And to the Republic

Affirming that America, that is, these United States, are a Christian nation, an opinion I can only hold because of the overwhelming evidence (for better or for worse) in support of it, and noting nonetheless that none of the multitude of Christian sects, nor the Church, have been established as a state church, and since in these modern times a significant proportion of the citizens espouses no institutionalized religion, it seems reasonable to me that Government should get out of the marriage business.

Without denying that the basic unit of human society is the family, and of the Church the Christian family, as an Orthodox Christian I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, and that nothing the Government can do has anything to add to or take away from it, when it confines itself to its proper sphere, the maintenance of law and order among free, equal, and fraternal citizens, which can, and in this day should, include the regulation of households, of which families are a significant subset.

By ‘families’ I mean to say, biologically related households, not to the prejudice of households which are also families consisting of biologically unrelated people. By ‘marriage’ I mean the traditional marriage between man and woman, not to the prejudice of the unions of same sex couples who may also call their partnership ‘marriage’, nor to distinguish as different the households that are maintained by each. It is in society’s best interests that its basic unit, the household (or family), be safeguarded and maintained.

To that end, Government, as instituted the servant of the people and their guardian, should deploy its authority to make firm the bases of society, the households, regulating by license all householders to assure the safety and liberty of the citizen, from conception till death, yes, from cradle to grave making sure that no one is being denied what belongs to all, yet within the bounds of reason with respect to the maturity of each. Parents and guardians have authority by nature over offspring. This to be respected.

That the Government, again I speak only of these United States (which have their own traditions and constitutions), should foster, maintain, and regulate the basic unit of society by universal licensing, establishing households (or families) as legal entities, removes all social controversy, confines the deliberations of the various religious bodies regarding marriage and the family to those under their jurisdiction, and restores the right of essential privacy in relationships between adult citizens.

The movement for ‘marriage equality’ has brought it about that ‘gay’ and lesbian couples can now legally marry and raise families if they so choose. Some of these couples are Christians belonging to sects whose theology of marriage includes same-sex unions. That the Government has extended ‘marriage’ to all was and is not within its authority. Rather it should retreat from this usurpation and confine itself to establishing and maintaining what is for the good of society without prejudice to any.

The Government should ‘marry’ no one. That is an office belonging to the Church, and to religious bodies, whether Christian or not. Instead, for legal purposes and for equitable taxation, it should register and hold to standards domestic partnerships consisting of two householders, as well as recognizing as households any that may consist of only one adult member. Two unmarried siblings could live together and maintain a household, or two unwed parents of children, however they have become single.

We have a responsibility to rebuild society out of the rubbish heap that it has become through the depredations of consumer addiction and fantasy mongering. Leaving well enough alone will work only in those places in America where society still exists, primarily in rural and small town settings, but even there the creeping disease of anti-social attitudes can be found. We have to include as many people of good will as possible and, in the end, all in the restoration of society in America, one nation, under God.

Indivisible, yes, and especially this: with liberty and justice for all.

Jesus, Taker of Souls

Jesus, you are the taker of souls,
you are the secret thief of souls.
Under cover of night you steal your daughter
from pirates who curse and strike the air.

Jesus, you are the holy piper
and every soul who hears you
throws away his living and runs after you
leaving his winding-sheet in the road.

Jesus, you are the all-loved man.
Masked in darkness, you draw out the soul
of a dying man from its lifelong home.
Though he is terrified he surrenders.

Jesus, you are the taker of souls
for every soul that hears your name
immediately tries to give away his life
so he can be free to join your Company.

Jesus, you are the teacher who sings to souls.
A shock went through the body human
And all men in their souls looked wildly
for the light that suddenly shined on them.

Jesus, you are the all-loved man
for every one who thinks he runs from you
leaps into your arms and he who chases you
tries to hold a bundle but drops it in the path.

Alana Roberts

the latest from her blog

Platform

When the time comes

Homelessness. The phenomenon is growing. It wasn’t out in the open at first, although of course it was, we just didn’t notice it, because we don’t usually look under bridges or in the deep bush of unoccupied wastelands. What we did notice at first, and for many years now in the big cities, was this other phenomenon: on the side of every road where drivers must stop, for a stop sign or traffic light, a man would be standing holding up a piece of cardboard on which was scrawled ‘Anything helps. God bless!’ or something to that effect.

Half a century ago, when I was a child, beggars were scarce, even in a big city like Chicago. In fact, I don’t remember seeing any. In my young adulthood, I emigrated to Canada, to Edmonton, a big city in Alberta. There I saw my first beggars, Native Americans (Indians) panhandling for small change on downtown streets. Most of them looked terrible, most were alcoholics and unemployed, refugees in reverse from where they came from on the reserves, and they often slept on out-of-the-way sidewalks and in neglected doorways.

I can’t remember giving these beggars anything, but then, in those days, I barely had anything to give. Instead, I had always followed a pattern that I had seen in my own family: help your neighbor in need, when you can, with whatever you have, but don’t drop money into a beggar’s hat just because he looks poor. It was a pattern that I later realized was part of God’s plan: He sends people to you, and you know it, because what they need is exactly what you know you can give. No need to go out of one’s way to look for beggars to help.

Sometimes these people were homeless. My mother took in some boy prostitutes during a severe cold spell one winter in Joliet, Illinois, where she was living. I think it was my younger brother who discovered them. They were street kids, homeless, trying to keep warm and sleeping in railroad box cars. They supported themselves by servicing affluent homosexual men who would drive down from Chicago for ‘safe sex’ with boys. My mother knew what they did and didn’t judge them. For a few days, they could live as kids again, warm and well-fed.

But the beggars of today, those street corner bandits. Yes, some of them behave as bandits, though most just stoically stand there looking somewhat pathetic. I don’t doubt that they need help, but it isn’t the kind of help they’re asking for. The guilty public, those who silence their consciences for other sins they are committing, roll their car windows down and throw a handful of inconvenient small change, a dollar bill or two, into their hand, and then quickly speed off, barely hearing the ‘Thanks and God bless!’ croaked out as their receipt.

This phenomenon has reached epidemic proportions, but as long as it was just bodies guarding street corners, people have put up with it. The other phenomenon, the homelessness though, is one that cannot be as easily ignored. Why? Because the homeless, whether by choice or circumstances, aren’t camping out in remote, abandoned locations anymore. They are camping out where we can see them, where we work, go shopping, even where we live. The number of new camps is visually staggering, and the authorities’ response is scant.

Yes, local civil authorities are taking measures to respond to this phenomenon, but because we are no longer a society but just aggregates of individuals who depend on others to take responsibility and solve our problems, the response is ineffectual. Homeless shelters often in unused public buildings, legal campgrounds where there shouldn’t be any, dropouts from society being moved about like gaming pieces, all because there is in reality no society. What’s the proof of that? Societies have both the will and the power to defend themselves.

