The good God commands jollification. The world, the flesh, and devils resist a genuine good time, given that a good time is good! A legalist invents rules that prevent a good time and a libertine ruins the fun with a hangover. We need training in joyful living. The Faithful have finished Lent, gone to Church for more than a few hours, seen the True Light. Secular society would have us head back to the wheel and start running as rats... Read more
Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast. . . God grant us hope, an anchor for our souls, sure and steadfast, whatever the times. My mother reminded me that Pascha this year falls on the day her sister, my dear Auntie Karen, died. She was more like an older sister to me. Once she organized a treasure hunt for us (my brother and cousin) full of clues. She and Uncle Roddy would set up... Read more
I still have the Bible that Mom and Dad got me one Easter. That this Bible, a RSV, has a dark green cover, my favorite color, was one good fruit of the seventies. Nobody was going to make the parents raised in the Age of Aquarius stick to basic black on the leatherette covers. There are notes from Dad’s sermons, Sunday school, and a few attempts at poetry. The many scrawling notes confirm two things: I never could spell. The... Read more
Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross. He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery. He who in Jordan set Adam free receives blows upon His face. The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails. The Son of the Virgin is pierced with a spear. We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ. Show... Read more
We do what we must, take joy when we can, knowing an eternal holiday is coming. A holy day for most of history had to be a work day, because most people have been farmers. The goat and chickens needed feeding. If you had a cow, the cow needed milking. There were, naturally, jobs that could be put off, yet nature naturally acts according to the nature of the various plants and animals. Just as we have to wash, eat, and... Read more
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? We are God’s workmanship as a we and not alone, never alone, because we are God’s own. The deepest truth in this passage is not what we should not do to our bodies. Our pastor pointed out that sometimes this passage is used to forbid assorted things (tattoos! smoking!), with the focus on... Read more
Easter, Pascha, makes our life normal. Death is defeated by life. We are given a future. We are all the Bride of Christ and the Bridegroom is coming! There is joy, natural, healthy, joy in the Bride of Christ coming to the Bridegroom. This is Pascha: normality restored. Jesus Christ will bring us as His consort to a city that will be kept in safety for all time: the City of God. When humans rejected God in the Garden, we... Read more
Love is so mighty, so foundational to reality, that hatred is overwhelmed in the sea of charity. Just as the proud tyrants of Atlantis were swept away by a mighty wave, buried in the sea, so the good God will sweep away our hatred, our pride, and bury them. As the faithful get ready for Pascha, we are reminded of love: we await the Bridegroom. He will come for His Bride and we need only be ready for the splendid party! The Bridegroom... Read more
Celebrate a good Father who always rejoices in his children. Today recollect how history should have been if all our choices had been good and all of the “is” of history had been as our choices “ought” to have been. If every mother had been Mary and every father Joseph what would the cosmos be like? Palm Sunday is a moment in time when the “oughts” of history that the pious heart longs to see for one day became an... Read more
“Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” Before the New Testament was completed, Christianity was African. Africa was, is, and always will be a powerful center of the Christian life and message. The patriarchate of Alexandria (Egypt) was a center of scholarship and culture that radiated out to lands such as Aksum with her great King Kaleb. One remarkable leader was Peter, Patriarch of Alexandria, scholar, preacher, servant to the poor, and defender of orthodoxy against external... Read more
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