Where does badness come from

by Andrea Elizabeth

“Bad people aren’t born, they’re made.”

“A broken heart can make you do unspeakable things.”

- Once Upon a Time, last night’s episode.

Once your broken heart has somewhat left you alone, then you can start to think about the other people’s hearts you have broken – the children you have let down. Lord have mercy. I think of this in a top down way. Children aren’t responsible for their parents’ hearts, and I don’t think women are responsible for men’s hearts. That doesn’t mean women can’t break men’s hearts and children can’t break their parents’. But the responsibility isn’t theirs. Seems to me parents and men need to look deeper at why it happened backwards like that. Did they do something to cause it?  Was there too much unrealistic expectation in the first place? This is also not to say that men and parents shouldn’t expect anything from their wives and children. Nor that if they don’t get from them what is proper that it is always their own fault. I just think it’s safer to assume that it is. Even if it isn’t, if you love your children or your wife, you don’t want them shouldered with the blame.

Misconceptions

by Andrea Elizabeth

The most troubling statement in the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius’ defense of Obama’s new requirement that employers provide birth control coverage is that ‘birth control is necessary for women’s health’. This is an overreaching statement. If it is necessary for some women’s health, it is going too far to say it is necessary for women’s health in general. Pharmaceutical birth control has been around for less than 100 years, so how can it be necessary? The idea that consequence-less sex is a right for every woman regardless of age or marital status is a misconception only held since the ’60′s.

One of the best explanations about the difference between liberals and conservatives is brought out in Bill Moyer’s interview: “How Do Conservatives and Liberals See the World“. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt cautions against vilification of the other side, but also points out what is necessary for humanity – rules, clarity, consequences, and stability.

Something old, something new

by Andrea Elizabeth

Up until the actual wedding I was mildly curious about how Prince William was doing since the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and about what type of person he was engaged to. I’m not much of a TV watcher these days, so I missed a lot of the pre-wedding hype. But I happened to wake up at 4:45 Friday morning, though I did set my alarm for 4:55 because I honestly wanted to see the Royal Wedding.

I ended up getting quite caught up in the beauty of the couple, her siblings, her gown, Westminster Abbey, the service; as well as the not so beautiful aging Prince Charles, bad hats, female clergy, and a famous homosexual couple.

Generally people were pretty impressed with all the gorgeous traditions preserved and polished that England was so proud to show off. American commentators seemed to question our propensity for the garish new and not so improved innovations. But like so much in the Anglican Church, the new is equally embraced with the old. On the surface it all seemed so old, except for the female clergy, the acceptance of homosexuality, and the hats, but if one looks at the new Duke and Dutchess’ relationship, it is quite new. Or at least newly accepted, or newly publicly acknowledged and accepted. I’m not sure it is unquestioned though. It was subtly brought out that they’ve already been living together at their new home in Wales for a year. They’ve been in a relationship for 7 years.

At first I was charmed by how Prince William kept his eyes averted from Kate until she reached his side, in order to be surprised by her perfectly chosen, pure white gown. It was much later that I thought that that’s the only surprise he had left. I can’t help but think the couple is a little sad about that. The standards for Prince Charles’ wedding to William’s mother were much more strict. For her anyway. She had to be a virgin. Her predecessor, however, was invited to her wedding, and that was almost all poor Diana could think about on her fairy tale day. The acceptance of Camilla that has come about lately is also new.

Despite the above, it is obvious that Prince William loved his mother and loves his new wife, and will not commit the atrocities against Catherine that his father did against Diana. This is also possible because of new standards for letting Princes choose their own brides.

St. Gregory on ‘The Presentation into the Temple’ and second marriages

by Andrea Elizabeth

One reason I began studying St. Dionysius was to better understand the context of St. Gregory Palamas’ writings. Today I thought I might read a bit from this Saint and found that my copy of The Saving Work of Christ, Sermons by Saint Gregory Palamas begins with a sermon on Christmas. Not wanting to read that too soon in this season, I thought that the next sermon, On the Presentation, would be a good one at this time as we on the New Calendar just celebrated the Presentation of the Theotokos into the temple. St. Gregory was speaking on Christ’s presentation, but I thought there should be some corresponding insights. The opening teaches concerning Christ’s Incarnation, and thus Nativity, with a wonderful description of Christ’s healing human nature, and how each person must be healed by baptism into His Body, and a corresponding life of obedience. Then the topic switches to Saints Simeon and Anna who received Him in the temple.