Defend themselves from what? From anything that breaks them down, anything that creates disorder on the scale that we now see it all around us. An aggregate of individuals, each putting themselves first, is not a society. It is a human population which has reverted to the state of nature, to what used to be called ‘the noble savage.’ Savages we are, but noble? Far from it. ‘Every man for himself’ is the recipe for the social ills we now find ourselves in, unemployment, poverty, and now, epidemic homelessness. Before we can solve these problems, we must become a society.

Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz, ‘the common good before one’s own good,’ a German expression capitalized by the National Socialists and which became Hitler’s basic stance on the subordination of the economy to the national interest, is both a rational and a Christian concept essential to the maintenance of human society. We have to stop thinking emotionally. We have to step out and act. We have to ask, ‘What does good?’ instead of ‘What feels good?’ We have to look at our stock pile of ideas, and put the ones that produce what we want to work.

This is where, it appears to me, society is heading. What? Didn’t I just claim that we are not a society but an aggregate of egoists? Well, yes, I did, but now I have to speak less precisely. Society is starting to wake up to the fact that we have handed over our authority to political elites, to oligarchies. Next, we must realize that this happened because we abandoned our commitment to social responsibility, because we preferred being baby-sat instead of being grown-up. As long as our needs were being met, automatically, we needn’t do anything more.

This is, of course, nonsense, again, as we are finding out. We are just around the corner from some massive changes. Homelessness is a squalor we have discovered we can no longer afford, beggary a blight that we can no longer support. There are better ways to live, not just for the homeless and those found begging at intersections, but for ourselves as well. The ills that plague society, such as it is, have actually killed society, and we just didn’t notice. Now, there’s nothing we can do but bring it back alive. Let’s be ready to move when the time comes.

Beatitude

I am happy, and I want to be, but it’s not something I have to talk myself into, like some silly optimist. Happiness doesn’t come easily, because it can’t depend on what’s happening around us, and it isn’t achieved by merely ignoring the evils in the world near or far. No, it doesn’t come easily if we think it comes from anywhere outside ourselves.

Happiness is something built into us by our Creator, it’s a gift He has bestowed on every creature, it’s an inner light which He appointed for us to be able to see our way, even when things get very, very dark. That sin which clings so closely that we fall to thinking is part of us, that we sometimes blame God for, makes us unhappy, at odds with everything.

Some people even canonize the state of being unhappy so that they can feel pious about it. It becomes a proof of their fidelity to God and to His Word. Sin in them confuses ‘blessed are they that mourn’ with a personal cult of unhappiness that they seek to impose on others around them. We all have experienced this. We call it ‘guilt tripping.’

In His sermon on the mount, our Lord begins by revealing to us the true human nature with which we were created. We call these sayings ‘beatitudes’ and sometimes confuse them with a regimen of ideal behavior which we feel the Lord is asking of us. The contrary is true. He is telling us of the gifts He bestowed on us when He created us happy.

Yes, happy—μακαριος, makários, ‘happy’—the blessed state in which we were created. He begins, ‘How happy are the poor in spirit: theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.’ Can anyone make themselves, by trial and error, ‘poor in spirit’? Is the Lord asking this of us? Or is He telling us, ‘Return to Me, and I will return to you. Be what I made you. Be happy’?

The same is true of the other beatitudes, even the next one which seems impossible to us, ‘How happy are those who mourn: they shall be comforted.’ If He created us to be happy, how can He be telling us that when we are happy, we will mourn? What will we mourn for, and how are we to mourn? Ironically, this saying’s solution is, the question is the answer.

We are being called, we are being tugged at, by the Lord to be happy, to return to the state of being in which we were created. At that moment when at His loving command each of us emerges from nothing, He is with us, He is the first person we see as our eyes open, His being becomes our being, we receive our sight and see the world through His eyes, we are happy.

‘How happy are the meek: they shall inherit the earth.’ And why not? The whole earth and all the wonders that it contains are given to us, who are His earthly image. We hear these words, again, as a conditional statement and, indeed, in a sense they are. We will inherit the earth means we have inherited it only when we return to our nature, meekness.

Read the rest of these sayings of Jesus, and hear them not as conditions to be met that are foreign to us, but as the conditions intrinsic to human nature, to which Christ is calling us to return. The difference is subtle between us making ourselves good against our nature, and yielding to the good that is our nature. The first is a work of man, the second a work of God.

How happy are those who hunger and thirst for what is right: they shall be satisfied.
How happy are the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them.
How happy are the pure in heart: they shall see God.
How happy are the peacemakers: they shall be called sons of God.
How happy are those persecuted in the cause of right: theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.
How happy are you when people abuse you, and persecute you, and speak all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Rejoice and be glad, for great shall be your reward in the heavens: this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.

‘Rejoice and be glad’ is a word not spoken by our Lord as spiritual decorum, but in spirit and truth. He really expects this of us, and He knows that we know there’s no way to ‘rejoice and be glad,’ except by being what He made us. The apostle Paul chimes in his assent, ‘I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord. I repeat, what I want is your happiness.’

Can it really be impossible for us to be happy? We make it seem so hard. We always find fault with the world, our neighbors, and ourselves. Can it be that we are just not looking where we’ve been told to look? And if we only looked there, looked within where Christ says ‘the kingdom of the heavens’ is, even where He is, might we then be happy?

I am happy, and I want to be, but it’s not something I have to talk myself into. I already believe it’s all true: Christ risen from the dead has remade the universe, reversed the curse of death, and is here in this room with me at this very moment. Yes, and with you too who have stumbled upon me in my cave. Let’s forget ourselves, then, and remember Him. Let’s be happy.

Yes, all it takes is a ‘be’ attitude.

Without uttering a word

‘The Holy Spirit compelled me,’ is what she is reported to have said. A woman, a stenographer in the United States House of Representatives, grabbed the microphone and began a rant against—I am not quite sure what it was she was against, except perhaps the Masons, a group she mentioned by name, accusing the nation’s founding fathers of belonging to this organization. There are Christians who will see this as an act of bravery and defiance, and others who will regard it with embarrassment and shame.

This is clearly not how Christ and the holy apostles operate. People can study the Bible their entire lives and miss the point of the good news of Jesus Christ completely, and some of them, having swallowed the Holy Ghost feathers and all, lay the blame for their bad behavior at His feet.

Such incidents just remind me of what scripture itself says, that God’s foundation stone is still in place, having been laid by the only One who could ever lay it, and on it have been built, are being built, and shall yet be built as long as the age endures, countless lives of quiet martyrdom.

