It seems you can take the Orthodoxy out of the culture, but not the culture out of the Orthodoxy.

When I say Orthodoxy, I mean its existence in the West; and by culture, I mean what the various facets of Orthodoxy brought from the motherlands. If you attend a Russian Orthodox Church, it’s likely going to be very Russian in its flavor. If Greek, then Greek. If Antiochian, very Middle Eastern and likely to hear Arabic being chanted hear and there. It seems inescapable and inseparable.

As an American-born convert to Orthodoxy (in the Antiochian archdiocese), I’m pretty ordinary as it comes — I love hamburgers and beer, I pretty much only speak English, can’t speak a lick of Arabic, and have a pretty ordinary scandahoovian upbringing. As far as my tastes and my interests go, although eclectic, I’m a minimalist when it comes to consuming music in other languages and such. I appreciate world music, but can’t say that I’m going to give up my American rock.

When my wife and I converted, the closest Orthodox congregation to us was just four blocks away, an Antiochian church that was planted here some 90 years ago by a group of Syrian immigrants. While most of the services are in English, Arabic is sung here and there and always used in the Matins before Liturgy starts. Once in a while I’m able to tolerate the Arabic, but most days it bothers me — I can’t understand what they’re singing or saying, I get concerned about any non-Orthodox, non-Arabic visitors we may have with us, and I just find it irritating that this congregation has been here for 90-some years and they’re STILL using Arabic in the services.

I think when I first started attending our congregation, my zeal for wanting to find Christ in Orthodoxy suppressed my angst with the use of Arabic in the services, but I’m afraid that those feelings aren’t going to go away anytime soon. So why not examine them, poke at them and give them a little light.

My godfather (who himself is of Egyptian descent) had told me once that the use of Arabic (or any “Motherland” tongue for that matter) was completely nonsensical and not consistent with the mission of the Orthodox church. When the Word was brought forth to Russia, they translated the Liturgy and their texts into Russian — and out of that region was born the Russian Orthodox Church. The same goes for other branches of Orthodoxy that we’re born out of the evangelism by the Apostles. They adopted that region’s language into the Divine Liturgy and all supporting texts and prayers.

One would have thought that when Orthodoxy was brought to America, that the Liturgy and the texts used within the Divine Liturgy, Matins and other orders would have been adopted in English — that instead of being a huddling zone for folks with a given ethnicity, it would have become a missionary-minded congregation. But as with anything where humans are involved, change is difficult, right?

I am really struggling with the culture club within Orthodoxy — and its especially ever present in churches of middle eastern descent (at least it is at my church). Why am I struggling with it? Several reasons:

1. I want to feel like this is home, a place where I have something to contribute and feel I’ve some ’stock’ in
2. Perhaps more practical, I’d like to understand everything that’s being sung and said
3. If I have friends or family that I want to bring to Divine Liturgy, I don’t want them to freak out when they hear Arabic, Greek, Russian, whatever
4. We’re in America — the “mother tongue” here is English. Can’t we just use that?
5. I don’t want to learn Arabic. Really, I don’t.

I’ll be honest, for every ounce of me that feels legitimately about this, there is an equal measure of selfishness to go with it. I am concerned about what visitors see and have to experience, but at the same time I just get really tired of hearing the Arabic. Really. So I’m at least willing to acknowledge my own selfish motive — I want to understand what’s going on, that’s all.

You may ask, “why not find an OCA church nearby?” Sure, why not? But that is hardly the answer to a much wider problem. While the Orthodox churches (of each given branch: Russian, Greek, Serbian, etc.) may be in unity and communion with one another, it honestly looks more like protestant denominations from the outside. Until the various factions of Orthodoxy in America unite together under one banner — The Orthodox Church in America — how can we say that we are one? How will we truly reach our neighborhoods that may not speak the mother tongue? How can people commune with God and one another when they cannot understand some of the words being used in the Liturgy? And while it may be fine and dandy to celebrate our cultural roots, would it not be isolating for the new converts who don’t share in that cultural heritage?

I ask these questions because I feel it’s necessary to. Though I feel in good standing at my church — I confess my sins regularly, try to give into and participate in the process of Theosis, and try to give more of my time, money, and talents to the Church — I feel like an outsider when my church starts getting nostalgic and celebrates its ethnic roots. I have nothing to contribute to an ethnicity that I don’t share, nor wish to dive into.

So what am I going to do about it? I’m going to learn the tones and help my godfather with the chanting up front — one more white guy to help with the English contingency. I also speak up when I can and where appropriate, “what about those who don’t speak ____” and being their advocate. But beyond that and prayer, I’m not sure what else I can do.

