Animal Nursery Status Report

Squirrels

There are seven of them! One is tiny, eyes closed. The others all opened their eyes over the course of this past week.

The older ones I have transferred to a wire cage outdoors. Within the wire cage, on the floor of it, is their nest basket. They haven't yet become very adventurous. Four times a day, I haul each one out to bottle-feed it, and I make a point of NOT putting it back in its basket. I put each one on the side of the cage, clinging to the wire. Some of them have found their way back to the nest basket; others just start screaming for help after a few minutes, so I put them back in the basket myself.

One or two of them have been sniffing at the Cheerios and apple chunks I've left inside the cage, but none has tried tasting them yet, although I've checked and they all have both upper and lower teeth. I'm going to have to cut down their bottle feedings, but it's a couple of days too soon, I think...Starting tomorrow, though, I'll get up in the mornings at 7:30 instead of 7:00, and I'll feed Demetrios and the kittens first, then the squirrels. If they get hungry beforehand, let them find the solid food!

Kittens

They are brothers, Blackjack (solid black) and Stormy (grey tabby, fluffy). I said, "It's a shame the black one isn't a female, so her name could be, 'Miss Fortune.'"

"Jacky" is a pistol, full of vim and vigor. He goes prancing all over the sunroom where the kittens live. Stormy has a more subdued personality. They're both snugglers.

Jacky comes running to Demetrios every time he sees him, and trots around at his heels like a dog. Demetrios has fallen in love! He GIGGLES and giggles and giggles when Jacky accosts him. Picks him up, lets him sit on his lap, sleep under his chin during afternoon nap, talks to him. He plays with Stormy, too, but Jacky is his darling. Demetrios has even taken an interest in what I'm feeding the kitties. Next thing you know, he'll be overseeing the food preparation, to be sure I'm doing it right!

I've told him he'd better not become too attached, as his owner is to return on Monday to retrieve her sweeties; we're only kitten-sitting.

In his own mind, I know from experience, Demetrios will remember all this as "the time you wanted to keep that little black kitten." !

UPDATE: Now there are 8 squirrels. The six big ones are in the wire cage, and that left the little one all by himself in his basket inside. So this evening I picked him out a little "sister" from among Chris' THIRTY squirrels, because you shouldn't raise a wild baby in isolation from his own kind. (Obviously, Chris was very glad for me to take that little critter, and would've been even gladder if I'd taken half a dozen!)

Which Way Would You Like Your Mind Boggled?

When I consider people who have rejected traditional religions as preposterous, one thing that strikes me is how often they themselves believe things even more preposterous. Yesterday I mentioned the Jesus Seminar. The people there don’t believe Jesus said all those hard-to accept things, but then they do believe, in effect, that He spent His whole life in virtual silence. They do believe (apparently) that the Apostles lived and died for something they had largely made up. Or, for another example, a woman I know has rejected Catholicism (okay, so far, so good) but astrology, now that she can believe in! Some friends of my son’s were once amazed to discover that I believed in demons, ee-YEW! How stupid and disgusting was that? Half an hour later they began telling ghost stories and it turned out they all believed in ghosts. Or people who find it impossible to believe in God (with whom I really sympathize, because by “God” they mean somebody’s wacko version of Him), think this world was made just by chance.  Now to think of even one cell coming to be by chance is mind-numbing enough, but to believe that, you also have to believe in an infinite number of universes in addition to our own - for which there is not a shred of evidence! - because the chance of all the conditions being just right for life as we know it in any given universe is something like one in umpteen quadrillion gazillion bazillion.  Infinitesimal.

One of my favorite cartoons shows two astronomers sitting beside their giant telescope. One says to the other, “Sometimes I think there’s life out there somewhere, and it boggles my mind. And then sometimes I think we’re all alone in the universe, and that boggles my mind!"

Things just are mind-boggling, whichever way you view them. It seems to me you don’t get a choice between blowing your mind or not; only which way it blow it.

Maybe the Problem is, it Just Sounds Too Good to be True

As often as I’ve said it before, it bears repeating now and then: Orthodox Christianity is the only religion in the whole world that truly preaches a God of pure Love. This I say quite soberly, not trying either to boast or to exaggerate. But if you think this is an exaggeration, show me any other religion that has a god of pure love. I shall be thrilled to be proven wrong, thrilled.

