The Pochaiv Mother of God and "Little Gidding"

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The past week I have felt out of time. I have been travelling - Ottawa, Montreal, and home again. The picture above was taken last night. People were lined up for hours just to get into the church. These lines from Little Gidding will have to do for now:

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

The Prologue from Ochrid for August 28th

HOMILY by St. Nikolai Velomirovic

About the forms of the Messiah

"And we saw that He had no form nor comeliness" (Isaiah 53:2).

This, the prophet speaks about Christ the Lord as a man: "He had no form nor comeliness!" How is it that He Who gave form to every created thing and who created the beautiful angels of heaven and all the beauty of the universe, that He did not have form and comeliness [beauty]? Brethren, this need not confuse you. He was able to appear in the manner in which He willed. But he did not want to appear in angelic beauty as He did not want to appear in royal power and in the luxury of the wealthy. He who enters a house of sorrow does not dress in the most beautiful clothes, neither does a doctor dress in his best clothes when he visits the gravely ill. But the Lord entered a house of sorrow and into a hospital. The body is the garment of the soul. He dressed in a simple garment to impress us, not by His dress but rather by the power of the spirit. We do not know exactly what His appearance was. According to tradition, His face was swarthy and His hair was of a chestnut color. When King Abgar sent Ananias his artist to paint the face of the Lord, he was not able to draw even a line on the cloth for, it is said that, Christ's face shown with an unusual light.

After all, even if Christ had clothed Himself in the most beautiful body, such a body as only He is able to fashion, what would that physical beauty of His be in comparison to the immortal beauty of His Divinity? The greatest earthly beauty is merely only a shadow of the heavenly beauty. The Prophet Daniel was a young and handsome man but when an angel of God stood before him, he himself said:

"…there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness turned in me into corruption" (Daniel 10:8). What is the face of man from earth in comparison to the likeness of an immortal angel of God? As darkness in comparison to the light! Of course, even the prophet looking at Christ the Immortal King in the flesh of man and comparing His earthly likeness with His Immortal likeness, had to cry out: "He had no form nor comeliness."
O Gentle and All-gentle Lord, Who for our sake was clothed in our miserable physical garment to serve us and not to frighten us, to You be glory and thanks, to You be glory and thanks. To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

From The Prologue from Ochrid, entry for August 28th

New Monastery Complex proposed for St. Tikhon's

I suppose that much could be said about the proposed plans St. Tikhon's Monastery has to develop a new monastery complex to replace its current digs. My general take on church-related building projects is: "unless the Lord builds the house, its labourers labour in vain." All I can say for now is that these drawings (by architect Andrew Gould) are the stuff of my childhood dreams. These are incredibly beautiful and inspiring designs.... now for prayerful souls to live between these walls.

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From The Journals of Fr. Alexander Schmemann:

Tuesday, March 1, 1977

I am reading Henri Bremond with enormous interest. I am always interested in people like Bremond, Loisy, and Laberthonniere, who lived through doctrinal crises. I am interested in the personal, internal aspect of their religious dramas. I feel somehow, mutatis mutandis, related to them – totally belonging to the church. This is obvious to me like the air we breathe, like life itself, but at the same time completely free inside the church. I am endlessly distressed by the enslavement to something or somebody that I see happening all around, distressed by the idolatry, so often so triumphant in the church. A rebellion against the church, always cheap, is equally wrong, as well as mutiny, or spiritual sectarianism with its false pathos, unctuous sweetness, self-satisfaction, narrow vision. I can say in all conscience that the church has always been for me higher than anything, without any doubt an unseen, unquestionable – not authority – but Light. Everything lives in that Light; everything is that Light! The church in its essence, in its light, must not narrow but widen, not submit but liberate. This is the essence of the church, this Light is our life.

Church people – how should I say it – do not like to be faithful to the Church. They want the Church to be faithful to them, to fulfill their needs, so that those who love the essence of the Church are bound to suffer from the Church. In the life of “modernists” (and later Teilhard de Chardin) what is interesting is not their “leaving.” To leave is to betray, it is dull, it is spiritual “vulgarity”; whereas loyalty is a cross, it is victory. One suffers from misunderstanding, solitude, feeling walled off. The victory comes from a gradually growing clear evidence inside one that this is Christianity. That is why the books about these people, dead long ago and now forgotten, disturb me so much. “Then all the disciples forsook him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). I think that every man who believes in Christ must go through that; it is the test of his testimony.

March. Although one walks to church in the early morning in the intense cold, the light of the sun, the color of the sky, the lightness of air are – Spring!

Bells are not a musical instrument but

“‘…an icon of the voice of God.’ A Russian bell, he said, must sound rich, deep, sonorous, and clear, for how can the voice of God be otherwise? It must be loud, because God is omnipotent. Above all, Russian bells must never be tuned to either a major or minor chord. ‘The voice of a bell is understood as just that,’ he said. ‘Not a note, not a chord, but a voice.’”

See here for the full story

"When in my childhood I called upon
You consciously for the first time,
You heard my prayer;
You filled my heart with the blessing of peace.
At that moment I knew Your goodness,
knew how blessed are those who turn to You.
I started to call upon You,
night and day, and even now,
I call upon Your Name.
Glory to You, satisfying my desires with good things.
Glory to You, watching over me day and night.
Glory to You, curing affliction and emptiness with the healing flow of time.
Glory to You, no loss is irreparable in You; Giver of Eternal Life to all.
Glory to You, making immortal all that is lofty and good.
Glory to You, promising us the longed for meeting with our loved ones who have died.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age."

- Ikos 9, from the Akathist "Glory to God For All Things"

A quote from St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco

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Metropolitan Anthony on the Beginning of Lent

Metropolitan ANTHONY (Bloom) of Sourozh
Sunday of Orthodoxy
16 March 1997

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

We are keeping today, as every year at the end of the first week of Lent, the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. And every year we must give thought to what is meant, not only as a historical event, but also in our personal lives. First of all we must remember that the Triumph of Orthodoxy is not the Triumph of the Orthodox over other people. It is the Triumph of the Truth Divine in the hearts of those who belong to the Orthodox Church and who proclaim the Truth revealed by God in its integrity and directness.

Today we must thank God with all our hearts that He has revealed Himself to us, that He has dispelled darkness in the minds and hearts of thousands and thousands of people, that He who is the Truth has shared the knowledge of the perfect Truth Divine with us.

The occasion of this feast was the recognition of the legitimacy of venerating icons. By doing this we proclaim that God - invisible, ineffable, the God whom we cannot comprehend, has truly become man, that God has taken flesh, that He has lived in our midst full of humility, of simplicity, but of glory also. And proclaiming this we venerate the icons not as idols, but as a declaration of the Truth of the Incarnation.

By doing this we must not forget that it is not the icons of wood and of paint, but God who reveals Himself in the world. Each of us, all men, were created in the image of God. We are all living icons, and this lays upon us a great responsibility because an icon may be defaced, an icon may be turned into a caricature and into a blasphemy. And we must think of ourselves and ask ourselves: are we worthy, are we capable of being called "icons", images of God? A western writer has said that meeting a Christian, those who surround him should see him as a vision, a revelation of something they have never perceived before, that the difference between a non-Christian and a Christian is as great, as radical, as striking, as the difference there is between a statue and a living person. A statue may be beautiful, but it is made of stone or of wood, and it is dead. A human being may not at first appear as possessed of such a beauty, but those who meet him should be able, as those who venerate an icon - blessed, consecrated by the Church - should see in him the shining of the presence of the Holy Spirit, see God revealing Himself in the humble form of a human being.

As long as we are not capable of being such a vision to those who surround us, we fail in our duty, we do not proclaim the Triumph of Orthodoxy through our life, we give a lie to what we proclaim. And therefore each of us, and all of us collectively, bear every responsibility for the fact that the world meeting Christians by the million is not converted by the vision of God's presence in their midst, carried indeed in earthen vessels, but glorious, saintly, transfiguring the world.

What is true about us, simply, personally, is as true about our churches. Our churches were called by Christ as a family, a community of Christians to be a body of people who are united with one another by total love, by sacrificial love, a love that is God's love to us. The Church was called, and is still called, to be a body of people whose characteristic is to be the incarnate love of God. Alas, in all our churches what we see is not the miracle of love divine.

From the very beginning, alas, the Church was built according to the images of the State - hierarchical, strict, formal. In this we have failed - to be truly what the early, first community of Christians were. Tertullian writing in defence of the Christians said to the Emperor of Rome: "When people meet us they are arrested and say: 'How these people love one another!'" We are not collectively a body of people about whom one could say this. And we must learn to recreate what God has willed for us, what has once existed: to recreate communities, churches, parishes, dioceses, patriarchates, the whole church, in such a way that the whole of life, the reality of life should be that of love. Alas, we have not learned this yet.

And so, when we keep the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy we must remember that God has conquered, that we are proclaiming the truth, God's own Truth, Himself incarnate and revealed, and there is a great responsibility for all of us collectively and singly in this world, that we must not give the lie to what we proclaim by the way in which we live. A western theologian has said that we may proclaim the whole truth of Orthodoxy and at the same time deface it, give it the lie by the way in which we live, showing with our life that all these were words, but not reality. We must repent of this, we must change, we must become such that people meeting us should see God's truth, God's light, God's love in us individually and collectively. As long as we have not done this we have not taken part in the Triumph of Orthodoxy. God has triumphed, but He has put us in charge of making his triumph the triumph of life for the whole world.

Therefore, let us learn to live according to the Gospel which is the Truth and the Life, not only individually but collectively, and build societies of Christians that are a revelation of it, so that the world looking at us may say: "Let us re-shape our institutions, re-shape our relationships, renew all that has gone or remains old and become a new society in which the Law of God, the Life of God can prosper and triumph. Amen.

The Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

This is a re-post of an entry from February, 2007.

As I have my face to the ground during this Lenten service, the thought crosses my mind, just as you can vaguely hear the priest’s footsteps as he carries the holy gifts: “how beautiful are the feet of him who brings Good News.”
At my first Pre-Sanctified Liturgy, at St. Peter the Aleut, ten years ago this year, I wondered, "how long can I last without peeking?" It's probably only 30 seconds or something, but it seems like a long time. As we were talking about it last week, Krista admitted she always used to peak. Very cute. Even this reminds me that the Apostles were those who had "seen with their eyes." (1 John 1.1) As the Lord said to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and have yet believed" (John 20.29).
It is somehow in the singing of the Psalms of Ascent at the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts that I remember who I am. Each year reminds me that I am a member of the sojourning people of God, at search for our Promised Land in God. I grew to love these Psalms first through Eugene Peterson's fine book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.
I don’t know if it is the same melody in all places, but it is that melody which strangely welcomes me to the Lenten pilgrimage in earnest. We are “going up” in the same way Israel's pilgrims ascended up to Jerusalem for the great festivals of salvation. But, even more, “God is the Lord and has revealed Himself.” We are members of his very Body. The fact that our liturgical journey in this particular Liturgy brings us up to partake of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ reveals that He is the ‘end’ of all our searching.

Zealous for Truth

"Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth. Someone who is considered by people to be zealous for truth has not yet learnt what truth is really like; once he has truly learnt it, he will cease from zealousness on its behalf."

– St. Isaac the Syrian

My friend, and my son Basil's Godfather , wrote this essay entitled "Zealous for Truth."

At the outset of Lent - at the outset of anything - it is easy to be consumed with zeal, of one kind or another. But zeal, in an of itself, can often be a sort of spiritual adolescence. As a person who experienced a fairly zealous adolescence, complete with Keith Green's No Compromise and Bible studies every night of the week, I can relate.

As David Goa says:

"For St. Isaac, zeal for truth is itself a symptom of a spiritual disease. Or, perhaps, it is a condition that tends to develop at a certain stage in the spiritual life and is itself simply a marker of that stage. It is the spiritual equivalent of adolescence where the young try out all sorts of ideas and actions with the conviction that no one else has ever had these thoughts or feelings and they are exploring them for the first time. How can it be that no one else has ever seen just how important and ultimate these thoughts and feelings are?

Adolescence is not a disease, of course, although some parents may be inclined to treat it that way. Rather it is part of the process of maturation. Similarly, when a spiritual father or mother sees the “zealousness for truth” spoken of by St. Isaac, they recognize a stage in the spiritual development of the person. But just as with adolescence, if the condition persists, spiritual growth is arrested. One is stuck in the adolescent stage of the spiritual life."

I think that we Christians who do not integrate our zeal into the wholeness of our being and personhood - that wholeness being in Christ (Colossians 3.4) - then we remain, in a sense, stuck continually in the first week of Lent. We are stuck in the endless prostrations of Forgiveness Sunday and the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. If, however, we can move beyond adolescence, to harness and sanctify our zeal, then we can begin to truly await the Bridegroom, and partake of the everlasting Paschal banquet.

"The Lenten Spring Has Come"

Many people are fasting from various electronic media practices, such as blogging, for Lent. I, on the other hand, am returning to it. For some time, Constantly Reading Four Quartets has existed in a state of benign neglect, like some forlorn neighbourhood, furtively visited.

Over the period of Great Lent, I hope to write more here again. There is a returning aspect to the Lenten season. Father Alexander Schmemman, in his Journals describes Holy Week in this way, that it is like a flowing river, to which the Church annually returns us. His words remind me of a text from the prophesy of Hosea:

"Come, let us return to the LORD;
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD;
his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth."

