:: St. Stephen's Musings ::

:: Friday, November 29, 2002 ::

Freedom within structure--becoming communal selves:

A friend of mine has recently become interested in Orthodoxy with an intensity I find almost shocking.

Considering his lack of experience in liturgical worship as well as the little amount of reading he has done, it is a true work of God that he is where he is at. We have stayed up into the wee hours of the morning on more than one occasion, discussing the spiritual life, Orthodox theology and the desire for authentic worship. I am amazed at God's providence as I find out more about my friend's journey and the truths of the Church he has stumbled upon. I can only attribute his incredible desire for God and his deep hunger for holistic truth to be from God.

One of his deepest struggles at this point is the idea of freedom, specifically in regards to worship. He was raised in a conservative Baptist church and has since found a home in a Foursquare church, where "pushing into the Spirit" and "freedom in the Lord" are heavily emphasized. He feels this has been a good antitode to his past worship experiences at the Baptist church. And yet, he is intriqued and facinated by liturgical worship especially with the communal and reverent aspects of the Liturgy.

As I sat down today to read the December issue of "First Things," I found this section from an article by Ralph Wood entitled "Ivan Karamazov's Mistake" to be pertinent to the issue of how Orthodox view "freedom."

"...we are not made into free persons by becoming autonomous selves who have been immunized from all obligations that we have not independently chosen. Our freedom resides rather in becoming communal selves who freely embrace our moral, religious, and political obligations. These responsibilities come to us less by our own choosing than through a thickly webbed network of shared friendships and familial ties...[and] religious promises. In a very real sense, such "encumbrances" choose us before we choose them. There is no mythical free and autonomous self that exists apart from these ties. There are only gladly or miserably bound persons--namely, persons who find their duties and encumbrances to be either gracious or onerous."

It amazes me to talk with my Protestant friends who really believe worship is something you yourself make up as you go along. Many have no sense of the communal nature of liturgical worship--the "plugging into" the worship of heaven with all of the angels, heavenly hosts and saints. They find it hard to reconcile the ideas of "structure" and "freedom." But what they don't see is that, like so many other things in the Christian life, the paradox of structured, formal, set prayers and total freedom in worship are NOT antithical realites. The freedom we Orthodox find in worship is neccesarily and organically connected to the structure itself. Freedom is found, not by creating "worship," but by choosing, in obedience to the Church and her teachings and Holy Tradition, to FREELY enter into these God-ordained structures.

The Orthodox idea of freedom and the relationship it has with obedience is described beautifully by Bishop Ware in an essay entitled, "Lent and the Consumer Society." He says:

"For freedom, as well as being spotaneous, is also something that has to be learned. If you were to ask me, 'Can you play the violin?', and I replied, 'I'm not sure, I've never tried,' you might feel that there was something odd about my answer. For I am not free to play Back's sonatas on the violin unless I have first learned, through a prolonged and ardous training, how to handle the violin....I am not truly free unless I have first learned how to use my freedom rightly and this process of learning presupposes obedience, discipline and self-denial. Freedom is not only a gift--it is a task."

God, in his love for us, knows we will abuse our free will without his guidance and protection. The structures of the Church, that from the outside look constraining, turn out to be the very avenues we learn to actually become free! It is within the arena of submission and humility that we find true freedom. But it is hard to explain this truth--sometimes it is only by experiencing it directly that we can see the beauty of the freedom of liturgical worship as well as many of the other "structures" of the Church. I pray my friend will continue his search and I am confident he will not stop until he has found the fullness he is looking for.

:: Karl :: 1:40:00 PM [Link] ::

Giving thanks for the love of a wife:

This Thanksgiving I have much to be thankful for.

But this morning, I was reminded again how much I depend on the purity and devotion of my wife. Although I have been Orthodox for more than four years and my wife for a little more than one year, she is far and away acheving a level of holiness that I can only hope to attain! For some reason, the attacks of the evil one were strong as I got up this morning and I just did not feel like getting ready to go to Liturgy. After going to the beautiful Akathist last night, one would think I would be in a state of anticipation for worship the next morning. But thoughts of reading the paper, or of devouring the new edition of "First Things," or a hundred other more interesting things leaped into my mind as better alternatives than Liturgy.

