The Hitchhiker's Guide

Distilling the question of purpose & self worth

mtwords — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:33:00 -0500

In my last post, I opened up a dialogue about where we draw our sense of worth from, especially with making the journey from an Evangelical perspective to one of the ancient faith of Orthodoxy. I don’t have any answers, and in fact I think my list of questions continues to expand the more I think about this. But after evaluating everything and processing things out loud in a dialogue with another tumblr member, I think I’m coming closer to the source of my angst and my doubts as a relatively new convert to Orthodoxy.

In my pursuit of understanding, there are a few resonant themes that are surfacing in the midst of the confusion and questions:

If we cannot truly and authoritatively say we know God — how can the finite truly understand and grasp that infinite? I wrestle with some of the claims of the Orthodox Church about God.
If we cannot comprehend or really know what happens the moment we take our last breath and what happens on the other side, all we really know is what we have in the here and now; and that is to live our life with love and respect for others and to try and leave this world in a better state when we leave it than when we first arrived. Buddhism, for example, teaches some ideas like that, of self denial and learning to serve, love and respect other human beings; and those ideas are not in conflict with Orthodoxy as I understand it.
With the aforementioned bullet, Orthodoxy places a lot of emphasis on works behind your faith, doing the love of God if you will — loving others, serving, putting others before self. If that becomes supremely important to what we do on earth (and how that affects things in the life-after), then what does it matter what religious expression someone buys into, so long as that the end fruit is nearly the same: we improve our own state of being by denying self, loving and respecting others, and setting out to improve the lives of others around us before our own interests. If we have done that and made efforts to live a “righteous life”, then I struggle with any claims of exclusiveness…like Orthodoxy was the VIP lounge to God’s plans or desires for us.
And back to the claim of knowing God — “he”, or just more appropriately God, is infinite and beyond being; how can we assume what God purports of us, and even that he cares about what we care about. This I believe, “his” ways are not our ways and are higher than ours; and with that said, does God really care about what concerns us?

It is that last question that seemed to be the golden nugget that resides under all of this angst I have been having lately: does God really care about what concerns me? If so, how do we really know? For example, does God really care about my day to day issues; that it’s fatiguing being a new dad, or that I feel I’ve no anchor to attach my sense of worth to, or that the things that were once paramount of importance to me have been sorely neglected because I get the impression that few could care less.

When I joined the Orthodox Church and was chrismated back in 2008, I bought into nearly everything hook, line and sinker. That’s not to say I didn’t have my doubts or my questions, but I didn’t really stop to ask a lot of hard questions before making the decision to come into communion with the Orthodox. And it seems that a number of hard questions have surfaced, many of them fundamental to faith, period.

Does God care for someone of insignificance like myself? Does God care to interact with the creation, and if so, where do we truly experience this connection between the infinite and finite? I know we’d say that we experience God in the Divine Liturgy, but that is more of an exercise of faith, believing that God is present when you really can’t see a manifestation of God or have an experience that truly cannot be explained rationally and is really on the plane of the supernatural — yet you see the evidences of an interaction there. To use the old metaphor from Billy Graham, you cannot see the wind, but you see the affects of the wind in the blowing of the leaves on the trees.

I think of the stories of some that have had supernatural experiences with God — there is a touch-point with God that motivates or inspires them to do something for God as their response. I even think about my own moments where I’ve seemingly had what I thought were connections to God, where God’s intervention had been real and had altered or directed my circumstances or choices. But really, looking back I can’t authoritatively say that it was truly God. I don’t mean to subject my past experiences to my present doubts, for maybe God truly did intervene in my life — but then maybe I basically was so woven up into the idea of something that I had also convinced myself of an idea and bent my behaviors and circumstances around that idea. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve convinced myself that something was one way, when it really could have been another.

I believe that God is there and is bigger than I can and ever will be able to comprehend or know. What I don’t know is if the same God really cares about someone of insignificance like myself and what I see as my own monumental cares and concerns. And piggy-backed with that is my questions and doubts as to the Orthodox Church and some of the claims made surrounding God and apostolic truth.

For if the end-desire is that God would want us to live our life righteously and with love and respect for other human beings, does it really matter what the source or motivating factor is that helps us strive towards that way of life? Not that I necessarily think that pantheism is the answer here, but I think our idea of God is so limited, that the human expression of religion is too finite to capture the image of God — rather just a fragment of the shadow cast from its light.

Searching.

So what now?

mtwords — Wed, 05 May 2010 13:00:00 -0500

Although I was raise Lutheran, my roots in the evangelical way of life ran pretty deep — I was consumed by anything and everything that was of the church. I was vivaciously active, “leading worship” wherever they would have me, going on retreats, leading bible studies, and consuming anything that I could get my hands on that would help reinforce the faint idea that God loved me and had a plan for me.

Faint, yes.

It was a weekly, if not daily battle of who would stand victorious on the mountain top, my terrible self-worth issues or the distinctly evangelical ideas I was consuming. Those ideals? Having a destiny in Christ and value to the Kingdom of God through your accomplishments or what you did for God. Well, at least that’s what it appeared to be on the surface.

