Kill Zeus

Sunday night, we had a priest from a Russian Orthodox parish give us a pre-Lenten talk on living a balanced Orthodox life in an unbalanced world.  He made some very good points.

He reminded us that ascetical practice is not, for the Orthodox, a matter of self-loathing or of punishing ourselves.  It's a matter of becoming spiritually fit, same as we exercise to become physically fit.  We need this discipline because the enemy's team is very strong, very disciplined, and very aggressive.  (He meant, of course, spiritual enemies, not other human beings.)

He reminded us that humility is also not a form of self-loathing; it's having our inflated images of ourselves punctured by a healthy dose of reality.  The main reality is that we are utterly dependent upon God for absolutely everything.  But to see reality is no easy thing, precisely because of our pride and other passions.  It takes effort. 

Are our efforts to try to make God love us?  No way!  He already loves us no matter what we do or do not do.  To try to make Him reward us?  No way!  One is only rewarded for service "above and beyond" duty, but no matter how much we may succeed at being good Christians, it's never more than our duty.   Our efforts are to become strong, healthy Christians.

In talking about the God of love, the priest said that in non-Orthodox ways of thinking -which he knows well, having been a Methodist minsiter for 20 years and having his PhD in theology - God is loving, yes, but He can also be like Don Corleone:  "You've offended me!  Now I'm going to have to kill you.  And your family."  (Okay, this is satire, yes, but unless you can say specifically what is unjust about it and why, I submit that it is right on the mark.)

That deity, he said, is not God, it's Zeus.  "And I know Zeus is a Greek guy, but please, get rid of him.  Banish him from your hearts and minds.  He is not our God.  Kill Zeus."

Amen.

...and One Thing I Do Understand

When some 80-90 percent of Brits are against their country entering into the war in Iraq, but their government takes them in anyway, telling their populace it's in the U.K.'s best interests, but never explaining what interests, and the Blair government ends up not accountable to anybody for it,

When the American government takes this country into war on the basis of lies (and yes, they were lies, not just faulty intelligence!), and has never explained to us what the REAL reason for that war is/was, and the administration remains unaccountable to anybody for it,

That is not democracy.  We do not live in a democracy, and somehow, we need to face up to that.

Lee-Jackson-King Day

Yup, that's what today is called here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Kinda embarrassing.  We had to add in Lee and Jackson, as if to save face, and ended up with egg on our face instead. 

Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson both have huge memorial markers along Monument Avenue.  For all I know, perhaps wreaths will be laid there today, or have been already.

Yes, they were both heroic figures.  In a way.  But face it, no matter in what terms you cloak the War Between the States (or "the War of Northern Aggression," as people from here prefer to call it), no matter how much you invoke lofty-sounding principles, the fact is that for the South, it was all about defending slavery.  That was the main "right" implied by "States' Rights". 

To me, it's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

A Couple of Things I Don't Understand

Why is Haiti still the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the poorest in the world?  It's been this way ever since I can remember, and I remember writing a paper on the subject in high school.  Back then we blamed it on the dictator, "Papa Doc" Duvalier.  But he's long gone.  Also, there have been many hundreds of charity organizations at work in Haiti for decades now, and I know they have been working hard.  I remember organizing the youth group at my church to smuggle in packets of much-needed goods for the Haitians.  (I can't remember why smuggling it was necessary, but it was.)  We sent everything from sewing needles and thread and safety pins to toiletries and Bibles and underwear, and members of our (Episcopal) congregation took them in.  That was in the mid-seventies. 

So why hasn't there been any progress to speak of, even before this latest series of disasters?

Another thing I do not understand, and neither do the Haitians:  why has God let this happen?  I don't think anybody knows.  (Pat Robertson for sure doesn't.)  But faith in the Christian God means trusting against appearances that He had some good, kind, and loving reason, even if we cannot fathom what it is.  One day we will, or may, know.  Meanwhile, we know Him, and that is enough to sustain our trust.

The thing to worry about is our own sins. This is from Luke, Chapter 13:

There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."