All I know is that culture issues is likely holding some back from attending (or returning) to the Orthodox Churches near them, and I would love to see that change. I would love to see it in my lifetime — all the Orthodox churches in America united under the OCA and adopt English as their language used. And if you must, have a service once a month (or more) that is spoken/sung in the mother tongue. My church did just that — but, um, they still use Arabic in the regular “English” Divine Liturgy. Go figure.

It was probably better that way.

I met with my long-time friend Jamison for lunch, huddled in an excessively air-conditioned diner, drinking coffee with some hope of waking out of the funk I’ve been in for the past several weeks. While I’d like to say it was more of a James Brown kind of funk, I’m sad to report it’s just your run-of-the-mill mind funk.

After talking about some nonsensical subject matter, I threw it out there: so I’ve been thinking, wondering what the sum of my life is supposed to be. After commiserating in our like circumstances and thoughts over french toast with sausage and eggs sunny-side-up, we just left it at the conclusion “we don’t know.”

To give a bit more background information and context, I have been largely indoctrinated and largely grew up with a western, evangelical mindset. The idea of having a purpose and a destiny was ingrained into me, so much so that it seems a never-ending pursuit: synchronicity between my purpose or destiny with my life (which includes vocation and free time). For quite some time, I had associated my musical pursuits as being a part of my destiny, part of who I am; and the desired outcome was of course a life-long career as a musician, songwriter and performer — and through that craft expressing my beliefs, perspectives, experiences, and feelings.

Why and to what end? To be noticed? To leave a legacy? To serve God through something I was good at and enjoyed? Whatever the answer, it has long been in my mind that my value and self worth was equated with what I was doing. And from that, it wouldn’t be out of the question for me to deduct, that if I am not doing much of anything at all, I have little worth or value.

Doing = being.

I know that’s flawed in every way, viewing my value and worth through the lens of what I do for a living and extracurricular activities and hobbies. But the reality is, is that is the reality of my thinking.

Prior to my conversion to Orthodoxy, I belonged to a church that held the mantra (or more accurately was their motto/slogan) our church is “…a safe place to discover your destiny in Jesus Christ.” You couldn’t make it a few weeks without hearing about your destiny. Now that’s not entirely a bad thing, but I think it fueled my dysfunction: being = doing. Next to our pastor, I was probably one of the most busy people in our church. Outside of my 30-hour-week job I was holding down, I was putting roughly 20-30 hours a week at church: maintaining our website, designing marketing and printed materials for them, leading practices sessions with the band(s), leading the music portion of the worship service (evangelicals would call me a “worship leader”), and during the Christmas season contributing my creative services to the annual Christmas pageant.

I was busy. Very busy. And residing subtly within the recesses of my heart was this idea that I had to be doing things to earn God’s love and his favor. According to my level of reasoning, I should have been one of the most loved people in my church; but on the inside I was desperately lonely, empty, and spent of all my reserves to try and please God, gain favor with my pastor, and be loved and appreciated by our church. The reality is that I felt quite alone, unloved, unappreciated, and that I was no closer to being loved by God through all my efforts.

Today, on the flip side of the coin after converting to Orthodoxy, my outward expressions changed a little bit. I still found myself always trying to plug myself into this or that and doing, doing, doing. And after trying various means of expression and finding that few were really interested in what I had to offer the world, I stopped doing.

I don’t do much outside of my job, being a husband and new dad, and wasting my free time on the computer. Nothing has really changed — still feeling alone, unloved, unappreciated and a bit distant from the God I once loved with all my heart. If anything has changed, it’s that I’ve aligned myself with a church that is in apostolic succession and generally speaking is doctrinally correct. My new-found traditions have changed, but the heart remains the same — ever striving with this idea stuck in my head that I have to be doing something to earn God’s favor, and that my sense of self and my depiction of worth is inextricably tied to what I do.

So where does this leave me today?

I’m left wondering, where do I draw my value, worth and esteem from, when I feel so compelled that I have to be doing something to achieve that? The answer I know in my head is that my value, esteem, and worth ought to come from God, but let’s just say that even though I go to the well every Sunday, there are a million and a half reasons that I feel unable or incapable of scooping my bucket in and drawing from the wellspring (realizing of course, that I should be drawing daily). And because I have not been drawing from the well, let’s just say that my mood hasn’t been the most positive as of late.

With so many things swirling around and surging various thoughts forth, I’m left wondering “so where do I go from here?” I don’t do a whole lot because I just can’t bring myself to thrust obligations into my life beyond what I have with my wife and my daughter. But then I question my idle time — should I be doing something with that time other than wasting it? And to what end and for what purpose? Is it to add value to my existence, or is it to feel like I’m not wasting it and being a good steward as not to tick God off?

