My first lecture of the school year was on “Memorizing”, how to effectively store and recall information, the way the brain remembers, etc… While preparing, I was trying to find a history poem to demonstrate that even the dates, people, events of history can be put into rhyme and aid the memory. This is what I found (though I didn’t use it with the students due to its PG rating):

I WANT A BOY

Henry Tudor said to Catherine
When he heard she was expecting
‘Darling, you must now prepare
To give birth to my son and heir
Girls are stupid, soft and silly
My baby has to have a willy.’

‘Sorry mate,’ said Henry’s wife
‘I may just be your trouble and strife
But it really isn’t up to me
Whether the baby’s a he or a she
My little egg is unisex
It’s YOUR SPERM that determines the sex.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Henry. ‘That’s not true.
The baby’s sex is down to you.
Don’t try and put the blame on me
If you have a girl, I’ll divorce you and leave
I’ll marry Anne Boleyn instead
And if Anne has a girl, I’ll chop off her head.’

And that’s exactly how Henry behaved
The wives who had daughters he never forgave
But now that the Tudors are long, long gone
We know Catherine was right and Henry was wrong

Hats off and glasses up to another year of teaching.

The mission of St. Andrew’s Academy is to equip our students with the tools of learning and to endow them with the wisdom of the ages so that they may serve God and their fellow man with virtue and strength.

As our trees and mountains burn, our prayers go up for rain.

Just a question to perhaps get some feedback on. If we believe in the providence of God, the security of our soul in the heavenlies, and the unpredictability of this cosmos we walk on – how should we live? Or more pointedly what I want to ask (and am doing it badly) is: if we knew we had three months to live, would our life change? Or should it? Shouldn’t our days be filled with the uncertainty of this moment we call “life” and the vigor of God’s mission during it? Our days ARE numbered, why would it make a difference if we knew how many they were?

I have been looking at what the Patristics have thought about the Trinity, and some curious questions have been emanating from this young twenty-first century mind. How odd is it that the Trinity has been studied by numerous eminent minds and men of God, yet even so the greatest of them have ended their discourses with the word, “Mystery”. Why was the Triune nature of the Godhead a doctrine that St. Athanasius was willing to be exiled three times for? Why has the Church labeled many as heretics because of their definition of the Trinity? What is at stake? Let us rummage through the minds of the Patristics to begin to answer some of our inquiries.

Orthodox Christology was the first battle that our Fathers fought for in the Trinitarian debate. Evans says, “Apart from the divine identity of Jesus as the Son there could not be a Trinity.” Though this may seem evident to us today, it is a primary reason for the Patristic’s tight grasp on orthodox Trinitarian belief. If Christ is not the second Person of the Godhead as truly as He was a walking, breathing human being then there is no Trinity to be spoken of, or really a Christian faith for it too is dependent upon the divinity of Christ. Because of this our Fathers pushed that Jesus was “of the same substance (homoousios)” as God rather than just of “similar stubstance (homoiousios).

Orthodox Soteriology was also in the balance. Gordon Fee said, “[all these soteriological verses] in some form or another reflect the threefold activity of Father, Christ, and Spirit in effecting salvation”. In describing his “economy of salvation” St. Irenaeus highlights the specific purpose of each of the Godhead in salvation saying, “God the Father uncreated, invisible one God, creator of the universe…and the Word of God, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who…in the fullness of time, to gather all things to himself, became a human among humans to…destroy death, bring life, and achieve fellowship between God and humanity…And the Holy Spirit…was poured out in a new way on our humanity to make us new throughout the world in the sight of God.”

Basil of Caesarea was known for his emphasis on the equality of the Spirit in the Trinity. The “filioque controversy” came up because it was important to our Cappadocean Fathers that the Holy Spirit proceed from both the Father and the Son together. They defined the Trinity as one Substance in three Persons so it was necessary that the Holy Spirit be equal, proceeding from both and having in Himself the Substance of the Father and Son together.

The Patristics have used many analogies of the Trinity, two of which particularly lead away from thinking of the Trinity in a neo-Platonic manner. St. Augustine couples the Trinity with charity saying, “charity certainly loves itself, but unless it loves itself loving something it does not love itself as charity.” And further he says, “Now love means someone loving and something loved with love. There you are with three, the lover, what is being loved, and love.” The second I want to mention is one used by Cyril of Alexandria in the fifth century who said, “already the fragrance of the Holy Spirit has breathed upon you…That may you enjoy the Christ-hearing waters in their fragrance”. In this way the fragrance proceeds from the Throne of God (i.e. the Spirit) while Christ is enjoyed in that same fragrance and the fragrance is God the Father.

The Athanasian Creed seems to typify what the Patristics saw as the elemental beliefs that are necessary to maintaining an orthodox view of the Trinity. It says, “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith…But this is the Catholic faith: That we worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity; Neither confounding the persons; nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son; another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one: the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.” The Creed continues with each aspect of God, attributing it to each Person and then unifying them as One, not Three. It concludes saying, “So that in all things, as aforesaid, the unity in trinity, and the trinity in unity is to be worshipped. He, therefore, that will be saved, must thus think of the trinity.”

A final aspect of the Patristic’s teaching on the Trinity (which Athanasius mentions) is seen in our salvation, when we come to the font of living water which proceeds from the Throne of God, the wound of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Herein we bind unto ourselves the strong name of the Trinity, the Three in One and One in Three. This is why we may all walk from henceforth to study, meditate upon, and worship the Holy Trinity for the whole of our lives and still be continually awed into a greater understanding of the holy Mystery.

