I told God today that I don’t really want any experiences. I don’t need to go to Rome to visit my son next semester, for Rome’s sake anyway. I don’t need to go on a closer to home road-trip to see the leaves, maybe because I already saw some pretty good last vestiges on the way to Church this week. I guess I don’t need the leftover pie that I forgot to ask George to bring me instead of Saturday toast, which I didn’t begrudge once I tasted it. What does one do when one finally doesn’t feel needy and is pretty much thankful?

Pray anyway I suppose.

I haven’t played Age of Empires in a long time. The kids were playing it together via network yesterday and the trebuchet sounds made me nervous as I wandered in and out of the house cleaning leaves out of the pool sweeper and dishes from around the living room. I thought I’d join the next round but I kept thinking, I don’t want to have to rush to make food, cut trees, dig for gold and stone and hurry a growing army around the map to barely survive against the son who’s going to Rome and the one who may even beat him if they went one on one now that he’s a super duper cheerleading tumbler. Their competition routine is awesome btw. I’d show it but the one they were allowed to film had a lot of mistakes, unlike the last competition. Plus the youtube version is low-res and you can’t hear the music because people nearby are screaming too loud, ahem. I just don’t feel like attacking or being attacked right now, maybe later.

That last line sounds like “The Elephant’s Child”, come to listen to it. Is there nothing new or original anymore? What does authentic mean anyway? The offerings of classical people?

Margaret has written a most excellent article on love here. We’ve been talking about some of her points in the comments to my last post.

I have heard people theorize that homosexuality is a decadent love of onesself. I have heard other theories that it is a compensation for a lack in the parent of the same sex. I’ve thought that it can be a result of a bad relationship or experience with the parent or others of the opposite sex. I also think there’s other warping factors that make people exchange the natural function of our bodies for that which is unnatural.

In going with the idea that we intensely like ourselves, and want more of the same, I think this also applies to other choices we make. We choose friends with whom we have a lot in common. Things are less segregated now, but community lines can also be drawn according to who is like us. Religious and even Jurisdictional lines are drawn the same way. There is a place where lines belong, and without advocating doing away with all distinctions, rules and boundaries, I think it is healthy to be open to other ways of being. Ironically, this seems to entail finding commonality with those who are different. All are made in God’s image, all sin, all have some amount of blindness to their sin, all find a way to justify their sin, and perhaps all have more justification for their sin than I do.

Because I announced last week that Fr. Hopko would be visiting our parish the first weekend in December, I should say that due to health concerns in his family, he wont be able to come. I don’t know how public the health concerns are, so I’ll just ask for prayers for his family. He hopes to reschedule sometime next year.

I’ve just discovered, through a Facebook Friend’s suggestion, The Rudder, which mostly streams back to back, uninterrupted Orthodox Sacred music. The announcer is unaccompanied! This allows a more seamless, uninterrupted Orthodox listening experience. If one has movie soundtracks already streaming in one’s head, sometimes listening to Orthodox music at home or in the car can help motivate one to change one’s mind.

We finally got around to watching the new Star Trek movie this weekend. It made me think of the difference between science describing the world, and science remaking the world. Our technology has become less about can we, and more about should we. Yet it is my habit to let myself root for the crew of the Star Ship Enterprise and fully enjoy the trilogy of Spock, McCoy and Kirk. I want them to come up with technological solutions for getting out of impossible situations, though they always find a place for single hand to hand combat too. Mostly it’s about outwitting the bad guy though, and I guess that’s the real satisfaction.

Should we seek to colonize the moon, upon which water has recently been discovered? Do we need to make it to Mars? What about space stations? Now that budgets are tight the question is is it economically practical, not even can we or should we. I used to want them to accomplish all these things, I was three when we landed on the moon and I probably caught the bug that way. My son has it too and is pursuing aerospace engineering in school. With cut-backs, he may have a hard time getting a job. But to me, nixing the space program because there’s not enough of a material, economic advantage is worse than the “technology is bad”, tower of babel rationale. Man should want to reach up, and for many, that is what the space program symbolizes.

I wasn’t going to quote On The Incarnation, but here goes anyway,

God knew the limitation of mankind, you see; and though the grace of being made in His Image was sufficient to give them knowledge of the Word and through Him of the Father, as a safeguard against their neglect of this grace, He provided the works of creation also as means by which the maker might be known. Nor was this all. Man’s neglect of the indwelling grace tends ever to increase; and against this further frailty also God made provision by giving them a law, and by sending prophets, men whom they knew. Thus, if they were tardy in looking up to heaven, they might still gain knowledge of their Maker from those close at hand; for men can learn directly about higher things from other men. Three ways thus lay open to them, by which they might obtain the knowledge of God. They could look up into the immensity of heaven, and by pondering the harmony of creation come to know its Ruler, the Word of the Father, Whose all-ruling providence makes known the Father to All. Or, if this was beyond them, they could converse with holy men, and through them learn to know God, the Artificer of all things, the Father of Christ, and to recognize the worship of idols as the negation of the truth and full of all impiety. Or else, in the third place, they could cease from lukewarmness and lead a good life merely by knowing the law. (p. 39,40)

I have a bunch of thoughts about the above that are flying around Quidditch-style in my head. I know they all belong in the same game, but I haven’t made sense of it yet. Please bear with me.