I’m afraid I have no answers for my own questions, and that this post basically amounts to a vent of my frustrations and feelings.

I’ve considered resuming my musical ambitions, but several questions remain:

• To what end would I be satisfied?
• Why is it so important to continue on with the music?
• Am I really content if no one cares or if no one ever listens (or even likes it)?
• How much of this is fueled by my need for self-esteem and approval from others/God?
• Or am I better of just selling all my gear and closing that chapter in my life for good?

The questions aren’t easy… neither are the answers.

In April I was charismated into the Orothodox Church and set out on a new journey as they say, a life-long journey of theosis and becoming more like Christ. But looking back over the summer since that journey, it’s hard to conclude that I’ve really made much progress — if anything, in some respects I feel I’ve slipped further behind in my faith.

The Orthodox value a rule of prayer, a dedication to a life filled with structured and unstructured prayer. Additionally, they also teach the importance of consuming the scriptures and being filled with the truth and applying that to your journey in the context of the Church as a whole, and not solely upon your own context like it was commonly understood in my evangelical circles.

But as with all good intentions, they’re easily thwarted by the simplest of things and distractions become the rule — in my case, it was probably more apathy and indifference in regards to my life, my ambitions, and what I do with my time, talents and energy. I’ve moved from one thing to another, attempting to find meaning and significance for my life — music performance aspirations, web design, back to music, on to photography after a few disheartening events, and then wasting time on video games when my aspiration in photography wasn’t going anywhere fast enough for me.

Besides my lack of patience contributing to my leap frogging between interests, I find myself at a place where I have lost my drive and ambition to pursue anything because of what I feel it won’t reward me with. My music? Fallen on deaf ears and left with hundreds of CD’s collecting dust in the basement. My web design? Plateaued and just genuinely bored with it. My photography? Between the expectations of others to get something for nothing (or very little) and the great amount of competition out there and small salaries, I’m not so certain if I’ve got what it takes.

And that leaves me with my job — in web design no less — and I’m left feeling uninspired about my future, drained of any aspirations to achieve anything noteworthy, and wonder what is left that is worthy of aspiring to and working towards. My response to all this has been anything but unorthodox, but rather typical of one who is fallen just like any other. I bury my head in the sand and avoid responsibilities, I waste time in video games and lounging about, and have neglected my life of faith and prayer.

If you knew me years ago, I was a person FULL of ambition. I was passionate about songwriting and performing. I regularly was playing my guitar and recording new songs. I had aspirations of actually becoming a performer some day with some level of notoriety, and hoping that some day my music would make a difference in the lives of people. It was with my last band, Crash Effect that I had hoped to finally be able to make a difference with — we had a mission, a clear-cut goal, and a practical way of being able to fuel money and awareness into humanitarian charities and to help the less fortunate. But with our band’s split and the heartache and fallout from that, I just have not had the heart to keep at it anymore. So much so, that I haven’t even got our old site back up and running yet when I switched hosting companies.

And this is where the title comes into play — Orthodoxy and earthy distractions — that a few small, insignificant earthly distractions have lulled me into complacency and indifference. With what the Orthodox faith seems to value, there’s ultimately going to be conflict on multiple levels — conflict with both the desire to aspire towards some personal ambition as well as apathy and indifference. I’m not quite sure what to do about all this, what to make of my life, and how all this squares away with past ambitions. And of course, earthly distractions only contribute to my apathy towards the situation, dismissing all aspirations as being empty and ending as fruitless ventures.

I’m not quite sure what to do.

The data was full of links to poker sites, iFrame code to a malicious website, and other objectionable content placed on our website without our consent.

The offender was tracked to the IP address 61.155.8.157, which leads to some hosting service in China:

person: Chinanet Hostmaster
nic-hdl: CH93-AP
e-mail: anti-spam@ns.chinanet.cn.net
address: No.31 ,jingrong street,beijing
address: 100032
phone: +86-10-58501724
fax-no: +86-10-58501724
country: CN
changed: dingsy@cndata.com 20070416
mnt-by: MAINT-CHINANET
source: APNIC

I tried e-mailing the host, but of course the anti-spam e-mail address was invalid.

I apologize if this injection caused any inconvenience to our visitors or if it spread any viruses or further injections. We can assure you that we’ve removed all malicious injections and have updated our WordPress installation to the latest version.

As for the missing content, I wish we would have been more aggressive with back-ups. Some of the priceless accounts of our own respective journeys has been defiled by someone hoping for a little more visibility for their gambling site. Pathetic. Simply pathetic.

