The Problem of Evil

 It's the age-old, soul-searing question:  if God is all powerful, and if God is all-good, why does He allow terrible, obscene things to happen, especially to good people?  

And I am going to tell you right away there is no direct, complete, acceptable answer to this question.  There just isn't.  People have been searching for it not just for centuries, but for millennia.  The entire book of Job in the Old Testament asks this wrenching question.  Job's friends come up with various philosophical answers, all wrong, and God never does tell Job why he has suffered the loss of his health and all his possessions and the deaths of all his children.  There is an entire branch of Western philosophy called Theodicy which seeks to justify God; and every answer it proposes falls short.  Worse, most of the "answers" make God out a monster.

There are partial answers, and I'm going to try to tease out the grains of truth in them and then point out (as if our hearts didn't already know) why they are not completely satisfying.  Then I'll describe how Christianity does confront evil, albeit still without answering the philosophical question (as Christianity isn't a philosophy).  

So perhaps the first thing for Christians to remember is that God is not the author of evil: satan is.  And of course, beguiled by satan, we too are authors of evil.  We hear a lot about free will in human beings, and it's true, people misuse their freedom and a lot of our misery stems from this.  But this answer only helps a little,  because it only pushes the question back a step:  satan does it, but why does God permit him to?  Or we do it, but why doesn't God protect us from suffering when others seek to harm us?  Or why does He seem miraculously to rescue some but not others?

We often hear or think the crushing evil that has befallen us must be God's punishment for our sins.  A young girl whose mother had died once asked me if it was her own fault because God was punishing her.  Horrifying thought!  No!  In the first few verses of Luke 13, Jesus says the people who were killed in two separate tragedies were no more sinful than anybody else.  But, He tells us, we'll all die if we don't get rid of what's killing us.  He means sin.

The truth about sin is that it is self-punishing.  You touch a hot stove, you'll be burned.  You jump in front of a speeding train, you're (probably) going to die.  You steal from someone, you rob your own soul of its/your health.  You kill someone, you kill something precious at the very core of yourself.  You hate someone, you poison your own life.  You have a sufficiently corrupt corporation (think Enron) or country, it will collapse because instead of everybody acting in ways that support and maintain it, too many people are doing what profits them personally instead.  So despite the way the prophets worded it, sin brings its own punishment.  (That's why God deems it sin.)  If justice requires us to be punished for sin - I say IF - there is no need for God to do it; it happens all by itself.  God's purpose is to save us from our self-inflicted misery, not to add to it.  

A related argument we hear frequently that also has some truth to it is, "Whom He loves, He chastens," (Heb. 12), and every fruitful branch He prunes, that it may bear more fruit, says Jesus. (John 15:2)  The truth in it, of course, is that we cannot grow in the absence of adversity.  So God lets us have some.  But one may well ask, "Did the 'adversity' have to be so absolutely devastating?" or, if we have lost someone dear, "Did correcting me have to be at the expense of a human life and ruin all my happiness?"  We are told suffering is meant to drive us to repentance, but it may as well backfire and drive us away from God — as He surely foreknew it would.  So this argument is true but incomplete.

There is a whole category of arguments that follow the same pattern: "God permits evil in order to _________" fill in  your favorite Greater Good.  "If this evil hadn't happened, then this greater good wouldn't have,  either."  Again, there's some truth to this:  God can and does bring good, even great good, out of evil.  But to say God makes good use of evil does *not* mean He is ever, ever complicit in it!  No!  No, God does not require evil to bring about good, thank you very much.  He is perfectly able to do this without any help from the devil.  So every answer of this category is at best inadequate.

Judaism confronts the tormenting question of why God permits evil by basically saying, "We do not know and who are we to challenge God?"  God replies to Job's challenge:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Prepare yourself like a man;

I will question you, and you make it known to me.

 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk,

or who laid its cornerstone,

when the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

“Or who shut in the sea with doors

when it burst out from the womb,

when I made clouds its garment

and thick darkness its swaddling band,

and prescribed limits for it

and set bars and doors,

and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,

and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?"

This rebuke goes on, beautifully poetic, for four chapters!

"Prepare yourself like a man;

I will question you, and you make it known to Me.

Will you even put Me in the wrong?

Will you condemn Me that you may be in the right?

Have you an arm like God,

and can you thunder with a voice like his?"

Etc.

Christianity has another approach to the Problem of Evil.  It isn't philosophical; that is, doesn't answer the Why.  This is because Christianity isn't a philosophy but a relationship.  Its answer is couched in terms of God's relationship with us.  

