White Lies

Have you ever told a white lie? You are going to love this, especially all you ladies who bake for church events.

Alice was to bake a cake for the her church's Ladies' Group in Tuscaloosa, but forgot to do it until the last minute. She remembered it the morning of the bake sale and after rummaging through cabinets, found an angel food cake mix, quickly made it while drying her hair, dressing, and helping her son pack up for Scout camp.

When she took the cake from the oven, the center had dropped flat and the cake was horribly disfigured. There was no time to bake another cake. This cake was important to Alice because she did so want to fit in at her new church, and in her new community of friends.

So, being inventive, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake... She found it in the bathroom - a roll of toilet paper. She plunked it in and then covered it with icing. The finished product looked perfect.

Before she left the house to drop the cake by the church and head for work, Alice woke her daughter, gave her some money and specific instructions to be at the bake sale the moment it opened at 9:30 and to buy the cake and bring it home.

When the daughter arrived at the sale, she found the attractive, perfect cake had already been sold. Amanda grabbed her cell phone and called her mom.

Alice was horrified-she was beside herself! Everyone would know! What would they think?

All night, Alice lay awake in bed thinking about people pointing fingers at her and talking about her behind her back.

The next day, Alice promised herself she would try not to think about the cake and would attend the fancy bridal shower at the home of a fellow church member and try to have a good time.

She did not really want to attend because the hostess more than once had looked down her nose at the fact that Alice was a single parent and not from the founding families of Tuscaloosa, but having already RSVP'd, she couldn't think of a believable excuse to stay home.

The meal was elegant, the company was definitely upper crust Old South, and to Alice’s horror, the cake she had baked was presented for dessert!

Alice started out of her chair to tell the hostess all about it, but before she could get to her feet, the Mayor's wife said, "What a beautiful cake!"

Alice, still stunned, sat back in her chair when she heard the hostess say, "Thank you, I baked it myself."



God is good.

The Word Became Flesh

When you take fallen, sinful human nature and unite it in a single person with divine nature, what happens? Here's what you may suppose happened, as expressed on a minister's blog a few days ago.

It is the fact that God has sullied Himself with the filth of the human race and bound Himself to us for all eternity: "The Word became flesh."

But as we sing every Sunday, Christ "without change became man and was crucified..." That's an echo of the Council of Chalcedon, which decreed that divine and human nature were united in Christ without change, without confusion, without separation, and without compartmentalization.

That's to say, the Divine Nature was in no way compromised. There's just no way poor human nature has any ability to sully the infinitely good and holy God even in the least degree. Our darkness can never even partially overcome His Light, or our weakness overpower His might.

No, the reverse happened: human nature was purified, sanctified, and made fit to dwell in one Person with the Divine. This, by the way, is the pattern we see over and over again in the Lord's encounters with sinners. He isn't possessed by their demons but casts them out. He doesn't become sick, but makes the sick well. He doesn't contract sin, but sinners become holy.

Christ, at His conception, re-created human nature within Himself. That's the meaning of the Incarnation.

A Tale I Can't Verify

Neither has Snopes been able to prove or disprove it.

So for whatever it's worth (a smile maybe?), here it is.

Could you imagine coming home from work to find this tiny creature napping on your couch with your dog? Guess who came home for dinner? It followed this beagle home, right through the doggy door This happened in Maryland recently. The owner came home to find the visitor had made himself right at home.

"Baby" Squirrels Report

Sunday afternoon we drove out into the country to pick up my three squirrels from Chris. Finally. She'd been babysitting them nearly two weeks. By Sunday, though, the roads were clear (although her long driveway was still hazardous) and the cold that had kept me mostly in bed over Christmas was mostly gone. So the time had come to resume my squirrel responsibilities.

The squirrels aren't exactly babies anymore; they're juveniles, and nearly full-grown.

They're weaned now, too. Chris said she put a bowl of formula in their cage the first day (when I went to Fort Wayne) and they never came out of their nest bag to eat it, so she said that was enough of that, and only put solids in afterward.