It was one of the most beautiful services that I have been to in a long time — the sanctuary was dimly lit, candles lighting up various areas of the alter, and an ornately decorated arc-like structure covered in roses, washed over in candlelight, and containing the cross of Christ, symbolizing his burial into the tomb.

The service was nearly two and a half hours, and with just twelve hours before I become christened into the Orthodox Church, I honestly felt like I have not sufficiently prepared myself for this moment.

See, Lent was filled with a lot of good intentions and marked with a great deal of failed attempts to do exactly what Lent was designed to be: the preparing and laying down of myself on the alter of Christ, to share in His sufferings, to walk in His footsteps throughout the days of Holy Week, to die with him on that Friday, and rise with Him in His resurrection. Rather, I ended up giving up on my fast after one week, my rule of prayer was more of an after-thought and a thorn in my side, knowing that I should be praying more, reading the Holy Scriptures, and setting aside more time to prepare myself.

So after the Lamentation Service came to a close and I walked home through the cold, misty night back home, I decided to not hop on World of Warcraft for once, and to set aside the rest of the evening to prepare myself for tomorrow morning. So in my own way of preparing, I watched Mel Gibson’s brilliant depiction of “The Passion of Christ” and absorbed the spectacle, took in all of the emotions and events that transpired, and contemplated all that Christ did for me, for His people, and for the entire world; and tried to prod myself to not take His most holy and selfless act for granted.

After watching the film and contemplating the suffering and death of Christ, I decided to spend some time in prayer; and was moved to tears in seeing my own depravity and my immense need for mercy, grace, and redemption through the Body and Blood of Jesus. Guided by the evening Orthodox prayers and repentance, along with my own personal cries to the Lord, I felt more ready to enter into Orthodoxy with a heart and mind yearning for Truth, Mercy, Love and Forgiveness. And that’s my prayer, that in my chrismation and my journey as a member of the Orthodox Church, that I would both experience and radiate the truth of God, the depth of His Mercy, the endless reserves of His love, and the sweet fragrance of His forgiveness.

I do pray that tomorrow, my Chrismation and my first communion at Great and Holy Pascha would not only be a meaningful experience for me, but a life-changing one as well.

My friends in my World of Warcraft guild like to joke with each other about hopping on the “failboat”, that is if you do something stupid, bomb a dungeon run, or other epic failures, we kid around that you’ve just bought a one-way ticket on the “U.S.S. Failboat.” In a way, as a new catechumen in the Orthodox faith, I feel like I am frequently commuting on the failboat and letting down God and myself in the process.

As I’ve recently entered the season of Great Lent, which differs in time frame from Catholics and Protestants, I have tried to maintain their fasting schedule — and failed; tried to maintain a daily rule of prayer, praying in the morning and the evening — and have failed; tried to fast from some of my passions (WoW to name one), and invariably failed. But despite the numerous times that I fall down, I do try to get up again and try.

Father Stephen Freeman continues to be God’s tool for reaching me and speaking to my heart, my mind, and my soul with regard to issues I experience regularly. One of his most recent blog entries read as such:

The world is too dangerous and too much in need of a Savior and the truth of the Gospel for such parts of the Tradition to be neglected by any. God forbid that only Orthodox Christians stand and say that the passions are killing us (God help the Orthodox to at least say this much!). But we should have a common voice that speaks to the culture. Slavery to greed, envy, sloth, gluttony, as well as other such passions, is killing us and our children. A common voice should say to everything around us, “Enough!” And to one another, “Join the struggle! Let us follow Christ!”

From the article The Lost Tradition on Glory to God by Father Stephen Freeman

And he couldn’t be more right. Being so entrenched in the culture around me along with its normative values and conditions, I find it extremely difficult to go against the mainstream and do even the most simple of things — simple things like getting up 15 minutes earlier and spend it in my morning rule of prayer; and taking the last 15 minutes before I head to bed to end my day in prayer. It is entirely more difficult fasting from things that can foster greed, envy, sloth, etc — and while I start out with the best of intentions, I end up falling either face forward towards God in repentance, or on my back in apathy and self-resentment for even trying.

Father Stephen also had an incredible podcast that talks somewhat to this issue — how Evangelicalism™ has this “forensic” view of Salvation, or being saved on a transactional and judicial level; like the over-told story of the judge who came off his chair to “take our place” and receive the brunt of our sentence of sin and death. But as Father Stephen pointed out, if one were to go to heaven under this condition of salvation, they would not be transformed or transfigured in such a process and would remain the same, broken, and sin-ridden human being upon entry into the Kingdom of God. There is no room for Theosis (becoming more like God) in that view of salvation.