The first point of that relationship is solidarity.  God becomes Man.  Not temporarily, but permanently; He ascended into heaven in His body.  Without ceasing to be truly, fully God, He becomes fully, truly human.  He knows, from the inside, what it is for us to live a human life.  He steps into our life and shares its temptations and triumphs, joys and sorrows.  He hungers, He thirsts, He weeps, and on the Cross, He shares our suffering and sorrow right down to the last, bitter dregs, even the feeling of godforsakenness we sometimes have.  He experiences it all, including death.  No matter how bitterly we suffer, how crushing our load, how broken-hearted we may be, He is with us through it all, closer to us than we are to our own hearts.  He knows firsthand what we are enduring and never deserts us, no matter what, even when we desert Him.   Almighty Love always, always enfolds us.  

The second point about God's relationship with us is hope.  He arose from the dead.  This is not a hope that tries to gloss over the deep grief and bereavement we feel when someone we love has died.  The loss is real, even though it pertains only to the flesh and not the spirit, and it can be staggering.  Nevertheless, Christ arose.  Christ conquered death.  This is not to deny the fearsome reality that the soul departs from its body and the body decays in the grave.  But it is to say neither soul nor body will ever be separated from God, who will raise them both together on the Last Day.  The soul shall never die.  The body will, but like a seed planted in the ground, it will bring forth a new plant; that is, a new, glorified body like His.

But there's much more to our hope even than this, because Christ's triumph over death is like a deposit you pay when buying a house, as assurance that you will make good on your promise.  Our foe's chief weapon had always been death, so in vanquishing death, Christ has disarmed him.  (He. 2:14-15) And that disarming or defanging of evil is His deposit or down payment on His pledge ultimately to do away with it altogether.   His promise is:

"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Re. 7:16-17)

And again:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”  (Rev 21:4)

Why not now, we may ask?  Why is He delaying so long?  We don't know.  Only God knows His reasons.  

But that "Why?" turns out not to be the main question after all.  The main question is, will we latch on to that "sure and certain " Hope or not?  Will we continue to trust God until then, and trust that He is good, or not?

A Week in Iceland! Part 1

May 24

After the disappearance a few days ago of the Egypt Air flight, we expected security at the airport to be tighter than usual.  Instead, it was quite lax.  I forgot to take our my baggie full of liquids and nobody challenged me.

We boarded the plane at 8:15 last night and I was so tired that I slept virtually the whole night.  Arrived 6:30 this morning. That's when things began to go downhill rapidly.

We had a big checked bag, a carry-on each, plus my handbag and Dimitrios's briefcase, 5 heavy pieces in all, to shepherd through the arrival process.  There were passport control, baggage reclaim, and customs to get through, and a sea of human beings surging forward to reach them all.  Passport control was so crowded that the officials had to keep turning the escalators off and on again because there was no room at the top.  The baggage reclaim, then customs, then figuring out how to get to our rental car company.

Turns out a man from the car company was waiting for us, who drove us to the office. The car was cheap in the beginning, but by the time we had added a second driver, a sat nav (GPS), and an automatic shift, it began looking pricey. Then they wanted a $300 deposit, to be credited back to our card "within 20 days" after we had returned it.  Deal breaker.  We had their man drive us back to the airport.

Now what?  In the end, we booked the bus transport, not very expensive.  The 50-minute bus ride into Reykjavik provided us with our first proper glimpse of Iceland.  The landscape was eerie and bleak, consisting of lava fields thinly crusted with mostly brown vegetation, giving an overall impression of desert camouflage.  The apartment complexes we passed were ugly white buildings with splashes of bright paintI wanted to add a video taken from the bus, but Google no longer lets me unless I download their app, which I'm disinclined to do.


The bus takes you to the main bus depot, where you change to a minibus that takes you straight to your hotel.  We were tired and upset by now and I suppose that's why we weren't alert.  You must always stay alert while traveling!  All I know is that by the time we arrived at that bus depot in Reykjavik, Dimitrios' s briefcase had gone missing.  It contained his iPad, but that wasn't the worst of it.  Far worse, a couple of medical books with precious notes in the margins, his UK address book, and most of all, a spiral bound notebook with all the seminal idea for various chapters of the book he is writing - written, he said, clearly and accurately.  He doubts he could ever reproduce them.  He had hand-carried all these precisely in order not to lose them.

"You can reproduce them,"  I said.  "You have it in you."  But he insisted his confidence that he could actually write the book had been dealt a severe blow.