(Nearly) No Words Needed

The above video is worth stopping a few times, as some of the pictures go by very quickly. Note Pope at minute 4:17 and nearly nude dancers at 4:37, with a cardinal in the background.

Don't Worry About the World Ending Today

It's already tomorrow in Shanghai!

Partial Outline for My Next Book

Title: Hearts Aflame
Subtitle: My Our Marriage,a Systematic Presentation A Full and Systematic Exposition

I. The Existence of True Love

A. Proofs from Scripture
B. Proofs from Philosophy

1. Movement
2. Time
3. Cause and Effect
4. Lesser Known philosophical proofs

C. Proofs from the Fathers
D. Scientific considerations
E. Papal Pronouncements

II. The Nature of True Love

A. Metaphysical Foundations
B. Emotional/Psychoanalytic Dimensions
C. Behavioral Manifestations
D. Physiological Effects
E. Distinguishing True Love from its Counterfeits

III. How I know Demetrios Loves Me

A. Proofs from his words

1. Spoken words/oral tradition
2. Written words

a. love letters
b. text messages

B. Anaylsis of his actions

1. In public
2. At home
3. In the bedroom

C. Body Language
D. Facial Expressions
E. Analysis of various kinds of smiles
F. Secret Signals

IV How I know I love Demetrios

A. The Pros and Cons

V. The Concept of Marriage

VI. History of Our Romance

VII. How our Love Plays out in Daily Life

VIII. The Role of Children and Pets in our Love


Well, that’s about all I’ve worked out so far. No details yet for anything past Chapter Three and need several more chapters on things like “Jobs, Work and Play in our Romance“ and “Our Marriage and the Potential Threats to It” and something about the role of home, automobile, travel, and yardwork. Oh, and obviously, a section on "Examination of Proposed Improvements." Anyway, whaddaya think so far?


P.S.) According to the counter I set up, as of this date, we've been married 18 years, 8 months, 4 weeks, and 1 day. (Take that, ye who thought it would never work!) Unfortunately, I have not kept a log so as to be able to include in the book a daily synopsis of our marriage.

"Laws of Nature"

More thoughts sparked by this Lutheran quote:

Order is Heaven's first law. As the law of the physical universe is mathematical, the law of the spiritual universe is logical. That which has no place in system, is not of God, is not truth. All his works reflect his unity and self-consistency. -- C. P. Krauth, Conservative Reformation p. 176

Scientists have recently come around to the same view as Orthodox Christians regarding the so-called laws of nature: namely, that this term is misleading.

Of course, many of these scientists, namely the unbelievers among them, embrace this “new” understanding for opposite reasons from ours. They do not want there to be any laws of nature because laws of nature come uncomfortably close to indicating the existence of a Lawgiver.

Nevertheless, among believing and unbelieving scientists alike, there is now general agreement that there are no “laws of nature”. There is order in nature, or at least appears to be, but to call these patterns and symmetries “laws” is overstepping. When Demetrios was a university student, his physics professor gave a very long lecture on how “laws of nature” are simply observations we have made over and over again, countless times, without any variation – so far. The “law of gravity” appears to work every time. Earth keeps rotating on its axis at the rate of once every 24 hours, approximately. And it keeps orbiting the Sun at about once every 365 days. And so forth.

But there is nothing to say these observations, always the same so far, must forevermore and in all circumstances remain the same. There is no basis for thinking these “laws” are inherently immutable or that exceptions can never occur. I think (but am too ignorant to be sure) the first time “laws of nature” appeared to become unstuck (for scientists, anyway) may have been in the realm of quantum mechanics. The phenomenon most people are aware of in that field has to do with light. It behaves as a wave or as a particle – depending upon how you measure it! Anyway, things at the quantum level do not abide by the “laws” of Newtonian physics.

More recently, scientists speak of “broken symmetries”; what they had thought of as immutable laws seem, here and there, not to apply. The “laws of nature” are full of holes!

Of course, the Orthodox have always known this, because the life we live together has always been full of miracles. All sorts of things happen among us, with fair regularity, which would appear to violate the laws of nature, if there were any such things.