Father Stephen goes on to say in his podcast:

Orthodox theology has largely been nurtured in the understanding of a salvation as a healing of our heart and a transformation of the whole of our life. Not simply a change in our legal status before God. Others have sometimes referred to these elements that the Orthodox emphasize as belonging to what they call sanctification. But there has never been a distinction between sanctification and justification or salvation within the Eastern tradition. It’s just all salvation…

…It’s difficult for Christians of any sort in our modern world to grasp what it means to be saved by grace, if grace is indeed the very life of God given to us to transform and transfigure us, to change us into conformity with the image of Christ as it says in Romans 8:29. The difficulty with this understanding is that unlike a change in status, a transformation is slow work…

…90% of Orthodoxy is just showing up…

Listen to the postcast… it’s most certainly a great episode that is quite enlightening.

But to his point about just showing up and the idea of transformation being slow work, he’s right. I recall my days at a former evangelical church, praying to God for instant relief from a sin, bad habits, or thoughts I would struggle with — only to be sorely disappointed just a day later (or even the SAME day!) and wonder why God had not lifted that burden off of me. What I had not realized at the time — and am still relearning every day — is that I need to get on my knees daily, repent, and be available for God to work out salvation in me within the context of His Church. That means going to the other services offered by my church, not as a another religious “program” to go to, but as a time where God calls His people together to pray, to hear His word, to repent, and to proclaim our unity in Christ through the creeds and doctrines given to us.

And that means that if I continue to persevere, make myself more available to God, and do my best to work a little harder at this salvation thing (not to be confused with working to earn my salvation, but working it out in my life) and make it more integrated throughout my life. So even though I’ve been kinda failing at this Orthodox thing from time to time — Jamison would say “you’re not even Orthodox… you’re not anything yet” — but I am a catechumen, a learner. And I’m learning more and more of just how long this process will take me, Theosis. I am so vastly different from God and so not-God-like, that this process of Salvation will indeed be life-long… and then some.

I concede to our Catholic brothers, that at least as it pertains to America, they do have a much broader expression and influence in the arts. They have a variety of musical expressions seen in their liturgy, they do not place unspoken limits on visual depictions (i.e. Byzantinian style iconography), and there have been many prolific examples of artists through the years that created in the name of Christ and His Church.

But I’m not content to just sit back and let the Catholics have all the fun.

I’m presently reading Introducing the Orthodox Church: Its Faith and Life by A. M. Coniaris for our catechumen class, and there was a few paragraphs that brought out a resounding “YES!” when I read it.

We Orthodox have a great past, a great tradition. We are proud of this. But we must not live in the past. Where are our John Chrystostoms today? Our Basils? … We have the apostolic doctrine. We have the apostolic succession. But we can have, too, the apostolic power of the Holy Spirit to produce new and powerful witnesses for the Lord today, new Church Fathers — not carbon copies of the old but originals as they were. For God is always more interested in producing originals than carbon copies.

The Orthodox Church is not a museum of the first thousand years of Christianity. We must not succumb to the temptation that the Fathers have said everything and that all we have to do is to repeat them verbatim. Father Florovsky has reminded us that the notion of “father” is not limited to the period called “Patristic”. St. Gregory of Palamas, for example, was a “Church Father” in the fourteenth century. To repeat, to have Church Fathers is a permanent dimension of the Church. The Fathers beget us in the faith that we in turn might become fathers under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit who empowered and guided the early Fathers.

Introducing the Orthodox Church: Its Faith and Life by A. M. Coniaris; pg 80-81

This passage gives me a sense of hope, that I can join in the great community of artists that have gone before us and help pass on a legacy of art in its fullness.

However, I also have to qualify this by my acknowledgment that I am just a catechumen of the Orthodox faith and therefore am but a catechumen as far as Orthodox expressions in art is concerned. But perhaps if I look to some of the early and present monastics, from where some of our liturgical music has come from, perhaps I can learn from them and apply their legacy and create art that is unique to our region, our period in history, and unique to who I am in Christ, in the Church, and in the general community.

I’m fortunate to be in the Antiochian Orthodox community in America, as they are perhaps one of the least culturally-bound facets of Orthodoxy. With over 75% of its priests being converts from other faiths and not being Arabic by descent, there is a great deal of diversity of culture and heritage within the Antiochian Orthodox Church. And this gives me hope for what role I may have in the years to come as an Orthodox artist, through music, photography, and other creative expressions. I have no clue what those expressions will look like, but the more time I spend in the community, in the Scriptures, in keeping my own rule of prayer and liturgy, and communing with God and His Church, I think those expressions will naturally come from within.

Following up:
If you’re an Orthodox Christian and are involved in the arts (non-traditionally — i.e., not necessarily in iconography or chanted hymns) I would love to connect up with you and start a dialog on this subject. I’m particularly interested in expressions in truly “contemporary” music and facets of the visual arts including photography and multimedia.