I believe we can receive an Advent message from these two Saints in how they waited for Christ to come in the flesh to them. Saint Simeon’s prophesies about Christ’s and his mother’s sufferings are included, and then Saint Anna is described thusly,

The prophetess Anna, widow of Phanuel, was about eighty-four years old. Devoted to fasts and prayers, she never left the Temple. At that moment, more than ever in the power of the Holy Spirit, she gave thanks to God and announced the good tidings, that redemption, which she declared to be this infant, had come to those who were waiting for it (cf. Luke 2:38).

The Holy Spirit sent this dovelike pair into the Temple beforehand to meet Christ when He came, teaching us what sort of people those who receive Christ should be, and what sort of people women who have lost their husbands and men who have lost their wives should be. For this Anna, Phanuel’s widow, was both a widow and a prophetess. How was this possible? Because she renounced the worldly cares of everyday life and did not leave the Temple. She spent her days and nights in fasts, vigils, prayers and psalmody, and her life was blameless. So it stands to reason that she recognized the Lord, whom she served by her actions when He came. As the psalmist and prophet says of Him, “I will sing and I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me?” (Ps. 101: 1-2)

He spends the rest of the sermon on the virtue of not getting married a second time.

Men and women who choose, after being honourably widowed, to draw near to a life of virginity or to live with someone else, should be like this. If you altogether despise second marriages as something base, then hold fast to your purpose and follow in the footsteps of those who stayed unmarried all their lives.

He uses Peter as an example of how a person once married suffers no impediment to a virtuous life, and how he in some ways surpassed “the virgin John.” But if a person is widowed,

When desire is redirected from the flesh to the spirit it raises us to such heights. [I've talked about these type statements compared to gnosticism before, most memorably to me in St. Maximus' 400 Chapters on Love. I don't want to focus on that in particular right now.]

Be careful not to stand aloof from marriage as from something vulgar whilst at the same time failing to remain chaste because it is too difficult. In that case, you will drift away and fall unawares, for you are following neither what is according to the law nor what is superior to the law, but what is against the law. We regard widowed people who do not live chastely as worthy of condemnation, and even if they are lawfully joined in a second marriage we do not deem them completely blameless – for Paul says that they have cast off their first faith (cf: 1 Tim. 5:11-12, 1 Cor. 7:27, 39-40). So how much more to be condemned are those who prefer illicit pleasure to lawful marriage, and who live with their wives but do not abstain from fornication.

He goes on to give many examples of the evils of illicit pleasure and the consequences of such indulgence.

I have not hidden the fact that George and I were both married before. Five of our six, seven if you count our stillborn son, Isaac, were from previous marriages. I wish there were more passages in the Bible that address the needs of parents, single or otherwise, like turning the other cheek, which is much easier to do if children aren’t involved. Do what you want to me, but woe unto the person who touches my child. Anyway, in the passages above, St. Gregory at first “despises” second marriages, but then when he incorporates the Scriptures he downgrades it to “we do not deem them completely blameless”. Here are the scriptures he points to,[I'll be lazy and paste the Bible Gateway NIV ones]

^{1 Tim. 5:11}As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. ¹²Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. ¹³Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to. ¹⁴So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. ¹⁵Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.

^{1 Cor. 7:27}Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. ²⁸But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

³⁹A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. ⁴⁰In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is—and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

I was divorced before I found the Orthodox Church, and as a Sola Scriptura Christian, I took the above and the following verse in the same passage to heart,

¹⁵But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace.

I do not know what I would have done if I had been Orthodox. If I hadn’t had children I may have joined a monastery, but I may have had too many youthful passions to have been ready for such a commitment at that time. I believe the Orthodox Church will support a pure, virginal life more than a Protestant one would. The Church with her monasteries and full schedule of prayers has more barriers and safeguards available, not that we employ them enough, against secular and material temptations.

That Hideous Strength II

by Andrea Elizabeth

by C.S. Lewis

On Marriage

The Director counsels Jane,

“you do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never attempted obedience.”