So from now on, it's going to be easy to take care of them. Lift their wire cage onto new sheets of newspaper every day (with a plastic sheet between newspaper and floor). Roll up the newspapers with the shells and scraps and smelly stuff and dispose of the whole package. Fill up their water bottle, put a fresh bowl of food in the cage, wash old bowl.

They won't go outdoors for a while yet, as it tends to be bitter cold at night. Need to acclimate them gradually. So they're back in the sunroom for now, which is toasty warm during the day and chilly or even rather cold at night.

Once they're outside, it will be easier in some ways. That is, the wire floor of the cage will be directly over the ground, so won't need daily cleaning. Just lift up the cage and shift it to a slightly different spot.

On the other hand, the water bottle will freeze and need replacing at least once a day. And of course there will be the winter weather to slog through.

I had spent most of a morning last year cutting a large hole in the top of their cage, which I cover with a sheet of metal, weighted down. The hole matches one in the bottom of another cage. I usually put the two holes together eventually, and with the help of several bungee cords, make a double-tall cage for the squirrels' winter quarters. But I don't do this until after the squirrels have gotten well accustomed to being in the smaller cage. That's frightening enough for them at first.

Well, Chris has very kindly mended that hole for me with a big square of hardcloth. She did a very thorough, professional job, too. Must've taken her an hour and a half, at least. Looks like it'll take me at least that long to undo it!

Squirrels are bouncing fearlessly all over this cage.

On Feeling Bad About Sin, Part 2 of 2

As I said last time, religions that center around relieving our shame and guilt are dealing with the wrong problem. The problem is a deeper one: how to cure the passions infecting our hearts. Those are what produce the guilt and shame, as well as the sinful acts we commit.

Quite a few religions have not only the wrong diagnosis, but also the wrong cure, even supposing the diagnosis were correct. They tell you to keep your eyes focused upon the Cross, where you see Jesus taking your punishment vicariously and as thoroughly as ever your heart could wish. Such a denomination will probably provide you very gruesome portraits of that suffering, both visual and verbal, for you to contemplate to alleviate your guilt and shame. Well, it won’t. Okay, it will – briefly. Like aspirin, it will take the pain away for a while, but without treating the cause of it; so, very shortly, it will all come back again. And again, and again. Both the objective and the subjective guilt will still be in place as long as the attitudes underlying our sins are in place.

You can't cure a toothache by calculus, because a toothache is a medical problem and needs a medical solution. You can't solve a quadratic equation by baking a cake, because the problem is mathematical and needs a mathematical solution. Trying to take away guilt and shame by an executive decision (“I will believe Christ took my punishment”) or a legal proceeding (God declares you Not Guilty) is a similar use of wrong categories. Guilt and shame, besides being objectively true, are things we experience. Those experiences can only be taken away by a countervailing experience, namely of that sweet sorrow I’ve tried to describe called contrition, bringing with it experience of God’s tender forgiveness and of new hope that we can become better. Absent that, and we shall never be rid of the subjective guilt, because deep down we know we aren't rid of the objective guilt, either.

(And lest anyone be tempted to think, "Oh, but we need the guilt, to keep us on the straight and narrow," no, we serve God much more selflessly, much more effectively, much more to His liking, when we do so in freedom and love rather than from guilt. What we DO need, always, is contritition, repentance.)

Of course true contrition is a gift of God. Have you never experienced it and you wonder why not? I suppose there are numerous possible answers. NOT among them is the pernicious idea that it's because you are one of those God has chosen to damn, or at least has not elected to save (which amounts to the same thing). God elects, according to His foreknowledge, whoever is willing (Romans 8:29). If you don’t believe that, you have been taught to interpret this verse differently, let's not waste time debating the theology; just do the practical thing: make sure you really ARE among the willing and the theological issue will become moot.

