A couple heavy hitters

There have been a few comic based movies in the last few years. Batmen, Iron man and the second Hulk being great works. The two I am going to mention are works that changed comic books.

The Spirit is gong to be one of the better comic book movies of the year I think. It may not be popular but the Spirit is a classic comic book that influenced the medium for a long time. I like the basic feel of it, the science fiction is believable or at lest not far fetched and there is a Dick Tracy detective feel (or should I say John Law) feel to the stories.

I don't have time to enumerate the virtues of this series (or the critiques and development) if one enjoys Comics, media history and era influenced stories look into this movie.

I think Comic book movies are much better enjoyed when one has an amount of the back ground and familiarity with the universe and story.

THE SPIRIT MOVE SITE

COMIC AUTHOR SITE


With that said the WACHMEN will be so awesome in a different way. I have seen some trailers and I am excited. This story is one you have to read. It is a short series (12 issues) and is available in a compiled graphic novel for about $20. I'll have it if you want to borrow it before the movie comes out. Again I don't have a lot of time to list out its virtues and vices but its I think it is the works function as a critique/celebration and deconstruction of the comic hero, his role and comic universes is what makes it so great. It also helps us regain what a true hero is to be.

I will comment on this more latter , I think a comparison between Watchmen and Batman specifically the theatrical versions would be interesting.Ill try once it comes out. (one could and should do this in the comic universe but I fear it will be a larger project. maybe )

I think this will be liked and get some great box office numbers but like some of these movies much will be lost if you do not read the graphic novel and have some familiarity with comic book heroes villains and universes.
I really think a read on the series would be a great help to the viewer. I know this ruins the end but this is not a story in that sense, it is an experiance.

THE WATCHMEN

Orthodoxy and Psychology

Geat article;

Orthodoxy and the Science of Psychology

Fr. George Morelli

Orthodox T-shirts...

Some awesome T-Shirts from FullnessoftheFaith.com

I sometimes shrink from T's like this because some of them make the faith corny. One Thing I like about Orthodox culture is a lack of these T's and the consumer appeal, however some of these are actually edifying (or at least not so corny. Not so corny as crap like "Got Jesus?"). I'm not sure I would wear all of them but I like a few of them. Their prayer ropes and icon Bracelets are pretty nice as well. Check them out, they are an indie company that uesed organic materials, fair trade coffee and most of this stuff is hand made (in good Orthodox style) Here is a short excerpt from the site.

 "Welcome to Fullness of the Faith, an indie Orthodox Christian clothing company. We invite you to explore our hand made products. Our t-shirts are made from 100% organic cotton and our fair-trade, organic coffee is home roasted for perfect brewing. Fullness of the Faith products are created responsibly, in a eco-sensitive and sustainable manner and reflect our commitment to the expression of faith through practice. 

Legion

This Sundays Epistle was Matthew 8.28-34 . This is the story of the man possessed by legion. I found this edifying: It is from Second Terrace, a blog Written by Father Tobias.

Legion this Sunday

Richard Wilbur - Matthew VIII,28 ff.

Rabbi, we Gadarenes
Are not ascetics; we are fond of wealth and possessions.
Love, as You call it, we obviate by means
Of the planned release of aggressions.

We have deep faith in properity.
Soon, it is hoped, we will reach our full potential.
In the light of our gross product, the practice of charity
Is palpably non-essential.

It is true that we go insane;
That for no good reason we are possessed by devils;
That we suffer, despite the amenities which obtain
At all but the lowest levels.

We shall not, however, resign
Our trust in the high-heaped table and the full trough.
If You cannot cure us without destroying our swine,
We had rather You shoved off.

The story of the Gadarene demoniac will be heard in Divine Liturgy this Sunday.

These days, demons are embarrassing. They should be grotesque, but that feeling of revulsion is from a happier time. In a globalized living room culture of publicans, demons are just vermin in the plaster, wallpapered over by posters with slogans. Today, they only go bump in the night and profane the air.