Some sites I’ve found on the topic at hand:
jacwell.org
NY Times
sor.cua.edu

For proper context, I’d ask you to listen to this podcast from Father Stephen Freeman on the topic “Orthodoxy and Culture” (mp3, 9min 24sec). This is honestly what has spurred this inner dialogue and has equally inspired and frustrated me as a creative person.

Fr. Stephen explains in essence, that because Orthodoxy is the full expression of the Church in fellowship and communion with God, and because the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, that Orthodoxy should be rich with culture and artistic expression through music, dance, visual arts, etc. And those expressions would be consistent with Orthodoxy and God’s nature, instead of what we’ve come to expect from the general culture of the world around us, art that is destructive of our journey towards theosis and contrary to the nature of God. In essence, that art is not in its fullness and is lacking great substance — the fullness of God.

I was inspired because Father Stephen said that Orthodoxy should be rich with culture and artistic expression — and that even to some extent we inspire the culture around us and create the best art, the best music, books, etc. But as if chained and bound to such hope, close behind is some confusion and subtle despair, as I have no inspiration to look to as models or examples, and to spur me on to creating “Orthodox expressions” in various forms. Allow me to explain.

As a photographer, I have not encountered anything that would suggest Orthodoxy is an active influence in any photographic community of artists — that I know of anyway. I know it doesn’t have to be blatantly obvious — photos of great saints or clergy within the church — and that good Orthodox art can be subtle. But the last time I checked, I have never seen nor heard of any references to great, Orthodox photographers. Instead I see a plethora of painted icons and paintings that fill the bookstore, the sanctuary, and the narthex halls and show a single style and expression of painting. So there seems to be some hope if you’re a painter, I guess, and enjoy painting one singular style of art. But I really have no interest in photographing other people’s paintings.

As a musician and songwriter I find no more comfort. When I listen to Ancient Faith Radio’s idea of music, I hear chanting in various languages, I hear choral performances (in a capella of course), and very rarely will I hear an orchestral piece. Sadly, in his most recent podcast, when he cited such great works and expressions of Orthodoxy, the best and most recent reference Fr. Stephen could make was Rachmaninov, who lived from 1873 to 1943. Yes, he is perhaps one of my most favored composers and I simply love his music — but if the best and most recent model artist that Orthodoxy can produce for musical inspiration is a composer who died over 60 years ago, we’ve got problems.

Let me make things clear — I love my parish, I love listening to Fr. Stephen’s podcasts, and I know that Orthodoxy is the way I must go if I want to experience the fullness of the Church and God’s life and love as expressed through the sacraments, the Church, and the doctrines and traditions handed down over the centuries. But when it comes to navigating the arts and figuring out what the “fullness of art” in Christ is supposed to look like, things aren’t so cut and dry. And to make matters worse, we have no contemporary models to live by either.

For example: let’s say I decided that I wanted to go further into fashion photography [I'd like to think I've become pretty good at it for being self-taught]. And if I wanted to bring the fullness of God into an industry that is anything but full of God presence and fullness — an industry that celebrates vanity, cultivates a need for the latest thing, and values external beauty over internal wholeness — I have no clue what Orthodox photography should be in the fashion industry. There is an inherent conflict between the two world’s ideologies and as a new catechuman to Orthodoxy, I see no model or example of how Orthodoxy has pierced its way into the fashion industry and become a driving force of culture.

Ok, let me scale down the example a bit to something less fanciful. What if I wanted to land a better job in the design industry? That would probably require me working with an advertising firm, and the lifeblood of advertising is essentially this: convincing your customer base that they need your product or service; even further that they cannot live a full life without it. How does one reconcile such drastically different ideologies and bring “the fullness of Christ” into the context of an ad firm? Where does the balance lie in fueling the consumerism-driven economy with providing advertising services to various clients?

And if I strip it down to the most fundamental level of things — if I were to just sit down at my Mac and make a stunning composition in GarageBand just for God, but I never end up doing anything with it, what then? What makes art full? What dictates that an expression is Orthodox or not? If a photograph I create depicts raw human emotion in the midst of heavy grief, is that a valid expression of Orthodox culture that should be celebrated in the so-called Orthodox arts community?

The truth of the matter is that I have no clue if there even is such a thing — an Orthodox global “community” of artists. When I think of Orthodox art, I think of icons and chanting. Maybe some singing and dancing to a hand drum at the close of coffee hour when everyone’s had their fill of falafels and pita bread (for those of us in the Antiochian tradition); but certainly not rock music, photography, theatre, television — you fill in the blank.

