Please keep this sinner in your prayers. As one of my teachers said recently, Prayer changes things.

No, Glee is not at all like Smallville. I am a multivalent little atom.

Any thoughts? Do you like Glee? What do you like most or least about it?

I would like to offer one further remark — and it may simply reflect a different perspective: I have become somewhat sensitive of late to the fact that the cross is the center and sine qua non of Christian faith. Chris mentioned the Lord’s passion (which is the cross); it could have been a bit more central to the entire homily. The cross is the sacrament from which every other sacrament flows. You see this in icons of the crucifixion: A cup capturing the blood and water flowing from the Lord’s side. (This image of baptism and eucharist — of the church as sacrament — represents a timeless connection rather than an historical event. The crucified Lord eternally gives birth to the church in the timeless reality of the cross.) I would have nailed the fact that the Lord’s cross is the medicine (and sometimes, we don’t get a spoonful of sugar to make it go down more easily).

Sometimes we speak easily of the church and theology without referring it back to the cross. However, the earliest patristic writers, as well as many of the most important through the centuries, always took the cross as their starting point and referred to it constantly. The more that our teaching becomes able to stand apart from the cross (which is the revelation of God enfleshed), the less it resembles patristic teaching. A theology which can stand without the cross is not the gospel and it is not really Christian.

In closing, I reemphasize that I really liked this homily. However, I think that the cross is crucial to Christian teaching and thought it important enough to mention. In some ways, this merely reflects a different perspective. I am emphasizing this crucial element of Christian teaching partly due to the deep vale where my own journey has taken me. However, part of it is also a shift in thinking spearheaded by Fr John Behr, now the dean at St Vladimir’s Seminary, where I am a student. I highly recommend his book, The Mystery of Christ. To get an idea of his central thesis, read this article: “The Paschal Foundations of Christian Theology.”

…actual behavior …distinguished from the arguments… [put] forward for the benefit of the naïve and gullible, represent the real aims and objectives of the homosexual rights movement. … In other words, if you support what is now described in euphemistic terms as ‘the blessing of same-sex unions,’ in practice you are supporting the abolition of the entire Christian sexual ethic, and its substitution with an unrestricted, laissez faire, free sexual market.

To some of my readers, that thesis may sound like the ravings of a homophobe. By the time we get to this thesis, though, Mr Lee has already let us know that he’s an insider. “By the time I lived in Austin, I had been thinking of myself as a gay man for almost 20 years,” he writes in the second paragraph. Lee’s article is entirely anecdotal, and it may be a sophisticated, extended ad hominem against GLBT[Q] rights activists. However, it seems to me that his perspective may not be isolated or eccentric, and his conclusion should be answered, if not accepted.

Lee argues that he never found monogamous gay couples. I know two. My experience is biased (both of the couples I know are family members). I am asking several friends, family members and acquaintances to comment on this article with their experience — anonymously if necessary. Is the gay subculture as Lee describes it? How should a reader understand his thesis that monogamous homosexuality is merely a front for indiscriminate sexual license, the real goal?

Please read the article and comment on the article. Uncharitable comments will be deleted. Anonymous comments are welcomed if charitable.

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him find what makes him happy and take up his joy and follow me. For whoever would save his happiness is blessed, but whoever loses his joy for my sake and the gospel’s will be cast out into eternal darkness where the fire never ceases and the worm never dies. For what does it profit a man to gain his soul and forfeit his happiness? For what can a man give in return for his joy? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my happiness in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the happiness of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God coming with joy.”

Today’s hymn:
Troparion of the resurrection

O Lord, save your people, and make joyful your inheritance. Grant happiness to the people who are always happy, and by your resurrection preserve your habitation.

Troparion, Tone I
Today, Armagh rejoices with Antrim and Mayo, * and all Ireland praises the illustrious apostle, Patrick. * On all he met he made a deep and lasting impression, * for the grace of God overflowed his noble and sensitive nature. * With the Lord Christ as his breastplate and the undying lamp of the Spirit in his hand, * he went forth to make the Irish people children of the font,
*** baptizing them into Christ, the only lover of mankind.