- Hosea 6.1-3

This photo of His Beatitude, Metropolitan JONAH, was taken at the time of his consecration to the Episcopacy. I think it perfectly sums up the love that abides in Christ's Church. This image seems to me like an icon of the Good Shepherd. Metropolitan JONAH has some potent words for us all as we begin this season of repentance.

May God help us all, in practical and concrete ways, to strive for "whole-mindedness" and love. Forgive me, my brothers and sisters.

A Prayer by the Lake

Stories are long, too long;
the moral is short - one word.
You are that word, O Word of God.
You are the moral of all stories.
What the stars write across the heaven, the grass whispers on earth.
What the water gurgles in the sea, fire rumbles beneath the sea.
What an angel says with his eyes, the imam shouts from his minaret.
What the past has said and fled, the present is saying and fleeing.
There is one essence for all things; there is one moral for all stories.
Things are tales of heaven. You are the meaning of all tales.
Stories are your length and breadth. You are the brevity of all stories.
You are a nugget of gold in a knoll of stone.
When I say your name, I have said everything and more than everything;
Oh my love, have mercy on me!
Oh my Might and Truth, have mercy on me!

Poem 13, "Prayers by the Lake," Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich

American Thanksgiving

See here for a Thanksgiving reflection. And why not here too for good measure.

BEYOND

A portable art gallery not big enough to require a building but not small enough to be written on a grain of rice.

Christmas presence

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Icon pin of St Xenia of St. Petersburg, by the hand of Abigail Maria Fernandes, 2007.

In the early hours of Christmas morning, while we were still in Church after the Nativity Vigil and Liturgy, we received a beautiful Christmas care package from my sister. It was carried over the mountains by a friend.

In the care package, atop the other gifts, was a holy image I had commissioned, serendipitously arriving in time to be Krista's Christmas present. We had the image blessed and Krista wore the pin on Theophany.

Here you can see the scale of the icon pin compared with a penny:

We are blessed to have this icon of this strange, holy women whose story and prayers have meant so much to our family.

Winter in the North Country - Wishing I had some Boots of Spanish Leather

This morning as I drove to pick up Krista from her night shift I had on the cd Putumayo Presents American Folk (2005). Though I've heard it countless times before, Nancy Griffith's version of Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather stood out to me.

I think of this song as one of Dylan's 'eternal' ballads, because even though it was written in 1963, it could have been written a hundred years earlier.

The lyrics are a dialogue between two lovers, separated by distance and perspective. The one keeps offering the 'things' of this world, whereas all that is really wanted is the presence of the Beloved:

No, there's nothin' you can send me, my own true love,

There's nothin' I wish to be ownin'.

Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled,

From across that lonesome ocean.

Presence is that most essential of realities. I have been recently wading through Walter Ong's The Presence of the Word, but listening to "Boots of Spanish Leather" in the snowy Edmonton darkness this morning finally made it click.

I stayed up late last night, reorganizing bookshelves, and rose early this morning - but I have not felt as awake for some time. I slept while Krista worked through the night. She will sleep as I work through the day, but, as T.S. Eliot indicated, in love there is no distance. I know that full well this morning. I am blessed beyond deserving.

Friesen Family Band

If you like faith-based roots music rising out of the "family band" tradition, you absolutely must check out the sensational Friesen Family Band. This jaw-droppingly talented collective of seven family members - a Mom, Dad and five kids ages infant through 13 - played here in Edmonton last Friday night. Krista and I caught their show at the Lendrum Mennonite Brethren Church and were blown away. Almost all of the songs are original compositions by Chris Friesen. Some are traditional, including a beautiful setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins' "God's Grandeur." The musicianship and vocal ability of these children is pretty astounding.

As well, we are proud to call the Friesens both friends (as we've known them a while) and neighbours - since they only live a few blocks away!

Check em' out. And enjoy.

Sacred Time, Camp, and St. Arseny

I grew up going to Summer Camp. Every year. Days and nights at camp were the fulcrom of the year, and initiated me from my earliest days into the mystery of sacred time. Though I didn't grow up with a highly articulated notion of the liturgical seasons, they were still there, lurking under the weight of a decade of sleeping bags, bug spray, and match-stick crafts. From age zero to five, my family spent summers at Silver Lake Wesleyan Camp in Ontario. All six of us slept in tents for two months. I took my first steps there, in a cottage belonging to our friends. From five until seventeen, the Nazarenes rented Camp Charis near Chilliwack, British Columbia. Most of the pivotal moments of my youth were there.

I think this year marks the fourth annual St. Arseny Camp in the Deanery of British Columbia. I am absolutely amazed by the growth of this tremendous ministry to the young people there in BC. You have to see these pictures to believe it! The dedicated volunteer staff of this camp should be given accolades of thanks. A new generation has the opportunity to encounter the beauty and goodness of God amidst trees, lakes, and rivers.

This Camp, we should remember, is fittingly dedicated to our own St. Arseny of Canada, Archbishop of Winnipeg from 1926-1945. Though he has not been formally canonized by the Church, we here in Canada know how well Christ shone in him. He was even shot (in the "leg") while serving the Divine Liturgy! But he continued to serve, and because of his eloquence, became known as the "Canadian Chrysostom." So, for those of you who don't know him, please meet St. Arseny, and remember his Camp if you would.

Fr. John serving the Proskomedia for the kids to see the Gifts being prepared and the special prayers said.

Glory to God for All Things!

Like gold, refined by fire...

Anyone who truly knows me, knows that I am a serious and committed whistler. This has gotten me in trouble on various occasions - namely at Church, and when I worked briefly for a firm of highly superstitious Lithuanian lawyers.

When Krista and I were getting to know each other, over a Lenten season, she was curious to find out what this one particular tune was that I was often whistling. My good friend Sandra can attest that it'd been my constant, unconscious refrain for years. The tune is none other than the first verse of the song "Refiner's Fire," by my fellow British Columbian, Brian Doerksen. Some of you will be familiar with this song, and some will not; Some will love it for various reasons, and others will perhaps disdain it. I love it.

The song uses the Biblical metaphor of testing and purifying precious metals to speak of the softening and cleansing of the heart, mind, and spirit.

A man who knows much more about metal than I has written some beautiful words about words. I offer his words, while I wait for my own to return...

the light still shines...

Thanks for your patience... more to come soon.

There's been a lot going on lately...

I usually resist as much as possible the easy road of simply responding "I'm busy" to most questions of how things are these days. But it is appropriate. I've taken on various additional responsibilities in my professional work, am continuing on with various duties in the Church, and Krista and I have had lots of company lately - which, for us, is quite honestly a joy. My lovely wife has had plenty on her plate as well! So it is good in the midst of these seasons of many things, to "unbusy my heart" and celebrate the important things. Our cup runneth over!



Last week we joined with our Church across Canada in celebrating with Archbishop SERAPHIM the 20th anniversary of his consecration to the Episcopate. Krista has known our gracious Bishop since she was five, and remembers fondly throwing flowers as he entered the Church for his first visits to Holy Resurrection in Saskatoon. I've known His Eminence only since '99 or so, but it is always a blessing to be with him, and to share in his immense capacity for the joy of the Resurrection and eternal life. The weekend as totally exhausting (in a good way), and we had Gabe Friesen and his Dad (Protodeacon Wilhelm) with us to share in the love.

His Grace Bishop BENJAMIN, Gabe, and Protodeacon Wilhelm

So hear's to 'unbusyness of heart' in times of many tasks and duties!

Congraduations Krista!

I just have to give congratulations to my esteemed collaborator in life, my brilliant and beautiful wife Krista, on receiving her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree yesterday from the University of ALberta. It was a truly inspiring Convocation ceremony, and Krista's Baba was able to come from Saskatoon to share in the celebrations. Many years to you, my Love!

Check out a few more memories here.

Author of "Purity & Danger" Dies...

Rest in Peace, Mary Douglas.

three years, five months, and nine days ago...

Thanks, Victoria for passing on this photo. Look how young Jesse looks! Fr. Dennis looks a little different too!

On the Coast of Paradise

For the past ten days, Krista and I have been meandering. We went to BC, for my parents' 40th Anniversary, and then out to Victoria for the wedding of our close friends Mira and Matthew. It is a 12 hour drive, and every time I am amazed by the topography and the verdant green of the Fraser Valley. To me, it is what it means to be returning home. I drink in that green, so distinct from the beige prairies of Alberta.

We were honoured to serve as sponsors for the Bride and Groom, a deep and humbling task in the Orthodox Church, which entails not only holding the candles at their Crowning, but undertaking spiritually for their marriage from that day forever. They are really authentic people, and we got to share this immensely holy, harrowing week with them.


As part of our preparation, Matthew and I made a brief overnight trip to the Hermitage of the Holy Transfiguration on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. Founded by Father Gregory Papazian in Quebec in 1977, this community was relocated to the Sunshine Coast around 2000. This hermitage truly belongs to another realm, that of the eternal kingdom, and yet is entirely rooted in this world, in the Creation, the arena of the Incarnation. I won't attempt to capture anything that the monks told me there, because (as you can probably understand) they don't really like to have their words pasted all over the internet. I will say simply that we had many free and full conversations, and meeting Fr. Gregory, Fr. Deacon Samuel, and Brother Moses, was a like a sort of reunion for me. (Not in any sort of strange or mystical way, but simply in the warm, unassuming, and down-to-earth way they showed their hospitality). Matthew D. had been there several times before and was well known to the monks. But very quickly, I discovered that we knew so many people in common that meeting them felt like meeting family.

So I will simply show some pictures and share some of my experience of being there on their 'Mount Tabor.' Click on any image for a larger view.

The hermitage is located on the Sunshine Coast of BC, accessible only by ferry from the Vancouver area. We drove country roads for about ten minutes to reach the access path to the skete. The land was donated by an Orthodox couple, for whom the monks spent nearly a year constructing this beautiful home.

Below their benefactor's house is the hermitage itself, built of squared logs with dovetail joinery. In the foreground you can see the outdoor bread oven and the fence of the monastery garden. The entry porch on the left leads into the front hall and directly into the chapel.

Here are the monks themselves, from left to right: Fr. Deacon ("just call me 'brother') Samuel, Brother Moses (I understand according to his monastic vows he would normally also be called "father," but prefers "brother" too, and the Father of the house, Igumen Gregory, a monk of the Great Schema. I think this picture well captures their good humour.

As it turned out, Brother Samuel knew Krista's family from back in Saskatoon. He took a Ukrainian course with Krista's mom, and was encouraged in his vocation by a specific sermon of Fr. Phillip's. As well, Krista had met Brother Moses several years back, just before he decided to become a monk. Br. Samuel, from what I gather, runs the candle factory, and Br. Moses is a gifted iconographer and wood carver. Matthew and I brought several boxes of used beeswax candle stubs from St. Herman's in Edmonton, which the monks will recycle into new candles. (They made the originals too).

We arrived about 5:30pm on Wednesday evening, and Fr. Gregory invited us to sit down and relax for a while. Here you can see Tristan the cat, Matthew, and Fr. Gregory.

Another angle of the main sitting area. The interior of the hermitage is coated with a simple whitewash. Everything is very clean and simple. There is a slight fragrance of herbs. The night was bright and warm, with a refreshing breeze.
Br. Moses prepared supper while we visited. Actually, in this picture he's saying "oh, if you're going to take my picture I better pretend to be cooking."

After a while, we moved around the corner into the small chapel for Vespers, which began with the percussive call of the simandron and the bells. Matthew and I joined in the singing. It was ever-familiar Obikhod chant, led by Deacon Samuel's clear tenor voice. But somehow it sounded fresh. Beautiful. Then this amazing event. At the end of Vespers, while still singing, bread was brought out from the altar area, and was carried to the dining table - all carefully laden with our evening meal (their one main meal of the day). This act connecting the worship of the temple to the sustenance around the table struck me as being totally organic and deeply Christian. Our meal was a delicious soup, served with qinoa, the monastery bread, and some zesty feta. So good. We talked amiably over dinner, and many stories were shared. The monks asked me about my life and I shared my story. We drank some herbal tea, and soon, it was time for evening prayers, concluding with the beautiful setting of "Rejoice, O Unwedded Bride." Fr. Gregory anointed us, and we were bidden "a peaceful night."

It was 8:30pm. Deacon Samuel had given me his upstairs room for the night. I asked him what the schedule would be. He said that he would sound the simandron at 2am, which was usually the beginning of the quiet hours of prayer in the rooms. At four, he would sound it again for Matins. I took a few pictures, and tucked into the small bed which was prepared for me.

Brother Samuel's prayer corner at two-ish in the morning.

I came across this photo of Saint Olga of Alaska upstairs on the bookshelf.

Matins ended around 5:15am, and Fr. Gregory showed me around a little bit, including his cell, where he spends the first week of each month in quiet. The monks made Matthew and I some delicious porridge with butter and brown sugar, and we also drank some cocoa, which they drink bitter, but insisted upon sweetening for us. The conversation was inspiring, and very helpful to both Matthew and I. We boarded the 8:15am ferry back to Horseshoe Bay. Of course, this only skims the surface. Brother Moses had assured me that "this ain't Mt. Athos," and that I should feel free to bring Krista to visit next time. I am looking forward to it.

The Birth of Ambrose

The college I arrived at as an arrogant 17 year old, and later taught at, has changed its name. I could not be more pleased about the change, and its connection to 'the Great Tradition.' Many years to Ambrose University College!