If you find yourself (perhaps to your own surprise!) unwilling, perhaps it’s because the god you’ve been taught is inherently very difficult to love. This is because although He is said to be very, very loving, at the same time, certain behaviors are ascribed to Him which cannot be reconciled with love. Even if you think He has every right to commit atrocities, or even a duty to commit them, in the name of justice, that still makes it very difficult to love Him wholeheartedly. In fact, to make it all the more complicated, disapproving of such a god is the morally correct stance!

Or perhaps you’ve been taught that who you are can’t really change much, which to say the least is a bit discouraging. So perhaps you haven’t actually tried yet to overcome the inner attitudes which are producing the objective and subjective guilt and shame, as well as the misdeeds.

I don’t know. You, however, do need to know, if you suffer from chronic guilt and shame and would be cured. Please find out what the blockage is, and let us all pray together, again and again: "Open to me the doors of repentance!"

My most merciful and all-merciful God, Lord Jesus Christ, through Thy great love Thou didst come down and take flesh to save all. And again, O Saviour, save me by Thy grace, I pray Thee, for if Thou shouldst save me for my works, this would not be grace or a gift, but rather a duty. Indeed, in Thy infinite compassion and unspeakable mercy, Thou O my Christ hast said: Whoever believes in Me shall live and never see death. If faith in Thee saves the desperate, save me, for Thou art my God and Creator. Impute my faith instead of deeds, O my God, for Thou wilt find no deeds which could justify me, but may my faith suffice for all my deeds. May it answer for and acquit me, and may it make me a partaker of Thy eternal glory. And may satan not seize me, O Word, and boast that he has torn me from Thy hand and fold. O Christ, my Saviour, whether I will or not, save me. Make haste, quick, quick, for I perish. Thou art my God from my mother's womb. Grant me, O Lord, to love Thee now as once I loved sin, and also to work for Thee without idleness, as I worked before for deceptive satan. But supremely shall I work for Thee, my Lord and God, Jesus Christ, all the days of my life, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

-- from the Orthodox morning prayers

All My (Grand)children

Kelly, top; Connor, left; Ryan, right; Kelly, bottom

Okay, no, that's Sydney at the bottom.  It's just that she so admires her older cousin (You can see why.) that half the time she will tell you she is Kelly.  Oh, and she only simpers like this around boys, especially her handsome boy cousins.

Aren't they all just ADORABLE?!!!

On Feeling Bad About Sin, Part 1 of 2

Cain, from malice, killed Abel his brother, and what immediately happened to him? From Genesis, Chapter 4:

13 And Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me."
15 And the Lord said to him, "No so; whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." [More nearly literally: seven vengeances shall paralyze him.] And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.

Cain felt (and objectively was) guilty, and guilt, as always, brought fear of punishment with it. Notice, please, that there is no record of Cain repenting. He simply complains about his punishment. (Nevertheless, our all-merciful, compassionate and kind Lord places a mark on him to serve notice to others not to kill him.)

When Adam and Eve sinned, there was a difference. They, from distrust of God and from pride stirred up by the serpent, ate of the forbidden tree. And their reaction? They didn’t repent, either; they tried to hide themselves from God. They were ashamed, and indeed had done a shameful thing.

Adam and Eve experienced shame. Cain experienced guilt.

They aren't the same, although it's common to experience shame and guilt both together. But guilt feels like squirming little worms gnawing at your soul, whereas shame makes you want to run and hide. Shame makes you embarrassed, while guilt makes you want to kick yourself, or flagellate or starve or otherwise deprive yourself. Martin Luther famously tried this approach, performing all sorts of ascetical tasks in fullest measure, and found out self-punishment really does not help. See Footnote 1.