If I’m really honest, I was famished for the approval and acceptance of others; and you can imagine how much it fed that insatiable appetite by attending prayer meetings where they’d lay hands on you and prophecy all sorts of wonderful things.

You’re a mighty man of God and have David’s heart for God! He’s going to do many great things through you and is going to use you for a mighty purpose…

You get the idea. With a convincing veil of spirituality and a sincere heart of prayer, my need for acceptance, self-worth and purpose in life was fulfilled and titillated through the laying on of hands — whether or not they were indeed right and speaking the heart and mind of God for me. And I sought out every opportunity to bask in those times of “prayer” and marinade myself with bless me God sessions.

But after my falling out with the evangelical way of life and into this journey of Orthodoxy, things have been much different; much different from what I had been hoping for.

In my quest for the authentic expression of the early first century church, much of what I had hoped for has come nowhere to fruition — hope for some answers, meaning for my life, understanding for what I’ve been feeling and why. Not that what I had before was all that great or true; in fact, even just last night I was paging through an old journal of mine that had a chart I drew in it that presumably came from some sermon I heard.

Imagine your standard line graph — the horizontal base the years throughout your life, the vertical axis your accomplishment level. The chart illustrated that early on you have much to learn and accomplish very little, with a correlating line point relatively low on the chart. As you grow older, presumably you accomplish more for God and your level of effectiveness increases and the amount you need to learn decreases.

After looking at this chart in my journal, it honestly took me a few minutes to figure out what this chart was illustrating; and when it finally sank in I was dumb-founded by just how toxic a model to believe. I don’t recall who taught it or where I heard it, but at that time it apparently seemed important enough to not only jot down, but overlay my life experiences to it. And I bought into it, the toxic idea that worth is equated with what I accomplish for God [of course with the assumption that increased effectiveness and accomplishments for God is presumed as good].

If I were to lay a transparency of my life as it is now over this chart of effectiveness, things wouldn’t be looking so hot. I’m not actively involved in “ministry”, recently my church attendance has been sporadic, and I just am not doing much with my talents or gifts. Instead my life is consumed by spending quality time with my wife and daughter, buried in mounds of stuff to do at work, and a few spare moments here and there that I get to work in my garden. I’m not accomplishing anything for God, that I can see. I’m not out there “saving souls”. I’m not ministering much to the poor apart from my offerings at Church and periodic food shelf donations.

By that toxic diagram’s standard, my worth, value or effectiveness is much less than in my days of “leading worship”, bible studies, and actively involved in my church…before kids and before Orthodoxy. In fact, if anything my feelings of worth or value have tanked — there is no coddling of my heart or spirit (feelings), no prayer meetings, no place in the Orthodox church to really use the full extent of my gifts (that I know of anyway), and no pep talks or prodding us on to find our calling in God and to fulfill it.

I’m a new convert to Orthodoxy, so I don’t know the in’s and out’s of what we really believe and do; much of that I’m still trying to learn. But from an Orthodox perspective, where do we stand on this whole calling from God? Is it just a myth propagated by the western evangelical church in an attempt to fill the void of “why am I here on earth?” Because what I’ve seen so far in the Orthodox Church, there really isn’t any talk about our purpose in life, a calling from God, or what we’re supposed to be doing with these gifts that we’ve been given. If I’m correct, the Orthodox Church would probably just give some explanation of it being a mystery and distilling our existence into serving the poor, becoming more like God (theosis), and other spiritually existential thought about journey.

But what of these gifts we’ve been given? What of our purpose in life? And what is it that really offers us a source of value?

I’m human and will be the first to admit that the concept of being able to know God is beyond me — the finite cannot comprehend, understand, or even know the infinite. The only thing I have to go on is trusting what our Orthodox predecessors have written (and even that is a stretch for me), taught, and maintained over the centuries. But how do they really know?

Forgive me as I try to work these things “out loud”, but I’m wrestling as to where real value and meaning comes from, and how or where we ascribe that value to our life.

In the past — and it still holds true today — my value was distinctly tied to what I am able to do and how well people receive it. Practically speaking, in the past it was writing and performing my songs and how well people received it, how many people would (or would not) come out to see me perform, and anything loosely connected to what I could do with what I’ve got. Music was so central to my life, but with so many changes that have occurred over the past few years, those dreams are just shrapnel that I’ve tried gluing together here and there with the occasional song written or recorded.

At present, I love being a dad and a husband — I’m grateful for what I have. But apart from nurturing my family, there really isn’t much. I’ve attempted to try and counter this lack-of-music-ness in my life by creating a podcast that combines music, photography, poetry, and commentary with the original intent to just express myself. But I’m only kidding myself if I say that it only matters to me that I can express myself in different ways. There’s always the other side of the coin.

The other side here is the need to create for others and for them to receive it (me) well; or in other words that flip side is wrought with the need for approval, validation, and worth. My intent or desire is relatively pure, in wanting to really create things that would help make some sort of difference in other people; but there is a subtle double-edged desire to draw self-worth or value from that offering.