Hinduism? It has many gods, none of them particularly loving, as we understand the term.

Buddhism?  It has no god.

Islam? Allah is frequently termed “the all-compassionate, the all-merciful,” but Allah will send you to hell in a literal heartbeat (your last heartbeat) if you don’t do what he wants. And look what he has his followers do, at the point of the sword. Some love.

Judaism? It teaches that God loves Israel, but how much He loves the other nations is debatable, since (a) they are not the Chosen People and (b) they are all going to serve Israel someday if they don’t already. Jews do not believe God loves us enough to have come among us in person, or to have died and risen for us and thereby have destroyed/transfigured death for us.


Liberal Protestantism or liberal Catholicism?  They don’t believe these things, either. In fact, if you believe the Jesus Seminar, you have to believe Jesus spent His whole life saying just about nothing! Or at least, nothing noteworthy, nothing much worth handing down to posterity or putting into writing.  I once said this in a liberal Catholic forum, and the people there were furious.  One of them said he was a personal friend of one of the J.S. scholars, and he would write this scholar to get his reply to my dreadful, slanderous remark.  The Jesus Seminar scholar wrote back with a heh-heh, well, yes, what I had said was pretty much the case.  Admirable young fellow, Jesus, in many ways, but not much given to words.

Traditional Catholicism? Conservative/Evangelical Protestantism? They both tell us they certainly believe God is loving, even that God is love, but then they turn right around and ascribe the most atrocious, unloving behaviors to Him, like sending people to hell, or arbitrarily not electing some people to salvation and the non-elect never even have a genuine chance.  Or they tell you God required His own Son, the only good and innocent man who ever lived, to be tortured and killed to pay Him off so He would/could let the rest of us off the hook. In other words, outright, gratuitous forgiveness doesn’t exist. In fact, some people think it would be immoral; sins must be avenged or paid for. 

In Catholicism, your eternal punishment is remitted when you repent and confess, but you still have “temporal punishment” to undergo in Purgatory, unless the Pope grants you a plenary indulgence. Again, true forgiveness doesn’t exist.  Pay up, buddy!   Or get the Pope to take your payment out of his "Treasury of Merits."

Or else, if you're Protestant, count on Jesus to have paid up for you. 

Lutherans talk about “The Terrors of Conscience,” which terrors couldn’t exist if they understood God’s love; it would be sorrow instead of terror.  One Lutheran pastor even has a blog post about how God hates sinners.  (It overlooks Luke 6:35: "He [God] is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.") 

In summary, what all these various denominations say is yes, God is loving, but love is not His only attribute, not the whole story.  There's also this "flip side" of God.   

Only Orthodoxy affirms that love is no mere “attribute” of God at all, existing alongside other attributes.  Rather, “God IS love” (I John 4:8,16) and there’s nothing alongside that love, balancing it or acting as a brake on it or a counterweight to it or tempering it or making it conditional. There is no conflict in God, as in, "Yes, He loves us BUT..."  There's no "but".  There’s no flip side, no dark side, nothing opposing or limiting His love, nothing about Him that needs appeasing or placating or buying off.  His love is eternal, infinite (!) and unconditional.

Really, truly, no exaggeration:  In all the world, the one and only champion of pure,True Love is Orthodox Christianity.  Holy Orthodoxy alone, while still believing in justice, judgment, and hell, understands these in such a way as to be able, truly and consistently, to teach that “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”  (I John 1:5)

Yikes! Part 7, A Real Doozy

A Gem on the Virgin Birth
 One last time, patient reader, I inflict upon you an excerpt from Getting Christianity Right! by Robert Sessions, iUniversity Press, New York, 2007, p. 128.  This is a gem, I promise, albeit of the outrageous sort.

In our time, if a man takes advantage of a woman who is unconscious or drunk or asleep, and causes her to become pregnant without her knowledge or consent, we call that act rape. But when the early Christian church tells the story of how its male God made Mary pregnant with Jesus, without her prior consent, the male-dominated church called that a “virgin birth.”

According to the writer of Luke, an angel of God appeared to Mary and told her that the baby from her pregnancy was from God. “Don’t be afraid, Mary. What God has done to you is for your own good and the good of the world.” … Apparently the moral question of God doing this to Mary did not occur to Matthew or Luke, for in their society women had less value and fewer rights than men.

