Bobcat in Surgery

Our bobcat is now recovering from surgery to repair his broken leg. The procedure reportedly went well. Time will tell if the leg will be usable, adequately or at all.

Photos here.

Updates on Bobcat

It's a juvenile male bobcat, found in Powhatan County by a local veterinarian who was out horseback riding.

The break, as you see, is severe, and may not be fixable. His fate remains in question. (No, I'm almost certain he will not be euthanized. He will become an educational animal if no better situation can be found for him.)

Photographs courtesy of Chris Linardos.

Bobcat Getting Professional Care at
Wildlife Center of Virginia

Should the Church of England Have Women Bishops? (Or Women Priests?)

I don't know.

It would do further damage to ecumenical relations, but those could hardly be worse than they already are.

The Anglicans I've met have a different view of sacraments from ours, so our reason for not ordaining women or consecrating them bishops may not apply within the Anglican context. If being a priest in the C of E is just a matter of managing a parish and preaching, there's no reason a woman can't do it. If being a bishop is just a matter of managing a diocese, there's no reason a woman can't do that, either.

If the issue is clinging to Holy Scripture, well, Anglicans have no particular, universally accepted standard for interpreting Scripture, no agreed-upon hermeneutic, so forget that.

If clinging to Tradition no longer means anything more than doing things a certain way because that's the way they've always been done, why? What's wrong with change, and isn't the refusal to change rather narrow-minded and stultifying?

If sexism is the real reason opponents don't want female bishops, well, sexism does need to be squelched. (I only say, "if".)

If the only thing at stake really is power, more's the pity, but in that case, why shouldn't women have an equal share of it?

Public relations ought not to be a consideration for Christians; how Christians arrange their internal affairs is emphatically not the business of unbelievers. And yet, this is the established church of England, established in fact to serve the state, so the wishes of the rest of the establishment are always a factor. There's always the possibility of being disestablished. Hence, the Archbishop of Canterbury says things like, "Whatever the motivations for voting yesterday, whatever the theological principle on which people acted and spoke, the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society - worse than that, it seems that we are willfully blind to some of the trends and priorities in that wider society," and "We have, to put it very bluntly, a lot of explaining to do." (Becket, Becket, where are you when you're needed?)

It's really none of society's business and none of mine either. I don't know. I've no dog in this race.  Even if I thought I knew what the C of E should do, it would be presumptuous to offer an opinion, but I really do not know. Better just to pray for them in this difficult time.

Look Who Just Arrived for Rehab!

We volunteer wildlife rehabbers, though, are not licensed to care for a bobcat, so it's on its way to the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro to receive professional care.

P.S.)  I'm not the one who took it in from the rescuer; I wish I had been, but since I wasn't, I don't yet have details to share with you.

So why Don’t You (Orthodox) Ordain Women?

Within the Anglican Communion, there are two groups that pretty much oppose the ordination of women and the consecration of women as bishops. They are the Anglo-Catholics, who say this does not accord with Tradition, and the more evangelical wing, who say it does not accord with Scripture. So why do we Orthodox not ordain women? Is it for the Anglo-Catholic reason? Not really, although they are of course right. Is it for the evangelical reason? Not really, although yes, they too are right.

In Orthodox Christianity, there are many functions of a priest that a woman could do as well as a man and perhaps better. But one function, a principle one, is something she cannot do at all, and that is to serve, for liturgical purposes, as the icon of Christ. In our worship services, the priest ministers side-by-side with Christ, making visible to the congregation what Christ is doing invisibly. I suppose it’s a little like a sign-language interpreter standing alongside the news anchor for the benefit of the deaf. In Holy Communion, for example, it is Christ Who is feeding His people with His own Being but the priest distributes the Body and Blood. In Holy Baptism, only Christ can wash away your sins and incorporate you into His Body but the priest immerses you three times. In Confession, Christ Who forgives and absolves, but the priest prays over the penitent. And so on. The priest’s function is not to represent Christ as though He were absent, nor yet to “channel” Christ, but nevertheless, definitely to portray Him, to show forth visually the invisible Mystery.

And for whatever reason, whether we like it or not, the Word of God came into the world in male flesh. (We do not know why, but no, we do not blasphemously imagine this was male chauvinism in God, nor even a nod to it from Him to humor the sin.) The Lord did not appear on earth as a female, nor as androgynous, nor as a hermaphrodite, but as a man. It takes a man to iconize him.