I’m not even certain how that subtle behavior came into my way of thinking, but it’s there. I wouldn’t even know where to start to replacing that line of thinking or what even to replace it with, as it comes down to the ten-million dollar question: what is the meaning of life?

I’m not sure. So what now? What does the Orthodox church have to say about this?

Book Review: Orthodox Christians in America: A Short History

dupadee — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:00:00 -0600

I picked up Orthodox Christians in America: A Short History a while ago and finally got a chance to finish it off last night. This is a very quick and fast read about the history of the Orthodox Church in America (only about 100 pages of narrative text). One of the unique things about Orthodoxy in America is that it’s still very tied to the “mother churches” in other parts of the world. Often times this has meant that American churches are caught up in the ethnic affairs of their homelands, even though they are thousands of miles away. This is the story that Erickson tells.

In this book John Erickson gives a very nice summary history of where all of these ethnic churches came from, how they integrated with America (or didn’t), and who all the major players of the day were. He doesn’t pull any punches about the long struggles that the American churches have faced as they’ve grown. He details how events in other countries (especially the rise of Communist Russia) played a direct influence in the lives of American Orthodox Christians. He also talks about how the disputes between other Orthodox churches, such as between Russia and Constantinople, has directly affected the founding of groups like the OCA (Orthodox Church in America).

However, Erickson doesn’t leave us with only tales of the frustrations, but spends a good deal of time talking about the progress towards more unity and autonomy in the new century. He cites the explosive growth of churches such as the Antiochian church here in America, and it’s willingness to welcome converts, as well as the historic meeting in Pennsylvania a few years ago that helped to give some hope to American Orthodox for eventual unity. I believe that Erickson feels there is much room for hope in the future of the Orthodox church in the “new world”.

Healthcare and the Christian

dupadee — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:00:00 -0500

NOTE, the contents of this post are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of other authors on this site.

Today on a walk, I was listening to a podcast from a Franciscan friar about the history of Catholic hospitals. This again started prodding some thoughts in my head, that have been ruminating there for a while, about the topic of a Christian response to the healthcare debate in the United State. History shows that when it came to bringing healthcare to the people, it was the Christian churches (and religions in general) that led the cause, and in fact were the only source of health and healing for most people. As early as 325 AD, the Council of Nicea ordered that every town that had a cathedral, also must provide a hospital to care for the sick. This even developed into Christian monks helping to create some of the first mental health counseling treatments.

Healthcare activity in the church continued even into medieval Europe when Pope Innocent III expanded the role of the hospital in the life of the church, but as a public institution. He instructed the creation of a place where people could go to get care, no matter if they could pay, and where the monks and nuns of the church would carry out Jesus’ work to the poor and ill. Even today one can still see the mark of the church on many hospitals here in America with names such as St. John’s and St. Joesph’s.

This wasn’t just a Catholic idea however. In 18th century England, John Wesley, evangelist and founder of the Methodist socieites wrote a book called, Primitive Physick: Or, an Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases. Wesley understood that in his day, many people would see their priest more often than their doctor, and Wesley believed that priests should be taking care of people in a complete and holistic way, body as well as soul. So he wrote this small book as something that his ministers could carry with them as they traveled, and he compiled the best health knowledge he could find at the time and put it together in a quick and easy to read format.

So how does this little history lesson tie into the healthcare debate of the United States today? In a few different ways… When we look at the landscape of health care in our country we can see a few things. We can be proud that we have very advanced medical techniques available to help save lives. We can do amazing things in our modern hospitals. However, those hospitals are locked to those who can’t pay (beyond emergency services). My mother died years ago from cancer, and she was on public assistance for her healthcare. Even though one could make the argument that she might have gotten better care with a private insurance plan, the fact that she was able to get care at all was a blessing. It helped to extend her life much further than without the care. However, in my mother’s case, she was able to get coverage because of her disability. I wonder how someone in her shoes who didn’t have that ‘luxury’ would have coped.

It’s quite obvious that there’s a problem. Costs are skyrocketing, people can’t afford coverage, the current public options don’t cover everyone who needs coverage and our system doesn’t deal with societies underlying unhealthy lifestyle choices. We have a system that from all vantage points seems broken and on a continuing downhill slide. This is where my personal viewpoints enter into the equation and I need to ask a very simple question.

Where are the Christians in this debate?

For the most part, most Christians (particularly Evangelicals) have bought into the propaganda machines that tell them that Universal Health Coverage is a terrible idea, that its been tried in Canada and it’s failed, that we’re asking for long lines for care, and even the completely absurd notion that we will be allowing other people to tell us when we have to die. Yet, isn’t ‘health care for all’ what the Church has been promoting for over a thousand years? That as followers of Christ we should be be going to ‘the least of these’ and bringing the love of Jesus and the healing of our hands into their world? Yet time and time again in this debate, followers of Christ lose sight of the mission. And why shouldn’t they… it’s the reason we’re in this mess to begin with.