From the press release:

"Ambrose University College is named after Ambrose of Milan, a fourth-century Christian who was called in 374 A.D. from a successful career as a governor to become head of the Christian church in Milan, Italy. Ambrose left his mark as a hymn writer, preacher, pastor, and an educator; he is best known for leading Augustine to faith and for his strong defense of orthodox Christology.

Ambrose stands as one of the great Christians of his generation who made an outstanding contribution to church and society. In adopting his name for our university college we underscore our commitment to prepare students for service and leadership in church and society in keeping with our historic Christian faith."

And here's a good one from the man himself:

"When we speak of wisdom, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking about Christ. When we are speaking about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking about Christ."

Christ is Risen!

(Click on the image for a larger view)

A Little Something from "Four Quartets"

{I took this photo at our church on the Sunday of the Cross, a few weeks ago}

The Fourth Part of "East Coker"

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

- T.S. Eliot

Also, here's another poem for Holy Week, this one by Boris Pasternak:

He had renounced with no hostility
as if returning property on loan
his works of wonder and his might
and now,like us,was mortal.
Nights distance seemed the brink
of annihilation of nonexistence
the universe's span was void of life
the garden only a ground of being...
Seest thou, the passing of ages is like a parable
and in its passing it may burst to flame
In the name then of its awesome majesty
I shall in voluntary suffering descend into my grave
I shall descend into my grave.
And on the third day rise again
And even as barges float down a river
So shall the centuries,trailing live a caravan,
come for judgement,
out of the dark, to me.

- Boris Pasternak

Escarpment Blues

Escarpment Blues
If they blow a hole in my backyard
Everyone is gonna run away
The creeks won’t flow to the Great Lake below
Will the water in the wells still be ok?

We’ll need to build some new apartments
And I know we’re gonna have to fix the roads
But if we blow a hole in the escarpment
The wild ones won’t have anywhere to go

If they blow a hole in the backbone
The one that runs cross the muscles of the land
We might get a load of stone for the road
But I don’t know how much longer we can stand

We’ll keep driving on the Blind Line
If we don’t know where we want to go
Even knowledge that’s sound can get watered down
Truth can get sucked out the car window

We’re two-thirds water
What do we really need?
But sun, showers, soil and seed
We’re two-thirds water
The aquifers provide
Deep down in the rock
There’s a pearl inside

If they blow a hole in the backbone
The one that runs across the muscles of the land
We might get a load of stone for the road
But I don’t know how much longer we can stand

- Sarah Harmer.

Thanks where thanks are due...

I thank the Ochlophobist for his stalwart defence of the fruits of our Cistercian brethren's labours.

Jesus Camp

About a month ago, Krista and I happened to be watching late night TV (something we very rarely do), and came across George Stromboulopoulos' The Hour, one of the most worthwhile programs on the good ole' CBC.The main feature of this particular episode was the documentary film Jesus Camp, and the film's Directors were George's guests.

I have to say that I am still processing many of the questions and issues raised by this fascinating film. Originally the documentary was geared more towards understanding the spirituality of children in this particular Charismatic stream of U.S. Christianity (characterized by Pastor Becky Fischer's "Jesus Camps.) Then, as filming progressed, the significant political themes came more and more into the forefront.

After reflecting on it, I don't think I would recommend Jesus Camp to anyone with major baggage or axes to grind about their Evangelical upbringing. For those, I suspect the film would only stir up very painful emotions. For others (and I include myself in this lot) who have any kind of positive regard or appreciation for the Pentecostal tradition, and the relationship of religion to public life, I would wholewheartedly suggest that you see this film. It follows Pastor Becky's ministry, as well as the lives of three children: Levi, Rachel, and Tori - all who attend Jesus Camp. These kids are bright, serious, articulate, and 100% committed to following Christ according to the teachings they have learned. One of the main emphases of these types of camps is intensive teaching/preaching geared towards young children, and their full involvement in the life and ministry of the Church.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the film relates to the highly emotional nature of Pentecostalism/Charismatic Christianity. There are many scenes of children weeping, speaking in tongues, and experiencing various spiritual phenomena typical to the Charismatic movement. For various viewers (both secular and non-Charismatic Christian), this type of thing may be disturbing. I have to admit that while I was aware of this kind of thing going on, and come from an Evangelical background myself, it was still at times shocking to see. There was one charming scene where a tiny girl (maybe three or four) brings around a Kleenex box for one particulary moved young boy wracked with sobs. I'll admit I have a deep respect for the seriousness and focus of these "true believers." On the other hand, I am somewhat suspicious that this can easily degrade into the basest form of spiritual manipulation. One of my former colleagues at the Nazarene University College told me one time that he thought Pentecostalism had only a 'theology of speaking,' and no 'theology of listening' or quiet.

So perhaps what we might need is a new St. Gregory Palamas to rise up in our day, to remind us that perhaps true Christianity has more to do sometimes with listening than with speaking.

The Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

As I have my face to the ground during this Lenten service, the thought crosses my mind, just as you can vaguely hear the priest’s footsteps as he carries the holy gifts: “how beautiful are the feet of him who brings Good News.”


At my first Pre-Sanctified Liturgy, at St. Peter the Aleut, ten years ago this year, I wondered, "how long can I last without peeking?" It's probably only 30 seconds or something, but it seems like a long time. As we were talking about it last week, Krista admitted she always used to peak. Very cute. Even this reminds me that the Apostles were those who had "seen with their eyes." (1 John 1.1) As the Lord said to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and have yet believed" (John 20.29).

It is somehow in the singing of the Psalms of Ascent at the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts that I remember who I am. Each year reminds me that I am a member of the sojourning people of God, at search for our Promised Land in God. I grew to love these Psalms first through Eugene Peterson's fine book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

I don’t know if it is the same melody in all places, but it is that melody which strangely welcomes me to the Lenten pilgrimage in earnest. We are “going up” in the same way Israel's pilgrims ascended up to Jerusalem for the great festivals of salvation. But, even more, “God is the Lord and has revealed Himself.” We are members of his very Body. The fact that our liturgical journey in this particular Liturgy brings us up to partake of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ reveals that He is the ‘end’ of all our searching.

Currently listening to

My good friend Mike "T-Bone" Angus leant me this record last night. Brilliant, brilliant music. It reminds me of one of my favourite lines in High Fidelity when a girl comes into Championship Vinyl and asks the existentially in-the-dumps store owner "do you have Soul?"

Ray Lamontagne has soul. But not really James Brown style soul.

T-Bone was telling me that Lamontagne used to work in a shoe factory somewhere in the Carolinas, and then all of a sudden heard a Stephen Stills song one night while lying in bed, and he thought, "why am I not making music?"

The West Beyond the West

{Textile squares hanging in Kim's design studio at Capilano College reminded me of Tibetan "prayer flags"}.

Last Thursday morning Krista drove me to the airport and I flew just over an hour to the city of glass, water, and cedar. Douglas Coupland has written well about this fair city. And soon, in an annual dance, it will be drenched with cherry blossoms. In Life After God, Coupland writes about how the geography ofVancouver, hanging on the edge of the world, created a new moral space, beyond the boundaries of the Rockies, a place where people from "back east" could create something new.

Vancouver has always lived large in my consciousness, since, for most of my childhood it was "the city." My parents used to take us often - a few times a month to picnic on the lawn in front of the Ferguson Point Tea House at Stanley Park, overlooking Spanish Banks. We would stroll through Gastown in the early 80s, and I had a ritual of playing amidst the First Nations' treasures at Hill's, and then buying butterscotch candies in a tartan tin at some Scottish tourist shoppe.

At the course I took on Friday on the topic of "The Challenge of Sustainability for Heritage Conservation" , I learned that in the 1970's the plan was to raze all of Gastown to build a dozen or so high-rise towers. I also learned how, during World War Two, the Canadian beaurocrat W.C. Clifford wrote most of the tax code here in Canada specifically to encourage the demolition of older buildings. He wanted a fresh start, and worked tenaciously to make level every historic urban area in Canada a tabula rasa for his conception of a rational, Modernist plane. Clifford went so far as to actually call those who cherished older buildings "perverts." Are we? Am I? Despite the fact that "sustainability" is perhaps the slipperiest of planning buzzwords, and if you've been to a dozen conferences on the topic you've pretty much been to them all, I took one thing away from this day. That the possibility still exists to foster a culture of repair. This is really what the whole thing is about: finding modest ways to consider what we discard and throw away. The practice of salvage lived large in the course. Salvage is sometimes good - but not "vulturistic" salvaging... robbing Peter to pay Paul. The very fact that the culture of repair was mentioned was hopeful to me, planning as I am to take my broken wedding shoes to a cobbler one of these days.

* * * * * * *

In the course of the weekend, I had many blessings: Attending Kim's classes with her and just getting some good visits in, meeting some new friends (as well as visiting old ones for French Toast on Saturday), and enjoying some peaceful music. Back in the Edmonton airport, as I waited for my Beloved to come pick me up, I talked Church politics (God, forgive me!) with an Eastern Catholic nun from Saskatoon. No matter how enchanting Vancouver is, there is substitute for coming home.

* * * * * * *

Speaking of another kind of "conservation," please do take a moment to check out A Rocha Canada. This is an amazing organization that works worldwide, encouraging Christians to engage in care for the Creation. Our good friends Jay and Milissa Ewing are embarking on a journey with A Rocha as Directors of the Field Study Centre in Canada. This is an amazing work, so please join in prayer with and for them!

"The greatest of these is..."

I have written before about why I appreciate Valentine's Day. So I today I simply offer these words to my Valentine, my Beloved Krista:

"A loaf of dry bread and bare earth for a bed
In the company of the beloved, is full of happiness.
Let humility be the word,
Resignation the offering,
The tongue be the mint of sweet speech."

-Anand Karaj, Sikh Marriage Ceremony, 1552

Rachmaninoff at First Baptist

Saturday night, after Vespers at our own church, we attended the the Da Camera Singers' performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil. It was exhilarating to hear the strains of his familiar setting of
Благослови, душе моя (греческого роспева)
"Praise the Lord, O my soul," sung with live voices, and, to my ears, it was sublime. I'm told by those who would know that the mainly English-speaking choir handled the Slavonic well.

At coffee hour yesterday, I chatted with a musically sophistocated Muscovite fellow-parishioner about it. She had avoided the concert because she was reticent to believe that a chamber choir could sustain the vocal power required for the piece. Perhaps this is true, but I didn't notice. I heard subtlety and serene strength. Apparently Rachmaninoff never intended this piece to be done liturgically, but simply as "a sacred choral symphony." I can understand why... it's degree of difficulty would baffle all but the most accomplished church choirs. Nevertheless, hearing this music was witnessing the presence of the eternal Kingdom.

It was also meaningful for me to be at First Baptist Church in Edmonton for the first time, as it is the spiritual home of our friends Greg, Sara and Soren Hendricks, and a sister church to First Baptist in Vancouver, which holds fond memories for me. I used to go there sometimes with my sister Kim, to hear Dr. Bruce Milne's summer preaching on the Book of Revelation, some 12 years ago. Then, and on Saturday night, even without the incense, I knew I was on holy ground.

At Superstore with the Iconographer

Lately Krista and I have been reading a fair bit of poetry since she splurged and bought me Rilke's Book of Hours. And some might know that "On His Blindness," by John Milton, is one of the poems closest to my heart, describing acutely what I felt at a few times on my journey to the Orthodox Church. (I can identify somewhat with this friend and fellow traveller).

On His Blindness

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.

- John Milton, 1608-1674

Last night I had the experience of going grocery shopping with the master iconographer, Heiko Schlieper. He is 76. We are friends. I've known Heiko only 3 years, since I moved to this provincial city in the Spring of 2003, a city locked in winter for seemingly half the year. I started working very closely with Heiko just as his eyesight was dimming. I watched him paint his last icons, a panel of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God, and Christ's Last Instructions to the Apostles, over the door exiting the narthex of St. George's Church. I interviewed him on tape each morning for about six months, before I went to work at the Tree Stone Bakery, gathering information on the several-year-long project of painting his masterpiece of St. George's.


After some intense training, in December '04, I helped him gild the last icon in the Church (not the dome pictured here, which he did solo in the early 90s). He used double-weight German gold leaf from the Ruhl company, "gold-beaters" Heiko calls them. We mistakenly applied 12-hour gold size and so it was nearly midnight when we climbed the ten-foot scaffold to start gilding. It was incredible. Specs of gold floated in the sacred air. As I recall, Heiko didn't offer his traditional incense (Benson & Hedges 100s) that night. I worked very slowly and carefully. Heiko, nearly blind, worked quickly and perfectly, his fingers knowing his image and the gold so well. Is it sacreligious to admit that we blasted Mahler that night as we gilded?

Since the Fall, we have shopped together with Heiko. It is an everyday activity that one can easily take for granted. Heiko had carefully arranged a service called "Seniors Driving Seniors," to take him shopping, but they only drive you, and he needs assistance in the store to procure his gourmet ingredients. So he had arranged with another company to have an assistant meet him there, but when he finally did, the guy they assigned admitted that he could not read! So, it works out much better this way. We go together - and since Krista and I have the requisite skills of both driving and literacy, grocery shopping goes much more smoothly. And, Heiko generously cooks amazing sauces and treats for us to freeze and use at home, always adding, "It's easier to make a larger amount." Last night we went to both the Italian centre and Superstore. Heiko cracks wise, usually with salty limericks about our former Governor General. It is good simply to be with him, to help him find his quail eggs, sardines, and pork fat for his homemade sausages. I sometimes think he can do more blind, at 76, than most people can who have sight and the prime of life. He "best bears His milde yoak."
May God grant him many years...

