Well howdy all.
I offer my sorry excuse for not having written much over the last few fortnights.
For one thing, this is home-blessing time, in the post-Theophany (Julian) calendar, which I jauntily observe.
For another thing, I'm preparing a presentation at the OCA Midwest Clergy Convocation on "Orthodoxy at the End of the Sawdust Trail: the Need for the True Full Gospel at the Genius of America."
I think that title is far more interesting than the content.
I offer some other tidbits, in a rather non-apologetical tone:
- Having 8 children from embryonic implantations, while already having 6 children under the age of 7 in an unmarried home, in a society that permits abortion by law and degrades childrearing with a whole Stanley toolbelt of devolutionary forces, is the single greatest icon of tragic irony known to man. Cultural decadence is measured by the degree it fosters tragic irony. You don't have to pay to see Pinter (as if I ever would) to see this: just watch the news, listen to Limbaugh or Olberman (they're the same software, just different parameters).
- Why is it necessary for nutcases to deny the Holocaust? Is there some benefit (material or psychic) that is realized? Moreover, how is it possible for a denier to become a bishop? I hear today that the Vatican is demanding a complete renunciation of these views (which the media have labeled, of course, "ultraconservative"). I guess if he says the right things and spins around three times and clicks his heels he'll be hunky dory for the mitre. But "renunciation" means "repentance," and "repentance" means (everywhere except fantasy island) never asking, never expecting, never demanding rights, privilege or position. Williamson should be happy to come back into the Church as a layman. Never as clergy. And God forbid, never as a bishop. Is that not the meaning of repentance learned by the Prodigal Son?
- Which makes me think of the first time I ran into a real live anti-semite about 30 years ago. The snuff-rubbing man was driving me from church (protestant at the time) where I had spoken, a few miles up to the conference's regrettable dining venue (there was, on the menu, chicken of course: chicken that had died a melancholic death and gazed upon the eater, from within its gelatinous fracassee, with grim reproach). The Skoal-swilling wintergreen emitter announced from his wheel that he was sure glad I was conservative, and "therefore" wasn't I just sick about how the Jews were hastening the Tribulation, and (as if this were a self-evident corollary) wasn't I just peeved over their exaggerations about the Holocaust and how there were only 300,000 killed and that no one was gassed? I mumbled something darkly about the fact that there are 653 Tobias's listed at Vad Yashem. Then, a little more loudly, I jumped out of the car. I doubt whether I'm related by blood to these great people in Shoah, but I sure am related by simple humanity. I'm not sure if I could say the same of the driver of a certain rust-red 1975 Ford Granada.
- I opted for the wrong profession if I wanted a multi-million dollar jetplane, a casino junket to Vegas, a $80,000 rug in my office, and a chance to con the likes of Zsa Zsa out of millions in cash and spend my pre-trial days in a penthouse as opposed to the chokey for anyone else who didn't have the smarts to put the filthy in filthy rich. Especially if I finagled welfare payments like this while I have the gall to complain about welfare or giving money to people who don't pay taxes or mortgages to bad credit risks. Except we don't call payments to scam artists "welfare": we call it "bail out" instead.
I would rather follow the likes of Steely McBeam than the American Dream, and wave towels with the throngs in my hometown yesterday who toted more commonplace totems than blackberries and beamers. On the champion platform, there were no potentates or sultans: the Pittsburgh mayor said nothing (I think) and even the ubiquitous sportscasters were dismissed from the mike. The players took over in their inimitable, bombastic fashion. Their chants and locker room shout-outs probably nerved out the whitecollared PR programmers nestled in their skyscraper floors. But none of these executive washroom dwellers ever took on a hairy blitz. None of them ran hot humid laps in August on a field near Latrobe. None of them ran a football 100 yards down the line despite the fact that you weighed 5000 pounds by the time you smacked your head hard set on the goal line, the chalk smearing your helmet, your lungs gasping for an oxygen mask.
(by the way, that's an Orthodox No. 43 about ready to descend into the mosh pit on Grant Street: "hairy blitz" for sure)
I think, probably because I'm a long Steeler fan, that football is a better figure for Christianity than "Christianity-as-Wall-Street," or "Christianity-as-Freud/Oprah/Osteen," or "Christianity-as-Marx."
I know I'm not a sportswriter (I haven't the style, certainly not the knowledge), but I'm surprised at how happy this little worldly thing has made me, this thing called a sixth superbowl ring.
Maybe it's not just this, but something else it points to, something bigger it reminds.
Now, back to work ...
It is not accidental that St. Paul repeatedly uses athletic references in discussing the unseen struggle; heck, the word "asceticism" and its derivatives are themselves rooted in the practice of sport.
Posted by: FrGregACCA | February 04, 2009 at 12:30 PM
Your driver was upset "about how the Jews were hastening the Tribulation"? Goodness. In my neck of the woods, people can hardly wait for the Tribulation. The sooner, the better. Preferably today by dinner time, if not earlier. There is a certain escapist enthusiasm in end times fans which I can at least understand if not subscribe to. Still, I will confess that I never understood Holocaust deniers. It must take enormous strength of will to defend to the end such breath-taking foolishness.