You see, the reason why people are opposed to Universal Healthcare is because it would mean the government would be running it. Why does the government need to run it? Because as modern Christians, we failed. We dropped the ball, looked away, and walked off from a life of service as followers of Christ in order to fulfill some fashion of an American Dream. We’ve decided that our freedom of individual choice is more important than Christ’s words to seek to help and heal the lost and hurting. We’ve elected to focus our time and energies inwards, developing our personal spirituality, without realizing that our spirituality is nothing if it doesn’t show itself in the world. Therefore, since the Church has decided that it is not in the business of healthcare, then someone else needs to step up to the plate. Right now, the only place that is in a position to have enough money and capability to provide Universal Healthcare is the government.

I’ve been a State government worker for 14 years. I know how bloated and slow and bureaucratic government institutions can be. However, things still get done, even if they’re not the way we want to see them done. Yet, as Christians, we’ve decided that healthcare (and education for many Protestants as well) no longer belong in the day to day activities of our religious life. So despite the fact that we’ve decided, willingly chosen even, to abrogate our responsibilities to some one else, that doesn’t change the imperative. Our faith is still a faith grounded on the teachings of Christ, that we need to help those who are sick and poor. If we can’t do it ourselves than we need to look to supporting someone or something else that will accomplish this. Just because we don’t want to do the dirty work ourselves, doesn’t change what Christ said. Just because we don’t like government, doesn’t change what Christ said. Just because we don’t want to ‘give up control’, doesn’t change what Christ said.

Christ said “truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me. (Matt 25:40)” As Christians… what are we doing… or not doing… to Christ? Today’s New Testament reading was from James 2, and I want to close with this passage for thought. As followers of Christ, let’s take a moment to truly consider where we’re standing in this whole healthcare debate. Think hard about what Christ teaches us about how we should treat those around us. I’m not a ‘pro-government-nazi’, so I’m not trying to say that the government is the only answer. But until the Church stands up to its responsibility as an institution of Christ on Earth, we need to seek out the best way to still carry out our mission in Christ.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14-17 ESV)

Orthodoxy and the Culture Club

mtwords — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:00:00 -0500

I apologize in advance, knowing full well that I will probably make a few unorthodox statements and probably ruffle more than a few feathers — I’m sorry, really. But indulge me for a few minutes and allow me to be quite frank. There’s a long overdue vent that requires being thrown out into some ones and zeros and let people ruminate on.

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 or all throughout the service. 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 a few 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:

I want to feel like this is home, a place where I have something to contribute and feel I’ve some ’stock’ in
Perhaps more practical, I’d like to understand everything that’s being sung and said
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
We’re in America — the “mother tongue” here is English. Can’t we just use that?
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 they still use Arabic in the regular “English” Divine Liturgy. Go figure.

The sum of the parts

mtwords — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:00:00 -0500

I won’t lie — I’ve neglected my contributions to The Hitchhiker’s Guide [psst… and I’m the admin]. In fact, because I felt like I had nothing to say or to contribute to the discussion of the ancient faith, I didn’t say anything at all.

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.

First Eastern Experience

dupadee — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:00:00 -0500

This past Sunday I had the honor of being able to experience the Eastern liturgy for the first time. Michael’s child was being baptized, and even though the baptism doesn’t take place during the liturgy, we were all invited to attend the liturgy beforehand. I decided to take them up on the invitation and see just how different the Eastern liturgy is, and so I thought I’d document some very brief thoughts.

For those unfamiliar, the Eastern Orthodox churches follow the Byzantine Rite. It’s a much longer liturgy than most of us in the West are used to. It’s also mostly sung, without instrumentation (kudos to the choir at St. George for doing such a nice job).

One of the things that struck me right off the bat is that the congregation seems to be more of a spectator than in the ‘modern’ Western Rite. The priest is often speaking with his back turned, and there’s a great deal of quiet prayers that the priest is saying while the congregation and/or choir is singing or speaking a different part of the liturgy. It does promote the idea of heaven coming down to us, and we are witnesses to the great mystery, more so than in the Western Rite.

There is also a great deal of repetition in the Eastern Rite. Many litanies are repeated over and over again, which I’m sure contributed to the length of the service. Also, there was many more places where people are doing the sign of the cross, so there was a bit more physical movement.

In terms of things I didn’t like, I have to say I felt a bit lost, but this is probably due to the lack of good congregational materials that are available for the Eastern Rite. Even though the liturgy was incredibly rich, I almost felt that it was too much for me. I felt a bit of overload at times. Perhaps that would lessen in time, as someone would get used to it more, but the initial shock was certainly there. Also, since the liturgy was so packed, at times it seemed that things were a bit rushed.

However, there was a great deal that I appreciated. I enjoyed the lack of instruments frankly. It kinda kills the whole ‘worship wars’ idea. There was a deep reverence as well that seemed to carry into everything that was done, even when it was done quickly. Not just the sacred host, but many elements, were given reverence, including kissing of crosses, and the display of the the Gospel, and reverence towards icons. In fact the entire worship space had a very rich artistic and reverent feel to it.