But we do not think miracles violate natural laws, because we do not believe God rules His world via any set of laws. Rather, we believe He rules His creation directly, in person, without intermediary laws or intermediary anything, and not sitting back and letting it run itself. If the world is orderly, it's because Gopd is orderly - but he would, could, and apparently does put up with quite a bit of mess should love require it. If the world rotates on its axis, it’s because God is turning it every moment – and in theory, could stop doing that at any moment, too. If the Sun is burning, it’s because God is at every instant causing it to consume its helium. If helium doesn’t suddenly cease to exist and the Sun blink out, it’s because the life-giving, existence-bestowing Power of God is continuing to keep helium in being. We believe God is “everywhere present, filling all things”, directly, personally involved in the hatching of every bird egg and the opening of every blossom.

And this God who paints every sunset, blows along every wave, makes the stars to shine and the ivy twine, this God is Love. It’s Love doing it all, meaning it’s all done because God loves you and me and every rock and every blade of grass.

He doesn’t work with us through laws of nature or any intermediatry or any “means”. “Means” were invented by Platonists like Thomas Aquinas who did not know (or accept) the distinction between God’s Essence and His Uncreated Energies. For them, since there was no distinction, direct involvement by God with His world would mean His unchanging Essence would be involved in all sorts of change. To insulate the Divine Essence from that, they came up with “means”. God cannot be directly involved with us, that is, His very Person must not be. That’s why their relationship with God can never be what we understand as “personal”. It’s always at least one step removed from God's Person. It's logical instead, and perhaps that is why they mistake logic for "the law of the spiritual universe".

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

or, The God of Order, Revisited

Order is Heaven's first law. As the law of the physical universe is mathematical, the law of the spiritual universe is logical. That which has no place in system, is not of God, is not truth. All his works reflect his unity and self-consistency. -- C. P. Krauth, Conservative Reformation p. 176

I found this quote on Pastor Weedon’s blog and I wrote in his comment box that I thought I’d put a brief remark or two about it here. This is going to be brief because I’ve already written three posts about the God of Order, here, here, and here.

What started me writing about it, being blown away by all its implications, was an excellent podcast (I mean an even more superb one than usual!) by Matthew Gallatin, which I hope you will take a few minutes (14) to listen to. Matthew puts deep things into words all of us can easily understand, so do not let the subject matter intimidate you.

This statement by Krauth represents the fundamental difference between Western and Eastern Christianity. It is from here that West diverges from East, and from this all the other differences in theology stem. At least, that's what Matthew Gallatin thinks and I agree, finding he has made an excellent case for his point.

There is no question, of course, that God is a God of order. (That's why true doctrine does not, ever, contradict itself.)  The question is whether “order is Heaven’s first law.” Whether it is THE thing in which God’s perfection is first and foremost manifest, whether it is the primary thing about God.

This idea comes from Plato, ironically enough, through the Platonizing influence of St. Augustine of Hippo. (Ironically in view of how often Western commentators imagine Orthodox Christianity has uncritically gobbled up pagan Greek philosophy.)

God as Eastern Christians know Him, revealed not by Plato but Jesus Christ, is above all else the God of Love, the God of self-emptying, self-forgetting, other-directed, pure and perfect Love, and this Love is Heaven’s first law.   Love, not mathematics, is the first law of the physical universe, and Love, not logic, is the first law of the spiritual universe.  It's in His infinite, unconditional Love that God's perfection is manifested.  (Matthew 5, last several verses).

That’s a profound difference. It has implications for every facet of theology. Take, for example, creation. The God of Love created humankind as an expression of His Love, created us to make us godlike and blessed forevermore. The God of Order created humankind because without us, His perfect Order would be incomplete, imperfect.

Or take the doctrine of sin. For the Eastern Christian, sin is most fundamentally a betrayal of Love. For the Westerner, it is most basically a disruption of God’s Perfect Moral Order.

Or take God’s response to sin. The God of Love, immediately upon the fall of Adam and Eve, devotes Himself to healing us and restoring us to intimate, free, loving communion with Himself and each other. The God of Order has to be concerned first of all with mending the breach sin has created in that Order. His perfection is at stake and He must defend it as his first order of business.