But Carrie's gentle spirit as she prepared for Liturgy reminded me of why every day should be a day of thanksgiving....and what better way to celebrate it than by participating in the worship of the Trinity!

Glory to God for the love of wives!

:: Karl :: 2:46:00 PM [Link] ::

The Akathist of Thanksgiving:

Tonight (11/27) my wife and I will be participating in the Akathist of Thanksgiving at our church here in Portland (St. Nicholas Orthodox Church).

This particular Akathist has become quite popular within Orthodoxy in recent years and more parishes every year are making an effort to present this beautiful service to the faithful. It has become one of our favorite services throughout the year (however, it still not in my top ten, as many of the Lenten and Paschal services still dominate my "favorite" list!)

This Akathist, also called the "Akathist of Thanksgiving," was composed by Protopresbyter Gregory Petrov shortly before his death in a prison camp in 1940. The title is from the words of Saint John Chrysostom as he was dying in exile.

I was reviewing the text this afternoon and was blown away by the sheer JOY that exudes from the service....Just meditate on these words:

Kontakion 10: "No one can put together what has crumbled into dust, but Thou canst restore a conscience turned to ashes. Thou canst restore to its former beauty a soul lost and without hope. With Thee, there is nothing that cannot be redeemed. Thou art love; Thou art Creator and Redeemer. We praise Thee, singing: Alleluia!"

"A conscience turned to ashes"....I love that image!

How often it is I feel this is true of my soul! How often I let the passions burn and rage within until I am in ashes! It reminds me of Ps 51:8--"Fill me with joy and gladness;
let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice."

It is better to let God "break" us, than to let the bones of our soul be turned to ashes by negligence!

So in the spirit of this Akathist, let us remember this Thanksgiving weekend to not only give thanks FOR SOMETHING, but to give thanks TO SOMEONE....Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

:: Karl :: 3:44:00 PM [Link] ::

Theology with your clothes on:

He who dabbles in theology while still in the passions is like one who tries to swim with his clothes on.
- Saint John Climacus

This quote (and a past article in regards to this quote) was posted by James

I've always loved (and hated!) this quote because it so quickly and devastatingly hits home for me. (Thanks, James, for reminding me of it!)

For many of us Orthodox who come to the Church from Protestantism, it is an almost overwhelming temptation to become self-proclaimed apologists and champion defenders of Orthodoxy. But the Fathers constantly warn us against this kind of pride, a specifically dangerous temptation for those of us who tend to be fascinated by intellectual pursuits.

Orthodoxy has always held a special place for the intellect in the life of the Church--but only the sanctified mind is able to speak correctly about divine realities. Evagrius said it so beautifully with this quote:

"Those who pray truly are theologians and those who are truly theologians pray."

As I prepare for the Thanksgiving weekend, I hope I can remember St. John and Evagrius' words in my discussions with family and friends over the next few days. We should spend more time in prayer for others than we do in discussion with them! (I will have more to say on this issue later)....

:: Karl :: 12:26:00 PM [Link] ::

First Lines of Books:

Jay Nordlinger writes a column at http://www.nationalreview.com titled "Impromptus".....This is a sampling of some of his readers' favorite first lines from books--Enjoy!

Margaret Mitchell: Gone with the Wind: �Scarlett O�Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.�

And this is not a first line, but an epigraph: L. P. Hartley: The Go-Between: �The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.�

Robert Louis Stevenson, The Master of Ballantrae: �The full truth of this odd matter is what the world has long been looking for and the public curiosity is sure to welcome.�

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker�s Guide to the Galaxy: �Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.� (One of the funniest books ever written, IMHO!)

