Beholding the Beauty

As you probably know by now, if you've followed this blog at all, I am a member of the Orthodox Church, after having been raised a Baptist. One of the minor struggles for me in entering the Church was that we call our priests "Father". This seems to go against the direct command of Jesus in Matthew 23:9. I'm posting now, because I just came across something in the Scripture the other day that clinched my viewpoint from "well, the Orthodox interpretation makes Scriptural sense, but it's not Scripturally obvious" to "Yep, that's the what the Scripture actually teaches." In other words, it solidified things so that I now see the Orthodox interpretation as actively Scriptural, instead of scripturally ambivalent. But first, let me lay out the two interpretations, and why I'm empathetic to those who hold the standard Protestant interpretation. The Protestant Interpretation For Protestants, it's pretty simple: Jesus said don't d...

Introduction Parts ( 1 , 2 , and 3 ) have covered what I was taught growing up regarding the consumption of alcohol, and a few logical fallacies involved with said teaching. Now, dear reader, feast your eyes on the mythbuster passage, the simple command that brings the whole prohibitionist edifice floating (for cards don't "crash") down around them, leaving them to play the dreaded game, "52 card pickup" . *cue fanfare & drumroll* Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always. And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; or if the place be too far from thee, which...

Introduction In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I introduced the subject and gave a listing, along with rebuttals, of what I was taught in my youth from a prohibitive standpoint . Note: I'm using the Masoretic numbering of the Psalms for this series, unless otherwise specified, since that's what the people used who were teaching me growing up. In this post, I will cover the various Scripture passages that seem to support the acceptability of the consumption of alcohol by Christians, the arguments that were used against them, and the rebuttals of those counterarguments. I will not yet, however, reveal the verse that changed it all for me, because it was not discussed at all when I was originally being taught. I'll save that for the next post. "One-offs" There are several verses that seem to support the consumption of wine, but are not explicit about it, such as Ps. 104:14, 15, Judges 9:13, etc....

Introduction I'm going to just caveat this up front, instead of interspersing constant disclaimers throughout: I do not believe the arguments I lay out in this post. I am doing my best to present these teachings the way I received them, not creating any straw men. My motivation for this is intellectual honesty. In my later posts, I will be addressing the key points (and some of the minor points) in this teaching, and I don't want to waste my time or yours with irrelevant arguments. I'm not here to win a debate by rhetorical tricks. For sake of space, this will be in outline form, with some comments here and there. The Arguments From Scripture Anecdotal First, there are the anecdotal arguments. This includes arguments derived from stories in the Bible. The point of these was always, See! If you drink, bad things happen, and when you don't, good things happen. Alcohol is evil. Because this is the basic argument, I wil...

This is not a confession (because, as we'll see, I don't consider drinking to be an absolute sin); rather, it is a statement of position — i.e. where I'm "coming from" currently. It is not a statement of how I got here, or why I'm staying here. That follows below. Overview I drink. Not very much (I don't like the weight gain and brain damage it does if consumed in quantity for a long time), and usually not in large amounts at a time, either (I also don't like the feeling of being drunk; buzzed is great — drunk, not so much). But socially, sure, and also every once in a while at home when experimenting with different mixes, cooking, etc. However, I was raised in a community and household that taught that consumption of alcohol was evil in and of itself. There was some him-hawing over whether Nyquil counted or not, but the general idea was that consumption of alcohol for recreational purposes is absolutely verboten for all pe...

Got some thoughts swirling about how everyone (even those we think we know) is really, when we get right down to it, an utter stranger; but how the miracle of love, which starts with God's love toward us, and rushes out (if we allow it) into all of our other connections, no matter how insignificant, destroys our illusions, and brings us to know and be known in truth, so that we are at once strangers and yet miraculously other-self-beloved (I don't have a word to express what I'm trying to get at here -- so frustrating). And how this is dynamic, not static, so that it is a constant movement, a dance, a constant refreshing. As C. S. Lewis put it: "Farther up and farther in!" Then I'm reminded of how I constantly fail to allow this love to flow. Instead, I act like I "know" someone, and treat them according to that illusion, or according to how -I- want them to be, for my own selfish desires, and not according to truth. In that sense, I am what...