I wrote recently about marketing analyses leading to better practices, such as greening up parking lots. Marketing and thus materialism are by-products of Democracy, hence the term “Capitalist Pigs”. In a democratic society people choose for themselves what they want to acquire with laws protecting both them and their brothers from harm. This is also protected under our right to pursue happiness. In the United States, hegemonic rulers are seen to come between a person and his naturally discernable, inalienable rights. (see also Ariston’s recent post on natural law). I believe Orthodoxy assumes the proper balance between hegemonic leadership and respect for natural man, not that all individual Orthodox leaders do.

Protestantism is based on the idea that people can discern for themselves what is good and bad, with the help of the Bible alone. America is basically a Protestant nation, and as we have grown more secular, individual discernment is now capitalized on without the help of the Bible, but even very liberal people like to use some parts of it to further their case. Such as those who promote the loving Jesus who just wants us to love one another and that’s why it’s okay to be homosexual or a pedophile. They can even justify abortion by asking how loving is it to bring a child into my particularly unfavorable circumstances.

All that said, I don’t really have much hope for or see a realistic Orthodox state. Let’s say Metropolitan Jonah were elected president, which is the only way what he says could really hegemonically influence public policy, well, let me back up and say that if the majority of Americans agreed with his stand on things, there would be hope for our society at large. But the fact that he is the leader of a small group within a small group of American Churches, shows how great the disparity between Orthodox order and American society is. So let’s say that 30,000 people in line to be president died and somehow Metropolitan Jonah came to be president, and that there happened to be only traditional Orthodox surviving in congress to be a majority to pass laws, then abortion and homosexuality could finally be outlawed in this country. Actually, there’s a lot of other Christians who would pass such laws too, but then we come down to enforcement. Do we adopt traditionally western models of law enforcement with is aimed at punishment – fines, the death penalty, or incarceration? Dostoyevsky in B.K. talked about the Church being in charge where communion is withheld from offenders. But in the mean time we have fear of state imposed punishment instead. This is external motivation. Only the Church can give us internal motivation by truly healing the human person to his rightful state where he is like God and thus doesn’t do immoral things.

This is why I can’t get into “fixing society”. It’s all externals which end up being temporary fixes (what do we do once the baby is born to immature, selfish parents who oftentimes aren’t even married?). One thing I think the ’60’s got right was that external impositions lead to hypocrites. The baby boomers exaggerated the problem and over-vilified authority, but I think they also had a point. Rule by fear, intimidation, shaming, and a desire to dominate and control isn’t going to get us where we want to go. Especially we at the bottom of this hegemonic food chain. But neither is immature, individualistic, passion-leaden decision making. Orthodoxy teaches that unless one is purified, he will be ruled by his passions. One could say that this is true of those in authority as well as of the common man.

Yet in all of us is a desire for good, as St. Maximus teaches us. And I believe that we all want the best, which is waiting to be awakened in us. And this is where a free market, democratic society can come to some good. I have some hope that the disappointments of materialism and immorality will naturally become apparent to people (indeed I see an emphasis placed on putting children first, instead of individual pleasure, in some of today’s dramas). Letting people find this out on their own takes more time (and maybe more immediate costly consequences), but I also think that children can learn from their parents’ mistakes. I agree though that today’s generation is too concerned with entertainment and comfort. Has it deadened their ability to discern a greater good deeper down in their souls? I see some evidence of this, but hopefully they will also naturally discover the dissatisfaction of constant entertainment too once the new has worn off, especially if an alternative is presented to them, like reading and drawing and making up stories, instead of constant screened entertainment.

I fight being an overly hegemonic parent, as well as a too neglectful parent. I suppose I also believe there is a time and place for hegemony, but I think it’s mostly in the realm of parents and children. Not the state and the people. I also see the Church, who gave us the Bible, as being vital to this role of instructing parents in how to be parents (and people to be human), especially if these parents don’t have correct role models in their own biological or adopted experience.

Another aside: the Court system even has proper family order better than many families, so I don’t totally discount the state’s necessary intervention to protect children. I don’t know if this is due to natural law and common sense, or if it is from a more deeply rooted heritage, probably both.