Comments and thoughts are welcome.

From Eden flowed four rivers going to nourish the four corners of the earth. As they flowed through the years they changed, and grew, the Nile even changed into blood, but the Lord healed that too. The Sea of Reeds opened up to let the people of God pass through on a quest for the promised land. They got thirsty, like you. They asked their Creator for water, and He even split a Rock in Horeb, though the rock was only a vision of the true Rock to come. They did reach the promised land – by walking through water again. The Psalmists oft sing of the river of God that flows from the base of His sanctuary to give suck to the whole earth. His rivers rush through the minor prophets, the major prophets, making borders and wars, drying up for the ungodly, taking lives and giving them.

And then the River of Life was born in Bethlehem, the One Who would make all rivers true to their course. He Himself was immersed as heaven opened and blessed Him so that He might wash the world with the baptism of river-water, then the water of His tears, and then the water which flowed from His side on Calvary. You and I are born from here, cleansed from here, and redeemed from here.

From Eden to Paradise, we are people of the River, and we must both be born from it, and die again that we might live in the Eternal Font.

I felt the curse today.

Keenly I saw it in your eyes as you fondled your child. The one you must still protect from me. I spoke and you listened, but our main discourse occurred between our pupils. Five minutes we looked. Foreigners to one another, yet eight feet away. I thought you to be asking me “why”?

I didn’t have the answer.

The division of our languages happened far before Babel. You take me back to Eden with your blink. You don’t trust me and I can’t earn it back. How is it we share the same air, the same dirt, the same home – the same Creator – and we can’t trust each other? I asked you to hear me out. You stood, both of you. You moved your child behind you. Am I so much a threat? I tried to explain it’s not my fault. If I could I would remove this distance.

I can’t redeem you – or us.

Perhaps you know me better than I do. Do you think I would fail if we had a relationship? Would I kill us both as my father Adam did? Probably. This hurts me more than I can remember before.

You heard me out, and bounded away – or did your fawn jump first? However it was, you returned to the safety of the woods, leaving me to feel the weight of a lost Eden. I can’t wait for the not yet of the new earth – then you will let me touch your children and you may play with mine.

The smell of pines rushed quickly in as four arms and legs ascended into the first heaven with the scampering speed of some small rodent. A new tower of Babel was created – we would reach the top with the greed of making a throne at the top. I’d like to say I reached the pinnacle first, but perhaps he did, or it was a tie.

The cold nipped at our noses, we had all become Rudolphs that day. We pressed and dug and stacked and moved – we were taking dominion of the white flecks of water that had visited from the waters above. We would take care of our Eden, we would subdue and order this creation – we would be faithful Adams. Our snow fort would be more formidable than Goliath’s armor, and we would shield our foreheads. The battle was waged, canon balls of white were launched at record speed, and we were laughing – always laughing….

The snow-runoff water of our stream threatened our small corpora, but our hearts tried to compensate, sending reinforcements to the extremities. Why do I mention now what gave no notice then? The frigid water was no bother, we were hunters that day, our prey had two pinchers and could launch backwards with one flip of the tail. Our crawdads were brownish (or were they reddish, or orangish?) and they were going to give a fight for life, but so were we – they were our sustenance and we would not have mercy.

The plans were written, blueprints drawn – I’m sure there were nearly as many as Solomon had for his Temple. The seven of us were saying “adios” to our family dwellings and building our third and largest cabin. The other two were forts, but this would be the sanctuary of our honneur et vertu. To us this would appear as more perfect than Olympia’s Zeus, more mathematical than the Great Pyramids, more beautiful than Babylon’s Gardens – it would be the First Wonder of our World. And it was, it was the centre of our kingdom, where we played and ate and played and slept and played. It was paradise.

We grew.

Some left.

The tree was timbered.

The snow melted.

The crawdads enjoyed peace at last.

The fort has fallen to an unknown enemy.

We are all adults now, the Clear Creek gang is all over the world.

The seven-fold band is unwound, but the strands still come from the same strong beginning.

And what has the mind done to reality? Why can’t I remember crying or spankings or schoolwork? What kind of great illusion has time placed upon those younger years?

I think I’ll go make a fort and find out.

When I was lately at Pepperdine University, I had the blessing to hear Frederica Mathewes-Green. She is an Orthodox writer and speaker who is humble and kind, a refreshing voice in this world of chaos. For fear of misquoting, she said something similar to the following with regards to singing:

When we sing, we are given again the Breath of Life from the mouth of God, and we receive Him into all of us, and at the same time are given the opportunity to return that Life to Him in a way more harmonious and beautiful, taking an active part in the harmony of the Trinity.

Enough said. I have thought of it every time I’ve sung since then.

Why is the dark so frightening? Why is the first thing I do in my house flipping a switch and creating light? I know how to walk through the living room, down the hall, into my bedroom without going through all the trouble of turning on lights at every step. And, when the light goes on in my head everything is safe again, but in reality, nothing has changed. Why is this and is it the same in the spiritual sense? The Light scatters the darkness creating safety and comfort, no more bumping into walls and looking like a crazed person with arms fully extended in front of you – your eyes are opened to behold things invisible and unseen. Riddle me this.