Okay, so there are several troubling aspects of this excerpt, such as the assumption that "we" are more moral (and more intelligent!) than the early Christians.   But what troubles me most is that every Christian school child knows what Dr. Sessions has written here is wrong.   This is not at all the story the Christian Church tells, or ever did tell!  Instead, the Archangel Gabriel speaks to Mary in the future tense: “You shall conceive…” etc. And Mary’s beautiful, prior consent is emphasized and widely extolled as a model, the model, of Christian virtue.  “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”

There’s no way Dr. Sessions has simply erred; he is too learned and the story (Luke 1:26-38) is too well known. There is but one conclusion: he has lied. 

Now the unfortunate fate of a liar, once found out, is never to be believed even if he should happen, sometimes, to be telling the truth.  That's another way of saying the book belongs in the trash can. But ironically, this one insight (that a biblical scholar deliberately, outright lies) would be enough, all by itself, to make the whole book worth reading!

This discovery has also reinforced my impression of these radic-lib writers; in my experience with them, they do have agendas other than simple truth, and their agenda, as you've noticed in this instance, is usually related to gender or sexuality.  

P.S.)  Conservative religious writers sometimes tell lies, too.   Especially about Holy Orthodoxy.  A lie being to state something one already knows is not true.

Yet Another Confusing Word Pair

Courtesy of Merriam-Webster Online


Flout:  to treat with contemptuous disregard : scorn, "flouting the rules"


Flaunt:

intransitive verb
1 : to display or obtrude oneself to public notice; "a great flaunting crowd" (Charles Dickens)
2 : to wave or flutter showily; "The flag flaunts in the breeze."


transitive verb
1 : to display ostentatiously or impudently : parade; "Flaunting his superiority," or, "If you've got it, flaunt it."

Miss Grammar reports with regret that it is gradually becoming acceptable to misuse flaunt as a synonym for flout.  But of course, you, not wishing to contribute to the erosion of the English language, will want to avoid doing that.

How Can I Find a Gracious God?

Find the true One.  He is always gracious.

It's just hard to grasp when you've come from other religious backgrounds that have drummed into you the idea that God is so severe.

Fr. Stephen has a wonderful post on why Christ died, and the comments section is very moving as person after person writes about his/her difficulty coming to terms with such incomprehensible graciousness.  Here is one example:

Like many above, the process of overcoming the "ideas" of protestantism has been very slow for me. However, my priest recently gave me some very life giving words after I told him that I had a hard time believing that God loved me. He said, "You don't have to believe it, you just have to experience it." Somehow those words set me free and helped me pay attention to the many ways God shows his love for me. I still struggle with the feeling that I must somehow deserve the love and the despair of knowing that I can never deserve it. I know I've come to the right place though and that God is healing me and revealing himself to me as I am ready to receive Him.

Words like these bring tears to my eyes, break my heart, and heal me, too - because, of course, I also come from that sort of background.  I, too, am one of these spiritually handicapped, struggling people. 

Every reader of this blog knows I take every opportunity I can find to fight publicly against those unloving ideas about God. Yet as this woman writes, ultimately, it is only God Himself Who can break through all our false ideas about Him, as He allows us to experience and know firsthand His infinite, unconditional, incomprehensible, sweet, tender kindness toward us, a love unmitigated, undiluted, not held in tension or balance or polarity with anything else whatsoever; a compassion not based upon anything, nor needing to be, but itself being the basis for all things; a love that holds nothing back; an absolute, undeserved, unearned, gratuitous, miraculous, unwavering, unfailing, untempered, universal love, an abyss of pure goodness, pure LOVE.

Anniversary

Today is the first anniversary of my father's death.  It's what the Jews call "Jahrzeit," the end of the formal period of mourning.  After Jahrzeit, you can go to parties again, dance again, and you are bidden to cease and desist with the mourning.

Don't know about that.  But when I get around to buying myself some autumn clothes, as I will any day now, I'm not going to get any more that are mostly black.   I've worn black for a year and a half, and I wanted to; that's what felt comfortable to me.  It still is, but now I'm tired of it.  

Meanwhile, the day went alright.  I did various light chores (sorting through kitchen drawers and re-organizing them) and found myself humming as I did.  