And restoring good order involves punishment, and not just punishment for chastisement, as in Orthodoxy, but punishment for the sake of the good order. How is punishment supposed to restore order? I do not know! I've spent years trying to decipher that. But I think it’s because the pain and suffering of punishment are thought to “balance out” the guilty pleasure one had taken in sinning. The one is supposed to make up ("pay for") the other. In Eastern understanding, there is no way  for anybody (including Jesus Christ) to make up to God for past sin. There’s just nothing that could undo it except forgiveness. 

Or take eschatology (the doctrines concerning the last things: the end of the world, judgment, heaven and hell). The ultimate destiny the God of Love has ordained for us is perfect, free, loving, intimate oneness with Him, participation together in His very Life. The goal for us of the God of Order is that we should attain to a state of moral perfection.

So every doctrine, from the beginning to the end, is different depending upon whether we choose the God of Plato or the God of Jesus Christ.   But do listen to Gallatin's podcast, as he puts things far better than I can, and more simply and more clearly and with many biblical references in the bargain.  He explains all this in detail.

“God is love.”

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. (from I Corinthians 13, emphases mine)

From Matthew 232 (See also Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-28):

34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"
37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' [fn4] 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

P.S.) Orthodoxy, in common with today's scientists (!), doesn't really believe in "Laws of Nature", either, but I'll save that for another post in a day or two.

Touching Base

Nothing going on here. The squirrels are a constant source of amusement and do not require anything more than daily feeding and cleaning. Dingbat is peacefully hibernating, requiring no care at all, except every other day I still poke gently to see if s/he is still alive.

Demetrios is reading Malachi Martin's The Jesuits and is already thoroughly shocked at the end of Chapter One, at all the things, mostly secular, with which the Jesuits have involved themselves, and the scale upon which they've don it.

Only thing I've been reading, and it isn't really reading, is knitting patterns. I've decided to do one more of my signature lace blankets, two-ed. That is, there will be a gossamer layer in white knitted into a solid but textured background in some bright color. There are no patterns for such things; you have to design your own or adapt someone else's. So I've been looking for ideas. Whee - look what I've found!

I'd love to know which of these you like (if any) and why.

Sorry, I have a one-track mine and this is all that's in it right now. That and taking down the rest of the Christmas decorations.

Bat Update

Battie neither ate nor drank anything last night, so far as I can tell, but went straight back to its business, which is to hibernate. Only sign of life is if you poke it, it squeaks. So I don't.

Dear Frances, next door, gave me a handful of meal worms. She keeps them all year 'round for the Bluebirds that come to her feeder. I'll put some of those in the cage tonight just in case Battie wakes up hungry.

P.S.) I think I'll name it Dingbat.

Little Brown Bat

That's the name of the species a young man brought me last night.

The man had walked into his apartment, switched on the lights, and found this little bat crawling along his floor, the cat stalking it from behind. He immediately called ARK (our wildlife rehab organization) and was directed to me.

Notice from the narrative that there is no chance the young man had any exposure, in case the bat may carry rabies. Careful questioning established that the cat not yet gotten to the poor little creature, either. And the cat is up to date on its shots anyway.

Next problem is that Little Brown Bats are not solitary creatures, but colonial. They roost together in biggish batches. So the man's attic is going to have to be inspected, as well as all the attics in that apartment complex, to see if that's where the colony is.

Meanwhile, this tiny, furry, warm mammal is supposed to be hibernating this time of year. It has awakened either from hunger or thirst. So I've put a jar lid in the bottom of its box, with water in it. Also, a fingerful of a high calorie diet supplement for it to eat. Hopefully it will then climb into the little cloth I've hung in its cage, and go back to sleep. If so, then I'll put the whole box in MY attic until Spring, checking daily, of course, to be sure Bat is still in hibernation.

Poor thing was so frightened when I lifted it out of the man's box and put it into a proper container that it squeaked and squeaked and squeaked. So I've left it alone for now, in a dark room with the door closed. Haven't even sexed it yet. Stay tuned.