The bus depot staff were very, very helpful.  They called the airport police for us and the rental car office.  Nobody had found it.  "You will get it back," a kind bus driver assured me with a handsome smile.  And if it's stolen?  "No, I can't think that," said he, and somehow, that helped.

Back to the airport (with roundtrip tickets the bus company so kindly gave us), still lugging around the rest of our baggage, to have a look for ourselves.  We retraced our steps as much as we could, but nothing.

I tried repeatedly the "Find my iPhone" app, using my iPad, but it kept saying Dimitri's iPad was off-line and thus could not be located. I put it into Lost Mode, with a message to a finder to contact us at our hotel.  Too soon to take the drastic measure of erasing it.

It was early afternoon by time we wearily checked into our hotel.  Our room is interesting, to say the least.  It is a studio apartment.  In approximately the middle, a short wall screens the queen bed, covered with two white duvets, each folded in half lengthwise.  The other space is a sitting room, with an ancient, tufted, leather settee, quite worn.  In front of that, a a large,round, white coffee table.  The black wooden chandelier above that has 6 arms, three of them broken off.   Across from these, mounted on the short wall screening off the bed, is a large, flat-screen TV.  The floorboards are broad and black.  Along one side of the room is a mini kitchen, with a 2-burner cooktop, tiny sink, and mini fridge.  The bathroom, by contrast to all this, is extremely modern, the floor and walls covered with exposed aggregate concrete, the aggregate consisting of rounded pebbles.  The sink and toilet are strange, pod shapes.  There was a large shower, all glassed in.  The glass had never had the limescale removed.  Ever.

We were too exhausted to care!  We only had strength to go eat our first meal since supper the night before, and then to sack out.

It was 4:00 by time I climbed wearily into bed.  Woke up ages later, after a long, refreshing sleep, to bright sunshine.  I had fallen asleep in sunshine and awakened to more of it, unaware at all of the very brief Icelandic night.  Took my shower, layered on clothes because it's cold here, and windy.  Dimitrios just sat on the ancient sofa, saying nothing.

Trying to be cheerful, I said, while applying make-up, "Well, I must say, I had no problem sharing that little bed with you last night."

"What night?"

"Last night."

"Last night, we slept on the plane."

"That was yesterday.  I'm talking about the night we've just waked up from."

"It's still yesterday," he groaned.

"No, it's not.  My iPad says it's ten o'clock."

"Ten o'clock at night, my dear."

And he was right.  By eleven o'clock, the light began to wane a little, as though thunderclouds were obscuring the sun.  My turn to groan.  After a nap that had seemed to last forever, I had "another" long night to go through?  Could only get 2 channels on the large TV, one Icelandic and one Chinese.  So we said some prayers, pleading for the return of the missing briefcase, got in bed, and closed our eyes.

Reconnecting

Saturday, 30 May, 2015

Supper was all on the stove, in a skillet and two saucepans, when I noticed the burners weren't getting hot.  There were no red lights indicating burners were on.  I tested the stove and it didn't work, either.  

So we ate a cold supper and this afternoon, I called up Shirley Anne, the electrician who had looked over our water heater last year.  She came into the kitchen and scowled.  "You told me there was no electric switch near the stove, and what do I see but an electric switch?"

"It's red," I said, "to indicate it's an emergency switch.  If we were subscribed to the home security service, you'd flip it and the police would come."

She flipped it and the burners came on.

But, but - there's one just like it in the bedroom, and THAT one is for security, definitely, so...?

She laughed and laughed.

"I want to pay you for coming out, anyway," I said apologetically.  She had come all the way from Birkdale.

"Just a cup of coffee, then," she said.

So I gave her some and we sat down to chat and I had a chance to get to know my favorite transgendered electrician.  (She doesn't know I know this.)  We traded some funny stories.  She seems to have more ignorant customers than just me, which is comforting.

Sunday, 31 May, 2015

Church in Leyland today.  (If you are an automobile fan, yes, Leyland is where the car by the same name used to be made.)  Met some several  people I'm very glad to know.

JONATHAN, age 3, was probably born here but his family is from India.  He's quite dark-skinned but with straight hair - and the brightest, sparkliest eyes you ever saw.  He crept up to me during the Kneeling Prayers for Pentecost and touched my hand.  I looked up and smiled back at him and now we are fast friends.  

SAMIR is a middle-aged man who just arrived here a few months ago, having fled his home in Syria.  "Well, thank God you're here now," I said, "and safe."

