Orthodixie

Members of Russian National
Olympic team pose for a picture
with Russian Orthodox Church
Patriarch Kirill, center, at Christ
the Savior Cathedral after a
blessing ceremony in Moscow,
Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010.

Stolen from here.

An industrious blog reader sent the following regarding a portion of this post which referenced this link:

Hi, Fr. Huneycutt—

I enjoy your blog and wanted to respond to one of the posts, but, alas, didn’t have an “account” and not sure how to do that. Anyway, re. the Patriarch Kyrill comments about Haiti. I looked at the speech and didn’t see how the news accounts could twist his words that way. Even with my poor Google translation, it doesn’t seem to lend itself to the interpretation given in the Media. Here’s an excerpt. I found the entire speech on the Patriarch’s website:

“. . .Today, as perhaps never before, people from different countries, different nations, different religions need to find a common language to unite their efforts. An unbiased look at what is happening today testifies to the emergence of human civilization dangerous challenges: the human race is faced with such challenges, what has never encountered before. Indeed, man can not be calm when informed that a terrorist act, that poverty and hunger are destroying people.

The whole world stirred tragedy of Haiti. The country plight. At one time, when she was a French colony, there were prisons where people were sent from France to life imprisonment. It was a terrible corner of the world. Then the country was liberated from colonial rule, but unfortunately, unlike its neighbor – Dominican Republic – was unable to establish a life and get on the path of development that would lead people to prosperity. I have been on this island, divided between the two countries: the Dominican Republic and Haiti are seen as two of the world. One part of the island flourishes, the other reigning crime and political instability.

Now, however, serious problems of this part of the island many times compounded by a catastrophic earthquake. TV screens we see the abyss of human suffering.

Kazakhstan, like other countries, no stranger to know what an earthquake. Usually in the case of serious natural disasters, people are organized, are beginning to help each other, create conditions for the implementation of external assistance. In Haiti, we are now seeing the opposite: people die from hunger, thirst, disease, and the hands of criminals, and you can imagine in what the hell are now residents of Haiti.

In poverty, hunger, crime, drugs, corruption, against which the evolving human tragedy of the earthquake that devastated the country, many historical, economic, political, social and climatic reasons, finally, the role of personality in history. But we must not forget that it is a profound state of the human spirit is at the heart of many problems of modern society – from drug abuse and crime to environmental pollution.

God saw fit to lay in our moral sense, which is known voice of conscience. It is this feeling, in the first place, people and different from all the animal world, because the mind in some degree peculiar to animals. So, watching the dogs, sometimes amazed at their intelligence, diplomacy, cunning.

However, in human nature, in addition to the instincts and intelligence, there is a moral feeling. This is a very important feature of rights, which distinguishes it from other living beings of our world. This is the secret heart of human nature, in that secret place of the soul and is all – as the Scripture says, from the human heart come evil thoughts (Mark 7, 21). And if these thoughts, we are putting into evil deeds, it is the second area in which they are carried out: whether in politics, in economics there, whether we are mindlessly wasting natural resources that God gave us, and pollute the environment, or create unfair relations, causing famine, social upheaval and drug use, in which some try to escape from the onerous conditions of earthly existence, to relax in the virtual world of dreams. . .”

Thanks to FWD from Geri F.

The good folks at Ancient Faith Radio note:

“Our budgeted donation goal is $11,000 for January. If you are able to help us during this last week DAY of the month, we would be very grateful. Thank you.”

At the time of this posting they still lacked $961.

Thanks for your support!

PS – This being the 30th post of the 30th day, I shall now enjoy a relief of pressure; sporadic postings promised TFN!

