I was recently at a conference about a cappella music. Most of the people there were from Orthodox traditions, Church of Christ, or people just interested in the music. There was also a panel of speakers who were from various non-traditional Churches who were presenting on Church music with/without instruments and what kind of music should be played in church today, etc…. One was from a more “emergent” Church who had some good words about bad hymns and good hymns, and how we should only be teaching our children the latter kind. But he was very non-denominational praise-band worshippy. Another speaker had a nifty PowerPoint program on “Convergence Worship”. He had more degrees for his age than any ought to have, and the corporate nature in which he dealt with the topic at hand was slightly unnerving to my more traditional veins.

I must be growing – I didn’t get angry and I was slightly amused.

One picture kept coming to my mind: With all the discussions about how we should worship and what music should be played and who are we targeting and are we being culturally relevant, I just kept asking myself how many times we must reinvent the wheel rather than getting on a cart that already has wheels and sorting things out from there. That’s not the picture though, that was a rather long rabbit-trail. The various evenagelical movements today continue to put up pre-fab buildings on a parking lot (valet parking sometimes included) when right next-door is a cathedral that is founded in the Garden of Eden. We aren’t supposed to be culturally relevant in our worship – WE’RE SUPPOSED TO WORSHIP THE ETERNAL AND EVERLASTING GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. Like Adam. Moses. David. The Apostles. And all the faithful departed this life in a faith sturdy enough to hand down to their great-great-grandchildren. I want to go to Church to worship God in His Cathedral, and I want to better it for generationsI will never meet.

I pray that I will have the strength to build just one brick of that cathedral that spans all time until Christ’s completion rather than be concerned with the pre-fab, quick-fix nature of my culture.

No, the illiteracy rate has not gone down. Millions of people across the world are trying to handle unplanned illiteracy. Most are unsure and uncomfortable in social arenas, and struggle with feelings of confusion and self-doubt. Many are just plain tired of not understanding, and often times not even knowing that they don’t understand. And so many never seek a remedy for fear of not “fitting in” with the literate college class.

But the State Universities are changing all that. By using taxpayers dollars, they are able to advertise cross-country using small words that the common people can understand. They are reaching out to the illiterate by offering a place where they will fit in – where everyone has had a mediocre education. The environment is one that they will understand, for the greatest draw comes from the public schools, allowing for a common level of comprehension.

The student counselors talk to people every day that think they are too illiterate to attend college, who are afraid of not being able to keep up. The counselors tell the illiterate population of today not to worry because the State University will meet them where they’re at, allowing them to receive a degree with the least possible work.

For example, Susie went to California State University frightened to death of having an overload of homework with lots of writing and tons of books to read that were written by dead white European authors. But when she talked to her counselor, all her fears were relieved. The reading would be less than her public high school, deadlines would be flexible, and the teachers would keep lectures simple. This would leave plenty of time for getting on to the things that are important in life like hanging-out with friends, keeping in touch with those back home, sports, and finding your perfect illiterate “other”.

That’s what your State University can do for you, because they understand life’s priorities.

A fun little tidbit –

Advice For U.S Citizens Visiting France

The following advice for American travelers going to France and it is intended as a guide for American travelers only.

General Overview

France is a medium-sized foreign country situated in the continent of Europe to the left of Germany. It is an important member of the world community, though not nearly as important as it thinks it is. Among its contributions to western civilisation are champagne, camembert cheese, French fries, the guillotine and an unsanitary method of kissing.

One continuing exasperation for American visitors is that local people insist on speaking in French, but will become immediately enraged should visitors try.

The People

The French people are temperamental, argumentative, proud, arrogant, aloof and undisciplined. These are their good points.

The French are aware that they have garlic & cheese halitosis, and it has caused them to perfect the dismissive shrug instead of conversation.

Men often have girls’ names like Jean, Marie are Michel, and they kiss each other when they meet.

Cuisine

Let’s face it, no matter how much garlic you put on it, a snail is just a slug with a shell on its back. Croissants on the other hand, are excellent, although it is impossible for most Americans to pronounce this word.

Public Holidays

France has more holidays than any other nation on Earth. Among its 361 national holidays are: 197 Saints’ days, 37 National Liberation Days, 16 Declaration of Republic Days, 54 Return of Charles de Gaulle In-triumph-as-if-he-won-the-war-single-handed Days, 18 Napoleon Sent Into Exile Days, 17 Napoleon Called Back From Exile Days, and 2 France-is-Great-and-the-Rest-of-the-World-is-Rubbish Days.

Safety

In general, France is a safe destination, although travellers must be aware that from time to time it is invaded by Germany. Traditionally, the French surrender immediately and, apart from a temporary shortage of Jack Daniels life for the American visitor generally goes on much as before.