But, but, but – you object – isn’t it much more important how a person’s soul looks than how his body does? Of course it is. But the fact that Thing One is much more important doesn’t make Thing Two unimportant. For liturgical purposes, a male is needed to be the living icon of Christ, just as in your parish Christmas pageant, a female is needed to portray the Virgin Mary.

And that’s it. There are other reasons, such as keeping to Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, but this is the basic reason, the reason it's in Scripture and Tradition in the first place. It has nothing to do with superior and inferior status; but with different functions, different service, carried out by people who are all equals. It has nothing to do with who gets to lead, because it is clearly understood that Christ is always the Leader. It has nothing to do with power, because the Church operates not by command and control, but by Love. It has nothing to do with male chauvinism. In fact, I can testify that I have encountered far, far less male chauvinism inside the Orthodox Church than outside it and I’m actually not sure whether I’ve ever experienced it within the Church. I don’t mean there’s no such thing as an Orthodox Christian who is sexist; there’s bound to be; but I do mean sexism is an unOrthodox and unchristian thing. Orthodox Christianity provides neither encouragement nor haven nor pretext for it. After all, the person we revere and venerate the next most, after Jesus Christ, is His Mother.


Some posts on related issues from this blog you may like to check out are one on the priesthood in Orthodoxy and another on authority.

(On Women Bishops) Dear Anglicans,

The Church of England has just defeated, by a very narrow vote, a proposal to allow women to become bishops. The measure needed two-thirds of the vote in each of the houses: the House of Bishops, the House of Clergy, and the House of Laity. It passed the first two, but lacked 6 votes (or five, according to one source) in the House of Laity. Now my friends in England are too, too outraged. They hope the State will impose fairness on a body which cannot seem to achieve it on her own. They feel stunned, they feel almost physically sick, they are ashamed, they say, to be laypeople in the Church of England.

Now all of this I can understand, but ladies (and gentlemen) of the UK, take a deep breath.

The first thing we all need to remember is that it is virtually certain you will have women bishops in the not-so-distant future, just as Episcopalians here in the U.S. have. You’ve waited 2,000 years; what’s five more? I doubt it will take even that long, but whatever the duration, it gives you time to pause and look at the whole complex of issues from a different perspective, so it’s a blessing in disguise, if one lets it be.

Ask yourselves, with all brutal honesty and seriousness, what do you want to be bishops for? I mean, what do you want to be bishops for? And to this question there’s really only one Christian answer, isn’t there? “To love and serve the Christian people.” But of course you can already do this! You can comfort the bereaved, visit the sick and imprisoned, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, counsel the perplexed, instruct the ignorant, proclaim the Gospel, etc., etc., etc. You do not need to be a bishop to do these things; you don’t even need to be a priest .Why let hot tears of indignation distract you from the work at hand? Just do it. Exercise whatever gifts God has already given you.

Ah, but there’s more to it that this, isn’t there? God has given some of you, you tell me, gifts of leadership, which the Church of England isn’t letting you fully use. In effect, you’re telling me your church has been at odds with God from the beginning. And after 2,000 years, you are trying to correct that.

Among the Orthodox Christians here in Richmond, among the Greek ones at least, our spiritual leader is an elderly woman named Adamantia. She’s the one people go to when they need personal advice, when they are wrestling with a church teaching or a spiritual issue such as forgiving others or dealing with bereavement. You already know the Orthodox do not ordain women, so obviously Adamantia holds no church office. So how did she get to be so influential? Is she rich? Is she beautiful? Is she highly educated? Is she the sort who just naturally takes command? No, no, no, and no. Her one and only qualification is that she is Christ with skin on. In her flesh, one readily sees Christ moving and breathing and acting. In her, you encounter His own compassion, kindness, love, humility, wisdom. And that qualification is the greatest, the highest, the all-sufficient. That is what makes this woman our spiritual leader.

Adamantia doesn’t get to be center stage in worship, but she does get to do far more important things. Like praying. And the highest function of all that we mere mortals can perform within the Divine Liturgy, namely to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, she gets to do right along with the rest of us, ordained or lay. (Yes, consecrating the bread and wine may possibly be an even "higher" function, but the priest doesn’t do that; the Holy Spirit does.)

In this same way, you, too, can exercise whatever gifts of leadership God has given you. But being a genuine Christian leader is much harder than merely being made a priest or a bishop; it involves being re-fashioned into Christ. You really don’t want to take the cheap way out, do you?

But I fear all this is still missing your point. There appears to be yet more involved with this highly-charged issue. And it has to do with fairness and rights and equality, and even with how the wider society will regard the Church of England if she is so backward in these things. Is that it, or part of it?