I wrote this for a friend: "I love you." More powerful expression never made. The Song of Creation, these words cause the entire universe to harken, to rejoice, to peer with trembling at the union of lover and beloved. Come, all you nations! Come you earth! Come you heavens, and that abyss that is above the heavens! Mountains, hills, valleys, Fruited plains and deserts, well-springs and forests Sea, air, and all the things therein Cattle, birds, fish, and creeping things! Come, all of creation, both visible and invisible! Hear my voice, my cry. Witness the mystery, and be amazed! "I love you." Spoken, sometimes, in words, more often in deeds — a look, a touch, a gift unexpected — but always healing, always bringing life. What then is this pain I feel? This loneliness? Where is my beloved? To whom shall I flee when my soul sorrows, longing to be granted entrance to this garden of delights? Or, having once tasted its sweet fruit, to return? ...

My friend Jake Haskins  posted this poem, and it touched me enough I asked him if I could repost it, and he agreed. :) Why, oh heart, do you love so easily? Do you not know the rocky precipice Upon which you tread? Your hopes have been dashed, And tears shed, But still you love. You run heedlessly into the fire, Though you've been burned, But still you love. You break again and again, But still you love. Why, oh why, oh heaven above, Must I traverse this rocky shoal? You take wing and are smashed below, But still you love. God's grace will find you And make you whole, Nourishing your soul -- This is why we love. We see His proofs of love all 'round, His blood on the ground, And we can love. Hope eternal and the Love which confounds, Dispensation so profound! God lowers himself to the ground That we may love. The freeing gift lifted high -- Draw nigh! Draw nigh! Hope eternal, Earth raised to heaven. This is our hope; This is our Love.

After Pittsburgh, I flew to Baltimore, where my dad picked me up, and from whence we drove home to Frederick. The next morning, we hit the road semi-early in Dad's Pinto, and went to visit my dad's brother and sister and aunt in West Virginia.  This is an approximately 4.5 hr. drive through the beautiful mountains of Appalachia.  I was raised, for part of my childhood (ages 3-8) in these mountains, and for the rest of it in their foothills. Once we got to WV, we stayed the rest of the day and the first night with my aunt Sharon and her husband Jack.  They are wonderful people, and we had a wonderful, relaxing time! They own several acres on top of a mountain near Rainelle, WV .  This includes two houses, a barn/shed area, a garage, a garden, and lots of grass.  We stayed in the guest house, which is the "old house", having been built in the early 1900's. The next morning, we left to go to my uncle Tom's place, which is about 30 minutes from Sharon ...

So...it's been quite some since I posted anything, let alone a life update. As I mentioned in my last post, I went on vacation recently. The first half I took for the first year residency at Antiochian Village for the Antiochian House of Studies ' St. Stephen's Course . (Note: The Course is really great, but I am taking a year off of it for personal reasons, and will re-evaluate next summer whether I want to continue it or not. This is not the fault of the Course, but is simply due to the circumstances of my life at the moment.) The flight -- on Southwest, of course :) -- across the country was beautiful, if predictably and happily boring. It was interesting to see the clouds hugging the ground, and the sharp division between the Bay Area, which was covered, and the central valley, which was decidedly not. Once I got to Pittsburgh, PA, there was a bit of a wait while the rest of the people who were taking the shuttle from the airport to the Village. Then we to...

Well that turned out better than expected! Not the PayPal button...that got me nothing (Edit 10/6/2012: there was one generous fellow who was able to contribute; may he be blessed).  No, I'm talking about the whole car thing. I'm not going to say much here yet, because I'm working on a "major life update" series of posts, which will include the car drama.  But suffice it to say that I'm no longer hurting for cash. Of course, if you want to give me money, I'll still take it -- haha -- but no rush now. Look for the first post of the life update series this weekend.

