Beholding the Beauty

As a recent (almost 4 years ago now) convert to Orthodoxy, I am not qualified to speak to this topic, but I will do so anyway. Here are a few basic — to my mind incontrovertable — principles to work with: First, canonically, traditionally, and liturgically, the bishopric is over a City. Any “higher levels” of honor (e.g. Archbishop, etc.) are based on any “higher levels” of government (e.g. in the USA: County, State/Possession/Territory, Nation). Any reference to ethnicity or nationality of the parishioners to decide who is in charge of whom is phyletism, a defined and anathematized heresy, plain and simple. And any bishop who remains in this condition is a heretic himself. Each of them needs to realize that. Second, it is against the Christian ethos (if not canon law as well?) to take a brother to the secular courts. Suing each other is NEVER to be an option. Thirdly, no plan needs approval from bishops overseas. Bishops are bishops, and each has full executive power over his di

I recently asked a girl -- explicitly, not just implied! -- to go on an actual Date (yes, the capital "D" was there, even though it was spoken). She said, "Thank you, but I'm not interested in you that way." Ok, cool!  No harm, no foul, and we're still friends. :) That was SOOOOOO much easier than the "let's hang out and hope we click and if we click I might get the courage to ask her to be my girlfriend but I shouldn't let her explicitly know I'm interested (although hopefully she'll figure it out) because I'm afraid that'll scare her off" approach. No, if being blunt scares her off, then fine.  Y'all know me -- we probably wouldn't have gotten along anyway; none of us has time to dilly-dally around waiting for someone to figure out what they want. So....From here on out, if I'm interested in a you, I'm going to ask you: "I'd like to take you on a Date; are you interested?" Now, for

Originally posted on my Facebook.  Hope you like the formatting here better. :) This is probably one of the most blatantly "in your face" proselytizing posts I've ever put up on here. You all know that I rarely do that. I post a lot of political stuff, and a lot of religious stuff, but rarely ever, on here or in person, do I just blatantly proselytize. And I don't foresee doing this very much in the future, either. But there is a great coincidence of liturgical calendars between my religion and another, which bears some meditation. That meditation turned into a call to convert. Oops. :P Here goes… This evening begins, in the Jewish religion, Yom Kippur, the yearly Day of Atonement. This is a high holy day, and is observed with strict fasting, almsgiving, prayers of repentance, and other asceticisms, designed to remind us of our fallen condition, and to petition God by these for forgiveness, and I wish my Jewish friends a good repentance and confession, a good Yo

All formatting and spelling (or lack thereof) intentional. And if it turns out something wasn't -- well that just proves the point, I guess..... Life is messy  -- No doubt about it! Some of it can be UNmessed, Organized, packt up in Neat little boxes  -- With straight sides and Square corners flush and Trim -- Nary a slot for Carbon paper a-'tween 'em! Some of the boxes, on the other Hand, bulge a little bit, And the neat little grid Begins to drift.  The Yarn loosens, Unravels a tad, and Next thing you know you've got a Hair-Ball on the carpet and no idea Where the cat went.

I have an idea on how to solve immigration, and I'd like y'all's feedback: 1) Put protections in place for employers who hire illegal immigrants into this program, and for the illegal immigrants volunteering for this system as well. 2) Allow any foreigner who passes muster (normal background checks, not on terrorist watchlist, etc.) to enter this program. 3) Give anyone who completes this path full citizenship upon completion, assuming certain minimums of behavior in the interim (i.e. annual background checks, drug testing, etc., including a final comprehensive review at the end) 4) To prevent abuse by both the employers and the employees, set certain reasonable minimums on the contracts involved in this program.  These limits would initially be set by Congress, but the State Legislatures could amend these on an ongoing bases at will. 5) Tax Credits may or may not be offered by the States or the Congress for participation in the program. 6) The system is propose

In this excellent romp through Church History, Khomiakov elucidates the impetus and disease underlying the Western Schism, and the means of its healing, clearly identifying the core values of the Western Schism in its two halves (Romanism and Protestantism [and touching on the two further halves of this as well]). Highly accessible to both scholar and layperson alike, this article includes a brilliant (and I dare say holy) description of the Orthodox Church, and a careful but direct demarcation of the ground it stands on (and a critical comparison of that solid rock to the shifting sands of the West). The reader will also have obtained, by the end of the piece, a clear understanding of the reason that the filioque  controversy is such a touchstone, and was the watershed of the schism, without having to melt his or her brain by touching (beyond the broad ecclesiological considerations being discussed, of course) on the particulars of the doctrine and/or the specific theological