So for some, it is hard to take seriously the Gospel stories of Matthew 8.28-34, Mark 5.1-20 and Luke 8.26-39. One intelligent writer suggests this take: "The point of these variations [i.e., in the text], in my opinion, is that the story is not really expected to be believed literally, not by the authors." This is the usual strategy employed when the Gospel gets too rough for polite play, when it gets too R-rated for the sensitive modern/post-modern/post-post-modern mind.

I take the Gospel straight up, thank you. I do not opt for the chauvinistic scheme of patting the poor ancients on their benighted collective head, saying "There, there, you poor unscientific primitives, we know you didn't know anything about schizophrenia, for that is surely what you meant when you said the man was possessed."

No, I've been around schizophrenics before. I am sure that it is possible for one to act as this man did. But I also know that several diagnoses can appear with similar symptomatic presentations. I also know that medical science, especially psychiatry, is famously poor in its ability to go beyond diagnosis, and to identify substance. Diagnosis has nothing to do with definition. It is all about treatment, and loses its meaning completely when treatment ends or fails (which is more frequent than we'd care to admit).

The Gospel is signally rich in its power to identify, to reveal logos, person and time. I happen to think, also, that the Gospel articulates the true mythos of the Church in the World.

So it is more than possible that the Legion story is true. It is mandatory. It is only optional in the fairy-land of Blackberry-tenured academia.

There are a few lessons from this story, if it is true. One is that demons are nameless (you've read this before), and are labeled "Legion" only as a quantification (much like Bilbo addressing his eleventy-first birthday party guests as a "gross"). The hobbits were not amused, of course, but the demons paid no notice, having grown accustomed to their nameless ways over the eons.

Another lesson is that demons profane and disrupt human nature. The nakedness of the crazed man was not Edenic. There was no happy Rousseau, prancing au naturale in Mother Nature's woods of innocence. The Holy Spirit propels saints into the wilderness for deification and prophecy. The evil spirits compel passion-addicts into the caves and the graves, for debasement and vain repetition (i.e., meaningless speech).

It is interesting, here, that the Blessed Theophylact applies the meaning of the graves to "the tombs of dead and rotting deeds … in brothels and in the chambers of publicans and graft." I wonder if these "chambers of publicans" are festooned with golden parachutes, eh?

This is a dizzy thought, yes? That the graves might be where we are, that the only reason why we don't notice is because the graveyard has become "normal"? We may have, over the eons, grown accustomed to the ways of graves. It is not "natural," to be sure. But we have long since made the big mistake of defining "natural" as what is "normal," and forgetting in the world of sin that inevitability is not, is really not, the same as pre-destination.

It is natural to be Adam, pre-lapsarian, and it is pre-destiny to be a saint.

It is blasphemy to be demonic, but it is probably normal. And when blasphemy becomes blasé, beauty becomes alien, goodness becomes a point of view, and truth a narrative. Passion has become "motivation." Self-esteem, a virtue.

And the swineherders on Wall Street wait, meanwhile, on a nearby hill.

Natural sculpture.

I came out side this morning andsaw what looked like trash in the fence line. I was somewhat agitated and went to investigate what looked like white grocery bags. When I came up to it it seemed the bags were attached to the plant stems. To my surprise it was ice. It seems that this ice had formed around he bases of he plants. I found this mid day so I don't know if there was ice farther up that may have melted. I took some pics with my phone. They are very pretty. It amazes me the beauty one finds in the natural world. I found the curves and lines pretty. It is hard to see the fine detail but they look like ribbon candy with fine lines in them. I assume the process to create both are similar is some way.
If you are scientifically savvy and can give me insight into this phenomenon I would be grateful.