The south transept of St. George's Church.

Suite Francaise

I go through phases with reading novels. For a time, I will read novels rapaciously, one after the next. Novels are the books that I cannot put down. I have stayed up all night reading: The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse Five, Barney's Version, The Brothers Karamazov. Then I will go through months, years! of not cracking a novel, consumed as I can get with the stuff of my last post. But recently a good friend and colleague (another Matthew), recommended Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. She wrote it during the Nazi occupation of France, before perishing in the death camp of Auschwistz. Her daughters protected the manuscript, thinking it was a journal, only to find out later it was a breathtaking fiction. Only recently was it translated from the French. I started it last night, and read the first several chapters. It has the feel, even in translation, of a classic. So, if you're the novel-reading sort, I recommend Suite Francaise.

Chalcedon feels like a guilty pleasure...

Over lunch I browsed the stacks in the Rutherford Library at the University of Alberta. It is one of the reasons I love working on campus. (For those of you who don't know, I am employed by Athabasca University, but work fully integrated into a Government of Alberta branch, helping to protect historic buildings and other cultural landscapes). I came across this new, three-volume, critical edition of The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. It is beautifully done. I waded in briefly to the first few pages of the proceedings of this Council, and the translation reads elegantly, conjuring up what it must have felt like, eight days before the Ides of October, 451, when the bishops and imperial officials gathered together in the Church of the holy martyr Euphemia. I have to admit, it is almost like a soap opera, with the degree of drama the opening ceremonies of the Council experienced: accusations of murder, threats, and thwarted egos. And in the midst of it, the two Natures of the Incarnate One are revealed. I feel like a fly on the wall. I want to linger.

Our friend Ryan Szarko made these icon-printed t-shirts and gave them as gifts to me, for being the sponsor for his chrismation, and also to Krista, Fr. Phillip, and Fr. Dennis for their encouragement along the way. We've really enjoyed getting to know Ryan this past year since he wandered into St. Herman's for the Litya of Palm Sunday Vespers last year. He is a multi-talented, all-around good guy, who, in addition to creating these wearable holy images is finishing his Master's in Speech Pathology, is an accomplished musician, and also teaches aquasize!

Here you can see Krista's shirt picturing St. Seraphim of Sarov during his thousand days of prayer on the rock.




And here's yours truly, wearing the image of St. John the Baptist and Forerunner, which was very fitting since I'm currently reading Bulgakov's book on St. John, Friend of the Bridegroom.

Thanks, Ryan, for these thoughtful gifts.

Holy Books: Is Religion the Problem?

Clarion is running this essay by my friend, David Goa. Well worth a read with regard to the politicization of various holy texts. Here's an excerpt:

"Two opposing views — the evangelical-literalist perspective for the understanding of the Bible and the liberal-modernist perspective for the understanding of the Bible — have shaped public discourse in North America almost entirely and still largely do. They have influenced, although in not as marked a way, European public discourse as well. What seems to have escaped most of us is that they were born together. They are co-dependent twins. They need each other for their own identity. It is so with all neuroses. Literalists like to see the modernists as the firstborn. They must battle with them for a recovery of a living, engaged faith. Modernists like to see the literalists as the firstborn. They must battle with them for a recovery of reason. My sense is that each of them sees the other as a scapegoat for the problems of modernity. Here is one of the taproots of religious fundamentalism and secular fundamentalism in North America."

Beyond Issue 15

I wait with bated breath for Beyond Issue 15. Two seasons have passed since I interviewed Nelofer Pazira for this luminescent Canadian magazine, and now the cover has been unveiled.

Carve out a few hours of leisure and go read this. The Ochlophobist is the new Josef Pieper.

Mount Cheam by E.J. Hughes, 1913-2007

This is the mountain you see from my parents' kitchen window. Of course, this is more the Agassiz view of Cheam than the Chilliwack view. Rest in peace, E.J. Hughes.

H2O and the Waters of Remembrance

This past weekend I walked with Krista along the banks of frozen Lac Beauvert. {At least, it was mainly frozen. Every once in a while we would hear sharp rumbling noises as the ice cleaved and cracked.} We were there as guests of Krista’s parents, who had brought us to the venerable Jasper Park Lodge, as a generous family Christmas gift. It was here, over a weekend when we remember the renewal of all creation in Christ – commemorated by the blessing of water – that I had the chance to reflect upon the goodness of the past two weeks.

We were out in BC for ten days with family and friends: carols with my Mom and Dad, Vancouver with Kim, Deep Cove with Ryan Wugalter and my good old friend Erik Hermans (who I haven't seen in years), walks at Cultus Lake with the Lanteignes, and, of course the Jordans' epic New Years’ party. It was a Psalm 133-type of holiday, in that the goodness of simply being together broke up most of the clouds of gloom that often attempts to haunt holidays with family and friends.


Krista and I skipping stones with Amy and our Godson Owen Lanteigne at Cultus Lake.

It is intriguing to me how much of our liturgical worship focuses on water. Not surprisingly, most of the 32 readings for Theophany are entirely centred upon images of water. Likewise each Vespers (for the day begins at sundown) lifts up Psalm 104, rehearsing how God provides water for all of His Creation. From each of our own places of imprisonment we have been offered a "way out," literally an exodos through "water and the spirit."

Some years ago, Ivan Illich wrote a compelling essay entitled "H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness." in which he contrasts mere "H2O" to the allusive element we call "water." His argument highlighted our constant temptation to reduce the good through comodification. In myth and Scripture, water takes on a much more potent, and polyvalent meaning than simply its chemical ingredients. In Genesis, as in Gilgamesh, water stands for chaos. But it is also charged with holiness as it close to death and life. It is the void out of which dry land is redeemed. The sea usually takes on this chaotic character. It is wild, untamable and free. Rivers are places of transformation - often cleansing and healing (think of the Jordan River or the River that flows through the New Jerusalem). This year, storms compromised the city of Vancouver's water, forcing millions to change their daily routines and stand in temporary solidarity with those for whom clean water is a luxury.

So I raise a glass (of water) to our dear friends and family near and far. With the Feast!

Copyright Sufjan Stevens 2006

If you like, you can click on each image to enlarge.

The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe

WILD air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Tomorrow I will cross the Peace River

A. Y. Jackson, Peace River Bridge, 1943.

Baptism

Since the cold sea first learned to speak in tongues
and howled aghast at its madman's chains,
since the Eden break, since the winterspring,
since the star-aspired spires rained
back to earth with stone disdain,
who's thanked the Lord for broken things?

Down the babbled days that brook no praise
or blame - no everlast, no stay -
the brutal waters waste to bless:
the transubstantial stones decay,
the solid monstrance wears away.
Nothing is its inwardness.

The greenhill blood the green heart beats,
even this at last must cease.
From the sudden shade, from the owl light,
a sparrow falls and falling, dies.
The blood tide dims. Dark waters rise
till lowered sky and lakeshore meet

and all things fade: this pine, this tree,
this life, this scene, this this - now not.
And yet, not not. In dark, we see:
nothing's found where nothing's sought,
in silence is the silence caught,
and still breath moves the unmoving sea.

- Joseph Bottum

My good friend and colleague (another Matthew) gave me this poem this morning. There are many echoes in these words, of philosophy, and perhaps even of good ole' Eliot going on about the "still point." To me it has shades of Pseudo-Dionysius, and of Abbot Suger, in its emphasis on the particularity of what is experienced. The specificity and irreduceableness of humanity's suffering and glory, and also the strange possibility of hope. Since Bottum is a doctor of medieval philosophy, I have no doubt he knows Duns Scotus, who would have called it haecceitas - "thisness." What is unassumed is unhealed. Perhaps the meaning is this: Water was chaos, but the chaotic waters were calmed one night on stormy Galilee. All has been assumed, and in the waters of baptism we become totally immersed in that assuming.

Better Than Life

This post, writtten by a guy I heard speak (but didn't meet) at the AAR Conference (an Olivet alumni no less!), has gotten me terriby nostalgic. I remember the first book I ever stayed up all night reading - The Great Gatsby, on Labour Day 2005, under the apple tree in my parent's back yard. When it got too cold and dark, I moved inside to the green-shag-covered living room. Daniel Pennac was right. Sometimes reading is "better than life."

God and Polar Bears

Courtesy of Becoming Human:

“People, like animals, do not pay attention to what exists in excessive abundance, but only open their eyes before what is rare or exceptional. There is too much of You, O Lord, my breath, therefore people do not see You. You are too obvious, O Lord, my sighing, therefore the attention of people is diverted from You and directed toward polar bears, toward rarities in the distance.”

-- St Nikolai (Velimirović) of Ochrid and Zica (Prayers by the Lake, Prayer 7)

Souvenir of Canada

Chimo!!! (Canadian for 'Aloha') Just finished watching "Souvenir of Canada" by Douglas Coupland. It somehow had a warm feel to it. It was neat to ponder on some of Canada's artifacts through the years. There is a great tribute to Terry Fox on this DVD and I have to say it was pretty moving. Coupland basically is showing the process of putting a "Canada House" together with white walls and purely Canadian items in it, Ookpik included (our national mascot...didn't you know?!?)... All in the name of the continuous search for our identity, which near the end was beautifully stated as our identity being that we are part of the land. The special features were also pretty fun, we particularly enjoyed the National Film Board (NFB) short clips. They are quite enjoyable...although I think Matthew remembers watching them back in school..Saskatchewan, or Saskatoon at least, must not have been quite as archaic as Chilliwack :)

Listening to...

Workingman's Blues #2.

Leithart on Radical Orthodoxy

Still processing the conference:

On Monday afternoon, I sat in on the crowded session reviewing a book entitled Theology and the Political: The New Debate. Basically, it seems to be a treatment of various issues in relationship between theology, Continential philosophy, and the political, associated with a theological movement known as "Radical Orthodoxy". The main figure behind this approach is Prof. John Milbank. If you're interested, see also this assessment in "First Things".

Until quite recently, I've not read much in this area, so it was excellent to hear from such important participants as Graham Ward and Conor Cunningham, who quite rightly reoriented the discussion away from Ontology per se and towards Christology and particularly, the Incarnation. Just before this session, at a previous session, I had the privilege of briefly meeting Prof. Peter Leithart. I think he was quite intrigued to hear that many of his books are being read by capital "O" Orthodox Christians. Leithart had this and this to say about these takes on "Radical Orthodoxy."

Compatriots in the District

The cool slang for Washington, D.C., is "the District."

This morning, before my last session at the conference, I finally made it down to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. With very full days of listening to academic papers (my new friend Dan Greeson has a good list of them), I've not had as much time to see "the District" as I would on a more leisurely trip. That said, I have wanted to visit these sites ever since reading about them in an article in a 1960's era National Geographic that I read as a kid. {Digression: In my parents' house we had hundreds of these old magazines, going back to the 40s - a wall of yellow. Every night, before bed, I would pick one at random and carefully page through it, reading whatever interested me. I always liked the old car adds in the front, and the black and white military school classified in the back.} I'm pretty sure this is how I picked up a lot of my trivia. In any case, this particular article was written by a young Sikh man {strangely he was from Burma and knew then U.N. Secretary General, U Thant.} This guy travelled around the States in a little campervan, recording his journey in photos as he went. As a ten-year-old, I greatly admired his spontaneity.

I called Krista and we got to visit through digital particles and soundwaves floating through the late November brightness here this morning. As I approached the Lincoln Memorial, I thought of this great man that I know mainly through Elton Trueblood's book Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American Anguish. I also thought of how much it resembles a classical pagan temple, right down to the statue of Lincoln seated inside. Then I saw the sign above his head, which reads:

"IN THIS TEMPLE /
AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE /
FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION /
THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN /
IS ENSHRINED FOREVER."

Several of the papers this weekend dealt with theology's relationship to the political.

I have always been struck by the religious nature of public life in the United States. Is it in spite of or because of "the separation of Church and State" that this country is so religious? When Karl Barth came to the States in the early 1960s, it was precisely the nation's deeply religious character that stood out to him. "I can see that in every way you are very religious," (Acts 17.22).

We talked as I walked up to the temple precinct. 1 Corinthians 8-11 flashed into my mind. Thankfully, there were no hot-dog carts in site, so I didn't have to worry about meat being offered to the idol; I did, however, accidentally kick over a travel mug of coffee that someone had left unattended. I'm hoping that this doesn't count as latreia? Krista asked, "Do Americans worship their Presidents, or something?" Touring these monuments you might get that impression. I felt as though I might as well have been in Delphi or Ephesos or somehting. Of course, there is a historical tradition of a quasi-imperial cult in the American republic. It was also in National Geographic that I first saw the painting "The Apotheosis of George Washington" by Constantino Brumidi. It is not surprising that this fresco was painted in 1865, at the conclusion of the Civil War and the year of the death of America's 'Messiah'-president, Lincoln. We should also be aware, as the Apostle was, as Barth was, that it is in the most religious societies that there exists the greatest tendancy and temptation towards idolatry. True worship of the true God is the only antidote.

Don't get me wrong. In good ole' Methodist fashion, my heart was 'strangely warmed' at these monuments this morning. As I entered into the naos of the Lincoln Memorial, I suddenly remembered that today is the the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple. But this was not all. I discovered that I was truly on hallowed ground. I soon found the spot where Dr. King gave uttered the words, "I have a dream..." Just down the steps, on the same day, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez sang "With God on Our Side".