So it was certainly a very interesting first experience in an Eastern context. I think there’s a lot that both East and West have going for them in terms of their liturgies and I feel like I’m richer for having experienced both.

Lenten Discipline

dupadee — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:00:00 -0600

Reposted from Boolah

In the season on Lent, Christians are called upon to focus themselves on Christ’s sacrifice for us in the upcoming Passion, by engaging in some form of spiritual discipline. We’re all familiar with the traditional avenues this usually takes, such as picking something to give up for Lent, and the traditional Catholic discipline of no-meat on Fridays. However, many times we miss the point when we simple “give something up”, that it’s not supposed to be just about our ability to overcome our desires, but our discipline is meant to bring us into closer communion with God. That means that our discipline doesn’t have to be about letting go, but could also mean adding on. Because of everything that has happened in my life this past year, I’ve decided that simply giving something up is not what I need to do this Lent. I’ve had to give up a lot this year already, and I feel I need to add something to my spiritual life instead.

So for this Lent, I’ve decided to commit to praying the Liturgy of the Hours. This is an ancient discipline that centers around praying at certain times of the day. It’s a practice that is very, very ancient and it meant to help focus your daily life around prayer with God. In ancient times, monks would gather and pray together every three hours. In modern times, most people who pray the LoH commit to praying the three main hours of Morning (Lauds), Evening (Vespers) and Night (Compline). Each prayer time consists of some Scripture and prayers that are appropriate for the season, and if combined with the Office of Readings (a set of readings that have no set ‘time’) you can get a large dose of Scripture and meditations. So for this discipline I’ll be committing to praying when I wake in the morning, after I get home from work, and then right before bed.

Committing to this for the entirety of Lent is going to be a big challenge for me. However, with the advent of technology, I have a lot of things that will be able to help me. Instead of purchasing the large (and expensive) 4-volume set of the Liturgy of the Hours, I will be using a site called Universalis, which publishes the complete set of daily prayers for each day. You simply go to the site each day and click on the prayer time you’re looking for and you get that day’s reading. However, I still want to be able to read the LoH even if I’m not near a computer, so I’m also purchasing theUniversalis iPod version. For a fraction of the cost of the printed edition, I will have the complete LoH on my iPod Touch that I can reference at any time. It’s laid out with an easy to use calendar that allows you to browse through any day of the year, in a nice easy to read format.

I’ll be honest, this is going to be a very hard discipline to keep. It’s not easy to take something on brand new for an extended period of time that requires work and commitment. It’s going to mean that I commit time each day, three times a day, to stopping what I’m doing and reciting the prayers and readings for that day. It means taking my focus off whatever is distracting me at the time and refocusing on God. But after all, that’s the point of all this anyway isn’t it?

Orthodoxy and earthly distractions

mtwords — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:00:00 -0500

It’s been an interesting summer — obviously having taken the summer off from writing in HHG with April being my last posted entry — and I’ve walked away with a few observations about Orthodoxy, culture, and plenty of introspective conclusions about myself and the life I lead.

In April I was charismated into the Orthodox 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.

Almost there, almost

mtwords — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:00:00 -0500

Tonight we celebrated the lamentation service of our Lord, where throughout a beautiful and ornately decorated setting, we expressed our lament of Christ’s death through spoken words, through sung lamentations, and in the candlelit sanctuary processed under an icon of Christ’s body representing our passing into death as did Christ — an expression of sharing in His sufferings and His death.

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.

Orthodoxy and culture: what is the fullness of the arts?

mtwords — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:00:00 -0500

There has been a topic on my mind over the past several weeks as I’ve started on this journey towards Orthodox Christianity and into a life of theosis — when I become Orthodox, what becomes of my artistic expressions and what is that supposed to look like within the context of being an Orthodox Christian? And I must forewarn you, that there are far more questions in this particular entry than useful reflections or things we can all learn from. Instead, I would hope that it might generate some significant discussion that would ripple into the arts community within Catholic and Orthodox traditions — especially the latter of the two.

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?

The floor is yours.

He is Risen!

dupadee — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:00:00 -0500

Tonight was the night! At the Easter Vigil tonight I was welcomed into the Roman Catholic Church! My son also took his first communion with me. It was an amazing service (even though it was over 2 hours long) and I’m not too “manly” to admit that I had tears in my eyes as I saw the Eucharist consecrated for the first time for me. I felt such a huge feeling of release and comfort as I took the Lord’s Body and Blood for the first time as a Catholic Christian.

I’m home Lord, I’m home….

Holy Week

dupadee — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:00:00 -0500

This week is the culmination for me in my journey to the Catholic faith. Tonight begins the Triduum, the three holy days of the church year. It begins tonight with the commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist, then tomorrow night with a Tenebrae service where the lights are slowly extinguished. Then on Saturday night begins the Easter Vigil. This is a long (2.5 hours) service where the entire Salvation History is recounted and new members like myself are given the Sacraments of Confirmation and First Communion. I’m looking forward to this weekend, even if the services will end up being long. This is where it all comes together for me and I finally feel like I’m coming home.