Misson Up-date

Glory Be to God. We had our first Liturgy in our space. We went with out liturgy for a few weeks as we build and prepared the church space on Russelville road. that is one reason I have not posted in so so long.
I believe our schedule will soon look something like this:
Saturday nights at about 6:00pm - Vespers with inquirer/catechesis class following
Sunday morning - Orthos at 8:30 and Liturgy at 10:00.
Tuesday night should stay about normal with choir practice. There is talk of more practice. (for me lol)
We are going to have a couple prayer services during the week lead by our Reader Kevin Thomas... Times TBA I guess.

We are pretty excited. Keep us in your prayers and stop by a service sometime.

Here are some pics:

This was from Liturgy this morning with most of us present. We will be getting our Icons for the Iconostasis soon!
Painted with the carpet going in.
Getting close:
before paint and carpet:
This is what the room looked like before we started in the church area. The ruble is from the tearing out to make room for a fellowship area.

Wisdom Fools and Priests

I read tis on Father Tobais's Blog, I thought it was a good read. I have been thinking through the Orthodox understanding of scripture and tradition lately, more to have a better articulation, this was helpful to me. I will post on this at some point I guess. I have highlighted things that struck me.

Wisdom, Fools and Priests

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. (Psalm 118[119].105)

It follows from this that reading the Word and meditating upon it is to avail oneself of the light, or, as St. John would say, to walk in the Light.

It also follows that without reading and studying, without meditating upon the Word that one’s feet will step out into the dark and an “edge” will be walked over. Who knows, then, what abyss will be fallen into? It follows that there will be no clear path, and one will proceed through the days and nights spiritually witless, wandering the dark wilderness of the haunted badlands without compass, guide or star.

I will leave it to you to wonder whether it is possible for a cleric to suffer this malady. A deacon or a priest, or anyone in the minor orders, should think it a fearful thing to take one step away from the lamp of “Thy Word.” Truth be told, the horrors of scandal, financial malfeasance and pastoral imprudence are produced not by lack of education, cultural difference or difficult personality, but instead by sheer foolishness. Some of the tragic headlines of late would never have happened if clerics would have read a lot more of Proverbs, and a lot less of the Internet, a lot more of Sirach and St. James, and a lot less of gossip and TV.

In the Orthodox priesthood, the only antidote for foolishness is wisdom, and that is found only in the Word Himself, and His Tradition in Scripture and the Fathers.

In the Book of Proverbs, Solomon says that “… the ways of the righteous shine like a light; they go before and give light until full daylight” (Proverbs 4.17). The shining of the righteous is the transfigured light manifested by the good works of Christians who are being deified: this is the quality of their “preservationist” function as “salt,” and of their “truth-telling” vocation as “light.” They do this, Solomon says, giving light to all who are bound in darkness, until that moment of “full daylight” when the Lord returns at the great Restoration of all things.

In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord called His Disciples – all who followed Him along the Way to theosis – to a life of becoming and actually being “salt and light.” Salt and Light are ecclesial symbols for the Christian work of prayer and wisdom. The prayer of the Christian as “salt” saves and sanctifies his particular world. The wisdom of a Christian as “light” reveals truth to that world.

Even so, the prayer of the priest participates in the salvation and sanctification of his people. The wisdom of a priest reveals truth to his parish. The Word, the Son of God, uses the witness of the priest as the chief means of spiritual perception for the faithful. This is why the priest really ought to be the one who fulfills the office of prophecy most immediately and intimately for the faithful. It is the preaching priest who witnesses to the Word of God and the Lord of Holy Tradition to his contemporary parish, so that the Orthodox Christian – coming to the Temple fresh from work, school, the ballfield, or even hours floundering in the fetid swamp of the electronic media – may witness the Transfiguring Wisdom of the Word.

It has always been this way. It remains so, even today. Today, more than ever, the hope of “Thy Will be done” must come true, for there is much that is at work today that is contrary to God’s Will: that contrary work is the summary of antichrist and the meaning of “lawlessness.” This essentially Christian hope comes true if Christians come to know God’s Will in the first place: “I pray,” St. Paul says to the true believers, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1.17-19).