"But my brother is still there," he said.  

He loloks almost stereotypically Arab, but his eyes are green, and there was a great deal of pain in them as he told of the hardships involved in fleeing Syria, and even more so as he wondered aloud why Western Christians have not come to the aid of their brethren in the  Middle East.  "King Richard, of the Lion heart, came to rescue us," he said, "But where is any help today?  Why is there no help now?"  Well, there's a different slant on the Crusades, huh?

"Not going to happen," I said, "The powers that be in the West are not your brothers."

"Not even Christians!"  he replied.  "I discovered this when I came here to England."

I need to get to know Samir better.

FREGGI is maybe as old as 40 and has recently fled Eritrea.  He's a black African and I didn't get a chance to talk with him very much.  Must make up for that next Sunday.

KENNETH, 70, is Cornish and was just chrismated this past December.  We traded stories of our journeys.  "Kenneth," he told me, is the name of a Cornish saint.  An Orthodox saint, predating the time when Catholicism asserted authority over Cornwall.

In the evening we had a pub supper at the Hayfield Inn with John and Ella Coventry.  So good to be with with these lovely souls.  We seldom spend time with them without one or more of us becoming teary-eyed from speaking from our hearts.m

Back in England (After too Long)

26-27 May, 2015

England, at last!  It's hard for us to believe, somehow, this time, perhaps because there was no time for anticipation.

It was a trying trip.  We flew Iceland Air, which is a wonderful airline (other than selling you food instead of just handing it out, but that's normal, now, for most airlines).  The flight attendants wear smart uniforms with caps and high heels; and they're all youngish and pretty, not like the slobs elsewhere.Their make-up is good and they wear their hair in fat buns at the nape of the neck.  

No, Iceland Air was not the problem.  The problem was that to get cheap tickets, you sometimes have to settle for a crummy schedule.  No problem, we thought.  We shall ENJOY a night in Reykjavik; it'll give us a chance to see a bit of Iceland, however briefly.  The hotel was only a few minutes from the airport, pricey, but I had bought it as a present to Demetrios, so he didn't mind.  Plus, it's a tiny airport, just two gates as we remembered, very easy to get in and out of.

We landed at Keflavik.  That's the name of the Reykjavik airport, right?  Like Charles de Gaulle is the name of the airport in Paris, or Heathrow, in London; or Dulles, in Washington?  No problem, we thought.   

The good thing, we thought, was that either our memory was bad or the airport had expanded amazingly in one year, because there were many gates and we even found eateries still open at midnight.  Grabbed a bit of airport food as we were hungry and didn't know if anything else would still be open, then easily found a waiting cab.  

Very nice cabbie.  We'd driven about 10 miles when Demetrios asked, "How far away is the hotel?"  Forty-five minutes.  

Forty-five minutes?  Yes, said the cabbie, and added, "That's Reykjavik, across the bay."  Across a BIG bay.  Keflavick turns out to be a whole separate town with a different airport, which is why it wasn't anything like the one we remembered in Reykjavik.

Longish silence.  Then Demetrios, in a rather intimidated sounding voice, asked, "About how much does it cost to drive there?"

Several thousands of Icelandic kronurs.  

"And how much is that in dollars?"  The cabbie didn't know the exact exchange rate today, but around $180.

"And another $180 to come back again?"  

'Yes."

It took us only a couple of moments, I hesitating longer than he, to decide we had to turn right around and spend the night at the airport.

We found a couple of metal chairs and settled in, but they were near an entrance, which now and again was opened and let in 40-degree air, and near huge windows, which also leaked in the cold.  We had no jackets or sweaters in our hand luggage, and after an hour or so, were both shivering.  I was quite sure we literally couldn't survive that way.  So off we went, with heavy luggage, in search of another spot to spend the night.

We were shut into a small part of the airport by then, and all the chairs we could find were already taken.  However, we found half a dozen wheelchairs, which were more comfortable anyway, and nowhere near a window or door.    So we grabbed one each and dozed in them until the airport re-opened and passengers arrived to check in.  

"I think we'd better go now," said Demetrios at last.  "It's odd nobody has asked us to, yet."

"We're old,"  I replied.  "Who's going to try to chase an elderly person out of his wheelchair?" 

So, off to find some more "food".  

We met a good-looking, fortyish man in the food court who turned out to be a German who had emigrated to Iceland ten years ago.  He said he was very happy here, and was planning never to leave.  He had found here his dream.  When asked what he loved best about Iceland, he said it was the warm-hearted people, unlike any he had ever found in Germany.  He showed us pictures on his phone of his little village in the eastern part of the island, with 700 inhabitants, all like one big family.  