Jane struggles with this, and then the Director continues,

“Ah, equality! We must talk of that some other time. Yes, we must all be guarded by equal rights from one another’s greed, because we are fallen. Just as we must all wear clothes for the same reason.[...] Equality is not the deepest thing, you know.”

“I always thought that was just what it was. I thought it was in their souls that people were equal.”

“You were mistaken,” said he gravely. “That is the last place where they are equal. Equality before the law, equality of incomes – that is very well. Equality guards life; it doesn’t make it. It is medicine, not food.”

“But surely in marriage…?”

“Worse and worse,” said the Director. “Courtship knows nothing of it; nor does fruition. What has free companionship to do with that? Those who are enjoying something, or suffering something together, are companions. Those who enjoy or suffer one another, are not. Do you not know how bashful friendhip is? Friends – comrades – do not look at each other. Friendship would be ashamed…”

“I thought,” said Jane and stopped.

“I see,” said the Director. “It is not your fault. They never warned you. No one has ever told you that obedience – humility – is an erotic necessity. You are putting equality just where it ought not to be.”

[After their talk,] she was so divided against herself that one might say there were three, if not four, Janes in the [train] compartment.

[The first Jane was receptive to the Director, shaken from her previous conceptions, and was] swept away on a flood tide of experience which she did not understand and could not control. For she was trying to control it; that was the function of the second Jane.

The second Jane felt that the first Jane swooned like a school girl at the Director’s “voice and look”, and she despised her. She felt the first Jane lost grasp of her own destiny.

“The third Jane was a new and unexpected visitant. Of the first there had been traces in girlhood, and the second was what Jane took to be her “real” normal self. But the third one, this moral Jane, was one whose existence she had never suspected. Risen from some unknown region of grace or heredity, it uttered all sorts of things which Jane had often heard before but which had never, till that moment, seemed to be connected with real life. If it had simply told her that her feelings about the Director were wrong, she would not have been very surprised, and would have discounted it as the voice of tradition. But it did not. It kept on blaming her for not having similar feelings about Mark. [...] she must, must, must be “nice” to Mark.

[She would obey the Director by obeying Mark,] “And this produced in her such a confusion of sensations that the whole inner debate became distinct and flowed over into the larger experience of the fourth Jane, who was Jane herself and dominated all the rest at every moment without effort and even without choice.

This fourth and supreme Jane was simply in the state of joy. The other three had no power upon her, for she was in the sphere of Jove, amid light and music and festal pomp, brimmed with life and radiant in health, jocund and clothed in shining garments. [...] She saw from the windows of the train the outlined beams of sunlight pouring over stubble or burnished woods and felt that they were like the notes of a trumpet. Her eyes rested on the rabbits and cows as they flitted by and she embraced them in her heart with merry, holiday love. She delighted in the occasional speech of the one wizened old man who shared her compartment and saw, as never before, the beauty of his shrewd and sunny old mind, sweet as a nut and English as a chalk down. She reflected with surprise how long it was since music had played any part in her life, and resolved to listen to many chorales by Bach on the gramophone that evening. Or else – perhaps – she would read a great many Shakespeare sonnets. (p. 145-149)

[Jane:]“I think what’s puzzling me is that when I saw him he said something about equality not being the important thing. But his own house seems to be run on – well, on very democratic lines indeed. [...] Did you understand his views on marriage?”

[Mother Dimble] My dear, the Director is a very wise man. But he is a man, after all, and an unmarried man at that. Some of what he says, or what the Masters say, about marriage does seem to me to be a lot of fuss about something so simple and natural that it oughtn’t to need saying at all. But I suppose there are young women now-a-days who need to be told it. [...] Things were easier for us. We were brought up on stories with happy endings and on the Prayer Book. We always intended to love, honour and obey, and we had figures and we wore petticoats and we liked waltzes…” (p. 165-166)

On “Collaboration Between the Sexes”

“The cardinal difficulty,” said MacPhee, “in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men were doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, ‘Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you’ll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.’ The female for this is, ‘Put that in the other one in there.’ And then if you ask them, ‘in where?’ they say, ‘in there, of course.’ (p.164)

On Loyalty

[MacPhee:] “As you get older you will learn that [loyalty] is a virtue too important to be lavished on individual personalities.” (p. 191)