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Most of us have many idolatries. In the precincts of national memory, I was challenged to wrestle with some of my own. I hope that the theological reflection on the political will bear good fruit.

In any case, I was also pleased to meet some fellow Canadians at the monuments.

Matthew Francis Goes to Washington

Yes, this is me standing in front of the White House. I've come here to Washington to attend the Annual Congress of the Society of Biblical Literature. It is a place filled with lots and lots of talk. There are about 4000 Religious Studies and Theology profs hanging around, talking on and on about one thing or another. And I diligently did my part. First thing this morning I presented my paper in the "Bible and American Popular Culture" Section, and our theme for this year was "Speciality Bibles." There is a pretty diverse selection of Bibles out there, including "Biblezines" which contain the whole text of the New Testament in a format akin to Seventeen or Men's Health . I wonder what Marshall McLuhan might think of these? I'm pretty happy with how it went, and had some helpful feedback from some of the attendees. A prof. from Texas presented on the very odd illustrated Bible called The Brick Testament, which has Biblical scenes conveyed entirely through Lego. (Warning: Not suitable for all viewers). My paper was entitled "The Orthodox Study Bible and Orthodox Identity in North America", and attempts to understand the meaning of the volume put out in 1993, interestingly by the same publisher as the Biblezines (collaboratively with a whole bunch of Orthodox clergy). Some people loved it, some people didn't. Whatever side you take, I argue it's still an important publication. If you're interested in conversing about this, feel free to post a comment or to email me.

Anyway, its been good to be here (after a crazy all-night flight and sprinting my lungs out in Toronto to catch my connection), and to see friends old and new. Oh yeah, and there's a room the size of two football fields full of theological books for sale at discount prices. Help!!

It is only minor consolation to know that during this sojourn, missing Krista and home... I can take solace in billions of words - I pray that some of them might even be meaningful.

St. John's Bakery, Toronto

The real bread of life...

Apocalyptic and the Beauty of God

I have my friend over at Becoming Human to thank for his link to this worthwhile sermon by Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright. It was preached at Harvard University in October, and explains elegantly in about 1000 words what I took a hundred or so pages to say at the end of my studies in Manchester.

I'm still learning to use George Orwell's rules from "Politics and the English Language" (1946):

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Akathist at Sts. Peter & Paul, Montreal

On Friday night we served an Akathist (a style of liturgical prayer-poetry) in the presence of the Port Arthur Mother of God Icon.

There is an interesting story behind this icon (surrounded by flowers on the left of this image - click on the picture for a larger view). This copy was given as a gift to our Archdiocese of Canada, and will be permanently located in our Cathedral in Ottawa.

You can see a few more photos from my trip to Montreal over here.

"Gospodi pomilui..."

After a weekend in Montreal immersed in the beauty of Slavonic Liturgy in a warm-hearted parish, I caught the papers last night on the flight home. Oh Lord! Another evangelical pastor walks the plank... and this morning has admitted to his sins.

Nevertheless, here is an interesting take on the whole Ted Haggard debaucle.

Who would have thought that just a week ago, in his Sunday Sermon on October 29 (it would be his last), Haggard began the sermon with a prayer that included these words:

“Heavenly Father give us grace and mercy, help us this next week and a half as we go into national elections and Lord we pray for our country. Father we pray lies would be exposed and deception exposed. Father we pray that wisdom would come upon our electorate…”

Lord, have mercy.

Home is where one starts from...

On Thursday I am flying to the city of my parents' meeting and courtship, the city of their wistful nostalgia at the mention of its name. It is the city of my pre-history, and the burial ground of my paternal grandparents. If time allows, I will try to spend a moment at their graveside. On Thursday, I am flying to Montreal.

To my knowledge, I've never been there. My mom and dad took us on a trip that way when I was two or three, but our car broke down in a small Francophone town called St. Isidore, and I fell out of the car, smashing my forehead on the curb. Blood spilled everywhere. My dad informed me (as he rushed me into some hospitable old lady's house to provide some First Aid), that I had broken my "pumper vein." So we didn't make it then to Montreal.

This time, I am going to lend a hand in the awe-inspiring, fatiguing, harrowing work of the Church (to attend our Archdiocesan Council meeting on behalf of the younger generations), a role I'm honoured to play - as an assistant to Fr. Richard. We go to parish rich in history, Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral... almost 100 years old. It has struggled, and flourished, and declined, and now, again begins to open up. They have extended a warm invitation to us. It is the Church of the Apostles who at times vehemently disagreed, but continued to love each other anyway. It is the Church of Iron Sharpening Iron (Proverbs 27.17 ).

So it's time here again to return to Four Quartets, now to East Coker.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

From 1973...

American religion columnist, and "Crunchy Con," Rod Dreher posted two excerpts from Fr. Schmemann's Journals last week. The first one reminds me of Milton's poem "On His Blindness." It is a lesson I need to keep on learning, that "they also serve who only stand and wait." The second one resonates very strongly with me personally as I've been on the road a fair bit these days. Father Alexander's words about the warmth of lit windows reminded me of my days homeless in Paris. These bits are so good I cannot help but to share them here:


March 9, 1973

"Tragic news about Father N.'s breakdown. So the symptoms I had noticed three weeks ago were real. I am afraid that the reason is clear: "He buried himself in his activity." And that is just what one should not do. One becomes unable to put things in perspective, to detach oneself, to push away all the fuss and the petty details that encumber our life and can devour our hearts. Actually, the cause is the same arrogance that seeks to convince me that all depends on me all relates to me. Then the "I" is filling all reality, and the downfall begins. The essential error of the modern man is to identify life with activism, with thought, etc., hence an almost complete inability simply to "live," i.e., to feel, to appreciate, to live life as a continuous gift. To walk to the train station in a light that feels like spring, in the rain, to be able to see, to sense, to be conscious of a morning ray of sun on the wall -- all of these are the reality of life. They are not the conditions for activism or for thought, they are not just an indifferent background, they are the reason one acts and thinks. Only in that reality of life does God reveal Himself, and not in acts and thoughts. That is why Julien Green is right when he says: "all is elsewhere" -- "the only truth lies in the swaying of bare branches in the sky." The same is true of communication. One does not communicate through talks and debates. The deeper and more joyful the communication, the less it depends on words. On the contrary, one is almost afraid of words because they might destroy the communion, cut off the joy.

I felt that most acutely on that New Year's eve, when I sat in Paris, in Adamovich's mansard. I had always heard that he preferred to talk about unimportant little events. True. But not because there was nothing to talk about, but because communicaton was so clearly what was happening so vividly between us. Hence my dislike for "profound" and especially spiritual conversations. Did Christ converse with his twelve followers while walking along the roads of Galilee? Did he resolve their problems and difficulties? Christianity is the continuation of that communication, its reality, its joy and effectiveness. "It is good to be here."

Outside, a beautiful springlike day! It is almost hot. I spent the whole day at home at my desk. Happiness."

December 17, 1973
Home

"I love my home, and to leave home and be away overnight is always like dying -- returning seems so very far away! I am always full of joy when I think about home. All homes, with lit windows behind which people live, give me infinite pleasure. I would love to enter each of them, to feel its uniqueness, the quality of its warmth. Each time I see a man or a woman walking with shopping bags, that is, going home, I think about them: they are going home, to real life, and I feel good, and they become somehow close and dear. I am always intrigued: What do people do when they do not "do" anything, when they just live? That is when their life becomes important, when their fate is determined. Simple bourgeois happiness is often despised by activists of all sorts who quiet often do not realize the depth of life itself; who think that life is an accumulation of activities. God gives us His Life, not ideas, doctrines, rules. At home, when all is done, life itself begins. Christ was homeless not because He despised simple happiness -- He did have a childhood, family, home -- but because He was at home everywhere in the world, which His Father created as the "home" of man. "Peace be with this house." We have our home and God's home, the Church, and the deepest experience of the Church is that of a home. Always the same and, above anything else, life itself -- the Liturgy, evening, morning, a feast -- and not an activity."

The Trees are Glad You're Back

Krista and I have been listening to our friend Amy's new album The Trees Are Glad You're Back since Saturday night. In honour of the title, we dropped by her new place last night with a spruce-scented candle (and to pick up a few more cd's for friends). Anyway, these songs are excellent, and rightly garnering some critical acclaim. Here's what CKUA's Luka Symons had to say when Amy was her feature artist on Nightcap October 12th:

"Take a piano. Put it in your living room by the wood burning stove. But not too close. And write. Write until you can't help but want to play the songs outside of your living room. That's Amy Seeley. Originally hailing from Montana but now calling Edmonton home, The Trees Are Glad You're Back just out on Shameless Records is the first full-length release by this budding piano songstress. Here is a gifted songwriter, crafting painfully vulnerable reflections with an uncanny sense of dignity. Her captivating performances continually strike and emotional nerve with her audience. Trees gives listeners the heartbreaking magic they have come to hope for in any Seeley tale."

Congratulations, Amy!

Great day yesterday......

Update: Jim Forest's personal photos from the weekend are posted here.

The conference yesterday was really cool on "Climate of Fear, Commitment to Peace". The first morning session was "Merton and the Search for Peace", then we had a break....the second session in the morning had concurrent sessions....the option were: "Spiritually Surviving Two Wars and A Revolution", by Dittmar Mundel, "Mohandas Gandhi, Satyagraha and the Living out of Peace", by Hannah Goa and "African Culture & Merton's Vision of Peace: Common Spiritual Sources, by Bitupu-Mufuta Felicien. Matthew and I went to the one on Gandhi and Satyagraha.....it was really great. We would have loved to have gone to all three, unfortunately we can only be in one place at a time.....So, the afternoon started off with "War & Peace in Thoma Merton", by Ross Labrie (Oh yeah, I can't remember if Matthew mentioned it, but this conference was Co-sponsored with the Thomas Merton Society of Canada, so the in between sessions were about him and his writings...pretty facinating fellow!) So after that there were 3 more concurrent sessions: "Deep Structural Fear", by Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, "Exploring a Pedagogy of Peace through Public Confession", by Sean Wiebe and Mark Daley, and "Antidotes to Fear: A Conversation on Religions Capacity, by Zohra Husaini (who got a ride down to Camrose with Matthew and I....very beautiful person :), Virindra Lamba, & David Goa.....The day ended with Matthew and I singing the Akathist "Glory to God for All things" (hey! did you know that Akathist meant not sitting?....well, I didn't anyways :). So, that was really fun and it was a great way to end the conference....by acknowledging that Everything in God is for Glory.

Here is a pretty amazing prayer written my Thomas Merton that I just thought was definitely worth sharing - Thoughts in Solitude
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will doesn not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alones + + + (from the Abbey of Gethsemani)

I also thought this cool: From the ancient Jain religion of India, I thought this to be intriguing...that they do not even eat certain vegetables that have roots, because they have an immense respect for life. I just thought about how we too need to examine those things in our life that Have taken root that bring life to ourselves and those around us and to nuture those roots. As well to recongnize the roots within our brothers and sisters that bring them life and to help nurture that life in others and not to pull that life from the root. Also important, to examine those things that have taken root that are not healthy, and not from the Lord....those need to be pulled from the root to leave even more room for the life in us to take root.

We also went to this awesome cd release last night of our dear friend Amy Seeley....it was so great! Matthew and/or I will most likely tell you about it later......This afternoon were off to the final talk from Jim forest titled "Love Your Enemies as Yourself" :)

Sunday evening concluded with a great evening together at David and Anna's place. Here's one of Jim's photos of David, Krista, and I in the living room.

Tommorrow...

morning at 6:00am, David Goa, Archbishop LAZAR, and Jim Forest are picking me up and we're driving down to Camrose for this conference hosted by the Chester Ronning Centre
at Augustana. Jim is giving the keynote lecture entitled: "The Root of War is Fear." More and more, I am convinved that it is fear that is at the root of all kinds of sin, for it can quickly degrade into anger and hatred. The great antidote is to somehow, comprehensively, in our day-to-day lives, heed the angelic words "Fear Not!"

I am very much looking forward to this day together with these men. I know David and Vladika LAZAR well, and it is always life-giving to spend time with these "men of deep mind and strong heart," but I will be meeting Jim Forest for the first time. I'm tagging along to chauffeur him to a kidney dialysis appointment he requires first thing in the morning, and I see it as a great privilege. Jim was a personal friend of Thomas Merton, and his book Pilgrim to the Russian Church, documenting his visits to the Soviet Union in the 80s was very moving to me when I read it over ten years ago.

On Saturday afternoon, Krista and I will be telling the story of the Akathist Glory to God For All Things, and then we'll be singing it together as a conclusion to the conference.

Jim, in addition to his leadership of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, has written several books, including ones on Merton and the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy Day. I'll sign off today with an excerpt from a letter Merton wrote to Day in 1961, which I believe could help us all:

"Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action. To shut out the person and to refuse to consider him as a person, as an other self, we resort to the 'impersonal law' and to abstract 'nature.' That is to say we block off the reality of the other, we cut the intercommunication of our nature and his nature, and we consider only our own nature with its rights, its claims, it demands. And we justify the evil we do to our brother because he is no longer a brother, he is merely an adversary, an accused. To restore communication, to see our oneness of nature with him, and to respect his personal rights and his integrity, his worthiness of love, we have to see ourselves as similarly accused along with him . . . and needing, with him, the ineffable gift of grace and mercy to be saved. Then, instead of pushing him down, trying to climb out by using his head as a stepping-stone for ourselves, we help ourselves to rise by helping him to rise. For when we extend our hand to the enemy who is sinking in the abyss, God reaches out to both of us, for it is He first of all who extends our hand to the enemy. It is He who 'saves himself' in the enemy, who makes use of us to recover the lost groat which is His image in our enemy." [ Letter to Dorothy Day, December 20, 1961; HGL, 140-43.]

good times with old friends...