Kondakion, Tone IV
The evil one is ever on the watch to carry off entire nations as booty, * viciously plundering their spirit and leading the minds of the people into error. * For this, you wisely spurned the world as a passing dream prone to destruction, O holy Patrick, * preferring to be a merchant of that which lasts forever. * Thus, you led the Irish nation to worship Christ, our God, * becoming the blessed father of a multitude of sons and daughters in the Lord.
*** Beg him now to save our souls.

From The Monks of New Skete, Troparia and Kondakia.

O Lord and master of my life! Dispel from me the spirit of discouragement and slothfulness, of ambition and vain talk!
Prostration.

Instead, give me the spirit of prudence and humility, of patience and charity.
Prostration.

Yes, my king and Lord, let me look at my own sins and refrain from judging others: For you are bless’d unto ages of ages, amen.
Prostration.

Then, with three lesser reverences:

O God, have mercy on me, a sinner!
O God, in your mercy wipe out my sins!
I have sinned very often, Lord; forgive me!

Prayer text copyright © The Monks of New Skete.

But that psalm ends by underscoring the psalmist’s commitment to God in spite of being abandoned: But my soul shall live for him and my children shall serve him. And the next psalm begins with the answer to the question: The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I need. Even though he seems to ignore our cries, leaving us in darkness, he is present. Even if I walk through the valley of darkness, I fear nothing: you are there with your rod and staff, and with these you console me.

Even when he seems to be silent, he is still present, and he loves us even when we doubt him.

Nine years ago, a tiny transformation occurred. Christ the Life-giver Orthodox Church in Nicholasville, Ky., formerly a mission of the Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC), entered the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). Unlike other parishes that entered at the same time, every single member of Christ the Life-giver chose to remain with the parish in its transition to the OCA, an amazing detail that is sometimes forgotten. In the days that followed, a new name (Saint Athanasius) appeared in the window, and the layman who was formerly the priest would again be ordained to lead the tiny band of pilgrims. To better understand the place of that decisive moment in the history of the parish, I present it here through the lens of my own life.

My story begins in 1995, when I entered the Roman Catholic Church. Before that, I was an evangelical, and I continued to attend an evangelical college. One of my art professors began reading about Eastern Orthodoxy and attending prayers held in the living room of a nearby seminarian, David Rucker. Rucker was studying missiology. He served in Hong Kong, and he was frustrated over inadequate responses to ancestor veneration in Asian cultures. He believed that Eastern Orthodoxy could provide a positive answer for Asians. My professor’s interest piqued my own, and I began attending the Sunday evening prayers. In the fall of 1995, Rucker began holding catechism classes. He invited me to attend, and I did.

In 1996, Rucker’s doctoral thesis advisor unexpectedly died, and he faced the prospect of completely rewriting his thesis on ancestor veneration in Chinese culture. When he discussed returning to Hong Kong with his missions board, he realized that Orthodox practices had become more than an academic investigation. The evangelical mission board forbade him to use the sign of the cross or icons in his ministry. They required the impossible. Rucker resigned and responded positively to pleas to form a mission in Kentucky. Together they named the new mission Christ the Life-giver, because now they experienced him as one who gives life.

At that time, I was still faithfully attending mass in the Roman Catholic Church. It frustrated me that the EOC was not a canonical Orthodox group. To grasp why I eventually joined the EOC, understanding their unique vision is essential. The people of the EOC abandoned church-as-usual. Church-as-usual looks like this: You go to church on Sundays, or maybe two or three times a week; maybe there’s a monthly or weekly fellowship in there. By contrast, the New Testament demonstrates a church that is infinitely more than that. The people of the EOC hungered after that New Testament church.

