival every year since I was thirty-eight years old. I put "working" in quotes, because what I do is not considered work by some of the Greeks around here. Why is that? Because I am an usher or guide in the sanctuary—I stay in the church and assist visitors in understanding what they are seeing there, and I also witness for Christ, without Whom there would be no sanctuary, and no festival.

The Greek Festival is successful for many reasons and in many ways. To some, it's the money that matters. For others, it's the whole community pulling together, each according to his or her ability, to roll out a huge welcome mat for others to see what the Greek culture is about, to practice "philoxenía" (hospitality, literally "love of strangers"), the most highly valued of virtues to the Greek mind. These people really do live up to this ideal, they are willing to help and to accept others, even incorporating them into the Greek kinonía if they want to be. But sometimes I wonder if they are too welcoming, too accepting.

I wonder if they are susceptible to a kind of Trojan Horse in reverse. They know that the world is patronizing them as a cultural and religious relic, a beautiful anomaly in today's world, a kind of harmless entertainment. It doesn't seem to bother them.


The sanctuary being open to the public has been a part of the Festival as long as I've been in this community. It symbolizes what is at the heart of any of the goodness we are perceived by others to have. The church tours we have are informative, and delivered in a spirit of modesty, tailored to the audience's background whenever possible, and kept from becoming confrontational. But to witness to our guests about Jesus Christ is left to the laypeople who man the sanctuary. The clergy will tell you everything about the Church, its history, its culture, its tradition, even its understanding of scripture and theology, but that's the extent of it. People can listen and even ask questions and carry away just a little bit more knowledge about something beautiful and arcane, but what of Jesus Christ? Did anything they heard produce faith in them? Was the seed of the Word planted in them? Let's hope that it was and is, and may God give the increase. But are we just playing into the world's matrix, letting it turn our faith into a commodity, Christianity as religious artifact?

Take Jesus Christ out of the equation, and that's what you have, whether we're talking about Orthodox Christianity, or any other. Our form of church just has more tools than some of the others, but without Christ, those tools become mere toys, something for the world, or for us, to play with. For us, the "game of church." For the others, just more interesting artifacts to decorate their drawing room.

May it shock my readers to view the image below, from Phoenix Home & Garden magazine (July 2001 issue). Here is a room decorated with a collection of authentic icons, on the wall arranged in a cross-like pattern.

Notice the icon of the Resurrection is at the very bottom, near the floor. On the coffee table lie five icons just as artifacts to be handled (one of them in a glass frame). Let's hope they're not being used as coasters! (Of course not, that'd ruin the finish!) To the right of the arranged wall icons is an art piece of what looks like a male nude, and there are other objets d'art all over the room.
Brothers, this is where we are headed, if we don't reveal to the world the One in whom we live and move and have our being (cf. Acts 17:28), not just at the festival, but every day, wherever we are sent. The world will love us if we make it feel better, on its terms, but like the icons in an Arizona businessman's great room we may find ourselves hung, arranged in a cross, and ignored.

Without Jesus, welcome to the world "as it is."

Inside His wounds

We know ourselves to be always unworthy, and it is no mere negative boast, but the truth about us, making it doubly more shameful. Yet the deeper we fall in whatever way, we keep finding the Lord already there, waiting for us. He has become sin for us, He has become our unworthiness, He has exchanged His righteousness for our filthy rags, and yet we do not know how it is we can wear them, wear Him, be clothed in His very flesh.

We only know that He has opened wide His wounds to let us inside, and there, if nowhere else, we are safe.

It is He

I am a Christian, that is, a follower, a disciple, of Jesus the Christ, the true Messiah and true King of Israel, the fulfillment of all prophets and all prophecies past, present, and to come, the Son of Man also known as true God of true God to the consternation of all who would imprison the Divine Nature in the strongbox of mere belief.

The faith I adhere to, without either fear or pride, is the faith of the Orthodox, that is, the faith of the Christians of the Seven Councils, to which faith I heartily invite everyone who seeks the true Light, the heavenly Spirit, and the true Faith. Never mind what the Church looks like in the past, present, or to come, for we walk by trust, not by sight.

This faith is not a system. It is not systematic. It does not yield itself in truth to those who would dissect it with the scalpel of mere reason. It is not constituted by the canons, or laws, that the Church has passed in its councils, but by the holy and divine liturgy, the work of the people, which is worship that instructs, transforms, even deifies the worshipers.