The issue of the wider society is obviously a pressing one, given the hemorrhaging of membership you’ve been experiencing. You desperately need to attract new members. But do be careful! Satan is very subtle, and here is just where he sets his traps for you. There are at least two of them.

One is, you must never be motivated by your church’s needs. God will provide for His Church. God will “grow” His Church. (And if He does not, then one must seriously question whether this church really is His or whether He is deliberately letting her die.) Christians are to leave God’s job to God and let themselves be motivated always and only by love — love unmixed with other motivations, ideally.

The second trap is the temptation to conform to the values of this world. That’s actually the opposite of the Church’s mission to help the wider society conform more nearly to Christ.

What’s worse, and I’m not sure I know yet how to explain why this is so, this temptation to adopt the values of the pagan society around you is, in a terrible irony, the very thing killing the C of E. I stand by distressed to see the C of E committing ecclesiastical suicide and not perceiving that suicide’s exactly what it is.

So to tie the issue of women bishops to the opinions of the secular society is a mistake. Our only legitimate concern is what Christ thinks of the Church, not what anyone else does. Whether Christ calls women to be priests and bishops is a legitimate question, but whether society approves is not.

Rights? But the priesthood and episcopate are Christ’s! Christ chooses whom He will. Nobody, but nobody, male or female, has any “right” to it. That you believe Christ chooses women as well as men to be priests and bishops I accept, but let us dispense with the language of “rights” when it comes to the things of Christ’s.

Equality? Every woman knows in her heart she is equal to men. (Admit it, ladies, most of us even harbor the suspicion that we are more than the equals of men.) We know it already; we do not need to be priests or bishops to know we are their equals. We need not whine if they do not bless us by their affirmation of it, for St. Paul does. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

With equality I think we probably come to the heart of the matter. It means equality of rank, doesn’t it? And equality of power. And I think that in non-Orthodox circles, these two go together. I mean, there are higher and lower ranks and rank confers power. Bishops have the highest power in the C of E, and women are going after their fair share of it. And within any secular organization, this would be indisputably right and proper. But what does Christ teach? From Matthew 20:

20 Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him.
21 And He said to her, “What do you wish?”
She said to Him, “Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.”

You know the rest of the story. Their mistake was not so much in supposing Christ’s kingdom would be secular (that, too) as in power-seeking.

25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

So seeking after such vanities as power, rank, status, and prestige is a thoroughly unchristian pursuit. We Orthodox do not think anyone at all should ever aspire to be a bishop; it is a hard form of servitude and it is dangerous to ones spiritual well-being. When we encounter a priest or bishop who shows any interest in rank or power, we laugh him to shame. We do not hear in him our Shepherd’s voice; we do not respond. We tolerate him and we show respect to his office, but he personally is going to be scorned and the subject of innumerable jokes. I even know of one priest in Greece whose parishioners contemptuously call him “John Boy”, in English.

If in the Church of England leadership is equated with being a priest or bishop, and if leadership means being the boss, and if priesthood and episcopacy are matters of rank and power, then you have a secular instead of a Christian system; and that is a much bigger problem than simply what a woman’s place in it ought to be. Frankly, the sons and daughters of the Reformation ought to have repudiated these notions centuries ago. But better late than never; do it now.

And when you do, and when it becomes very clear that church office truly does mean being a servant to the servants of God, well, I wonder how many feminists will aspire to servanthood, or how many women will aspire to be first, knowing that the first shall be last?

The End of "Religion"

Comments on the previous post’s negative use of the word “religion,” seem to suggest the need to say more. The use of “religion” as a name for something negative associated with belief in God is not new with me, nor within Orthodoxy. It has been a significant part of the most serious levels of discussion for the better part of the 20th century. Another word would have done just as well, perhaps, but another word was not chosen. “Religion” has thus become ambiguous.

In the American movement associated with recovery from addictions, “religion” is almost always used in a negative manner, even though its very programs are deeply involved with a spiritual way of living. Some people in the US describe themselves as “SBNR,” “spiritual but not religious.” They do so with some humor, but with a very serious intent. When a video in which a Christian says that he “hates religion but loves Jesus” goes viral, something deep within a culture’s consciousness has been touched, whether the words were well chosen or not.

As I’ve noted, Fr. Alexander Schmemann very famously made use of the term “religion,” to describe a very negative, even neurotic set of behaviors involved with the belief and worship of God. He was not alone. Other leading figures in Orthodoxy had used the word in the same manner. Fr. John Romanides wrote about the “disease of religion.” Christos Yannaras uses the term in much the same way.