Martyrdom. This is not what many think, seduced by self, assuming what does not belong to them, making themselves anointed warriors in the cause of God, to lash out blindly and then cringe to receive the blow the world may offer. It usually knows better. The world is not dumb.

To follow the Lord Jesus, to study His every move, every word, as written in the holy and divine scriptures, to join the apostles in imitating Him, to follow His commandments which are better than the laws of Moses, because they conquer the only enemy, that which lives within.

The world is sustained by the invisible Three. The Son does what He sees the Father doing. The siblings of the King of Israel, having been joined to the Father by more than flesh, continue His work, doing even greater works, for their heavenly older Brother has gone on ahead to ready the Place.

Martyrdom is to die daily with Christ, to rise from every fall, to love without limit, to suffer wrongs and not insist on rights, to bring the good news of freedom from bondage, of joy from sorrow, of mercy the spring of justice, of light over darkness. Martyrdom is to live in beauty which is holy.

We cannot know what compels people to act as they do. They may tell us one thing, but it may be another, something even hidden from themselves. One thing, though, is certain. The Holy Spirit is never the cause of confusion. He reunites tongues split by man’s greed at Babel, and offering no resistance to evils, undoes them by His presence without uttering a word.

Religions and non-religions

There seems to be a very definite pattern in the development of false, man-made religions spooked up by false, man-ordained prophets. Some survive and become denominations. Others die out because their prophets just didn’t know when to stop.

Jim Jones of ‘People’s Temple’ is one recent example, whose cult came to a tragic ending in Guyana.

Whether we recognize them as valid religions or not, even in the non-Christian faiths — Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, native American spirituality — we can sense that there is real truth there, even if only partial, and that what constitutes these faiths is not something that was ‘religiously engineered’ but, instead, the deposit of a gradual realisation by a culture of what, and even Who, the Truth is. This is why all ‘real religions’ anticipate the revelation of Jesus Christ the God-Man, and can be ‘old testaments’ leading into the New and Everlasting Covenant.

Since the Church started in the Hebrew world, the Hebrew religion became the first of these ‘old testaments’ and was canonized by the Church. But as the Word of God Jesus Christ goes forth to meet all cultures, lands and times, the Evangelion can be built on the supple and expectant spiritual traditions, or religions, of almost all people, to greater or lesser degrees.

In the case of Islam, this cannot be done, because it is a man-made religion borrowing selectively from the real religion of Judaism and from the faith of Christ, willfully changing what it has borrowed, sometimes inverting it, so that all that remains are just names and words, while the Truth content is discarded. The same can be said of some of the new religions invented in the United States, and for exactly the same reasons.

I testify, that I can witness to a Hindu, for example, whose religion I am very familiar with, and show how the myths that are taken as true by them really are true and in fact are made fully comprehensible only when one meets Christ in them. How is this possible? Because Christ is, was, and will be, that is, always was, the Truth that underlay their myths, those stories awaiting His literal coming and their meeting Him in space and time to be fulfilled.

Yes, Jesus Christ ‘the same yesterday, today, and forever,’ can be found even when well-hidden in the real religions. As for those that are not real religions, but mere human constructs for the subjugation and conquest and annihilation of human souls, Nicolaitans, these have no meeting with Christ in this or any world, except when they are flung forever into the fiery lake.

The witness of the Church to people under subjection to Islam and modern cultic religions, for example, must be undertaken in a similar way as the witness to atheists, and to all people who are religionless to begin with.

As C. S. Lewis wrote in his allegory The Pilgrim’s Regress, ‘the definition of a Pagan [is] a man so travelling that if all goes well he arrives at Mother Kirk’s chair [at the Church] and is carried over this gorge [the sin of the world]…’

Cultists are not Christians, and Muslims are not pagans, by creedal criteria. They are subjects of a form of pseudo-religious nihilism, of anti-humanism. Their conversion is only possible, I think, by meeting the Lord in person (in the person of His servants) and not by reference to their religious heritage, for they have none.

This is probably true, even universally, precisely because ‘religious’ conversion is not a matter of exchanging one set of ideas or beliefs for another, but of meeting the Lord in person, and this usually happens by meeting one of His true servants. Could this be what He is telling us here?

The one who hears you hears Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me, and the one who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.
Luke 10:16

For no other reason

Commandments.

A new wife willingly submits to her husband in all things as to her lord, and he lays down his life for her in all things, loving her as he loves himself. These are commandments, but why do they do them?
For no other reason, but love.

A son patiently listens to his old father’s advice, given unasked again and again, and continues to abide by his old mother’s household rules, fussy though they seem. This is commandment, but why does he fulfill it?
For no other reason, but love.

I have heard of people—indeed, I have seen them and known them—who go about performing their acts of righteousness without a hint of joy, carrying their burdens as if they were heavy, and bullying others, even trying to impose their unhappy fate on them.

Then, I have met people who, pretending to be amicable and full of joy beneath masks of boastfulness, flaunt their freedom from commandments, and solicit our approval of their immorality by the nice way they greet and treat us.

One day, I was helping a young married couple move out of their old place to a new townhouse just around the corner. Just as we were loading the last few items into my van, another red vehicle almost identical to mine pulled up in the spot next to us.

A dad who looked about my age hopped out of the driver’s seat, followed by a young couple from the other side, and after a mutual greeting between us, they explained they were moving into the townhouse right next door.

After propping the house door open, the kids started carrying small items in. I assumed this was another young couple, ‘twenty-somethings,’ moving in with the assistance of one of their dads, not an uncommon situation. I’ve done things like this.

The dad waxed very loquacious with me and the mom of the young couple I was helping. ‘Yeah, I’ve had five kids, and done this moving thing a lot. This is my daughter, one of the five. She’s twenty-three and all ready to live on her own.’

‘Oh, she’s moving in by herself?’ we asked. ‘Well, yeah, but I’m sure her boyfriend will be spending most of his time here,’ responded the dad with a little laugh and a mischievous look on his face. Ah, so he knew, he even expected, this. He approved.

This is not going to be a rant about young men and women sleeping together and making love before they are married. This way of ‘courtship’ is now almost universal, even in the case of church-going young adults. It’d be embarrassing to be a twenty-six year old virgin.

Modern churches, like modern society, being accustomed to a ‘cart before the horse‘ mentality—that’s what the automobile age has brought us—little preach or teach biblical morality, or if they do, they practice ‘safe sex’ with their members: ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ It’s better for all concerned.

‘Cart before the horse’ mentality? Yes.

Communion before (or without) confessing the faith: the means to unity, not the fruit of it.

The ‘Christmas season,’ not the twelve days starting with Christmas and ending with Epiphany, the culmination and satisfaction of the forty days of fasting leading up to it, but the two months starting practically with Hallowe’en: the means to happiness, but not happiness, or even joy, itself.