Once again, life has a balance that must be carefully navigated.

I don’t know why I’ve put off reading St. Athansius’ On the Incarnation for so long. I’ve read about it and even quoted parts of it but haven’t gotten around to reading it. Sometimes when I’ve heard so much about something, I think I already know it and then don’t have the curiosity that usually motivates me to read it. C.S. Lewis explains another reason why people don’t read classical originals in the Introduction,

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library ashelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about “isms” and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the geat philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his geatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowedge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.

This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.

Eight pages into the original and I’m entranced. I am seeing foreshadowing of St. Dionysius as St. Athanasius talks about God’s creation ex nihilo, and am very much appreciating how he frames why Christ assumed humanity. Dr. (?) Lewis also says, “When I first opened his De Incarnatione I soon discovered I was reading a masterpiece… for only a master mind could have written so deeply on a subject with such classical simplicity.”

There’s also a quote from The Shepherd from Hermas that I recognize in the Divine Liturgy, “Believe thou first and foremost that there is One God Who created and arranged all things and brought them out of non-existence into being.” (Book II) p. 28

I’m glad I read Dr. Jones’s lengthy intro to St. Dionysius though, since his Corpus isn’t as simply written. It may be more simply written than Dr. Jones writes, but as I’ve shared before, I had a significant block to the Saint’s use of non-being in reference to God. I had to work through that with Dr. Jones. I’m still reading The Divine Names, but I don’t know if I’ll quote much of it. Now that my blockage has been removed, I’m just going to try to absorb it.

Since Thursday, George has been in Pennsylvania for his mother’s 70th birthday celebrations with extended family that he has not seen in a very long time. He surprised his mother by his visit, and I know that having her oldest son, her only child to move more than half an hour away, staying at her house was a great blessing. Sons should not forget to visit their loving mothers. And I can tell by his voice that this visit has been good for him too. Texas is very a long way from Pennsylvania.

This morning he attended the Hours, which began at 8:15, and some of the Liturgy at the Old Believers Church of the Nativity in Erie, before going to his mother’s Assembly of God Church where she wanted to introduce him to her friends. He took his niece and nephew along. Last year when our whole family was up there, we all, including the nephew, went to the Church of the Nativity (I’ll see if I can find the link). The 13yo seemed to like his first Orthodox Church service. I asked George to pay attention to the chanting style this morning, as I’ve really enjoyed getting to know it on the Church’s recording of The Canon of St. Andrew. He said he recognized it in one of the male readers. There’s a young girl who chants the Hours in a more plain style.

While he’s been gone I’ve had a pretty full weekend with various activities, including the Liturgy for the Theotokos’ Entry into the Temple yesterday morning. Now the scheduled things have finally stopped, except for one more pick up. Now that it’s quiet, I just miss George. His plane gets in in 2 hours, then he has to drive another hour and a half to get home. One of the points in About a Boy, which I watched last night, is how kids and single parents need backup. Weekends like this remind me more than usual, not that anything really stressful happened. Even on normal days I’m counting the hours until George gets home from work and I wont be the only one in charge any more. Though the kids are older now, I’m still responsible to make sure their activities are wholesome. I have to constantly listen and be alert to what they are doing and how well they are doing it. When George gets home I can finally let my eyes, ears and will relax. I know he doesn’t worry as much as I do about what they’re doing, but I also know his different eyes and ears are tuned into things mine aren’t, so I am glad to have his input, which is usually more fun than mine. It is also sometimes nice to open the door to the possibility that being more relaxed about some things wont necessarily cause the world to stop turning either. However, I usually know how much it will slow down while I’m tuned out, and therefore guage my time off duty to not let it slow down enough so that things will start flinging into space.

Childcare is of course not the only reason I miss George. He’s strong and big enough to let me lean on him. I don’t let myself lean on other people, so it’s nice to have someone who I want to let me.

(with a Texas twang)

He’s a rock that’s not very hard,

He’s got socks that get lost in the laund

ry and likes fresh ground cof

fee and cream.

He’s a steady hard work

er that everyone respects

and looks at because he goes at his own pace

like his dad.

He is nice like his moth

er and really likes his salad

that he chops up himself

because I don’t make each piece uniform enough.

He doesn’t like to talk

but he likes to listen

and when I ask how he likes what I write he says

it’s good.

And I don’t know what I’d do without him because I like to lean every now and then and if too long went by and he wasn’t there I’d fall down

overwhelmingly hard.

When I saw About a Boy a few years ago, I related to the mother in the clip below. In it, closing your eyes while singing is a sign that you’re too far gone.

There’s an interesting twist at the end. I’ll just recommend watching the whole thing instead of showing it (unless you neither close your eyes nor think it’s a big deal). Btw, my son still sings with me.