Yes, YOU Can Read Greek! (Quiz)

To prove it to yourself, try deciphering these items copied from the Beverages Menu at the airport in Thessaloniki, Greece. If you're thirsty enough, you won't have all that much trouble.

Some St. Basil's Day Thoughts

A couple of days late, but this was sparked by the Feast of St. Basil (January 1).

* * *

Not infrequently, you hear Christians being told not to trust human reason, but to trust God’s Word instead. Of course this always means, “Do not question my interpretation of the Holy Bible (even if it contains all sorts of internal contradictions).”

That’s nonsense! Yes, it is intended to be, but I say it is nonsense in an unintended way, as well. It’s nonsense because that is not at all what St. Paul is talking about in such places as, most notably, the First and Second chapters of First Corinthians.

St. Paul is simply saying that the Christian religion does not have its source in myth or in philosophy, nor in any other invention of man’s brain. Instead, it is a revealed religion. We have learned it straight from God, Who imparts it firsthand to the Church and to each Christian’s heart. (By “heart” is not meant “center of emotions,” but “core of our being.”) As St. Peter writes:

16 For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 17 For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 18 And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. (2 Peter 1:16-18)

(These verses refer to the Transfiguration of Christ, the story of which is recounted in Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:7, and Luke 9:35)

St. John adds:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life – life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us – that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. (I John 1:1-4)

It is in this sense that we do not rely upon human reason: Christianity’s source is not there. Instead, the Christian faith shines forth from Jesus Christ, the Light Who came into the world. He, by word and deed, taught us Truth; and He, still very much alive and present in our midst, continues to teach His followers today. As St. Paul wrote, in that very same, much-abused chapter to the Corinthians, “But we have the mind of Christ.” (I Corinthians 2:16)

The Mind of Christ! of Christ, Who is the very embodiment of the Logos, and the Logos is the indefinable fountainhead of wisdom, of logic, of coherence, of language and thinking, of reason, of knowledge. There can be nothing Christian about renouncing any of these things. The trick isn’t to give up using them, which in practice means defer to the way somebody else uses them. No, the trick is to use these endowments from God spiritually. What does “spiritually” mean? It doesn’t mean “concerning religious topics or themes”. It means thinking in and with the Holy Spirit; it means thinking with that Mind of Christ, instead of thinking in a secular manner.

Secular thinking is faithless and hence, sterile as regards all the most important aspects of existence. The truth is, faithlessness constitutes an intellectual defect. Yes, a major if not the major intellectual defect; and faith, far from being opposed to reason, is its rescue, its enlightenment, its pinnacle, its crown, its fullest flowering. That’s why we have men like St. Basil the Great, of towering intellect and monumental faith, both exercised to the utmost: because these go best together.

So please, think all you like. (Just be sure to spend more time praying than thinking.) Question every interpretation of Scripture, even Orthodox interpretations. Do not be afraid to question everything. “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7) Think in the Spirit, think through the lens of love. Question until you finally see how it all makes sense – or not. If it is Truth, it will make sense, because Truth is Christ, the Logos of God, the Light of the World. “God is not the author of confusion.” (1 Corinthians 14:33)

“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Romans 14: 5)

Circumcision

Yesterday we celebrated not only the New Year (on the secular calendar) but also St. Basil and the Circumcision of the Lord.

Some blogger wrote that circumcision was a silly rite God had ordained to keep Israel humble. I think the blogger meant, to humilitate His people.

If that was the case, it seems to have backfired. Circumcision became a matter of national and personal pride and "uncircumcised" became a pejorative.

I don't know why God ordained that particular thing as the way of entering into the Old Covenant, but I'm sure someone can tell us and that its meaning will turn out to be anything but silly. I have a feeling anything the Lord Himself does or suffers to be done to Himself has to be much more than silliness.

P.S. Here it is, a wonderful exposition of the meaning, for Christians, of the Circumcision, by one of my favorite people in the world, Fr. George Dion Dragas. It was for the sake of all these deep Christian meanings, then, that God instituted the rite of circumcision in the first place.