A tunnel connecting France to Britain beneath the English channel has been opened in recent years, to make it easier for the French government to flee to London during future German invasions.

Should there be a war while visiting, don’t worry about the Germans, but the French – if you see them coming, run like hell.

Bon Voyage!

A thought struck me the other day as I was driving with some students in the car. I thought a thought I’d never thought before, and I am quite intrigued by it.

In Heaven (wherever or whatever that is) there are four earthly bodies that we know of from the Scriptures. Moses, Elijah, and Enoch were presumably assumed into heaven with their earthly bodies very much still intact. And then of course, Jesus Christ, ascended into heaven with His resurrected body. So, are there three non-resurrected bodies living in heaven? Or was their flesh discarded somewhere in the journey? And, for interest’s sake, what are those three bodies doing in a world of souls? Do questions like these have any implications on our beliefs and/or thoughts about heaven?

Please, comment!!

Post Scriptum: If you are Roman you would also be including the Blessed Mary in this (?)

For all of you who haven’t subscribed yet, please go to http://www.earthandaltar.org
It is a wonderful Anglican Journal of “life and worship” which has been a great source of encouragement and edification for me. The following is the article I wrote for this last Issue, though I would highly recommend you get it off of the site (which is the edited and easily-printable version). Have a blessed Lent.

“Drowned in Living Waters”

Nietzsche couldn’t understand; Hitler got it backwards; Marx forgot humanity; and the Modern Christian gets it all wrong without thinking at all.

Going against the wisdom of this world, Christianity resembles more the survival of the weakest than the survival of the fittest – making foolish the prophets of our age. In his work, The Anti-Christ, Nietzsche said, “The weak and botched shall perish: the first principle of our charity”, but St. Paul maintains that, “when I am weak, then I am strong”. The German thinker claimed that “a [man or society] is corrupt when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers, what is injurious to it” but the world’s Savior said “take up your cross and follow Me”. The morality of Modern Man declares virtue as “whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself” while the Son of Man requires His followers to be “clothed in humility.” With condemnation Nietzsche wrote, “The fate of the Gospels was decided by death”, with acclamation the Patristics agree. Christians are insane, or at least they should be.

Lent is the embodiment of the Christian life in a Season, and as such is a portrayal of good Christian lunacy. So, dear readers, accept for a moment (at least the duration of this article) that you must die to live.

The story of Lent is one that encompasses all the Covenants, both past and future. It is Joseph who lay bruised and beaten in the depth of a pit only to rise up and be clad in Pharaoh’s clothes. It is desert-exiled Moses, a reluctant shepherd, who led God’s people to the Promised Land. It is a very sore Abraham, cut in his old age, who would have descendents enumerating the hosts of the sky. It is a short kid named David who conquered his fear (he couldn’t have had that good of an arm) and received a Throne. It is a girl pregnant out of wedlock who denied all pride and became Theotokos. It was God in flesh, battered and crucified ascending into heaven. And it will be our eternal judgment and the eternal banquet of the faithful. Christians old and new live in a backward reality.

In this Lenten story, we have all become Adams, hiding from ourselves and God, forgetting (or trying to forget) that He sees all. And so Lent is the time when God walks through the Garden, calling our name and asking us what we have done. We wriggle and whinny ourselves in every direction, pointing fingers and passing blame as layer after layer reveals us as basely human. Once we are stripped, our nakedness in plain view, then God begins to sew clothes for us. That usually happens around Day 39.

Lent is my favorite Season (which many find quite strange). I have a devotion to Lent because it is the journey of Christ. I walk unreservedly with Him in the desert of hunger to face demons and find angels. He asks us to follow Him unconditionally as He treads upon the thorns of sin with hope, but no sight, of a rose. He gives strength to be crucified with Him, to go down into the depths of Hades with Him, to die with only rumors of a resurrection. Forty days to see my utter depravity. Do not think that it is morbidity that finds love in these things. It is thankfulness that our Lord Christ would walk this earth to kill death itself and then, having finished the race, grants us the Spirit to share with Him in His suffering. In Lent the Spirit reveals with utmost clarity who I am, and utterly disturbed by the sight, I run to Christ and cling to Him, seeking to be clothed in and with Him.

Lent is also the sequence of our baptism; in baptism, we are drowned. Our old man is left gulping down fonts of water and suffocating while our New Man is raised to the newness of life. In the depths, in the fires of hell, in the baseness of humanity we are held for forty days. One day a week we are allowed to grasp a short breath of air, a wisp of victory, then under we go again. We are left to stare up through the blurred current at the Light, and as the days pass the darkness grows darker, and yet somehow it seems that the rays of the sun penetrate clearer through the rivulet of rushing sins. We are drowned in Living Waters.