"You have to be very open," he said, "because everybody is going to know all about you anyway.  And you have to be willing to say,'I'm sorry' a lot, too."   He's a single dad, and he described how everybody helps raise each other's children.  When he goes to work each morning, the villagers automatically take care of his children, along with the other children whose parents work outside the home.    "Sometimes, when I come home, I don't even know who has them" he said, "and I have to call around to find out where they are."  

Our hearts were very much warmed by listening to this former sea-captain turned civil engineer, and we rejoice he has found his paradise.  All he best3ede to you, Hans-Fritz!

It makes us all the more determined to spend a few days here sometime soon.

Eight o'clock finally dragged itself around, and we took off for England.  It's only a two-hour flight from Iceland, and we spend it trying to sleep.

David and Julia had sent their favorite cabbie to meet us, and sure enough, he was waiting, with a placard that said, "THEO, ORMSKIRK".   He showed us the ATM, where we provided ourselves with some pounds sterling, and it was a pleasant  ride home, memories flashing past us.  The houses didn't look the way they do in Virginia.  Oh, yes, and here are the fields with drainage ditches dug all the way around them, because the land is otherwise too boggy to cultivate.  And here is an actual, real, roundabout.  And there is the university, and here, the church, the yarn shop, etc., etc.  Things I hadn't even had time to think of lately.  

I did some unpacking while Demetrios re-connected the battery of our car, which started right up, no problem.  He managed to renew its registration by telephone; yes, the phone worked this time.  Then he drove to the supermarket to supplement the things David and Julia had so kindly left in our fridge for us.  We found fresh flowers in the kitchen, too!

Eight o'clock again dragged itself around, and we went to bed.  Demetrios is still asleep.  Today we'll unpack and see what's with the TV and the TV license, and generally settle in.  Then tonight, we'll meet David and Julia and James and Kim and little Charlotte for dinner nearby.  Can't wait!

Oh, So THAT'S What You're Talking About!

Dear Catholics,

Often you tell the Orthodox how puzzled you are that we do not seem to have forgiven you for some of the offenses of long ago.  We, in turn, are puzzled by such charges.  What makes you think so?  As you cannot read our hearts, our usual conclusion it that this accusation is made to duck the theological issues that are the real cause of our division.

But just now, I think that conclusion on the part of the Orthodox may not be entirely justified.  From following several dialogues, I now think perhaps we really do, genuinely, give you the impression we are clinging to centuries-old grievances.  

The two that seem to be mentioned most often are the sack of Constantinople way back in 1204 and the 75-year subjugation to Catholicism that was imposed thereafter;  and the whole problem of what we call the Uniates and you call the Eastern Catholic Churches.  The Union of Brest also happened rather long ago, 1595-1596.  It's history, folks!

So why are these two items still sticking points today?  Didn't Pope John Paul II apologize for the sack of Constantinople and other unspecified wrongs?  And are we so unreasonable as to expect the Eastern Catholics to go out of existence or something?  Why do these wrongs from the dim past keep coming up again and again?

Fair enough.  I can tell you why.  It isn't because of history; that is dead and gone.  It's because we feel the salt still being rubbed into the wounds up to today. It's the present situation resulting from the history that needs correcting if reunion is to happen.

The sack of Constantinople still rankles because the popes refuse to apologize for it.  No, what Pope John Paul II said was not an apology.  He did not ask our forgiveness, only God's.  That's not the way it is done.  He stated his reason a couple of sentences later, observing that only God can judge.  Perfectly true, of course, but aren't Christians still supposed to seek forgiveness from each other?  As long as the Vatican refuses, we remained leary of the present day attitude and here-and-now intentions toward us.  These misgivings are further exacerbated by the sly wording that asserted rule over us:

"For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us the forgiveness we beg of him,"

Because if if we are the brothers and sisters of the "sons and daughters of the Catholic Church", whose children does that make us?  

The then Archbishop of Greece fell for this for the moment, applauding enthusiastically.  Too late everyone realized he had been tricked; and we think to deal with him that way was ugly.

The sincereity of any futue apology would be more credible if the loot were returned.  All of it, or at least as much as you still have, which is considerable.  Not just an icon here and some relics there.

So it's not that we haven't forgiven, but the display of more recent as well as current attitudes toward us in this matter is distressing and must be overcome if there is to be a reunion between us.  