EDIT; UPDATE (10/06/2012): As per my latest post , I am no longer in need.  God has provided.  Many thanks to the one who did contribute -- and out of your own lack to boot, like the churches of Macedonia; may God bless you out of Zion, and remember you in His Kingdom always. ------ You may notice the new PayPal Donate button on the right column. Basically, due to some rather unusual circumstances, I'm a bit strapped financially right now.  If you want to give me money, you can use the button at right! :) This will be used to keep me afloat for the next two weeks until I get my regular paycheck. I find myself in an unusual situation at this time, and just need a few dollars to get me through the next two weeks. I am usually good with my money, and I work a full-time job making a decent wage.  Recently, I saved up to go on a vacation (half of which was not really a vacation, but attendance at a theological school residency). Everything would have been fi...

I recently read this fairly good article , regarding Orthodox Music. However, in defending the exclusive vocality of Orthodox Sacred Music, it makes a statement (fourth footnote) that I see fairly consistently whenever such a discussion comes up.  It states, Conversely, the Psalms that mention mankind (and not the angels) praising God with musical instruments are generally understood by the Church Fathers as possessing a spiritual rather than a literal meaning. It is well known among Judaic scholars that the use of musical instruments was proscribed from ancient Temple worship just as it is still forbidden in the Orthodox Church today. Additionally, the top commenter adds: I especially am grateful for the paragraph regarding the Psalm mentioning use of instruments “Praise him with timbrel and harp,etc” as not being literal. This is an attitude that is pervasive these days in Orthodox musical circles: that the use of instruments was forbidden  in Judaic worship, and tha...

I am still very busy, as I said in my last post.  However, I would like to take a moment to point out something  that has been bugging me for quite some time, which has application to discussions everywhere. One of the most popular logical fallacies these days (in my experience, anyway) is a particular rhetorical tool known as "denying the antecedent."  Wikipedia describes this as: [T]he  consequent  in an  indicative conditional  is claimed to be false because the  antecedent  is false;  if A, then B; not A, therefore not B . Let me give an example.  Say you and I are having a debate, and you build your conclusion on the existence of purple polka-dotted people-eaters.  In this case, I have one of several options: I can 1) Ignore your argument entirely, and attack your conclusion from a completely different angle, and show why such a conclusion is impossible, or 2) Accept the logical deduction of your conclusion from ...

I have been somewhat neglectful of this blog recently.  I beg your forgiveness (those two or three who actually care, anyway).  :) I do not know when my next post will be, nor it's subject.  I do not expect one in the next month or so, though, since I am very busy at the moment. I suspect that once I've finished this Unit of the St. Stephen's Course, and have returned from Antiochian Village (and the few days' vacation I've planned afterward), I will likely have something (or -things) to post. Let me know if you'd like to get my thoughts on any particular matter, and I will consider it! :)

“Forward” Into a Sterile Future | First Things

I love it when someone else writes up something on a particular topic, and does it so well that I don't really have anything to add, except: 'Yup, pretty much.' Today's blog entry by a fellow Orthodox Christian is one such instance.  Go read it!

So I bought a(nother) rifle.  My first rifle is a .22, so not sure if it really qualifies...haha. Anyway, this new one is a Ruger Gunsite Scout , (caliber .308). I took it out to the range  last Friday, and put 30 rounds through it: Ten 140 grain rounds, ten 150 grain, and ten 180 grain. I was using the unadjusted (i.e. as-is-out-of-the-box) iron sights at 100 yards.  The results weren't too bad! Note: this is the last 10 (the 180 grains). As you can see, the unadjusted iron sights shoot a little high and a little left, on average.  (This is even more obvious from the other 20 shots, but I don't have that photo right now.) So...while I'm saving up to get a nice scope with mil-dots and all, I went to Wal-Mart and got a cheapo (but functional) $60 scope.  Also, I added a basic sling.  (That was on my .22, but figured it'd probably be more useful on this .308. I'm gonna get another sling for the .22 -- they are pretty cheap.) As you can...