I had a meeting out in east central Alberta tonight, so I stopped in Wainwright this afternoon to take a look at some buildings and also to catch up with some good old friends. Ryan is the pastor of the Nazarene Church there and we've been friends since camp days as kids back in BC. His gracious friendship has continued to be a blessing to me over the years, and visits with him are always life-giving for me somehow. We met up at the Church (which is launching expansion plans - the drawings looked quite beautiful), toured the new home he and Rachelle and the boys have built and are just about ready to move into, and then went for coffee. While we were visiting, lo and behold my good friend and college roommate Sean walked by outside! Brilliant. I'd been hoping to see him, so I dashed out and got his attention. Sean teaches Grade Six there in Wainwright, and is quite a gifted apiarist, amongst other things. He joined us for coffee, and we caught up a bit and just enjoyed the slow ryhthms of afternoon coffee that takes place in all small towns, everywhere. We joked at the high number of Nazarenes teaching in the elementary school there... nine? ten?! All in all, it was very good. No anxieties, no pressures. No earth-shattering news. Just life, together, as it comes, and the goodness of being with people who you know and who know you in return.

The Agony and the Ecstasy - The Church in America

I came across this informal, but incredibly informative talk by Fr. Thomas Hopko on the All Saints of Alaska website. It is on the history and experience of Orthodoxy in North America since the beginning of the Russian mission in 1794. Fr. Tom gave this talk about two years ago when he was in Victoria, and you get a real sense from him for his deep personal embodiment of the experience, suffering, chaos - as well as joy and mission of the Church. You can here it in his voice. You can listen to it online here.

From the Daily Readings...

One of my favourite Jewish Biblical scholars, Harvard's Jon Levenson, has just come out with a new book on the centrality of the concept of Resurrection in Judaism. The book, a la N.T. Wright, is called Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel:The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life. Significant coherence with today's Epistle:


Ephesians 2:19-3:7

"Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles - if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power."

so far...

Victoria has tagged me for this one, so here goes...

25 years Ago I...
- was three years old, lived in Trenton, Ontario with my Mom, Dad, and sisters Pam, Kim, and my brother Jeff;
- I had probably just started nursury school, Wednesdays and Fridays at Dufferin.
- my best friend was Darren Somerville and our hobby was general mischief;
- Little did I know at this time that we would soon pack up into a Ryder truck and move to British Columbia the week before Christmas, 1982. Or was it '83? I can't quite remember right now.

20 years Ago I...
- was eight years old, in Mrs. Wiens' class at Little Mountain Elementary School in Chilliwack, BC;
- had just made friends with Ryan Wugalter;
- had been baptized the previous summer by Rev. Dal Marston in the swimming pool at Camp Charis.

15 Years Ago I...
- was finally beginning to lose my baby fat;
- had my nose pierced in a daring act of self-promotion as part of my campaign for Student Council at Chilliwack Junior Secondary (which worked... I won!... Oh, the ecstasy of taking minutes about soc-hops and year-books;
- was beginning an idolatrous obsession with U2 (this was the year of Achtung Baby!).

10 Years Ago I...
- living on my own for the first time (albeit with strange roomates - Andrew, a lover of Christian thrash-metal and James, a body-builder from the Yukon),
- was beginning my first year of University at the Nazarene College in Calgary;
- was listening constantly to Wilco's Being There;
- had a first girlfriend;
- had long been friends with Gabe, and Kurt and Vic;
- was not eating well (Cream of Wheat and Apples) because I was spending all my grocery money on things like Rilke's Book of Images;
- got involved with starting Trinity Church, and attended my first services at St. Peter the Aleut.

5 Years Ago I...
- Had just gotten back from almost two years of living in Manchester, England;
- Dr. Dave Neale offered me a sessional teaching job: a three-hour, once a week evening class at www.auc-nuc.ca my old college called "Apocalyptic Imagination;
- Had several crazy part-time jobs, including for some highly neurotic Lithuanian lawyers that prohibited whistling;
- was living in Calgary, first with Tim and Tamara, then Katie and Blu, then John Hadley.

2 Years Ago I...
- had totally uprooted my life and moved to Edmonton;
- was working for a perfectionistic and gifted artisan baker;
- had met and fallen in love with the women I would marry;
- was finishing up working on a project with the iconographer Heiko Schlieper.

1 Year Ago I...
- was getting used to being married, and having a pretty intriguing, demanding, & satisfying job;

Yesterday I...
- made butter chicken from scratch;
- bottled ninety bottles of homemade wine.

Today I...
- had the morning off, slept in with Krista, then got up and made French toast;
- will rake the leaves;
- may finish The Brothers Karamazov.

Tomorrow I...
- will take it as it comes.

weak, lazy, undisciplined...

I am home sick with a nasty cold. Krista is just now getting over it. I went in to work today, actually to a conference, and my boss generously sent me home. A much needed rest before I head down to southern Alberta next week: Red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat.

I came across a passage today in The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann that hit home. It is the entry for Monday, April 10, 1978. After describing what he describes as "sad parish struggles" here and there, he admits his temptations (he even calls himself "weak, lazy, and undisciplined." - that gives us some hope, eh?) But then he witnesses to what still holds it all together for him:

I feel no desire to fight. (Where? In the Russian daily paper?), only a desire to leave as far as possible. Not out of cowardice, but out of a conviction that it is impossible to even hint at what would be the goal of such a fight. To hint at the joy - mysterious, never loud; at the beauty and humility - secret, never showy; at the goodness, never extolling itself.

"Come to me and I will give you peace" - How can this be reconciled with a never ending, thunderous "we declare, we demand, we protest..."

As a result, I feel weak, lazy, undisciplined - I realize that, "who am I to talk?" I feel a kind of fear when faced with activism (of the young at the seminary) who passionately want to be pastors, to guide. It always seems to me that it's not not needed - for if a man would see what I call joy, or if a man would simply love Christ - just a little, would come to Him, nothing else would be needed. If not, nothing will help. All begins with a miracle, not with conversations. I feel tired of the noise and the petty intrigues that surround the Church, of the absence of breathing space, of silence, of rhythm, of all that is present in the Gospel. Maybe that is why I love an empty church, where the Church speaks through silence. I love it before the service and after the service. I love everything that usually seems to be "in between" (to walk on a sunny morning to work, to look at a sunset, to quietly sit awhile), that which may not be important, but which alone, it seems to me, is that chink through which a mysterious ray of light shines. Only in these instances do I feel alive, turned to God; only in them is there the beating of a completely "other" life. I felt it most acutely when standing on Second Avenue changing a tire in a garage. I contemplated people on the street who were going home from work with shopping bags; and earlier, a mother with two little boys, all three in poor but obviously festive clothes, all three lit up by the setting sun. Why do I like it so much? I, the most non-sentimental and indifferent man (L. said!), want to cry. Why do I know with such certitude that I am in contact with the "ultimate," that which gives total joy and faith, the rock against which all problems crash?

Pope Benedict's Wit and Wisdom...

The Ochlophobist has another tour de force. This time its about the current furor surrounding an academic lecture given recently by Pope Benedict. Go check it out.

My Husband's Birthday...... :)

Wednesday, September 13th, 2006,

This has been a somewhat crazy start to school! I know that it is just past mid-night, but I wanted to write a little blog to wish Matthew Francis a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! He's out of town right now doing a tour to help launch a new program with his work.....as I do believe he mentioned in a previous blog. Anywhoo, just thought it'd be fun to look at birthday cakes....whaddya say?
I know Matthew is not three, but I did like this cake to the left of us....
.........yup! Or how about the blue puppy dog cake above?

Regardless, I just thought I'd pay a tribute to both my husband, Matthew and to birthday cake! May God Grant you Many, Many Years Matthew, My Love.....and Happy birthday!!!!!

The morning of September 11, 2001...

...I woke up deep in the Black Forest. Well, actually on the floor of Matt Friesen's dorm room – but it was in the Black Forest – in Freiburg, Germany, to be precise. I’d been visiting Matt for a while and we’d arranged months previously… while walking around in the West End of Vancouver to see the Icelandic singer Bjork in Stuttgart, Germany. So Matt bought the tickets – quite pricey as I recall and we made arrangements to go to the show. I’d moved back to Manchester, had just submitted an MA dissertation entitled The Apocalypse of Sacred Space: Christian Conceptions in the Book of Revelation. But I was about to learn something about apocalyptic apocalyptic. I was about to witness an apocalypse (or two).

Matt and I arrived at the Hoptbahnhof (sp?) and made our way through Karlsruhe to Stuttgart. On the train we talked – no joke – about the end of the Pax Americana: Bush’s sabre rattling with China, etc. We were early and had several hours before the show. The city seemed to be built in an awkward postmodern guise: decimated as I assumed it had been by the ravages of Allied bombing in the WWII. We strolled around. There were street performers in various places, but we were unimpressed with Stuttgart’s apparent bleakness. We went and found the hall where the Bjork show was going to be. Matt bought an alarm clock at a department store in the centre of the city (first reports of an aviation incident in New York were on TVs), we browsed in a feminist bookstore (all in German) tried to use the washrooms in one building that looked public and were shooed out. We finally went and got something to eat at a Turkish kebab shop. On the way, walking through a tunnel, past some skate-punks with graffiti, I had the ominous premonition. I said to Friesen, “I think the world might end today.” It was there, as the proprietor made our kebabs, that we saw the footage. Al-Jazeerah was playing, and the first thing we saw was Palestinians rejoicing, cheering. What is this? Then the planes, again and again.

A crack in the universe.

“Are you Americans?” he asked, in English. Strange, since Matt had ordered in German.

“Canadians.”

“Ah, well, Canada’s next you know! Thirty cities have been hit so far!” he said.

I thought immediately of my friends in London. And Calgary’s an oil town. No doubt they’d be one of those. My head swam. We stumbled outside and I gazed at the sky, fully expected fighter planes to swoop overhead to bring on the end. My thoughts, selfishly, went to my dissertation. "Good Lord! Was I wrong?! – were those nut-jobs right?” Forgive the expression, but I was thinking of The Rev. Jack Van Impe and the like. (Comedic sidebar: In 2001, Jack Van Impe Ministries won the Ig Nobel Prize for astrophysics for their assertion that "black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell.") This sounds like their kind of thing. What is this? My head reeled. I wanted to search out a priest, to confess all of my sins. I felt like falling to the ground right there. But the heavens did not open up like a scroll. Instead, I looked at Friesen. He looked at me. We looked at the price on our Bjork tickets. It was something like one hundred and fifty three German marks (yes, they still had marks then). “Do you think the show is still on?”

We walked around the corner to the concert hall. A gaggle of Bjork fans were standing about. The ambient noise group Matmos was opening for Bjork. It was like any other day – any other group of people milling around. This was about 5:30pm German time – maybe 9 or 10am in New York. They probably hadn’t heard yet! Matt and I walked in an adjoining cemetery for a while. A moment of quiet. We waited around a couple of hours, processing, thinking, praying, uncertain of what was to come. And then, the doors of the hall opened. It was a gorgeous theatre. We found our seats. Friesen smuggled in a small recording device and captured the whole show. Matmos was good. And then, Bjork, with a full orchestra, a choir of female singers from Greenland. It was captivating. Her ethereal voice rang out, “It’s not up to you… it never really was.” And then, in English, she spoke of hearing the news of the disaster. She said she had written “a prayer that day for the people of the island of Manhattan.” She sang it in Icelandic – a prayer she called “Gotham Lullaby.” The whole show was full of such astonishing beauty that I was given hope that the world would survive. We walked through the streets buoyed by the goodness of the people around us, talking about the show in excited German. Hearing some French in the crowd. And then, we found ourselves in this new place, this square we had not found before. And in the middle of the square was a tall column, with an archangel poised atop – illuminated. It had been raised over a hundred years before, to commemorate victory in a war. This messenger of God appeared to be standing in the “fear not” pose. And to us it was a revelation – an unveiling of a kind of mercy, an apocalypse of hope on that darkest of nights.

We walked through the park and Matt played some portions of show back. We slept on the cold station platform in Karlsruhe, and the next day awoke to a changed world.

Dutch Blitz with Genius Friends

What follows is a pleasant domestic and non-philosophical post, somewhat random...

Here's our lovely Victorian friends Mira and Matthew D. in our dining room, getting ready for an exhilarating round of Dutch Blitz. As I recall, Mira won, and Krista came in second, with the two sorry gentlemen following accordingly. Matthew D., however, raised our Dutch Blitz playing to the next level by teaching us how to 'stack' the card in our post piles... "whoa!" this is a whole new world. Sweet.

Krista took this other shot, so here you get the whole sweep of the Dutch Blitz game, as well as our dining room. As you can see, these days both the theoloblogger and I are sporting whiskers. One real joy of the weekend was, after Matthew and Mira left, listening to Matthew's 2003 cd "The Waiting Place," which is absolutely beautiful, and features this astonishing piano piece with footsteps layered over it. They also left a few lines of Czeslaw Milsoz on our blackboard guestbook. We are truly blessed in our friendships.