Living together, with all that it implies, as a sort of ‘practice run’—though not a dry run—of the idea of marriage: Like the offer of a ‘no strings attached’ trial of a confidently good product such as the Oreck vacuum cleaner.

‘No strings attached’ means you can return it with no loss to you, not exactly the same as a ‘money back guarantee,’ but in either case, the offer is simply not unconditional or free.

Virginity is a gift that a man brings a woman, and a woman brings a man. It’s a gift that can only be offered once. There’s no taking it back, either. Why is it we’re not troubled by these uncomfortable words? ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one.’ (Ephesians 5:31) Don’t we ever wonder what this means?

Back to the dad helping his daughter move into her new place, with her boyfriend’s help. Friendly people, comfortable to be around, affable. Commandments? What are they? What do you say? They’re things that God (whoever or whatever that is) wants us to do or to refrain from doing? Oh, I see, you mean the ‘thou shalt not’s.’ Give me a break. We’re not five year olds!

Commandments.

The positive ones are like invitations from an impossibly wealthy Benefactor to perform a simple task, so that He can reward you.

The negative ones are like lines that you must not, at all costs, cross. It’s the same Benefactor, but now He’s warning you of imminent disaster.

Think of the lines painted on millions of miles of automobile roads all over the planet. Have you ever noticed that no one, but no one, and especially during rush hour, just drives his car meandering all over the highway in total disregard of the lines? What would happen if he did is too terrible to imagine. We have all witnessed terrifying things on the road, a car veers out of its lane—the driver distracted, drunk, or even having a heart attack or stroke—and in no time at all an often fatal pile up of fast-moving vehicles takes place.

If only we could see that the lines we’re commanded not to cross are like that.

Every action has its consequences, yet because we no longer really believe in ‘cause and effect’ we are like drivers who play hop-scotch on highways during rush hour, dodging in and out of traffic to get where they want to be faster than anyone else. We believe in luck, if we believe in anything. Yet, even luck runs out in the end, for everyone who relies on it.

Why do we follow the commandments? Is it to ‘gain heaven,’ or earn our way into a respectable family? Are our good deeds like bargaining chips which we’ll be able to bring to the table of eternity? Can they pile up like the ‘excess merits of the saints’?

No, as holy prophet Isaiah sings,

Like a young man marrying a virgin,
so will the One who built you wed you,
and as the Bridegroom
rejoices in His Bride,
so will your God rejoice in you.
Isaiah 62:5 Jerusalem Bible

Someone loves us like that, and we in turn have no desire anymore but to return that love.

Commandments? They are our joy, we fulfill them, we follow them because we follow Him who is our Joy, and all for no other reason, but love.

I run the way of Your commandments,
since You have set me free.
Psalm 119:32 JB

Trails

When making for a destination through unknown or uncharted terrain, one tries to find the right trail, but in the process, one discovers that not all trails lead somewhere. Many are dead ends, or slowly dissipate until they are not trails at all. After much trial and error, if one is persistent and brave, and honest enough to admit mistakes, one arrives at the desired destination. Otherwise, one may arrive somewhere, but it is not where one was going, and out of fatigue and resignation, just accept it.

What is true of something as simple as a hike through the woods to reach a hidden waterfall or a mountain top, is just as true of greater, more momentous, endeavors. What I want to apply it to is the evolution of human, and humane, society, a hike that all of mankind worldwide has been taking for about seven thousand years, starting from many locations but gradually merging until we find that most of us are now hiking side-by-side, having abandoned alternate trails, sometimes without good cause.

What I mean when I say ‘without good cause’ is that along the way, the native intuitions that have guided us down the right trails, themselves the result of ‘survival of the fittest’ selection, from time to time are overridden by voices of dissent hailing from impatient, dissatisfied minds, that want to stand out, to make a statement, to divert us from the trails that we collectively chose by our intuitions. We listen to them, abandon the right trails, and get off course. We can sense this, but are afraid to turn back.

And turn back we must, if we sense that we have chosen a wrong trail, one that is not going to get us to our destination. Sometimes that wrong trail just dead ends, and we are forced willy-nilly to turn back, our blind guides suddenly absent. Sometimes the trail gets narrower and narrower and we can see that soon it will be no trail at all. This is where the blind guides will use any excuse or ruse to get us to keep groping down that decline. This is also where we have to regain our self-confidence, and turn back.

Turn back to where? If we can retrace our steps, to that place on our original trail where we took the cut. It has turned out to not be a short cut after all, and we have to be honest and admit it, and then go back to the last good trail and give it another try. It brought us to a very good place once. Maybe if we kept on it, we’d be able to reach our destination, which is a very, very good place. This is where we as a race and as a world are right now. We’ve taken the wrong trail and we’re winding up nowhere we want to be.

Politically, we have bought into the premise that democracy is the best form of government that can ever exist, applicable to all levels and scales of society. Monarchy, not the ceremonial kind that we see in about two dozen countries today, but what might be called autocratic monarchy, exists almost nowhere, and where it does exist, it is in attenuated form, and it is non-Christian. Such an autocratic monarchy, not according to Christ who is the True King, is incapable of being the Champion of the people.

For that is what a true monarch is: the Champion, Lord, and Lover of his people, one who is raised from among them, not by wealth or social status, but by wisdom, by courage, by purity of life, by obedience, and by love. The motto of some Scandinavian and Greek kings was ‘The people’s love, my strength,’ but that was an inversion. It should be ‘The people’s strength, my love.’ In other words, the love of the king for his people is their strength, the safeguard of their liberties, as the British Crown still claims.

And of course, to the best of her ability, Her Majesty the Queen at least represents the guardian of the liberties of the British people, but only as an icon of what Parliament decides. Though she was anointed and crowned in conformity with true monarchy, the British ‘constitution’ does not allow her to vocalize anything of a political nature. Her coronation oath can only be symbolic. Still, the British monarchy has most of its elements intact, if only as formulary, and is the only surviving relic of Christian monarchy.

We’ve been going down some wrong trails these past three hundred years, but it has taken this long for us to see where exactly they have been leading us. The dissolute and decadent monarchies that existed when the ‘enlightenment’ began to change our political and social course were in need of correction. They were themselves wanderings off the right trail, but the corrective was to return to the right trail, not to take another trail completely. We still have Christ the King who makes all men kings the right way.

Christianity still has a voice. Christ is still speaking to us. No one can secure our ‘life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness’ better than He whose divine teaching is in the heart of everyone, waiting to be discovered, none better than He who suffered and rose again to establish not only earthly kingdoms but the Kingdom of the Heavens as well. Christ demonstrates what true kingship is, as King of a nation, as king of a family, and as every authority that reigns through love between the great and the small households.