Read the rest (and leave your comments) on Fr. Stephen's wonderful blog, here.

Grandmas Are Allowed/Supposed to Brag





Kelly on her 11th Birthday






Kelly as a Flapper for Halloween






The Boys in the Halloween Costumes, no Idea

What they Are. 

I'm pretty sure that's Connor on the left and Ryan on the right.





Connor This Summer With the Biggest Fish He Ever Caught

in His Whole, Entire Life





Note Left by Kelly in Her Parents' Room.  She is Such an Angel! 





Jackson's Official "2nd Birthday" Photo





Jackson and Sydney in Their Halloween Costumes.

I told Sydney hers was a flop because a witch is supposed to be ugly

but she is beautiful even with a green face and a wart on her nose!



We're Still YOUNG! We Really Are

Just because we've passed our 60th birthdays (and then some) does not mean we're old.  No, not at all.  Far from it!  It only means our bodies no longer co-operate with our youthfulness.  But our hearts and souls and feelings and self-awareness, which is to say all of us that counts the most, is still no more than thirty-something and often much younger.

Thing is, "We are still young" does not mean young as young people today are.  We are still young as young people were fifty years ago.  That (together with different bodies) explains the difference between us and the other young people, those who have not yet reached their 40th birthdays.

Our Last Days in Greece

Having been too tired until now to share with you our doings during our last few days in Greece, I now try to summarize...

Mena gave us a farewell party on Thursday night, and she cooked some splendiferous dishes, which I forbear to describe as we are now into the Christmas Fast...So we had one last chance to see a lot of the friends.  It didn't ger emotional at the end because we never really feel ourselves apart.  It was just joyous.

Friday remains a blur; I only remember going out with Stelios and Anastasia, who live only a block from us, but whom we hadn't seen until then because of being so busy.  (This trip to Greece really was, overall, more of an ordeal than fun.)  We had coffee and dessert at their favorite sweets shop near where we all live.  They are fine people, delightful people, kind and loving people, who agree out loud with everything you say.  One of their sons got married in September and we would have been invited to the wedding had they known we were here... The other son has just set up his medical practice.    So all is well in their lives (if we ignore the political situation for the nonce).

Saturday night Matushka Constantina came, with her husband, who is now Father Deacon John, and her brother, who is now Father Deacon Matthew, and his wife, Matushka Catherine.  (Matushka is "Little Mother,' which is what a clergyman's wife is called in the Russian Orthodox Church.)  These are four Canadians (from New Brunswick) who are not only all related, but all best friends.  They all travelled their road to Orthodox Christianity together, starting as philosophy students, moving through Anglicanism, and finally coming to holy Orthodoxy.  They have been studying in Thessaloniki for some years now, each taking a master's degree in theology, while Fr. John is working on his doctorate.  (Their first year was devoted just to learning Greek; then came theology courses.) 

What can I say?  They are all wonderful.  They listened kindly as Demetrios described to them the book he's writing.  He doesn't have many people he feels he can share it with, so that was a big gift to him.  We then talked spiritual matters, which was a blessing to both of us.

Catherine and Fr. Matthew  are going to stay in Thessaloniki through the winter while he finishes up his dissertation.  After that, they aren't sure what.  Constantina and Fr. John are going soon to Newfoundland, to minister to a community of Orthodox Christians who as yet don't even have a church.  The community is certainly blessed, to be going to have them!

We broke up perhaps later than we ought to have, given that it was a Saturday night, but Demetrios and I, at least, weren't sorry.

Sunday after church, Demetrios said, "Leonidas and Ianna want us to come over..."

"NO!"  I said.  "We haven't even begun to pack and we have to leave the house at two o'clock in the morning to get to the airport.  No way!"

"Only for a little while," said he, patiently.  Yeah, right.  Little whiles, among Greeks, tend to stretch out into whole afternoons and then some.

"Because they're invited to Tatiana's [one of their daughters] for the midday meal."

OH, okay.  That would put a narrow time limit on it, and I would like to see them again...  So to their flat we went.

And it's a very, very good thing we did, because before very long, Ianna said, "Have you reconfirmed your flight?"

"Not yet," I said.  "I keep forgetting."

"I think you should," said Ianna, "because yesterday I heard from a taxi driver that the flights to Zurich have been discontinued." 

OOPS.  Yes, we were scheduled to fly SwissAir to Zurich, and USAirways from Zurich to Philly, and thence to Richmond. 