As for the Eastern Catholics, what has bothered us all these centuries is that they have been used as substitutes for genuine Orthodoxy, which we again regard as a form of trickery.   Furthermore, they have always been charged with the mission to convert the Orthodox. More recently, the Vatican's language has softened, speaking of their being an ecumenical "bridge" between us, but that's just euphemism.  The way you can tell it is euphemism is, Rome well knows these Eastern Catholics have always been for us the opposite, have always been a thorn in our sides.  They can never be a "bridge".

How do we think this problem ought to be solved?  First, the pope could tell the Eastern Rite adherents to make up their minds which "lung of the Church", or which sister of the "sister churches" they want to be.  Do you want to be Catholic?  May God and the pope bless you.  Do you want to be real instead of pretend Orthodox?  May God and the pope bless you, and tell you so.  Second, with reunion in sight, the pope should de-commission the Eastern Catholics; I mean make it clear to them that their mission is no longer to subvert Orthodoxy.  

You do want to unite with us, don't you, rather than try to destroy us?  The obstacle is, right now we can't be so sure.

 

I Will Sing My Alleluias Through Tears, If You Don't Mind (A Post Inspired by an Essay by a Lutheran Minister)

I remember feeling quite offended, yet not knowing what to say, when someone at my father's funeral (2008) asked how I was, and I said it was a sad time for me, and she replied, "But it's also a time to celebrate."  I said I didn't feel like celebrating and her look said I had no faith.

Away with your blankety-blank celebrations!  What is this insistence that you must always feel good and so must I, lest I bring you down?  How narcissistic.  Or is it that you simply cannot face death head on?

Let's really, honestly, look at what has happened here!  Let's acknowledge that tragedy can and does happen.  And let's respect a mourner's legitimate grief.  Jesus wept when His friend died, and this was even though He knew He was about to resurrect Lazarus.  As my friend Deb Dillon wrote on this same subject, alluding to the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is a time to laugh and there is a time to weep

The program at my father's funeral was titled, "A Celebration of the Life and Resurrection of _________”.  I'll celebrate my Dad's resurrection, thank you,  when it happens - on the Last Day. That's assuming he and I both do in fact find ourselves on the joyous side of that new life.

A Harrowing Day

Tuesday, I mean, the day we had booked, months ago, for traveling to England.  Because of Libby's love of Iceland Air, we chose that airline.  The only trouble was, that airline departs from Dulles International, near DC, and there is no good way to get from here to there; that is, from Richmond to Dulles.  Still, the departure time was going to be 8:25 p.m., so in view of that, we made a plan that seemed reasonable.  Take the 2:12 AMTRAK train to Union Station arriving at 4:37, leaving 2 whole hours to get to the airport in plenty of time.  Take the Metro to wherever you board the bus to Dulles.  (Demetrios had done this in reverse on the way home from Greece last year with very little difficulty, although he couldn't remember exactly where the connections are...)

Well, that might have worked had not everything gone wrong that possibly could have.

First, the train was 20 minutes late coming into Richmond.  Then there were minor delays.  That put us into Union Station well after 5:30.  So what?  Still an hour to get there the requisite two hours ahead of time.  Well, okay, but what we hadn't taken into account is, the hours between 3:00 and 7:00 or so are no time to be traveling anywhere within 25 miles of Washington, DC.

We asked our way, found the Metro, and had someone show us how to buy the tickets from the vending machine.  It isn't self-explanatory as it is in other major cities around the world.  Someone had told us to change trains at l'Enfant Plaza, where we could catch a bus to Dulles.  Yeah, well, but by now the time has somehow crept up to well after six, with all the asking and the slow moving because all the baggage, including two big pieces, necessitated finding and using elevators instead of escalators.  We missed a train or two that way.

Someone told us that in the rush hour traffic, the bus would take forever to get to Dulles International.  Two fellow passengers agreed our best bet would be to go all the way to Vienna, the end of the line, and catch a cab from there.  We thought so, foo.

But by the time we arrived at Vienna (with three delays), paid more money because our tickets had only been good for one stop instead of a gaillion, and got outside and hailed a cab, it was seven-thirty.  "How long to Dulles?" we asked the cabbie. 

He shrugged.  "If the traffic is good, 25 minutes.  If not - "  we said just get us there as fast as humanly possible.

The traffic was horrible.  Made worse by torrents of rain.  Stupid storm.  It was right overhead, and - no exaggeration - we took a direct hit by lightning!  That's okay in a car;  it's grounded.  But still, it's a bit unnerving.  If I hadn't just cut off all my fingernails the day before, I'd've bitten them off during that agonizing ride.  