Dark ages don’t always seem dark to the people who live in them, or, dark ages don’t seem dark to those whose abuse of power makes them what they are, but we have been living for some time in a very dark age, an age that has been an interruption of the age of Light, the age of Christ. Thank God we are running out of trail to follow. Maybe at last we’ll turn back and rejoin the right trail, the one that really has no end except the Beginning of all things, the City made without hands. Let’s all at least make a start.

Trapped in a world without love

Once, when I was still working (I am now retired) I was talking to a young man in India, whom I then visited on FaceBook to get a picture of him. I find it hard to talk to people by phone whom I’ve never seen. Young, twenty-something, typical, educated, urbane, full of interests, full of life, like many young men I’ve known, like I was at that age, like another young man who worked with me at my office, and was just past being a twenty-something, having already hit the pavement on the rough road of life—a broken, irreconcilable ten year marriage, now only a part of his personal history. Yes, trapped in a world without love.

It is a story I see repeated every day. Not one, but several of my younger friends have hit the pavement the same way. Divorce is the unwanted blessing of a world dedicated to making self-idolatry the state religion of unsaved humanity.

Unsaved? Well, it happens to the ‘saved’ as well as to the unsaved, it respects no persons, no creeds, it generously shares itself out among all, and even, no, especially, triumphs in those who call themselves Christians even as they are buying its bill of goods. It’s mostly men that I know, whether young or old, whose wives dump them, for career usually, but sometimes for other men, and occasionally for no apparent reason at all. If I had more women friends, I’d probably see the same pattern there, faithful wives inexplicably jettisoned by men too wrapped up in themselves to cool their jets. People throwing each other away, to pursue personal mirages big as the sky.

What is true is that everyone is born wanting. What is it we’re born wanting? As our lives unfold, there seems to be an endless parade of desires passing through our hearts and minds. Some we pursue briefly, others at length, some find apparent fulfillment, others we give up on as impossible. Either we find out in time that it was not what we really wanted and gladly give up, or we give in to the realisation that no matter what we do, we’ll never get him, or her, or it. Our desire proves to be unfulfillable, yet it simply doesn’t disappear: Hope, or desperation, transfers it to another object. We are born wanting, but until we find out what or whom it is we’re born wanting, we only obsess.

I look at a young married, or maybe unmarried, couple as they pass me on the street, or as they stop to attend to their baby in its stroller, or in the playground as they watch their kids on the swings or slide. I ponder, do they know what is in store for them down the road? Is all this happiness going to dissipate like morning mist evaporated by the hot sun? Invariably, I utter a prayer, ‘Preserve them, Lord!’ knowing that the world that they and their children must face with greater and more invasive intensity will never give them up to joy without a struggle. It will do all it can to divert them from joy, to crumple the possibility of it and throw it away before their eyes, offering them what? Resignation.

All that happens to us, good and bad, happens on the basis of faith, whether we have it or lack it, whether in full measure or minutely. It is faith that makes the difference in every situation, stripping every event that we encounter of an absolute value. Nothing is good or bad anymore, intrinsically. It is good or bad according to the faith that we have. What can appear to us as a good, as a blessing, can hide from us for many years the reality that what it is based on is simply nothing, that all was appearance, illusion. Hence, the oriental doctrine of maya. It surprises and confuses us when a friendship or a marriage that we thought unshakable comes tumbling down. We are dazed.

What did I do to deserve this? This is not what I bargained for. I followed all the rules (or if I am religious, I followed all the commandments), so why did this happen to me? We have wandered so far from the truth of our being, building with the brick of desire, mere mud mixed with straw that we worked so hard to gather, and not for ourselves, but for others, and this is what they do to us? Well, how can they not? No, they did nothing that we did not do to ourselves first by that wandering from the truth of our being. What truth of our being? That asking takes us deeper than we want to go, teaches more than we want to know, and so we avoid it. Still, the truth is there. We were born wanting.

Trapped in a world without love, when we realise this, where do we turn? To what or to whom? Nothing worth having is worth having well, that is, is worth anything unless we can share it. But whom can we share it with? This question has driven many to suicide. Not seeing the Invisible—how can they? Without faith they are blind—and trusting the visible, entrusting themselves wholeheartedly to images of desire, they miss the Beloved as He walks by, Who is no image, Who is not what but Whom they were born wanting. These are not thoughts that can be shared with anyone, not doctrines that can be taught to anyone. The Wanted awaits the wanting. Faith unsprings the trap that ensnares us.

I think back to my young friends. Some of them already broken, some hoping to be broken no more. Youth wanting to escape the trap walking right into it. Life freely beckons as we walk unknowingly onto its battlefield of justice, unaware that we either fall in battle slain by our own desires, or stand alone alive in possession of a kingdom but none with whom to share it. Why? Because we look and look again, but do not see. Listen and listen again, but do not hear. The chariot driver of our souls whispers to us, and we pause, then take aim, and pursue still the objects of desire, but He alone is Lord.

We sleep. Then we awake. Alone with Him, walking the long beach and leaving shallow prints on its glistening sands. He tells us the truth of all things. He tells us who we are, why we lived, why we died, how it is there is nobody here but us. ‘From before the beginning, Beloved, you were Mine, and I am yours.’ Hidden, always hidden, yet walking beside us, everything in His hands. Everything. The world vanishes. Trapped in a world without love? What world?

There always was only one, one world, one time, one being, one life, one heart, one love: Yes, only one joy. We were born wanting.
The Wanted awaits us. Faith unsprings the trap.
Faith, faith, and more faith.
Only faith has eyes.

Friendship

A kindly turn of speech multiplies a man's friends,

and a courteous way of speaking invites many a friendly reply.

Let your acquaintances be many,

but your advisors one in a thousand.

If you want to make a friend, take him on trial,

and be in no hurry to trust him;

for one kind of friend is only so when it suits him

but will not stand by you in your day of trouble.

Another kind of friend will fall out with you

and to your dismay will make your quarrel public,

and a third kind of friend will share your table,

but not stand by you in your day of trouble:

when you are doing well he will be your second self,

ordering your servants about;

but if ever you are brought low he will turn against you

and will hide himself from you.

Keep well clear of your enemies,

and be wary of your friends.

A faithful friend is a sure shelter,

whoever finds one has found a rare treasure.

A faithful friend is something beyond price,

there is no measuring his worth.

A faithful friend is the elixir of life,

and those who fear the Lord will find one.

Whoever fears the Lord makes true friends,

for as a man is, so is his friend.

Ecclesiasticus 6:5-17 Jerusalem Bible

Prick an eye and you will draw a tear,

prick a heart and you will bring its feelings to light.