And, just for fun... here are some trees from our camping trip at Pidgeon Lake a few weeks back.

Krista's away at the Women's retreat this weekend... I will doubtless stay up far too late and eat too much ice cream. Good books are helping... The Tables of the Law continues to be great, and I've also finally cracked open Beauty of the Infinite. That should pretty much describe my weekend...

The Tables of the Law

Krista and I had a rejuvenating Labour Day weekend. It got started with dinner out at Murrieta's on Whyte Ave., and then Amy's birthday party on Friday night was a convivial time with friends old and new. On Saturday we cleaned and made beet borsht (with beets from our garden), waiting for our good friends from Victoria, Mira and Matthew to arrive. Spending the weekend with them was a breath of fresh air - good food and drink, conversation, prayer at Church and home, a visit to Fort Edmonton, and also reading the whole of Four Quartets together Sunday night.

My other good friend Matthew (from work) passed on to me Thomas Mann's novel about Moses, The Tables of the Law. It has a promising beginning:

"His birth was irregular, hence it was he passionately loved order, the absolute, the shalt and shalt not.

In his youth, in a blazing fit of rage, he had killed a man; so he knew, better than the innocent, that to kill is very fine but to have killed is most horrible, and that it is forbidden to kill.

His senses were hot, so he craved the spiritual, the pure, the holy; he craved the unseen, because he felt that the unseen was spiritual, holy and pure."

I am thinking that this novel would be a good companion to Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses.

This image of the giving of the Law, and the accompanying Golden-calf shenanigans in the Valley, is by the contemporary Jewish artist Shlomo Katz.

Reaching out...

The Ochlophobist has a brilliant post on the Orthodox theology of touch - matter, creation, personhood.

Currently listening to

After breakfast with Mike and Amy at Friends and Neighbours, Krista and I walked around Whyte Ave with them, checking out clothes at Nokomis and picking up some new music at Blackbyrd.

M. Ward's Transistor Radio has totally blown us away. Lush guitar sounds, sweet textured melodies. An all-around great record. There's this cool song about insomnia and being afraid of packs of wolves that totally reminds me of our camping trip to Pidgeon Lake last weekend.


On this 2003 disc from Sufjan Stevens, which is 100% brilliance, we keep listening to "Vito's Ordination Song," with lyics spoken from a Divine perspective. Reminds me of the tender language of Hosea the prophet.

More of the usual gold from Calexico, along with gorgeous artwork in the notes.

It all seems to be late-summer music. Perfect for the warm nights, which we've been often enjoying on the patio at www.hulberts.ca, a great new coffeehouse in our neighbourhood.

Evangelical Theology: Witherington Digs Chrysostom

This post is not about the classic book "Evangelical Theology" by Karl Barth (which I wholeheartedly endorse), but rather an interesting interview I came across with the Methodist Biblical scholar Ben Witherington III. Isn't that a great name? Anyway, I quite respect Witherington's scholarship, and he lays it out pretty clearly. If you're at all interested in the relationship of exegesis to dogma, go check it out.

Here's a little snippet:

CT: Naturally, you argue that this requires a fresh approach to reading and interpreting the Bible. Who are some pre-Enlightenment interpreters of the Bible who are models of good exegesis for us today?

Witherington: Some of the Antiochian fathers would be good—Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzus, for example. But if there's one person who seems to be in touch with the original Greek and rhetorical ethos of the New Testament and especially Paul, that would be John Chrysostom.

I'm thankful that we've got some wonderful new studies on Chrysostom as an exegete and a theologian (like Margaret Mitchell's The Heavenly Trumpet, which helps us appreciate his numerous homilies on the New Testament). In contrast to the Latin Fathers, like Augustine, he is very much in touch with the living language of the Greek text. He is able to resonate with it, to pick up the rhetorical signals, the cultural signals, and understand the trajectory of the theology and ethics being taught.

The Righteous Shall Be In Everlasting Remembrance

I received news yesterday that the Revd. Gordon Thomas, a friend and theological mentor of mine during my time in Manchester, died Sunday morning. He had fought a strong and determined battle with cancer, unflagging in his faith throughout this two year ordeal. As a son of the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, Gordon did a great deal to re-orient and "re-mint" that understanding in accordance with the whole witness of Scripture. He could be described as a man, like Apollos in the words of the Acts of the Apostles, "full of the Holy Spirit, powerful in the Scriptures" (Acts 18.24-35). I remember sitting with him in his book-lined study, talking about Northrup Frye or Old Testament theophanies, receiving his encouragement and guidance. Gordon was a devoted husband, father, teacher, stalwart Arsenal fan, and he will be missed.

May his memory be eternal!

The Rivers North of the Future

Last Thursday I drove over 1100km, meeting with town officials in the predominantly LDS communities of Raymond and Stirling. After our meetings, I had a good visit with one of the guys, a young Mormon from Surrey my age, about his time of mission, proselytizing in Portugese to the tiny Brazilian community of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

On the drive home up the QE2 Highway, amidst severe thunderstorms, I listened to Ideas on the CBC. It was a sort of "best of" type show, and they played an old clip of Ivan Illich (1926-2002) speaking at the University of Toronto sometime in the 80s. This mercurial priest-historian has captured my attention at various times, with his scathing critique of what passes as "development," in terms of schooling, institutions, and modern culture more broadly. Having been introduced to Illich's thought by my good friend Matt Friesen, it made me remember my friend as well. David Cayley, the Ideas contributor, was featured, along with his recent book culled from conversations with Illich. Apparently, Illich had long wanted to write about his understanding of modernity in relationship to the Christian gospel. He never had the opportunity to do that, but the transcripts of his conversations with Cayley eventually evolved into The Rivers North of the Future.



The title of the book is taken from a poem by the German poet Paul Celan:

Into the rivers north of the future
I cast out the net, that you
hesitantly burden with stone-engraved
shadows

The book contains Illich's usual spectrum of thought, which chapters on such themes as "The Gospel and the Gaze," "Contingency, Part 2: The Origin of Technology," "Friendship," and "On Knowing How to Die: The Last Days of Savonarola."

On his final day of conversations with Cayley, Illich said this:

"My work is an attempt to accept with great sadness the fact of Western culture. Christopher Dawson ... says that the Church is Europe and Europe is the Church, and I say yes! Corruptio optimi quae est pessima. [The corruption of the best is the worst.] Through the attempt to insure, to guarantee, to regulate Revelation, the best becomes the worst... I live also with a sense of profound ambiguity. I can't do without tradition, but I have to recognize that its institutionalization is the root of an evil deeper than any evil I could have known with my unaided eyes and mind."


And then, Cayley recounts this story:

"In an interview that Illich recorded with his friend Douglas Lummis in Japan in the winter of 1986-87, Lummis asks him about a "possible future." "To hell with the future," Illich replies. "It's a maneating idol. Institutions have a future... but people have no future. People have only hope." Since there obviously was, and will be, a tommorrow, I interpret this curse in two ways. First, it points to the fact that no sane person can project the future of the economic utopia of endless growth in which we live as anything but catastrophe, sooner or later. Second, and even more important, the future as an idol devours the only moment in which heaven can happen upon us: the present. Expectation tries to compel tommmorrow; hope enlarges the present and makes a future, north of the future."

Sweet Sixteen

After a great visit with Kim this weekend, I am remembering today my other lovely sister. Sixteen years ago today, my eldest sister Pam & her husband Cameron were married. I was eleven, going on twelve, and got all dressed up to celebrate. It was a swelteringly hot day in Chilliwack, and I remember it well.

In honour of the event, I offer good ole' Barney Rubble's "Happy Anniversary" song to Pam and Cam!





"Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary!
Happy Anniversary, Haaaaaappy Anniversary!
Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversary!
Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversary!"

A Good, and not lazy Missionary

I've been reading the journals of a Presbyterian missionary in the Canadian West, Reverend James Robertson. Later, he went on to be the Superintendant of Missions for the Presbyterian Church, serving from the 1870s through the 1890s. Quite a tough cookie, and a faithful preacher of the Word, not unlike Saint Innocent.

Here's a brief excerpt from the book about him:

A lazy minister or missionary, and he, alas, is not altogether a rara aris, drew his unmeasured contempt. Writing to a Western Convener, he thus discourses in regard to ministers of this class:
"I fear that the indifference you refer to in ministerial ranks is not confined to Kirkwall and Strabane; I meet it widely, and I am inclined to think it is doing more harm than the Higher Criticism. Men who work hard themselves are intolerant of idle and lazy ministers. Men appreciate an industrious, hard-working minister, and they despise the lazy slouch. But how are you to get such men retired ? They will not resign, they cannot work, to beg they are ashamed."
In a British Columbia mining town in the Boundary Country, no end of trouble might have been saved had the missionary in charge been simply faithful to his duty. As it was, he shirked, to the permanent injury of the congregation and of the cause of religion in that town.

The Superintendent visited the town a little later. The missionary then in charge tells the story:
"A year before, a young man had been in charge, and had been exceedingly popular. All agreed that if Mr. ______ had just said ‘build a church,’ the church would have been built with little trouble and no strife. Besides, the town was then in its most prosperous condition. That was the tide in the affairs that was missed. But Mr. _______ had not ‘bothered.’ Indeed, Dr. Robertson had heard that he had said he did not want to meddle with money matters. How the Doctor did hold this up to scorn! ‘Didn’t want to meddle with money matters! A very fine sort of gentleman, indeed! None of your coarse-grained, commercial sort. Didn’t want to meddle! He was too downright lazy. That is what was the matter with him. Popular preacher! Liked afternoon teas, I suppose. Liked the ladies to tell him how well he had preached on Sunday. But to build a church! No, he was of too fine, ethereal material to meddle with such mundane matters. What did we pay him for anyway? What did we send him here for? To have a good times? To be popular? That’s not the kind of man we want in these mountains.’"

And, indeed, it added not a little to the Superintendent’s burden that he had to assume the load too often that these men refused to bear. While he was full of encouragement for the "tenderfoot," he had little sympathy with a shirker, and exerted himself to develop in his men that indifference to discomfort, toil, and even danger, that was so conspicuous a characteristic of himself.
"Talking with a whining student one day," says one of his Conveners, "who was relating what he considered hardships in the way of uncomfortable beds in which there were crawling things, and irregular meals not always prepared in the most tasty form, the Superintendent began very sympathetically telling some of his own experiences. Sleeping one night in a dug-out, wrapped in his blanket on the clay floor which was several feet below the surface of the ground, he felt cold, clammy things on his neck and face. He would brush them off and turn over, and by the time he was getting off to sleep again there would be another visitation, and so he kept brushing them away the whole night.

"‘And what were these things?’ asked the wondering student.
"‘Well, you see the floor was two feet below the ground, and there was an inclined approach cut out towards the door. The ground was worn away several inches lower than the door, and the lizards would fall over the edge of the cutting and crawl under the door, and during the night creep over the floor. And these lizards were enjoying a warm nest on my neck and face.’
"The poor student stood horrified. The Superintendent enthused for a few moments on lice and lizards and snakes, as though encounters therewith were as valuable as theology in a true missionary’s education, and the complaining dude subsided. His hardships vanished into thin air. He was rebuked and shamed, but could not reply, and the conversation drifted to other themes."

The One Book - Here it is, Victoria...

1. One book that changed your life:
The Book of Revelation (in the Bible)

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
For many years, I read The Great Gatsby every Labour Day, in honour of the fact that it was the first book I ever stayed up all night reading. And, of course, I am constantly reading Four Quartets.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
Jesus and the Victory of God by NT Wright or perhaps A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (another favourite novel)

4. One book that made you laugh:
Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler. His last, greatest novel is heartbreaking but hilarious. I also stayed up all night reading this one. Killer ending.

5. One book that made you cry (at least on the inside):
Peace Shall Destroy Many by Rudy Wiebe

6. One book that you wish had been written:
The Real John Wesley: Up Close and Personal by Mrs. Wesley

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled At the end of its absurd seven or eight hundred pages (or whatever), I was supremely disappointed.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
The Nicene Faith by John Behr.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Silence by Shusaku Endo

" a Light to englighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people, Israel."

Some of the comments in The Brothers Karamazov post below raise the issue of Dostoevskii's antisemitism. It comes out when Ivan asks Alesha about a hideous folk-rumour (known as 'the blood libel') that Jews kill Christian children each Easter. He asks him, does this happen, and A. responds "I don't know." It is a painful and strange reality, this hatred of of the Jews that has plagued Europe for centuries. For thoughtful Christians, it is doubly strange, considering we worship the Jewish Messiah. Of course, a tincture of this great sin has been subsumed into various forms of nationalism that also tend to absorb religion. I.e., Russia, for instance, integrated some form of "Orthodoxy" into its national identity, but along with it was taken a crippling dose of xenophobia, which manifests itself in this abominable antisemitism. Seriously! How does this happen? If cultures can be "baptized," and theoretically transfigured, how do we/they act as incubators, at the same time, for this kind of hubris?

On the other hand, those American evangelicals (I'm thinking of televangelists like John Hagee) who have honed a sort of Israel-olatry, have lost the plot as well. They could use some help from Bishop Tom Wright to understand more clearly the key text: Romans 9-11. In reality, all of the old ethnic markers of covenant identity have been reoriented in Christ. It is about baptism, "circumcision of the heart" and not just of the flesh. In discerning the people of God, then, the question is no longer "are you a Jew or a Gentile?" And it isn't really about being Russian, Serb, Bulgarian, Aleut, or Canadian either. The question is "do you have faith in Jesus Christ?"