It is the job of the priest to reveal God’s Will to his people. He is their prophet, moreso than any other, and he can fulfill this charge only by a lifetime immersion in the Bible and the Fathers.

The Word of Scripture and the Fathers is the substance of Wisdom for all Christians, but it is especially so for the man who is most responsible for the articulation of that Wisdom in the parish: and that man is obviously the priest. He distributes the Eucharist at every Liturgy, just as our Lord multiplied the loaves amongst the five thousand. But first, just like our Lord, he distributes the bread of truth and meaning: he speaks wisdom to the flock of Christ entrusted to his care. Before every revelation of the Kingdom – like the Transfiguration, the Resurrection and the Mystery of the Eucharist – there is the articulation of the Word, and the bestowal of Wisdom. Signs and miracles are not the substance of faith for the Orthodox Christian: wisdom is, and the vision of wisdom is life. “Without Vision (i.e., of Wisdom and nothing less),” the Wise King Solomon said, “the people die” (Proverbs 29.18).

Wisdom is the revelation of God’s Grace in the Cosmos. It is not only the perception of what is real, but the understanding of how and why a thing is real. Wisdom is the unveiling – the apocalypse – of “meaning.”

Wisdom is what a sermon is. Wisdom is what pastoral counsel is. Wisdom is what mundane conversation is. Wisdom is what teaching is in an adult class or a youth retreat. Wisdom is whatever the priest says and does, in one single unbroken continuum of art. Wisdom is (or should be) the behavior of a priest in his home, at the Altar, in the hall, at the grocery, even on the ballfield, and – most challenging of all – in committee meetings, especially those closed-door sub rosa sessions where wisdom is most needed, and sometimes most absent.

The Wisdom of the Word, Scripture and Fathers, should be all these things. If it is not, then that right there is the problem of Orthodoxy in America. Foolishness is the chief pathology of our generation. Not jurisdictional ambiguity. Not rubrical inaccuracy. Not the lack of monastics or staretsi. Not too much of Russian or Greek or too little. Not even the presence of liberals or absence of morals. The lack of wisdom is a fumbling meander in the darkness, like sleepwalking in Sheol: but the reading of, and meditation on, and memorization of, the Bible and the Fathers is “the lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

There is first thought, then there is speech, then there is action. All movement in a home, a parish, and town and a nation begins with movement in the soul. It is up to the cleric, in his moral freedom, to heed the Word and Wisdom, or to lurch into foolishness and shadow. By the choice for repentance and grace, the cleric participates in the fulfillment of “Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

The Word of Wisdom is rich and abundant. It is like God’s mercy, which is not strained. It is a treasure -- where outside, in the nihilistic and materialistic world of fools, there is only kitsch and plastic. The Treasure of Wisdom must spring out from the heart of a priest, who has communed, body and soul, of the Word. The priest is wise not because he is smart, not because he is degreed, or because he is sophisticated. He is wise because he has obeyed God’s command to His servants: “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2.15).

Then, and only then, he is able to offer the riches of Wisdom to a foolish world, and to the faithful who need to be guided through the tracks of time: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6.45).

Whatever is in the heart will come out, no matter what. The Bible and the Fathers will come out in thought, word and action, if that treasure is there in the first place. But if action, speech and thoughts sound and look like run of the mill politics, superstition and frothy opinion, then something else has taken first place in the devotion of the cleric. Whatever is in the heart will come out. The proof is in the pudding. “By their works ye shall know them,” Someone once said in Matthew 7.13.

The Fathers of the Church are a continuing school that unfolds the Word of Christ Who is Wisdom.

In Proverbs 4.24, Solomon advises us to “Let your eyes look straight forward.” In the same mindset, but centuries later, St. Hippolytus says this: “He looks straight forward who has thoughts free of passion, and he has true judgments, who is not in a state of excitement about external appearances. When he says, ‘Let your eyes look straight forward,’ he means the vision of the soul.”