We wouldn't even have known how to begin, had not Leonidas and Ianna and Mena been there.  As it was, it took most of the afternoon to find out that yes, that flight had been discontinued some time ago, and to make alternative arrangements.  At no extra charge to us; that was the good part.

The bad part was, the alternative arrangements involved leaving our house by ten p.m. that night, which meant we weren't going to get the little sleep we had counted on. 

We hurried home to pack and were still re-arranging suitcases when Mena arrived to drive us to the airport, where there were very tearful farewells.

"Useless Airways" wasn't so bad this time.  It helped that this time we were aware they close the boarding gate ten mintues before the scheduled departure.  My only criticisms are that the lavatories were absolutely appalling, the cabin was too cold and the "blankets" no thicker than a flannel sheet.  However, as it wasn't a full flight, we managed to wrap three of them around poor, shivering Demetrios and two around me.   Oh, and the food disagreed with both of us and there wasn't enough of it.

By the time we got to Philadelphia, Demetrios could hardly walk from grogginess and a more than moderate case of nausea. (Mine had gone away.)  By the time we got back to Richmond, we'd been awake 40 hours straight.


A very long sleep helped enormously; we woke up feeling tired but well and we managed to get a full day's work done, per the checklist I published. 

We are still tired, but we do seem to have more or less fallen right into the appropriate sleep pattern for this time zone.  Those 40 hours without sleep must have completely discombobulated our biological clocks, because they are not protesting at the 7-hour time difference.

I've now gotten back from a marvelous couple of days in North Carolina with the children and grandchildren; but that's another post and I don't know when I'll have the time to write it.

OH - and I've just ordered Constantina's newly published  book for myself for Christmas, as well as Fr. Andrew Damick's book, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy.

Mamma and the Postman, 02

My aged Greek mother-in-law was worrying one cloudy day how to get her lawn chair inside before the rain should begin.  When the mailman arrived, she thought she saw her chance.  Pointing to the lawn chair, folded and leaning on the fence, she asked him in Greek to bring it to her. 

He couldn't understand; he shrugged and smiled and started to leave.  He had gotten as far as the fence when Mamma cried, "No, no, no!"  And then in a flurry of Greek, she explained again that he should bring her the chair that was leaning on the fence.  Again she pointed to it.

Again he could not understand what she wanted, and turned to depart.  Again, as he reached the fence, she called him back, this time with more desperation in her voice, pointing toward where the chair was leaning.

Finally, the letter carrier thought he had deciphered the crazy old woman's wishes and to humor her, vaulted over the fence instead of walking around it.

Mamma and the Postman, 01

My Greek mother-in-law, who lived in America for several years, spoke only a few words of English:  Thank you, good morning, good-bye, please.  One broiling August day, she was struggling to open a can of soda with its still unfamiliar pop-tab.  Just as she was giving up, help arrived in the form of the mailman.  Mamma hurried to the front door and handed him the soda, asking him in Greek to open it for her and adding, "Please."

The letter carrier popped the top, took a long swig, said a big, "Thank you!" and departed with a wave, can in hand.

A Valuable Lesson

There appears to be a controversy going on about some children having crushing loads of homework, and hearing about it made me remember the most crushing assignment I ever had.

I was a freshman at Meredith College in Raleigh, taking Religion 101, Intro to the Old Testament.  The assignment involved reading a chapter or two from Genesis together with multiple commentaries and taking notes on the same, in effect coming up with our own commentary.

So here's a fundamentalist girl (for I was then in my Baptist phase) coming into contact for the first time, and very unexpectedly, with modern Liberal Protestant theological thought.  Almost every sentence I read knocked me off balance.  There was no way to get through it all and I was probably halfway finished with the assignment when I gave up.  The professor  never collected homework anyway, so it wouldn't matter.  I vented my frustration by scrawling across the bottom of the last page, in large letters, "How in the world does Dr. MacLean expect us to finish all this when for every 5 minutes of reading, I have to STOP AND THINK for fifteen?"

Of course the next class was the one time Dr. MacLean did collect homework.  I handed mine in with alternating deep shame and defiance.

My work came back two days later with an A+++ written at the top and a smile across Dr. Mac's face.

Abou Ben Adhem

 

By Leigh Hunt 1784–1859

 

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold:—

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

         The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Not perhaps theologically precise, but not so far wrong, either, as to be controversial, I think.

Arrival Checklist

Not bad for the first day (yesterday).

We're working on the spiders!  Upstairs is clear of them, now for downstairs.