Throw stones at birds and you scare them away,

revile a friend and you break up friendship.

If you have drawn your sword on a friend,

do not despair; there is a way back.

If you have opened your mouth against your friend,

do not worry; there is hope for reconciliation;

but insult, arrogance, betrayal of secrets, and the stab in the back—

in these cases, any friend will run away.

Ecclesiasticus 22:19-22 Jerusalem Bible

Catch them alive

Then Jesus said to Simon,
“Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”
So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
Luke 5:10-11 NIV

…from now on you will catch men.

In the Greek original, this is:

απο του νυν ανθρωπους εση ζωγρων
Apó tou nín anthrópous ési zogrón.

We are all called by Jesus, just as the fishermen disciples were, all called by Jesus to be fishers of men. There aren't two churches, the church of the catchers of the fish, and the church of those who watch the catch from shore.

Even though the disciples had already accepted the call of Jesus, they still had lives to live, they had to support their families and continue their trade, fishing for a living. That represents the first stage of the call—they followed Jesus, but then they still had lives to live, responsibilities in the world. Jesus came to the lakeside and saw them, His disciples, washing their nets and putting them away for the day (since the best fishing was at night, near the shore, on the Sea of Galilee). They had toiled all night but caught nothing.

Jesus had come to find them there, and because there were already crowds following Him around to hear the Word of God, He stepped into Peter's boat, and had Peter put out a little from the shore, so He could teach without being mobbed. After teaching awhile, the Master (for that is what Peter calls Him, proving he already was following the call) told him to put the boat out to deeper water and pay out the nets for a catch.

What? Pay out the nets in deep water, in the daytime? Peter knew better. He was a ‘professional.’ He tells Jesus that this is not ‘conventional wisdom,’ but still he said, “but if You say so, I will pay out the nets.” (Luke 5:5 JB) And that is what Peter did.

What happened? Peter, the fisherman, got the ‘blessing’ of probably the biggest catch of fish he had ever had in his life! He even had to call his companions in the other boat to come help, pull the catch in… and it nearly sank both boats!

Peter's reaction? He fell at the knees of Jesus, saying “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8) When faced with the wonder-working power of God, the abundance even in the material world that is the Lord's to give as He chooses, mere mortal man comes face to face with his utter sinfulness, and begs the Lord to depart from such a creature as himself.

Jesus Christ's response? “Do not be afraid…” (Luke 5:10) The Lord is now calling Peter, and us, to the next stage of discipleship.

He wants us. He has to tell us up front, “Don't be afraid!” And why is this? Because now it really is the unknown that we're heading for, Jesus really is going to take us ‘where no man has gone before.’ No man, except Him, and with Him, us.

“Catch them alive.”

Zogréo, ‘to catch alive’ as in the sense of catching an animal for the zoo, or better yet, for the ark. What catches my attention is this irony—that when the disciples caught fish, they took an animal which was alive (in the water) and killed it (took it out of the water) so they could eat it. That's what a fisherman does. No judgment intended. We have to eat to live, and God has given us everything.

But what the Lord said in making His disciples ‘fishers of men’ gave them the job of ‘taking alive’ the men whom He would be sending them. As fishers of men, we take an animal which was spiritually dead (out of the water) and in catching it make it alive (in the water and Spirit) so it can feed on God. This is another example of the Great Reversal (as C. S. Lewis calls it), the rolling backwards of death itself, the resurrection unto Life eternal.

Have I lost you by my wordy explanation?
Sorry, if I have.
Just go back to the top and read the Bible passage again.
The Lord has commissioned us to “catch them alive.”
That's really all I want to say anyway.
And that's really all I want to do.
Glory to God!

Things human, and things Divine

There is a persistent problem in encounters between two kinds of religions. Those that are based on reliable historical testimony, and those which depend on fabrications based on, but not consistent with, historical testimony. In the first group are to be placed: Most varieties of Judaism and Christianity. In the second group: Islam and Mormonism, and a host of insignificant cults derived primarily from all four religions.

Scholars continue to study the historical sources of Judaic and Christian scriptures, because they have left a physical trail. Scholars study Islamic scriptures only within the closed context of these scriptures themselves, since historical and fictional elements are intermixed. No serious scholars study the Mormon scriptures, which are acknowledged by all impartial authorities to be entirely fabricated.

There can never be serious dialog between the members of the first group of religions and the second, because it always resolves itself into accusations of lying on both sides: The first group asserts that the scriptures of the second group are fabrications; the second group asserts that those of the first group have been corrupted and are therefore inadequate. In plain language, the other group is lying.

Between Judaism and Christianity, something similar happens in such encounters, because these two religions are essentially the same, yet different, based on a single fact asserted by Christians but denied by Jews: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His historicity is rarely doubted by Jews, only the content of the historic record challenged. On the Christian side, nothing can be asserted against Judaism, except its denial of Christ.

This is why we think, 'They must be joking' at best, when we encounter the pronouncements of the ayatollahs and other Islamic teachers, or hear about Muslim beliefs about Jesus, for example. We are here meeting a fabrication of something we consider fundamentally true and incontestable. The boldness of the Muslim (and Mormon) assertions is designed to unnerve and destabilise us.

But God is God, and though we mock each other, He cannot be mocked. Aside from all religions true or false, He is; and all those who have had experience of Him, whether Christian or not, know more about Him than the belief systems of all religions combined. Only those who have had this experience are in a position to distinguish 'the stale from the fresh' in things human, and things Divine.

What of the rest of us?

Indignant. That’s what I felt, at first, as I overheard a dear Christian sister, truly innocent as one of Christ’s doves (her husband is probably the cunning half of that couple) recount to a priest and his wife how she had been robbed when on a recent pilgrimage to Holy Russia. Yes, you heard me right, to Holy Russia. You know, that huge country that was under Godless communism for seventy years and is now making a comeback as the world’s Orthodox Christian superpower. Despite taking the usual precautions, somehow the money belt in which she was carrying her cash was discovered and secretly slashed, the packet of bank notes craftily extracted. She discovered it when going to get some cash to make a purchase. The police, when she reported the robbery, shrugged and commented, ‘Another happy customer,’ referring not to my friend, but to the thief.

It doesn’t help that my friend is Lebanese, in other words, someone perceived to be an Arab. I told her confidently, ‘Don’t worry. That money isn’t gone. It will come back to you, maybe even with interest.’ She looked puzzled and doubtful. I reiterated, this time quoting the Bible, ‘Cast your bread on the waters. At long last, you will find it again,’ and continued by testifying to her and to the priestly couple and another bystander, ‘As I live, there is nothing that was taken from me that hasn’t been paid back in some form or another,’ and I inwardly reminded myself, ‘There is no loss with Jesus.’ I didn’t say those last words aloud, because I sensed that I was pushing the envelope of several people’s faith. Love knows when to stop. Christ doesn’t push us past our limits, ever, only to those limits, so He can show us what lies beyond, always, always, according to the measure of our trust.