The Christian orders of the episcopacy, the priesthood, the diaconate, and the minor orders of the sub-diaconate, the reader and the acolyte can only “look straight forward.” The soul of the Christian cleric must be filled with the Word. He must know the Bible even better than the “Bible Baptists” do: it is an intolerable thing that the heterodox could ever be more familiar with Holy Writ than the descendants of the Orthodox Counselors who established the Writ in the first place. The stories of the Patriarchs and the Prophets, the teachings of the Apostles and the sayings of the Sages ought to spring like an artesian well from the lips of anyone in orders – whether he is a Reader, a Seminarian, a Deacon or a Priest. He should take up the healthy and ancient habit of reading Scripture out loud to himself daily, so that the very sound of God’s call will echo in his ears and settle in his brain. Reading silently was a bad invention. Poetry cannot be understood unless heard aloud, and all Scripture is poetry of the highest order.

And to understand Scripture, to interpret it, to discover its meaning in the existential context – this task is not an individual undertaking. The foolish and subjectivist habit of determining “What does Scripture mean to me?” is of even less value than the speaking of tongues in Corinth. What mattered most of all to the Apostolic leadership of the Church was the clear articulation of ecclesial wisdom: “He who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues” – or, in this case, than he who interprets the Bible willy-nilly on his lonesome (1 Corinthians 14.5).

This requires a disciplined intellect which seeks the hard knocks of Wisdom at all costs. The disciplined apostolic mind works harder than the lackadaisical motions of mere convenience, enthusiasm, expediency, nostalgia or fad of the moment: “The spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14.33).

The Orthodox priest, who is preacher and prophet and fervent intercessor, is subject to the prophets of Orthodoxy, and these are the Fathers of Holy Tradition. The priest recognizes the icon of Christ in every phrase, word and letter of Scripture, only because he is only a student in the Great Schoolhouse of the Fathers. It is from them that we preachers learn our exegesis. It is from them that we gain our rhetoric.

There is much, I am sure, that can be gleaned from the amorphous mass of Biblical criticism: but the library of modern Biblical criticism is like the Internet – there are some flashes of wisdom, but there is a lot more of the darkness. I prefer that seminarians first learn all they can about Moses, the Proverbs of Solomon, and the apostolic dogma enshrined in Romans – and only after they have attained this proficiency should they even attempt to read the modern skeptical murmurings on authorship, redaction, Marxist & feminist deconstruction, the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, and the non-Christian blatherings of the Jesus Seminar.

Better to have knowledge of the Bible and the Fathers, and to risk some ignorance about the mainstream of current thought. Better to not be “current,” than to know all about Bultmann and Tillich but nothing about Jephthah and Ehud. Better to give up on a Ph.D. than to miss the secrets of the Orthodox pastorate hidden away in the recesses of Second Corinthians. The hyper-liberal trend of the Protestant movement has its roots in the tragic fact that in the so-called Enlightenment, philosophical theology took primacy away from the Bible and the Fathers. That is the main reason why the Protestant movement is not sacramental, and why its pastorate is no longer sacerdotal but only ministerial. Let us not follow their example, God forbid.

The best theologians have already walked on this earth, long before the modern published mavens ever spoke at their first conference. Never again will we see anything like these great Apostolic giants, they who saw the Vision and extolled it in the clarion song of true theology. We have them in our hearts: the treasured words resound from the Three Holy Hierarchs, and St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximos the Confessor, St. Gregory Palamas, even St. Augustine (some, not all, of his writings), to name just a few. There is no modern writer, current or recent, who even comes close to these.

