I'm So Special

Steve over at Pithless Thoughts is posting a series of his original Ortho-Graphs in which through humor he does a wonderful job of deflating my (and probably your) sense of self-importance. He points out most eloquently that (among other things) we are all guilty of false piety, of an inflated sense of self, of believing that we are set apart and special, of pride.

The problem is that the act of writing about false piety and about how guilty I am is probably in itself false piety. But here goes.

“Look at me and how bad/depraved I am/was, how my childhood/upbringing was worse than yours, how I have had to work harder to achieve what I have and any degree of normalcy.”

I know I am guilty of writing about how I have had it worse in life than most folks and that I am therefore special and deserving of empathy/pity and admiration. I have used my struggles as an opportunity to proclaim like a chanticleer my specialness. I know that in some sense I am just sharing my life, my life experiences but I have to admit I enjoy getting responses. I guess the fact that all four sentences in this paragraph start with “I” pretty much says it all.

Steve also explores the always popular, “Look at me, look at how much of a sinner I am/was, look at how prideful and un-orthodox I used to be. You have no idea how far I have come on my journey. I was so Baptist, so Church of Christ, so pagan (you fill in the blank)….” Guilty as charged. In fact I can go one better and say my first church experience was at a Salvation Army church in the neighborhood in which I grew up. We were all so poor the SA had to put down permanent roots. Sad, but true. See, don’t you feel sorry for me now?

Do I write and post photos here because I want you to admire my work, to validate that I am a good photographer/writer/artist? On some level yes and I suspect I am not alone. This blog, this seeking of attention is a form of vanity. I check to see how many people have visited, how many people have commented, how many electronic contacts I have made. And despite my poor intentions I have come to know some very excellent folk through blogging (Steve being one of them).

Steve reminds me that I am nothing new under the sun, that my feelings of smugness are sadly not particular to me. Vanity, vanity. All is vanity.

Orthodox Visions

I hope the video speaks for itself. If you think it's worthwhile pass it on.

She Is The God-bearer

On Sept. 8, The Church celebrated The Feast of The Nativity of our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary. I’m not sure why but I found myself deeply contemplating (not easy with my shallow mind) this feast day in general and the Theotokos in particular.

As a good (sometimes) God-fearing (almost always) Protestant I never gave much thought to Mary other than at Easter and Christmas, those days when she intruded into the celebration and could not be ignored, diminished certainly, but not ignored. At that time anything to do with Mary smelled suspiciously of the Romans with their statuary and their candles and their incense (or Popery?). We were taught that the Romans (we never even knew the Holy Orthodox Church existed) did their best to elevate Mary to a full share in the Godhead and sought to change the Holy Trinity to the (un)Holy Quadripartite (I’m sure that’s not exactly the right word so please correct me Fr. Frank). I apologize for all the (excessive) parentheses.

My church experience prior to coming home to Orthodoxy was that we were in theory Trinitarian but in practice unitarian (not those Unitarians of the watered down gospel) in that the focus is almost solely on Christ to the exclusion of God the Father and The Holy Spirit.

In broadening my views on Mary I came to understand in a much deeper way how through Christ’s humanity and our shared humanity we need not fear death. The concept of sharing is His humanity for some reason just never seemed significant. I know this sounds a bit preposterous and points out quite clearly my cranial density but I eventually began to grasp that we are the beneficiaries of Christ’s full humanity (He having sprung from Mary’s womb).

As for venerating and lifting up the Theotokos, who better in the history of humanity to lift up? She is the God-bearer. Her unhesitant acceptance, her embrace of what God the Father through the Holy Spirit would make manifest through her is the model for us all.

I no longer flinch at, “Most holy Theotokos, save us.” I am comforted by:

“Remembering our all-holy, immaculate, most blessed, and glorious Lady, Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary with all the Saints, let us commend ourselves and each other, and all our life unto Christ our God.”

“It is truly right to bless you, O Theotokos,
ever blessed, and most pure, and the Mother of our God:
more honorable than the cherubim, beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim —
without corruption you gave birth to God, the Word.
True Theotokos, we magnify you!”

And all God’s people said, “Amen.”

My Brother Baptized

I found out this week that my brother Terry was baptized last Sunday at All Saints of North America. I have written about Terry and the adversities he overcame at Strength and Honor. The story of how this came about and how he was introduced to Orthodoxy is much too complicated to address in this posting. I am overjoyed to have my brother in blood become my brother in Christ.

These photos were taken earlier today after the Divine Liturgy. They don't really have much to do with Lazarus Saturday but I like how they turned out.