The thoughts that once in a while come crowding in and you have to fight not to let them embitter you, those came several days ago and I dealt with them then.  I'm not going to entertain them today.

Guilt

Renate, as she scrubbed my scalp, was describing a customer at the salon who had been very displeased with her haircut. “And I feel SO guilty!” she concluded, squeezing the soapy water out of my hair.

 “What for?” I asked. “You didn’t cut or style her hair, you only shampooed it.”


“I know, but I still feel guilty. I feel guilty all the time, you know? I feel guilty about everything.”


I frowned. “Oh, my, what a terrible affliction! To what do you attribute this?”


"I’m sure it’s because I’m Catholic,” she said. I remembered she is old-school Catholic, too; she attends St. Joseph, whose sign out front says, “Extraordinary Rite (Tridentine)” meaning they use the pre-Vatican II mass, in Latin.


That was a couple of years ago. Since then, I’ve heard similar remarks from several other Catholics, especially lapsed Catholics; they all believe Catholicism has heaped them high with guilt. I asked one woman, my age, why she hadn’t raised her children Catholic, and she retorted, with a bitter laugh, “Why would I want to inflict that on them?”


"That what – do you mean guilt?” I asked.


“Of course.”


Now I’ve just read in Nesweek's article about Sen. Kennedy, another Catholic, that “His own ideology seems to have been rooted in liberal guilt…” meaning, “since the rich have a lot (like good health care), why shouldn't the poor?”


Dr. Robert Sessions, whose book I’ve been reading, doesn’t think the encouraging of guilt feelings is limited to Catholicism. He thinks it’s Christianity’s stock in trade. He writes that “the church as an institution has become an avid merchant of guilt. Nobody does guilt as well as the church, unless it be a big part of Judaism. Many churches hold their members in ‘guilt slavery.’ Feelings of guilt are powerful motivators for church attendance and for financial support and service.” (Getting Christianity Right! iUniversity Press, New York, 2007, p. 131.) 

I think he's right.  I can remember, as an evangelical, how I used to organize my thoughts when preparing to "witness" to someone, and realizing one had first to go through all the hell and damnation stuff, because otherwise, it seemed, there was no particular reason for needing Jesus or His death on the cross.


Once I asked a minister whether a good sermon, in his denomination’s thinking, would consist of first making the hearers feel as guilty as possible, and then presenting Christ, especially His death on the Cross, as the relief for the acute guilt feelings. His answer was yes, that was the essence of a good sermon.


Don’t let them do it to you!


There is one situation, and one only, in which guilt feelings are appropriate, and that is when you haven’t repented. And please take note, repentance is declaring war upon the evil within, turning against it with your whole self, resolving to fight it as hard as you can in future. Unless you do that, merely confessing your sin is no good. Telling God you’re sorry is a charade, and asking God to forgive you is kidding yourself. Even spending hours and hours contemplating Christ on the cross, supposedly bearing all the punishment due you, will not work, except momentarily. If you have no intention to put a stop to the evil, your heart won’t be fooled, and your guilty feelings will persist, as they well should.  Moreover, in the long run, this method of seeking relief (recalling that Jesus bore all the punishment for you) will backfire on you, making repentance even harder, because it paints God as Someone increasingly difficult to love, so your heart will resist Him.

The only real solution for guilt is repentance. If you do change your mind and heart about sin, hating it and struggling against it as much as you are able (even if you aren’t VERY able), then your feeling of guilt will evaporate all by itself as soon as you make that decision. And objectively speaking, you will have no further cause for guilt.

So do not be some guilt-mongerer’s victim. What he's trying to do amounts to emotional manipulation; it’s abuse. It’s some guilt-ridden soul’s attempt to share his affliction with you because misery loves company and because he wants you to reinforce his pseudo-solution for him (the one that isn't working very well for him, either) by agreeing with it.

The Communist (?) and the Patriarch

Most readers here probably remember the Ecumenical Patriarch's visit to Cuba not all that long ago.  After the visit, Fidel Castro asked the Patriarch to send Orthodox books and other educational material to be distributed throughout Cuba's school system.  Then came news that Castro had personally donated both land and money to build an Orthodox cathedral in Cuba.  That cathedral, St. Nicholas, was recently consecrated, and Raoul Castro, Fidel's brother, attended.  An official deed and key to the cathedral were handed over to the Orthodox.