This is the faith of those who overcome, to whom will be granted to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God (Revelation 2:7), of those who will not be hurt by the second death (2:11), of those to whom Christ will give some of the hidden manna, and a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it (2:17).

This is the faith of those who overcome, who keep Christ’s deeds until the end, to whom He will give authority over nations, as He has received authority from the Father, and to whom He will give the morning star (Revelation 2:26-28), thus clothing them in white garments, whose names will not be erased from the book of life, but confessed before the Father and His angels (3:5).

This is the faith of those who overcome, whom Christ will make pillars in the temple of His God, who will not go out from it anymore, on whom He will write the name of His God, and the name of the city of His God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from His God, and His new name (Revelation 3:12), and to whom He will grant to sit down with Him on His throne, as He also overcame and sat down with His Father on His throne (3:21).

The faith I adhere to, without flinching or boasting, is the faith of the Orthodox, those who are called the logical  flock, those who are called saints, those whose home is not of this world but who make this world hospitable, those who seek the Kingdom and the righteousness of God before everything else, while showing mercy without stint or measure.

Glory to You, O God, for showing us the Light, which is the Light of Your Face turned towards us, full of tenderness and mercy, which is the Face of Your Only Begotten Son, who came to reveal everything about You, and to open wide the Door which no one can ever close, yes, to open Paradise to the thief, and to us. Glory to You, O God, for Your mercy.

I am a Christian, a follower, a disciple, of Jesus the Christ, who can nothing overcome but by Him who lives in me, not by my will nor my power, but by His, and by faith not by sight do I dare to have taken this road, having heard His call and, unable to resist despite my sins, gone after Him, for love responds to Love, and life to Life, and there is only one Truth: it is He.

They have revived all men

Brothers, we shall hymn with praise the tongues of the disciples
Because, not with elegant speech,
But in divine power they have revived all men.
Because they took up His Cross as a reed,
So that they might again use words as fishing lines
           and fish for the world
Since they had speech as a sharp fishhook,
Since the flesh of the Master of all
Has become for them a bait, it has not sought to kill
But it attracts to life those who worship and praise
The All-Holy Spirit.

Saint Romanos the Melodist 

As a harmonious harp of lofty wisdom from on high

and an expounder of things seen in God-inspired ascents, 

we extol thee, Father Romanos, and we hymn thee. 

As a trumpet of the gifts that pass the mind of man, 

do thou rouse us to divine and saving watchfulness,

as we cry to thee: Rejoice, O Father elect of God.

The cost of discipleship

A young Christian brother asked me, ‘Romanos, what is the cost of discipleship for you?’ On first hearing, it seems a simple question, one that expects a simple answer. But no, it is a loaded question, and it speaks volumes. But, let me try to keep it simple for love’s sake.

What is the cost of discipleship to me, or to any person? First, I must tell you, the cost will look different at the beginning of one’s life than it does at the end. Of course, I can’t say ‘at the end’ for myself, because I’m not there yet. I am only one day closer.

As a young man, having been brought up in a religious family, I nevertheless was not satisfied with religion. I suspected that it was a cover for something else, something quite different, yet the same. I thought it best to reject my religious upbringing, and start over.

Unknown to me at the time, I now look back and say, that was my first payment of the cost of discipleship. Loving my parents and my ancestral religion, I still had to leave them behind, because I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘No man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back…’

What? But weren’t you a Christian? Weren’t you raised a Christian? Of course, but I began to read the holy and divine scriptures for myself, and there I heard what had been preached to me, unheeded, within the sacred enclosure, ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God…’

So like any pilgrim and disciple, that is, follower, of Jesus, I ran after Him, at first with my eyes and ears, and then with my feet. His teachings were very sweet and clear to me. I was like a dry field finally knowing rain, beginning to feel as though I could bear an abundant crop.

This is how it is when anyone, at any age, discovers Jesus, the real, living Jesus, not the Christ of religion. There is a feeling of exhilaration and relief, we feel liberated from being stifled by mere belief. We want to give all and, as a young Christian, that’s what I thought the cost of discipleship was.

This is very linear and unpracticed thinking, but that is how it must be for most people. I felt the cost of discipleship to be a very light burden and, rather than having a sense of ‘giving up the world’, I only felt immense gratitude for being called out of it. Again I say, I wanted to give all for all.