Is anyone else experiencing this same frustration? If it is true that Orthodoxy should represent the fullness of culture amidst the fullness of Christianity, then why is what I see as the arts so narrowly expressed in iconic paintings and chants that date back several hundreds of years ago?

<frustrated />

The floor is yours.

First it was Becoming Orthodox: A Journey to the Ancient Christian Faith, all-around good read for recovering evangelicals. Admittedly, I have not finished the book in its entirety, but have made it through the bulk of the book and find it to be a good read. I do recommend it if you’re curious about Orthodoxy from the evangelical/westerner perspective — the author (and supporting contributors) were all former evangelicals themselves.

But then for my class, we bought the book Introducing the Orthodox Church: Its Faith and Life by A. M. Coniaris. I’ve only made my way through the first two chapters, as it’s a heavy read and requires you to ponder the subject matter. It’s not one of those books that you read lightly.

And as if it weren’t enough to read Introducing the Orthodox Church, I walked out of there this past Sunday with two more books. One woman loaned me an old folio-style booklet printed up, showing the correlation between the liturgy and its proper scriptural context. Most items in the liturgy have an average of a 4:1 ratio — an average of four scripture references to one line in the liturgy. It’s quite rich, both in historical and biblical context.

But before I could walk out the door, I was given another book to read that I have yet to crack open — a book that caters more towards the emotional, heart-centered side of things and not nearly as intellectually rich as the former books in my possession.

All these books aside, one small one has made all the difference in the world: Building a Habit of Prayer, a small, unassuming pamphlet that I got from the narthex section of the church for free. There’s nothing terribly profound about it, nothing that brings about secret insights to the Orthodox way of prayer, and certainly nothing to sneeze at in terms of volume of content. Instead, it’s a small pamphlet-style book that lays a foundation for prayer in the morning when you rise and at night before you retire, sharing a variety of prayers to pray, things to read aloud, and offering structure to your time of prayer and solitude with God.

As an evangelical, we were always told to have a prayer and “devotion” time with God — reading the word, praying, and maybe going through some devotion booklet. But to be honest, it seemed more like a free-for-all with little or no structure guidelines to follow unless you specifically bought a devotion book from the local religious bookstore.

I have been following this simple, unassuming prayer book for nearly a week now, and the difference in my life is noticeable for me — perhaps small, but still visible in my eyes. I find that when I draw near to God in the morning and the evening — after I rise and before I go to bed — and pray as guided by Orthodox tradition in this booklet, I find myself much more aware of how I conduct myself from day-to-day. I am much more cognizant of the things I say, what I do, and the attitudes that I hold with regard to certain situations going on in my life. And as a result, I do find myself turning to God more for the areas of my life that I am failing at miserably on my own — especially when it pertains to dealing with and relating to others at work or outside of work.

It must be qualified that I still consider myself as being the chief of the chief of the chief of sinners — Paul is an amateur by my standards — but this process of theosis is much more prevalent in my mind and in the outer workings of my life. It’s amazing what consistent prayer, reading and meditation [LOL, I almost accidentally typed "medication"] will do. I look forward to see how God will shape me in the years to come; I know I’ve a long way to go before I really start to have the resemblance of Christ.

CONTENT LOST DUE TO INJECTION ATTACK

Our first class was really more of an informative session, where Father Tom shared about the meaning and symbolism of all the imagery within the sanctuary. It was quite impressive to hear of all the deep meaning behind what things were placed where and why they appeared where they did. As he said, nothing is where it is just because it looks nice — there is meaning for everything here.

Of course there is no way that I could have hoped to remember everything he said — I’m getting older and brain capacity isn’t what it used to be, so it’s harder to retain all the information he shared. But that said, there were a few things I pulled from it that I was hoping to understand, and now have walked away knowing more.

For starters, when ever we mark ourselves with the cross of Christ, it’s done with purpose and meaning. We put our thumb, forefinger, and middle finger together to symbolize the unity of the trinity; and then we fold over our ring finger and pinky into our palm to symbolize Christ as having been both God and man, come to earth (our palm). And when we make the sign of the cross, we are in essence saying, “Lord I honor and love you with all my mind (head), my soul (mid-section), my strength (both shoulders)” and some others also add “my heart” with their palm to their heart. So it shares meaning with remembering the Trinity when we mark ourselves with the sign of the cross.

It was also enlightening to hear about the censer and the significance and multiple and overlapping symbolism behind that. In one way, the priest censes the icons, the throne of Christ and the people because they are all made in the image of Christ. Because we are all formed and made into the image of Christ, we should be honored because we bear Christ’s image in us — but only for that reason. In addition, the censer also carries with it the symbolism of Mary carrying Christ (the all consuming fire) in her womb and yet not being consumed. Some reference Mary to the burning bush, where the bush was a host of the living God but was not consumed by its flames. So Mary, who though human, said “yes” to God and was given special grace to be able to even bear the living God within her womb.