Most sins, the ones proceeding from lust, pride, gluttony, sloth, or greed, bring forth shame. People fornicate or overeat secretly. It’s the sins proceeding from hostility toward God and man (i.e., envy or anger) that produce the experience of guilt. That is, it is not the specific behaviors that bring shame or guilt; it’s mostly the “sin behind the sin,” the attitudes giving birth to those misdeeds. If you merely feel sorry for specific acts, yet hold on to the pride or hostility or whatever was behind them, your feelings of shame or guilt will persist and even Confession of the particular misdeeds won’t help.  Both the objective and the subjective guilt will remain.  (And failure to give up the underlying wrong attitudes is the ONLY reason shame or guilt persists even when you regret the specific things you've done.) See Footnote 2.

This is why neither shame nor guilt is an appropriate reaction to sin. They are both forms of wounded pride, both ego-centric, both are unhealthy, morbid. Worst of all, both are (highly unsuccessful) substitutes for what’s really needed.

What is the right reaction to sin? For anyone who loves God, it is sorrow. Sorrow that has nothing to do with embarrassment and is equally free of self-loathing. Sorrow is not wounded ego, but wounded love. It’s a cherished relationship disrupted, a love betrayed (in fact, THE Love of all loves betrayed), and not a wish to hurt yourself, but a recognition of the hurt already done to your innermost self, as well as to others.

It’s a sweet sorrow, too, for at least two reasons; first, because it immediately brings with it not fear of punishment, as guilt does, but profound and joyous awareness of God’s tender mercy. (“Perfect love throws out fear.”) And secondly, because this sorrow brings not only fresh joy but also new hope: yes, God has granted me a change of mind; now He will help me change, truly change, everything else: heart, attitudes, behaviors, everything, from the inside out! Starting right now. See Footnote 3.

Guilt and shame, then, are false postures, failures or even evasions of true contrition, for which there really is no substitute. Implication: religions that center around relieving our shame and guilt are dealing with the wrong problem! The problem is how to cure the passions infecting our hearts.  Then all the rest will follow.


Kyrie, eleison!  Open unto me the doors of repentance!


Footnotes:

1.) Pseudo-ascetical tasks Luther did, really. True asceticism is not an effort to punish oneself for ones sins. It is rather an effort to wean oneself from addiction to the things of this world, to achieve greater inner freedom to offer God in His service. It is, in other words, a labor of love.

2.) Some degree of hostility toward God is going to be extremely tough to get over, maybe even impossible, if you believe in God as He is usually preached outside of Holy Orthodoxy, Who commits what you'd call atrocities if anyone else did them.  Hostility toward that kind of deity is only natural in us, as those very religions also admit and teach; thus, it is absolutely persistent. Nevertheless, unless we get over that remnant of hostility lurking in some dark corner of our hearts, we will never get past the subjective guilt, nor indeed the objective guilt, either.

I'm sorry, but only Holy Orthodoxy consistently teaches you about the God Who is entirely loveable, entirely delightful, “in Whom there is no darkness at all,” the God you can love unambivalently from the core of your being.

3.) If you belong to a religion that teaches you can never really change appreciably this side of the grave, that says at best you can only be like a manure pile covered with snow, then I suppose you’re deprived of this blessed Hope of renewal, and with it, of any genuine, lasting, or non-superficial relief from guilt. You just really do need to become Orthodox.





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Why are Saints Depicted with Halos?

Because they have 'em!  Halos don't appear all the time, and when they do, they  may not be visible to every single person around.  But saints are filled with the Uncreated Light and from time to time, not all that infrequently, it shines forth from them.

St. John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco (I LOVE to say that; it sounds so incongruous!) lived from 1896 to 1966.  He was glorified nearly 30 years later, in 1994.  In preparation for his glorification, his grave was exhumed and his unembalmed body was found to be incorrupt and exuding a sweet fragrance.

This picture of the saint is from the website of a parish named for St. John.  I found  that website via my new godson's blog.  St. John appears to be reading the Gospel.

Here is an icon of St. John, who also served Washington, D.C. Here he is shown holding a replica of the Cathedral of St. John and Baptist, which he once served, and in which church I was baptized, chrismated, first communed, and married to Demetrios.