Now comes more astonishing news:  Fidel Castro has donated a "large, colonial-style building" in downtown Havana to the Church, to be an Orthodox seminary, where Cubans and any other Latin Americans may study. 

What's going on here?  Has Cuba's dictator not so secretly converted?  Fidel, they say you are dying, but it sounds to me like you're very much living up to your name. 

Kennedy

I'm so unbearably tired of watching stuff on TV about Senator Edward Kennedy.  I'm not a great admirer of his, although it appears there was a lot of good in him.  And there wasn't much else you could watch this past week.  Yesterday Demetrios wanted to watch the funeral mass and the burial at Arlington National Cemetery...

It was just this past November we buried Dad's ashes there; I wasn't ready to re-visit the place, even by television.   It's too, too familiar.

And of course, it also reminded me of President Kennedy's burial.  We were there.  Dad took Michael and Wendy and me to Arlington Cemetery.  I don't remember why we didn't bring Barbara along; maybe because at 6 she was thought too young?  Anyway, we stood right where the vehicles have to stop and let out their passengers so they can walk up that hill, to where the eternal flame is now. 

I remember Prince Philip walking up it, and how extremely handsome he was in profile; I had never realized that before.  France's President, Charles de Gaulle, walked up that hill alone, absolutely alone, which was astounding, as there had recently been more than one attempt to assassinate him.  He had no body guard, at least not in sight.  Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, showed up, all medals, ribbons, and braid.  And all the other heads of state or their representatives, assorted VIPS, and of course, the Kennedy family; they all got out of their limousines where we were standing.

We were not Kennedy fans in our family; we were Republicans.  But as Mom said, he was still our President!  We took as much offense as anyone else that someone had killed him.  

The day it happened I was home from school sick.  Well, not really sick.  It was a Friday, and I just wanted a long weekend.  Mom was at work, and she phoned me around noon and said, "Turn on the radio.  The President has been shot!"

"What do you mean, shot?"  I demanded.  "You mean shot dead?"

"We don't know yet.  Turn on the radio!"

I don't know why the radio; we did have a television.  But somehow, it was the radio I obediently turned on.

That didn't last for long.  We spent the whole weekend glued to the TV, as did virtually all Americans.  Besides the shock, there was great fear, because we didn't know whether it might have been a foreign plot, or whether (as with September 11) it might only be prelude to something more.  We were half expecting another shoe to drop.

Anyway, all those memories connected with Arlington National Cemetry came flooding back this weekend, and I really wasn't ready and willing, yet, to go there.

I'm glad it's over.  Kyrie, eleison!

My Sister Was a Horse Lover

She started when she was a small child, with a collection of plastic horses. She vaccinated and wormed and bred them, keeping meticulous medical records and pedigrees. Dad made her a barn to keep them in.

When she was in high school, Barbara finally acquired a real horse of her own. It was hard to find one that would fit her, she was so tall, but finally she found a very tall horse. She taught him to jump and entered an equestrian contest or two.

She always hoped to have several horses and, although her veterinary career never did become specialized, she dreamed of being mostly a horse doctor.

Well, as today is her birthday, here are some cute horse pictures for you, in her memory.

They're another something someone forwarded to forty-zillion people and now to me... I'm told this is a newborn offspring of Taskin, Gypsy Stallion owned by Villa Vanners of Oregon. These pictures were taken immediately after his birth on April 6. The mare lay down, and then the colt trotted around and crawled right up into her "lap".






Happy Birthday, Barbara, "until the day dawns" when we find shall our way - until God shows us the way - back to each other.

Yikes! Part 6

Here's another excerpt from Getting Christianity Right! by Robert Sessions.

Two Myths Accompany the Death of Traditional Christianity
…


Myth #1: “Any Religion Is Good”


…Contrary to the strong belief of many, “faith,” including religious faith, is not necessarily a good thing. Faith may be too strong or too weak. A person may have faith in the wrong thing – such as money ore power – or in an undependable person – as a deceitful pastor, or in a shallow type of a “personal” God. Or he or she may have a mistaken kind of faith in himself or herself.