Eight o'clock was when we stepped out of the cab.  Quick, quick, find the Iceland Air desk to check our luggage and get boarding passes.  Run to Security.  LONG line.  Time: when we were putting our shoes back on: 8:20.  Departure time:  8:25.

We sprinted far down the concourse, as fast as two old people can with heavy carry-on bags.  Hurry, hurry, hurry, out of breath, our literal and figurative hearts pounding, all the way to Gate 31.  Anybody still there?  Yup.  Everybody.  The same storm that had helped delay us had, of course, also delayed our flight.

Libbie, just so you know, we loved Iceland Air.  But next time we do this, which God grant, we are going to spend the previous night nearby.

An Ascension Meditation

Grace and Truth

That old philosophical puzzle asks:  if a tree falls in the forest when there's no one around to hear it, was there really any sound?  The answer is NO.  There were vibrations, waves, loosed into the air, but it takes an ear and a brain to translate that into sound.  And a human person to interpret that sound as a tree falling.  It takes a person, a subject, AND an outward object to make the specific sound of a tree falling.  The inward something makes sense of the outward, and the outward something, the sound, validates the inward meaning.

This past Sunday, we read the story of the man born blind, whom Jesus healed.  He starts out blind, but there's an inner something, a faith, a hope, a something, that prompts him to call out for help as Jesus passes by.  Jesus gives him his sight, and that inner something blossoms.  What do you mean, he asks the skeptics.  For a person born blind to be made sighted is unheard of in the whole history of the entire world!  So, inwardly, he is prepared when Jesus comes to find him.  Now the man has that inner something by way of assurance, plus the outward data:  he can see.  Most importantly, he can see (and hear) Jesus.  The outward experience confirms what is in the man's heart, and what is in his heart confirms Who it is he sees.

Skip now to the story of the disciples walking along the road to Emmaus.  A Stranger joins them and asks why they seem so dejected.  What, are you from some other planet, they ask.  Haven't you heard of Jesus of Nazareth, who was just crucified the other day?  Well, we were deluded enough to have hoped he was the Messiah.  But of course he couldn't have been, because Messiah would never get Himself executed like a criminal.  

The Stranger chides them for being so "slow to believe".  What, is he a believer, too?  The Stranger, as they walk along, reminds them of prophecy after prophecy about the Messiah, showing them what they mean, and that they do indeed speak of Messiah being cut off, rejected, having His hands and feet pierced, etc.

They all arrive at Emmaus and decide to eat supper together.  The Stranger prays, gives thanks, takes the loaf of bread and breaks it — and suddenly, in that so very characteristic gesture, they recognize Him.  As soon as they do, He disappears from their sight.  It has to have been Jesus, they exclaim to each other; were not our hearts burning while He spoke to us?  

Again, we have the inner something, here described as burning, and an outer something, the Stranger explaining the Scriptures.  And the inner something validates their conclusion that it was indeed Jesus, while the outer events validate the inward certainty.  

This coming Thursday, we celebrate the feast of the Ascension.  Jesus says something to his followers that has puzzled me all my life, until now.  He says, "It is good for you that I go, else the Comforter will not come."  What???  How is it good for us to be deprived of Jesus' physical presence?  Why couldn't Jesus stay and the Comforter still come?

Because Jesus is the outward, embodied Truth, but the Holy Spirit is the inward Reality, and enlightenment happens only when outward truth and inward reality meet.  This is how it always is.  We encounter some truth outside ourselves, and it touches some reality inside us, telling us what it means.  It means a tree has fallen.  It means Messiah has healed my poor blind eyes.  It means the Christ Who died yet lives.  We encounter Truth and something in us leaps toward it, as St. John leapt in his mother's womb.  

Had Jesus stayed bodily with us, how would we ever have learned this?  We would be forever looking to Him, as an external Source, to speak to us, show us, teach us.  But He desired for us that we should know the Truth firsthand, from within our very own being, and not only from Him, indirectly.  Because it is when the inward witness and the outward witness agree that we are enlightened.  

1Jo 5:8

And there are three that bear witness in earth, 

the Spirit, [inward]

and the water, [Holy Baptism]

and the blood: [Holy Communion]

and these three agree in one.