In my audacity, I dare to think and even say aloud, that if the new Russian Empire knew how a Christian pilgrim was robbed, she would be reimbursed by the Czar himself—but wait, the Romanovs haven’t been restored yet, but if one were seated on the throne, like Nicholas II the Passion-bearer, he would surely have righted the wrong as soon as he heard of it. The incident brought to mind another matter over which I feel indignant, not just at first, but always—the treatment dealt out to Arabic-speaking Christians, in their countries of origin, in these United States, and especially by Western ‘missionaries.’ Starting in reverse order, don’t these missionaries understand, when they go to Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, or Iraq, that the people whom they are trying to ‘bring to Christ’ are already in Christ, and the survivors of fourteen centuries of systematic Islamization? Well, apparently, they don’t.

In these United States, Arabic-speaking immigrants are lumped together with Muslims in the public mind, and why shouldn’t they be? From a public that equates Arab and Muslim, what else can be expected? Fortunately—and I heard of this only today—there are Arabic-speaking Christian churches in America that are trying to help the new immigrants. One Coptic (Egyptian Orthodox) congregation in southern California has a full-fledged program to help new immigrants, to teach them English and job skills, to give them material assistance, and to integrate them into American life. In my local parish, in the Antiochian Archdiocese, we are planning to conduct ESL classes starting in October, which will help at least to begin the process of integration. Every ethnic group has this problem. They come to the land of opportunity, but they find the doors shut to them because of language.

In their countries of origin, Arabic-speaking Christians suffer indignities unimaginable to us here in the West, even when we hear about them, and so we suffer, nationally, from a different malady—ignorance. We take this ignorance to the ballot box and vote into office other ignorant people who legislate and create national policies that work against Arabic-speaking Christians, both here and abroad. These politicians have created a ‘newspeak’ environment in which, literally and openly, good is called bad, and bad is called good. Islam, we are told constantly and without the possibility of contradiction, is a ‘religion of peace,’ and other such lies, boldfaced to anyone who reads even rudimentary history. We are told there is no danger to America in admitting untold numbers of Muslim immigrants. Well, this presidential election year in America, and the Brexit in Europe, have ‘let the cat out of the bag.’

Yes, the cat, Muhammad’s favorite animal I’m told—he hated dogs and, by extension, us. The truth that we all know about Islam is coming out into the open, where we have a chance—maybe our only chance—to avert calamity by using the democratic process of the vote to expel it. Why have I carefully worded my description of Christians in the Middle East as ‘Arab-speaking’ instead of just calling them ‘Arabs’? Well, this is a hard one. Egyptian Christians are Copts, yet they speak Arabic, and some of them are even calling themselves ‘pharaonic’ to make the point that they are not Arabs. Lebanese Christians, I think, have struggled with this for a long time, being classified as Arabs because of their language, yet they are not Arabs ethnically. Islam, an Arabic politico-religious movement, conquered their ancestors and they were forced to change their language from Aramaic to Arabic.

This doesn’t make them Arabs anymore than my speaking English makes me an Englishman (though I wouldn’t mind being one). The famous Lebanese poet, philosopher, writer, playwright and language reformer, Said Aql, designed a Latin-based ‘Lebanese alphabet’ made up of 36 letters. Had it been adopted, the language spoken in Lebanon, though an Arabic dialect, would have been accorded the distinction of being a language in its own right, Lebanese, much as the Maltese language, an Arabic dialect written in the Latin alphabet, is recognized. My musings are now returning me to the concrete events of daily life, in which Arabic-speaking Christians are often regarded with barely hidden contempt, subjected to unjust suspicions and scrutiny, both clearly racist without ever being so identified, in their home countries, in America, and in other countries, such as the Russian Federation.

Perhaps my Christian sister going on pilgrimage to Holy Russia, and then to Greece and Asia Minor, should have been more careful. Perhaps Russia isn’t very ‘holy’ in Saint-Petersburg. Perhaps she should have visited only Moscow, or the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius nearby, or restricted her visits to places where one can reasonably expect not to be robbed, such as ancient cathedrals and monasteries. Maybe that would have spared her the indignity of finding herself penniless in a foreign land—thank God for bank cards! But what then of returning home, to ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ to find oneself still, racially and religiously profiled in an environment that resists change until it is near the point of extermination? ‘All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.’

The authors of the American Declaration of Independence have a lot of wise things to say, don’t they? Too bad, personally and nationally, we don’t listen to them, or to their source—holy and divine scriptures—anymore. This too has to change. From small to great, in Christ Jesus all our losses will be made good, personally and nationally. I didn’t say, ‘all our losses will be made good’ as if I were a pot-headed, chronic optimist, nor would I say to just anyone that a financial loss would be restored. No, I said, ‘in Christ Jesus,’ and that’s the only criterion under which all restoration, even resurrection, is possible. You see, our Christian faith, the message of the Holy Gospel, is boundlessly universal in its application—Christ is risen from the dead, by death trampling down death, and to those in the tombs…’ Yes, if even tomb-dwellers’ losses are restored, what of the rest of us?

Faith

Faith is faith. Nobody can have faith for us, not even God. If we want Christ to do something for us, we must have faith.

What a powerful thing faith is, real faith, not hypothetical faith.

He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
Matthew 17:20

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done."
Matthew 21:21

"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
Mark 11:23-24

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. "I am willing," He said. "Be clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.
Mark 1:40-42

Every English translation of these verses about the healing of the leper that I have consulted uses the word ‘willing,’ both in the leper's request and in the response of Jesus, linking the idea of what is going on here with ‘the will of God.’ But this is how I memorized this passage:

A leper came to Him and pleaded on his knees, ‘If you want to’ he said ‘you can cure me’. Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘Of course I want to!’ He said. ‘Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured.

This translation is from the Jerusalem Bible (1966 version, as the Book has been ‘corrected’ since then by the ‘authorities’), and this may be why I have kept this bible with me constantly from the first day I found it. “Of course I want to” may not be literally what is meant by the Greek θέλω, but is there any sense in translating the Word of God if not to evoke faith in us, the kind of faith that “moves mountains”?

Faith is faith. Nobody can have faith for us, not even God. If we want Christ to do something for us, we must have faith.

The leper came to Jesus, with faith. His faith moved a mountain.
What was that mountain? Was it his leprosy?
Or was it ‘the will of God’?