And then it’s Holy Week. Blackness and agony enfold me as the assigned Readings cast all thought of my weak faith aside in the looming greatness of the Cross and Passion. Someone thought it was a good idea to read through every account of Christ’s agony and bloody sweat – brave soul. By Holy Saturday my soul has nowhere to turn but to that Font from which it was born, and the words of St. Augustine ring through my being:
Oh that I might find my rest and peace in you! Oh that you would come into my heart and so inebriate it that I would forget my own evils and embrace my one and only good, which is you! Oh, in the name of all your mercies, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me! Say unto my soul; I am thy salvation. Speak so that I can hear. See, Lord, the ears of my heart are in front of you. Open them and say unto my soul: I am thy salvation. At these words I shall run and I shall take hold of you. Do not hide your face from me. Let me die, lest I should die indeed; only let me see your face.

In Lent we have been drowned, buried, and burned – we have experienced the eternity of forty days. But then our shoulders are grasped by strong hands and we are raised “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” We come out of the cleansing river and we breathe truly, for we have the Breath of Life restored in our lungs. We see truly, for we are blinded by the Light which casts out darkness. Easter has come, and we are not only raised with Christ, but we ascend with Him into the heavenlies. Here we are accepted to that Heavenly Banquet in the most unshrouded glory of the year – Christos Anesti! Nietzsche was wrong, Modern Man is a liar, Reality is not as we thought it. We have died to live.

Would that I stopped to stare.

The wind plays its symphony upon those “lifeless” things: trees, leaves, grasses. The sheep and cows hear it – it is the white noise of their days. They seem quite content with it. Do they applause, or leave that to the swaying trees?

Wake. Pray. Read. Shower (well, sometimes). Granola and Yogurt. Birkenstocks on. Sound of the pavement during my “commute”. Work.

The sound of rushing streams. Night and day hold no difference for them, the stars are always there. They pass rocks and other currents, they flow on in commute to a new destination. What makes water have that sound, and why do we say they’re rushing?

People everywhere – the same people as yesterday. Chaos. Corporate Prayer. Some children dance. Some children doze. Whiteboards. Phonics. Work.

Boughs, woods, squirrels, streams – these are not the only things at which to stop and stare.

Darkness turns to light during the time I pray. It reflects across the Lake. My prayers are consummated when I kneel beside naughty little boys. Laughing eyes of learning children. Penitent eyes of punished ones. The frustrations that prove humanity. Trying, and being tried, by that band of friends called “co-workers”.

Would that I stopped to stare, to see Beauty in my neighbors. To embrace that smile that waits in my student’s eyes. Would that I stopped to stare, but not as sheep or cows – that is for special days.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

-William Davies

Any ideas why our culture, and ones that have gone before, have portrayed angels as babies, cherubs, or little children? Is that the best we can do when thinking about purity and innocence, or is there something more? Would we like to ignore the Scriptural picture of the terror-striking angels of Isaiah’s writing or the flaming sword of the cherubim that guarded in every direction? Just curious.

I lifted this from my little brother (well, little in relation to years – he looms over me in height…).

“…history is an endless tide and so it is undamnable”

Never thought about it that way. Leave it to a 13-year-old.

There were Seraphim in the Sunset yesternight. The God of the heavens had painted in a glorious array of orange majesty the expanse above me. I was on my way to a friend’s house, or at least was supposed to be, when I could go no further. When I stopped, time stopped with me as I observed the handiwork of the Creator. The clouds had an absolutely amazing floating nature to them, slightly wispy and yet the thick and strong they took their time with the wind as it urged them along. They flew with leisure, so that I could not see if they were commanding the winds or if the winds were commanding them. Both seemed in perfect unity, or maybe the wind seemed a bit impatient at times. And then that orange. No manish sub-creator could ever capture the palette before me. Many would snap their shutter and many would take up brush – but none would succeed to mix the proper hues. Indeed, this masterpiece before me was born from an infinite mind.

I am convinced that these colors could capture blinded eyes with sight – like mine or maybe yours or maybe the person that pulled off the road behind me. In some way in that frozen moment I felt the part of Isaiah at the Throne. In front of me a vision of the heavens that lie beneath the Eternal’s throne and I could feel the wind from the Seraphim’s wings as they flew in those clouds. My knees buckled as I felt my cheeks wettening. The Eternal, Almighty, Artist-God that thought this sky into being has chosen, called, saved, and loved a vile speck of dust. With the mighty Wind He breathed on this dust and made me His.

Thankfulness rushed through me as time began again as the drivers rushing past gave a curious glance. I was late to my friend’s but on the road to Hamilton I had seen the Eternal.