Today, I sent the following to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA): Senator Boxer, You worked tirelessly to end the ill-conceived War in Iraq, and I applaud your efforts on the front. I write to you now because I am concerned that the U.S. is about to get itself involved in yet another ill-conceived conflict, spending yet more money that we don't have to support the perpetrators of unspeakable atrocities, and harm the cause of democracy world-wide by encouraging even more sectarian, religiously oppressive, anti-freedom activities. I'm referring specifically to the statements coming from President Obama and others indicating that the U.S. will be sending military assistance to the rebels opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad. The line of reasoning in support of the rebels has been the reports (unlikely and unconfirmed, but let's assume for the sake of discussion that they are accurate) that Assad has used chemical weapons, which is against international law, and so sho

What happened last night in the gallery of the Texas Senate is ATROCIOUS, and should be considered so regardless of your standpoint on the bill in question. First off, neither we as a nation, nor Texas as a State, are a "democracy". In fact, the Constitution of the United States specifically requires all participant States to have be republics, not democracies, and the Constitution of Texas explicitly states that Texas is, in fact, a Republic. That means representative government. What is so atrocious about what happened last night, is that rather than allowing the rule of law (including filibusters) to work, the so-called "people" simply overrode the law. I say "so-called" because the people shouting in the gallery were NOT elected. They (illegally, in my opinion) inserted themselves (via their voices) in the place of the ELECTED representatives (on both sides!) in the Senate well. I say it is atrocious because this sets a precedent of "barroom"

Context matters.  A lot. Case in point: the Protestant notion of "faith vs. works". http://onbehalfofall.org/2012/06/23/st-paul-and-the-works-of-the-law/

I just noticed it's been a month and a day since I posted last!  Man, how time flies! Anyway, I've been (as usual) super busy, and will remain so through the end of next week, so here's a quick quick rundown of some things I've been up to lately.  I'll expand on a couple of these after next week, when I have more time:  * Went to a Four-Day Defensive Handgun Course at Front Sight, and passed the skills test with a "Distinguished Graduate" level, which is the highest you can get.  To receive a "DG", you must "shoot down" 0-13 points.  That is, your points must be with 13 of the maximum possible.  I "shot down" 9.   In other words, I missed 3 shots, but they were still in the "body" on the target -- they weren't complete misses, just outside the "optimal" area.  (Complete misses are -5 each.)  I was one of two people in a class of 39 to receive a DG.  * Been working on some super secret projects tha

The crux of the "marriage" question, both in the religious and civil realms, is over the provision of services or attachment of privileges to a status. It is not really about the status itself, because if there were no consequences of that status (e.g. access to services/privileges that would not otherwise be granted, or restriction for privileges, etc. that would otherwise be granted), the status would be irrelevant, and people could do whatever they wanted to and call it whatever they wanted to and it would make no difference. The State currently provides privileges, etc., for having the status labelled "married". In addition, that status, as far as the State is concerned, is -granted- BY the State through 1) it's assigned agents (e.g. judges and military officers) or 2) agents it recognizes. It recognizes, currently, as agents, holders of several non-State offices, e.g. religious leaders, ships' captains, etc. The first category of these (the judges),

This has been a whirlwind of a month!  I've been incredibly busy, which is why I haven't really posted here much (my apologies). Anyway, here's what I've been up to: Work I have a client for whom I've been building a rather complicated website/database combination, part of which  went live already, to a select list of about 17,000 people, and the other part of which is scheduled to go live next Monday, to the rest of the world, but initially marketed to over 700,000 people. Dance I've been taking dance workshops and dancing pretty much every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday night: blues dancing at the Firehouse 5 on Sunday and Wednesday nights, country dancing at The Davis Graduate on Mondays, Fridays, and occasional Wednesdays after blues, and on rare occasion I'll hit up salsa or swing or hip-hop/club here or there on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday night. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I got myself involved in some drama

Having learned a few things of the vagaries of time and chance, I find it more and more important every day to give thanks for all things (even -- and sometimes especially -- the things that I don't understand), judge no one (it's not my job!), and love every one (even my "enemies"). And in doing these things I find that more and more, I receive life more abundantly, I am pardoned my own transgressions, and I have no enemies at all: only dear and precious friends.