Grace, the inward Someone, And Truth, the outward Someone, came by Jesus Christ.  And it's because we have both, and because they agree, that with awe we can sing our grateful hymn:

We have seen the True Light,  [Christ, outside ourselves]

We have received the heavenly Spirit, [inside ourselves]

[and as a result of both]

We have found the true faith:

Worshipping the undivided Trinity, Who has saved us.

What Orthodox-Catholic Ecumenical Efforts Are Not (For the Orthodox, at least)

Historical Grievances

Yes, there are painful memories of the past, for which we must forgive one another (and ongoing hurts to this day, the Orthodox will tell you), BUT the issues separating us do not arise from some alleged stubborn lack of forgiveness; they are theological.  The theological issues are major and extensive.  Many Catholics find this difficult to believe or understand.  We often can't even agree on what separates us.  

Everybody Singing Kumbaya 

Catholic and Orthodox doctrines really are incompatible.  We cannot ignore our differences and have anything but a sham unity.  We can collaborate in certain charitable endeavors, but that alone will not bring about unity.  Neither will simply deciding to share the Eucharist and saving the theological wrangling for "later".  

Word Games

It's not as if we were in search of some sort of wording of each issue, agreeable to both sides, that would synthesize or at least accommodate the differences.  As the teachings are incompatible, the wrong ones have to be renounced, not accommodated, once we agree on what those are. 

"Deeper Truth"

Orthodoxy (Catholicism, too?) claims to have the fullness of Truth already, so there is no sort of over-arching or "umbrella truth" waiting to be discovered, transcending the Truth already revealed, thereby mooting our differences.

Everybody Becoming More Devout

We don't agree on who God is or what God is like.  Or how to draw near to Him.  Hence, if Catholics do s better job of practicing their forms of piety, to draw nearer to Who they believe God is and the Orthodox do the same, our disunity will be accentuated, not healed.

Compromise

Catholics are not authorized to do this, unless the Pope does.  

The Orthodox are not willing to do this, even if their Patriarchs do.  

I have seen all of these approaches tried or proposed.  I wonder whether we can even agree what ecumenical dialogue itself is.  

And it appears the Pope isn't the Only One...

...wanting changes in Cathoic sexual teaching.  

http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/2014/03/german-catholic-bishop-defies-rome-on.html

The headline is misleading.  The German bishop isn't defying Rome.  

Pope Francis: Church could support civil unions

By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor

Excerpt from an article from CNN, here.  

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/05/pope-francis-church-could-support-civil-unions/

(CNN) - Pope Francis reaffirmed the Catholic Church's opposition to gay marriage on Wednesday, but suggested in a newspaper interview that it could support some types of civil unions.

The Pope reiterated the church's longstanding teaching that "marriage is between a man and a woman." However, he said, "We have to look at different cases and evaluate them in their variety."

States, for instance, justify civil unions as a way to provide economic security to cohabitating couples, the Pope said in a wide-ranging interview published Wednesday in Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily. State-sanctioned unions are thus driven by the need to ensure rights like access to health care, Francis added.

A number of Catholic bishops have supported civil unions for same-sex couples, including Pope Francis when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2010, according to reports in National Catholic Reporter and The New York Times.

Behind closed doors, pope supported civil unions in Argentina, activist says

But Wednesday's comments are "the first time a Pope has indicated even tentative acceptance of civil unions," according to Catholic News Service.

Later on Wednesday, a Vatican spokesman sought to clarify the Pope's remarks.

"The Pope did not choose to enter into debates about the delicate matter of gay civil unions," said the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a consultant to the Vatican press office.

"In his response to the interviewer, he emphasized the natural characteristic of marriage between one man and one woman, and on the other hand, he also spoke about the obligation of the state to fulfill its responsibilities towards its citizens."

"We should not try to read more into the Pope’s words than what has been stated in very general terms," Rosica added.

Pope Francis, who marks his first year in office on March 13, has sought to set a more tolerant tone for his 1 billion-member church and suggested that a broad range of topics are at least open for discussion.

In January, the Pope recalled a little girl in Buenos Aires who told her teacher that she was sad because "my mother's girlfriend doesn't like me."

"The situation in which we live now provides us with new challenges which sometimes are difficult for us to understand," the Pope told leaders of religious orders, adding that the church "must be careful not to administer a vaccine against faith to them."

The Vatican later denied that those comments signaled an opening toward same-sex unions.

Last June, Francis famously refused to judge gay priests in comments that ricocheted around the world. He has also said that the church should not "interfere"in the spiritual lives of gays and lesbians.

Pope Francis' greatest hits of 2013

Support of same-sex unions of any type is fiercely contested by many Catholic church leaders.