But even though we will never see anything like them again, it remains that we still see and hear them. They have not left us. We Orthodox clerics and faithful are all witnesses of the Holy Spirit moving among the people of God. We have received the Word, spoken by these mystical contemporaries: we address them and the Theotokos in troparia because they are present, and we are in their midst. We have the successor to the Apostles for this Diocese, our Most Reverend Metropolitan Nicholas, who – as we pray in Divine Liturgy – is blessed to “rightly divide the Word of Truth.” They – the Fathers and their successors -- teach us how to read and understand the Bible. They teach us how to articulate the Wisdom of the Word to a foolish, wordless Age.

We should read them first before any other, before Elder or modern theologian, certainly before anyone popular or best-selling. We should read the Scriptures and the Fathers, “when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6.7). After all, “Does not Wisdom call, does not Understanding raise its voice? … I love those who love Me,” calls Christ Who is Wisdom, “I love those who seek Me diligently and find Me” (Proverbs 8.1,17).

It is dark tonight in the vale of fools, and the world needs the light to find its way. It is dark, there is a multiplicity of paths. And in the darkness and confusion, there is a certain foreboding that something is about to happen, and that the darkness may come to an end. We need a lamp in the night, and that Lamp is our Friend Christ and His Apostolic Priesthood. We need a lamp trimmed and lit, so that we may meet the Bridegroom when He comes.

“And we have the prophetic word made more sure,” St. Peter wrote in his second Epistle (1.19-20). “You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the Day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit of God.”

It is up to the Orthodox cleric to make sure that this prophetic word is more sure, so that when the Morning Star rises and the Day dawns, that “Lamp unto his feet” will have turned out to be a reflected gleam from the never-setting Son.

Some early thoughts on Beijing Olimpics

The Olympics are always an interesting event in the political and ethical sphere. From Boycotts, to political statements to the ever present competition and the dealings with the visiting countries.

For example the the 1980 Olympics in Moscow were boycotted by 65 countries including the US, then 1984 Olympics where the Russians protested and didn't show up. (Russia clamied over 100 countries would to the same but only 14 actually did I think) There have been a few boycotts over significant international issues starting in 1956 with the Hungarian uprising.

Countries have used the Olympics a political weaponry, such as the Nazi's propaganda usage in 1936. Many times we see the spotlight used to push political aims and make statemnts on current issues. From the symbols and flags used, the choice in flag carriers, refusal to compete with individual countries to the the host country trying to make an impression on the rest of the world.

The latter is what we are seeing in the Beijing games. China is trying very hard to put on a good face to the world and in may ways have made (if only temporary) progress with human rights, freedom and attitudes toward the world. Many of these changes are not so much changes in actual rights or policy just the methods used to enforce them. The Chinese government has been very cordial in its dealing with protesters. The continual push for the Chinese people to be friendly, accommodating and to know English have been reported by news groups.

The only real issue that is a red sore for China is China itself. The people and direct officials seem to be working well with and have been well received by their visitors. I think there has been some sense of surreality as the Chinese bend backward to show good face, however the press has had a different experience. For press from countries not used to a regime that has the control that China inflicts the interrupted flow of information and the "non-answers" around every turn is starting to wear thin the presses patience. Reports in this article of possible targeting of trouble press members, and confiscation of press notes are alarming. This is an issue China can't put under the rug while the world is in their back yard. The IOC may start to feel the heat as the games wear on. I hope they do and make some statements one way or another.

I had wondered how long it would take for these issues to surface and how long the government in China would be able to have their way with information unquestioned. With the effort they are making to have a happy, pretty, and smooth running face on China it is only a matter of time before China will have deal with touchy incidents. The question is will they handle them in the way China generally handles interior issues , by hush, confiscation and silencing, or will they be prepared to do this gently and pick their battles? No mater how gently served, restriction is still restriction and I am curious how much the Chinese government will open up information. I am also waiting to see the IOC's response. I have attached an article expressing an incident that is apparently becoming common.

The Beijing Olympics is bringing the IOC into disrepute

Here is a quick read from the same author about the effects of the Governments policy on the games and I think on the view of the Chinese and their games to come.

Shame no one invited ordinary Chinese to join the Olympic fun