God knows us. He knows everything about us.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
Matthew 6:6-8

Though He knows everything about us, and His will is a mystery, His will is not fixed, it is not static. The might of the Almighty proves His power in that He is willing to undo His will for the sake of His creature who asks. He is the Living God, in Whose Image we are made and into Whose loving Heart we have been drawn, sitting at table with Him, given leave to speak to Him face to face, and yet live. His will for us is His will with us. The Holy Triad welcomes us into His company, invites us to approach boldly in the company of Jesus, through Whom we have become partakers of the Divine Nature.

“Of course I want to” is the will of God to those who ask, coming with faith. But faith is faith. Nobody can have faith for us, not even God. If we want Christ to do something for us, we must have faith.

During his conversation with Abba Serapion, Abba Mark the Anchorite inquired how things stood in the world. He asked about the Church of Christ, and whether persecutions against Christians still continued. Hearing that idol worship had ceased long ago, the saint rejoiced and asked, "Are there now in the world saints working miracles, as the Lord spoke of in His Gospel, 'If ye have faith even as a grain of mustard seed, ye will say to this mountain, move from that place, and it will move, and nothing shall be impossible for you'?" As the saint spoke these words, the mountain moved from its place 5,000 cubits (about 2 miles) and went toward the sea. When he saw that the mountain had moved, Abba Mark said, "I did not order you to move from your place, but was just conversing with a brother. Go back to your place!" After this, the mountain actually returned to its place. Abba Serapion fell down in fright. Abba Mark took him by the hand and asked, "Have you never seen such miracles in your lifetime?" "No, Father," Abba Serapion replied. Then Abba Mark wept bitterly and said, "Alas, today there are Christians in name only, but not in deeds."

Faith is faith. Nobody can have faith for us, not even God. If we want Christ to do something for us, we must have faith.

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.

Thorn in the flesh

The best that is in us, and the worst that is in us—thank God!—are both hidden from the world. This is both a condition of the natural order of things, and also a work of grace. What defines and divides the good man from the wicked is the desire to tamper with this condition, to override it, to glory in the best we have and are, and to conceal the worst in us. Though we are all guilty of tampering in this way, when we obsess over it, we paint ourselves into a corner from which there seems to be no escape.

Everyone has a signal obstacle to happiness, or what he thinks will make him happy, in this world. It is something he cannot, or should not, have or be or do. It is God’s answer to original sin, His firewall against total infection, His preventative medicine against our final dissolution and death. It is called by Paul a ‘thorn in the flesh.’ Some people think this is a punishment from God, or something bad, but it is actually the opposite. Medicine can taste bad, but if it is the right medicine it can cure whatever ails you.

God is faithful. He also grants our requests before we ask. He knows all about us, and He has no need to wait for the right moment in time. Just as He was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world for the sake of sinners who had not yet been created or fallen into sin, so His tender care, so watchful, so sheltering and healing, is prepared for us even before we ask for it. When I discovered what my signal obstacle was, I prayed to the Lord, asking Him to never let me be in a time and place where I could be felled by it.

I am still standing, though lesser things have felled me, because He remembers my prayer, He hears me before I asked, He knows me before I was born, He follows me in my wanderings, He surrounds me with songs of deliverance even before my ear was opened, He is the faithful and the true Witness of my every thought, word and deed, He is my just but merciful Judge, He is there with me when I will close my eyes in my last sleep, and He removes forever from ‘this body of death’ the fortuitous thorn that nailed down my flesh.

Glory to You, O God, glory to You!

That eye which is single

Tradition.

In a positive light, the word brings to mind images that speak a sense of welcome familiarity, of comfort, ‘there’s no place like home,’ and maybe of security as well, safety from unwanted change. In a negative light, the word conjures up notions of irrational and oppressive conservatism, ‘it’s always been done this way, don’t ask why,’ and a challenge to personal freedom.

Considered from a Christian perspective, tradition is also viewed both positively and negatively. As one would expect, ancient Christian communities like tradition; ‘reformed’ and modern sects hate it resolutely, basing their rejection on Christ’s indictment of the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees.

Tradition, as it has been handed over to me (for that’s what tradition means, ‘handing it over,’ παραδοσις, parádhosis) is something at once progressive, efficient, practical and effective.

Though many think tradition hidebound, it is actually progressive in the sense of moving us forward without hindrance, without waste, without danger to ourselves or others. Having evolved over time, it is not the product of a single individual or even a small group. It’s not limited either to time or place. For all these reasons it is uncontrollable, and rather than being controlling, which is one of the chief criticisms against it, it liberates. We just go along with it, and with no direct effort on our part, it ploughs furrows in us which it then plants with good seed. It’s when we harden ourselves to it as dry, thirsty soil ironically repels water, that we remain sterile.

When does tradition become the enemy? When it is no longer true to itself, when men of today try to capture it and harness it to their own ambitions for personal power and advantage. In doing so, they actually depart from tradition while they say they are enforcing it. Tyranny then replaces the free give and take from which tradition draws its very life. Again, the paradox that those who force tradition on others are in fact distorting and betraying it. Why? Because tradition is life being aware of itself and living in that awareness, not allowing itself to be eclipsed by temporal demands, not sacrificing truth for the sake of ideologies. Tradition is no ideology. It simply is.

Those who consider themselves progressive and believe most firmly in evolution are ironically the chief opponents of tradition. Yet tradition is the proof of evolution and a demonstration of God’s hand in it.

That God should create things instantaneously and that we should experience these creative acts as evolutionary trails stretching over immensely long periods of time only adds more weight to the probability that creationism is true. It is a function of scale, that what is instantaneous for the Being should appear verily to take ages from the viewpoint of those whose existence is part of the act of creation. The chasm between the Creator and His creation is more than one of size or even of being; it is immeasurable because it is unfathomable. This makes it all the more remarkable that the Being has bridged the chasm for us, and opened to us a possibility of transformation that defies analysis and reveals evolution itself to be very much ‘an indoor affair’.

The door that has been opened to us gives us egress out of what we thought was an immensity but upon looking back turns out to have been nearly nothing. The nihilist is right after all, but of what use is being right, if you cannot have what really is.

One final thought, brothers, and then I will quiet down before I do any more damage.

Without human society the individual doesn’t exist. The individual is a construct based on ideas, whereas the true state of humanity is that of an organism composed of a multitude of coordinated units. It is for this reason that the Body of Christ is so significant a perspective on human history, and why becoming ‘one body and spirit’ with one another is more than a mere metaphor. He shouldn’t have revealed this truth to His holy apostles if it weren’t significant, nor spoken to us so insistently about His being in the Father, and with the Spirit as well, in us and among us. What has been revealed is so much more than any one of us can imagine or behold.

Hence, back to tradition.

It is that eye which is single,

so that the whole Body can be full of Light.