Michelle Obama is spearheading a war on obesity. I think obesity has indeed become a problem.  I do not, however, agree with Mrs. Obama that the answer is to  mandate, from the Federal or State level, what we can and can't eat.  That's just more government, more tyranny, more bureaucracy, which means more cost.  It's ultimately not sustainable anyway, and will cause more harm than good. The actual problem runs deep: consumerism, which manifests as gluttony.  We cannot fix that with any government incentive. However, there is another thing that is exacerbating the problem immensely, and we can  fix that legislatively, since it is caused by legislation.  That "thing" is the vast array of obesity-helping products that we consume in rather vast quantities, including (but not limited to) high-fructose corn syrup. Scientists and doctors agree that over-consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is one of the leading causes of obesity.  But why...

I would like to clarify some things about my support for Ron Paul specifically, and the R3VOLUTION in general. I am getting some very disturbing vibes out of the Campaign the last couple of days.  This has prompted some introspection on my part.  So here goes. Ron Paul is both a man and a movement.  But as a movement, the label "Ron Paul" is just that: a label, nothing more.  He happens to be the one leading the charge at the moment. We've known from the beginning that the man is not the movement.  He started it, yes (or rather, preserved it through the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush II years).  But the movement is a fundamentally deeper, vaster, and more powerful thing than even he understands, I think. I say this because, although he himself has said many times, "You can't stop an idea who's time has come," his campaign released a statement to the effect of "Ok, now everybody play nice" today. This was, undoubtedly, in response to two v...

I found this post to be quite good. I actually teared up a bit. :) http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/the-intuition-of-narnia/

Well, I was going to write a nice piece on Iran, but I don't think I need to. Lawrence Vance over at lewrockwell.com already did , and I'm not sure how much more I can add. I may still write one of my own, but I'm not sure. Read his piece in the meanwhile. :)

I recently read this article , in which the author vociferously whines about Ron Paul's takeover of her local Republican Party. In the comments, several Ron Paul supporters responded calmly, cogently, and intelligently. For the most part, they were met with ignorant, childish, ad hominem responses. However, I was intrigued by this comment , made in reply to a Dr. Paul supporter. It was one of the few non-Paul-supporter written posts that actually added to the conversation, both in content and form. In summary, he raises the question of Dr. Paul's competency to accomplish his vision, and also about the timeline that the good Congressman has set for doing so. Is he able to? and wouldn't that plunge the world into chaos? My answer to both of these questions is "Yes". However, my answer to the second is continued, "...and he knows it, but he also knows it won't happen on that timeline. But I'm OK with that, and so is he, and here's why....

People nowadays. Seriously! Apparently people have no clue how to actually think through things anymore, and understand subtleties. Everything is knee-jerk reaction to 5 second sound bites and inflaming headlines (the articles for which they obviously don't bother to read, and if they do, the content is so overshadowed by their emotion toward the misleading article they might as well not have read it, for all the rational thinking they do about it). Case in point: http://www.facebook.com/yahoonews/posts/10150646348471037 If you actually read the article and listen to what Dr. Paul says, you see that he is making a clear distinction between the Federal Government vs. the States and the People. He is not against helping your neighbor at all. He is against stealing from some people and borrowing from our enemies in order to inefficiently and stupidly muck things up worse, all in the name of "charity", not to mention upholding the Constitution! In this, he is well i...

After my "epiphany" earlier, it remained only to unpack the details of the simple concept. I started by bringing to mind one of my favorite saints: St. Nina, Equal to the Apostles and Enlightener of Georgia. Several things stick out about her life. First of all, would you look at that title! Is that big, or is that big? No Protestant missionary I know of would be considered on par with the Apostles, let a alone given an official title of equality. No Protestant missionary I know of would be considered "Enlightener" of an entire nation. But when you delve into the details of her work, you see that the title is not hubris, and it's not exaggeration either. St. Nina, by the grace of God, became truly worthy of it. More importantly, we begin to see the scale on which evangelism is carried out in the Orthodox Church. Other examples abound, such the work of St. Joseph of Aramathea in England, St. Patrick in Ireland, Sts. Cyril and Methodius among the Slavs...