We routinely hear the story of Christians studying the primitive church and becoming progressively more traditional and often eventually joining a church with an apostolic lineage, such as the Catholic or Orthodox churches. A community vision set the EOC apart for me. They abandoned worship of themselves for lives together centered on Jesus Christ in his church. They started communities of young Christians radically imitating what they read in the New Testament, emptying themselves for each other: living together, sharing with each other, and generally enjoying the communion of life in Christ. They bought houses in the same neighborhoods so that they could be within walking distance of the church, both the physical temple and the living temples of each other’s lives. When I saw this in a concrete community, living and worshipping together, radically putting the orthodox and catholic faith into practice, I was hooked.

And, like many, the services of holy week and Pascha pushed me over the edge. In the Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic Church, I experienced beautiful paschal worship. In Indianapolis, however, I saw a whole community center its life around the worship of the church. It was very common to walk to church. As we walked, we joined others who were also walking to the same service. The worship was beautiful. Between services, people spent time with each other, talking about the cross and the resurrection. I longed for that community life.

In 1997, I joined Christ the Life-giver, but I never stopped pushing toward union with the wider Orthodox Church. I felt it was essential for our shared life to be authentically Orthodox. We already drank deeply from the fathers and from recent Orthodox writings; we needed to take the next step. As the world headed into a new millennium, a crisis in leadership demonstrated just how far we were from the episcopal governance of the Orthodox faith. The retirement of our bishop opened the door for us to make that next step.

In 2001, after nearly five years together, Christ the Life-giver decided in council to petition Archbishop Dmitri (Royster), then the ruling bishop of the OCA’s Diocese of the South, to accept us into communion. Initially the diocese gave us a date for our chrismations slightly after Pascha of 2002. It would be difficult, but we accepted this in obedience to our new father. In January 2002, however, the leaders of our mother church in Indianapolis met with members of the OCA’s Department of Evangelism, which included key figures from the Diocese of the South’s missions and evangelism team. After this meeting, the diocese advanced our date to February 2, the Meeting of the Lord. “You’re already more Orthodox than we initially thought,” they said, “And we can’t bear to make you go through Great Lent and Pascha without the eucharist!”

Of the day itself, my memories blurred, so much was going on. I recall we baptized one or two children. The chrismations took so long, there were so many of us, that we ended up kneeling on the floor for parts of it. I also recall it was a Saturday. We celebrated the divine liturgy together; the next day we gathered for a non-eucharistic prayer service — it may have been matins or typica; I don’t remember. I do recall the memories of that Lent, though: Finally approaching the chalice with Orthodox Christians at our sister parishes in Lexington, with whom I had worshipped so many times before, unable to participate in table fellowship.

A tiny transformation! Yet in the lives of every member of the parish, past and present, the resulting transfiguration defies description. In the last nine years, our parish witnessed many changes as it grew under the patronage of St Athanasius. Yet it remains committed to life centered on and committed to the community of the life-giving Lord Jesus Christ. We continually learn to love one another concretely. We continually grow in our common daily and eucharistic worship. Raise a toast to our first fifteen years together, with hopes and prayers for many, many more!

In some Western customs, pious Christians considered it bad luck for Christmas decorations to be up after Candlemas. This indicates that they perceived the Christmas season (as distinct from the twelve day feast itself) to continue until Candlemas. Christmas decor was acceptable and could remain in place up to (and perhaps including) this celebration; after Candlemas, the Christmas season definitely ended, and people boxed their decorations for another year.

Yesterday I dined in a nearby International House of Pancakes. Among the ordinary songs of the Muzak playlist, holiday tunes occasionally still played. None of them were Christmas carols, I noted, but it was still interesting to hear an establishment such as Muzak (or a surrogate music service) continuing to play holiday music over a week after New Year’s Day. Usually, secular marketers have boxed up and forgotten everything Christmas before the twelve days are even half-way over.

I grant that the holiday tunes selected were far from Christmas carols: they included Amy Grant’s cover of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and Wilson Philips’ “Hey Santa,” among others. However, I smiled as I mused that it perhaps could be a start towards extending the holiday season into January rather than into October.

Merry Christmas!