Fighting the passions

mtwords — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:00:00 -0500

We all have great intentions — I know I do anyway. I have great aspirations of maintaining strict disciplines, like a rule of prayer, fasting from certain passions, and even cultivating some of the artistic gifts I’ve been given. But the problem is that my passions (as known by the Orthodox; different from a passion for music, for example) are not passive and do not sit back and allow me to just lay my stake in the ground and claim it done. Unlike Evangelicalism™ which generally professes a transactional version of salvation — an event that happens, and then you’re saved — I am finding that maintaining and working out this gift of salvation and becoming more like God is going to be a long, slow, and arduous process, requiring much patience, faith, endurance, and above all humility.

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.

The church is not a museum piece

mtwords — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:00:00 -0600

In my previous posting, I had laid a spread of questions on the table regarding the arts and Orthodoxy and my frustration with no contemporaries to look to for guidance, inspiration, and fellowship. These frustrations are accentuated by the idea that there is a fullness of the arts that ought to be created, expressed, and shared with the world, a fullness that just isn’t that prevalent in America. And it’s the idea of that fullness that has put a desire in me to find answers, and God willing, be a part of the awakening of the arts in the Orthodox church in America.

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

Why Rome

dupadee — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:00:00 -0600

Many people have asked me why I chose to join the Catholic church, as opposed to the Anglican church or the Eastern Orthodox. There are some very foundational reasons that I made this choice, but I want to stress at the beginning one point. I’m not trying to put down a different branch of ancient faith practice, or say that one is better than the other. I simply want to present why I chose the place I chose, and why I simply couldn’t see myself going down the other roads (as parallel as they may be).

First, I should get the Anglican question out of the way. Many, many people asked why I didn’t simply move over to the Church of England and still remain somewhat on this side of the Protestant fence. I did toy with the idea of going Anglican many times. I had a friend in seminary who was Anglican and talked with him multiple times about his experiences. However, the more I looked at the state of the Anglican church in the world, and in this country, the more I became convinced that I couldn’t go along with a body that was in such turmoil. It’s particularly bad here in Minnesota where many Anglican churches have closed, leaving me with precious few choices for a parish to call home. Additionally, I simply felt that the political reasons for forming the Anglican church in the first place simply weren’t very convincing for me. I think that there are a lot of wonderful Anglicans around the world, and they’re doing incredible work. I simply didn’t feel I could join with them.

I did entertain the idea of joining one of the splinter movements of Anglicanism that had rebelled against the church here in America. But then again, isn’t this just another form of Protestantism under a different guise? “We don’t like you so we’re going to stop working with you and start a church over here!” Sorry, not for me. I wanted to be a part of a body that had some strong structure to it’s hierarchy and leadership. Not another group that is driven by the personality at each parish.

So the second church that I entertained joining was the Orthodox church. Many of my friends (as seen on this blog) have made that choice, and many other friends who are not leaving Protestantism also encouraged me to look into that choice. Yet, at the end of the day I found too many things about the Orthodox church that I simply couldn’t justify to myself as things I could look past. For the benefit of those who are reading this here are a few of my reasons, since it’s a major issue for many people considering the switch to an ancient faith practice.

- Many Orthodox churches are very, very tied into their cultural settings. Greek Orthodox churches here in America will split into two churches because of peoples disagreements over what is going on over in Greek politics. Other branches will practice a liturgy that is completely in a foreign language, expecting many of the parishioners to know the language, since after all they’re from that culture. As well as many Orthodox churches (around here in particular) that simply aren’t interested in having visitors from outside their cultural paradigm. I know there are many Orthodox churches that are trying hard to be open and welcoming, but I simply don’t see it as much around here.

- I disagree with the Orthodox over their reasons for the split. As I read the history from the time and look at the overall political situation that was going on, I can’t help but feel that the split was more about the fading “eastern” Roman empire not wanting to be a part of the rising “western” Roman empire. Again, this is mostly just my opinion, but it’s something that I felt I couldn’t just accept. Oh, and I also agree with Rome on the filioque.

- Location, location, location. There simply aren’t a lot of choices around here for Orthodox churches. The St. Paul/Minneapolis metro areas is rather populous, but there are very few Eastern Orthodox churches (only a dozen I think). To me, this makes it hard to try and find a parish where you can feel at home and where you want to spend time. Plus, since many of the Orthodox churches don’t even speak to each other, you can feel quite isolated among a sea of other faiths.

So enough about why I didn’t chose Anglican or Orthodox. Why did I chose Roman Catholic?

- Liturgy. I love the formal liturgy, and the fact that the Eucharist is available almost every single day in most parishes. This is a powerful way to commune with God and I love the idea that I can partake of it often. Add to this the centrality of the Eucharist, as THE thing that we come to worship about, and I found the Catholic church quite compelling.