This icon is also the only one I know of that depicts automobiles. I've forgotten the story, but he disrupted Washington traffic for a while (on Dupont Circle, I beleive) in protest of something or other, and this is what is being commemorated in that scene at the bottom of the icon.

Christmas Eve Miracle

"So how are you today, Kevin?"

Kevin (not his real name) motioned for the other to wait until Kevin had finished swallowing his food.  That took about two minutes, after which Kevin suddenly said, "I'm fine, thank you."

"Did you have a good day?"

"I had a very good day."

"What did you do today?  I heard you had a Christmas party."

"Yes, a party."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Oh, yes, enjoyed it very much."

"Did you sing?"

"No, no, I didn't sing."

"Did you dance?"

"Yes, I did dance."

You may not think this is very much of a conversation, and you'd be right.  Except for one thing.  It was a whole conversation, which lasted another minute or so, between Demetrios and one of his most severely ill mental patients - who until now had not said a single word in more than 20 years.


UPDATES: 

More of the Conversation:

"What else did you do today?"

"I watched TV."

"Anything good on?"

"No, nothing important." 

"So what did you watch?"

"Soap operas."

Question to Night Nurse:

"Why are you giving me the extra pill?  Is it because I told you last night to check the file cabinet where my tax information was?"  (There was no file cabinet, and the patient now realized his mistake.  But no, the increase in medication is what has helped him this much.)


Motor capabilities re speech:  check.
Ability to speak in whole sentences:  check.
Coherent speech, making sense:  check.
Short-term memory:  check.
Ability sometimes to make appropriate value judgments (soap operas):  check.
Some insight into his condition:  check.
Willingness to interact with another person for a few minutes:  check.

How many valuable things one small conversation reveals!  Not to mention he has been able, all this time, to keep track of his medications, knowing when an extra pill was added.

Glory, glory, glory!

Not a Creature Was Stirring

...because my animal nursery is empty this Christmas Eve!  The kittens have gone back to the shelter to be neutered and spayed and put up for adoption after the holidays.  The squirrels are with Chris, who took them before I went away last weekend.  I haven't been able to pick them up from her because she keeps calling me and saying, "My road is a solid sheet of ice.  You ain't gonna get down it, so just wait and come when it melts."  And yesterday, I declined to take two 8-week old Airedale mix puppies from the shelter.

It's a good thing, with all the other hustle and bustle, to have a break from animal babies.  Once the new year gets here, I'm finally going to relax some.  I'm going to be a couch potato for about a month, watching movies on TV, knitting, sipping my hot chocolate, and maybe snuggling some kittens or puppies.  But not now.  Too, too busy.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!  No matter where you are, no matter how much stress, distress or sorrow you're in (especially then), celebrate with deep joy and awe, because the eternal God of all the Universe becomes Man, born in time, in order to make us gods forever with and in Him. 

Glory: The Song of the Christmas Angels

Whenever we are blessed with a glimpse, however small, of True Love, it makes everything else in life seem easy. Fasting? Oh, but certainly; anything Love asks of me seems but a small task. Dying? No problem, because in the depth of the grave I will find Love bidding me, "Come, receive the Light…” Forgiving others? That’s ridiculous; I am not worthy to forgive anyone else, having so many sins myself. I have been forgiven so much I couldn’t dare hold anything against someone else in the first place. Loving others? That's so obvious! There’s just no room for anything less, is there, in all this Glory?

And then the glimpse fades, and things seem hard again and we know we will keep failing and have to keep putting our shoulders back into the task, back into the drudgery.

No, but wait! That’s not how it’s supposed to be and not how it IS. We aren’t laboring to clear out the junk in our souls in order to make room for the Babe to be born in us. He already is born in all the baptized.

All we have to do is keep our eyes on His Glory, the glory of His miraculous Love, keep praying to know it better, and little by little, or perhaps one big chunk after another, that Glory, that Light, that Joy, will displace everything in us incompatible with It.