Filled with bible verses to bolster my enthusiasm, I thought of God’s holy commandments as a joy to follow and fulfill, in thanks for being saved. I imagined all the worldly things I was giving up, and living a counter-cultural lifestyle with my wife and children, was the cost of discipleship.

I thought to myself, ‘Yes, this is what Jesus means when He says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light,”’ and I thought I knew what the cost of discipleship was…

‘Just follow Jesus.’ I say this now, and I said it then, to myself and to anyone else who would hear me. At the beginning of my life in Christ, the cost of discipleship was primarily paid by the Blood of a Lamb without spot, slain before the foundation of the world. I loved to know that.

But before not many years, I learned that to be a disciple you must respond to the call of Jesus Christ, daily, hourly, even minutely. He does not wait for you to contemplate the cost of discipleship from an armchair, or while enjoying a television program or playing with your children.

I also learned that to be a follower of Jesus is dangerous. Why? Because Jesus can walk anywhere, and as He trusts you more, He calls you to accompany Him to places ‘where angels fear to tread.’ Yes, you’re right, ‘For fools rush in’ is the first part of that saying. The cost of discipleship, yes, the cost.

It becomes clearer that you can no longer rely on anything of your own, not your piety, your blameless following of the commandments, nor your refusal to compromise with the world’s demands. Worst of all, the blessings you thought you earned begin to fail. Now, who or what do you rely on?

What then? It may seem that the cost of discipleship can even be, to not know for sure if you are even a disciple at all. This is where the saying, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’ comes into play. Not every good saying is a direct quote from the bible. The cost of discipleship, yes, the cost.

Now, a different set of bible verses begins to dawn on us. ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head,’ and ‘No disciple is greater than his master…’ What was this cost of discipleship that we thought we had to pay when we started?

It seems to me, finally, that the cost of discipleship is different for each one who follows Jesus. It is something that we must pay, and if it costs us little or nothing, we must fear that perhaps what we are calling our ‘discipleship’ is nothing of the sort, but only a ‘pious phase’ we’re going through.

Then again, the cost varies with time, place and occasion. What seems hardship or self-denial often has nothing to do with the cost, and sometimes what seems self-indulgence and irresponsibility does. Even worse, the cost places the disciple in the position of being wrongly accused, and judged.

If you want to know the cost of discipleship for me, or for anyone, I should now shut my mouth, and best point to Jesus who says, ‘I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also,’ for the cost begins and ends there, with Jesus.

'Gotta Hear It From You

Why is it that I can somehow see through this world
why is it like I’m always looking through a window
why is it the people are so transparent, even their hearts
why do I feel my body and mind are just containers
why is it I still see when I stop my breathing
what is it in me still watches even when I’m sleeping
what is it I throw out of me when my eyes touch another’s
how can the empty behind the full be so abundant?

I’m not talking in symbols now.
No, I’m not trying to entertain you.
I’m not fooling with metaphysics.
No time left for me to play with you.
Just asking this simple question.
Just one word, one word only’ll do.
Just give me a permit for my profession,
but I’ve gotta hear it from you.

Where is the doorway to step out of this world machine
where is the gateway to get out of this walled city
where is the shallow where I can ford this stream, even now
where can I find the pass to lead me up out of this valley
where’s the court where I can go and get my hearing
why is it I still know that believing is just seeing
what is it in me still listens when my heart is hardened
how can the silence behind the song be so convincing?

I’m not walking in circles now.
No, I’ve got no place to go to meet you.
I’m not ruling out pilgrimages.
I only feel that maybe they’d unseat you.
Just asking this simple question.
Just one word, one word only’ll do.
Just give me a blessing at my confession,
but I’ve gotta hear it from you.

What is the meaning of this regular aberration
what is the purpose behind this persistent wrinkle
what is it, floating in my eyes, even when I shut them
what is it blocking my stubborn attempts at solution
what is the reason for my constant detention
why is it I still look in through the window
why have they left me alone here without a pass key
how can the darkness behind the light be so radiant?

I’m not talking in symbols now.
No, I’m not trying to entertain you.
I’m not dueling with mental itches.
No time for that unless I gain you.
Just asking this simple question.
Just one word, one word only’ll do.
Just give me the object of my obsession,
but I’ve gotta hear it from you.

— Romanós