Christianity, at its best, remembers and loves the beauty of its Jewish roots, and realizes that in their light we see the Light of Christ. A good example: did you know that the Maccabean martyrs are liturgically remembered by the Orthodox church?

Neither did I.

Here is one of the verses for their feastday:

Tone 1 (O most-praised martyrs))

Persecution did not shake the roof of the Law,
firmly upheld by seven pillars.
For they bravely endured the senseless fury of their tormentor,
giving their bodies to the executioners.//
These noble young men and brothers were the faithful guardians of the
oracles of Moses.

v. (2) Praise the Lord, all nations! Praise Him, all peoples!

What's the big deal?

My friend Jeremy wrote this, capturing some of Klein's recent malaise.

It is time...

to re-read The Brothers Karamazov. My friend Jared mentioned this epic novel to me today over lunch, and then my friend & colleague (another Matthew) passed along this article from First Things. Blasted First Things! and its substantial prose. I've been wrestling with this other article from First Things for two days now... David Hart is on to something, about the responsibility of Christianity, even better, the Gospel, for this strange modern world it helped to form. I think that Brandon Gallaher is writing about this too, from another angle.

With several people mentiong The Brothers Karamazov today alone, I realized that it has been a few years since I worked through its pathos and glory. But my thinking is slow these days, it seems. Though it wasn't it my mind on the weekend, conversations with Krista and Derek and Mike about family and faith have also got me brooding about the dislocation of meaning in our modern world. It is amazing how things like books acquire new, personal meaning at different seasons of life. I first read Brothers in 1995, in High School, and was exhilarated by its language and emotion. For Mr. Moore's acting class, I staged a reading of Alyosha's scene of exultation after "the odour of corruption" and "the wedding at cana."

Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still–dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn flowers in the flowerbeds near the house had fallen asleep until morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens, the mystery of the earth to be touched by the mystery of the stars. . . . Alyosha stood gazing and suddenly, as if he had been cut down, he threw himself to the earth. . . .
It was as if threads from all those innumerable worlds of God all came together in his soul, and it was trembling all over, "touching other worlds." He wanted to forgive everyone for everything, and to ask forgiveness, oh, not for himself! but for all and for everything, "as others are asking for me," rang in his soul.

I've always understood that scene, and not "The Grand Inquisitor," to be the centre and heart of the narrative.

I read it again in the Manchester rain of the year 2000, and in the summer heat of 2003. It is time again...

Pictures from Last Weekend

Colleen and Sven on their wedding day. I've known Colleen for ten years now, since I was a student at good ole' CNC The wedding took place in Colleen's gradma's beautiful back garden. Aren't they lovely?

Derek & Sandra, enjoying the party.



Here's Leon Isaac Brower, aka, Lev, aka Lyova, son to Sandra and Derek, Godson to me. Krista and I had such a great time getting to know this bright little guy over the weekend. He, meanwhile, was a real trooper after being diagnosed with chicken pox!

Derek and our good friend John, in deep conversation. On Tuesday, I met up with these two again for our Calgary Burger Challenge. Not surprisingly, Boogie's Burger's came out on top.

Later...

Thank you, G.M.H.

I came across this poem on Saturday night, just before bed. We stayed up late as I read this one to Krista. I couldn't think of only one excerpt to post, so here it is in all its fullsome beauty.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

37. The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that 's fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing's life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God's infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess's
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God's glory through,
God's glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms' self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man's beating heart,
Laying, like air's fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God's and Mary's Son.

Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.

So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man's mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God's love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

"...that all may be One."

I realize that this happened a few months ago, but I've not yet heard much of anything about this until now. The All-Diaspora Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia took place in San Francisco, with the Light of Pascha still shining, May 6-14th. They gathered in the Cathedral where just a few weeks later, Dave and Stacy and their friends venerated St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. From all reports, the Sobor looks to have been a kairos moment, opening the door to healing the wounds of the twentieth century within our Orthodox Church. There are many amazing pictures on the website, including many moving ones of the beautiful hierarchical services and Liturgies. This article from Archbishop Mark of Berlin tells some of the struggles, errors, and sacrifices, as well as preparations leading up to this important Sobor. I know that families and dear friends have been broken apart by the wounds inflicted by the separation within our Orthodox churhces. For over 80 years, there has been brokenness and strife. Now may the oil of anointing flow, mutual repentance continue, and our Communion be realized and restored.

Dolce Domum

So this past week has been somewhat of a return to normal life for me, as I've been back to work after the Group of Twelve. But, the strange part of it is that Edmonton has been experiencing an extreme heatwave this week, and also Krista has been working evenings (3-11pm). So, basically, I've been "home alone" in the sweltering Edmonton evenings, patiently awaiting my nightly drive downtown to the Royal Alex Hospital to pick up my beloved wife. (Here's a picture of Krista on our steps). I've been trying to do some practical things such as: laundry, gardening, and writing my essays for the "Canon Law" course I'm taking via the St. Arseny Institute.

That's going slowly, but surely. Last night, using some extremely ripe pineapple, I created a delicious homemade pina colada (sans alcohol):

- several chunks of ripe, fresh pineapple (sprinkled with salt to bring out the sweetness);
- a couple of scoops of very good vanilla ice cream;
- a handfull of shredded coconut;
- a few spoonfulls of vanilla yogurt;
- about a half cup of milk;
- 3 ice cubes.

Blend on high in a blender until smooth (pulse at first). This is a perfect beverage for those 30+ celcius days!

*In other news, the Mighty Parkallen Video Gallery, which I have posted about before, has closed its doors. We were sad to see them go, but Jeff (the video guy) has said they may reopen in another location. So, in the meantime, Parkallen pines for good films and great proprietors like Jeff, Ashleigh, and Alley-Oop.

Panorama at the Battle Mountain Cairn

At the top of Battle Mountain (Tabor to the Twelve), Fr. John distributed crosses that my Dad had made. So they are laid on the cairn. This is us listening to Fr. John before he gave out the crosses... gives you some sense of this place at almost 3000 metres of elevation.

Snowfight on Mount Tabor

"then will burnt Ryvita be offered on your altar"

I am back home, and, along with my compadre Christian Bugslag from Victoria, I look like I have a mild case of leprosy. But, I do not... just some rather unromantic mosquito bites earned from being a part of the inaugural group of twelve. Anyone have any folk remedies? As soon as I can figure it out, I'll post the video of the snowball fight on top of Battle Mountain. Until then, dave pasivirta, Muryn, and Mira have some photos on their sites, that evoke some of the spirit of the week. Those Opus Dei guys have nothing on you, Dave!
In the words of a beloved Nazarene hymn, the Group of Twelve journey was "joy unspeakable and full of glory."

The refrain of that hymn is:"Joy unspeakable and full of glory, full of glory, full of glory...Joy unspeakable and full of glory, full of glory, full of glory...Oh, the half has never yet been told."
To paraphrase St. Peter, "It was good to be there." And it's also good to be home. Krista and I are enjoying having Gabe with us a little while, and we're all heading out to the Wilco show in a short while. And to quote them, "there's no love as random as God's love..." That's all for now.

Evdokimov's brilliance

This book is challenging me and greatly helping me understand some things I've been struggling to understand for some time.

In Evdokimov's words: "We proceed from Christ, the Alpha in whom there is neither male nor female (which means that everyone finds his or her image in him); as men and women we move towards Christ, the Omega, in whom there is neither male nor female. But this time, the differentiation is overcome within the Body of Christ, the human pleroma (fullness) entirely integrated in Christ" (pp.24-25).

What does Evdokimov - or Paul, for that matter - mean when they say that in Christ "there is neither male nor female?" Obviously, the Incarnate One was male... is he saying that in Him the brokenness of humanity (male and female), created in His image, is being redeemed?

Admittedly, part of my questioning on these issues comes from my upbringing and formation in a Christian denomination which historically ordained women, from its beginning (in 1895). In fact, one of my professors in Manchester (who also grew up in the Church of the Nazarene) as a kid was sort of surprised men could preach as his childhood pastors were women! While most Nazarene clergy today are men, to this day, some of the most gifted ministers in that tradition, including some good friends of mine, are women. What I had to understand is that the understanding of the ministry is somewhat in a different key, and that the issue is not really so much about rights (on the one hand) or preaching, teaching or pastoral skill, but about revealing basic issues about Creation and the whole economy of its sanctification. Thus the liturgy is a microcosm of that, which can only be enacted by certain players. Only after reading For the Life of the World, did the maleness of the liturgical priesthood begin to make any sense to me. Thankfully, Evdokimov is filling in the many gaps that remain in my understanding.

work stuff

The website for the program I work for is now up... after much labour last week! Just in time for the Minister to launch it on Monday.

Pandora's Box has been opened...

I write this from my hotel room in Canmore, Alberta...(down here for work). I just had a great evening's vist with our friends Dave and Sara (not sure if it's with an "h") down here. Suffice it to say, they rock. I've known Dave for a while from Calgary, and Krista knew Sara back in Saskatchewan. They gave me homemade yogurt with rhubarb! So good. They're expecting to become parents for the first time on Friday. God bless you guys!

Two things:

1) I have become quite enamoured with Pandora, "the musical genome project." Pandora is a website that allows you to type in a favourite band or song, and then it mysteriously creates a personalized radio station that plays music kinda like what you like. For me, it's like having one of those awesome friends around who always knows all the cool music that makes you say, "who is this?! I like this!" That's what Pandora does. So cool.

2) On the way driving down here I heard about these ridiculous art thieves in Britain that are stealing major public sculptures, such as Henry Moore's "Reclining Figure" (below). This has happened just recently. They come into parks, etc., with welding equipment, trucks, blocks and tackle hoists, and make off with their bounty. The thieves are not, however, trying to sell these large, mainly bronze, sculptures on the black market to art enthusiasts for the millions they are currently valued at. Rather, they are melting them down and selling them to scrap metal dealers! Is this not the most bizzare thing you've ever heard? I think I could have some sort of respect for these sneaky thieves if they were actually trying to try to get them into the art black market. That, at least, is somehow romantic, though I don't suspect it would be easy. Imagine: "Hey, buddy, you wanna buy a two-tonne bronze sculpture... it's in the back of my van..."

I remember vividly from childhoood the Henry Moore sculpture at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. How could someone steal something like that? Any ideas?

In the meantime, now that Pandora's box has obviously been opened, enjoy the music.

Forever Again

In honour of Gabe's frequent bouts of nostalgia, I was reading Exlaim! at lunch, and happened to come across the fact that Eric's Trip is getting back together for one show only, early this August, at the Sappy Records Festival in Moncton. Sweet. I'm only beginning to believe that it really was twelve years ago that us raggamuffins piled into Gabe's Honda-matic to see Eric's Trip headline that epic show at the ANZA Club! The one with Tristan Psionic and then-unknown Weezer opening. I sat cross-legged on the floor with Ryan Wugalter through Weezer's set, thinking, "these guys are really good!" And Matt Sharp offered to buy my blue jacket. Julie Doiron and Mark Gaudet were so nice, talking to us before the show as we stood around outside. I still have my ticket somewhere. Julie dots her the "i" in her name with a heart.

On other musical fronts, I think I might buy the new Calexico record.

A Prairie Road East...

Bright and early tommorrow morning, Krista and I are hitting the open road - the Yellowhead Highway east for Saskatoon. We're heading to the "City of Wonder," my sweet girl's hometown for the wedding of our friends Rachel and Micah. What a joy to see these two get married! As the Orthodox service says, may the Lord, "Crown them with glory and honour." And it also happens to be our first anniversary, so we'll do a little celebrating, too.

See you next week...

Parkallen Gothic

Last Saturday, Krista and I planted our first garden together, together with our friends Mike a.k.a. "T-Bone"
and amy. (Here's us pictured attempting to duplicate the famous Grant Wood picture of the farmer and his wife). After we got out the majority of the "quack-grass," (the bane of a gardener's existence), we put in corn, Kennebec and Russet potatos, butternut squash, onions, green beans, carrots, beets, herbs, garlic - and all sorts of other excellent comestibles. A nice addition to the raspberries already at the back. Oh yeah, we also planted a Saskatoon bush! (Probably won't get fruit this year) But the rest of the garden will be looking pretty good by July. All our friends are welcome to come on by sometime... and help us weed! Maybe we'll give you a beet or something.

Jaroslav Pelikan: Memory Eternal!

The great historian and theologian Jaroslav Pelikan fell asleep in the Lord this past Saturday. He was 82. Along with Dr. Arnold Airhart's passing earlier this month (a childhood theological hero of mine), this seems to mark the end of an era somehow... the loss of a certain generation of scholars. Somehow during my student years I had acquired the first two volumes of his five-volume opus The Christian Tradition. I remember being so moved by his subtlety and depth. The second volume, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, was particularly meaningful to me. My friend David was a friend of Prof. Pelikan's, and invited him to be the honourary curator of his exhibition Anno Domini. David told me this story about Prof. Pelikan. Apparently in his early years teaching, he used to spend a lot of time with students, investing in them personally and caring about their ideas and academic musings. Most good professors if you came to them with a great idea would say, "you should read this book on that topic!" But Pelikan would take it a step further, often responding, "That's a brilliant idea, you should write a book about that!" And the student's heart would almost break with joy at having such an affirmation. Jaroslav Pelikan - a son of the Church, a servant of God. Memory Eternal!

"Shine, shine O new Jerusalem! The glory of the Lord has shone upon you!"