Glory to God in the highest!

Miss Compassion

For the third year in a row, my eldest granddaughter, Kelly, is the recipient of a Good Citizenship Award at her school. Last year, she was Miss Generosity. This year, she received the Compassion award. Kelly, dear, I'm SO happy you are such a wonderful girl!

That's Kelly on the Right; I Don't Know Who the Other Girl Is

Adults, Left to Right:  Auntie Erin, Dad (Mark), Mom (Katherine) Gigi (Gail, Kelly's Other Grandmother)

Children:  Kelly, Center; Connor, Cousin Sydney, and Ryan

The Genealogy of the Messiah

Who in the world can make a sermon that brings tears to your eyes from, of all texts, the genealogy of Christ? A genealogical list! So-and-so was the father of so-and-so, and he was the father of…”

Fr. Anthony can, that’s who, the priest at St. John Chrysostom parish in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He simply reminded us who some of these people were. King David, who sinned with Bathsheba. (And yet, from that union was born, by God’s mercy, King Solomon - who in turn sinned grievously.)  Rehoboam, who split David's Kingdom in half and it was never the same again. Rahab.  The prostitute, but he didn’t say that in front of the children.  And others whose lives read like soap operas, says Fr. Anthony, crossing himself as if asking forgiveness for pointing out someone else’s faults, and adding, “You really ought to read these stories, read the Bible sometime…” These are people whose lives make our own look pretty routine. “So, you know what?” he asks, with a shrug. “If these people could make it [crossing himself again ], even becoming ancestors of the Christ, then you can make it, too. Don’t give up on yourself.”

I turned to Rose with outspread hands in amazement. We both had tears in our eyes. Oh, yes, there’s hope for you and me, and that Hope was born in Bethlehem. “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”

Santa Claus ... and Santa Claus

Suddenly, Santa Appeared at the Party

Look Who's Here!  Sydney, Neighbor Anna, and Kelly are Amazed.  Anna looks especially amazed, perhaps because underneath those whiskers, Santa somehow looks awfully familiar...

Mark , Connor (L) and Ryan (R) Can't Believe it:  Santa's Here!

Connor and Sydney Sit in Santa's Lap

Santa with Sydney and Ryan

And then there was the Polar Express, where Santa showed up again.

Sydney Tells Santa All About Everything

Christmas Came Early This Year

...for those of us who were blessed to be present at the Chrismation of Ben, Emily, Evelyn, and Dominic.  See photographs on their blogs, here and here.

I thought I saw Ben, then Emily, choke up as they were being anointed, and that in turn brought me to tears.  Little Evelyn saved the day by giggling because the small brush used to put on the oil was tickling her.

These people truly have sold everything they had to buy the Pearl of Great Price. 

They were no strangers to the Holy Spirit before Christmation; in fact, they were already on intimate terms with Him for I don't know how long, perhaps all their lives.  But now  and evermore, the Holy Spirit deals with them from inside their own innermost beings, instead of from outside, for that is what Chrismation is.  (It is no coming of age ceremony or merely an "I've finished my catechism" rite.)

Another huge joy this weekend was meeting the Harjus and their other sponsors in person instead of just via Internet and/or telephone.  It seemed miraculous that few of us had ever met each other in person before, yet the love began to flow immediately and our cups kept on overflowing.  To me, Fr. Gregory and Fr. John and Julia and Ben and Emily are all awesome examples of faith and courage and integrity.  (Do not believe any of the slanders you may have read about any of them on the Internet.)  And Rosemarie, you ROCK!  I expected to like all these people, of course; but I didn't expect to fall in love with each of them, as I have, and the children, too.  We have promised to have reunions now and then.

The whole weekend, it seems, was spiced with smiles and watered by tears.  And of course made glittery by snow, befitting the scene as the parish of St. John Chrysostom became Bethlehem for Ben and Emily and Evelyn and Dominic.

Glory to God for all things!

God grant them and you many years!