If you’ve got the time, take a listen to this.
If you don’t have the time, listen anyway.
(About half way through – Molly Sabourin punched me in the belly. I mean, she hit a little too close to home. But, that’s just me. Who knows, though I wasn’t listening for it, maybe she said something about for you?)
[W]ith a sense of our Church’s obligation before God and History in an age when the unified witness of Orthodoxy is judged crucial and expected by all, we invite and call on you fraternally that, with the approval also of our respective Holy Synods, we may proceed to the following necessary actions:
1. To advance the preparations for the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, already commenced through Panorthodox Pre-Conciliar Consultations.
2. To activate the 1993 agreement of the Inter-Orthodox Consultation of the Holy and Great Council in order to resolve the pending matter of the Orthodox Diaspora.
3. To strengthen by means of further theological support the decisions taken on a Panorthodox level regarding participation of the Orthodox Church in theological dialogues with non-Orthodox.
4. To proclaim once again the vivid interest of the entire Orthodox Church for the crucial and urgent matter of protecting the natural environment, supporting on a Panorthodox level the relative initiative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
5. To establish an Inter-Orthodox Committee for the study of matters arising today in the field of bioethics, on which the world justifiably also awaits the Orthodox position.
The full address.
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Funny. It was Fr Charles Caldwell at Nashotah House who first introduced me to the spiritual warfare involving the Passions and the Virtues — PALE GAS, even — and he was an opera lover who’d married an opera singer. (I dedicated Defeating Sin to him.)
Now this.
On another note, and please forgive me here, I heard a really bad joke the other day.
Ready?
Q. What’s the difference between an Episcopal Bishop and an Orthodox Bishop?
A. Lipstick
Anyway, that’s a bad segue disguised as an introduction to GetReligion‘s new sword wielder, Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans. Though it might be painful, depending on how you look at it, you’ll find one of her first offerings here.
(Please, when you repeat it, do not attribute that joke to me. After all, it’s only aesthetically true. 🙂
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The other day I met an honest to goodness Orthodox Christian Anarchist.
I’d bought a newspaper in hopes of solving the Crossword Puzzle and scanning the Comics. I was leafing through the other sections when, in the Classifieds, I found the following job listing:
OCAL: Orthodox Christian Anarchist at Large seeks willing accomplices …
This was followed by an 800 number – stating that there were representatives available in all areas.
What the heck is an Orthodox Christian Anarchist? I wondered.
Curious, I called the number.
“You have reached the world-wide headquarters of Christian Anarchy; if you are Protestant, press one; Roman Catholic, press two; Orthodox, press three …”
So, I pressed 3.
“Welcome to Orthodox Christian Anarchy. Please leave your name and a phone number and one of our representatives shall return your call.”
I lied, I said my name was “Curtis” and gave them the church phone number, and then I hung up.
Silly.
I probably shouldn’t have done it but, after a few days, I forgot all about it.
A week or so later I entered the church office just in time to hear the secretary saying: “Sir, I’ve told you three times already and I’ll tell you again, we do not have a Curtis here …”
I stood staring at her paralyzed. I motioned for her to put him on hold.
I said, “Oops, he may be looking for me … it’s a long story … see if he’ll give you a local return number, address or something.”
She did and he did … and then, I didn’t know what to do.
I watched as she scribbled down a street address.
Oh my.
Well, curiosity got the best of me and, long story short, I dressed down to shorts, a sport shirt, Birkenstocks, and dark glasses and headed over to …
The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.
References: Antagonists in the Church and One Flew Over the Onion Dome.
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Forgive me; I rarely post these forwarded things. But, ever so often comes one worth a read.
Law of the Garbage Truck
One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car backed out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. He was really friendly.
So I asked, “Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!”
This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, “The Law of the Garbage Truck.”
He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they’ll dump it on you.
Don’t take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don’t take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life’s too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so …
Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don’t. Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!
Have a blessed (garbage-free) day.
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Orthodixie 