- Tradition. Something shared with the Orthodox as well, is a strong sense of tradition. It’s OK to acknowledge that the Bible is just one of the sources that we base our faith upon. We don’t need to hide from the spectre of “tradition” being evil or “works of man”. We can embrace our history and our heritage as Christians, descendants of the first believers of Christ, passing on their traditions and practices to those who come after us.

- Along with tradition comes structure. My personal perspective is that the more we try to do things “on our own” the more we find ourselves slipping into sin and away from God. Many of the independent churches that I saw out there got so lost in the business end of running a ministry, or protecting ones turf, or worrying about how good a show was put on the last Sunday that they miss the point. That it’s about being present with Christ, and bringing Christ into the world. In the Catholic church this is done through our sacramental living as we carry the Eucharist in our lives out into the world.

- Availability. Simply put, the Catholic church is everywhere. There are plenty of parishes to look at for a home, as well as schools, universities, social service organizations, etc,. I felt that it was a better fit for my family life to have some choices as I brought them along with me on this journey.

- Finally, as much a I admire Eastern Orthodox philosophy and theology, simply put, I’m a Western person living in a Western world. I enjoy the mystery of Orthodoxy very much, and I think that as our culture moves through this post-modern time there’s much that the Catholic church can learn from the Orthodox about simply letting things go unexplained. Perhaps in the future as things change and progress we’ll all find ourselves closer to the Orthodox idea of mystery, but for now, I’m still someone who asks questions and likes to try and find at least some semblance of concrete answers.

So that’s a pretty quick summary of what it was that brought me to my decision to join the Catholic church. I love my Orthodox and Anglican brothers and sisters, and pray that one day there will no longer be a divide between us. To be fair, there are plenty of things that I struggle with in the Catholic church as well. I’m not 100% on board with their theology of birth control, and sometimes I wish they didn’t have to explain EVERYTHING. However, I feel that this is where God has called me, and brought me at this point in my life. I finally feel like I’m somewhere that I can call home.

First Scrutiny

dupadee — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:00:00 -0600

Last night we had our First Scrutiny. At it’s core, the scrutinies are an exorcism. Asking for the power of God to bring us out of the power of sin and darkness and cast evil away from us. It was a neat little ceremony, and the priest delivered the prayers well. We have two more scrutinies and then it’s ready for Easter Vigil.

Wesley Brings me Home

dupadee — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:00:00 -0600

At the beginning of 2006 I began my studies at a Lutheran seminary in town that was approved to train Methodist pastors. It was a seminary I had attended many, many years before and so I felt very comfortable there. I also enjoyed the fact that they had daily chapel and weekly communion, with a sense of some liturgical heritage. However, the one difficulty with this school was that it was not structured for working adults. Meaning that it was becoming harder and harder for me to find classes that fit into my schedule, since I couldn’t just give up my job to go to school.

I did give it a try though and one of the things that I came to love was my Methodist classes that I took. One of the systematic theology professors was a Methodist pastor and offered the basic classes on John Wesley, history and polity, that every Methodist needed to get ordained. There were a couple dozen Methodist students on campus so we got to know each other pretty well, and the classes were a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. In fact I started to learn too much. The more and more I read Wesley, the more and more I was becoming convinced that the church that Wesley was a part of, and dreamed of, didn’t exist in a recognizable form in the current United Methodist Church (UMC). Wesley was an Anglican, and had a very high view of liturgy, but yet in most UMC churches today you’ll find communion once a month, and more often only once every three months. Many historical and cultural factors played into things like this, and there were many in the UMC that were seeking to bring back liturgical worship and ancient faith practices. The Order of St. Luke was even founded by some to help bring about a revival of these ideas, and so I still felt like there was hope for me in the UMC.

Things started to change more though as I went through 2006 and into 2007. I kept getting these nagging feelings that I just wasn’t going to end up in the UMC. I kept asking myself questions like, “If I really want something different than what most UMC churches do, is it right for me to force it on my congregation? Or should I just move on to where the things I hold to are more accepted and practiced?” Even though I felt in my heart that many of these questions only had on answer, I still kept ‘toughing it out’ where I was at. One thing that helped was a wonderful Small Group that I was a part of that let me do all kinds of liturgical experiments on them, however, it just made me long for more and more of what I wasn’t going to find in the Methodist church.

Over Christmas I had started really questioning things and decided to would venture into a Catholic bookstore to just browse a bit and see what I found. I had been doing a lot of reading on the Internet and in other books but wanted to see some of the material first hand. I walked out of the bookstore with a copy of the Catholic Catechism, and a book by John Neuhaus called “Catholic Matters”. I tucked these books away and started reading them little bits at a time.

In January of 2007 a bunch of us Methodist students took a trip to Chicago for a small conference on John Wesley. There were two speakers at the conference, and one of them was the author of the text that we had used in our Wesleyan theology class. We all felt this would be a great opportunity to get to hear a great speaker. I didn’t know much about the second speaker there, but that would change rather quickly.