Coming from a variety of protestant backgrounds, though we do acknowledge God’s holiness and his might and other attributes like that, we tend to water Him down to that of friend, companion, brother. He is those things and more, but one thing that has struck me is with just how much reverence we bestow upon our Creator as opposed to other traditions of the faith that I have been a part of. We revere Christ often and treat His doctrine, His Word, His Sacraments with great honor, respect, and reverence. He is the Creator, we are the creation.

I’m excited for our next class and the journey ahead. It even looks like I may even be able to enter into communion with the Orthodox by this coming Pascha celebration. I will need to talk further with our priest, find my original certificate of baptism, choose my God parents, have my first confession, be christmated, and then will be in communion with them. With Lent only four weeks away, we’re not sure if we’ll be able to squeeze it in yet, but who knows.

We’re reading Introducing the Orthodox Church: Its Faith and Life as a part of our curriculum for the class, so it will be interesting to read through that and learn more.

That’s another thing that’s been interesting about this — there’s always more to learn, and the tradition runs very deep and offers a lifetime of digging deeper into the foundation of the saints and believers that have gone before us, and to learn from them. The Orthodox sure do have a rich heritage — I just can’t believe that I didn’t investigate this sooner.

I grew up ELCA Lutheran — it was boring to me, meaningless, but was still my upbringing and carries with it some fond memories and events that bore the mark of Christ on them. Towards the end of my high school years, I had genuine encounters with Christ, the encounter with His love and the forgiveness of my sins when I repented, and the joy of being in a body of like-minded believers. And fearing that the Lutheran Church could not sustain this new-found faith, my youth director would sneak me off to a Lutheran Church that was “spirit-filled” and had gone through the Lutheran Renewal movement.

Throughout my 20’s, my life was marked by searching for my purpose and seeking to become closer with God. That quest led me through various sects of protestantism, including a few non-denominational churches, an independent charismatic Lutheran church, and eventually to a charismatic evangelical church, where I served as the “worship” music director for nearly five years. But it was in that last year as the music director that I began to experience a lot of change and growth in my faith and my perspective — I didn’t see eye to eye with our pastor, felt that the church in the United States was going down the wrong path, and felt agony over the empty trends that our church (and many others) so willingly followed.

It took severe burnout — a combination of holding down a 30-hour a week job, working 20+ hours a week at the church, writing and directing the music for the Christmas production, and life in general — to bring me to a crashing halt and bring me to a strange place of isolation from the church of the West. At the same time, I was extremely frustrated with the church because of it’s excessive involvement in political affairs, it’s top-down force-feeding of Judeo-Christian “values” to the general public, and the overall feeling like we were all missing the boat. This lead me to a place where I have been trying to come to terms with my disdain for the church (of the West) and seeking out God and the roots of my faith. I was convinced that the church just didn’t look right, but had not the proper resources or knowledge to articulate how I thought it should be. My only reference was, of course, Acts chapter two.

In the course of discussions with others and crossing paths with others in similar circumstances, the term Orthodoxy started to become more commonplace and set off in me the desire to learn more. Strangely enough, there happened to be an Antioch Orthodox Christian Church just four to five blocks away from my house and didn’t realize it! So I began to attend on and off over the past year — you can read more about my first experiences with the Orthodox here — and have come to the place now where I will begin classes to become a catechumen this Saturday.

Over the coming months I’ll share about this journey into baptism into the Orthodox faith along with other reflections along the way. I hope they will prove insightful to you and may even help you along your own journey towards salvation in Christ.

Peace be with you.

Originally THG was a website that showcased articles on life and Christian spirituality and had a long run since its inception in early 1997. All the old articles have been removed, but are available upon special request if you are looking for one in particular.

But as with all other things, life changes and brings about perspectives that we either knew not existed or has a way of changing our heart and our mind to see things from a much different light source. What you will read here is about the pursuit of the roots of our faith in Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism — the faith before the reformation.

With protestant Christianity continuing to splinter into more and more shards of disunity and finite foundations, there is a movement among the West to seek out the roots of our faith. There seems to be this great search for authentic Christianity without the commercialized and consumerist trappings we have come to expect from many churches in the West; and we are among the many on that search to find the roots of our faith.

Over the coming weeks you will have the opportunity to meet those on this journey and will get to read their stories along the way and participate with us in discussion. And in the process, we hope that we can help you find your way back, too.