From Charlotte�s Web: ��Where�s Papa going with that ax?� said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.�

Here are the opening two sentences from Ring Lardner�s Champion: �Midge Kelly scored his first knockout when he was seventeen. The knockee was his brother Connie, three years his junior and a cripple.�

From Allan Bloom�s Closing of the American Mind: �There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.�

From Gravity�s Rainbow: �A screaming comes across the sky.�
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: �We were an hour outside of Barstow when the mescaline kicked in.�

Quest for a Maid by Frances Mary Hendry: �When I was seven, I hid under a table and watched my sister kill a king.�

�Sing, Goddess, Achilles� rage / black and murderous, that cost the Greeks / Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls / Of heroes into Hades� dark / And left their bodies to rot as feasts / For dogs and birds, as Zeus� will was done.� � Iliad, Book I, Lombardo translation

�Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, �and what is the use of a book,� thought Alice �without pictures or conversation?�� � Lewis Carroll, Alice�s Adventures in Wonderland.

Robert Heinlein, Year of the Jackpot: �At first, Potiphar Breen did not notice the girl taking her clothes off.�

Kurt Vonnegut, �Harrison Bergeron�: �The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.�

:: Karl :: 11:30:00 AM [Link] ::

Truth: For God or for us...or for no one?:

In a recent workshop for Gen-X Evangelical pastors and youth leaders, John Franke, of Biblical Theology Seminary in Hatfield,
Pa., described two major streams of thinking among current theologians. The
first group says there is absolute truth, but only God can know it;
human beings, coming from their own social and cultural perspectives,
have to be open to learn from one another. Those in the second group
say that not only is it impossible for humans to know absolute truth,
it's not desirable, because such claims often result in attempts to
control or repress others."

My first thought after reading this was that the dichotomy set forth here is almost begging the issue. What is the point of being a Christian if one at the same time claims that either we can never really know truth because of our "cultural perspectives" or that we can never know the truth because it doesn't even exist?

The Church Fathers have always taught that not only do humans have the capability to know truth, but it is the very purpose of our life! Even St. Paul writes that "what can be known about God is plain..." (Romans 1:18-21).

Truth is never a concept to wrap our intellect around and neither is it an emotional state one desperately tries to hold onto....Truth is a Person. And Truth is Personal! It implies relationship....("God does not desire the death of a sinner, but that he should repent and come to the knowledge of the truth"). And of course, the word "know" in Greek has very, almost nuptial connotations....(Adam "knew" his wife...) etc. To know something or someone implies a deeply personal and communal LIFE.

In "The Abolition of Man," C.S Lewis makes it clear that our social and cultural heritage in no way tarnishes our ability to pursue and recognize truth. Theologians who capitulate to the zeitgeist that says that humans by nature of their "cultural perspectives" are unable to see truth, do their protestant brethren a gross disservice. For if this is true, what purpose do missions work have? And of course how could we know that this is true? Could it be our own modern American society is a cultural perspective that blinds us to things as well? When does that epistemological roller coaster ever end?

:: Karl :: 8:15:00 AM [Link] ::

Welcome to St. Stephen's Musings!

St. Stephen, the Protomartyr, is my patron saint--while I'm certainly not worthy of his name, I decided to name my blog after him. His eloquence and his zeal for the truth continue to be an inspiration to me.

After being a "blog" surfer for a couple of years now, I've decided it is time to start one of my own....

I will be writing about issues related to Eastern Orthodox theology, general philosohpy, social commentary, politics and just random thoughts or musings.

A little personal background....I am an Orthodox Christian, having been received into the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" by baptism and chrismation in June of 1998....I am 26 years old, married for one year to an amazing Orthodox woman, still working on a B.A degree in English with a Philosophy minor from PSU....was raised Anglican and Foursquare then dabbled in Buddhism for a year in college before finding Orthodoxy....

I currently work in the advertising industry and have spent time over the past 7 years as a journalist, film production coordinator, and restaurant manager....

Some of my favorite books are: G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy"; C.S Lewis' "That Hideous Strength"; Bishop Ware's "The Orthodox Way"; Richard Weaver's "Ideas Have Consequences".....and MANY others!

More to come soon....

Karl

:: Karl :: 9:07:00 AM [Link] ::