Two of my fellow students and I packed into my minivan and we headed out. I never mentioned to them that at the time I had my two secret Catholic books packed away in my luggage. As we got close to Chicago, I asked one of them who had been to the conference before what the facility was like. He said, “Oh, it’s nice and quiet. It’s a Catholic retreat center.” At that point I think I knew I was doomed. We arrived and unpacked our things and got ready for the next couple of days. I had plenty of time to walk around the facility and see what it was about, and they even had a bookstore that I was able to spend some time in.

Very quickly I got to meet our second speaker, an author and pastor as well. However, some of the things that he was saying made me almost think that he was feeling like I was about the state of the Methodist church, and of Protestantism in general. One morning at breakfast he sat near me and I started probing a bit about his thinking about Catholicism and how many of the things that Wesley talked about seemed to lean somewhat that way. He looked at me and said, “The more you read Wesley, the more Catholic you’ll become.” Once again, the phrase, “It is useless to resist” kept popping into my head. By the end of the conference I think I knew in my heart that there was no turning back for me. He was right, the more and more I tried to fit my thinking into the Protestant church, the more and more I found myself drifting away from it. On the drive home I started thinking about how I would tell my wife and friends about all of this.

One of the side-effects of this decision is that I would be dropping out of school. However, I didn’t have to leave empty handed. Since I had already gotten enough credits from my first seminary for a Master of Arts degree, I was able to go back and simply request receiving that degree instead of the higher level degree. In many ways I knew that dropping out of seminary was the right decision, not just because of my desire to go Catholic, but also because the schedule of the second seminary had been making family life very hard. My wife was actually quite happy that it was ending, since my youngest son hadn’t even ever known a time when daddy wasn’t busy in school. She also took to the news about my Catholic desires fine, since she’s not really a detail person, and doesn’t really have a lot of strong opinions about things like that. So starting in March of 2007 our journey began to find a parish and join with the Catholic faith.

We were able to narrow down our choices and managed to find a great parish to call home. It even has a parish school where we’re sending our children. We began our RCIA classes in the fall of 2007 and coming this Easter we will be received into the Catholic church. It’s been a long, long journey, and it’s no where near where I thought I would be at the beginning. But it’s where I feel God has led us and it’s where I feel God can use me the most.

Even though this is the end of the “tale” there’s more to talk about. In particular I want to spend some time talking about why I chose the Catholic church, and in particular why I didn’t chose the Orthodox church. But again, I’ll save that for the next time…

Various Rites

dupadee — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:00:00 -0600

Don’t worry, I’ll be continuing my story, I simply wanted to pause for a moment to talk about some of the things that are happening right now in my journey to the Catholic faith.

In the Catholic church, you join by engaging in what are called the Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA). Although it’s not required for people who are already baptized, most parishes simply lump both catechumens (those who are not baptized) and candidates (those coming form other traditions) together for ease of instruction. The class runs for about nine months from Fall until Spring, meeting once a week. Every parish develops it’s own RCIA class, so there are no two churches that do it exactly the same way. However, one thing that they all share is various rites that happen throughout the course of the year. So far in our class we’ve had two different rites.

The first that we had is the Rite of Acceptance. The purpose behind this rite is for us to declare to the congregation that we have decided to join the Catholic church after a period of discernment. This is a simple ritual where we stand in front of the congregation with our sponsors. A prayer is said over us, and then our sponsors make the sign of the cross over certain parts of our body, which the priest says a prayer to each area. So for example we are marked with a cross on our shoulders so that we may have strength in the Lord. Our hands are marked so that we may carry out the work of Christ, and so on. This is a very cool ceremony in my mind because of this physical aspect. We also received a nice new Bible at this ceremony (whoo hoo! Another Bible for my collection!).

The second rite that we’ve taken part in is the Rite of Sending which is combined with the Rite of Election. This rite happened just this past weekend on the first Sunday of Lent (Catholic calendar). It begins with a rite in our home congregation, where we again stand in front of the congregation and our sponsors are asked if we are ready to continue into the Catholic faith. The priest then “sends” us to the Bishop. After our mass we then proceed (after some lunch as well) down to the Cathedral of St. Paul where we partake in the Rite of Election. The main focus of this rite is for the catechumens to write their name in the parishes Book of the Elect, that they intend to be baptized this Easter. The catechumens also get to be personally introduced to the Bishop during the ceremony, and the candidates also rise and are blessed as we continue our journey.

The thing that amazed me about the Rite of Election is how many people were there. This was a ceremony just for people coming into the church and their families and sponsor, yet our Cathedral was packed full. Also consider that this same ceremony was taking place over in Minneapolis as well (our dioscce covers both Twin Cities) at the Basilica of St. Mary, full to the brim as well. It’s amazing how many people are coming to the ancient churches for their faith in this day and age.

The daily journey in prayer, reading and meditation

mtwords — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:00:00 -0600

It seems that every time I walk out of St. George Antioch Orthodox Church — whether on a Sunday morning or at my catechumen class — I come home with more and more books to read. And anyone who knows me well, I don’t exactly finish books in a timely fashion (let alone at all). How I will manage to keep up is but a mystery… fitting as I am pursuing Orthodoxy and they’re all about mystery.

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.