🙂

Recently, I had the privilege of speaking in Dallas, Texas – at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. This was a pre-Lenten retreat sponsored by the NTOM, the North Texas Orthodox Mission. They’re good folks, doing great work — a pan-Orthodox LAY organization; look ‘em up on the web … NTOM.ORG

Between house blessings and an upcoming clergy retreat, I hope you’ll forgive me if we just take a listen to the words of a fool recently recorded in the Big D …

[Or as the AFR plug goes: “Fr. Joseph gets lost in Houston, loses his wallet in the airport and becomes invisible at stop lights — all from Dallas, Texas.”]

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

State of the Groundhog …
by Lars Walker

It probably won’t surprise you much when I inform you that I passed up the opportunity to listen to my president’s State of the Union address last night.

Instead I popped my DVD of Groundhog Day into the player, and watched it for the eleventy-second time. It was almost shorter than the president’s speech, and definitely less repetitious, from what I’ve read.

And it’s the right time of year.

I think Groundhog Day is my It’s a Wonderful Life. As I’ve mentioned many times to friends, IaWL just depresses me. The only message I get from it is “George Bailey has a wonderful life, BUT YOU’RE NOT GEORGE BAILEY!”

Groundhog Day, on the other hand, presents a lesson I can agree with—“If I had the chance to do my life over about a million times, I might eventually figure something out.”

I understand the original script was written by a Buddhist, and that the filmmakers cut out some of the more explicitly Buddhist elements. I suppose, to be consistent with myself, I ought to reject the film for the merest taint of Buddhism.

But what kind of theology does It’s a Wonderful Life present? Salvation by good works and self-esteem. “You may think you’re a miserable sinner, George Bailey, but they think very highly of you in heaven!” Not exactly Christian law and gospel.

What I like about Groundhog Day is the non-theological material—the simple moral journey of a man who does actually come to realize that he’s a sinner, and then works to become somebody whose life contributes. It’s not a saving knowledge, but it’s a good thing for the people who have to live with him.

To a large degree, it’s about humility. I could name some prominent people who seem to think that humility is for their country, but not for them as individuals. Such people need to wake up and see their own shadows.

Totally stolen from here.

Elsewhere …

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said crime, drugs and corruption caused last week’s massive earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in Haiti.

Kirill, speaking during a … visit to Kazakhstan, said the Haitian people bore responsibility for the calamity because they had turned away from God, the Ferghana.ru news agency reported late Monday.

“Haiti is a country of poverty and crime, famine, drugs and corruption, where people have lost their moral face,” Kirill was quoted as saying …

More … here.

Many of you may have heard the catchy tune “Pants on the Ground” by General Larry Platt on a recent American Idol.

Well, here’s “Neil Young” with his version:

http://www.hulu.com/embed/MyjfQ1sTydiiyI7VMuXlSA

To top it off, so to speak, here’s news out of London:

Middle age, it often is said, is when your age starts to show around your middle. And for men, it seems, the moment is marked by the inexorable rise in the position of their trouser waistband.

A survey shows that the last time most men are able to fasten their trousers around anything resembling a natural waist is at the age of 39. After that, the only way is up, or down.

”Over-achievers”, as they are known in the rag trade, hoist their trousers so high by the age of 57 the waistband can be just 18 centimetres under the armpits. The ”under-achievers”, making up about 20 per cent, plump for below, fumbling to fasten belts, buttons and zips they can no longer see.

”The changing fortunes of a man’s trouser waistband can often become a metaphor for his life,” said Paul Baldwin, director of men’s wear buying for the Debenhams department store, which commissioned the survey.

Boys wear their trousers around their waist, until the age of 12, because their parents buy their clothing for them, concluded the survey of 1000 males. But waistbands plunge with the advent of teenage hormones, plummeting towards the apex of the hips, and far below the underpants position by 16. Dressing for work sees a gradual upward creep between 16 and 20 years.

By 27, the waistband starts returning to the natural waist, a position largely maintained until the age of 36. The turning point is 39 and the demise of the washboard stomach. By 45, trousers will be worn at least five centimetres above the waist, rising to 12.7 centimetres by the age of 57.

Stolen from here.