Religion, including Christianity, is not necessarily to be treasured. “Tom got religion last night.” What kind of religion? Did Tom go out and burn a cross on the lawn of someone of another color to express his newfound “religion?” There are praiseworthy religions, even exciting ones. But there also are false religions, corrupt religions, boring religions, even deadly ones. Did a misguided Christian shoot and kill a nurse outside an abortion clinic because the killer’s priest told her the nurse was “a murderer?” Sometimes the best religions will have elements of good and bad, of truth, half-truth, and untruth.


I have met many Christians whose religion I appreciated greatly. But I have known others whose “brand” of Christianity was, to me, repulsive. On the other hand, I have admired non-Christians whose sense of the eternal plays out effectively in their daily lives.


A person’s true religion, regardless of what she or he professes, is whatever is most important and central in her or his life. Your religion is “where your treasure is.” The center of a man’s or woman’s trust, admiration, and aspiration is that person’s religion. This true religion determines a woman’s or man’s values, choices, and actions.

 I don't know about you, but for once, here, I find myself in agreement.  Well, that's provided we use a loose definition of "Christianity." of course.

Yikes! Part 5 or, Intelligent People Agree with Me

Here is yet another excerpt from Getting Christianity Right! by Robert Sessions.

Among the Christians who see their religion as dead or dying, two groups are especially noteworthy.


(1) One category is a multitude of thoughtful persons, among both the economically disadvantaged and advantaged, who witness most of Christianity ignoring or even supporting the continuation of poverty in their own localities and among millions of the world’s starving people.

. . .


(2) Another growing group asking whether their religion is dead or dying is made up of some of the most intelligent and best-educated Christians, who are questioning many of the beliefs and practices of traditional Christianity. Bible scholarship has undermined the notion that the Bible is “The Word of God, from cover to cover.” Scientific discoveries have made many long-held beliefs untenable. Questions of the theology and practices of traditional Christianity are rising not only from science labs or scholars’ studies, but also from insightful journalists, a few “thinkers” in pulpits and, increasingly, from the pews.

. . .


Jesus was a brilliant thinker and understood many things, but he was as much a seeker of truth as a proclaimer. One of his most characteristic traits was asking questions of himself, of his disciples of the crowds, and even, perhaps especially, of God. He found many significant answers, but often they led to more profound questions, probably even on the cross. He wanted his followers to be learners, too, and he wanted them, even, in some ways, to think beyond him.


pp. 4-5

Do you find the presumption here as breathtaking as I do?

What the Heck is That Line Made Of?

Someone forwarded me these photos, which had been forwarded forty-zillion times before...

Yikes! Part 4

Here is another excerpt from Getting Christianity Right! by Robert Sessions (iUniversity Press, New York, 2007, pp. 43-44.) In this section, Dr. Sessions is trying to make the point that we should not take the Bible literally.

Father Ken Baker of All Saints Anglican Church in Mission, British Columbia, shared an e-mail in which he gave a fitting response to a radio personality who had supported a viewpoint by taking literally a passage from the Old Testament. Father Baker’s message, in part:

“When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them…

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mind claims that this applies to Mexicans but not to Americans. Can you clarify?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?...

Eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 10:10)…can you settle this?

Leviticus 20:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?”

To Ponder:

1.) Always check the biblical references people give you and read the context, too,the whole section. Far too often, you find the passages misrepresented. This case is no exception. (That last citation is wrong, though; it should be Leviticus 21:20, not 20:20.)

2.) With whom did God make the covenant containing all these commandments, laws, and ordinances?

3.) Which covenant is operative today? To whom does this covenant pertain?

4.) To ”fulfill” something, as for example the Law and the Prophets, is to give that something its highest, truest, best meaning. Thus, fulfilling the Law doesn’t mean simply obeying it. Christ does that, but when we say He fulfilled the Law, we mean something deeper; namely, that He is that to which the Law was always pointing; He makes possible what the Law could only legislate, but never accomplish. Christ reveals and IS the Love that the Law could only crudely mimick. Christ fulfills the prophets not simply by making some of their predictions come true, but by embodying everything they were ever talking about, by being the summary of all their hopes and vindicating all their faith. This is how Jesus, by fulfilling the Law (Matthew 5:17) also superceded it (Hebrews 8:13). (In fact, that's a tautology; to say He fulfilled something IS already to say He superceded it.)