My own meandering aside, I'm glad to see you back, Father. Have fun with the dusty trail, but I'm still waiting for Part 2 of Prospects. Part 1 intrigued me greatly.
Posted by: Dcn. James | February 04, 2009 at 05:56 PM
Father,
What sources would you recommend for a study of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans? They can be books, articles, homilies, et al.
Thank you,
Jason K
Posted by: axegrinder | February 05, 2009 at 01:21 PM
"the single greatest icon of tragic irony known to man" Indeed.
I have to agree with you regarding football. One of my brothers is a cop and I watched the Super Bowl with him. For most of the last 7 years I discussed football with the men in my shop. My wife comes from Packer country (we spent one year of our married life there, so I got to experience the rituals), which is the closest thing America has to a real, utterly pervasive civic religion, well, that and Husker fans, but Husker fans are also all Christians, whereas in central rural Wisconsin the Packers are religion.
Anyway, I have noticed something. As an overly generalized rule, working class blokes appropriate football differently than the fellows with blackberries and beamers. Rich, poor, and in between all play football video games, by themselves or at least with their kids. But for the working class bloke the danger of the game matches some of his experience of life. He has been in a fight. Maybe he went to Iraq. Maybe he does not know how he is going to pay his mortgage note this month. A broken marriage could cost him everything, if it hasn't already. The guy with the blackberry, even if he actually played football in HS, can really only appropriate it via the surreality of the video game. He likely has never had to take a hit that could really cost him. Perhaps this is too simplistic, but it seems that our culture is increasingly divided between those who are some form of cannon fodder and those who get the various forms of bailouts. There is another irony, I suppose, that it is the cannon fodder set who can intuit the real meaning of the game of football, despite its being plastered in marketing nonsense - that God calls men to fight a great battle, that this battle is dangerous, that it will hurt you, and whatever the odds, it is an honor to fight.
Posted by: ochlophobist | February 06, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Fr Greg: thanks for pointing out one of St. Paul's favorite themes.
Dcn. James: yes, there are many in my own back woods who look forward the Tribulation -- but in their case, they will be raptured first, so it makes you wonder why it's being looked forward to.
Axe: I'll have to get back to you on good sources for the Epistle to the Romans. Can you wait a week? or is this urgent?
Anyhow, your request reminded me of a funny story. Some decades ago, I visited my dad's country parish outside of Frederick MD. At the time, he was dead set on holding Sunday night services -- which seemed to me to be a replay of Sunday morning except it was a little more laid back: more shaped notes stuff (which I liked); more "special music" (which I disliked, especially the karaoke vocalists who insisted on singing a quarter-step above and below the pitch); more prayer requests (which I feared, especially the detailed clinical reports about lower intestinal tracts).
Above all, there was more preaching. On this particular August Sunday evening -- sweltering, I might add -- my father had invited a guest speaker. Guest speakers are fearsome things in the revivalist milieu, as they feel no responsibility for whatever aftermath they produce.
And this guest speaker did not disappoint. He ascended the dark oak pulpit as a spitting image of G K Chesterton in all his glory, though he was sartorially furnished with that spontaneously-combustible mix of tricot, double-knit, white vinyl at the bottom and the middle, and some sort of petroleum sheen on top. Pentecost would be disastrous, I thought impiously.
He carried with him a totem of doom. It was a big fat notebook, the reliquary of revivalists -- the infamous "sermon barrel." Not a real barrel, mind you (though that would have brought some mental relief). Just a triple-ring symbol of too many things saved for posterity, too many thoughts that should have been permitted to evaporate but were captured in self-reproach for all time.
He ambled up to the top of the pulpit, and lowered the black fat binder with a thud, switching on the helpful fluorescent shop-lamp that was clipped to the front ledge.
He opened the first page, and I was hoping (along with my sisters and brother and my new wife) that he would choose from the 1000 sermons that had to be there a nice simple "meditation" (that's a sermon that lasts under 20 minutes) with at least one good hokey story that I could steal for my next sermon.
He opened the first page, and then heftily announced his intention: "Tonight, the Lord has laid it on my heart to preach on Romans."
Romans what? my panicked brain was screaming. Give us chapter and verse! Define your pericope!
"Nope," GK answered my shrieking gray cells. "I'm speaking on the whole thing. This here notebook is everything I've studied on Paul's good book."
For the next hour, he pursued an introduction that thankfully landed him so far away from the Book of Romans that even eternal security could not find him.
So I guess, Axe, that you're not interested in this notebook. If you are, let me know, and I'll see what I can do.
Och: we should start a cannon fodder club.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | February 06, 2009 at 04:27 PM
Any chance you might be publishing the text or the audio for the OCA convocation presentation?
Posted by: Fr. Andrew | February 07, 2009 at 08:14 PM
Actually, Fr. Andrew, that will be coming as "Prospects Parts Two through One Zillion."
It looks like there will be as many episodes as Rocky movies.
Pray for the audience. They're going to feel like Sunday night.
Posted by: Fr. Jonathan | February 07, 2009 at 08:23 PM
Father,
There is no rush. I am in a study at church that started last week, but I am looking for sources that I can use for my own study of the Epistle.
Thanks.
Posted by: axegrinder | February 09, 2009 at 06:59 PM