Orthodixie

This video is worth your while …

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While working on a presentation for Illumination Learning titled Funny Moments Can be Teachable Things, I was also participating in the annual clergy retreat for the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America in Wichita, Kansas.

So, I recruited my brother clergy to help me with my “homework” — as in this episode of the Orthodixie Podcast, which includes:

Fr Aidan Wilcoxson: sleepin’, prayin’, drinkin’ poison, and manhandlin’ serpents.

Fr John Bethancourt‘s young parishioner breeches the Church – State wall.

Hierodeacon Mark marches to a different drummer (or, at least, sings a different tune).

Fr Antony Bahou prefers Big Bread.

Fr Justin McFeeters phones in a baptism.

Fr Richard Petranek relates how not to comfort the sick.

Fr Constantine Nasr bangs his head over a girl.

Fr John Salem doesn’t look the part.

And …

Fr Symeon Kees is just itchin’ for some kudzo.

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

Images courtesy of Fr Mark Wallace.

So says Mollie …

For a religion reporter editor of a major magazine, Lisa Miller of Newsweek can be woefully undereducated about some religion basics. Such as the Old and New Testaments.

The unintentionally hilarious headline of her recent piece is “What the Bible Really Says About Sex.” In it she writes that the Bible is a jumbled mess of patriarchy and contradictions but that it approves of premarital sex and so you should feel free to engage in that. Or something. Anyway, she begins with a basic tale from the Song of Solomon and then informs us that, sit down, it’s from the Song of Solomon IN THE BIBLE. Really:

This ode to sexual consummation can be found in — of all places — the Bible.

In the Bible? Why mercy me! Who knew such things were in the Bible? When did this “Bible” book become available for public consumption? I wonder what other untold shockers are in it. And what do you have to do to gain access to these naughty bits? Miller lets fly with such nuggets of wisdom, available to every single young Christian who has gone through a basic catechism class, a weekend lock-in in the church basement, or, heck, a third-grade Sunday School class on the right week of the church year …

* * *

I don’t know, maybe the Gospel of Matthew and the words of Jesus are too obscure for a piece on what the Bible “really” says about sex. Anyway, from there she lays out the arguments of two authors of recent books. As mentioned, if you were alive in the 1980, 1990s or thereabouts, you’re probably familiar with many of these arguments: The Bible is an ancient text, inapplicable in its particulars to the modern world. It’s patriarchal. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing at all to do with homosexuality. Some of it goes into territory that would get much higher marks for blasphemy than exegesis, such as one author’s assertion that Jesus had sex with the woman who washes his feet in the Gospel of Luke. The passage about Sodom and Gomorrah even explains that back “in the biblical world” people actually believed in angels? Can you imagine what silly people these folks were?

The piece ends with a quote from “eminent Bible historian” Elaine Pagels, as you probably could have predicted if I’d asked you “Guess who is quoted in the final paragraph of this piece.” But before that …

Read it all — HERE.

The image of George Clinton skiing on the dolphins has nothing to do with this article – source. (But it is cool.)

Years ago, my spiritual father and I were leaving his cell, headed for the monastery’s chapel for confession, when his old rotary phone rang. Anyone who knew him knew this to be true: “Never stand between Archimandrite Damian and a ringing telephone.”

He answered: “He-ll-oooo … WHO? Oh no, he died! Uh-huh, you’re welcome … please do. Bye bye.”

As he hung up, I asked: “Who died?”

“I did,” he said, “it was some salesperson … now they’ll take my name off their list.”

Fr Damian died, for real, back in 2009 — moving from the column of the Living to the column of the Deceased on my prayer list. The older a priest gets, the more such transitions occur, the moving of names from one side of the page to the other.

One of the last things I learned from him was this: “What the soul desires, the body fears.”

He said that in one of our final phone conversations; I said, “Did you just make that up?”

He said, “Wh-at? I guess. Well it’s true, Father.”

I said, “I believe you – I just want to quote you.”

What the soul desires the body fears. (And, in most cases, the saying would seem to hold true read the other way ‘round: What the body desires, the soul fears.)

Anyway, I got to thinking about all that when reflecting on death and obituaries. Why was I thinking of such morbid things? I dunno. Maybe ‘cause I’m getting older … I see loved ones, friends, family, and family’s friends dying … maybe because I now serve a parish which recently lost its pastor … maybe it’s just because it’s winter!

But, one thing’s for sure, one has to be a bit careful when approaching the subject of death – especially when it comes to obituaries.

Once, back when I worked as a radio announcer, I had to fill in for an ailing DJ whose show included the reading of the daily obituaries from the local newspaper. (It was a small town radio station and, believe it or not, the time slot for the reading of the daily obituaries was very popular.)

I’d been taught in college to use the word “died” as in “John Doe died yesterday”, and to refrain from the more comforting terms: “passed away … slipped into eternal rest … breathed his last” etc.

So, I read the obituaries as I’d been taught.

By the end of the broadcast I came close to having to read my own obituary! The phone lines lighted up and…

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

Image – My family and Fr Damian, c. 2004.

Just the other day,
on my way to work,
amid the wet and damp of Houston winter
Must have had my window cracked —
enough, that is, to hear

I thank God for them.
By the 20s, the 50s,
hundreds or more,
they sit on the power lines and

sing.

Image Source

To A Bird At Dawn

O bird that somewhere yonder sings,
In the dim hour ‘twixt dreams and dawn,
Lone in the hush of sleeping things,
In some sky sanctuary withdrawn;
Your perfect song is too like pain,
And will not let me sleep again.

I think you must be more than bird,
A little creature of soft wings,
Not yours this deep and thrilling word —
Some morning planet ’tis that sings;
Surely from no small feathered throat
Wells that august, eternal note.

As some old language of the dead,
In one resounding syllable,
Says Rome and Greece and all is said —
A simple word a child may spell;
So in your liquid note impearled
Sings the long epic of the world.

Unfathomed sweetness of your song,
With ancient anguish at its core,
What womb of elemental wrong,
With shudder unimagined, bore
Peace so divine — what hell hath trod
This voice that softly talks with God!

All silence in one silver flower
Of speech that speaks not, save as speaks
The moon in heaven, yet hath power
To tell the soul the thing it seeks,
And pack, as by some wizard’s art,
The whole within the finite part.

To you, sweet bird, one well might feign —
With such authority you sing
So clear, yet so profound, a strain
Into the simple ear of spring —
Some secret understanding given
Of the hid purposes of Heaven.

And all my life until this day,
And all my life until I die,
All joy and sorrow of the way,
Seem calling yonder in the sky;
And there is something the song saith
That makes me afraid of death.

Now the slow light fills all the trees,
The world, before so still and strange,
With day’s familiar presences,
Back to its common self must change,
And little gossip shapes of song
The porches of the morning throng.

Not yours with such as these to vie
That of the day’s small business sing,
Voice of man’s heart and of God’s sky —
But O you make so deep a thing
Of joy, I dare not think of pain
Until I hear you sing again.

— Richard Le Gallienne

The first offering is, I suppose, mine — originally posted 1/18/10.

The second poem, taken from Great Poems of the English Language (New York: Tudor, 1927), reposted from 1/18/10 and 12/05.